5 - The Milky Way Vanishes: The Denouement of the Ottoman–Muscovite Rivalry in the North Caucasus, 1605

Summary

In the last decade of the sixteenth century, the Tsardom of Muscovy achieved the establishment of a tangible sphere of influence in Kabarda despite all the odds, including the Ottoman troops and administrative units in Daghestan and the South Caucasus. Several princely families, the descendants of Temriuk and Kanbulat as well as Aslanbek and Solokh, were vying to dominate Kabarda, and both the Muscovites and Ottomans were embroiled in this power struggle. The extant Muscovite sources are quite detailed and helpful to historians for understanding the dynamics and consequences of Kabardinian domestic politics and its broader implications for the imperial rivalry in the North Caucasus. In the autumn of 1589, Tsar Feodor I's envoys travelled through Kabarda on their way to Georgian King Alexander II of Kakheti. They brought gifts from the tsar to the Kabardinian chiefs who were already Muscovite clients or whose allegiances were desired. Among the latter was Aslanbek. The Muscovite officials had long recognised him as an ally of the Ottoman sultan and the Crimean khan, and the tsar ordered the governor of Terek that ‘Aslanbek should be separated from the Ottomans and Crimean Tatars and be brought under the tsar's royal hand’.

Pacification and Muscovite Domination of Kabarda

Following the death of Kanbulat, a staunch Muscovite client, Aslanbek became the pshihua of Kabarda. With Aslanbek's ascension to this rather honorary title, the position of the pshihua passed from the family of Temriuk, the Idars, to the Kaytuks. When the tsar's envoys arrived in Kabarda in 1589, however, they learned that Aslanbek had died, and now ‘the Kabardinians wanted to make his brother Yansokh the pshihua of Kabarda’. Yansokh was indeed elected the new pshihua of Kabarda in October 1589, as reported to Moscow by the governor of Terek. Unlike Aslanbek, however, his brother submitted to Muscovy. This swift change in the orientation of the Kaytuk family can be explained within the context of the internal politics of Kabarda and the Ottoman focus on the South Caucasus to conclude their war with the Safavids. The Kabardinian chiefs elected Yansokh, possibly on the condition he would also collaborate with the Muscovites, as many of them did in the last two decades of the sixteenth century. More important, his main rivals, Solokh and Alkas, were in alliance with the Ottomans and Crimean Tatars.