The Religious Factor in the North Caucasian Frontier Zone

Abstract

While religious factor played a significant role in the history of the North Caucasian frontier, it was not a primary institution. Despite increased scholarly attention to the frontier dynamics of this region over the past two decades, the influence of religious factor remains understudied. This study examines the religious landscape of the North Caucasian frontier to better understand the historical and geopolitical processes at play. Religion often served as the primary marker shaping the political and behavioral patterns of the people of the North Caucasian frontier. This study uses a frontier approach, framing the North Caucasus as a zone of active intercultural and interreligious interactions. The work of American historian M. Khodarkovsky effectively demonstrates the effect of the frontier framework for analyzing the role of religion in the Caucasus of the modern times. The frontier concept broadens the historian’s thematic scope, encouraging the use of new sources and/or reinterpretation of the existing evidence. This article introduces newly discovered archival documents from Russian federal archives, shedding light on religious processes in the Caucasus. It presents evidence demonstrating that religious solidarity with powers competing for regional dominance often served as the primary driver of political action for individuals within the frontier zone. However, this religious solidarity was frequently superseded by more immediate and pragmatic concerns.