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Zakariya al-Qazwini published ʿAjā'ib al-makhlūqāt wa gharā'ib al-mawjūdāt ("The Wonders of Creation", literally "Marvels of things created and miraculous aspects of things existing") in the 13th century, a book that was influential in early modern Islamic society. According to Qazwini's cosmology, the sky is held by God so that it does not fall on Earth. The Earth is considered flat (later Islamic scholars believed that it was round) and surrounded by a series of mountains —including Mount Qaf— that hold it in its place like pegs; the Earth is supported by the Kuyuthan that stands on Bahamut, a giant fish ( "Bahamūt") dwelling in a cosmic ocean; the ocean is inside a bowl that sits on top of an angel or jinn.
According to certain authors, the "Jabal Qaf" of Muslim cosmology is a version of Rupes Nigra, a mountain whose ascent —such as Dante's climbing of the Mountain of Purgatory, represents the pilgrim's progress through spiritual states.
In some Sufistic oral traditions, as conceived by Abd al-Rahman and Attar, Mount Qaf was considered as a realm of consciousness and the goal of a "murid". Hadda Sahib (d. 1903) is said to have visited Mount Qaf in one night and was greeted by the king of peris.
"Mount Qaf" (original Turkish title "Kafdağı") is also the title of a novel by Turkish author Müge İplikçi.
Mount Qaf is frequently referenced in the 1001 Nights as a home of jinn.
The Treaty of Zuhab (, "Ahadnāmah Zuhab"), also called Treaty of Qasr-e Shirin (), was an accord signed between the Safavid Empire and the Ottoman Empire on May 17, 1639. The accord ended the Ottoman-Safavid War of 1623–1639 and was the last conflict in almost 150 years of intermittent wars between the two states over territorial disputes. It can roughly be seen as a confirmation of the previous Peace of Amasya from 1555.
The treaty confirmed the dividing of territories in West Asia priorly held by the Safavids, such as the permanent parting of the Caucasus between the two powers, in which East Armenia, eastern Georgia, Dagestan, and Azerbaijan stayed under the control of the Safavid Empire, while western Georgia and most of Western Armenia came fully under Ottoman rule. It also included all of Mesopotamia (including Baghdad) being irreversibly ceded to the Ottomans, as well as Safavid-controlled eastern Samtskhe (Meskheti), making Samtskhe in its entirety an Ottoman possession. With the Treaty of Zuhab, Eastern Armenia remained for more than eight decades under Safavid Rule, who separated it into two administrative regions: Erivan Province and Karabakh Province.
The Reichskommissariat Kaukasus (), also spelled as Kaukasien, was the theoretical political division and planned civilian occupation regime of Germany in the conquered territories of the Caucasus during World War II. Unlike the other four planned Reichskommissariats, within the borders of the proposed Caucasus "Reichskommissariat" experiments were to be conducted for various forms of autonomy for "indigenous groups".
Reichskommissariat Kaukasus theoretically included all of Transcaucasia and Ciscaucasia (the North Caucasus), as well as parts of Southern Russia as far as the Volga river. Major cities to be included were among others Rostov, Krasnodar and Maykop in the west, Stavropol, Astrakhan, Elista, Makhachkala in the east, and Grozny, Nalchik, Vladikavkaz, Yerevan and Baku in the south. Civil administration of the territory was to be in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Rosenberg eventually suggested that the post of the Commissar/Resident should go to party journalist, and his long-time friend and a fellow Baltic German, "Stabsleiter" Arno Schickedanz, while he recommended Hermann Göring, as the Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan, to appoint a head of an "oil commission" to work alongside the Commissar. Dr Hermann Neubacher, the former mayor of Vienna and then a special envoy to the puppet Hellenic State, was to function alongside Schickedanz on the region's economic matters. Schickedanz reportedly spent considerable time examining sketches of his future palace in Tbilisi and discussing the number of gates it would need.
Planners theorised about a possible advance to western Kazakhstan to secure the eastern frontiers. German plans to capture western Kazakhstan certainly existed as railway nets and territories in west Central Asian countries lay along lines of advance to the Middle East in order to aid the Afrika Korps in the African Campaign, with the additional purpose of seizing Persia.
There was a power struggle between Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem, and Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, ex-Prime Minister of Iraq, for the control and political objectives of Arab units (also known as ""Legion Freier Araber" or "Arabian Korps""). It was sent to the Caucasus region in September 1942 for the planned invasion of the Arab lands and saw action against the Red Army.
This planning did not advance much further than preliminary discussions and paper planning, due to the advance of Red Army forces during the war. Historian Norman Rich asserts that the short duration of the German occupation in the Caucasus means that the policies which the Germans implemented give little indication as to the long-term future of the region if it had been brought under firm Axis control.
The Reichskommissariat Kaukasien was planned to be administratively divided between the following seven "Generalkommissariate". These were sub-divided into a number of "Sonderkommissariaten" ("special districts") and "Kreiskommissariate", and those in turn into "Raions". The overall administrative seat was to be in Tbilisi/Tiflis.
30 Kreiskommissariate (83 Raions) including part of the Rostov region.
Generalkommissariat für die Gebiete der Bergvölker (Berg-Kaukasien).
30 Kreiskommissariate (93 Raions) incl. the Kizlyar region.
Sonderkommissariat Nord-Ossetien - Capital: Ordschonikidse - 3 Kreiskommissariate (10 Raions)
Sonderkommissariat Dagestan - Capital: Machatschkala - 10 Kreiskommissariate (32 Raions)
Sonderkommissariat Kabardino-Balkarien - 5 Kreiskommissariate (15 Raions)
Sonderkommissariat Karatschai - 2 Kreiskommissariate (6 Raions)
Sonderkommissariat Tscherkessien - 1 Kreiskommissariat (4 Raions)
Included the Kalmyk ASSR, the Astrakhan region and the southeastern part of the Rostov region.
The Treaty of Finckenstein, often spelled Finkenstein, was a treaty concluded between France and Persia (modern-day Iran) in the Finckenstein Palace (now Kamieniec, Poland) on 4 May 1807 and formalised the Franco-Persian alliance.
At the time the war commenced, the Safavid Empire was in a chaotic state under its weak ruler, Mohammad Khodabanda. In the resulting fighting, the Ottomans had managed to take most of the Safavid provinces of Azerbaijan (including the former capital Tabriz), Georgia (Kartli, Kakheti, eastern Samtskhe-Meskheti), Karabagh, Erivan, Shirvan and Khuzestan, despite Mohammad Khodabanda's initially successful counterattack. When Abbas I succeeded to the throne in 1588, the Safavid realm was still plagued by domestic issues, and thus the Ottomans managed to push further, taking Baghdad during that year and Ganja shortly after. Confronted by even more problems (i.e. civil wars, uprisings, and the war against the Uzbeks in the northeastern part of the realm), Abbas I agreed to sign a humiliating treaty with disadvantageous terms.
This treaty was a success for the Ottoman Empire, as vast areas had been annexed. However, the new status quo did not last for long. Abbas I would use the time and resources which resulted from the peace on the main front with the Ottomans, to successfully deal with the other issues (including the Uzbeks and other revolts), while waiting for a suitable moment to regain his possessions. When the Ottoman Empire during the reign of young sultan Ahmet I was engaged with the Celali revolts, he was able to regain most of his losses, which the Ottoman Empire had to accept in the Treaty of Nasuh Pasha, 22 years after this treaty.
The Caucasian-Mohammedan Legion (German: "Kaukasisch-Mohammedanische Legion") was a volunteer unit of the German Army. The Legion was created on January 13, 1942 by order of General Infantria Olbricht. The Legion consisted of Abkhazians, Circassians, Balkars, Karachais, Chechens, Ingushes, and the peoples of Daghestan. The Kurds, Talyshs and Ossetians appeared later. In accordance with the decree of February 19, 1942, volunteers from the peoples of the North Caucasus were August 2, 1942 allocated on a national-territorial basis separately to the North Caucasian Legion / Mountain-Caucasian Legion. The initial placement of the Legion was Wesel.
In October 1941, one for each of the Turkestan and Caucasian prisoners of war (the operation of the Abwehr "Tiger B") was created for the special purposes of Abwehr and controlled by the Stab Walli (in June of 1941, it consisted of 21 Abwehr commandos, at least 70 Abwehrgroups and many sabotage-intelligence schools) and subordinated to the two officers of the Abwehr, Major Andreas Meier Mader and Theodor Oberländer. Professor Oberleutnant Oberländer was the Head of the Department of Social Sciences department in Königsberg, Greifswald and Prague before the war. Oberleutnant Oberländer was also the political leader of the Nachtigall Battalion.
In 1943 the headquarters of the North Caucasian Legion was created in the town of Mirgorod of Poltava region under command of Lt. Col. Ristov. In the summer of 1944, the formation of the North Caucasian and Caucasian SS regiments began on the basis of 70 and 71 police battalions. At the end of the war in Northern Italy, the North Caucasian combat group joined the Caucasian Unity of the SS troops. The commander of the Standard Army of the SS, a former officer of the White Army Kuchuk Ulagay, joined the regiment as a regiment.
In addition to the reinforced 9 field battalions,1 battalion of the "Sonderverband "Bergmann"" (Special Unit "Miner") of the and one combat group of the Caucasian Waffen-SS unit, the natives of the North Caucasus were part of a separate Sonderkommando Schamil consisting of three groups of forces up to a platoon, three sapper, railway and road-building companies, as well as two serf regiments. According to the researcher Traho R. "The total number of North Caucasian volunteers since the beginning of the war against the USSR and until 1945 amounted to 28-30 thousand people".
The Stavropol Governorate was a governorate (province) of the Russian Empire. It roughly corresponded to most of present-day Stavropol Krai. It was created in 1847 out of the territories of Caucasian peoples and disbanded in Russian SFSR in 1924.
As of 1897, 873,301 people populated the oblast. Russians constituted the majority of the population. Significant minorities consisted of Ukrainians. Total Slavic population was 804,153 (92%)
The Sittaceni were an ancient people dwelling along the Palus Maeotis in antiquity. Strabo describes them as living among the Maeotae, Sindi, Dandarii, Toreatae, Agri, Arrechi, Tarpetes, Obidiaceni, Dosci, and Aspurgiani, among others (xi. 2. 11). Sittaceni is one of the Maeotae tribes, who lived in the 1st millennium BC on the east and the south-eastern coast of the Azov sea. In the "Great Soviet Encyclopedia", they were concluded to have been one of the ancestors to the Circassians. In the 4th–3rd centuries BC many of the Maeotae tribes were included into the Bosporan Kingdom.
The Caucasian War (; "Kavkazskaya vojna") of 1817–1864 was an invasion of the Caucasus by the Russian Empire which resulted in Russia's annexation of the areas of the North Caucasus, and the ethnic cleansing of Circassians. It consisted of a series of military actions waged by the Empire against the native peoples of the Caucasus including the Chechens, Adyghe, Abkhaz–Abaza, Ubykhs, Kumyks and Dagestanians as Russia sought to expand. Among the Muslims, resistance to the Russians was described as jihad.
Russian control of the Georgian Military Highway in the center divided the Caucasian War into the Russo-Circassian War in the west and the Murid War in the east. Other territories of the Caucasus (comprising contemporary eastern Georgia, southern Dagestan, Armenia and Azerbaijan) were incorporated into the Russian empire at various times in the 19th century as a result of Russian wars with Persia. The remaining part, western Georgia, was taken by the Russians from the Ottomans during the same period.
The Russian invasion encountered fierce resistance. The first period of the invasion ended coincidentally with the death of Alexander I and the Decembrist Revolt in 1825. It achieved surprisingly little success, especially compared with the then recent Russian victory over the "Grande Armée" of Napoleon in 1812.
Between 1825 and 1833, little military activity took place in the Caucasus against the native North Caucasians as wars with Turkey (1828/1829) and with Persia (1826–1828) occupied the Russians. After considerable successes in both wars, Russia resumed fighting in the Caucasus against the various rebelling native ethnic groups in the North Caucasus, and that was the start of the Caucasian genocide committed by Russians, most of the terminated people were from the Circassian nation.
Russian units again met resistance, notably led by Ghazi Mollah, Gamzat-bek, and Hadji Murad. Imam Shamil followed them. He led the mountaineers from 1834 until his capture by Dmitry Milyutin in 1859. In 1843, Shamil launched a sweeping offensive aimed at the Russian outposts in Avaria. On 28 August 1843, 10,000 men converged, from three different directions, on a Russian column in Untsukul, killing 486 men. In the next four weeks, Shamil captured every Russian outpost in Avaria except one, exacting over 2,000 casualties on the Russian defenders. He feigned an invasion north to capture a key chokepoint at the convergence of the Avar and Kazi-Kumukh rivers. In 1845, Shamil's forces achieved their most dramatic success when they withstood a major Russian offensive led by Prince Vorontsov.
During the Crimean War of 1853–1856, the Russians brokered a truce with Shamil, but hostilities resumed in 1855. Warfare in the Caucasus finally ended between 1856 and 1859, when a 250,000 strong army under General Baryatinsky broke the mountaineers' resistance.
The war in the Eastern part of the North Caucasus ended in 1859; the Russians captured Shamil, forced him to surrender, to swear allegiance to the Tsar, and then exiled him to Central Russia. However, the war in the Western part of the North Caucasus resumed with the Circassians (i.e. Adyghe, but the term is often used to include their Abkhaz–Abaza kin as well) resuming the fight. A manifesto of Tsar Alexander II declared hostilities at an end on June 2 (May 21 OS), 1864. Among post-war events, a tragic page in the history of the indigenous peoples of the North Caucasus (especially the Circassians), was Muhajirism, or population transfer of the Muslim population to the Ottoman Empire.
According to one source, the population in Greater and Lesser Kabarda decreased from 350,000, before the war, to 50,000 by 1818. According to another version, in 1790 the population was 200,000 people and in 1830 30,000 people. As a percentage of the total population of the North Caucasus, the number of the remaining Circassian Circassians was 40% (1795), 30% (1835) and 25% (1858). Similarly: Chechens 9%, 10% and 8.5%; Avars 11%, 7% and 2%; Dargins 9.5%, 7.3% and 5.8%; Lezghins 4.4%, 3.6% and 3.9% .
The Arrechi (Greek: ) were an ancient tribe of the Maeotae, on the east coast of the Palus Maeotis. (Strabo xi. 2. 11; Steph. B. "s. v."; Plin. vi. 7.) Strabo places them among the Maeotae, Sindi, Dandarii, Toreatae, Agri, Tarpetes, Obidiaceni, Sittaceni, Dosci, and Aspurgiani, among others. (Strab. "l.c.")
They are probably the same as the Arichi (Greek: ) of Ptolemy (v. 9. § 18).
The Arrechi is one of the Maeotae tribes, who lived in the 1st millennium BC on the east and the south-eastern coast of the Azov sea.
Russian scientists, archeologists, historians and ethnographers in the Soviet period it was concluded - Maeotae this is one of the names of the tribes Adyghe people (Circassians).
In the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, in the article about the Adyghe people, it is written,"Living in the basin of the river Kuban part of the tribes ([[Adyghe people]]), as a rule, be indicated (names) of ancient historians under the collective name 'Maeotae'."
In the article about the Maeotae), it says,"Maeotae were engaged in farming and fishing. Part of the Maeotae by the language was akin to the Adygs (Circassians), the part of the Iranians. In the 4th-3rd centuries BC many of Maeotae included in the composition of the [[Bosporan kingdom]]."
The Cimmerians (also Kimmerians; Greek: , "Kimmérioi") were a nomadic Indo-European people, who appeared about 1000 BC and are mentioned later in 8th century BC in Assyrian records. While the Cimmerians were often described by contemporaries as culturally "Scythian", they evidently differed ethnically from the Scythians proper, who also displaced and replaced the Cimmerians.
Probably originating in the Pontic-Caspian steppe, the Cimmerians subsequently migrated both into Western Europe and to the south, by way of the North Caucasus.
Some of them likely comprised a force that, c. 714 BC, invaded Urartu, a state subject to the Neo-Assyrian Empire. This foray was defeated by Assyrian forces under Sargon II in 705, after which the same, southern branch of Cimmerians turned west towards Anatolia and conquered Phrygia in 696/5. They reached the height of their power in 652 after taking Sardis, the capital of Lydia; however, an invasion of Assyrian-controlled Anshan was thwarted. Soon after 619, Alyattes of Lydia defeated them. There are no further mentions of them in historical sources, but it is likely that they settled in Cappadocia.
The origin of the Cimmerians is unclear. They are possibly related to either Iranian or Thracian speaking groups which migrated under pressure of the Scythian expansion of the 9th to 8th century BC.
According to Herodotus, the Cimmerians inhabited the region north of the Caucasus and the Black Sea during the 8th and 7th centuries BC (i.e. what is now Ukraine and Russia), although they have not been identified with any specific archaeological culture in the region.
The origin of the culture is associated with the Belozerskaya culture (12th to 10th centuries) and the later and more certain Novocerkassk (10th to 7th centuries BC) between the Danube and the Volga.
The use of the name "Cimmerian" in this context is due to Paul Reinecke, who in 1925 postulated a "North-Thracian-Cimmerian cultural sphere" ("nordthrakisch-kimmerischer Kulturkreis") overlapping with the younger Hallstatt culture of the Eastern Alps.
The term Thraco-Cimmerian ("thrako-kimmerisch") was first introduced by I. Nestor in the 1930s. Nestor intended to suggest that there was a historical migration of Cimmerians into Eastern Europe from the area of the former Srubnaya culture, perhaps triggered by the Scythian expansion, at the beginning of the European Iron Age. In the 1980s and 1990s, more systematic studies of the artifacts revealed a more gradual development over the period covering the 9th to 7th centuries BC, so that the term "Thraco-Cimmerian" is now rather used by convention and does not necessarily imply a direct connection with either the Thracians or the Cimmerians.
Austen Henry Layard's discoveries in the royal archives at Nineveh and Calah included Assyrian primary records of the Cimmerian invasion.
These records appear to place the Cimmerian homeland, "Gamir", south (rather than north) of the Black Sea.
The first record of the Cimmerians appears in Assyrian annals in the year 714 BC. These describe how a people termed the "Gimirri" helped the forces of Sargon II to defeat the kingdom of Urartu. Their original homeland, called "Gamir" or "Uishdish", seems to have been located within the buffer state of Mannae. The later geographer Ptolemy placed the Cimmerian city of "Gomara" in this region.
The Assyrians recorded the migrations of the Cimmerians, as the former people's king Sargon II was killed in battle against them while driving them from Persia in 705 BC.
The Cimmerians were subsequently recorded as having conquered Phrygia in 696–695 BC, prompting the Phrygian king Midas to take poison rather than face capture. In 679 BC, during the reign of Esarhaddon of Assyria (r. 681–669 BC), they attacked the Assyrian colonies Cilicia and Tabal under their new ruler Teushpa. Esarhaddon defeated them near Hubushna (Hupisna), and they also met defeat at the hands of his successor Ashurbanipal.
A people named "Kimmerioi" is described in Homer's "Odyssey" 11.14 (c. late 8th century BC), as living beyond the Oceanus, in a land of fog and darkness, at the edge of the world and the entrance of Hades.
According to Herodotus (c. 440 BC), the Cimmerians had been expelled from their homeland between the Tyras (Dniester) and Tanais (Don) rivers by the Scythians. Unreconciled to Scythian advances, to ensure burial in their ancestral homeland, the men of the Cimmerian royal family divided into groups and fought each other to the death. The Cimmerian commoners buried the bodies along the river Tyras and fled across the Caucasus and into Anatolia. Herodotus also names a number of Cimmerian kings, including Tugdamme ("Lygdamis" in Greek; mid-7th century BC), and Sandakhshatra (late-7th century).
In 654 BC or 652 BC – the exact date is unclear – the Cimmerians attacked the kingdom of Lydia, killing the Lydian king Gyges and causing great destruction to the Lydian capital of Sardis. They returned ten years later during the reign of Gyges' son Ardys; this time they captured the city, with the exception of the citadel. The fall of Sardis was a major shock to the powers of the region; the Greek poets Callinus and Archilochus recorded the fear that it inspired in the Greek colonies of Ionia, some of which were attacked by Cimmerian and Treres raiders.
The Cimmerian occupation of Lydia was brief, however, possibly due to an outbreak of disease. They were beaten back by Alyattes. This defeat marked the effective end of Cimmerian power.
The term "Gimirri" was used about a century later in the Behistun inscription (c. 515 BC) as an Assyro-Babylonian equivalent of Iranian Saka (Scythians). Otherwise, Cimmerians disappeared from the historical record.
In sources beginning with the Royal Frankish Annals, the Merovingian kings of the Franks traditionally traced their lineage through a pre-Frankish tribe called the Sicambri (or Sugambri), mythologized as a group of "Cimmerians" from the mouth of the Danube river, but who instead came from Gelderland in modern Netherlands and are named for the Sieg river.
Early modern historians asserted Cimmerian descent for the Celts or the Germans, arguing from the similarity of "Cimmerii" to "Cimbri" or "Cymry". The etymology of "Cymro" "Welshman" (plural: "Cymry"), connected to the Cimmerians by 17th-century Celticists, is now accepted by Celtic linguists as being derived from a Brythonic word * "kom-brogos", meaning "compatriot". The Cambridge Ancient History classifies the Maeotians as either a people of Cimmerian ancestry or as Caucasian under Iranian overlordship.
The Biblical name "Gomer" has been linked by some to the Cimmerians.
According to Georgian national historiography, the Cimmerians, in Georgian known as "Gimirri", played an influential role in the development of the Colchian and Iberian cultures. The modern Georgian word for "hero", "gmiri", is said to derive from their name.
It has been speculated that the Cimmerians finally settled in Cappadocia, known in Armenian as , "Gamir-kʿ" (the same name as the original Cimmerian homeland in Mannae).
It has also been speculated that the modern Armenian city of Gyumri (Arm.: Գյումրի ), founded as Kumayri (Arm.: Կումայրի), derived its name from the Cimmerians who conquered the region and founded a settlement there.
Only a few personal names in the Cimmerian language have survived in Assyrian inscriptions:
Some researchers have attempted to trace various place names to Cimmerian origins. It has been suggested that "Cimmerium" gave rise to the Turkic toponym "Qırım" (which in turn gave rise to the name "Crimea").
Based on ancient Greek historical sources, a Thracian or a Celtic association is sometimes assumed.
A genetic study published in Science Advances in October 2018 examined the remains of three Cimmerians buried between ca. 1,000 BC and 800 BC. The two samples of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup R1b1a and Q1a1, while the three samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to haplogroup H9a, C5c and R.
A genetic study published in Current Biology in July 2019 examined the remains of three Cimmerians. The two samples of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup R1a-Z645 and R1a2c-B111, while the three samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to haplogroup H35, U5a1b1 and U2e2.
Conan the Barbarian, created by Robert E. Howard in a series of fantasy stories published in "Weird Tales" in 1932, was described as a native Cimmerian, though in Howard's fictional world, his Cimmerians dwelt in a mythological Hyborian Age. The Cimmerians of Hyboria are a pre-Celtic people said by Howard to be the ancestors of the Irish and Scots (Gaels).
If on a winter's night a traveler. The novel by Italo Calvino is a framed presentation of a series of incomplete novels, one of them purported to be translated from the Cimmerian. However, in Calvino's novel, Cimmeria is a fictional country.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay A novel by Michael Chabon has a chapter that talks about the oldest book in the world "The Book of Lo" created by ancient Cimmerians.
Kabardia () or East Circassia was a historical region in the North Caucasus corresponding partly to the modern Kabardino-Balkaria. It had better political organization than its neighbors and a somewhat "feudal" social structure. It existed as a political community from the fifteenth century or earlier until it came under Russian control in the early nineteenth century.
1600-1753: In 1645 a regiment was moved to Tersk (it has been re-established early in the century). Kabardia split into two factions, the pro-Russian Baksan and pro-Crimean Kashkatau (originally the alliances were opposite, but they switched sides some time after 1722.). One side brought in Russians from Astrakhan. The Nekrasov Cossacks settled on the Kuban about 1711. More Cossacks settled on the Terek and Kizlyar was founded in 1736. In 1739 Kabardia was declared a buffer state between the Russian and Ottoman empires. In 1744 Koltsov and 400 Cossacks arrived to support the Baksan faction. Another force was sent in 1753.
Conquest: Kabardia came under Russian control between about 1769 and 1830. They moved west from the Terek country, southwest from Astrakhan and to a lesser degree southeast from Azov. From 1769 Russia intervened in Georgia south of the mountains. This required them to hold the Georgian Military Highway which passed through Kabardia. Georgia was annexed in 1800.
The word abrek is a North Caucasian term. In Chechen or Ingush the word "abrek" has the meaning of "avenger"; in Circassian or Karachay the word has the meaning of "brave man". In the Caucasus the word has the derogatory meaning of "bandit" only in Ossetian and Russian - but these languages belong to the Indo-European language family, and these people have been enemies of Abrek lifestyle in the past.
The term "abrek" was mostly used for people who struggled against Russian colonialism, mostly a guerrilla fighter during Russian expansion in the Caucasus in the 19th century. The term was also used in the Caucasus for a person who vowed to avoid any pleasures and to be fearless in fighting for the sake of Allah and justice. An abrek renounced any contact with friends and relatives. The abrek lifestyle also included a lonely life in the unexplored wilderness and prayers. Later, the majority of abreks were devoted Muslims.
The word "abrek" was used as a propaganda term for the anti-Soviet guerrillas of the post-war North Caucasus, as well as for all illegals. Those abreks were widely popularized as the defenders of the motherland and as paupers. In their old age, the abreks of the West Caucasus usually devoted themselves to beekeeping. The majority of the East Caucasus abreks were killed in non-stop warfare against the federal army.
After the establishment of Soviet power in the Caucasus in the 1920s, abreks continued the fight against oppressors, for the most part in Chechnya. The Chechen abreks provoked the rebellions of 1920-21, 1929–31, 1931-1939, and the last in 1940-44, that led to the deportation of the Chechens and Ingush in 1944. The last anti-Soviet Chechen abrek was killed on 28 March 1976 at the age of 70.
Ambazuces () was a "Hunnic" ruler in the North Caucasus in the early 6th century, probably of the Sabirs.
According to the Byzantine historian Procopius, Ambazuces ruled the area of the "Caspian Gates"—most likely referring to the Darial Pass—during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Anastasius I (). Procopius reports that he was friendly towards Byzantium, and in his old age offered to cede his realm, but Anastasius declined. This was probably during or shortly after the Anastasian War of 502–506 between Byzantium and Sassanid Persia.
After his death, he was succeeded by his sons, who were defeated by the Persian king Kavadh I (), who annexed their territory to Persia.
The Zygii (, "Zygoí") or Zygians were described by Strabo as a nation to the north of Colchis. He wrote:
"And on the sea lies the Asiatic side of the Bosporus, or the Syndic territory. After this latter, one comes to the Achaei and the Zygii and the Heniochi, and also the Cercetae and the Macropogones. And above these are situated the narrow passes of the Phtheirophagi (Phthirophagi); and after the Heniochi the Colchian country, which lies at the foot of the Caucasian, or Moschian, Mountains." (Strabo, "Geographica" 11.2)
William Smith observes that "they were partly nomad shepherds, partly brigands and pirates, for which latter vocation they had ships specially adapted". They inhabited the region known as Zyx, which is on the northern slopes of the Western Caucasus. To the east were the Avars. To the north was Sarmatian territory, and to the south lay the part of Colchis inhabited by the Svans ("Soanes" of Strabo and Pliny the Elder).
Initially, Zyx (Italian: "Sychia", Georgian: "Jiqeti") in Greek literature referred to a people inhabiting the area between Gagra and Tuapse, who later expanded up to the estuary of the Kuban and the neighbouring region of historical Tmutarakan. This tribe also features in several ancient and medieval works, notably in Pliny ("Zichoi"), Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, medieval Georgian chroniclers ("Jikebi"), Marco Polo, and Johannes de Galonifontibus, who, in his "Libellus de notitia orbis", speaks of "Zikia or Circassia" and their language, perhaps the earliest reference to the Northwest Caucasian languages.
Researchers assume that the Zygii spoke a Northwest Caucasian language. Northwest Caucasian hydro- and toponyms, traditional names of rulers and also the seamless transition from the Zygii and the Cercetae, whose designations were subsequently replaced with the names of several Circassian tribes, confirm this.
The North Caucasus Line was a line of Russian forts and Cossack settlements along the north side of the Caucasus Mountains. Originating in the mid 16th century with a few free Cossacks near the Caspian Sea, from the mid 18th century the line was pushed west and used as a base to conquer the mountains to the south and to populate the steppes to the north.
In the east along the Terek the soil is poor and rainfall low. Dense peasant settlement only became possible when the line was pushed west to the Stavropol highland in the center in the late 18th century.
Around 1500 Russia was just beginning to push south from its heartland in Muscovy. Everything south to the Black Sea and Caucasus was controlled by the Nogai nomads. In 1556 Russia moved down the Volga and captured Astrakhan at the north end of the Caspian sea. South of the Terek along the Caspian Sea the land was controlled by various khanates nominally subject to Persia. The northernmost was what later became the Shamkhalate of Tarki.
Free Cossacks were living on the lower Terek by the first half of the 16th century. The usual dates are 1520 and 1563, but the matter is very obscure.
To the west of the Terek Cossacks lived the Greben Cossacks. They were first formally distinguished in 1736. Before that date a distinction between Greben and Terek Cossacks is questionable.
Since the whole point of being a free Cossack was to be out of the reach of the government there are few records. The few records we have from this period usually relate to raiding or warfare.

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