Slavery: Theory and Practice

3-3

Authors: Aleksandr A. Cherkasov

The report describes the establishment of the First International competition for the best research work among scientific and pedagogical staff “Slavery in the past and present”. The organizers were East European Historical Society, International Network Center for Fundamental and Applied Research (Washington, USA), and also KAD International (Effiduase-Koforidua, Eastern Region, Ghana). On December 20, 2020, the competition committee summed up the results of the competition and called the best 5 competitive works from the following countries: USA, Russia, Slovakia, Ghana.

19-36

Authors: Michal Šmigeľ

In the study we attempt to examine the changing manifestations of the Circassian slave trade in the 13th–19th centuries with the focus mainly on women as the "live goods". Caucasian women, and especially the Circassian women, represented a "special export items" in the countries of the (Eastern) Mediterranean. Their beauty has been recognized and valued for centuries by almost all travellers and discoverers of the Caucasus, and they were in great demand in the slave markets of the Middle East. These questions are examined in the study: since and to what extent the Circassians participated in the slave trade, what led to the practice of this kind of trade, how it was perceived by the objects of the trade themselves, and what were the consequences of the female slave trade. The topicality of research theme lies in its focus on the female element of the slave trade. The heuristics of the study consist of recently published documents and scientific publications which are the outcomes of the Russian and European research. Materials of personal character were also an important source of information (diaries, travelogues and publications of travellers, emissaries and researchers of the Caucasus from the 16th–19th century, especially from the period of the Caucasus War /1817–1864/). The methodological basis of the research consists of the principles of objectivity and historicism, a critical approach to the historical sources, analysis of the summary of facts and also monitoring of the studied phenomena in the context of their development and historical situation. An interdisciplinary approach was also used in studying the issue. The author concludes that since the 13th century the Circassians have adopted the mechanisms of the Black Sea slave trade and later they have penetrated the markets of the Black Sea-Mediterranean slave trade. The slave trade (and especially female slave trade) gained the largest scale in the North Caucasus in the 18th century. It was caused by the increased demand for "live goods" in the Eastern markets, especially in the Ottoman Empire. Circassian women were highly valued. Paradoxically, many Caucasian women humbly accepted the possibility of being sold into slavery. Under the Ottomans, concubinage became such a widespread phenomenon that it was even considered a kind of "sociocultural lift", a way out of poverty, a way of getting out of poor living conditions in the homeland. The slave trade in the Caucasus had negative consequences for highland societies and caused great demographic, economic, cultural and moral damage.

50-62

Authors: Artyom Yu. Peretyatko

The paper is dedicated to the problem of perception, by the Don Cossacks of 19th-beginning of 20th century, of serfdom on the territory of the Don Host. By this time traditional images of Cossack as a defender of Russian land (i.e., the denizens of this land) and/or natural advocate of democracy had already formed. Understandably, the fact of spreading of, at first, slavery, and later serfdom among Cossacks did not correspond in any way with such images, and this contradiction even moved one of the first professional Don historians, P.P. Sakharov, to write a special research dedicated to «white slavery» (his original term) on Don. However, analyzing the works of other Don authors on serfdom in the Don Host, we came to conclusion, that for Cossacks was common not the admittance of responsibility for subjugating part of Russian peasants, but, on the contrary, an idealization of the corresponding chapters of Cossack past. The majority of authors either at all did not evaluate the existence of serfdom on Don, or emphasized its relative easiness. Eventually this tendency built up, culminating in manifestation of a concept, according to which peasants consciously fled for Don to become dependents of Don officials, who established them good conditions. And even if separate instances of master’s cruelty were admitted, they were attributed to a narrow circle of Don’s high nobility, detached from the Cossack bulk. Thereby the example of Don authors’ perception of «white slavery» serves an apt illustration of how masters of dependent populace and their descendants vindicate themselves. Within the logical boundaries of most works we considered, former serfs in general mass did not suffer from their standing. And if individual authors stated the falsity of such perception, their works shortly after appearing were subjected to criticism.

74-86

Authors: Konstantin V. Taran

The article deals with the complex process of dialogue between the Russian Empire and the peoples of the Caucasus in the fight against the slave trade in the first half of the XIX century. There were used as materials the documents of the state archive of the Krasnodar Krai (Krasnodar, Russian Federation), as well as several volumes of the published collection of documents “Acts of the Caucasian Archeographic Commission”, the collection of documents of the Raevsky archive, the latest collection of documents “Circassian slave narratives” and others. Various materials of personal origin are of great importance in the research: diaries and memoirs of travelers, scouts and emissaries. The specialized military literature was also used. The work was widely used the descriptive and chronological methods, which allowed to detail the picture of the Russian administration's opposition to the slave trade of the Caucasian tribes and to consider the events in chronological order. In conclusion, we would like to note that during the entire Caucasian war, the Russian Empire tried to prevent the slave trade on the territory of the North-Western Caucasus. Already in the early XIX century, the cruising by Russian military vessels of the Black sea coast was organized. The effectiveness of Russian warships in the fight against smuggling and the slave trade was low, due to the insignificance of the Black sea squadron. In the second half of the 1830s, the Russian government began to create fortifications of the Black sea coastline, whose activities were aimed at suppressing the slave trade. However, even this measure, despite a number of positive aspects (the flight of slaves to the Russian fortresses and a significant peaceful dialogue between the Russians and the highlanders), could not end the slave trade. As a result, the raids of the mountaineers with the aim of capturing “live goods” continued in the North-Western Caucasus until 1864, up to muhajirism.

96-99

Authors: Yulia M. Lysenko

The article briefly describes the activities of the famous scientist, specialist in the medieval history of Dagestan Elena Ivanovna Inozemtseva. The author dwells in detail on her scientific and organizational activities, her contribution to the study of the institute of slavery in Dagestan, and Russian-Dagestan relations. Inozemtseva is the author of more than 100 scientific works that have been widely recognized by specialists and the scientific community and have become a significant contribution of the scientist to historical science.