Excuse me, Yaacov, but I have to contradict you again.
The Greben Cossacks did not show up in the Caucasus until the the early 16th century, so there is no way the Kabardin princes could have sprung from them. At the time, the Kabardins had long been the dominant force in the central part of the North Caucasus. In addition to the territory they themselves directly controlled, they collected "tribute" from other areas (e.g., Ossetia, part of Chechnya), and even exported princes to them (Chechnya again).
One of the reasons that the marauding Greben Cossacks fitted in so well in the region (and indeed intermarried with many of the locals) is that their "way of life" was similar to that of the locals: the North Caucasian mountaineers traditionally conducted horse-stealing, women-stealing, etc. raids on one another. (These raids were not generally especially bloody; for Kabardin noblemen, it was a sort of sport, in which one was expected to take part,to prove one's manhood.)
Your reference to Ivan the Terrible and the fort on the Sea of Azov also puzzles me. Originally, it was the Kabardins who asked him to build it -- to shield them from the attacks of the Crimean Tatars, and from Turkey as well. (The Kabardins tended to shift their allegiances, depending on circumstances.) Since Ivan was at peace with Turkey at the time, at first he turned them down. He later changed his mind, and agreed to become their "protector." The agreement signed in this connection is what is cited when people speak of the "unification of Kabarda with Russia." But the Cossacks had nothing to do with it, and the agreement is NOT cited as a basis for the Russian claim on the region as a whole. |
