33 Conquest and Exile186 7, when he was removed and Mingrelia became part of Kutaisi
province.^163 After 185 9 the Chechens resided in several districts
(Chechen, Argun, Nagornyi, and Ichkeriia) of Terek oblast, which
were in turn divided into sections (uchastki) and administered by a
Russian police officer (pristav).^164 Kuban oblast covered the northwest
Caucasus and the lands of the Adygei tribes. Khanstvos, naibstvos,
and other forms of local rule were gradually becoming okrugs within
oblasts as the imperial administration extended its practices onto the
southern frontier of the Caucasus.
The mix of motives, ambitions, and fears that signified “poddan-
stvo” for frontier elites was most evident in this time of transition, a
process perhaps similar to the transition from indirect to direct colo-
nial rule of tribal and patrimonial societies described by Michael
Doyle in his comparative work on empires.^165 Prince Mikhail
Shervashidze and his family, the Abkhaz ruling family, were out-
raged by the turn of events begun in 1864. “[I]n his words, he had
been driven out of Abkhazia like some sort of Ubykh,” he told impe-
rial envoy Prince D.I. Sviatopolk-Mirskii.^166 Shervashidze’s defence
was the customary mix of the desperate plea, the appeal to past loy-
alty and service, and a few mild threats. “I fulfilled the will of the tsar
and passed on the administration of my domains to my successors,”
he justified himself to Sviatopolk-Mirskii.^167 And in the course of
forty years of service, he added on another occasion, he had been
“significantly useful to the Russian throne.”^168 His children’s only de-
fence was an appeal to their status as “the first family in this land.”^169
Sviatopolk-Mirskii, however, was unmoved and felt no need to ne-
gotiate. Change was necessary “for the preservation of state interests
and general peace” in Abkhazia, he explained.^170 He wrote to Viceroy
Grand Duke Mikhail without remorse over the transition, adding that
the conquest of the west Caucasus finally made it possible. Imperial
officials, however, were themselves products of the “old regime” sys-
tem, where the state rewarded and sometimes penalized its nobility
as it saw fit. Sviatopolk-Mirskii was also a “prince,” and he commu-
nicated his general respect for noble privilege throughout this ex-
change through the fall and winter of 1864–65. And as an experienced
borderland official, he also recognized the potential treachery of the
frontier. He recommended against exile abroad for Shervashidze,
which might easily become “harmful for us,” and instead placed the
ruling family in nearby Imeretia (Georgia).^171
The desperate appeal of the surviving family members of the Kazi-
Kumukh and Kiurin khanstvo in Dagestan was similar to that of the
Shervashidze children from Abkhazia. The daughter of the last khan
was virtually impoverished by 1883 in Temir-Khan-Shura, from