Khan kutermek - the election of the khan took place in a wooden mosque, which could no longer accommodate everyone. And the muezzin on the very top of the multi-colored octagonal minaret, which extended like a spear from the middle of the roof into the sky, continued to convene the people, not forgetting to praise the Almighty and glorify the Prophet.
In the mosque itself, carpets are laid between the columns, and in the middle there is a gold-woven felt. On it is Ibrahim, the son of Mahmutek, the grandson of Ulug-Muhammad, the founder of the Kazan Khanate, who brought this custom of electing a khan from the lands of the Horde.
Four Karachis, having performed a short prayer, take hold of the corners of the felt and lift the corpulent Ibrahim to the enthusiastic cries of those gathered. Then gold coins rain down on his head, the crowd rejoices - either they are really so happy, or the Karachi, the Khan’s advisers, paid well to tear throats like that.
- Well, Kasim, did you eat it? – Ibrahim was spinning in his head. - Until the end of time, you will now dance to the Kurai of Moscow, but you will not see the throne of Kazan like your thick ears...
On the maidan in front of the khan’s palace, in three dwellings, that is, today, three floors, may the Almighty prolong the breath of the great khan, vats of steaming lamb and jugs of intoxicating sherbet are brought out - the khan will feed his people!
The forged doors of zindan prisons open, grinding the bolts and blinding the prisoners with daylight - the khan declares his will!
The poor and wretched will receive rich alms - the khan is kind and generous!
With a special khan’s firman, read by the heralds right there on the Maidan, additional levies and taxes introduced by Mahmutek are abolished - the khan is wise and thinks about his people!
Today and tomorrow are a holiday! Sweet sherbet flows like a river; next to Murza in a rich Cossack sits a commoner in the clothes of a hammal; from the same cauldron the horseman warrior and the khan's uhlan, a scion of an ancient Bulgarian family, take lamb. And it seems that this will be the case under the new khan, day after day and until the end of time...
Ibrahim, in general, was not an evil or stupid person. If it weren’t for this Meshchera prince Kasim, his uncle and stepfather, there’s no way he would have gotten involved in a war with the Grand Duke of Moscow. Ivan, not like Vasily, will not flee across the Volga when three thousand horsemen appear at the walls of Moscow, as happened twenty-eight years ago under the great Ulug-Muhammad. And Kasim, the dog, has his supporters in Kazan among the Beks and Murzas, and Ivan is not enough for him, he is not a friend. Kasim will ask the Grand Duke for soldiers to help him go to Kazan, Ivan will hesitate, but will give...
Eight months have passed since the day when Khan Mahmutek, Ibrahim’s father, appeared before the Almighty at the very beginning of 1467. He was also like Ulug-Muhammad, a great warrior who captured the great prince Vasily himself near Suzdal. And he went to Rus' more than once, until Ivan Vasilyevich began to reign in Moscow. And when he once broke his teeth on Ivanov’s regiments, he realized that fighting with this Grand Duke was more expensive for himself, and therefore the matter did not go further than trade disputes.
Everything was ruined by Khalil, Ibrahim’s older brother, who was elevated to the throne after the death of his father. He tore Ivan Vasilyevich’s letter into pieces, insulted the Nogai envoy, putting the Khanate before the possibility of two wars at once. And one began: the Nogais crossed the Samara River and entered the Simbirsk lands. After they were finally defeated, the peace between the Nogai and Kazan was secured by Khalil’s marriage to the daughter of the most influential Nogai bek Temir Nursaltan. The Russians, having learned about the defeat of the Nogais, were careful not to enter the war, and for now everything had calmed down.
But Khalil died. He was of a hot-tempered and unbridled character, and once, while trampling under his feet another message from the Russians, he started coughing, bulged his eyes and fell dead on the palace carpets. It was then that Kasim, uncle and at the same time stepfather, appeared, for, following the ancient Turkic law that says “and your brother’s wives become your wives, and his children become your children,” Khalil and Ibrahim, after the death of Mahmutek, became his children, and their mother is his wife.
Ivan, as Ibrahim expected, gave Kasim an army, he began to fight the Kazan Khanate, and little by little the war between Kasimov and Kazan grew into a war between Kazan and Moscow.
The first campaign of the Russian regiments against Kazan ended in failure: they were ambushed, and Khan Ibrahim, personally leading the Kazan army, did not even allow them to cross the Volga.
In the same 1468, a new army of Russians went from Galich to Vyatka, but things did not go further than skirmishes with the Kazan beks near Murom and Kostroma. Ibrahim grew stronger. With a large army, he entered Russia, took Vyatka and declared it his ulus. It is noteworthy that its inhabitants did not resist this at all and, it seems, recognized themselves as subjects of the khan even with relief: they, in fact, never felt any special love for the Moscow sovereigns.
It was a challenge. Vasily Vasilyevich would probably have come to terms with this circumstance, just as he once came to terms with the formation of the Kasimov Khanate on the Oka. But Vasily’s son Ivan was not like that. He accepted Ibrahim's challenge and decided to strike back.
At first, voivode Ivan Runo almost took Kazan, burning its towns and plundering all the property of residents of the city’s outskirts. Then, under the leadership of the Grand Duke's brothers, Yuri and Andrei, new regiments approached Kazan and besieged it, forcing Ibrahim to make peace on the Grand Duke's terms and release all the captives who had been captured over the past forty years.
Perhaps Ibrahim was a man of his word: the peace and promises he made, including obeying the “will” of the Grand Duke, were not broken for the next eight years. And perhaps this was the result of the ever-increasing influence of the hanbike Norsaltan, who, according to ancient Turkic custom, became his second wife after the death of Khalil. It was probably she who restrained her husband’s patriotic impulses to stand up for the state and Allah and settled various kinds of misunderstandings through personal correspondence with Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich, which lasted no more or less than thirty years. She, without any “probably”, became her husband’s friend and assistant in all his affairs, causing hostility from Ibrahim’s first wife, Fatima, who was very afraid that, in addition to her husband, Nursaltan would take away the throne from her children...
Once, however, it was not possible to keep Nursaltan’s husband: having quarreled with the Grand Duke, Ibrahim at the beginning of 1478 went to the Vyatka lands, burned the villages and brought many captives from there. In response to this, the Grand Duke burned out the Trans-Kama villages in the spring, and his governor Vasily Obrazets reached the very walls of Kazan.
Ibrahim asked for peace, concluded it on approximately the same terms as nine years ago, then fell ill and died.
A struggle for the throne broke out between supporters of Fatima's eldest son Ilham - the position of khan was to a certain extent elective - and those who wanted to see Nursaltan's eldest son Muhammad-Emin as the ruler.
The supporters of Fatima and Ilham won. Proud Nursaltan, having sent Muhammad-Emin to Moscow to see Ivan Vasilyevich, left for Crimea with her youngest, Abdul-Letif. Ilham began to rule Kazan...
14:02 — REGNUM
On the pages of REGNUM news agency, a fierce debate continues about the events of the history of Karabakh, both recent and ancient. Most publications on this topic are full of interesting factual material, but its interpretations by representatives of both sides sometimes have very little in common with the search for pure and impartial historical knowledge. There is no need to be under any illusions: we are witnessing a struggle for land, and one of the arguments in this struggle is precisely references to events of the past, including those long past. A Russian historian should not once again interfere in the vendetta of two Transcaucasian peoples, so as not to become like the noble Mercutio in his professional field, who intervened between the fighting Montagues and Capulets and then exclaimed with bitter anguish: “A plague on both your houses!”
However, sometimes situations arise when a Russian historian cannot remain an indifferent observer of someone else's verbal strife. In our case, this happens when one of the parties to the controversy, wanting to find new arguments in favor of its “unconditional” and “exclusive” rights to Karabakh, tries to do this by denigrating the historical Russian statehood, the valiant Russian army and its military leaders.
On July 30, 2011, REGNUM published an article by Professor, Doctor of Historical Sciences Jamila Hasanli "Annexation of the Karabakh Khanate to the Russian Empire: Historical realities and myths". The facts presented in it are extracted from published sources and do not represent scientific novelty. In essence, the selection of material and, especially, in its tone, this article is a classic “anti-colonial” and anti-Armenian sob on the topic of the untimely death of the “purely Muslim”, “purely Turkic” Karabakh Khanate, absorbed by the evil imperial Russia at the beginning of the 19th century. On the periphery of the space of the former Russian Empire, we see many such mourners-accusers from young national historiographies, and polemics with them do not seem like an activity worthy of us. Armenian colleagues, of course, will find something to essentially answer Hasanli to his reasoning about the Turkic and Muslim monolithicity of Karabakh.
We wouldn’t have to waste time arguing with the doctor of historical sciences, who appeals to the “scientific” authority of the fiction writer V.S. Pikulya. However, in Professor Hasanli’s article, our attention was involuntarily drawn to one passage: “In 1806, when Iran launched an attack on Shusha, the head of the fortress garrison, Major Lisanevich, wary of the unexpected actions of the Karabakh Khan, killed the entire family of Ibrahim Khalil Khan, with the exception of one son, Mehdi Kuli-agi." From this casually spoken phrase, the uninitiated reader can conclude that the Russian military leader, simply out of some abstract fears, committed the extrajudicial murder of the legitimate ruler of the Karabakh Khanate, who recognized Russia’s power over himself. And not only Ibrahim Khan, but his entire family. That is, we can conclude that in this case we are talking about either a grave crime by the commander of the Russian garrison, or, if we go even further, about the cruel treachery of the Russian imperial government, which a year earlier accepted the Khan of Karabakh under its protection, and then killed him without any reason .
In Azerbaijani historical journalism, one can generally find a whole layer of hype on the topic of this imaginary villainous “war crime” of the Russians against the Karabakh Khan’s house. For example, Eldar Amirov called Lisanevich “the executioner of the Azerbaijani people” in the article “Prelude to the tragedies of Karabakh: The execution of the ruler Ibrahim Khan and his family.” We should not ignore this and similar hysterical attacks, since they directly affect the honor and good name of the soldiers and commanders of the Russian army.
In fact, the story of the death of Ibrahim Khan, although not yet fully studied, is still well known to researchers. And the available materials allow us, even without additional archival research, to offer the reader our own version of those events. Our main sources will be the 3rd volume of “Acts collected by the Caucasian Archaeographic Commission” (Tiflis, 1869; hereinafter AKAK), as well as the 3rd part of the not so widely known “History of His Majesty’s 13th Life-Grenadier Erivan Regiment for 250 years (1642-1892)" (St. Petersburg, 1893). The author of the latest work, General Staff, Lieutenant General Pavel Osipovich Bobrovsky, made extensive use of documents from the archives of the headquarters of the Caucasian Military District in his work. In 1806, it was the soldiers of the 17th Jaeger Regiment, from which the Erivan Grenadier Regiment was later formed, who played a key role in the events that led to the death of the ruler of the Karabakh Khanate. Bobrovsky's work contains a number of valuable facts extracted by the author from archival documents. For example, until now there was no clarity about the date of death of Ibrahim Khan. Azerbaijani and Russian Wikipedias designate it as the day of July 18, 1806, without citing the source. However, Bobrovsky’s book clearly states that the ruler of Karabakh was killed on the night of May 27, 1806. [Bobrovsky P.O. The history of His Majesty's 13th Life Grenadier Erivan Regiment for 250 years. (1642-1892). Part 3. St. Petersburg, 1893. P. 245. Hereafter - Bobrovsky].
So, what were the circumstances of the death of the second ruler of the Karabakh Khanate from the house of Jevanshirs, Ibrahim Khalil Khan?
The year was 1806 - the third year of the Russian-Persian War of 1804-1813. Numerically weak Russian troops in Transcaucasia acted defensively against significantly superior Persian forces. In the campaign of 1806, military operations in Karabakh opened at the end of May, when Persian troops crossed the Araks and began moving towards the capital of the Khanate - the fortress of Shusha. The ruler of the Karabakh Khanate, Ibrahim Khalil Khan (1732-1806), under the Treaty of Kurekchay on May 14, 1805, recognized the power of the Russian Empire over himself. However, it maintained close ties with Iran; one of his sons, Abul-Feth, entered the land of Karabakh at the head of a two-thousand-strong Persian detachment, which formed the vanguard of the main forces of the Shah-zade (heir to the throne) Abbas Mirza.
According to the Treaty of Kurekchay, a Russian garrison of up to 500 people was stationed in Shusha, this strategically important fortress. It was composed of a battalion of the 17th Jaeger Regiment under the command of Major Lisanevich. Dmitry Tikhonovich Lisanevich (1780-1825), the scion of a poor Voronezh noble family, was the hero of the storming of Ganja in 1804. Then, at the head of the assault battalion, he was the first to climb the fortress wall, for which he was awarded the Order of St. George, 4th class.
In May 1806, a few days before his death, the ruler of Karabakh, Ibrahim Khalil Khan, a lieutenant general of the Russian service, with his entire family and retinue “under the pretext of air” (that is, allegedly because of the onset of hot weather) left the Shusha fortress to a place located 4 versts from it, which in Russian sources is called Mirza-Ali-Bekov Sengir. [Bobrovsky. P. 245]
According to a group of Shusha nobility, which soon after complained to the authorities about Major Lisanevich, Ibrahim Khan left Shusha due to dissatisfaction with the orders of the Russian military leader: “Lisanevich and Joraev, unable to deal with the people, treated them badly, oppressing their subjects, and did not act according to the treaty and without our knowledge, they entered into some local affairs that did not concern them. The late Ibrahim Khan, being upset by such actions of theirs, ordered to pitch a tent behind the fortress and stayed there with one wife and three sons, and the rest of the wives and children were in the fortress, but every 2 or 3 days he went to the fortress and from there to his tent" [Report of Shusha elders and residents, 1806 // AKAK. T. 3. No. 624].
Today's Azerbaijani epigones of those complainants from Shushi also emphasize that Ibrahim Khan settled in his summer residence, an unfortified place where he lived simply in a tent, with his wife and children. However, historian General P.O. Bobrovsky calls this place a “castle”; and the documents of the Caucasian Archaeographic Commission speak of a “strong position”, “fortress”.
According to the Russian side, by the time he left Shushi, Ibrahim Khan was in a treasonous mood, and he left his capital, occupied by Lisanevich’s rangers, just in order to freely maintain contact with the Persian troops, in particular, with his son Abul-Feth . He ordered the sedentary inhabitants of the Karabakh Khanate to remain in their places, without fear of a Persian invasion, and sent orders to the nomadic Tatars to gather armed at an appointed place in the mountains near Shushi, where Abul-Feth was to arrive with 2000 Persian soldiers.
By the way, it is noteworthy that after the death of Ibrahim Khan, his supporters from among the residents of Shusha, in a complaint to the Russian authorities, were forced to admit the fact that their late ruler actually had relations with the Persian army. The explanation for this was simple - the khan wanted to avoid the ruin of his possessions and the destruction of the new year's harvest. For this, they say, he sent his people to Abbas Mirza [Report of Shusha elders and residents, 1806 // AKAK. T. 3. No. 624].
Lisanevich received information about all this from various sources - from spies sent abroad, from the Armenian melik Dzhimshid, from many residents of Karabakh and, most importantly, from the closest relatives of the khan himself. At first, Lisanevich tried to act through diplomatic methods. In his own words, he sent his son Mehdi-Quli-aga and grandson Jafar-Quli-bek to Ibrahim Khan to persuade him to stop relations with the enemy and return to the Russian side. Lisanevich reported: “As in these cases the betrayal turned out to be obvious, I sent his son Mehti Agha and grandson Jafar Quli Bek to persuade him, so that he, having destroyed all ties with the Persians, would return with his entire family to the fortress, who, having stayed there most of the day, first returned Jafar Quli-bek announced to me that although he had persuaded the khan several times to leave the Persians, but except for the abuse of the Russians, he had heard nothing from him and, moreover, the khan had most convincingly asked him to try invite me to his house and, having caught me there, give it to him and also kidnap my brother Shukur-Ullah, who is in the amanat in Elisavetpol, which is why I refused him; in addition to this, he announced that [this] night or the khan would go to the Persians or the Persians will unite with him, after which the arriving Mehti Agha also announced that no matter how hard he tried to persuade the khan, but the khan did not agree to anything and had clearly already taken the side of the Persians" [Lieutenant Colonel D.T. Lisanevich - Major General P.D. Nesvetaev. Report. September 4, 1806 // AKAK. T. 3. No. 610].
The reliability of this information from the son and grandson of Ibrahim Khan is supported by the consideration that Lisanevich would hardly have reported to his superiors about this diplomatic mission of Mehdi-Quli and Jafar-Quli to their father and grandfather, if he had not been sure that at least one of them (or other witnesses) will confirm the facts presented. This expectation of Lisanevich completely came true. In fact, Mehdi Quli Agha, having taken his father’s place on the throne of the Karabakh Khanate, began to accuse Lisanevich of criminal abuse of power and the murder of Ibrahim Khan. However, at that very time, a fierce struggle broke out between Mehdi Quli Agha and his nephew, Jafar Quli Bek, one of the reasons for which was that, as stated in the correspondence of Russian military leaders in the Caucasus, Jafar Quli did not want to allow his uncle “to cover up the betrayal of Ibrahim Khan” [Lieutenant Colonel P.S. Kotlyarevsky - Lieutenant General Baron I.K. Rosen. Report. October 6, 1806 No. 271 // AKAK. T. 3. No. 615].
So, let us repeat once again the indisputable facts: in May 1806, the Karabakh Khanate was invaded by an enemy army, the Persian cavalry could appear near Shusha at any minute, and the ruler of the Khanate, Ibrahim Khan, a “faithful” vassal of Russia and a lieutenant general in the Russian service, Because of the heat, or because of dissatisfaction with Lisanevich’s orders, in those days he left his capital - the Shusha fortress - and settled in a tent in an open area not far from the city. “What is this - stupidity or treason?” - one figure from another era of Russian history would ask here. To us, the answer seems clear: Ibrahim Khan can be confidently attributed to treason, but to his Azerbaijani apologists - stupidity. And even if the “regifugia” of the Karabakh Khan was intended to achieve wait-and-see neutrality, on the part of the Russian authorities in those conditions it looked like an absolutely disloyal action, and they had every right to take decisive preventive measures. Ibrahim Khan refused all Lisanevich’s arguments; his evil will became undeniable for the commander of the Russian garrison of Shushi. And then he began to act tough. Taking with him 100 rangers of the 17th regiment, Lisanevich left the Shusha fortress on the night of May 27 and approached the location of Ibrahim Khan.
Available versions of what happened next vary greatly. According to one of them, Russian soldiers in cold blood carried out a brutal massacre of innocent people who did not even try to resist. A group of influential residents of Shushi wrote in their collective complaint: “Major Lisanevich and Milakhvar [as in the document; “milakhvar” is a Georgian noble title. Perhaps we are talking about Major Joraev, the second most senior Russian officer in the Shushi garrison. - V.K. ], having accidentally taken an army, at midnight they went against the khan, first killed him, and then his wife, Ali Khan’s sister, one daughter and his son, and up to 30 officials and relatives hiding there, killed all of them, all their property in money and things , clothes and tents were robbed and snatched up, bringing us and our neighbors into despair" [Report of Shusha elders and residents, 1806 // AKAK. T. 3. No. 624].
The son of the murdered khan Mehdi-Quli-aga, who inherited the throne of his father, also complained about Lisanevich. Lisanevich had previously considered him a supporter of the Russian cause, but he had to become convinced that the new ruler of Karabakh had become his personal blood enemy. Lisanevich explained this by Mehdi-Quli’s commitment to “Muhammadan” rights [Lieutenant Colonel D.T. Lisanevich - Major General P.D. Nesvetaev. Report. September 4, 1806 // AKAK. T. 3. No. 610].
The Russian military authorities were very attentive to all such complaints from local residents against Russian officers. In alarming and troubled times of war, such a story required a show trial. Having not yet collected all the information and not heard the version of the accused himself, the commander-in-chief of the troops in Georgia and Dagestan, Count I.V. Gudovich wrote in relation to the Minister of Military Ground Forces S.K. Vyazmitinova: “According to the reports I received from the commander of the troops in Georgia, General Nesvetaev, it turns out that the 17th Jaeger Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Lisanevich and Major Joraev, who was with him, without any incentive, with a detachment of Jaegers launched an attack on Ibrahim Khan Shushinsky, who, having no army with him, except for servants of 35 men and women and 1 wife with 3 young children, was on this side of the Shushi fortress near the gardens, on a mountain without any fortification, and he himself came out of the tent to meet the detachment, without firing a single shot; but the rangers began to shoot and bayonet, where Ibrahim Khan was killed and all the property that was with him went to the spoils of those who carried out the attack" [General Count I.V. Gudovich - S.K. Vyazmitinov. August 21, 1806 No. 19 // AKAK. T. 3. No. 605].
Gudovich further reported that this information was based on rumors that had reached him, a letter from Mehdi Quli Agha, and a collective complaint from a group of Shushi residents (cited above). It is noteworthy that, as Gudovich wrote, all this data in his eyes was by no means proof of Lisanevich’s guilt. However, he still considered it necessary to “order a formal investigation in order to show, especially through the relatives of this Ibrahim Khan and other conquered peoples, that the power of laws and justice of E.I.V. nowhere give room for crimes and always provide fair protection” [ Ibid.].
The very next day after the death of Ibrahim Khan, full-scale military operations began in Karabakh between the Russians and the approaching Persian troops. Lisanevich found himself immersed in directing the combat activities of the forces entrusted to him, and he simply did not have time to defend and justify himself to his superiors [Major General P.D. Nesvetaev - Lieutenant General G.I. Glazenap. Report. July 18, 1806 No. 1739 // AKAK. T. 3. No. 602].
Only three months after the death of the Karabakh Khan, Lisanevich was able to give a written response to the accusations raised against him. In a report addressed to Major General Nesvetaev dated September 4, 1806, he outlined the events of that bloody May night as follows:
“And so, having no longer any hope of bringing the khan to repentance, [I] decided to attack him at night and, if possible, capture him alive and, having appointed 100 people for this purpose, rangers with a decent number of officers, I went with them myself to carry out into action; in the fortress he ordered the guards to be multiplied at the gates and breaches, and the rest of the people to gather to the artillery; he ordered the officers and people going to attack not to shoot before the enemy and, upon approaching, to shout to those who knew the language so that they would surrender without shooting I would go with the khan. I went to attack on a completely different road and not the one that goes directly from the fortress to them and where they had guards, and not before they opened us, as they approached less than a rifle shot, and then they, having shouted, fired at heavy fire on us. No matter how much I shouted at them, as did others, persuading them not to shoot and to surrender, but they still stubbornly continued to shoot and wounded the huntsman, who died a few days later. For this insolence, I ordered the rangers to shoot and rush at them; The rangers did this with courage, and in an instant the traitors were knocked down from their strong position, and the khan and several people were left killed by a bullet on the spot, the rest were pursued by the rangers through the bushes and ravines; His son, daughter and wife, who died from a wound, could not have been wounded otherwise than by mingling with the others in the crowd, in the bushes, and not being recognized from the darkness of the night; the things of the traitors that remained in their tents, like the booty taken through weapons and of which there was little, I gave in favor of the soldiers, but their best things were taken away at the beginning of the case by their servants, of which Mehti Agha later found much" [Lieutenant Colonel D. T. Lisanevich - Major General P.D. Nesvetaev. Report. September 4, 1806 // AKAK. T. 3. No. 610].
According to Bobrovsky, the son of the murdered ruler Khanlar Agha managed to ride away with a group of armed horsemen [Bobrovsky. P. 245].
As Lisanevich further reported in the same report, right there in the khan’s camp he received news from the Muganlinsky bek that a two-thousand-strong Persian detachment led by Abul-Feth, whom Ibrahim Khan was waiting for, was already very close. Lisanevich hurried to return to the fortress, where he arrived at dawn. Almost immediately, a Persian army appeared two miles from Shushi. Lisanevich opposed them with 150 rangers and mounted Karabakh militia. Having learned from the fugitives about the fate of Ibrahim Khan and his entourage, the Persian vanguard retreated without accepting the battle.
In his report, Lisanevich especially emphasized that he acted based on the fact of the undoubted betrayal of Ibrahim Khan, and that, if he had chosen a different line of behavior, the military consequences could have been catastrophic for the Russian presence in Karabakh. He wrote: “In addition to this, I make it my duty to mention that if Ibrahim Khan [that night] as a traitor had not received due retribution, then the next day the Shusha fortress should have been under siege from the Persians and traitors of Karabakh; Abbas Mirza, who crossed already Araks, could also have come from there in 2 marches; in the garrison of Shusha there was no provisions at all, and even among the servants. There was no way to rely on the loyalty of Ibrahim Khan, the son of Mehti Agha, with his Tatars, whose number was much greater in the fortress than Armenians" [Lieutenant Colonel D.T. Lisanevich - Major General P.D. Nesvetaev. Report. September 4, 1806 // AKAK. T. 3. No. 610].
The versions of Lisanevich and his accusers look almost mutually exclusive. However, by comparing them and using other factual data, the following conclusions can still be drawn.
The treasonous activities of Ibrahim Khan did not raise any doubts among the commander of the Russian garrison. Therefore, he initially went for a forceful action rather than diplomatic persuasion. To do this, in particular, he chose a roundabout path, where the movement of his detachment could not be noticed by the Khan’s patrols. But the last thing Lisanevich could want was the death of Ibrahim Khan. The optimal option from his point of view would be the forced return of the khan to Shusha, where he could be used as a hostage without, at the same time, causing huge political difficulties for Russia in Transcaucasia and career risks for himself personally. Both would have been inevitable in the event of the death of the khan, which is what actually happened.
Supporters of the version of Ibrahim Khan’s innocent death argue that if he had been a real traitor to Russia, he would not have remained near the Shusha fortress with a Russian garrison. However, there is something to object to this. Ibrahim Khan was the legal ruler of the Khanate, a Russian subject and general, and all previous experience gave him no reason to fear Lisanevich’s decisive forceful actions. All the previous days, the Russian officer tried to persuade Ibrahim Khan to no avail. The Persian troops were already on the way (as we remember, they were near Shusha the very next morning, that is, several hours after the death of the khan). “This night either the khan will go to the Persians or the Persians will unite with him,” - this is how, according to the already cited report, his son and grandson conveyed the khan’s plans. The ruler of Karabakh almost waited for the Persians, and he could well count that the hours remaining before their arrival would pass quite well for him. The foray of Lisanevich and his hundreds of rangers came as a complete surprise to the khan. Almost certainly, Russian soldiers met armed resistance. We do not know whether it was done on the orders of Ibrahim Khan or broke out involuntarily. We also do not have reliable data on the size and armament of the Khan’s retinue. Apparently, there was no talk of Russian rangers storming a “fortress” or “castle,” but one cannot believe the words about three dozen defenseless servants and maids in tents in the middle of a country garden. It seems that the truth is somewhere in the middle, but only the imagination can recreate it in more detail, since the source material we have is definitely not enough for this. As we have already tried to show, Lisanevich was not interested in the death of the khan, but the situation got out of the control of the Russian military leader. If, as was very likely, rifle fire was opened on his rangers, he could and should have ordered extreme measures to avoid the worst - the flight and connection of Ibrahim Khan with his son's Persian vanguard. A bloody battle followed in the darkness of the night, in which nothing could ensure the safety of the family members of the ruler of Karabakh.
The investigation into the murder of Ibrahim Khan continued until July 1807, and as a result, Lisanevich’s innocence was established. The commander-in-chief himself, in his most humble submission, “convinced by the truth,” asked the emperor to relieve Lisanevich of all responsibility [Bobrovsky. P. 246]. The former commander of the Shushi garrison brilliantly continued his service in the Caucasus. In 1824, by the personal election of Emperor Alexander I, D.T. Lisanevich was appointed commander of the troops on the Caucasian line, with promotion to lieutenant general.
On July 18, 1825, during the pacification of the rebellious Gerzel-aul in Chechnya, Lisanevich, receiving a deputation of mountain elders, was seriously wounded by a mountaineer fanatic and soon died. The author of the article quoted above, E. Amirov, writes that Lisanevich, this “executioner in uniform,” was punished by the hand of an Azerbaijani avenger. But we will not comment on this nonsense, since the voice of reason is powerless in the face of such wild stupidity and ignorance.
In this short article, with documents and facts in hand, we tried to prove one simple thesis: Major Lisanevich in May 1806 had every reason to use military force to force the obedience of Ibrahim Khalil Khan Dzhevanshir, whose treasonous attitude towards Russia seems to us beyond doubt.
The events of the terrible year 1806 provide well-known examples of what happened to Russian military leaders who allowed themselves to believe the sincerity of the “Azerbaijani” khans. Let us recall that on February 8, under the walls of Baku, during the ceremony of handing over the keys to the city, the Russian commander-in-chief, General of the Infantry, Prince P.D., was treacherously shot by a henchman of the Baku Hussein-Kuli Khan. Tsitsianov; The ruler of Baku sent his head to the Shah of Persia. And at the beginning of the summer of the same year, the ruler of the Sheki Khanate, Selim Khan, deceived the commander of the Russian garrison, Major Parfenov, into his camp, cut out part of his convoy, and took the survivors prisoner and threw them into prison.
In Karabakh, Major Lisanevich did not believe Ibrahim Khan and decided to use force against him. On the night of May 27, 1806, a battle broke out near the khan’s home, during which Ibrahim Khan himself, a number of members of his family and household were killed in the darkness and chaos. During such “special operations”, innocent people, including women and children, almost always die. There were such casualties during the storming of the Taj Beg Palace (Amin's Palace) by Soviet special forces in Afghanistan in 1979, and during the liquidation of Osama bin Laden by American Navy SEALs in Pakistan in May of this year 2011. It's a pity for innocent people, but war has its own logic, its own laws and rights. In May 1806, Lisanevich and his rangers acted in urgent conditions of serious military danger, which was aggravated by the fact that a number of members of the ruling khan’s house in Karabakh were on the side of the superior Persian forces. The firm and decisive steps of the Russian military leader and his rangers made it possible to repel the threat and keep Karabakh under the legitimate authority of the Russian Empire. Honor and praise to them for this!
Vasily Kashirin - Candidate of Historical Sciences (Moscow)
- Nur-Sultan (??? ??????), children - Muhammad-Amin, Abdul-Latif, Gauharshad.
- Fatima Shah Sultan (????? ??? ??????), children - Ilham, Melik-Taghir, Khudai-Kul (after baptism. Peter Ibrahimovic), after the capture of Kazan in 1487, everyone was arrested and exiled to Vologda and Beloozero;
Wars with the Moscow State
In 1467, Ivan III began a war against the Kazan Khanate, sending Tsarevich Kasim, uncle of Khan Ibrahim, as a pretender to the Kazan throne in the fall. This candidacy had support among some Kazan residents. Ibrahim defeated numerous Moscow troops in the famous river battle on the Volga in 1467. Perhaps the only major river battle between Russians and Kazan Tatars. The opposition party was headed by Prince Abdul-Mumin (????? ?????). The campaign ended in failure; the Russian army did not dare to cross the Volga and engage in battle with the Tatars. In response, Khan Ibrahim in the winter made a punitive foray into the border areas of the enemy and plundered the outskirts of Galich Mersky.
In 1468, Ivan III sent strong garrisons to Nizhny Novgorod, Murom, Kostroma, Galich, and began military operations on the territory of the Khanate, which were accompanied by extreme cruelty against civilians, provoking Kazan into a big war.
Ibrahim sent troops in two directions: Galich and Nizhny Novgorod-Murom. At the first, the Kazan people were successful; the town of Kichmeng was taken and two Kostroma volosts were captured. On the second, the Russians stopped the Tatars, defeating the detachment of Murza Khoja-Berdy.
Moscow opened a third front - the Khlynov front. The Ushkuiniki, having descended on boats along the Vyatka to the Kama, began robberies deep in the rear of the Kazan people. In response, strong detachments were sent to the north, which captured the capital of the Vyatka region - the city of Khlynov, establishing a Tatar administration there.
Sources and literature
- Pokhlebkin V.V. Tatars and Rus'. 360 years of relations between Rus' and the Tatar states in the XIII-XVI centuries, 1238-1598. (From the Battle of the Sit River to the Conquest of Siberia): Directory. - M.: International. relations, 2005. - 192 p.
He ascended the Kazan throne in 1467, after the death of his childless brother.
Yielding to the requests of the serving Tatar prince Kasim-Tregub, Ibrahim’s uncle, the Grand Duke of Moscow in the same year 1467 began a war against the Kazan Khanate, with the goal of placing Prince Kasim on the Kazan throne, who had support among part of the Kazan people, led by Prince Abdul-Mumin. In the fall, he sent an army under the command of the governor Prince I.V. Obolensky-Striga against Ibrahim, which he defeated in the famous river battle on the Volga. Perhaps the only major river battle between Russians and Kazan Tatars. Having never crossed the Volga, the Muscovites went home, and Khan Ibrahim in the winter made a punitive foray into the enemy’s border areas and plundered the outskirts of Galich Mersky.
In 1468, he sent strong garrisons to Nizhny Novgorod, Murom, Kostroma, Galich, and began military operations in the territory of the Cheremis lands subject to Ibrahim. The fighting was accompanied by extreme cruelty against civilians, provoking Kazan into a major war. The Moscow army devastated the entire Cheremis land and took many prisoners.
In response, Ibrahim sent troops in two directions: Galich and Nizhny Novgorod-Murom. At the first, the Kazan people were successful; the town of Kichmeng was taken and two Kostroma volosts were captured. On the second, the Russians stopped the Tatars, defeating the detachment of Murza Khoja-Berdy.
Moscow opened a third front - the Khlynov front. The Ushkuiniki, having descended on boats along the Vyatka to the Kama, began robberies deep in the rear of the Kazan people. In retaliation, strong detachments were sent to the north and captured the capital of the Vyatka region - the city of Khlynov, establishing a Tatar administration there.
In the fall of 1469, he sent an army led by his younger brother to Kazan. He was appointed to the very vanguard - the first commander of the advanced regiment of the "horse army" - part of the army moving towards Kazan not on ships, but by land, along the banks of the Volga. Having besieged the city, Moscow governors blocked the access of water to the fortress. Soon, Khan Ibrahim, besieged in Kazan, asked for mercy and made peace with the prince. The treaty provided for the release of all Russian prisoners in the hands of the Tatars and the establishment of peaceful, friendly relations between Moscow and Kazan.
Deceived by false news that he had been defeated by the Novgorodians, Ibrahim broke his oaths in 1478 and conquered the Vyatka region. The Grand Duke took revenge on him by the fact that the Ustyuzhans and Vyatchans entered the Kazan possessions along the Kama River and devastated them, and the Moscow governor V.F. Simsky-Obrazet approached Kazan itself, but a storm and rains prevented the assault on the city. Ibrahim began to ask for peace again. Soon after this, in 1479, he died and was buried in the Kazan Kremlin in the Mausoleum of the Kazan Khans.
Ibrahim had children from two wives: from Queen Fatima, three sons - Ali, Khudai-Kul and Melik-Taghir, and from Queen Nur-Saltan (the widow of the late Khan Khalil) two sons - Muhammad-Emin and Abdul-Latif. In addition, he had several daughters, of whom one princess named Gauharshad (Kovgorshad) gained fame.
After Ibrahim’s death, his widow Nur-Saltan married the Crimean Khan Mengli-Girey and left Kazan for Bakhchisarai. This event, testifying to the political, cultural and economic ties that existed between Kazan and Crimea, greatly contributed to the strengthening of these ties and subsequently had important consequences, as they were the source of major political events. Together with his mother, the little prince Abdul-Latif went to the Crimea, to the court of his stepfather.
compilation (vkuznetsov)In the first part of the series we talked about the khans Ulug-Muhammad and Mahmud.
KHALIL
Almost only one name and the fact of his succession to his father are known about Mahmud’s successor on the Kazan throne, his son Khalil. “Momotyak the Tsar has children: Khalil the Tsar, Ibrahim the Tsar,” notes the Velvet Book. The name of the king “Helealek” is mentioned by the 16th century German diplomat Sigismund Herberstein in “Notes on Muscovy”, who calls him the father of Ilham (“Alekhama”). Khalil’s name also appears in the chronicle passage “On the Genealogy of Genghis Khan.” That's all that researchers know for sure about Khalil. However, in the works of Prince Mikhail Shcherbatov and Mikhail Berezhkov, the European historian of the mid-16th century Alexander Guagnini is quoted. He claimed that Nur-Sultan, the wife of khans Khalil and Ibrahim, married them with the knowledge and on the orders of the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III in 1462 and 1467. Shcherbatov and Berezhkov agree without reservation with Guagnini’s message. To us, such a course of events seems unlikely due to the complete lack of information in Russian sources about the connections of the young Ivan III with the Great Horde, where Nur-Sultan was from. We only know about the aggressive aspirations of the khans of this horde aimed at Russian lands. It is difficult to imagine any benefit for the Grand Duke from these Nur-Sultan marriages.
IBRAHIM (Russian variants of the name - Ibreim, Abraim, Abreim, Obreim, Obryaim, Abraagim, Obryagim, Obregim, Alyakhim)
Ibrahim, Khalil's younger brother and son of Mahmud, received the throne after his brother's death. It is not known exactly when this happened. Most likely, no later than the summer of 1467, when the Kazan feudal lords, who were in opposition to Ibrahim, contacted Kasim, a Moscow service prince. In the fall of 1467, Ibrahim managed to repel the campaign of the pretender to the Kazan throne, Kasim, supported by Ivan III. By the way, Qasim, Mahmud’s brother, was Ibrahim’s uncle. Thus began the bloody war between the Khanate and the Russian state of 1467–1469, during which the struggle was fought with great bitterness and with varying success. Ultimately, in September 1469, Ibrahim was forced to make peace with the Moscow governors “to the fullest of his will and as needed by his brother the Grand Duke” and pledged to release all Russian prisoners within 40 years. According to some sources, in 1478 Ibrahim personally led a campaign against Vyatka, hoping that Ivan III would be busy with Novgorod affairs. But this operation did not bring any laurels to the khan. After the Russian return campaign in June 1478, Ibrahim sued for peace. The agreement was signed, as in 1469, “as the Grand Duke wishes.” Apparently, Ibrahim died soon after this, since his name disappears from the pages of the chronicles. 
ILGAM (Russian variants of the name - Legam, Alegam, Aleham, Oleham)
The new Khan of Kazan was the son of Ibrahim from his first wife Fatima-Sultan (Batmassy-Sultan according to Gerbershein). Ilgam was first mentioned in the Kazan embassy book for 1482, a fragment of which was preserved in the rank books (rank books are a documentary list of the appointments of governors to regiments). When listing the Russian governors stationed in Nizhny Novgorod, the category explains that their goal was “to protect the king from Alegam.” It was 1482 that became the time of intensified diplomatic exchange between Moscow and Kazan, as a result of which peace was concluded in the summer. Without knowing the terms of this agreement, it would be useful to recall the mention of Ilgam among the first Kazan khans, whom Ivan III allegedly placed on the Kazan throne “from his own hands” (this is stated in the protocols of Russian-Polish negotiations in the first quarter of the 16th century). However, this is contradicted by the absence of such information in Russian chronicles until 1487.
Evidence from the oldest edition of the discharge book for the years 1484–1487 brings incredible confusion to the question of the order and details of the change of khans in Kazan in these years. So, according to the discharge book of the official edition, in 1485 (6993 from the creation of the world) Ivan III sent “priest Magmedemin to Alegham” with an army to Kazan, as a result of which “Alegham fled, and Magmedemin sat down in Kazan.” In 1486 (6994), the Grand Duke of Moscow again sent his army to Kazan at the request of Muhammad-Amin, who wanted to hand over his brother (Ilgam) to Ivan III, to which “the princes of Kazan did not give him his will, they wanted to kill Magmedemin himself, and Magmedemin left to the Grand Duke's governors...” After this, the Kazan feudal lords had to “beat” Muhammad-Amin, who immediately returned to his kingdom.
And finally, the category of the campaign against Kazan in 1487 (6995). This expedition was caused by the fact that Muhammad-Amin was expelled from Kazan by Ilgam, who “came from Nagai according to a word from the Kazan people.” Now let’s take the ranks for the same years from another edition of the rank book. Under the year 1484 (6992), there is a description of the campaign against Kazan, which almost completely coincides with the category of the campaign of 1487, which ended in the same way as this one. “And the governors then took Kozan and took away King Olekham, and put King Magmed-Amen in Kozan as king by order of the Grand Duke.” The next rank of 1485 (6993) practically coincides with the above mentioned from the rank book of the oldest edition. There is only one difference: Ilgam (“Alegam”) moved to Kazan with the Russian army, after which Muhammad-Amen fled from Kazan. That is, everything is the other way around. In our opinion, this is a simple typo. The events of 1486 (6994), according to this edition, are also not much different from the first version. Ivan III sends his governors to Kazan “to take care of” Muhammad-Amin. Muhammad-Amin wants to extradite his brother to Moscow, but the Kazan people prevent him and threaten to kill him. He runs to the Russian governors, followed by a petition from Kazan to Moscow and the return of Muhammad-Amin to Kazan.
The level of the 1487 (6995) campaign also does not differ significantly from the above. In general, in our opinion, it turns out that in 1485 Muhammad-Amin occupied the Kazan throne instead of Ilgam, and in 1487 Ilham was again on the throne, who this time was finally overthrown by the governors of Ivan III. By order of the Grand Duke, Muhammad-Amin again becomes Khan. It is disappointing that the Russian chronicles do not say anything about the campaigns against Kazan in 1485–1486 (the dating of the Sofia II chronicle of the capture of Kazan in 1485, the Novgorod II chronicle - 1486, the Pskov II chronicle - 1485 is clearly erroneous), which can serve as confirmation of our conclusion about the confusion in the rank books. An authoritative expert on the military history of Russia in the 15th century, Yuri Alekseev, came to the same opinion: “There is complete coincidence of the lists of governors in the news for 1484 and 1487. testifies that the compiler of the Rank Book placed the news about the governor’s campaign against Kazan twice: under 1484 and 1487.” (Yu. G. Alekseev. Campaigns of Russian troops under Ivan Sh - St. Petersburg: 2007, p. 283).
On the other hand, in the Lviv Chronicle under 1486, the Sofia II and Ermolinsk Chronicles under 1485 there is a very important entry that provides interesting information about these turbulent years for Kazan. “A prince, the son of the Kazan Tsar, comes to Moscow, and Temirev’s grandson is still young to visit the Grand Duke.” “And the great prince accepted him,” the sources add. Temirev’s grandson is the son of Nur-Sultan and Ibrahim, the grandson of the Horde Bek Timur on his mother’s side, that is, Muhammad-Amin. And immediately after this, the chronicles contain information about the embassy from Kazan to Moscow for this “prince.” The Kazan ambassadors explained that in Kazan their prince, “Menshitsyn’s son” - that is, the khan’s son from his younger wife (obviously, this is Ilgam), having learned about the departure of Muhammad-Amin to Moscow, decided to “perish” (punish) the initiators of this idea , forcing them to flee the city. And then there is a story about the campaign against Kazan in the summer of 1487. 
In our opinion, the arrival of Muhammad-Amin from Kazan to Moscow and the delegation to Ivan III behind him should be dated precisely to 1487, since the capture of Kazan, which took place in July 1487, these chronicles refer to the year under which they describe the appearance in Moscow Muhammad-Amina. The information from the Lvov and Sofia II chronicles is confirmed by the message of the Ustyug and Arkhangelsk chroniclers in 1486: “That same summer, from Kazan, Tsar Makhmet from his brother from Tsar Aleham resorted to the Grand Duke, finished off the Grand Duke, called him father, and asked him for strength to his brother. And the great prince rebuked the force.”
Captured on July 9, 1487, Ilgam with his wife Karakush, daughter of the Nogai Murza Yamgurchi (V. Trepavlov. History of the Nogai Horde - M: 2002, p. 136), mother and brothers were sent to prison (see Herberstein's version). Khan and his wife ended up in Vologda, his mother Fatima and brothers (Melik-Tagir and Khudai-Kul, according to Vladimir Velyaminov-Zernov) were sent in the winter of 1487–1488 to Beloozero. Ilgam, his mother and brother Melik-Tagir ended their lives in Rus'. But we don’t know when this happened. We only know that in the summer of 1490 Ilham was still alive. Immediately after Ilgam’s capture by the Russians, Tyumen Khan Ivak began urgently demanding that Ivan III release Ilgam, declaring that he and Ilgam were “both children of the same father.” The Nogai Murzas also asked the Grand Duke for the same thing. And in the fall of 1490, Ivan III decided to meet his neighbors halfway: “And we, dividing the Tsar (that is, for the sake of Ivak) and Myrz dividing Alegam, favor the Tsar, we do not keep him in captivity.”
In our next essay we will talk about the khans Mohammed-Amin and Mamuk.