RUSSIAN ARMY OFFICER A.P.SHCHERBACHEV ABOUT THE KOISUBULINSKY UNION

Abstract

The article deals with historiographic analysis of the data on the Koisubulinsky Union, which the staff captain of the Russian army A.P. Shcherbachev, who participated in military operations in the North Caucasus, presented in his work “The Description of the Mekhtulinsky Khanate, Koisubulinky Possessions and the Avar Khanate”. Only two pages of “The Description” are devoted to the Koisubulinsky Union. Nevertheless, A.P.Shcherbachev considers more than ten problems, which contain many different facts of the socio-economic and political situation of the Koisubulinsky Union in late 1820s - early 1830s. The problems concerning the population, government, and occupations of Koisubula population are of the greatest interest. Although sometimes the facts given in the description of Koisubula are contradictory, they are interesting and their comparison with the information about Koisubula population presented by other authors can provide a more or less correct picture of the situation in late 1820s - early 1830s. This is information about the composition and size of the population of Koisubula, its military forces, the development of one or another branch of agriculture, etc. It should be noted that most facts of A.P. Shcherbachev’s descriptions find confirmation in the works of the authors who wrote before him and those who described Koisubula later. This concerns the form of management of Koisubula population, the development of winegrowing and winemaking, the sale of products to Armenians who came to Koisubula villages, a good state of gardening and agriculture, cultivation of various fruit and grain crops, and the state of cattle breeding. It is impossible not to mention the issue of the relationship of Koisubula residents with other peoples of Dagestan. A.P. Shcherbachev notes that Koisubula residents, when they needed bread and salt, bartered these products for their fruit in the Mekhtulin Khanate and in neighboring societies of other peoples of Dagestan and also considers the problem of raids of Koisubula residents on Georgia. On the whole, A.P. Shcherbachev’s data on Koisubula are of interest to Dagestan scientists who are engaged in history of Dagestan.