Unrest on Zolsky Pastures in Nalchik District in 1913: Problems of Historiography of the Issue

At the end of May - beginning of June 1913 in Nalchik district there was the largest agrarian movement, which went down in history as the Zolskoye uprising. The article considers the main stages of formation, development and reproduction of the main interpretations of the Zolsk pastures unrest in historiography. It shows the infl uence of the memoir narratives of the fi rst leader of the Soviet Kabardino-Balkaria B. Kalmykov, and their corrected interpretations in subsequent reprints, on the formation and canonical interpretation of the history of this historical event, which was given the signifi cance of the beginning of the revolutionary movement in the region. The newest studies based on archival sources provide more diverse explanations of the origin and development of long-standing land and economic controversies over the use of public pastures. However, in the domestic and foreign historiography the predominant explanation of the causes and development of the Zolsk uprising of 1913 remains the class socio-economic contradictions, which were used by the Soviet historical policy to justify the pattern of subsequent revolutionary transformations in Kabardino-Balkaria.