The history of the Imams of the Caucasus and the Gunoy community in the collected works of the late 19th century

Abstract

The article examines the content of two of the four narratives of the Gunoic collection of works of the late 19th century. The first work devoted to the activities of the three imams – Gazi-Muhammad, Gamzat-bek and Shamil – received the conditional name «History of the Imams»; the second is dedicated to the ancestor of the Chechen community Gunoy, his descendants and their movements in the region – «History of Gunoys». The material is written in Arabic graphics with elements of adjam. Compiled, according to the colophon, in 1316 AH (1898–1899) for Mazhir Ganukaev, a native of Gunoy. Before the direct translation of the texts of the essays, the author of the article carried out a brief analysis of the content of the sources, based on a comparison of their content with the data of documents or legends. The information in the «History of the Imams» was compared with the data from the reports of the tsarist officers – direct participants in the events described in the essay – or the commanders of the Caucasian army and confirmed by them, with the exception of the cases indicated in the author's analysis. The content of the «History of the Gunoy» is supported by references to other researchers, including pre-revolutionary (Iv. Popov). The publication of the translation and the study of the content of these narratives are being made for the first time. The sources reveal previously known historical information and supplement them with new details, acting as an additional source on the history of the North Caucasus and Chechnya, in particular.