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Balkars in the “Military-Topographical and Statistical Description of the Caucasian Province and Adjacent Mountain Regions” by A.M. Butskovsky (1812)
The article examines the source study and historiographic aspects of the main work of Lieutenant Colonel Andrei Martynovich Butskovsky, “Military-topographical and statistical description of the Caucasian province and neighboring mountain regions.” The manuscript on 108 sheets with XVII tables,
dated approximately to 1812 according to its content, is kept in the Russian State Military Historical Archive (RGVIA).
The focus of the article is the analysis of a small part of the manuscript containing descriptions of the divisions of the Balkars – the “Malkars” and the “Chegems”. It has been established that A.M. Butskovsky’s work contains the earliest systematized statistical and ethnographic information about the Balkar people, included in the systemic description of other socio-cultural units of the North Caucasian region and considered in the unity of various aspects of its life (economic, social, political, cultural). The “Description” by A.M. Butskovsky can be attributed to the political-ethnological model of conceptual representation of the cultural and historical specificity of the region.
The introduction into scientific circulation and a comprehensive analysis of the fragment of this source about the Balkar people has a research perspective for further comparative historical study of North Caucasian communities in the first quarter of the 19th century, as well as to identify and characterize the factors that determined the ethnopolitical composition of the region.
dated approximately to 1812 according to its content, is kept in the Russian State Military Historical Archive (RGVIA).
The focus of the article is the analysis of a small part of the manuscript containing descriptions of the divisions of the Balkars – the “Malkars” and the “Chegems”. It has been established that A.M. Butskovsky’s work contains the earliest systematized statistical and ethnographic information about the Balkar people, included in the systemic description of other socio-cultural units of the North Caucasian region and considered in the unity of various aspects of its life (economic, social, political, cultural). The “Description” by A.M. Butskovsky can be attributed to the political-ethnological model of conceptual representation of the cultural and historical specificity of the region.
The introduction into scientific circulation and a comprehensive analysis of the fragment of this source about the Balkar people has a research perspective for further comparative historical study of North Caucasian communities in the first quarter of the 19th century, as well as to identify and characterize the factors that determined the ethnopolitical composition of the region.
A.M. Butskovsky; military topographic description, North Caucasus; Caucasian province, Balkars, Chegems, source studies