East European History

4-12

Authors: Sergei Bogdanov, Vladimir Ostapuk

This study examines the dynamics, basic tendencies and territorial peculiarities of deaths caused by homicides in the provinces of the European part of Russia for the period of 1870–1893. The article presents an overview of the scientific literature on the problems of the depopulation, caused by murders in the Russian Empire. The empirical bases of the study are the Vremenniki “Sudden and violent deaths in the Russian Empire” – publications of the Central Statistical Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The grouping of deaths by gender, place of residence (urban and rural areas) is analyzed in this work. It contains data on the murder victims in the largest cities of the European part of the country, the Russian Empire provinces are sorted by the annual number of deaths from homicides. The growth rates of the urban and rural population of the European Russia provinces are compared to the rate of homicides in the comparable area in terms of large and profound social changes that followed the abolition of serfdom. It is suggested that the numbers of official crime statistics did not always coincide with the Zemstvo’s statistics of murders, usually by the underestimation of this index in the police reports. The deductions of the correlation of the rates of homicides and social modernization that unfolded in the country after the fall of serfdom are presented in the conclusion.

19-25

Authors: Nugzar Ter-Oganov

Haji-Murat Magometovich Muguev was a well-known soviet writer, the author of more than hundred literary works in Russian. He is the author of numerous verses, short stories, articles, narratives and novels. The episodes of his military past, full of adventures, as well as of those historical events in which he personally participated, served as topics for his many literary works. Generally, they are presenting a vivid account of the events that were taking place on the fronts of WWI, the Civil War in Russia, and WWII. The intention of this paper is not to analyze the value or the artistic features of his works. Our objective is modest: to reveal to a broad circle of the researchers some unknown facts from Haji-Murat Muguev's life, related to the early period of his mysterious military career. It would help researchers to fill the gap in his biography and disclose some unknown details of the activities of General Baratov's corps in Iran during WWI. To this end, we examined sources of information which absolutely unexpectedly brought to light important aspects of the biography of this undoubtedly outstanding personality. Muguev had two sons, Nicolas and Boris, both of whom graduated from the Commercial and Military colleges in Tiflis, and served as officers in the same Terskii Cossack troops during WWI. The younger son Boris Muguev had been serving at the Gorsko-Mozdokskii regiment. He took part in the military operations on the "Persian front", which was a constituent part of the Caucasian front. In conclusion, with a high portion of confidence we can argue that Haji-Murat was not only a literary pseudonym but also an assumed name of the Russian Intelligence officer Boris Afanas'ievich Muguev whose life was tightly bound with the dramatic events that took place on the Caucasian front during WWI.