Conclusion: Empire
and Nativism in
the Russian Caucasus
And indeed, were not [the interests of Russia and Georgia] one
and the same? Those were the years of the terrible battle with
Shamil, and all Georgians, with just a few exceptions, considered
it their duty to bring about a Russian victory.
Akaki Tsereteli, 1894–1909^1“God forbid,” wrote Nikolai Raevskii to Minister of War Chernyshev
in 18 41, “that the conquest of the Caucasus might leave a similar
bloody legacy to Russian history, such as that left by [Pizarro and
Cortés] to the history of Spain.”^2 In such criticism of Russia’s violent
and coercive relationship toward the North Caucasus, Raevskii and
other officials took their cue from literary figures such as Aleksandr
Pushkin. The lives of the two individuals indeed intersected.
Pushkin’s trip with the Raevskii family through the Caucasus and
Crimea in the spring and summer of 1820 served as the inspiration
for Prisoner of the Caucasus. Pushkin became close to Nikolai and once
served in StPetersburg with his brother, Aleksandr Raevskii. The two
Raevskii daughters, Ekaterina Nikolaevna and Mariia Nikolaevna,
married the Decembrists M.O. Orlov and S.G. Volkonskii.^3 On the
southern frontier the rethinking of the tradition of Russian autocracy
went hand in hand with the posing of new questions about the heri-
tage and purpose of empire.
Yet both Pushkin and Raevskii belonged to their time. Even as they
explored the possibilities of primitive nobility, Romantic writers
viewed conquest and the civilizing process as an inevitable part of
the inevitable expansion of the Russian Empire. Even Joseph Conrad,
as Said points out, was unable to imagine an alternative to European
rule over the Congo. Raevskii remained a strong advocate of Russian
expansion and was eventually enamoured of the Pan-Slavs and
General Cherniaev. Conquest, however, was not simply war and co-
ercive exile; it was to have a well-defined purpose and mission. This