Historians have assessed the extent of study of the Caucasian War in modern Russian scholarship.

The topic of the Caucasian War has virtually disappeared from the academic agenda in Russia, but residents of the Caucasian republics retain interest in it, as evidenced by the demand for literature on this period. Moreover, the politicization of the topic is reflected in the presentation of the material, which was formed in the late Soviet period.

As "Caucasian Knot" reported, the day of remembrance of the Adyghe victims of the Caucasian War, which ended 162 years ago, is celebrated on May 21 by residents of southern Russia and the descendants of Circassians expelled from their historical homeland in various countries around the world. Commemorative events were held, in particular, in Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, Krasnodar Krai, and Adygea. Residents of Nalchik held a traditional march with Circassian flags, despite threats from security forces of administrative and criminal charges.

The topic of the Caucasian War has been sidelined in the scientific community

Since 2014, the topic of the Caucasian War has been sidelined in Russian scholarship, noted a historian who spoke to the "Caucasian Knot" on condition of anonymity.

"In recent years, the 19th-century Caucasian War has fallen off the agenda; all the discussions that were so heated in the 1990s and 2000s have fizzled out. Abroad, the study of the Caucasian War has received little attention. "If we talk about recent years, all I can remember from foreign literature is Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky's book, 'Empire of Refugees,' about the Muhajirs," he said.

According to the historian, although the Caucasian War has also faded into the "second or third place" in the public consciousness, people still retain interest in it, as evidenced by the demand for literature about it among residents of the Caucasian republics.

The approach inherited from the late Soviet era remains—war as an anti-colonialist, National liberation, anti-feudal

"The approach inherited from the late Soviet era remains—the war as anti-colonialist, national liberation, anti-feudal," he noted.

As for official historiography, its view on the Caucasian War has not yet been formulated. "The relevant volumes of the multi-volume history of 19th-century Russia have not yet been published, and school textbooks present the war very dryly, mostly as a list of facts. Moreover, most regions lack a set of regional history textbooks. In Chechnya, they haven't written any at all; in Dagestan, they have, but they haven't been included in the school curriculum. "As a result, only Ingushetia had decent textbooks," the historian emphasized.

As for concentrating war memory around May 21, the historian noted that this date is relevant only for the Western Caucasus.

"For this region, this is the date of the end of the war, so everything is tied to it. For the Eastern Caucasus, August 25, 1859, the date of Imam Shamil's capitulation in Gunib, is more relevant. But, oddly enough, this date is not celebrated there. Nowadays, legitimacy is more commonly affirmed through the celebration of the anniversaries of the creation of Soviet autonomous regions," he stated.

Another historian, also speaking anonymously, noted that this topic was highly politicized from the very beginning, since the 19th century. While Russian historiography spoke of "annexation," emphasizing cases of voluntary conversion to Russian citizenship, Western historiography spoke of "conquest" and "resistance," a "colonial war." Similar terminology is sometimes used by scholars from the North Caucasus republics. Nowadays, even the term "Caucasian War" is being "divided" into a number of "national" wars—"Russian-Chechen," "Russian-Dagestani," "Russian-Circassian," and sometimes simply replaced with "Russian-Caucasian." One can also note Western and "Circassian" researchers who, since the 1990s, have actively promoted the idea of ​​the genocide of the Adyghe. There is even a chronological difference: Russian historiography dates the Caucasian War from 1817 to 1864, while Western historiography extends it to 1763, he noted.

As for the Adyghe, or rather Adyghe activists, for many of them the Caucasian War and the subsequent muhajirism – the mass deportation to the Ottoman Empire – is a trauma that continues to this day.

"As for the Adyghe, or rather Adyghe activists, for many of them the Caucasian War and the subsequent muhajirism – the mass deportation to the Ottoman Empire – is a trauma that continues to this day.
The number of those killed during the fighting and those who left reached 90%. "As a result, a significant portion of modern Adyghe people live in the Middle East," he noted.

The historian emphasized that the memory of the war is focused on May 21st because it is the only widely promoted commemorative date. "There are no other comparable dates," he stated.

He noted that the politicization of war memory began in the 1990s, when memory was actively used to legitimize various grievances against the federal center.

"One can recall the surge in propaganda about the 'Circassian genocide' before the Sochi Olympics, when the Georgian parliament under Mikheil Saakashvili recognized this genocide." But this was the last outbreak of this kind,” he emphasized.

Historians have previously pointed out the limitations of studying the Caucasian War

The attitude toward its memory remains highly politicized, and the authorities are increasingly returning to imperial interpretations of events, ignoring its main lessons: attempts at forced unification and the destruction of local self-government systems deepen contradictions and conflicts, historians interviewed by the Caucasian Knot noted in 2025.

Scholars have encountered problems with politicized attitudes toward the events of the Caucasian War before: for example, Dagestani historian Khadzhimurad Donogo pointed out in 2020 that specialists on this topic are forced to smooth out “rough edges” during the dissertation defense stage.

The main consequence of the Caucasian War for the Adyghe was the expulsion of the overwhelming majority of the ethnic group from their native lands, according to historian Zaurbek Kozhev.

"This topic is rarely mentioned in the public sphere; it's only mentioned on May 21st. It's hushed up in school education even at the regional level, let alone the federal one: the topic of the Caucasian War is relegated to a backseat, and the wording recently has become increasingly identical to that of the Russian Empire—that is, the Caucasus was pacified, the highlanders carried out raids, and imperial and tsarist troops restored order—that's the main thesis. All themes related to the assessment of the Caucasian War as an anti-colonialist struggle of local peoples have, of course, gradually been removed from official discourse," he stated.

A colleague of Kozhev's, who works at a university in the North Caucasus, assesses the consequences of the Caucasian War for the Adyghe people as catastrophic, noting that they "led to a demographic catastrophe of unprecedented proportions." He considers the main lesson from the history of the Caucasian War to be "the understanding that a military solution to ethnopolitical conflicts is never final."

Materials on the situation of Circassians in Russia and abroad are published by the "Caucasian Knot" on the thematic page "The Circassian Question".