RUSSIAN—MUSLIM CONFRONTATION IN THE CAUCASUS

This book presents two important texts, The Shining of Daghestani Swords by al-Qarakhi and a new translation for a contemporary readership of Lev Tolstoi’s Hadji Murat, illuminating the mountain war between the Muslim peoples of the Caucasus and the imperial Russian army from 1830 to 1859. The editors offer a complete commentary on the various intellectual and religious contexts that shaped the two texts and explain the historical significance of the Russian—Muslim confrontation. It is shown that the mountain war was a clash of two cultures, two religious outlooks and two different worlds. The book provides an important background to the ongoing contest between Russia and indigenous people for control of the Caucasus. The two translations are accompanied by short introductions and by a longer commentary intended for readers who desire a broader introduction to the tragic conflict in the Caucasus whose effects still reverberate in the twenty-first century.

Thomas Sanders is Associate Professor of Russian History at the U.S. Naval Academy. Ernest Tucker is Associate Professor of Middle East History at the U.S. Naval Academy Gary Hamburg is Behr Professor of European History, Claremont—McKenna College, U.S., specializing in the cultural and intellectual history of imperial Russia.