Abstract
762 SEER, 83, 4, 2005 speakers to appreciate the design of typefaces and page layouts of late seventeenth- to earlyeighteenth-centuryRussianbooks. There are alsolistsof loan words (pp. 377-485), including forgotten neologisms, transcribed and thematicallyarranged.This materialand the author'sjudicious interpretation will be invaluableto seriousstudentsof Russianhistory. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies LINDSEY HUGHES University College London Sanders, T., Tucker, E. and Hamburg, G. (eds and trans). Russian-Muslim Confrontation in theCaucasus. Alternative Visions of theConflict between Imam Shamil andtheRussians, I830-I859 (withan extended commentagy 'Warof Worlds' byGagy Hamburg). SOAS/Routledge Studies on the Middle East. RoutledgeCurzon, London and New York, 2004. xv + 264 PP. Chronology . Maps. Notes. Glossary.Index. ?6o.oo. Becker, Seymour. Russia'sProtectorates in Central Asia. Bukharaand Khiuva, I865-I924. Central Asian Studies Series. Russian Research Center Studies, 54. RoutledgeCurzon, London and New York, 2004. xx + 4I6 pp. Illustrations. Supplementary bibliography. Appendices. Bibliography.Notes. Glossary.Index. C6s.oo. RUSSIAN-MUSLIM CONFRONTATION IN THE CAUCASUSprovidestwo contrasting narrativesrelating to the nineteenth-centurywar for Daghestan and Chechnya . The firstconsistsof selectionsfrom a contemporaryCaucasian narrative written in Arabic by Muhammad Tahir al-Qarakhientitled 'The Shining of Daghestani Swords in Certain Campaigns of Shamil'. Al-Qarakhi was a follower and admirer of the Daghestani leader Shamil. His narrative was translatedinto Russianby A. M. Barabanovin I 94 I and Barabanov'sedition of the Arabictext was publishedin I946. The second is much betterknown:it is Lev Tolstoi's HadjiMurat,which was written between I894 and I904. The editorsbelieve that the two narrativesmay be usefullycompared and together provide 'an excellent case studyof culturalcollision' (p. vii). The choice of an Arabicchronicle and an historicalnovel may seem an odd one and the editors justifyit on threegrounds:thatboth writerswere religious,thatboth described the 'powerconstellations'operatingduringthe war, and that the two provide an opportunityto examine 'culturaldissonance'.(The editorsadmit to having introduceda post-modernistflavourinto theirpresentation.) The extractsfrom 'The Shining'are of much interest.They dealwith actual historical events and the battles described are not the formalized traditional chronicle accounts which could almost refer to any battle anywhere but are recognizable if not wholly accurate descriptions of real engagements, for example that of Akhulgohin I839. A sense of the desperatenatureof the long struggle,of the twistsand turns of the fighting and of treacheryand heroism comes through the author'sstory. How far the motivation of Shamil and his followers is justly represented in these selections is another matter. The dominant picture is of men fighting for Islam, both internally for the eradicationof non-Muslimpracticesin Daghestan and Chechnya and against the external foe. This is the picturewhich al-Qarakhiwishes to convey for he REVIEWS 763 intends his account of the deeds of the holy warriorsto be an inspirationto those who came later. And yet it is plain that many did not fight for religion (andmore did not fightat all)and that the partplayedby Islamin the struggle was much more complex than the selectionsfrom al-Qarakhiwould incline us to think. The account of Shamil's ultimate surrender is one which comes almost out of the blue and is never explained;one moment the hero is waging religiouswar and the next he quietlylays down his arms and goes over to the enemy. 'The Shining' is a version of the strugglebut it should not be assumed thatit representsthe way in which the contestwasviewed by allthe Caucasian peoples. The translationis serviceableenough but expressionssuch as 'cooled off' for regained his temper, and 'figuredout' for calculated,tend tojar when encountered in an Arabicchronicle. The translation of HadjiMuratis a new one. The editors considered that Paul Foote's 1977 Penguin version was too chatty and Aylmer Maude's old version was incomplete, unsatisfactory, rife with 'archaic Anglicisms' and contained dialogue which was more or less incomprehensible.Why they did not consider other translations is unclear: presumably Hugh Aplin's 2003 version appeared too late for their scrutinybut W. G. Carey's plain, simple and very acceptable i 962 version is quite disregarded.And this reviewer's ancient affection for Maude's translation is undiminished by the editors' caustic comments. Examples of allegedly meaninglessdialogue are not given. Maude'sversionof the speech of Russiansoldiersseemsperfectlycomprehensible . It is true that Maude employs the second person singular, 'thee' and 'thou', when rendering some conversationsbetween Caucasiansbut this was common...
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