Tashtemir Elzhurkaevich Eldarkhanov In The Composition Of The First State Duma

Abstract

The name of the famous Chechen educator, public and statesman, deputy from the Terek region in the State Duma T.E. Eldarkanov is inextricably connected with the revolutionary upheavals of the early 20th century, and is a model of genuine service to the national interest. All deputies elected from the Terek region were people’s teachers. T.E. Eldarkhanov, who represented the interests of the mountainous part of the Terek region population, actively participated in meetings of the State Duma of the first convocation. In his speeches, he becomes a spokesman for the national interests of highlanders. In his words, T. The conducted research allows characterizing T.E. Eldarkhanov as a person and politician with a firm civic position, as a true spokesman for the interests of the mountain peoples. Using the Duma tribune, the representative of the Terek region severely criticized the government system that has developed in the North Caucasus, tried to draw the attention of democratic public circles to the tsarist policy of playing off peoples. The evidence of the latter, in his opinion, are attempts to recruit highlanders for punitive expeditions against peasant uprisings in Russia. T.E. Eldarkhanov approved himself as a true spokesman for the national interests of the mountain peoples. Activities in the State Duma work of the first convocation will become a serious school for his subsequent participation in the socio-political movement of the first decades of the 20th century.

Keywords: Chechen, deputy, Eldarkhanov TE, revolution, State Duma, Terek region

Introduction

The name of one of the representatives of the national intelligentsia of the Chechen people – Tashtemir Elzhurkaevich Eldarkhanov is inextricably linked with the revolutionary upheavals of the early 20th century. Activities of Eldarkhanov is a model of genuine service to national interests and can serve as an example for the patriotic education of the younger generation.

During the revolutionary events at the beginning of the 20th century, an attempt to change the political system of the country, and to transform Russia from an autocratic monarchy into a constitutional one, by establishing a representative legislative body – the State Duma, was made in Russia.

Initially, the powers and role of the projected State Duma were determined in the Manifesto on August 6 (19), 1905, developed by the Minister of Internal Affairs Bulygin. However, society was not satisfied with the draft of the legislative Duma, and in the conditions of the revolutionary upsurge in the autumn of 1905, Nicholas II was forced to agree to the legislative Duma introduction. In the Manifesto of October 17, 1905 “On the improvement of the state order”, the Duma powers were adjusted, which was now endowed with legislative functions.

Problem Statement

A number of scientific works are devoted to the activities of the educator, public and statesman Eldarkhanov. In the domestic historiography of the Soviet period, the subject of special study is the topic under study in the work of Shaipov (1960) and in the study of Gakaev (1991).

In modern domestic historiography, certain aspects of the issue under study were considered to varying degrees in publications devoted to state, political, and religious figures of Chechen people (Zaurbekov, 2008).

Special papers on the problem under study have also been published. The book “Eldarkanov Tashtemir Elzhurkaevich Enlightener, political and statesman” gives a complete picture of the educational, political and state activities of Eldarkhanov with the involvement of a large number of archival materials (Turkaev, 2014). A significant contribution to the study of the topic under consideration are the works of Turkaev (Turkaev, 2008; Turkaev, 2015).

A number of articles published recently testify to the increased interest in the personality of T.E. Eldarkhanov (Bataev et al., 2020; Beterahmadova et al., 2020; Dendiev & Osmaev, 2020; Khabaev, 2020; Khizriev, 2020; Sajdumov, 2020; Sedieva & Chabhanova, 2020).

Research Questions

The research question is the personality and socio-political activity of T.E. Eldarkhanov – deputy of the State Duma of the first convocation in 1906.

Purpose of the Study

The aim of the paper is to investigate the activities of Eldarkhanova deputy from the Terek region in the State Duma of the first convocation in 1906, representing the mountain peoples of the Terek regionChechens, Ingush, Kabardians, Ossetians, and Kumyks, based on an analysis of his speeches.

Research Methods

The methodological basis is the principles of objectivity, scientificity, and historicism, involving the study of facts and phenomena in all their diversity, in the specific historical conditions of their emergence and evolution, and allowing us to highlight both the positive and negative aspects of the analyzed historical events.

Findings

Elections to the first State Duma were held in the spring of 1906 on the basis of the electoral law of December 11, 1905, developed by Vitte on behalf of the Emperor Nicholas II. The number of deputies elected to the First State Duma was 524 (Boiovich, 1906). Twenty-nine deputies were elected from the Caucasus and Transcaucasia, including three from the Terek region, namely, Pyotr Petrovich Demirov, Anton Petrovich Maslov, and Tashtemir Elzhurkaevich Eldarkhanov. In the Terek region, highlanders and Cossacks voted separately in the elections. It is noteworthy that all the elected deputies from the Terek region, despite their diverse social origins, were people’s teachers.

Biographical information about the deputies of the State Duma of the first convocation, including the deputies from the Terek region, is contained in the study by Boiovich, published in 1906.

The Cossack military estate of the Terek region was represented by Pyotr Petrovich Demirov, elected by the congress of representatives of the Cossack villages. He was Russian by nationality, and was born in 1853. He studied at a public school, then passed the exam for a people's teacher. Recently he served as a clerk in the oil fields in the city of Grozny. At home, in the Semitovskaya village, he led agriculture and beekeeping. He was an opponent of the destruction of the Cossack class. (p. 4)

Apparently, there was a mistake about Demirov’s birth, since the place of his birth is called Sleptsovskaya village in modern studies. Demirov did not belong to any political party, did not take part in the work of the Duma commissions.

Deputy Andrey Petrovich Maslov was a teacher, and according to his political views, a constitutional democrat. He graduated from the district school and Tiflis Teachers’ Institute (1892). He served as a teacher in the city school in Yekaterinodar (6 years), in Gorsky Kabardian school in Nalchik village (4 years old) and recently in Grozny city school (Boiovich, 1906, p. 4).

The representative of the population mountain part of the Terek region was a Chechen Tashtemir Elzhurkaevich Eldarkhanov. He was born in 1870. He graduated from Grozny Mountain School, then the Vladikavkaz vocational school and Tiflis Teachers’ Institute. Since 1893, he was acting as a teacher-supervisor in mountain schools – first in the town of Maikop, then Grozny. In December 1905, he received an offer to resign due to participation in revolutionary events (Boiovich, 1906).

All the deputies of the State Duma of the first convocation from the Terek region are representatives of the Raznochinsk intelligentsia, the advanced part of which tried to express national interests. One of such representatives of the advanced part of the national intelligentsia of the Chechen people is Eldarkhanov.

Eldarkhanov, who represented the interests of the mountainous part of the Terek region population, actively participated in the meetings of the State Duma of the first convocation, expressing the national interests of the mountaineers.

Speaking at meetings of the First State Duma, Deputy Eldarkhanov represented the mountain peoples of the Terek region – Chechens, Ingush, Kabardians, Ossetians, and Kumyks. In June 1906, in the Duma, he sharply criticized the order established in the Terek region after joining Russia. Summing up the outcomes of the half-century entry of these peoples into Russia, the deputy notes that their hopes of finding peace and happiness have not been justified. He sees the main reason for the negative phenomena in the Caucasus in “the omnipotence of the bureaucracy, the lack of education, the unbearable economic situation.” He further states that:

In a fifty-year span, only two schools have been opened for the children of half a million people. Therefore, it is clear that our fathers, our trustees, in the sense of ensuring a calm and happy life for these peoples, could not and did not do anything (Turkaev, 2014, p. 354).

It should be noted that five Mountain schools were opened in the Terek region, including in Grozny and Nazran, which, apparently, the speaker had in mind, mentioning only two schools opened by tsarism in the region for the local population. The deputy from the Terek region considered the main task to be “the Caucasus liberation from the captivity of the police bureaucratic power” (Turkaev, 2014, p. 354). Indeed, despite the fact that almost half a century has passed since the Caucasian War, the military-people’s administration of the mountain peoples was preserved in the Terek region, combining the functions of military and civil power, which did not meet the interests of the mountain peoples.

In his next speech at the meeting of the first session of the 1st State Duma on June 23, 1906, T.E. Eldarkhanov reads to the people’s representatives a telegram gained in his name from representatives of the Chechen people on June 21. The telegram noted that “since the conquest of the Caucasus, the government has by all means blocked access to education for the conquered peoples and pursued a policy of maintaining antagonism between the conquerors and the victims” (Turkaev, 2014, p. 355). The authors of the telegram are concerned about

Attempts to spread the policy of hostile attitude of the Russian population towards the Caucasus beyond the Caucasus, to make the mountaineers a monster for the entire Russian people, and to arm this latter with undeserved indignation against the mountaineers (Turkaev, 2014, p. 355).

The telegram is about “hiring representatives of the Chechen people as guards, who are promised ranks, orders, honors and send them to serve” (Turkaev, 2014, p. 355). The authors of the telegram ask that “the hands of our brothers be stained with the blood of Russian citizens” (Turkaev, 2014, p. 356) and hope, with the help of the State Duma, to send a request to establish with whose permission the mountain peoples of the Terek region are disoriented, and prepare pogromists among them for peaceful Russian citizens. From the telegram text, it becomes known that a motivated telegram with a request “to return our fellow tribesmen torn from their native land” (Turkaev, 2014, p. 356), as well as about the unsuccessful trip of relatives taken away with the same request to the head of the Terek region, was sent to the name of the Caucasus governor. The authors of the telegram (fathers and relatives of inexperienced young men) and Eldarkhanov try to protest against the unworthy use of Chechens as rioters and further agitation in this direction. They admit that the influence and honor, they enjoy among the people, serve as a sufficient guarantee that no further cadres will be formed, but, however, note that if “the authoritative voice of the State Duma is not heard, their influence will not withstand the administrative power” (Turkaev, 2014, p. 357).

Deprived of the opportunity to engage in land in conditions of landlessness, many mountaineers, including Chechens, were forced to engage in seasonal activities, one of which is the performance of security functions. With the growth of peasant unrest in the central provinces of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, the authorities in the Terek region began to recruit mountaineers who were very poorly versed in the political situation into security detachments to fight revolutionary unrest in these areas. The participation of highlanders in such formations can only be explained by the profitability of this service type. Their participants received monetary rewards and were also provided with military equipment. Deputy Eldarkhanov opposes this practice of using landless and unemployed highlanders, including the Chechens. It should be noted that protests were also expressed at many peasant gatherings, as well as by representatives of the clergy and the intelligentsia. The above mentioned actions had practical results, and many “guards” were massively withdrawn.

In view of the issue significance, read at the June 23 meeting, Eldarkanov makes an addition to his earlier performance. He again expresses concern that the names of the mountaineers of the Terek region are announced among the “executioners” of the liberation movement. The deputy responsibly declares that the mountain peoples strive for a peaceful life and oppose an insignificant handful of fellow tribesmen who act in the shameful role of the Black Hundreds. Despite the fact that the conscious part of the highlanders opposed this criminal practice of recruiting highlanders, government agents, with the support of local administrative persons, continued it. Eldarkhanov expects that the conscious part of the Russian people will not transfer the guilt of a few highlanders to the entire Chechen, Ingush and Ossetian peoples. In his repeated speech, he tries to convey the situation gravity in the Terek region to the Duma members, so that they recognize this request as urgent and treat it with due attention. T.E. Eldarkhanov is concerned about maintaining good relations between the Russians and the mountain peoples of the North Caucasus. From the Duma rostrum, he declares the will of the Chechen, Ingush, Ossetian and other mountain peoples against the participation of their representatives in the suppression of revolutionary events in Russia.

Conclusion

Summing up the outcomes of Tashtemir Elzhurkaevich Eldarkhanov activity as part of the State Duma of the first convocation, it should be noted that he has established himself as a politician and a person with a strong civic position. Using the Duma tribune, he severely criticized the government system that had developed in the North Caucasus, tried to draw the attention of democratic public circles to the tsarist policy of playing off peoples, evidence of which, in his opinion, are attempts to recruit highlanders for punitive expeditions against peasant speeches in Russia. Eldarkhanov showed himself as a true spokesman for the national interests of the mountain peoples. Activities of Eldarkhanov in the work of the State Duma of the first convocation will become a serious school for his subsequent participation in the socio-political movement of the first decades of the 20^th century.

References

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