A Brief History of the Caucasus

Theodor Horschelt, The Surrender of Shamil (1863)

The Caucasus mountains have been a site of conflict for centuries as the Russian Empire, then the Soviet Union and, in recent years, the Russian Federation, have all attempted to exercise control over the local tribes whose villages occupy territory that the Russians regard as strategic to their interests in the region.



Tolstoy immortalized the struggle of the Russians with the Chechen people in his late novel Hadji Murad.



The Caucasus mountains are not only a land of imperial ambitions and resistance but also of rugged physical beauty.



It is a land of warriors and dervishes and, yes, even warrior-dervishes.