Naib Baysunghur of Benoy: modern myths and historical facts
https://doi.org/10.31162/2618-9569-2019-12-2-373-387
Abstract
The article deals with one of the most important and at the same time completely events in the biography of Baysungur of Benoy (1794–1861), the Chechen Naib during the Caucasian War of the 19th cent., namely his stay at Ghunib (August 1859) and his personal presence at the capture of Imam Shamil. This episode has recently attracted much attention and became a subject of various speculations both with a scholarly and ideological background. The author based her research on a wide array of hitherto unknown as well as already published documents. The latter, however, have not received enough attention. The unpublished sources originate from the Russian State Military Historical Archive (Moscow), the State Archive of the Kaluga Region, the Central State Archive of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, etc. This cornucopea of rich historical data allows her to reconstruct in detail the very last period of the Imam Shamil State and to successfully put it within the framework of the and political situation in the Caucasus in 1859. A detailed analysis of numerous local sources, which are written in Arabic and directly originate from the Imam Shamil environment as well as the papers from the headquarters of the Russian Imperial Caucasian Army leads to a convincing conclusion regarding the whereabouts of Naib Baysungur in August 1859. It proves that at that time he was definitively away from Ghunib.
About the Author
P. I. Takhnaeva
Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Federation
Patimat I. Takhnaeva, Ph. D (Hist.), Senior Research Fellow, the Centre for the Study of Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Ural-Volga Region
Russian Federation
Patimat I. Takhnaeva, Ph. D (Hist.), Senior Research Fellow, the Centre for the Study of Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Ural-Volga Region
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Review
For citations:
Takhnaeva P.I. Naib Baysunghur of Benoy: modern myths and historical facts. Minbar. Islamic Studies. 2019;12(2):373-387. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.31162/2618-9569-2019-12-2-373-387
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