A Colonial Experiment in Cleansing Rusia 1856-65

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A colonial experiment in cleansing: the Russian conquest of WesternCaucasus 1856-65Irma Kreiten

To cite this ArticleKreiten, Irma(2009) 'A colonial experiment in cleansing: the Russian conquest of Western Caucasus,1856-65', Journal of Genocide Research, 11: 2, 213 241

To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/14623520903118953URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623520903118953

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A colonial experiment in cleansing:the Russian conquest ofWestern Caucasus, 185665

IRMA KREITEN

In the course of colonial conquest, Russian military policy underwent a process ofradicalization which culminated in the expulsion of most of the local population. Thispolicy was explicitly referred to as cleansing by Russian contemporaries. Even thoughimperial Russian officials did not yet think in ethnic terms and were not backed up bybiologistic concepts, their images of Northern Caucasians had become highly essentialized.In the case of the Circassians from Western Caucasus, this essentialization led to theirexclusion from the civilized world and turned them into objects to be dispensed with.

This article seeks to explain the origins of Russian resettlement and cleansing bylocating them within the emerging field of governmentality and tracing their further

development. It argues that Russian colonial authorities, in conducting their strategy offinal subjugation, created a new, supplementary instrument of state power that could beused where other, less openly violent techniques of domination and control had failed. Incontradiction to widespread assumptions, in Northern Caucasus the mission to civilize andthe intent to destroy could exist side by side and even came to complement each other.

The task in fact is to know which has made them possible, and how these discoveries could

be followed by others, which took them up again, rectified, modified, or eventually annulled

them.

Michel Foucault1

Introduction

Recent research in the area of Postcolonial Studies has sought to demonstrate thatwhat is today regarded as genuinely European has for a large part evolved out ofthe interaction with the non-European world. This argument is especially convincingwith regard to modern techniques of rule and state violence. Colonies provided aspace for modern state power in which to experiment at will, freed from thesociocultural restrictions present at home. The imperial periphery thus came toserve as a laboratory for social, economic, political and cultural experimentation.2

The Russian Empire has traditionally been represented as backward and as a

power bent upon imitating Western European developments. While this is to a

Journal of Genocide Research (2009), 11(23),June September, 213 241

ISSN 1462-3528 print; ISSN 1469-9494 online/09/0230213-29# 2009 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/14623520903118953


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certain degree correct, the very process of emulation gave rise to several newdevelopments that were then re-imported back to Europe. Ethnography as thenew science of mapping the states subjects had first been invented by a

German in Russian service.3 The idea of the Panopticon, made famous byMichel Foucault as modern technique of disciplining subjects which replacedearlier forms of corporal punishment, had originated with Jeremy Benthamsbrother during his stay in Russia. Samuel Bentham had thought of the InspectionHouse as a method of surveilling the ethnically, religiously and linguisticallydiverse employees and servants on count Potemkins estate at the southernfringes of Russia.4

I want to argue that yet another, supplementary, instrument of state power wasshaped on the Russian periphery, one that could be employed where other methodsof control had failed: that of cleansing and re-settlement. Peter Holquists

article on population politics in late imperial and early Soviet Russia has arguedthat the advent of Russian military statistics gave rise to the idea of extractingunreliable elements from within the population, an idea which was first realized inthe conquest of Western Caucasus with the replacement of the local Circassianpopulation by Russian Cossack settlements.5 In following Holquists path-break-ing study, I will examine cleansing as a strategy to overcome Caucasian resist-ance to the Russian colonial project and its emergence from within the wider fieldof modern govern-mentality. The article thereby joins recent efforts to wrench theFoucaultean concept of governmentality from its exclusively European anchor-ing.6 By tracing both the origins of this new Russian policy in the conquest of

Western Caucasus and its subsequent actualizations, it shall be demonstratedthat the RussianCaucasian periphery was far more central to the unfolding ofEuropean modernity than is generally acknowledged. My intention is to bringthe colonial history of Western Caucasus back into perspective and show thatthe events that took place at the Northeastern Black Sea coast in the early1860s form an integral, albeit dismal part of European history that should notbe forgotten.

I will start by locating the Russian policy of final subjugation within the widercontext of the Russian colonial project. The second and third parts of the articlewill examine in detail its invention and realization. The fourth part will trackthe emergence of modern notions of governance and mission civilizatrice andspecify the place final subjugation occupied among them. The last part dealswith the Russian realization that the conquest of Western Caucasus had givenbirth to a new political instrument that could be applied to other cases as well.

The will to conquer: origins of Russian imperialism in Northern Caucasus

Colonization is commonly assumed to have played a formative role in Russianhistory. Yet this assumption holds true only in certain regards. When dealingwith pre-nineteenth century Russian political culture at a conceptual level, oneis rather surprised by the absence of explicit discussion and clear-cut notions

regarding colonization: until the mid-eighteenth century there were no memoranda

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addressing Moscows foreign policies and Russians did not seem to invest theenterprises of migration and settlement with a larger meaning.7

Russian rulers had been in contact with Northern Caucasians from at least

the sixteenth century onwards. However, for Muscovite tsars safeguarding theempires southern borders remained paramount. As Brian Boeck has shown, theMuscovite state generally pursued a risk-averse policy towards the steppe. It pre-ferred to contract with clients rather than plant colonies. This can be attributed notsolely to a pragmatic calculation of costs and benefits, but also to Muscovitesoverall political culture: Muscovite foreign policy in the south was still orientedon traditional steppe policy with its stress on flexibility, coexistence and pragmaticconflict regulation. What was lacking was not only the means toward territorialconquest and for securing settlements against the nomadic threat, but thepolitical will itself. Russia did not yet possess a systematic agenda of colonial

expansion.8

This was to change dramatically in the course of the eighteenth century. At thebeginning of Peter the Greats reign, Russia had increasingly become perceived asbackward. Its international position seemed threatened and it ran the risk ofsuccumbing to the superior military power of its Western neighbors in case ofwar. The only way to catch up seemed to adopt both Western ways of rulingand knowing. This included the acquisition of colonies as one of the ways toincrease Russias political, economic and symbolic power simultaneously. Asthe idea of developing inferior or uncivilized peoples became a source of imperiallegitimization, Russias attitude towards adjacent non-Russian populations under-

went a profound change. From the middle of the eighteenth century onwards,Russian officials consciously modeled their policies on Western Europes experi-ences overseas. This intellectual shift first became visible under Catherine theGreat, when the Russian state conquered the Black Sea steppes and becameengaged in managing colonization on a larger scale.9

Before long, the Caucasus was to become the main object of Western-stylecolonial expansion. Here, with the waning influence of the Persian and OttomanEmpires, a power vacuum emerged that could be exploited by the modernizingRussian state. Geostrategical interests in the Caucasus were redoubled with anideological thrust. In order to legitimize its new claims to imperial power,Russia stylized itself as a Christian state at the forefront of the struggle with theIslamic world. Still somewhat blurry and vague, Catherines Greek projectpromised to re-erect the former Christian Orient.10 Enlightenment in thisspecifically Russian context took on a double meaning, with prosveshcheniedesignating both the adoption of a European philosophical current and the spiritualenlightenment of formerly (or non-) Christian peoples.

In 1801 Russia succeeded in annexing the Transcaucasian kingdom of Georgiawithout any bloodshed. However, mountainous Northern Caucasus, separating thenew colony from the Russian core, posed a quite different challenge. The situationin Western Caucasus was especially sensitive because of its densely woodedvalleys, wild rivers and steep mountain slopes which made it a terrain extremely

difficult to oversee. The local population, commonly known as Circassians, was

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mainly organized in a segmentary fashion and did not form part of any statesociety. There were no easily identifiable leaders with whom to conclude treatiesor with whom to engage in regular military campaigns. Furthermore, the Circas-

sians had been participating in the Black Sea trade and both their outside contactsand their growing Islamic orientation were something the Russian military washighly suspicious about.11

Initially, the Russian Empire remained ambivalent whether the aim in NorthernCaucasus should be direct conquest or merely to safeguard Russias Transcauca-sian possessions. Out of the fear of offending the Ottoman Empire, early nine-teenth-century Russia confined itself to establishing links with NorthernCaucasians, or mountaineers in Russian terminology.12 However, the need topay attention to Ottoman interests in Western Caucasus became obsolete withthe RussoOttoman war of 182829. Although neither power had been able to

rule over Circassian lands so far, the Treaty of Adrianople stipulatedin the sub-sequent Russian reading of the treaty at leastthat the area south to the riverKuban had now passed under Russian control.13

In this way, a unique situation was created: a territory was held to be rightfullybelonging to Russia while in practice colonial authorities were still far fromgaining any foothold in the region. This gave rise to a stream of plans and projectsabout how the subjugation of Western Caucasus might be accomplished, that is,how Western Caucasian reality could be made to conform to an already existentimperial imagery.14

While serious efforts to bring the area under Russian control were made starting

from 1829, Russian success remained extremely limited. Most of the territory con-quered in individual campaigns was lost again shortly thereafter. Repeated failuresled to a growing amount of frustration among imperial officials. After Russiasdefeat in the Crimean war, the subjugation of the Circassians became an issue ofnational pride. Now, it seemed to Russian colonial officials, was the right time toconcentrate all their forces on Western Caucasus, end native resistance once andfor all and thus prove Russias imperial might to its Western European rivals.

Relocation or extermination? Arguing for a new plan

In 1857, Russian military officer Dmitrii Miliutin, close associate of the newCaucasian viceroy A.I. Bariatinskii, proposed a new system of action. In a mem-orandum called rather inconspicuously On the means to develop the RussianCossack population in the Caucasus and to resettle part of the native tribes,Miliutin explained that territorial conquest could generally be achieved by twodifferent means: either by letting the local inhabitants remain on the occupiedland, or by taking the land away from the native population and settling thevictor on it. He went on to argue that in the case of the Circassians, the firstoption was not feasible, as [t]he non-uniformity of these tribes, the age-oldhabit of anarchy and freedom, the light-minded mobility do not allow to hopethat one could at some time subject them to a regular order and to rightful

authorities.15 The local Circassian population would always remain an

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untrustworthy element and continue to endanger Russian imperial integrity.Miliutin therefore proposed to secure Russian control over the region by replacingthe local population with Russian Cossacks. He then hurried to explain that the

Caucasians forced from their lands could be re-settled farther north on Cossackterritory where they could easily be held under the control of the Russian military.Thus, according to Miliutin, a simple exchange of populations would be theoption to be pursued.16

Already then however, the memorandum provoked a controversy and a seriesof mutual accusations among Russian officials. This discussion is all the moreimportant, since it proves that the policy that followed was well-planned andthat its fatal consequences for the Circassians were anticipated and consciouslyaccepted by its proponents.

The governmental commission entrusted with judging upon Miliutins memor-

andum strongly objected to the measures proposed herein, which, in their eyes,constituted a major departure from former forms of submission and techniquesof rule. They not only questioned the feasibility of the plan, but presentedstrong moral objections, as, due to

the mountaineers deep affection for their homeland [. . .], it is not to be doubted that they

would prefer death to the settlement on the steppes [. . .] and one can definitely say, that

not only whole tribes, but also individual families would not make up their mind to

submit under these conditions, and that this would lead not to submission, but to their

extermination.17

The notion of extermination was obviously familiar to Russian contemporaries.To subdue Northern Caucasus by way of annihilating the local population hadoccasionally been proposed by Russian officials, as for example in 1841 by aPetr Chaikovsky, who claimed that to pacify the Caucasian eternal savagecould mean nothing else than to disarm him, and to disarm again meant to kill,because he would rather kill himself than hand over his arms voluntarily. A pro-posal of 1863 which Miliutin kept among his papers, read: But if it is not possibleto civilize the mountaineers, then they have to be exterminated (ich sleduet istre-bit).18 However, Russian policymakers after the Crimean war were extremelycareful to avoid any expression of exterminatory intent on their part. Russianviceroy Bariatinskii showed himself hurt because of the allegations made by the

committee and defended the resettlement plan. He sought to appease the commit-tee by asserting that extermination was far from their minds and that the memor-andum did absolutely not propose any new system of action.19

In the end, it was the Bariatinskii-Miliutin faction that kept the upper hand andsucceeded in pushing through its visions against all domestic opposition. ThatBariatinskii and Miliutin were able to circumvent regular governmental organswas an expression of both the exceptional structural position of the Caucasianviceroy in Russian politics and their personal connections with the imperialfamily.20 Counting upon the benevolence of the Tsar and his brother, they fre-quently took the liberty of running ahead of official policymaking and acting at

their own discretion.


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Not least due to Bariatinskiis machinations, minister of war N.O. Sukhozanet,who had been one of the most serious obstacles for the realization of the newpolicy, was substituted by Miliutin towards the end of 1860.21 While this replace-

ment involved a fair amount of chanceskillfully exploited by Miliutinlower-ranking opponents such as G.I. Filipson could be removed by Bariatinskii directly.Filipson, who had advocated gentle measures when discussing the plan of actionfor Western Caucasus at a staff meeting in autumn 1860, was replaced with A.P.Kartsov in spring 1861, and it was Count N.I. Evdokimov, whose views Baria-tinski knew to be more in line with his own, who was now entrusted withworking out the details of the plan and putting it into action.22

As the plan took shape, the notion of re-settlement came to have an evenmore radical meaning. The aim formulated now was to finally cleanse the moun-tainous region from its primordial population, forcing it to choose one of the two

[options]: either to resettle to the indicated places on the lowlands and to subjectthemselves wholly to the Russian administration, or to leave their native soilaltogether and leave for Turkey.23 Domestic resettlement had thus been sup-plemented by the option of foreign exile.

The decree on the military settlement of Cossacks in Western Caucasus (andthus the re-settlement of the Circassians) received imperial confirmation onMay 10, 1862. However, while officially the resettlement of the mountaineersstarted only after that date, the Caucasian administration had long before begun torealize the new policy.24 This gradual unfolding of the military course of actionand the accompanying construction of a mitigating discourse will be examined

in the following part.

Military actions and legal constructions

Formally, the Circassians were to be given the option of either re-settling to desig-nated areas further north on the Kuban plain or emigrating into the OttomanEmpire. After it had become evident that the Russian policy of cleansingresulted in a major humanitarian disaster with masses of destitute refugeestrying to escape into the Ottoman Empire, Russian authorities explained that theterrible calamity that had befallen the mountaineers resulted from their ownstubbornness. According to Russian military writer R.A. Fadeev, the Circassiansturned down the benevolent proposals made to them by the Tsar, thus suggestingthat what happened to them was their own fault. What I will do here then is take acloser look at what these benevolent proposals consisted of. My aim thereby isless to judge whether the terms offered by the Russian government were reason-able, but to gain access to an imperial discourse characterized by a strange incon-sistency, seeking to deny, veil and excuse at the same time.25

While on the one hand stating that the land allocated to the expulsed Circassianswas the most fertile in the whole region, Russian colonial officials on the otherhand were entirely conscious that the proposed alternative of migration intoTurkey would not be a viable option for most of the people concerned. Thus,

general Kartsov in a letter to D.S. Novikov, Russian envoy in Constantinople,

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expressed his expectation that [n]ot many of them will agree to leave the pictur-esque nature of their native land in order to resettle on the Prikuban steppe.Another letter by the chief commander of the Caucasian army admits that the

habits of the population [. . .

] do not match with what we can propose to them,that is, with life on the Prikuban steppe, so that the majority of the populationwill have to be exterminated by [the force of] weapons, before it agrees tofulfill our demands.26

Already at the planning stage Russian authorities had calculated that the landset aside for the Circassians would not suffice for all of them, and they definitelyincluded the Circassian aversion to domestic resettlement into their calculations.They also explained that Circassians needed to be assigned considerably less landthan the Russian Cossack population, as for the mountaineers a large allotmentwould definitely be harmful. An abundance of land would only encourage them

to continue with cattle-raising, an industry [which], when it takes preponderanceover agriculture, accustoms them to idleness, and from there on develops and sup-ports their passion for raiding.27

From this follows that the aim of the Russian administration was not only toresettle the Circassians but also to re-educate them, so that they would better fitRussian imperial notions of citizenship. The Circassians who preferred domesticexile were to be settled in special villages closely supervised by the Russian mili-tary. Once encircled by Cossack settlements, they could, upon the least hostileendeavor [. . .] be subjected to total extermination. In this way, the Caucasianadministration would need less effort to impose the desired lifestyle upon them.

One document even expressed the conviction that the insignificant remaindersof those [re-settled Circassian] tribes, deprived of all liveliness, will vanishwithout traces in the midst of the predominant Russian population, withoutcausing the government any new trouble.28 Therefore, we can conclude thatresettlement in the Russian colonial mindsetin so far as it was envisaged asan option at allcame to mean the same as forced cultural assimilation, euphe-mistically termed sblizhenie (rapprochement) in Russian sources.29

A close reading of the sources reveals that the Caucasian officials responsiblefor the cleansing operations wanted to get rid of as much of the irredeemablytroublesome and obstinate population as possible, only fearing that a mass expul-sion would entail huge material difficulties and would meet opposition from sideof the Porte. The decree passed on May 10, 1862 explicitly stated that: The moremigrants of this kind [preferring to emigrate into the Ottoman Empire] will turnup, the less trouble we will have with the future organization of the conqueredregion. Resettlement thus took onspeaking in Lacanian termsthe functionof a lure.30 It served to detract from the good-riddance mentality of Russiancolonial officials and spared them major domestic and international difficulties.

As we have already seen, it was quite clear to Russian officials in the Caucasusthat the Circassians would not leave their homeland voluntarily, but only whenthreatened with extermination. The task of the Caucasian military thereforewas to make the Circassians understand that, in the words of one contemporary,

for them there remains only one [way of] salvationto leave for Turkey. The


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instruments employed to achieve this were outright military terror and thesystematic destruction of the Circassians economic means of existence. Addition-ally, the tsarist government hired individual Circassians which were to express

their urgent wish to migrate, thereby serving as an example for their fellowcountrymen and women and creating a wave of panic.31

The military operations which gained impetus in 1859 after the capture ofShamil, the leader of anti-colonial resistance in Eastern Caucasus, were character-ized by the use of uttermost force and extreme brutality. M.I. Veniukov describedthe Russian course of action during the final stage of conquest as follows:

War went on with inconceivable, merciless rigor. We advanced step by step, but irreversibly,

cleansing all land from the mountaineers up to the last person. [. . .] The mountain auls [vil-

lages] were burnt down by whole hundreds, as soon as the snow had passed away, but before

the trees were clothed in green [. . .]; the sowings were destroyed by the horses or even

trampled down. The population of the villages, if it could be seized unexpectedly, wasquickly led to the closest Cossack stanitzas under military convoy and from there sent to

the coast of the Black Sea and further to Turkey. Sometimes, but to the honour of our

soldiers, very seldom, cruelties were committed that attained bestiality.32

Tribe by tribe was driven out of the inhabitable areas, and, when forced to surren-der after having been weakened by hunger and cold, marched off towards the coastby military convoys which ensured that no one could turn back. Even when themajority of the various Circassian groups and sub-groups had already beenexpelled, military units were dispatched into the mountains with the task ofhunting down every single remaining inhabitant.33

In November 1863 the chief-in-command of the Caucasian army decided thatthey should now start with the cleansing of the coastal plain. While beforeRussian authorities had abstained from forthright involvement in the transportof the migrants, leaving it to foreign vessels and private initiative to evacuatethe destitute refugees from the shores of the Black Sea coast, they now beganto actively organize the emigration. As had already been proposed in the decreeon Cossack colonization in 1862, the Russian government now proceeded tofacilitate the emigrations by generously allocating funds to this project. Com-mittees were created at various points on the coast and given the task to arrangefor transport, supervise the process of emigration and look after the Circassian

refugees camping at the shores.34

While Russian officials publicly prided themselves for their excellent organiz-ational skills, their care for the natives and their philanthropy, the actual circum-stances proved disastrous and a major humanitarian tragedy ensued. Refugeeswere forced to camp on the shore under the open sky, sometimes for months,until ships arrived to take them to the Ottoman Empire. Weakened by hunger,cold and exhaustion, the refugees easily succumbed to contagious diseases.Even more disastrous were the conditions on the crowded ships which oftenwere not fit for sea. Upon their arrival in the Ottoman Empire, the refugeeswere dying by the hundreds each day.35 Ultimately then, the endeavors of the

Russian administration were less directed to ensuring the well-being of the

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refugees than to staging the migrations in such a way as to make them seem moreacceptable and give them an appearance of legality.

Russian sources and historical accounts dealing with the final subjugation of

the Transkuban area are for the most part characterized by a high degree of sani-tization and the use of euphemisms like the term final subjugation itselfafterall, the vast majority of the Circassians was not subjugated, but expelled. Otherexpressions included cleansing, final migration, total removal or reductionof the harmful population.36 Russian authorities also made conscious efforts tosteer public opinion. Veniukov thus stated:

Truly [. . .] the government, in the news about the Caucasus, seeks to evade as far as possible

the question of the fate of the mountaineers relocated to the plains or leaving for Turkey [. . .]

and to limit itself to depicting those successes which our colonization makes. The minister of

war, bearing in mind that I could be approached with queries on that subject, namely

expressed the wish that I would not communicate information that could arouse an outcryof foreigners.37

As has been mentioned, Russian colonial authorities were especially afraid that theOttoman Empire would object to the inflow of refugees. They had contactedOttoman authorities from early on in the process and sought to gain their approval,without however informing them about the true extent of the migrations. An earlycommand issued by the general staff urged to proceed more carefully in dispatch-ing the mountaineers to the Ottoman Empire and to evade any correspondencewith consuls in order not to have documents on this issue outside the confinesof the Russian Empire. Only later on, when the process of expulsion became

more formalized, was a secret order issued to mark the refugees passports withdeparting for migration.38

When Ottoman queries and complaints started to arrive, Russian authoritieshurried to explain that the Caucasian Muslims were not petitioning for migration,but for temporal leave in order to worship the grave of Muhammad. The Russiangovernment, so the argument ran, could and did not want to oppose the realizationof a desire instilled by religious conviction.39 The claim that the Circassians wererequiring leave for pilgrimage to Mecca was true in so far as the Russian govern-ment had issued instructions which explicitly demanded that Circassians leavingtheir homeland request leave for pilgrimage instead of the permission to

migrate. Upon the expiry of their permits the Circassians were considered tohave voluntarily migrated. Furthermore, Russian authorities should not hinderthe mountaineers to sell their property and not undertake any inquiries as totheir objective in selling their property, and also not deliver any reports on thissubject.40 Fearing international opposition at an early stage of their newpolicy, Russian authorities in this way created a legal fiction which helped themto carry on with their plans.

The pilgrimage topos was also used in an inverse way in order to curb back-migration. Already in summer 1861 Russian colonial authorities came upon theproblem that our mission in Constantinople did not have a legal foundation for

refusing to mark the passports (visa) of those of our emigrants, which presented


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non-expired passports and on this basis had the right to request permits for [return-ing] home as subjects of the Russian empire. After considering this issue in thecommittee of ministers, Russian authorities argued that the departure to Turkey

together with [their] property, relatives and household members or after selling alltheir property provides indubitable evidence of the intention to migrate from theCaucasus.41 Now, it was the mountaineers who had left their homeland underthepretextof pilgrimage, hiding their true intention from Russian authorities.

Formal rules for dealing with back-migration were set up in September 1861.The purpose obviously was to exclude as many return candidates as possible byintroducing a whole catalogue of conditions which could not easily be met. Forexample, passports issued not to individuals and their closest family members,but to several families or persons would not be taken into consideration, andthose willing to return had to indicate that they still possessed a homestead or

property in the Caucasus.42

On May 21, 1864 the Caucasian administration proudly declared that the finalsubjugation of Western Caucasus had been accomplished and that no singlerecalcitrant tribe was left in the Caucasus. In fact, the Transkuban area hadbeen depopulated almost completely. In 1864, except for the smaller portion re-settled north of the river Kuban, the Circassian population in the Caucasus,estimated between 500,000 and two million, was gone.43

In autumn 1865 mass migrations of Caucasians were outlawed and effectivelyput to a halt, which proves once more that the Russian colonial administration wasin command of the situation at any time.44 Also, even if it is true that the local

military commanders were the most aggressive in pushing the Circassians intoexile, it should not be forgotten that it was the Tsars brother Grand DukeMichail Nikolaevich who, in his role as viceroy of the Caucasus, had from theend of 1862 overseen the last and most radical phase of the war.

The Russian imperial government was proud of its achievements, stagingelaborate festivities to celebrate the events being of importance for all educatedmankind. All in all, the policy of final subjugation was deemed a huge successboth in domestic and international terms.45 In fact, the high degree of premedita-tion and organization displayed by the Russian colonial administration werequite surprising for a modernizing nineteenth-century state. As we have seen,the decision to get rid of an unwanted population had been made early on, andit was only the details of the cleansing operations and the exact modalitiesof the forced migrations that remained to be specified. This was also acknowl-edged by contemporaries: one report on the migrations even stated thatsuch an outcome of war in Western Caucasus was anticipated [. . .] from itsvery beginning.46

As Foucault has argued by drawing on a seventeenth-century plague regulation,states of emergency did not in themselves give rise to plans for excessive interven-tions into the social sphere, but provided an opportunity to put utopian visions intopractice.47 The frequent hints at a new international war in Russian documents onthe cleansing policy in Western Caucasus can be understood in a similar way.

Some of the officials responsible for final cleansing might of course have

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sincerely believed in the danger of a hostile incursion by the Black Sea coast.48

Yet this cannot diminish the fact that the Russian Empire wasas numerous pro-jects drawn up from 1829 onwards showfirmly determined to bring the conquest

of Western Caucasus to a successful end. The sense of danger that went along withan impending international war was instrumentalized by Russian colonial officialslike Miliutin and Bariatinskii. The topos of war served them as a cover and justi-fication for the new political course, and the alleged necessity to speed up the con-quest left their potential opponents little time to think through the full implicationsof the new political course and formulate their objections.

If city administrators in late seventeenth-century France were fantasizing aboutthe state of plague, Russian officials in 1854 were dreaming of the opportunitiesthe Crimean war presented for the realization of their imperial ambitions in theCaucasus. As early as November 1854 Miliutin had written a memorandum in

which he urged not to let the opportunity pass and to already prepare theground for future politics.49 Ultimately then, the whole issue of final subjugationwas bound up with larger visions of re-ordering the political terrain.

Final subjugation, governmentality and the dreams of authoritarianmodernism

Final subjugation was a standard expression when speaking of the conquestof Western Caucasus, but Russian officials did not bother to set out whatexactly they meant by it. Our understanding of this contemporary concept can

be advanced when taking into account that meaning is differential: according topoststructuralist theory, a single term in itself has no positive content butalways draws its meaning from its relations with other terms. What we have tothink about then is the suppressed opposite of final subjugation.50

When M.I. Veniukov sought to explain that the subjugation had been con-ducted in an entirely different way than any former subjugations of Caucasiantribes, he specified that in former times wars were usually conducted endlesslywith separate tribes, which after heavy defeats calmed down, but then arose againand [thereby] made new campaigns necessary [. . .].51 The aim of the new policywas to make the historical process irreversible. The opposition on which theRussian notion of final subjugation relied was that between a segmentarystate which limited itself to lose suzerainty with indirect rule and occasional puni-tive expeditions, and a modern territorial state with a homogenized apparatus ofadministration reaching from the top to the local level. This fits neatly in withthe fact that the subjugation of Western Caucasus coincided with the beginningof the Great Reforms: both bore witness to a transformative vision inflictedupon Russian society. What I want to stress here therefore, in keeping withDavid Scotts appeal to impose an historicity to our understanding of the ration-alities [. . .] of the colonial state, is the conceptual novelty of Russian colonialpolicy in the late 1850s and early 1860s.52

Transformative visions had generally come to play an important role in moder-

nizing Russia.53 Their origins lay in a new philosophy of the state that had been


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imported to Russia from Western Europe. There, an art of government hadgradually come to replace earlier notions about the divine nature of the sovereignand his place in the universe. While the traditional objective of political power had

been to guarantee order and restore the divine law in case of disruptions, it wasnow seen as the rulers task to actively promote the common good andwelfare of his subjects. In the place of its former transcendental goals, rationalplanning now became the causa finalis of the state. The objective the emergingscience of governmentality set itself was to consciously steer and model societyand thereby secure its steady movement towards the future.54

The Western European concept of government as the management of bothpopulation and territory was introduced into Russia in the eighteenth century.As in Western Europe, the legitimacy of Russian state power now came to reston the assumption that one of its central purposes was to improve its populations

skills, vigor, civic morals, and work habits. Mid-nineteenth century reformerstook these ideas further and advocated the replacement of the oppressive divisionof the population by social orders by the concept of a uniform citizenship.In order to achieve this, backward subjects had to be molded into happy andproductive citizens, everyone had to be assigned to an economically useful life,instructed and closely monitored.55

Russian modernizers had from the very start seen colonization as a way tocreate model communities in the spirit of Enlightenment projects and now theCaucasus as Russias first modern colony had become such a field for experimen-tation.56 In the case of the Transkuban region, this amounted to a complete eradi-

cation of the local culture(s). Russian colonial officials by cleansing the areafrom its indigenous population created a tabula rasa which would allow theremodeling of both population and landscape according to colonial needs. Russianmilitary historian Fadeev stated enthusiastically:

Everywhere man will have free rein; in a warm and healthy climate ploughed fields, pastures,

woods and water everywhere, all will be at his hand. [. . .] And this sumptuous, one can say,

newly discovered land lies not in the Pacific Ocean, but on the shore of the Black Sea. [. . .]

The Kuban province will grow a breed of people we have not heard of even in fairytales. We

see Russian mountaineers. A round-faced, fair-haired Russian boy conveys the visiting

[female!] tourist on his horses on steep mountain paths [in order] to watch from the neigh-

boring valley how the sun rises from out of the snows and [how] the shadow of the mountains

suddenly reaches out over the whole region.57

A new, progressive society was to be built up at the shores of the Black Sea. Noteverybody however would be included in this vision. The potential of violenceinherent in these plans of improvement can be inferred from the fact that inFadeevs romantic depiction the Circassians are missing: in his fantasy theyhave been replaced by Russian mountaineers, by people worthy of the newcountry.

The problem with the Circassians was not one of territorial sovereignty alone.With them, the task of establishing the principles of citizenship and obedience to

the authorities proved to be extremely difficult, if not even altogether impossible.

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The obstinacy of the Transkuban population, as it was understood by theRussian colonizers, was an obstinacy to adhere to their notions of progress anda rejection of the states benevolent role as guide on the road to modernity. In

the views of Russian statesmen, Western Caucasians were split into small com-munities or family unions, not governed by any authorities, not having in betweenthem any civil link. By drawing upon Enlightenment anthropology, the characterof the mountaineers was said to mirror the coarse and wild nature of their phys-ical surroundings. They were regarded as an unproductive population lacking anyinterest in the improvement of their lives. Cultural difference was essentializedto a degree where Circassians no longer seemed redeemable. Consequently, theywere to be dispensed with and replaced by a peaceful, hard-working and indus-trious population. Military historian Fadeev bluntly stated: The land of theTranskuban people was needed by the state, [while] in themselves there was no

necessity at all. Regarding the production of national wealth ten Russian peasantsproduce more than 100 mountaineers. Thus, the fear of losing large numbers ofindigenous workforce, which is often thought to have kept in check the extermi-natory intent of colonial regimes, did not work here anymore.58

The removal of the Circassians formed part of an all-encompassing project ofmodernization. This, I think, can also explain why those advocating the mostviolent means for subjugating the Circassians were known both in Russia andabroad as modern-minded liberals: final subjugation can be understood as anelitist conception of radical reformers, a Russian version of authoritarian modern-ism.59 It was as an instrument to enforce visions of a new order when other

methods had failed to bring about the desired state.While it is true that some pre-modern states had used resettlement in order tosecure their power in volatile areas, this was something conceptually differentfrom the Russian expulsion of the Circassians. In Russia, it was only during theeighteenth century, that is, when the Western art of governance was introduced,that the first instances of organized state peasant resettlement took place.60 In thepre-modern Ottoman Empire, deportations, known as surgun, relied on thecultural recognition of the strength created by ethnic heterogeneity and opennessto refugees from different lands. They were used to bring together differentgroups in the same region, to promote difference and not homogeneity. Russiasaim in Western Caucasus in contrast, was the numerical superiority of theRussian population, with the colonization by Armenians and Greeks being onlysecond-best options which became necessary because of the difficulties theunfamiliar ecological environment posed to Russian settlers.61

This is not to say that Russian colonial officials aimed at creating an ethni-cally homogeneous Caucasus, which would indeed be anachronistic as Russiansat that time did not yet possess a clear concept of ethnic group. Ratherwhilenot completely devoid of some kind of Russian-orthodox chauvinismRussianimperial politics aimed at a kind of standardization associated with the creationof a modern and administratively uniform empire. Its objective was less outrightRussification than the production of a uniform citizen-subject.62 While only a

couple of years after the final conquest the failure of Cossack colonization had


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to be at least partly admitted and the grand utopian visions of a land of plenty haddied down, what stayed was the conviction that the policy of final subjugationhad been a huge political success. According to the report of the Caucasian viceroy

on the so-called resettlement of the mountaineers to Turkey

these facts of migration show, that the government can make use of this gravitation of the

mountaineers to Turkey [. . .] for its own interests, as a most true means for offering a con-

venient outlet for the rude [. . .] obstinacy and the religious fanaticism, which, to a greater or

smaller degree always appears when any important reform is to be introduced into the lives

of the mountaineers.63

Russian colonial authorities had by now realized that what they held in theirhands was a new, powerful instrument of authoritarian modernization. Forsomeone to whom uprisings and political unrest seemed to be expressions of a

sickly irritation of the social organism, expulsion and forced migrations func-tioned as political blood-letting. It would both rid the government of the mostradical elements and make it easier for the state to mould those subjects thatremained. As the Caucasian viceroy explained, the final subjugation of theTranskuban region had had a double effect: on the one hand, it freed space forthe colonization of the lands left vacated by it [the mountaineer population],and on the other hand, it considerably facilitated organizing on a new basis thatpart of the mountain population of Western Caucasus that had stayed in itshomeland.64

The overarching aim remained to bring about blagoustroistvo, meaningimprovement, but also carrying notions of bliss achieved by the correct organ-ization of a territory and its people. Here then, instead of being mutually exclusiveprojects, the practice of civilizing or disciplining and the practice of cleansingcame to support and complement each other.65 As Timothy Mitchell argued, inthe colonial realm there was no historical procession from a restrictive, exteriorform of power to a more internal, or disciplinary power. Rather, at the sametime as power relations became internal, they also appeared to take the form ofexternal structures. The task as described by a French officer in Algeria thereforewas to capture their minds after we have captured their bodies.66 Claimsthat Russian policy in Western Caucasus was bent upon a civilizing missionand not upon excluding the Circassians and forming a homogenized Caucasus

therefore somewhat miss the point.67

In Russia, the expulsion of the Circassians(as exterior, restrictive form of power) was designed and implemented duringprecisely the period in which the concept of imperial citizenship became fullyformed and was firmly integrated into Russian policy. This is not as surprisingas it may seem at first glance, as modern Russian notions of governmentalityhad relegated the citizen to the status of a working tool, or dead mass thatwas only put into motion by the monarch.68

With the final subjugation of Western Caucasus, Russia had crossed thethreshold to the era of modern population politics with both its positive, con-structivist and destructive aspects. The expulsion of the Circassians had effected

a profound change on the ground: by 1864, cleansing had definitively entered

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the states repertoire for dealing with recalcitrant subject populations and fromthereon could be reactivated in case of need.

From imperial cleansing to Soviet terror: actualizations

The official end of the Caucasian War had not yet been declared when Russiancolonial authorities, apparently encouraged by their successes in Western Cauca-sus, already thought of applying the new technique in Eastern Caucasus for thefinal subjugation of the Chechens. In spite of the fact that organized resistancehad been broken already in 1859, Russian authorities were not yet satisfied withthe state of Chechnya. They criticized the unsystematic course of action in settlingEastern Caucasus, so that the Russian population mingled in a disorderly fashionwith the indigenous and in this dispersed state cannot show that decisive influence,

which would be expected of it. Russian colonial authorities therefore proposedpartial eviction for weakening the Chechen tribe and thinning it out. Again,the ambition to civilize and compulsory relocation were understood as comp-lementary means: for as long as civilization does not weaken the fanaticism ofthe mountaineer, he had to be kept in check by repressive measures.69

While at the very start of the discussion it seemed unclear whether the govern-ment should use force to induce the emigration of the Chechens, it was soondecided to revert to a peaceful way, by renewing among the mountaineers ofthe Terek region the inclination to resettle to Turkey. The Chechens were tobe made to leave of their own volition.70

Russian authorities proved to be quite inventive in the business of preparingChechen minds for migration. It was decided to choose some of the mostpopular figures from among the indigenous population and offer them recompensefor setting an example. By expressing their wish to migrate and placing them-selves at the head of the groups, they should make the rest follow them. Proclama-tions by Turkish emissaries which invited the mountaineers into Turkeyshould be distributed among the population. At the same time, Russian officialscarefully sought to hide their interest and participation in the emigrations bymaking local authorities pretend to oppose them.71

According to an agreement with the Ottoman Empire, the total number ofmigrants was limited to 5,000 migrant families. In the initial stage of planninghowever, the possibility of a much larger emigration had been envisaged. M.T.Loris-Melikov, one of the driving forces for the resettlement of the Chechens,had voiced his complaints over the small scale of the project, remarking thatwhether one resettles one thousand families or expels all, will entail the same dif-ficulties: therefore would it not be better to get down to realize the whole systemnow? The relocation of the mountaineers was thus conceived as a larger,longer-term project, and not as a prophylactic measure in the face of an immediatethreat.72

A. Kantemir, who edited the memoirs of Mussa Kundukhovone of those paidby the Russian administration to lead his fellow countrymen and women into

exilementions that on the eve of the Russo-Caucasian war of 187778 there


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had been even more grandiose plans of relocating Northern Caucasians. Worriedthat any further migrations of Northern Caucasians into the Ottoman Empirewould only strengthen the ranks of the enemy, Russian officials thought about a

possible transfer of the remaining Northern Caucasians to the Afghan frontier.Here, a New Caucasus could be created, which might even serve as a bufferagainst British interests in the region.73

After the start of the RussianOttoman war of 187778 it was Russian officialN. Butkevich who took the issue of resettlement up again. In his article calledThe Muslim Question in the Caucasus he regretfully stated that when italready could be hoped that the whole of Western Caucasus will be completelycleansed from the mountain population, the expulsion [vyselenie] of the mountai-neers was suddenly called to a halt.74 Contrasting the situation in Western andEastern Caucasus, he noticed the relative peace and calm in the Kuban region

and went on to suggest that the reason for this exception was the differentway in which subjugation had been conducted here. Not content with advertisingthe complete disarmament of the Northern Caucasian mountain population hewrote: We should also revert to yet another, more vital measure, which shouldforever close down the Muslim question in the Caucasusthe expulsion ofMuslims in the largest scales. In Butkevichs view then, the primary marker ofdifference was religion, with Enlightenment notions of correct economic behav-ior in the second place. While Ossetians as preponderantly Christian should beexempted, a general expulsion of the Chechens as most fanatic, unpromisingbrigand population was of utmost necessity. If not accomplished on a voluntary

basis it should be brought about by way of force.

75

Butkevichs plan was not realized, and neither was that of creating a Caucasianmountain republic in Central Asia. Yet, the will to expel Northern Caucasiansdid not die down, and emigrations kept surfacing periodically, so that Russianstatesmen saw them as an already normal phenomenon.76 Why then did themigrations after 1864 remain relatively limited in scope and less openly violentthan those of the Circassians? Why did the intention of getting rid of all themountaineers largely remain in the stage of planning?

Possible reasons were the difficulties experienced with Cossack colonization inWestern Caucasus, the fear of Ottoman and international reactions and the missingpretext of war.77 Even more important, geographical conditions in Eastern Cauca-sus were less favorable for mass migrations than in Western Caucasus: in the viewof a Russian official, the situation in the Kuban oblast had been considerably moreconvenient. Here, with the Black Sea coast at hand, the Circassians could easilybe sent away without calling forth the concern of [local] authorities for holdingthe population back. In the Terek oblast on the contrary, the enclosed [nature] ofthe region deprives [us] of the possibility to drive the Chechen tribe, restless andlittle suited for the adoption of citizenship, out of the confines of the oblast.78

Before the time of railways, the seaway proved to be the only quick and effi-cient way to get rid of large masses of refugees. Migrations by land, besidesputting economic strain on the transit regions, had the disadvantage that

Russian authorities had to watch over the migrants until the borders were

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reached, as these could at every moment provoke unrest among the population,call forth the compassion of local observers, or, in the worst case, even changetheir minds and turn back. If the mountaineers left by ship however, Russian

authorities could rid themselves of the migrants almost instantly and also rejectany responsibility for the further fate of the refugees. The seaway allowed for amuch higher degree of emotional and moral detachment and finality than waspossible with overland migrations.79

Ultimately then, some of the key reasons for why the extreme radicalism of theperiod of 185665 was not reached again in pre-revolutionary Russia were of anutterly pragmatic nature. The case of the Circassians was exceptional in so far ashere both exterior and conceptual preconditions for the use of extreme violencehad been met. These allowed the realization of what would otherwise haveremained a perverts fantasy and not have been regarded as an outflow of the

reason of state.80

In some sense however, the plan to get rid of yet more NorthernCaucasians was only put off until a more favorable occasion.81 Once they hadentered the governments pool of political techniques, cleansing and deportationcould, under certain conditions, manifest themselves again.

These conditions were met in the crisis experienced by the Soviet Union duringWorld War II. Soviet revolutionaries were following the Enlightenment vision ofa rational, and therefore just, social order. This gave rise to a veritable cult ofscientific planning. The Soviet Union was however not only devoted to autopian, transformative quest, but also willing and able to use the full weightof its coercive power to bring these high-modernist designs into being.82

In the years of 1943 and 1944 all Chechen, Ingush, Balkar and Karachay weredeported from the Caucasus and resettled to Central Asia. These operationsdemanded skillful planning and a high degree of bureaucratic coordination.Soviet authorities herein did not only draw upon the know-how recently acquiredby resettling diaspora nationalities and so-called class enemies from otherparts of the empire, but also upon pre-revolutionary, imperial experience. PeterHolquist has aptly demonstrated how the very idea of extracting bandit elementsevolved out of pre-revolutionary scientific and military traditions.83 I will there-fore limit myself to pointing out some continuities in the stereotyping of NorthernCaucasians, as this could help to answer the questions of why it was againNorthern Caucasian peoples who were targeted, and what this tells us about theSoviet civilizational project in general.

In the Soviet Union, Northern Caucasians and also Crimean Tatars had onceagain come to be perceived as barring the way to progress. They opposedSoviet collectivization efforts and their cultures generally displayed a remarkableresilience in the face of Soviet modernization pressure. In their efforts to under-stand and gain control over local society, Soviet officials reverted to pre-revolutionary geographic and ethnographic information and came up once againwith notions of criminal mountaineer culture.84 What the lazy, unproductiveCaucasian was to imperial Russia, were backward local communities to Sovietauthorities. Both imperial Russian and Soviet practices of othering of Northern

Caucasians were based on notions of economic-political progress. They even used


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the same euphemistic terms when describing the objective of politico-culturalassimilation: drawing together (sblizhenie) and blending (sliianie).85

Furthermore, in contradiction to the overtly atheistic nature of Soviet power,

there seems to have remained some kind of (secularized) Christian bias in Sovietpolicymaking. Almost all those deported from the Caucasus were of Muslimfaith; the Ossetians, who in imperial times had become regarded as somewhathalf-hearted, but recoverable Christians, were exempted.86 This, I think, pointsto the Christian-European roots of Enlightenment philosophy and consequentlythe development of the Soviet concept of citizenship from out of earliernotions of pastoral power.87

Not only the way the problem was formulated by Soviet authorities, but alsoits solution was strikingly similar to that of imperial politics. The Sovietdecision to deport Northern Caucasians was justified by the alleged cooperation

of the latter with hostile foreign powers. According to Avtorkhanov, Sovietauthorities even staged faked foreign espionage activities. Expulsions anddeportations were again called resettlement with the aim of covering up theinvolvement of the state and making the migrations seem voluntary.88

Finally, the Soviet course of action displayed the same tension betweenmolding and melting certain groups into the wider, state-orchestrated society onthe one side, and outright physical destruction on the other. Soviet policymakers certainly thought of the re-settlement of Northern Caucasians to CentralAsia as a measure leading towards their assimilation, that is, their destruction asan ethnic group without having to kill its individual members. Yet there are

also some aspects to Soviet policy that seem to profess the intent of at leastpartial physical annihilation. In the course of Soviet cleansing operations,villagers were in several instances locked into sheds and burnt alive. Generally,those deemed unfit to walk to the nearest railway stations were shot on the spot.The Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennykh Del [Peoples Commissariat for InternalAffairs] (NKVD) even seems to have experimented with methods of systematic(serial) physical annihilation. Transport conditions in the trains to Central Asiawere bound to cause further deaths: the deportees were locked into cattlewagons without sanitation, and often left without food and water for days. Theplaces the deported were sent to were already known to Soviet authorities forhaving caused mass death among those unaccustomed to their hard climaticconditions. Furthermore, Soviet authorities did not see to the provisioning ofthe refugees with housing or clothes, and food rations assigned to special settlerswere far below the subsistence level. Thus the resettlement resulted in a deci-mation of the targeted Northern Caucasian ethnic groups by 20 to 50 percent oftheir original size.89

Most studies with a broader focus on Soviet terror and Soviet ethnic cleansinghave stressed the Soviet aversion to Nazi-style zoopolitics and the Soviet pre-tension to redeem problematic individuals.90 However, regarding the characterof Soviet policy vis-a-vis Northern Caucasians, a certain amount of ambivalenceand undecidedness remains. The construction of cultural difference according to

Enlightenment notions of citizenship and correct exploitation of natural

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resources could and did under certain conditions devolve into highly essentializedand naturalized antagonisms leading towards physical annihilation.91

Ultimately, the Soviet deportations of Northern Caucasians can partly be under-

stood as the resumption of a project that their imperial predecessors had begun butleft incomplete. It even seems that the idea of re-settling Northern Caucasianssurfaced once more in post-Soviet times: according to Naimark, there is seriousevidence that the Russian government developed plans to deport the Chechensonce again in the turmoil of the mid-1990s.92

Conclusion

With regard to earlier apologetic accounts of the final subjugation of Western

Caucasus, the most important insight is probably the amount of consciousdecision-making in Russian policymaking. Although they may not have foreseenevery detail and although the exact modalities remained to be negotiated, Miliutinand Bariatinskii had outlined the new course of action in Western Caucasus fromearly on. They were entirely aware of and consciously accepted the deadly impactof their policy upon the Circassians. Russian authorities carefully planned andorchestrated their policy of final subjugation, so that the cleansing of theTranskuban area was carried out with a surprising degree of organization andadministrative coordination. After their apparent success in 1864, they realizedthat they held in their hands a powerful instrument that could be applied to

other cases as well. Although no further mass expulsions were realized in theremainder of the nineteenth century, the idea of getting rid of Northern Caucasianmountaineers was kept alive to be carried over the revolutionary divide.

When taking into account the surprising continuities between Russian andSoviet stereotyping and policymaking in the Caucasus, Soviet nationality policyappears in a somewhat different light than upon assuming a centralist and exclu-sively post-1917 perspective. Focusing upon the Caucasian periphery can help usresolve the paradox of the Soviet Union as both a nation-building and nation-destroying power. Terry Martin sought to give account of this apparent contradic-tion by pointing out that Soviet ethnic cleansing developed out of the project ofethnic consolidation, and that instead of aiming at assimilation it was bent uponemphasizing the distinct primordial essence of Soviet nationalities.93 In light ofthe destructive nature of both Russian and Soviet politics in Northern Caucasus,this explanation no longer seems quite appropriate. Assertions of both Russianand Soviet authorities that their policy was generically much more benignthan that of their European counterparts should therefore not be taken tooliterally but subjected to a careful examination.94 The final subjugation of theTranskuban region was exceptional in the sense that the perception of Circassiansas a harmful population that could not be gainfully integrated into the colonialorder invalidated fears of losing the indigenous workforce. The tragedy of theCircassian migrations thus reveals that the process of essentialization could

work according to different modi. Even in the absence of a biologistic idiom,


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Russian images of mountaineers could be essentialized to a degree where anypeaceful measures seemed inadequate.

It has further been shown that the new Russian techniques of cleansing and

resettlement that were first brought to bear upon the Circassians formed partof a larger vision of re-ordering the terrain: they were not contradictory, butcomplementary to other instruments of state control.

Those responsible for the policy of final subjugation already carried strongnotions of improvement and imperial destiny. Cleansing on the one handserved them to get rid of those elements deemed unfit for the project of imperialcitizenship, and on the other, it curbed the resistance of those who stayed andfacilitated their transformation into subject-citizens. The presence of voluntarymoments in an overall coercive policy and philanthropic measures for securingthe well-being of natives also should not be understood as proof of imperial

restraint. The Circassians were confronted with a choice between a greater and alesser evil at a moment when objectively a choice did not exist any more, havingbeen preempted by the tsarist administration.95 The use of brutal military forcewas seen as a precondition for the establishment of more finely-tuned mechanismsof disciplinary power.

While European modernity built upon dichotomic oppositions like liberalismand political repression, ormission civilizatriceand extermination, a closer exam-ination of the Russian colonial project reveals the secret complicity of these terms.In Russian Caucasus at least, the way from declaring ones intent to civilize thenatives to the frustrated declaration that those people could not be civilized

and should be done away with could take only a few steps.

96

Acknowledgements

My most humble thanks to Peter Holquist, who did not object to my appropriationof his ideas, but encouraged me at the very start of my research.

Notes and References

1 Michel Foucault,Larcheologie du savoir(Paris: Gallimard, 2002 (1969)), p 59.2 Ann Laura Stoler and Frederick Cooper, Between metropole and colony. Rethinking a research agenda, in:

Ann Laura Stoler and Frederick Cooper, eds., Tensions of Empire. Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World(Berkeley, LA/London: University of California Press, 1997), pp 156; Frederick Cooper and Ann LauraStoler, Introduction. Tensions of empire: colonial control and visions of rule, American EthnologistVol16, No 4, 1989, pp 609621; Amir Weiner, Introduction: landscaping the human garden, in: AmirWeiner, ed.,Landscaping the Human Garden. Twentieth-Century Population Management in a ComparativeFramework(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), pp 118, here p 1011; James C. Scott, Seeing Likea State. How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven/London: YaleUniversity Press, 1998), p 97; Robert Aldrich, Imperial mise en valeur and mise en sce ne: recent workson French colonialism, The Historical Journal Vol 45, No 4, December 2002, pp 917936, here p 935;Stoler and Cooper Between metropole and colony, p 5; Enzo Traverso, Moderne und Gewalt. Eine euro-paische Genealogie des Nazi-Terrors(Koln: ISP, 2003), especially pp 51 80; Jurgen Zimmerer, Holocaustund Kolonialismus. Beitrag zu einer Archaologie des genozidalen Gedankens,Zeitschrift fur Geschichtswis-senschaftNo 12, 2003, pp 10981119.

3 Justin Stagl, August Schlozers Entwurf einer Volkerkunde oder Ethnographie seit 1772, Ethnologische

Zeitschrift Zurich, No 2, 1974, p 7392; Han F. Vermeulen, Origins and institutionalization of ethnography

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and ethnology in Europe and the USA, 17711845, in: Han F. Vermeulen and Arturo A. Roldan, eds., Field-work and Footnotes. Studies in the History of European Anthropology (London/New York: Routledge, 1995),pp 3959. I thank Volker Harms for bringing these sources to my attention. See also Gudrun Bucher, VonBeschreibung der Sitten und Gebrauche der Volker. Die Instruktionen Gerhard Friedrich Mullers und ihre

Bedeutung fur die Geschichte der Ethnologie und der Geschichtswissenschaft(Stuttgart: Steiner, 2002).4 Simon Werrett has recently published an extraordinary article on this. Simon Werrett, The panopticon in the

garden: Samuel Benthams Inspection House and noble theatricality in Eighteenth-Century Russia, AbImperioNo 3, 2008, pp 4770.

5 Peter Holquist, To count, to extract, and to exterminate. Population statistics and population politics in lateimperial and Soviet Russia, in: Ronald G. Suny and Terry Martin eds., A State of Nations. Empire andNation-Making in the Age of Lenin and Stalin(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 201), pp 111144; PeterHolquist, State violence as technique. The logic of violence in Soviet totalitarianism, in: Weiner,Landscap-ing, pp 1945. Publications on the final stage of the Russian war in Western Caucasus in English include:Willis Brooks, The politics of the conquest of the Caucasus, 18551864, Nationalities Papers Vol 24,No 4, 1996, pp 649660; Willis Brooks, Russias conquest and pacification of the Caucasus: relocationbecomes a pogrom in the post-Crimean War period, Nationalities Papers Vol 23, No 4, 1995, pp 675686; Justin Carthy, Death and Exile. The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 18211922 (Princeton:Darwin, 1995); David Cuthell, The Circassian surgun, Ab Imperio No 2, 2003, pp 139167; DavidCuthell, The Muhacirin Komisyonu: An Agent in the Transformation of Ottoman Anatolia, PhD Disser-tation, Columbia University, 2005; Alan W. Fisher, Emigration of Muslims from the Russian Empire inthe years after the Crimean War, Jahrbucher fur Geschichte Osteuropas Vol 35, H 3, 1987, pp 356371;Paul Henze, Circassian resistance to Russia, in: Marie B. Broxup, ed.,The North Caucasus Barrier. TheRussian Advance towards the Muslim World(London: Hurst, 1996), pp 6211; Austin Jersild, Orientalismand Empire. North Caucasus Mountain Peoples and the Georgian Frontier, 1845 1917 (Montreal:McGill-Queens University Press, 2002); Kemal H. Karpat, The status of the Muslim under Europeanrule: the eviction and settlement of the Cerkes, Journal of the Institute of Muslim Minority Afairs Vol 1,No 2, 1979, pp 727; Tugan Ch. Kumykov, The Russian War in the Caucasus and the Expulsion of the Cir-cassians(Pyatogorsk: RIA KMV 2004); Mark Pinson, Demographic WarfareAn Aspect of Ottoman andRussian Foreign Policy, 18541866, unpublished PhD Dissertation, Harvard University, 1970; StephenShenfield, The Circassians. a forgotten genocide?, in: Mark Levene and Penny Roberts, eds.,The Massacrein History(New York/Oxford: Berghahn, 1999), pp 149 162; Dana Sherry, Social alchemy on the Black

Sea coast, 186065, Kritika Vol 10, No 1, Winter 2009, pp 730; Brian G. Williams, Hijra and forcedmigration from nineteenth-century Russia to the Ottoman Empire, Cahier du Monde russe Vol 41, No 1,JanviersMars 2000, pp 79108.

6 Peter Redfield, Foucault in the tropics: displacing the panopticon, in: Jonathan X. Inda, ed.,Anthropology ofModernity: Foucault, Governmentality and Life Politics (Malden: Wiley, 2005), pp 5079; David Scott,Colonial governmentality,Social TextNo 43, Autumn 1995, pp 191220; Peter Pels, The anthropologyof colonialism: culture, history, and the emergence of Western governmentality, Annual Review of Anthro-pologyVol 26, 1997, pp 163183; Lynn A. Blake, Pastoral power, governmentality and cultures of order innineteenth-century British Columbia, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series Vol24, No 1, 1999, pp 7993. According to Geraci, Holquists argument is somewhat de-validated with the dis-covery that protogenocidal fantasies were formulated well before the advent of the age of military statistics asdepicted by Holquist. However, Geraci bases his critique on a very narrow understanding of statistics as thescience of numbers, which allows him to oppose quantitative-statistical data and earlier ethnic stereo-types in alliance with economic considerations. He thus does not pay enough attention to the fact that in

the nineteenth century, state-istics had a much broader meaning: as the modern states science of mappingboth territory and population it included also geographic and ethnographic information. Statistics thenbelonged to a whole bunch of new, not yet clearly delineated disciplines which emerged out of govern-mentalityas the new philosophy of the modern state. See Robert Geraci, Genocidal impulses and fantasiesin Imperial Russia, in: A. Dirk Moses, ed.,Empire, Colony, Genocide. Conquest, Occupation, and SubalternResistance in World History (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008), pp 343371, especially pp 352and 354355.

7 For a discussion of Russian expansionist traditions see Hugh Ragsdale, Russian projects of conquest in theeighteenth century, in: Hugh Ragsdale, ed., Imperial Russian Foreign Policy (Cambridge, New York andMelbourne: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp 75102; Willard Sun-derland,Taming the Wild Field. Colonization and Empire on the Russian Steppe (Ithaca and London: CornellUniversity Press, 2004), especially p 4. On the absence of clear-cut notions, which has also been termed thesilence of Muscovy, see Valerie Kivelson, Claiming Siberia: colonial possession and property holding inthe seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, in: Nicholas B. Breyfogle, Abby Schrader and Willard


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Sunderland, eds.,Peopling the Russian Periphery. Borderland Colonization in Eurasian History(London andNew York: Routledge, 2007), pp 2140, here p 22, pp 3436; Michael Khodarkovsky, Russias Steppe Fron-tier. The Making of a Colonial Empire, 15001800 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press,2002), pp 3940; Nicholas B. Breyfogle, Abby Schrader and Willard Sunderland, Russian colonizations. An

introduction, in: Breyfogle, Schrader, Sunderland, Peopling the Russian Periphery, pp 118, here p 2.8 I do not however pretend that pre-modern Russian behavior towards adjacent non-Russian peoples was non-

violent. The treatment of Siberians could be extremely brutal. However, it seems this was not an explicitpolicy of the Muscovite government, and that it at least displayed some kind of interest in sentencing theoffenders. See Kivelson, Claiming Siberia, pp 3031. On early Russian involvement in Northern Caucasussee Marie Bennigsen Broxup, Introduction: Russia and the North Caucasus, in: Broxup, North CaucasusBarrier, pp 117; Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, Cooptation of the elites of Kabarda and Daghestan inthe sixteenth century, in: Broxup, North Caucasus Barrier, pp 18 44; On the Muscovite risk-aversepolicy towards the steppe see Brian J. Boeck, Containment vs. colonization: Muscovite approaches tosettling the steppe, in: Breyfogle, Schrader and Sunderland, Peopling the Russian Periphery, pp 4160,here p 44; see also Sunderland, Taming the Wild Field, p 17; for a discussion of Russias early steppepolicy and its origins within the political traditions of the Golden Horde, see Khodarkovsky, RussiasSteppe Frontier, especially pp 4675.

9 Sunderland,Taming the Wild Field, p 35; Ronald G. Suny, The empire strikes out. Imperial Russia, nationalidentity, and theories of empire, in: Suny and Martin,A State of Nations, pp 2366, here p 3; Khodarkovsky,Russias Steppe Frontier, pp 226; Breyfogle, Schrader and Sunderland, Peopling the Russian Periphery, p 2.

10 Khodarkovsky,Russias Steppe Frontier, pp 184 and 192. For early Russian projects regarding the Caucasus seeRagsdale,Russian Projects; Peter Stegnij, Noch einmal uber das griechische Projekt Katharinas II,Mitteilun-gen des Osterreichischen StaatsarchivsVol 50, 2003, pp 87111; Edgar Hosch, Das sogenannte griechischeProjekt Katharinas IL. Ideologie und Wirklichkeit der russischen Orientpolitik in der zweiten Halfte des 18.Jahrhunderts,Jahrbucher fur Geschichte Osteuropas Vol 12, No 2, 1964, pp 168 206. On the geopolitical pro-jects of G.A. Potemkin see O.I. Eliseeva,Geopoliticheskie proekty G. A. Potemkina (Moskva: IRI RAN, 2000).

11 On the Black Sea trade and Circassian participation in it see Alan Fisher, A Precarious Balance: Conflict,Trade, and Diplomacy on the Russian-Ottoman Frontier(Istanbul: Isis, 1999); T.V. Polovinkina,Cherkesiia Bol moia. Istoricheskii ocherk (drevneishee vremia nachalo XX v.)(Maikop: GURIPP Adygea, 2001),pp 2979.

12 Lapin thus states that until the 1810s Russia generally did not plan to establish its control over Northern

Caucasian territory. V.V. Lapin, Ubedit nepokornye plemena v prevoschodstve nashego oruzhiia. . .

.Voennye plany pokoreniia Kavkaza, in: I.A. Gordin, ed.,Kavkaz i Rossiiskaia Imperiia: proekty, idei, illiuziii realnost. Nachalo XIX- nachalo XX vv (Sankt-Peterburg: Zvezda, 2005), pp 929, here p 9; Khodar-kovsky, Russias Steppe Frontier, p 199; one the first political projects dealing with Western Caucasianswas The opinion of admiral Mordvinov on the ways with the help of which it will be more convenientfor Russia to gradually attach to itself the Caucasian inhabitants, written in 1816, reproduced in:D. Romanovskii, Kavkaz i Kavkazskaia voina. Publichnye lektsii, prochitannye v zale Passazha v 1860godu generalnogo shtaba polkovnikom Romanovskim (Moskva: GPIB, 2004), pp 275282.

13 For the Treaty of Adrianople and subsequent Russian interpretations: Anita L.P. Burdett, ed., CaucasianBoundaries. Documents and Maps 1802 1946(Oxford: Archive Editions, 1996), pp 21 66.

14 Some of the plans and projects are reproduced in Gordin,Kavkaz i Rossiiskaia imperiia. The issue of Russiancolonial planning is here dealt with only in a precursory fashion, as it will be analyzed in greater detail in aseparate article.

15 RGVIA f. 38, op.1, d. 351, l. 62, l 66 ob.- 67.

16 Ibid., l 71.17 Ibid., l 144 144ob.18 Petr Chaikovskys proposal is located in RGVIA, f. 864, d. 18014, ch.3, l 13 14; for the proposal of 1863

written by a certain Iachontov see OR RGB f. 169,k.44, d. 33, citation l 2.19 RGVIA f. 38, op.1, d. 351, l 258-258ob., l 270-271ob., citation l 258.20 For a closer analysis of colonial policymaking concentrating on the period from 1856 to 1859 see Brooks,

Politics of the Conquest of the Caucasus, and Brooks, Russias Conquest; on Bariatinskiis influence withAlexander II see Alfred J. Rieber,The Politics of Autocracy. Letters of Alexander II to Prince A.I. Bariatinskii18571864 (Paris: Mouton, 1966 ), p 6162; Alexander II had already passed over the heads of severalimportant officials in appointing Bariatinskii as viceroy in the first place. See Rieber, The Politics of Auto-cracy, p 64; On Miliutins connections to the imperial family see for example D.A. Miliutin, Vospominaniiageneral-feldmarshala Dmitriia Alekseevicha Miliutina 18601862(Moskva: Rossiiskii Archiv, 1999), p 20.

21 D.A. Miliutin,Vospominaniia general-feldmarshala Dmitriia Alekseevicha Miliutina18561860(Moskva:Rosspen, 2004), p 335; Miliutin, Vospominaniia 18601862, p 99 101; Willis Brooks, The Russian military

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press in the reform era, in: David Schimmelpenninck Van der Oye and Bruce W. Menning, eds., Reformingthe Tsars Army. Military Innovation in Imperial Russia from Peter the Great to the Revolution (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press and Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2004), pp 107 132, here p 128.

22 On the replacement of Filipson see Miliutin, Vospominaniia 18601862, p 97, p 113. On the discussion of

harsh versus gentle measures in autumn 1860 and the difference of opinion between Filipson and Evdo-kimov, see Miliutin,Vospominaniia 18561860, pp 474 475. The fact that Evdokimov was assigned to workout the details of the plan has caused some confusion in historiography, so that Evdokimov is occasionallycredited with the authorship of the policy of final subjugation in Western Caucasus. See for exampleS. Esadze, Pokorenie zapadnogo Kavkaza i okonchanie Kavkazskoi voiny (Moskva: GPIB, 2004), p 351.

23 Miliutin, Vospominaniia 18601862, p 118.24 Polozhenie o zaselenii predgorii zapadnoi chasti Kavkazskago khrebta Kubanskimi kazakami i drugimi

pereselentsami iz Rossii, Voennyi sbornik, t 28, No 11, otd 1, 1862, p 235284. On Bariatinskiis earlypreparations for the final subjugation of Western Caucasus, that is, immediately after the pacificationof Eastern Caucasus in 1859 see AKAK T. XII, p 652 (Doc 568). See also Miliutin,Vospominaniia 18601862, p 119; A.L. Zisserman, Feldmarshal Kniaz A.I. Bariatinskii, Glava IX, Russkii Archiv 6, 1889,pp 237267, here pp 249250; A. Kh. Kasumov, Okonchanie Kavkazskoi voiny i vyselenie adygov vTurtsiiu, Kavkazskaja vojna: uroki istorii i sovremennost. Materialy nauchnoj konferentsii g. Krasnodar,1618 maja 1994 g (Krasnodar: Kubanskyi Gosudarstvennyi Universitet, 1995), pp 63 79, here p 68;A. Kh. Kasumov and Kh. A. Kasumov, Genotsid Adygov(Nalchik: Logos, 1992), p 149.

25 R.A. Fadeev,Kavkazskaia voina(Moskva: Eksmo, 2005) (reprint, originally published in 1864 1865), here p187. For the Freud-based interpretation of the inconsistency characteristic of the perpetrators response totheir own violence see Slavoj Zizek,Violence. Six Sideways Reflections(London: Profile, 2009 (2008)), p 93.

26 O pereselenii kavkazskich gortsev v Turtsiju,Voennyi sbornikt 39, No 10, otd III, 1864, pp 164168, cita-tion p 166; see also Polozhenie o zaselenii, p 262; In fact, parts of the land set aside consisted of swamps andunhealthy (malaria-infested) lowlands, see Polovinkina, Cherkesiia Bol moia, p 149. Letter by Kartsovcited according to A.P. Berzhe,Vyselenie gortsev s Kavkaza, reproduced in:Russkie avtory XIX veka o nar-odach centralnogo i severo-zapadnogo Kavkaza, T. 1(Nalchik: El-Fa, 2001), pp 279316, here p 295. Thesecond letter is from November 10, 1863, reproduced in R. Kh. Tuganov, ed., Tragicheskie posledstviiaKavkazskoi voiny dlia Adygov. Vtoraia polovina XIX-nachalo XX veka. Sbornik dokumentov i materialov(Nalchik: El-Fa, 2000), p 81.

27 See Polozhenie o zaselenii, p 262 264, citation p 263. Another fact that has to be taken into account is that

there was only free land on the Prikuban steppe in so far as it had been vacated by the Nogais, a nomadicgroup of Tatar origin living on pastoralism, which increasingly came under pressure by the Russian coloniza-tion of the region. On the Nogai migrations see Williams, Hijra, pp 9498, and Polozhenie o zaselenii, p264. According to some calculations, Cossacks received as much as 1012 times the share than was awardedto re-settled natives, see Z. Kumykov, Vopros o vyselenii Adygov v Turtsiju v 50-60-ch godach XIX veka vistoricheskom Kavkazovedenii, Nalchik1998, p 20; I. Abramov, Kavkazskie gortsy, Materialy po istoriicherkesskogo naroda, Kiev 1991, pp 5386, here p 74; The stereotype that the local way of securing oneslivelihood consisted of raiding ones neighbors was common in Russian ethnographic descriptions of North-ern Caucasians (see also part IV on Enlightenment anthropology).

28 Tuganov,Tragicheskie, p 156, citation p 249. Polovinkina, Cherkesiia, p 181. According to Polovinkina,some of the regulations actually set forth requested that any inhabitant obtain a written permit beforeleaving his village, even if it was only for hunting (Ibid., p 181); G.A. Dzagurov, Pereselenie gortsev vTurtsiiu. Materialy po istorii gorskikh narodov(Rostov na Don: Sevkavkniga, 1925), citation p 16.

29 See for example S. Ivanov, O sblizhenii gortsev s Russkimi na Kavkaze,Voennyi sbornikt 7, No 6, 1859,

ch. neoff., pp 541549; N. Avgustinovich, Po povodu stati: O sblizhenii gortsev s Russkimi na Kavkaze,Voennyi sbornikt 8, No 7, 1859, ch. neoff., pp 201214; see also Ustroistvo Kubanskoi oblasti, VoennyiSbornikt 48, No 4, 1866, otd. III, pp 168170.

30 Miliutin,Vospominaniia 1856 1860, p 449; Polozhenie o zaselenii, p 264. For the lacanian concept oflure see Slavoj Zizek,The Parallax View (Cambridge: MIT Press 2006), p 304.

31 Fadeev, describing the military actions taking place in the Transkuban region writes: The mountaineers hadto be exterminated by half, in order to make the other half lay down its arms. Fadeev, Kavkazskaia voina,p187; citation: Tuganov, Tragicheskie, p 198. See also the document (ibid. p 40), stating that out-settlingthem from their mountain dens to the plain can be achieved in no different way than by the use of force.On the Russian practice of bribing individual Circassians to boost the migrations see A. Kh. Sheudzhen,ed.,Zemlia Adygov(Maikop: Adygea, 2004), p 181; Tuganov,Tragicheskie, p 228; Polovinkina,Cherkesiia,p 168.

32 Miliutin himself described these as characterized by merciless severity, see Tuganov,Tragicheskie, p 56;M.I. Veniukov, K istorii zaseleniia Zapadnogo Kavkaza, Russkaia starina t XXII, 1878, pp 249270,


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citation p 249. On the brutality of the Russian campaign see also A. Fonvill, Poslednyi god voiny Cherkessiiza nezavisimost 1863 1864 g. iz zapisok uchastnika-inostrantsa, especially p 37, and I. Abramov,Kavkazskie gortsy, especially p. 60, both reproduced as V. Dudko, ed., Poslednyi god voiny Cherkessiiza nezavisimost 1863 1864 gg. Kavkazskie gortsy (Kiev: UO MSHK MADPR, 1991).

33 See the report reproduced in T. Kh. Kumykov, Vyselenie Adygov v Turtsiiu posledstvie Kavkazskoi voiny(Nalchik: Elbrus, 1994), pp 47 76.

34 Tuganov,Tragicheskie, pp 8082, p 173; Polozhenie o zaselenii, pp 277278. For more details on thesecommittees and their work see the documents reproduced in Kumykov, Vyselenie.

35 Jersild, Orientalism, p 24; Abramov, Kavkazskie gortsy, pp 5960; N. Bereedzh, Izgnaniia Cherkesov(Prichiny i