Zelimkhan Guzhmazukayev

After the February Revolution in Russia in 1905 the Tsarist police attempted to nip revolutionary activities in the bud with cruel repression, and the effects were felt in Chechnya, too. On 10 October 1905 the police shot into the crowd during a strike at the industrial plant in Grozny, killing 17 people. A week later Abreke Zelimkhan held up a passenger train near Kadi-Yurt Station and had the same number of men shot.

Zelimkhan Guzhmazukayev was born in Khara-choy near Vedeno in 1872. After a dispute involving his brother’s bride led to the death of a man in his family, Zelimkhan was required by the code of clan revenge to kill a man from the other family. Although peace was restored between the two families and there was no evidence of any crime, Zelimkhan, his father and his two brothers were sentenced by the Russian administration. Zelimkhan escaped from prison. One brother died in custody. The other returned from banishment only to be sentenced unjustly yet again, and fled to the mountains. Other relatives and villagers were banished without legal justification. In 1906 Zelimkhan killed Lieutenant-Colonel Dobrovolski, the district official in Vedeno who was responsible for these decisions, followed in 1908 by Colonel Galaev, who had banished over 500 innocent Chechens to the Russian North.

As he was unable to live a life in peace, Zelimkhan became an abreke (lone resistance fighter), wreaking vengeance Robin Hood style on the arrogant Russian governors.

On 1909 the Tsarist powers placed a reward of 5,000 roubles on his head. But all efforts to capture him were in vain. Zelimkhan attacked Grozny Station in January 1910 and made off with 18,000 roubles. In response to the pogrom in Gudermes he warned the Cossack ataman (leader) Ferbizki that he would raid the bank in Kizlyar at 12 noon on 9 April. He 27 attacked punctually and all Chechnya mocked the Tsar’s police for their failure to stop him. Zelimkhan distributed the proceeds among the poor and needy.

In September 1910 Prince Andronnikov, the highest-ranking official in the Nazran region, set off with a strong division on a penal expedition to catch Zelimkhan. He lured the troops into am ambush by a bridge and personally took the lives of Prince Andronnikov and First Lieutenant Afanasyev, wounding the Dagestani Staff Captain Dayaghev.

Zelimkhan was a legend in his own lifetime, and occasionally others sought to jump on the bandwagon. One of these fake Zelimkhans is said to have taken a bull from a farmer by claiming “I am Zelimkhan!”. By chance the real Zelimkhan came along, brought the bull back and handed it over to the farmer together with an ear, saying: “The man who took your bull is one-eared Zelimkhan. I am the true Zelimkhan for I have, as you see, two ears.”

On a number of occasions Zelimkhan slipped through troops laying siege. Badly wounded by a shot in the back from a traitor, he hid in a house in Shali, but it was surrounded on 27 September 1913 and after a long struggle he was killed. His capturers proudly had their photograph taken with him. The inhabitants of Grozny and Vedeno were forced to pay 100,000 roubles in reparation for the damage caused by Zelimkhan and his companions.

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All as before: against the dining-room windows

Beats the scattered windswept snow,

And I have not changed either,

But a man came to me.

I asked: “What do you want?”

He replied: “To be with you in Hell.”

I laughed: “Oh, you’ll foredoom

Us both to disaster.”

But lifting his dry hand

He lightly touched the flowers:

“Tell me how men kiss you,

Tell me how you kiss men.”

And his lusterless eyes

Did not move from my ring.

Not a single muscle quivered

On his radiantly evil face.

Oh, I know: his delight

Is the tense and passionate knowledge

That he needs nothing,

That I can refuse him nothing.

"

— Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) - The Guest, January 1, 1914

"Last night I was in the Kingdom of Shadows, If you only knew how strange it is to be there. It is a world without sound, without colour. Everything there—the earth, the trees, the people, the water and the air—is dipped in monotonous grey. Grey rays of sun across the grey sky, grey eyes in grey faces, and the leaves of the trees are ashen grey. It is not life but its shadow, it is not motion but its soundless spectre. And all this is in a strange silence where no rumble of wheels is heard, no sound of footsteps or of speech. Nothing. Not a single note of the intricate symphony that always accompanies the movements of people."

— Maxim Gorky (1868-1936) on viewing a screening of the Lumiere CInematograph in 1896, his review was published in the newspaper ‘Nizhegorodsky Listok’ under the pen name of I. M. Pacatus

"You were the first to demonstrate beyond question by your experience that man is man everywhere, that is, a kind, sociable being with whom communication can and should be established through kindness and truth, not guns and spirits. I do not know what contribution your collections and discoveries will make to the science for which you serve, but your experience of contacting the primitive peoples will make an epoch in the science for which I serve i. e. the science which teaches how human beings should live with one another."

— Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) in a letter to Nikolai Miklukho-Maklai, September 1886

The sun would fail in the observant height,

In clear air, the shining stars would vanish,

The world would sink into a smoke lavish,

And thunders – into silence of the night, –

On the sad moon, invisible and black –

In its dark deeps – would rise the awful fire,

And by the tracks, lost in the Lethe’s mire,

Life would be gone without coming back, –

A dust would lie instead of all these grasses,

All nightingales would cut their loving plea,

All wars and funs would melt like snow masses, –

With a deep sigh, would flee a spirit trustless,

It’d be the same – to be or not to be –

Sooner than I might cease remembering thee.

"

— Konstantin Balmont (1867-1942)

"In order to educate man to a new longing, everyday familiar objects must be shown to him with totally unexpected perspectives and in unexpected situations. New objects should be depicted from different sides in order to provide a complete impression of the object."

— Aleksandr Rodchenko (1891-1956)

familia do povo Nivkh , 1880-90’s

The sense of your bidding is unclear:

to pray, to curse, is it, to fight

you bid me, inscrutable genius?

The spring slackens, niggard, meager,

and Benozzo Gozzoli’s courier

dozes in the drowsy thickets.

Hills are dark with honeyed cloud.

Look: I do not touch lithe strings.

Your gaze, prophetically flying,

is clenched, gushes no winged streams,

and beckons by no May road, trying

to outstrip Hermes in his flight.

Hobbled horses do not neigh,

Aging warriors sprawl in disarray…

Hold your palms open wide!

Risen spring is bright,

but groves of darkness are not given

to leap for joy having leapt from dreams.

The groom names not the hour,

be not guiled to tarry,

hark through ice the clarion voice,

your flax is drenched with chrism,

and, bidding goodbye to numb laze,

free, in love, you will rise.

"

— Mikhail Kuzmin (1872-1936)

Lév Tolstói

"Out of frayed sackcloth - breasts of filthy cataracts,

Like raw potatoes, branched with rooted blue veins.

What shall we trade? Salt? How much do you want?

There’s a dead child’s hat still here.

In the marketplace, a surveyor dozes like a white skull-

A homeless dog sniffs him as he would an old cadaver.

What shall we trade? Bread? How much do you bid?

A pack of dogs in the street tears a heap of rusted brains into bits.

And birds in the air flap like scattered black hats-

A disheveled tuft of wind keeps trying them on-

Is there a deal? Wind? What do you bid for a windmill?

There, across the foothills, they aimlessly quarrel over eagles’ wings.

Making a trade? Wind? What do you bid?"

— Peretz Markish (1895-1952)

Brigada de combate ao fogo- Tonshaevo, Rússia , 1920’s

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