Bitter Choices

Michael Khodarkovsky is Professor of History at Loyola University Chicago. He is the author of Where Two Worlds Met: The Russian State and the Kalmyk Nomads, 1600–1771, also from Cornell, and Russia's Steppe Frontier: The Making of a Colonial Empire, 1500–1800.

By the end of Michael Khodarkovsky's Bitter Choices... Atarshchikoc will reside as a hero in your memory.... Khodarkovsky's insightful reporting of Atarshchikov's experiences in this regard offers unusually detailed and remarkable observations that are rarely found in Russian history and literary works about Caucasus.... This is an important read for those conducting research on nineteenth-century Russian and Caucasian history, and could also be useful as a secondary source for those working on Russian literature about the Caucasus. In terms of teaching, Khodarkovsky's impressive body of knowledge and attentive research make this a solid volume for use in its entirety and in an advanced course in Eurasian or Russian history and/or culture.- Rachel Stauffer (Slavic and East European Journal) Readers familiar with Michael Khodarkovsky's two previous books on the Kalmyks and the Steppe Frontier will look forward to reading Bitter Choices.... In his conclusion Khodarkovsky seeks to explain why the Russians have failed until the present day to bring peace to the region. All this makes a fascinating story, and we must be grateful to the author for telling it so well.- John P. LeDonne (Comptes Rendus) The Russian conquest of the Caucasus started around 1580; it is still under way. But even its acute phase, between 1790 and 1860, was a process of invasion, colonization, negotiation and genocide so complex, involving so many different indigenous nations, and witnessed by so many articulate participants, Russian and foreign, that to describe it in 200 pages requires considerable virtuosity. Michael Khodarkovsky takes as his thread the scantily documented life of Semyen Atarshchikov, a Cossack whose father was Chechen and mother a Turkic Kumyk. A lieutenant and translator for the Russian army, he was so sickened by colonial war that he twice defected to the Circassian resistance. On the second occasion he was mortally wounded by another Russian defector who had decided to return. Michael Khodarkovsky has achieved a miracle of compression and shown us why the North Caucasus remains a live political volcano.(Times Literary Supplement) This outstanding book explores the complex encounter between imperial Russia and the indigenous peoples of the north Caucasus region in the period from the Russian Empire's initial expansion into the region in the sixteenth century through the bloody, violent conquest in the nineteenth.(Choice) To tell the story of the North Caucasus, Khodarkovsky weighs the life of Semyen Atarshchikov. Born in 1807 and raised a Chechen, Atarshchikov... is caught between two cultures and [as an interpreter for the Russian army] witnesses the barbarity of Russia's military campaigns in the North Caucasus until his defection to the other side in 1841; his story ends with his murder in 1845.... Khodarkovsky leavens the tale with vivid details about the lives, cultures, and (often violent) fates of the different peoples of the region. One puts down this book with a much clearer sense of the challenge historically raised by this rebellious region for the Russians—a challenge that, in essence, remains today.- Robert Legvold (Foreign Affairs)

• Introduction1. The Frontiers of the North Caucasus2. Atarshchikov's Childhood3. Journey through the Northeast Caucasus4. Inside Ermolov's "Iron Fist"5. St. Petersburg and Poland6. Return to the North Caucasus7. Interpreter and Administrator8. Russian Policies and Alternatives9. The First Desertion10. From Semën Atarshchikov to Hajret MuhammedConclusionNotesGlossaryBibliographyIndex