112 Orientalism and Empirehis own mother to the people of Dargo. “Weak, like all woman,”
Shamil said of his mother, “she submitted to their request and
wanted me to be well-disposed to these unfaithful Chechens.”^9 The
worse was yet to come: Allah had commanded Shamil to punish,
with a hundred lashes, the person who had informed him of the
“shameless suggestions” of the Chechens. “And this was, unfortu-
nately, my own mother,” the burdened Shamil told the crowd. He be-
gan to beat his own mother, who was senseless after five blows.
Dropping to his knees, after long and dramatic prayer, Shamil rose to
announce that Allah had permitted him to stand in for his mother
and receive the remaining ninety-five blows to the back. His Dargo
audience was then surprised to see him grant the four Chechen depu-
ties their lives and their freedom. “Return home,” he announced be-
fore the crowd, as in a parable from the life of Christ, “and instead of
an answer to the thoughtless request of your people, explain to them
everything that you have seen and heard here with your own eyes
and ears.”^10
A more famous source of information about Shamil was
M.Verderevskii’s dramatic rendition of the capture and imprison-
ment of the Chavchavadze and Orbeliani princesses in 1855.^11 The
commander of the Lezgin Line insisted that the details of the event be
communicated to the tsar himself.^12 But more significant was the
public fascination with the story. Verderevskii’s version was even
translated into English and published in London, and probably was
the most well known Russian contribution to this sort of popular
Orientalist genre.^13 To tantalize the Russian reader in the Caucasus,
Verderevskii excerpted the first three chapters in the main Tbilisi
newspaper, Kavkaz, in 1855. Advertisements in large type in that
newspaper announced the arrival of the complete edition.^14 In his in-
troduction to the drama Verderevskii informed those of “enlightened
contemporary society” that the following events would strike them
as “almost fairy-tale-like legends from a long-lost time of barbarism,”
similar to the “bloody horrors” that had accompanied the efforts of
European settlers to colonize the plains of North America.^15 These
events, however, took place nearby, “in the borderlands of immense
Russia.”^16
The Chavchavadze and Orbeliani families were among the most im-
portant in Georgia. The two princesses were the granddaughters of the
last spouse of the Georgian tsar, Giorgi xii. The Chavchavadze family
was especially well connected to the world of Russian letters.
Lermontov’s aunt, Praskovaia Akhverdova, was close to the family,
and he and many other Russian officers frequently visited the estate
while serving in the Caucasus. Nino, the daughter of Major Prince