REFLECTION OF THE EVENTS OF THE CAUCASIAN WAR IN WOMEN’S LETTERS (IN TERMS OF DAGESTAN)

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to interpret some of the events of the Caucasian War through the analysis of women’s letters. The letters refl ected some of the key events of the Caucasian War, as well as the characteristics of political fi gures. The author analyses letters from Khatun Bahu Bike, Khatun Nukh Bike, Imam Shamil’s wife Shuanet and daughter-in-law Karimat to representatives of the military and administration in the Caucasus, as well as to relatives. The research materials showed that due to various circumstances, women were forced to send letters to the Russian authorities. The author identifi es and describes the characteristic features of female letters, reveals the motives for contacting recipients. The main sources of research were materials from the pre-revolutionary periodicals «Historical Bulletin», «Caucasian Collection», «Russian Antiquity», where the texts of the above-mentioned letters were published. In the work, methods of feminist ethnology, psychoanalysis and interpretation, typical of gender anthropology, are applied. This approach makes it possible to hear the personal voice of the participants of the described events, to analyse the motives of behaviour, ways of experiencing the surrounding reality. It is concluded that letters as a means of women’s self-expression were a kind of marker of the relationship of women with the authorities and relatives. It is obvious that the source study potential of existing female letters has not yet been realised and is not in demand by researchers.