PEOPLE’S LIBERATIONSTRUGGLE UNDER BAISUNGUR’S COMMAND (1860-18

Abstract

Abstract: The author of the article analyzes life and activity of Imam Shamil’s legendary Naib after his captivity in August 1859, the activity of one-eyed, one-armed and one-legged brave Baisungur within the period from 1859 till his captivity by Russian soldiers in the Benoy society in February 1861. Basing on archival documents, published sources and field data collected by the author and Chechen researchers in the mountains of Dagestan and Chechnya, the author considers the main reasons for the rise and development of the people’s liberation movement of the mountaineers of the Benoy society under the command of Baisungur from Benoy, which in official documents of the Caucasian command was called Benoy or Ichkeria uprising. The author emphasizes that the main reason for the Benoyers’ uprising was harsh resettlement policy of the Caucasian command that did not take into account the socio-economic conditions and traditions of the Chechens. Baisungur, who headed the Benoy society for more than 30 years and was Imam Shamil’s Naib, was not the initiator of the renewal of military confrontation with the Russian authorities in the North-East Caucasus, but the fate of the Chechen society, which for the years of the Caucasian war sustained enormous human and moral losses, was the main factor for him. On the basis of analysis of the information published in the newspaper “Caucasus”, the author traces the course of the uprising in 1860 and the last period of life and activity of Baisungur and his relatives until his captivity in late February 1861 and his execution in Khasavyurt Square in March.