Potential vectors of migration activity in the Central Caucasus in the second half of the XVIII-th century: ethnosocial aspect
https://doi.org/10.31143/2542-212X-2025-4-45-60
EDN: AFZYOJ
Abstract
From the second half of the XVIII-th century, began a process of large-scale transformation of the common system of social relations in the Central Caucasus, which involved Kabarda and its immediate social environment. The reasons were both endogenous (the crisis of feudal public institutions in Kabarda, the antagonism between the interests of the Kabardian aristocracy and the highlanders of the Central Caucasus) and exogenous in nature – change in the foreign policy status of the region, strengthening of military-political pressure, administrative regulation by the Russian Empire. The result was the actualization of migration processes as a way of resolving crisis phenomena in the system of ethnosocial relations of a hierarchical nature that connected all population groups of the region. One of the vectors of migration activity was the desire of a part of the underprivileged classes of Kabarda to organize resettlement beyond the border of the Russian Empire institutionalized in 1777-1778. The spontaneous flight of representatives of the dependent classes of Kabarda to Russian territory became another form of migration activity that threatened the demographic and socio-political stability of the region. In the border areas of the Kabardian appanage principalities with the highlanders of the Central Caucasus, local migrations also occurred, leading to changes in ethnic boundaries and the formation of uninhabited exclusion zones. By the end of the XVIII-th century, the general crisis of ethnosocial relations in the Central Caucasus initiated the Sharia movement as a way to overcome the crisis phenomena and the beginning of the migration activity of Kabardians directed to the Eastern Trans-Kuban region.
About the Author
Zaurbek A. Kozhev
Institute for the Humanities Research – Affiliated Kabardian-Balkarian Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Head of the Department of Medieval and Modern History at the Institute of History and Archaeology of the Kabardian Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences
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Review
For citations:
Kozhev Z.A. Potential vectors of migration activity in the Central Caucasus in the second half of the XVIII-th century: ethnosocial aspect. Kavkazologiya. 2025;(4):45-60. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.31143/2542-212X-2025-4-45-60. EDN: AFZYOJ
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