Marlinsky’s ‘Ammalat-Bek’ and the Orientalisation of the Caucasus in Russian Literature

Abstract

When Aleksandr Pushkin’s ‘The Prisoner of the Caucasus’ (Kavkazskii plennik) was published in 1822, the Russian élite of the period had certain notions of the ‘Oriental’ character of the borderland named in the title of this immensely popular poem about a man of St Petersburg high society who is taken captive by Circassian tribesmen. Intimations of the ‘Orient’ clung to the Caucasus, first of all, because of the recurrent conflicts with Turkey and Persia which had marked tsarist expansion into the southern frontier land since the late eighteenth century. From the reign of Catherine the Great into the era of Pushkin’s youth, the Russian state had made territorial gains in Kabarda and in Transcaucasia through wars with the Turks and Persians, driving the two Islamic powers from several of their traditional spheres of influence. Given this history, at the time Pushkin’s tale in verse appeared the Caucasus had acquired in Russian eyes something of the character of an enormous battlefield, where forces of Christian civilisation were engaged in combat against Islam.