SUMMARY:

In his article, Vladimir Bobrovnikov analyzes the motives of violence and power in the historical memory of Dagestani mountaineers during the transitional period (the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries), in which region was incorporated into the Russian empire, but retained its frontier characteristics in the context of Russian-Muslim encounter of the Caucasus. The author bases his analysis on the Tale of Khochbar. Having surveyed the existing translations of this text, Bobrovnikov concludes that they are inadequate for scholarly work and proposes a new own translation based on the earliest version of the historical document. The author then recites the plot of the Tale providing commentary on the mentioned historical figures and socio-cultural and political realities at the time of composition. Noting the palimpsest layers of this historical document, the author sheds light on the period before the Caucasian war and incorporation of the mountainous region into the Russian empire. The Tale reports on the life in the Muslim borderland, which was united at that time in a confederation of mountain tribes. The military units of this confederation carried out assaults on the Georgian Kingdom and defended the confederation in case of attack. In a subsequent period at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries the unity of the mountainous confederation was undermined by rival powers, the Iranian and the Russian empires. The imperial rivalry brought a tension to the tribal elite and communes. First, Iranian (Shia) expansion triggered the increasing identification with and politicization of Islam by the tribal communes, then was directed against the Russian empire’s presence in the region and the empire mountainous elite allied with the empire. Having reconstructed the historical context, Bobrovnikov returns to the motif of Khochbar in which, he asserts, two different figures blurred as a result of textual palimpsest. One figure represents the reality of mountainous confederation and its young armed formations that distinguished themselves in raids on Georgia. The other figure stands for the Muslim movement against the imperial domination, which was behind the Islamic theocratic state that took shape during the war in the Caucasus. The textual coalescence of those two figures in the text of the historical document leaves the question open as to what extent the changing historical reality of Caucasus was underpinned by the continuity of socio-cultural patterns of a frontier society.