A Credible Threat?: Pan Islamist Propaganda in the North Caucasus 1877–78

• In Event: Religion, Nation and Empire in the Caucasus

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of pan-Islamist propaganda on the Muslim population of the North Caucasus during the 1877–78 Russo–Ottoman War. While previous scholarship has explored the impact of pan–Islamist ideology on Russia’s imperial domains internally, little attention has been devoted to the question of whether pro-Ottoman sympathies among North Caucasian Muslims resulted in real military consequences for Russia’s foreign policy objectives. Relying on Russian and Ottoman government archives to follow the fate of North Caucasian cavalry militias in the Ottoman and Russian imperial armies during the 1877–78 War, this paper examines the extent to which religious affinities dictated combat experience and military strategy on the frontlines.

Author

• Alika Alanovna Zangieva, Princeton U