Vorontsov, Mikhaïclass="underline" named viceroy of the Caucasus in 1844. One of the Russian dignitaries who was remembered in Tiflis in a favorable light.
Yermolov, General Alexey Petrovitch: viceroy of the Caucasus known for his brutality, recalled after the revolt of the Decembrists. Shamil met him in Saint Petersburg in 1859.
Youssouf: classmate of Jamal Eddin in the First Cadet Corps of Saint Petersburg.
Yunus: the most faithful of Shamil’s captains and Jamal Eddin’s tutor, in charge of his education. He brought Jamal Eddin to the Russian fort of General Grabbe in 1839 and identified him sixteen years later upon his return, at Khassav-Yurt. He was in charge of negotiations between Shamil and Prince Bariatinsky and can be seen in all the depictions of the murid surrender at Gunib in August 1859.
Zaïdet: third wife of Shamil, born in Ghazikumuk in 1823, died at Medina in 1870. Daughter of Sheik Jamaluddin al-Ghumuqi al-Husayni, she married Shamil after the death of Fatima in 1845.
A Note on Sources
During my long quest in the footsteps of Jamal Eddin, six books were always with me. If they made my bags heavier, every time I read them I felt lighter, filled with renewed enthusiasm. They always revived my curiosity and gave me courage again in my moments of doubt. Over the years and on the paths of so many journeys, their authors have become my mentors, my partners, my traveling companions. I’d like to offer them a sentimental word of appreciation here.
First of all, a nineteenth-century Frenchwoman who traveled extensively, the first to have met some of the protagonists of Jamal Eddin’s story, who wrote of her own adventures in the Caucasus. Anne Drancey opened a bookstore in the Georgian capital in 1853. When her business failed, she took a position as governess to the Chavchavadze princes.
During the attack the Tiflis press would call “the hostage taking of the century,” she was abducted with the other women of the household by the Imam Shamil. The account of her life in captivity, magnificently edited by Claudine Herrmann at Mercure publishing house, in France, was reprinted in 2006, entitled Captive des Tchéchènes (Captive of the Chechens).
Some of Madame Drancey’s anecdotes inspired one of Leo Tolstoy’s masterpieces, Hadji Murad, as well as several chapters of Alexandre Dumas’s Voyage au Caucase, two other works that have frequently accompanied my research. Dumas devoted about ten pages to the story of the sacrifice of Jamal Eddin, based upon his interviews with the Georgian princesses who owed the young Chechen their lives.
Following Dumas, English author John F. Baddeley did extensive research on Dagestan between 1879 and 1902, resulting in a veritable gold mine of information. He observed the ways and customs of the Caucasus with a rare degree of humility and questioned the Montagnards intelligently. He drew landscapes and photographed the countryside. The exhaustive works he then published, The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus and The Rugged Flanks of the Caucasus, are the invaluable product of his labor. Every biographer of the imam since then has used the collection of anecdotes and accounts in his books as an important source.
And last of all, the fascinating work of Lesley Blanch, The Sabres of Paradise. Published for the first time forty-eight years ago by John Murray Publishers in England, it was released in France three years later in a magnificent translation by Jean Lambert, Les sabres du Paradis. Editions Lattès published it then, and it was reprinted in 1990 and again in 2004 by Editions Denoël. Lesley Blanch’s work remains, in my eyes, the most beautiful book ever written concerning this region of the world.
For readers who wish to explore further, I am providing here a short bibliography of works that have supported my work and added substance, including here only the texts relevant to history contemporary to the times of Jamal Eddin.
Dare I add, for a long time I was very skeptical of the rumor suggesting that Shamil’s son had actually been about to marry a young Russian aristocrat. I simply thought it was too beautiful to be true, and I followed this lead with the greatest circumspection. I was wrong. Discovering his fiancée’s memoirs was a great stroke of luck, and I shall start here by citing the references.
Most of the Olenin family collections are preserved in the archives of the city of Riazan, in Russia, in particular all the correspondence and several portraits. The manuscript of the Memoirs of Elizaveta Petrovna Olenina can be found in the state archives of literature and art in Moscow, under her married name:
ENGELHARDT, Elizaveta Petrovna, Vospominania, Rossiyskiy Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Literatury i Iskusstva. Fond 1124 (Olenin), opis’ 1, delo 10.
Abd El-Kader, Emir. Écrits Spirituels. Paris: Le Seuil, 1982.
Aboulela, Leila. The Lion of Chechnya. BBC drama, June 26, 2005.
Akty Sobrannye Kavkazskoyu Arkheografitcheskoyu Komisseiyu, vol. X, XI. Tiflis, 1888.
Alexe, Dan. “Les Guerres des Soufis” in Hérodote, no. 81.
Ali Khan, Masood. Encyclopaedia of Sufism, Vol. XII, Sufism and Naqshbandi Order. New Delhi: Anmol Publications, 2003.
Ali-Shah, Omar. Un Apprentissage du Soufisme. Paris: G. Trédaniel, 2001.
Anderson, Tony. Bread and Ashes, A Walk Through the Mountains of Georgia. London: Vintage, 2004.
Anthology of Georgian Poetry, The, vol. I. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2002.
Anthologie des Voyageurs Français aux XVIIIe et XIXe Siècles, “Le Voyage en Russie.” Paris: Robert Laffont, 1990.
Assatiani, Nodar and Bendianachvili, Alexandre. Histoire de la Géorgie. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997.
Aucouturier, Michel. Tolstoï. Paris: Le Seuil, 1996.
———Le Caucase Dans la Culture Russe. Paris: Institut d’études slaves, 1997.
——— Sémon, Marie. Tolstoï vu par les Écrivains et les Penseurs Russes. Paris: Institut d’Études Slaves, 1998.
——— Tolstoï et l’Art. Paris: Institut d’Études Slaves, 2003.
——— Jurgenson, Luba. Tolstoï et ses Adversaires. Paris: Institut d’Études Slaves, 2008.
Baddeley, John F. The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1908.
——— The Rugged Flanks of the Caucasus, 2 vols. London: Oxford University Press, 1940.
Bagby, Lewis. Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky and Russian Byronism. University Park: Penn State University Press, 1995.
Bell, James Stanislaus. Journal of a Residence in Circassia During the Years 1837, 1838 and 1839. London: Edward Moxon, 1840.
Benckendorff, Constantine. Souvenirs Intimes d’une Campagne au Caucase Pendant l’Été de 1845. Paris: Editions Grigorii Gagarin, 1858.
Bennigsen, Alexandre and Lemercier Quelquejay, Chantal. La Presse et le Mouvement National Chez les Musulmans de Russie Avant 1920. Paris: Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1964.