Военно-административная и политическая деятельность Е.А. Головина на Кавказе (1838–1842) | MILITARY AND ADMINISTRATIVE AND POLITICAL ACTIVITY OF E.A. GOLOVIN IN THE CAUCASUS (1838–1842)

The article is devoted to military and administrative activity of one of imperial deputies – Evgeny Aleksandrovich Golovin in the Caucasus in 1838-1842. The general spent more than three months studying data on the area he did not know in the archives of SaintPetersburg. E. A. Golovin paid special attention to road and fortification construction. He aimed at making them “centres of Russian nationhood by establishing schools and markets”. On December 15, 1838 E. A. Golovin submitted a report to A. I. Chernyshov, the military minister, where he described the nearest political tasks of the Russian government. In Golovin’s opinion, the main military actions in Dagestan were supposed to be seizure of Chirkat, construction of fortifications therein and devastation of Akhulgo, residence of Shamil. However, E. A. Golovin turned out to be bound with instructions written in Petersburg more than his predecessors. Programmes for military actions in the Caucasus region specifying even troop units to participate in expeditions down to the last detail were drawn on an annually basis. By the end of his term in the position of the Commander-in-Chief of the Independent Caucasian Corps Golovin started supporting the siege system by combining it, the same way as A. P. Ermolov, with periodic temporary offensive operations. After the Evgenievskoe Fortification (named so to honour Golovin by Royal Decree) had been constructed at the Sulak River, Evgeniy Aleksandrovich was dismissed in October 1842. The author concludes that in process of recognition of the world of mountaineers the commander-in-chief showed aspiration to searches of other, less dramatic solutions of the Caucasian question, opened for the successors of prospect of the movement of Russia and the people of Chechnya, Dagestan and Western Caucasus towards each other