Suchergebnisse

The article focuses on the latest findings of the study on the Caspian foreign policy direction of the Russian Empire under Peter the Great. The heuristic work in the federal and regional archives of Russia helped to identify and introduce to academia over 300 original documents that allow to study the Russian policy in the south-western areas of the Caspian Sea in the first third of the 18th century, which became Russian territories after the Persian campaign. Detailed analysis of sources on the Persian campaign and stationing of Russian troops in the Caspian region, first in historiography, revealed the most unrenowned subjects and allowed to study those using newly discovered documented data with the application of new methodological approaches.
The author studies the administrative practice in the Russian Empire in the Caspian region in 1722–1735, showing the challenges of governing the region associated with the natural and geographical aspects, the remoteness of the region from the main part of the state and the ethno-political structure of the annexed territories. The Persian campaign of Peter the Great resulted in the emergence of a Russian-Turkish frontier in the eastern Transcaucasia,
which separated the historically developed Caucasian and Persian communities disregardi­ng their economic traditions and ethnocultural contacts, leading to a complex and volatile frontier situation in the region. The study of the behavioural actions of various actors in the frontier region allowed to determine their attitude to the emergence of the Russian and Ottoman empires in the Western Caspian region. The author analyses the specifics of the dual administrative system established in Derbent after it was annexed to Russia in 1722, where both a representative of the local authority via the naib and the imperial commandant performed administrative functions. For the first time in Caucasian studies, the article reconstructs the image of Peter the Great in the historical memory of Dagestanis of the present and of the time of the campaign.
As a result of the project, two these and a collection of archive documents and materials have been published.

A historiographical analysis of the events of the Petrine era in the Caucasus demonstrates that the problem of personal contacts of Tsar Peter I with the ruling elites of Dagestan during his campaign in 1722 remains one of the poorly developed historical aspects. The tsar's personal contacts with foreign elites were part of his imperial policy of expanding the territories of the Russian state, involving new subjects in the sphere of the political and legal space of the empire, ensuring their loyalty in the conditions of multi-ethnicity and political fragmentation of the Caucasus. Such ensuring was achieved by involving local elites in the social structure of the empire, in its economic system. Peter the Great's contacts with the Dagestan rulers took place during the Persian expedition – his last major foreign policy campaign, as a result of which the southwestern Caspian region was briefly conquered and annexed to the Russian Empire. The conducted study made it possible to identify the reason that determined the pro-Russian position of one or another Dagestan ruler, their attitude to Peter I, in particular. The contacts of the parties were accompanied by giving each other expensive gifts, awarding ranks to the ruling elite that had passed into Russian citizenship, confirmation in positions, assignment of salaries to its representatives, etc. The study is based on the analysis of retrospective documentary information collected from documents of scientific archives of Russia and historiographical sources. The source base of the study, in addition to archival documents, are the materials of direct participants and eyewitnesses of the meeting of Peter I and a number of Dagestani rulers: "The War Diary of 1722", compiled in the middle of the XIX century based on the diary entries of Peter I, travel notes of the Scottish doctor J. Bell and Artillery Captain Peter Bruce. The last two sources in this study are used in the original.

The accession of Derbent to the Russian Empire as a result of the Persian campaign of Peter the Great and being the part of it until 1735 is one of the important milestones in the centuries-old history of Derbent. The peaceful process of joining the city to the empire was greatly facilitated by the political position and activities of the city ruler in the person of Naib Imam Kuli-bek, who decided not to resist the imperial troops and peacefully surrender the city to Tsar Peter the Great. Being approved by Peter I in the same position, Naib developed an active political activity with the imperial authorities, demonstrated timely concern for protecting the city from attacks by mountaineers and providing food for the townspeople, shared managerial and judicial functions with the Russian commandant A.T. Junger. The study of the political activities of Naib Imam Kuli-bek, the nature of his relationship with the Russian central and regional authorities makes it possible to deepen and expand historical knowledge about the events in Derbent, and in the Eastern Caucasus as a whole, related to imperial policy in the region in the first third of the 18th century. However, a special study of the activities of Naib Imam Kuli-bek in domestic historiography has not yet been undertaken, which is the reason for the relevance of the present study. The article aims to analyze the activities of the Naib in building relations with the new imperial government, integrating Derbent into the political, legal and economic space of the Russian Empire; show cases demonstrating loyalty (loyal speech, offering a key, honoring the monarch, a visit to the imperial court) on the part of the Naib, and power and favor (approval in office, rank, gifts, awards) on the part of sovereigns. The study has been prepared on the basis of an analysis of available works and a wide range of documentary data from the collections of federal and regional archives, a significant part of which is being introduced into science for the first time.

A number of scientific publications with the involvement of a wide range of sources and materials have been devoted to the study of ethno-demographic processes and religious composition of Derbent. However, this issue cannot be considered fully understood. The problem of the ethnic and religious composition of the city of Derbent in the medieval era and modern times has not been studied in a wider period with the involvement of archive material. A more complete picture of the ethno-confessional composition of Derbent can be reconstructed basing on data of a different nature of sources, including narrative sources and archival documents. The present paper aims to recreate the most complete and objective picture of the formation of the ethno-confessional composition of Derbent in the context of the events of foreign-policy of the region that took place from the 6th and up to the 19th century. The author proposes an upper chronological bound, based on the study of ethnographers M.-R.A. Ibragimov and M.M. Magomedkhanov on the ethno-confessional composition of Derbent in the end of the 19th – early 21st century, which is based on the population census. The article presents a reasoned author's opinion regarding the ethnic composition of Derbent's population in the Sasanian, Arabic, Seljuk and pre-Mongol periods. The study conducted shows that the ethno-religious processes of the medieval Derbent were significantly influenced by the events of the foreign political nature in the region: in different time periods, depending on the foreign policy situation, the specific gravity of one or another ethnic component changed, representatives of one or another confession dominated in the city. With the beginning of the Seljuk era, an active process of Turkification of Derbent's population started, which continued over following periods. As a result, according to the household lists of 1886, ¾ of the city's population were Turks (modern Azerbaijanis), the rest ¼ part was composed of the Jews, Armenians and Russians.