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Alexander Cristian Donțu

Olga Maiorova

Russian 375 Literature and Empire

30 March 2021

Evolution of Russian Attitude toward the Caucasus and Russian Imperialism,

as Reflected in Literature and Film

“Russia is not quite Russia without the Caucasus”. 1 The Caucasus, the land between Russia and
the Middle East, is the quintessential example of a border region where the battles for the soul of
a nation are fought. It was the stage of an endless war between the expansionist ambition of the
Russian empire and the resistance of the local population, perpetually engaged in “guerilla”-like
battle, in their determination to remain independent. To this day, it is a political mine-land. But
importantly, it is also a poetic and moral space where part of the identity of Russian people has
been defined throughout history.

The way Caucasus is depicted in Russian literature and film is a faithful mirror of how this self-
scrutinizing and self-defining Russian attitude evolved in time. The same story, with almost the
same title, was told and re-told by titans of Russian literature Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, and
more recently, by film-makers Bodrov, Makanin and Uchitel. This essay will focus on three of
these works, the poem “The Prisoner of Caucasus” by Pushkin 2, the novella with the same name
by Tolstoy3 and the movie “Prisoner of the Mountains”, directed by Bodrov4.

Across all three pieces, Russians are represented in the Caucasus by the military, the main
protagonists being soldiers of the Russian army. Tolstoy’s hero, Zhilin and Pushkin’s “Russian
officer” are inspired by the authors’ personal experiences in the region. This depiction of
Russians is reflective of the historical nature of Russia’s relationship with the region, one defined
through war and conquest, evolving from a frontier for imperial expansion in Pushkin’s time, to
a strategic battleground in the struggle between religions and empires during Tolstoy’s youth,
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and finally a war to crush a struggle for independence, in more recent times, portrayed in
Bodrov’s film. The Caucasians (Circassians, Tatars, Chechens) and the way they are perceived
by the authors and their Russian audience are also defining factors. Their image evolves from the
“primitive” people, in need of the civilizing Russian intervention, a term of comparison that
gratified the Russian strive for a position of equality with European powers, in Pushkin’s time.
They become, in Tolstoy’s work, imminently relatable, brethren in toil and suffering. Finally,
Bodrov’s movie is a clear political manifesto on their behalf, a strong cry for their right to
independence and to freedom to preserve their culture.

The differing portrayals of the Russian army in the three works reveal not only the author’s
opinion about the Russian military intervention in the region, but also that of the Russian people
at large. These three works define the trajectory of a moral and a self-identity journey for
Russians.

Always enfolding against the majestic backdrop of the high mountains and deep skies, in the
villages of unyielding Caucasian warrior people, always following heroes imprisoned and
paradoxically freed in this ragged land, these stories accurately capture the historical and
political reality, as well as the mentality and moral coordinates of the of the time when they were
written. The style of the writing itself is an integral, important part of the lens through which the
tumultuous events are related by the authors and perceived by their audience. Pushkin wrote his
sweeping poem “The Prisoner of Caucasus” in Romantic style, with all the mastery of
embellished language and emotional heights, but he kept his heroes anonymous, as purely
archetypal figures. The love story is that of a “savage” Circassian woman, free in her wildness
and innocent and raw in her natural beauty, enthralled with the Russian officer, disaffected with
society, introspective and brooding. Exoticism, a powerful stream of Western literature of the
time, is ever-present in Pushkin’s writing. The “beautiful savage” trope is explicit:

“ warlike raiders roam the hills

and a wild imagination
lies in ambush in the empty silence.”2
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Part and parcel of orientalism, exoticism defines the border culture primarily through differences
from the Western culture, bestowing approval on the free-spirited way of living, in sync with
nature, and in contrast to the claustrophobic, stifled existence in big cities, and casting an anxious
doubt on the violent, savage traditions and behaviors of these “exotic/oriental” people,
presumably contrasting those of the “civilized world”. The discontent with urban life and the
yearning for a simple way of life, close to nature’s rhythms, was particularly popular with
Russian aristocracy and Russian intellectuals and is palpable throughout Pushkin’s poem.

Tolstoy’s language is that of realism, devoid of metaphor, stripped-down to unadorned facts of

life, big and small, unsentimental, yet piercing in its ability to have the reader relate, at a human
level, with the story and its protagonists. He gives names to the characters and makes them
relatable, down-to-earth players in a story that shapes their fate. Instead of being an aloof
Byronic hero, Zhilin is a pragmatic and stoic officer, a member of the lower class in Russia. The
tragic romance of Pushkin’s poem is replaced, by a caring and protective relationship with a
child, Dina, the young daughter of Zhilin’s captor, Abdul-Murat. The characters are complex,
with contradicting traits, they are rough and brutal, yet compassionate and honorable.

Tolstoy breaks away from orientalism and describes the rituals of the Tatars, their clothing, their
day-to-day life. He speaks in detail about how they behave, how they converse, what they eat. He
describes very real needs and decisions that the Tatars make, and parallels them to those of the
protagonist, showing the fundamental similarity between Tatars and Russians, in their basic
humanity. Tolstoy masterfully imbues his narration with a clear sense of respect and
understanding between Zhilin and his captors, based on this shared understanding of human
behavior, guided by twists of fate and over-riding events, beyond an individual’s control. The
brilliance of Tolstoy’s writing is at its most forceful display in passages that capture a lifetime of
tragedy in sparse account, all the more poignant for the apparent lack of emotion:

“ The Russians came, destroyed the village and killed seven of the sons. One son remained and
he went over to the Russians. The old man departed and he himself joined the Russians. He lived
with them for three months, found his son there, killed him with his own hands and fled. He then
gave up fighting and went to Mecca the pray to God; that is why he has a turban. One who has
been to Mecca is called a hadji and wears a turban.”
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The historical context and the personal experience of the authors clearly put their imprint on the
literary style and the central message of these two tales, “Prisoner in the Caucasus”, written by
Pushkin and Tolstoy. Both writers lived in the Caucasus, amid the people they described in their
writing. Pushkin was exiled and went to the Caucasus in 1820, when the Georgian and Azeri
lands, recently made part of the Russian Empire, were troubled by rebel fighting, which
prompted the military campaign lead by general Ermolov.1 Little was known in Russia about the
region and Pushkin was the first to captivate the Russian’s imagination with his description of

“ ….this marvelous people.

Among the mountain people” […]
Their faith, customs, upbringing, […]
Their hospitality, their thirst for battle,
The swiftness of their free movements,
And the lightness of their feet, and the strength of their fists” 2

Influenced by the mentality of Russian superiority, showcased by the contrast to the primitive
way of live in the Caucasus, Pushkin adheres to the imperialist expansionist ambitions:

“I will celebrate that glorious hour,

When, having felt the bloody attack
Upon the indignant Caucasus
Our double-headed eagle raised itself
And the violent cry of war fell silent” 2

Tolstoy was a veteran of the wars in the Caucasus and the Crimea in the 1850s and had a closer
insight into the reality and experience of war, during the time when Russia was consolidating its
rule in these regions1. There was also a change in Russian view, since these territories had been
already annexed and subjugated, so they no longer held the same sense of threat as wild, hostile
and unknown lands. Unlike Pushkin, Tolstoy viewed the conflict in the Caucasus with a more
critical and in-depth lens, unencumbered by the influence of orientalism and nationalism. He
willingly re-turned to the Caucasus to live among its people and learn their way of life. Unlike
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Pushkin’s poem, his “Prisoner of the Caucasus” is not about exotic people who fascinate, but
real, betrodden people, with everyday struggles. Tolstoy understood and loved the Caucasians.
This is apparent in his novellas “Prisoner of the Caucasus and “Hadji Murat” and is reciprocated
to this day by the Chechens, who view him as the writer who “wrote most truthfully of the events
that happened then and the character of the mountain peoples, their striving to be independent,
for freedom, and their religious, ethnic and other particularities” 5.

The epilogue of Pushkin’s epic poem casts Russia’s shadow over the Caucasus with heavy
nationalism, calling for the subjugation of Caucasian lands by the armies of the Russian Empire:

“Resign yourself, Caucasus:

Ermolov is coming!
And the violent cry of war fell silent:
All is subject to the Russian sword.
Proud sons of the Caucasus,
You have fought, you have perished terribly;
But our blood did not save you”
Now you have forsaken your sword of vengeance” 2

Much has been speculated about the possibility that Pushkin wrote this epilogue to please the
political audience and the tsarist push for Narodnost’ in Russian literature. However, an anxious
ambivalence is present in the entire poem, quite possibly a reflection of universal internal
struggles of human emotions and convictions that do not spare intellectual giants, Pushkin
included. The political and cultural trends of the time, the particular circumstances of Pushkin’s
birth, and upbringing, the war, the exile, all influenced his thinking and, expectedly, resulted in
ambiguities of thought that were reflected in his writing.

In contrast with Pushkin, through his nuanced descriptions and conflicted, relatable characters,
Tolstoy made clear his sympathy for the plight of the victims of this clash of civilization. Paul
Friedrich opens his chapter “Tolstoy and the Chechens: Problems in Literary Anthropology”
with the statement: “Tolstoy’s works are an outraged critique of Russian high society and tsarist
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imperialism, colonialism and atrocity-ridden war against the Chechens and people of the
Caucasus.”6 Whereas this refers to Tolstoy’s entire body of work, the statement perfectly
describes his position as it indirectly, but forcefully transpires in “Prisoner of the Caucasus”.

The greatest shift in mentality is found in Bodrov’s film, as it takes an actively critical view on
the Russian military and its war in Chechnya. Starkly contrasting Pushkin’s celebration of
Russian princes and warlords, Bodrov’s film shows a modern Russian army of disaffected
soldiers, low in morale and discipline. Whereas in Pushkin’s poem Ermolov embodied the
Russian army beneath the raised double headed eagle, in Bodrov’s “ Prisoner of the Mountains”
Russia’s military is represented by the character of commander Maslov, a callous officer,
indifferent towards the war he is fighting and uncaring for the lives of soldiers he commands. He
is exuding confidence in his own superiority, he is gluttonous, corrupt and brutal. By painting
this character with such unflattering brush, Bodrov directly questions the honor of the Russian
military and the very legitimacy of Russia’s war in the South. The un-appealing image of Maslov
gobbling caviar was seen by movie critics as an allusion to Russia’s reluctance to recognize
Chechnya’s independence, because it would mean giving up an oil-rich resource.

In Bodrov’s film, as in Tolstoy’s novella, the protagonists have traits of light and shadow,
intertwined in complex characters. There is no naïve view of Chechens, as being all good and
innocent. There are the extremes though: Vanya remains a good soul, who does not view
Chechens as enemies, mostly because he relates to the way family ties work in universal ways.
The Chechen head of the village, Abdul Murat, appeals to the commander to trade the two
prisoners in exchange for his son held prisoner by the Russians. The Russian commander creates
a fake trade and sets an ambush for the Chechens, bringing an imposter instead of the son. The
Chechens find out and avoid the trap and then demand that the prisoners write letters to their
mothers to come, so that they can negotiate release of the prisoner. The mother of the young
naïve soldier, Vanya comes and speaks to the commander about her son. The dialogue with the
commander is revealing of his unscrupulous character:

“ Commander: They are bandits. You think I didn’t try to arrange a trade? I did. I took a
platoon, a helicopter, but they never showed up. They didn’t want to trade, they wanted to
ambush us. You think ill let you and the prisoner go for a stroll, arm in arm? They’ll dupe you,
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you can’t trust anyone here, not even the children. Soldiers traded grenades for hash and kids
threw the grenades back at them.”4

The ugly image of the Russian commander is softened by the presence of other characters, most
prominently the fresh-eyed recruit Vanya, who is taken captive together with a more cynical,
more seasoned comrade, Sasha. Vanya is closer to Tolstoy’s Zhilin, than any other “captive of
the Caucasus” heroes. He befriends Dina, a 12-year old young Chechen girl, the daughter of his
captor Abdul-Murat. Dina hates Vanya initially, but eventually they grow close. Vanya fashions
a bird toy out of wood for Dina, another symbol of connection in innocence between two young
people, with souls un-ravaged by the war around them. In the end, Dina helps Vanya escape, just
as “the Circassian maid” saved Pushkin’s “Russian officer”.

Another symbolic moment in the film is punctuated by the Chechen girls’ folk song:

“We’re the children of the mountains,

We’ve been here for years,
The wind, frightens the heart,
Nobody understands us,
The mountains will protect us,
The wind frightens the heart of any stranger here.”4

There is the same sense of communion people have with the unforgiving natural landscape which
can protect them, but none of the unforgiving, bloodthirsty stance towards enemies, shown by
women’s songs in a similar scene in Pushkin’s poem:

In the river rushes a thundering billow;

“In this hills is a nighttime silence;
The tired Cossack fell asleep,
Leaning on a steel spear.
Don’t sleep Cossack: in the night darkness

A Chechen is walking beyond the river.

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A Cossack floats on a dugout,

Dragging a net along the river bottom.
Cossack, you will drown in the river,
Like small children drown,
Swimming when it is hot:
A Chechen is walking beyond the river.”2

A poignant scene of the film is when both prisoners are left with one another, shackled. This is a
moment of intense vulnerability when they show despair to one another. It begins with the
cynical sergeant, Sasha, sarcastically singing a patriotic Russian march, Farwell of Slavianka.

“If our country calls us all as one, we will go to war.

And we will fight to the last drop of blood for our homeland…”4

In a stroke of masterful artistry, the scene then plays the actual military recording of the march,
with the full fanfare of the army choir, over the scene of the crying men: the indifference and
cruelty of a political and military well-oiled machinery, steamrolling not only the enemy but its
own, dispensable soldiers.

The inescapable conclusions of the three pieces discussed here, revealed either directly through
the author’s words, or indirectly, through a character’s words, unambiguously punctuate the
evolution of Russian’s views about their troubled relationship with the Caucasus:

From Pushkin’s:
“ .. I will celebrate that glorious hour,
When, having felt the bloody attack,
Upon the indignant Caucasus
Our double-headed eagle raised itself”2

to Tolstoy’s hero Zhilin, who reflects after his attempted escape, looking over the landscape:
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“Well, he thought, all this is their country” 3.

and finally, the military commander’s words in Bodrov’s movie:

“I’ll tell you what else is good here, lots of fruit. But I don’t want to live here. Nobody likes us
here, and after this war, they will like us even less. 4”

The bittersweet triumphant prediction of Pushkin, the disillusioned sadness of Tolstoy, the angry
criticism of Bodrov, each are counterbalanced in the story by a thread of hope in the shape of
romantic love, family ties, enjoyment of nature and simple life, all of which unify people in their
basic humanity, regardless of their differences and conflicts. The end of the “Prisoner of the
Mountains” is not particularly optimistic, as it makes clear that the Chechen villagers are gone,
and Vanya hopes to see them in his dreams only. Nonetheless, a victory has been attained
because Vanya thinks of Chechens as his new family, that he had grown to love.

Works Cited

1. Layton, S. (2015). Russian literature and empire: Conquest of the Caucasus from
Pushkin to Tolstoy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

2. Hokanson, K. E. (2008). Appendix: Aleksandr Pushkin's 'the captive of the Caucasus'

– a translation. Writing at Russia's border. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

3. Tolstoy, Leo, Louise Maude, and Aylmer Maude. A Captive in the Caucasus.
Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, 2006. Print.

4. Bodrov, S. (Director), Bodrov, S. (Writer), & Bodrov, S. (Producer). (1996).

Kavkazskij plennik = Prisoner of the Mountains, Orion Classics 1996. DVD.
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5. Kishkovsky, S. (2009, December 28). Chechnya's favorite Russian: Leo Tolstoy.

Retrieved March 31, 2021, from https://www.ntimes.com/2009/12/29/arts/29iht-
tolstoy.html

6. Friedrich, P. (2003) - Tolstoy and the Chechens: Problems in Literary Anthropology,

Russian History, Vol. 30, No. 1/2), pp. 113-143