Dal-Tsabal: The Tragedy of Exile, by Ruslan Aguazhba

Tuesday, 02 December 2025 08:47

Ruslan Aguazhba is an Abkhaz historian and publicist known for his research on the Abkhaz diaspora and the modern history of Abkhazia. He graduated from the Maxim Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow and later served in the Soviet Navy. From 1975 he worked in the Abkhaz State Museum and subsequently as a researcher at the Dmitri Gulia Abkhaz Institute for Humanities, specialising in source studies and the nineteenth–twentieth century history of Abkhazia, with a particular focus on the Abkhaz diaspora in Türkiye, Syria, Jordan, and Europe. Aguazhba played an active role in the national liberation movement and was involved in the activities of the organisation Aidgylara, established in 1988. He is the author and co-author of several works on Abkhaz history, diaspora studies, and folklore.

Dal-Tsabal: The Tragedy of Exile

«Далыи–Ҵабалыи Аԥсны иагәаҵәоуп»
“Without Dal and Tsabal, Apsny is torn apart.”

The end of the long Caucasian War, the subjugation first of the Eastern and then of the Western Caucasus, “whom neither Genghis Khan, nor Tamerlane, nor Suleiman the Magnificent had been able to overcome”[1], followed by repeated uprisings in Abkhazia, Chechnya, Dagestan, and other parts of the Caucasus, the imposition of military-administrative rule, and the colonisation of the region from both the north and the south, together with the unjustifiably repressive measures of the Tsarist administration towards the Caucasian highlanders and the crude interference of the bureaucratic apparatus in their internal life and social organisation — all of this ultimately produced a mass emigration to the Eastern lands beyond the Russian Empire.

This movement now known as mahajirstvo/muhajirism, the forced exile or expulsion of Caucasian mountaineers, occurred predominantly under coercion and was, at all levels of Tsarist authority, openly encouraged. The eminent Abkhaz historian G.A. Dzidzaria emphasised:

“It required half a century of war against the Abkhaz people, who defended every inch of their native land, in order for Russia to secure its position in Abkhazia.”[2]

The well-known Abkhaz public figure and scholar Simon Basaria (Basarba) wrote with powerful emotion about these tragic events:

“The greatest injustice in the world, such as the history of national catastrophes across both hemispheres of the globe has ever known, befell the Abkhaz nation and the Circassian people. No pen, no grammatical degree of comparison is sufficient to convey the scale of the forced expulsions of these tribes; nor the scenes of their majestic and titanic struggle against the northern colossus, that coarse and obedient instrument of the autocrats, of the suffocation of the people’s will, its aspirations, its ideals, its freedom.”

Forced resettlement of the Caucasian mountaineers into the vast territories of the Ottoman Empire became especially intense in the second half of the nineteenth century. Many highlanders, Abkhazians, Ubykhs, Circassians, preferred death to exile or captivity; in full view of the encircling imperial regiments they stabbed themselves with daggers or rode their horses off the rocky cliffs straight into the sea.

Nothing, however, could prevent the grim denouement.

In total, even according to the understated official statistics, 1.8 million Caucasian mountaineers (Abkhazians, Ubykhs, Circassians, Abazins, Chechens, Ingush, Avars, Lezgins, Ossetians, Karachays, Balkars) were expelled. Other sources suggest over three million were driven from the Caucasus.

During those years a bitter saying appeared along the eastern Black Sea coast:

“Now even a woman may walk from Sukhum-Kale to Anapa without fear of encountering a single man.”

Across the mountains, in the North Caucasus, people said:

“In the mountains of the Kuban region you may now meet a bear or a wolf, but not a highlander.”[3]

As early as 1840, General N.N. Raevsky had noted:

“Apart from Abkhazia itself, the [Abkhaz] language is spoken by the Tsebelda people, the un-subjugated Pskhuvtsy, the Jigets, the Ubykhs, and many other tribes. These tribes are as numerous as the entire population of Georgia.”[4]

Little Abkhazia, the region between the rivers Zhuye-dzkh’y and Shacha-psta, became completely depopulated. In the mid-nineteenth century the Ubykhs and the Jiget communities alone accounted for over 20,000 families. The mountain and coastal Abkhaz communities, comprising dozens of villages, Khaltsys, Akhchypsy, Tsvzh y, Mdzaa, Aryd, Tsandryphsh, Gechryphsh, Khamysh, Pskhu, Aibga, Bag, Khyshkha, Kudzhdza, Gagra, Guma, Dal, Tsabal, Akua, Abzhakua, Apsny-aguy (the coastal districts of present-day Sukhumi and Gulrypsh), all were emptied.

In Dranda alone, up to 4,000 Abkhazians lived before being swept away by the final wave of expulsion in 1877.

Entire regions vanished: the land of the Ubykhs, Tuakhy; the mountain societies of Bag, Brakua, Kazylbek, Shagirey, Tam, Byshylrypsh, which occupied the upper reaches of the Laba (Iarykh) and the Great and Little Zelenchuk rivers.
The whole territory between the Aapsta and Kudry rivers fell silent; the hearths of most Bzyb and Abzhuy villages went cold. Thousands of Abazin-tapanta, Ashua families departed…

Contemporaries wrote that across this “vast, now empty space of nearly 10 square kilometres, only 15 inhabitants remained… Four-fifths of them were Abkhazians, 600 Circassians, and the rest migrants of various origins.”[5]

The prominent scholar, academician N.Ya. Marr, wrote of this devastation:

“Abkhazia, during the period of the so-called introduction of European civilisation, was deprived even of its central ethnographic core. Of the entire Gumista district only wild, deserted homesteads remain, with fruit trees — but not a single Abkhaz soul, not a single Abkhaz sound.
The Abkhaz tribe of the central zone, Guma or Gumy, under the barbaric colonial pressure of the Europeans, were forced to resettle to Turkey, in order to preserve their ancient cultural unity and their human dignity.”[6]

Population figures

Exact statistics do not exist, for the exodus continued throughout the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, some data can be cited:

1810: 5,000 Abkhazians expelled
1829: 10,000 (Turkish sources indicate 20,000 Abkhazians were in Ottoman territories by the 1830s)
1856: 20,000
1858–1859: 2,130 families
1863: 900 families
1864: 50 Abkhazians and Abazins; Ubykhs — 75,000 according to one source, 45,000 according to another
1867: about 20,000 Abkhazians
1869: 579 families (around 4,000 people)
1873: 800 families
1877: from 50,000 to 100,000 Abkhazians[7]
1879: 800 Abkhaz families

No data survives for 1821–1824, 1830, 1837, or 1841.

According to foreign sources (İnönü Ansiklopedisi, 1947), over 400,000 Abkhazians and Abazins — known collectively in the East as “abaza” — were expelled.

As a result of this tragedy, over 90 percent of all Abkhazians found themselves outside their homeland.

Eyewitness accounts from travellers who visited the deserted regions make painful reading. Two examples follow.

“The finest part of the Kodor region is the gorge, whose solitude makes a powerful impression. As we travelled across the luxurious, uneven meadows forming the broad base of the upper valley, we encountered vistas rivalled only by the slopes of the Italian Alps.

This Caucasian Eden was remarkable for its fertility… A kind of involuntary fear seized one at the sight of a land brimming with every sort of fruit and yet utterly devoid of people.

It is difficult to imagine a landscape more magnificent and beautiful than the meadows and forests along the Kodor. Despite all its charms, the traveller passing through this enchanting valley cannot help but feel the profound sadness and melancholy that come from the total absence of any sign of human life.”[8]

Another description appears in the writings of G.A. Rybinsky, an agronomist who lived in Abkhazia for many years in the late nineteenth century. Recalling his journey through the Kodor valley, he wrote:

“The Abkhaz militiaman riding beside me began to sing a sorrowful, heart-rending song, repeating the word ‘Laty’.
I involuntarily asked him what the song was about.
‘This song,’ he replied, tears in his eyes, ‘was composed by the Abkhazians as they departed for Turkey.
Five thousand souls from the Dal gorge were mourning their native corner, every little tree they had nurtured.’
The emigrants of the Dal gorge were once famed for their extraordinary valour… They were a terror not only to their enemies but even to the ruling prince of Abkhazia. A people of fierce freedom, their inaccessible gorge was a kind of Zaporizhian Sich for Abkhazia.”[9]

“If you tear out a person’s liver…”

The Abkhazians still say today:

“If you tear out a person’s liver, what remains of him?
The same is true for Apsny if it loses Dal and Tsabal.”

An old legend recounts that Dal and Tsabal were the names of two brothers from the ancient clan Khryps.
Later they came to be known as marshan.

The title marshan in old Abkhaz society did not denote a family name; it was a social and political title, synonymous with prince or ruler. Even in the nineteenth century it was common to hear the question:

“Who is your marshan?”

To which people replied:

“Our marshan (that is, our ruler, prince) is Maan Kamlat.”

Dal and Tsabal are known from Byzantine chronicles, including those of Procopius and Agathias.

Throughout these regions lie the ruins of powerful fortifications that controlled key passes connecting Abkhazia with both the East and the West, extending even to the distant and mysterious land of Chin (China).

For decades archaeological excavations have been conducted here, revealing many secrets, yet the principal mysteries remain unresolved. The Tsabal fortress, the Tsakhar fortress (meaning “Iron” in Abkhaz; in the nineteenth century known as Chryg-khalbaa, “the maiden Chryg’s fortress”) still await full scholarly interpretation. Abkhaz oral traditions about the Tsabal fortress coincide in key details with descriptions given by ancient authors. One such detail says that during the battles for the fortress against the Laz and the Greeks, the Abkhazians were joined by Circassians (azakh u) in its defence.

A group of armed Abkhazians. Abkhazian principality, 1860s.

+ Abkhazia and The Caucasian War: 1810-1864, by George Anchabadze

+ Lapinski: Abkhaz people are the last in the Caucasus who still put up resistance to the Muscovites

+ The solitude of Abkhazia, by Douglas W. Freshfield (1896)

+ Conquest and Exile, by Austin Jersild

+  160th Anniversary of the End of the Russo-Caucasian War

Extensive references to Dal and Tsabal are also found in connection with the introduction of Tsarist administration in the first half of the nineteenth century. Russian forces entered Tsabal in 1837, and in 1840 Dal and Tsabal erupted in a major uprising, led by the fearless Shabat, Iashsau Marshan, and Kaytmas-ipa Khalybey.

Shabat, himself an officer of the Tsarist army, tore off his epaulettes and sash and threw them into the fire, calling on all to join him in:

“the struggle for the liberation of the homeland.”

Imperial forces were sent against the rebels in what became the famous Dal Expedition of 1840–1841.
Dal was burned; its inhabitants were driven from their native land.
Yet by the end of the campaign, an imperial detachment was forced to flee, abandoning all its captured spoils.

Many songs and legends survive from that bloody era, and to this day some of the most beloved songs of the Abkhaz diaspora are those dedicated to Kaytmas-ipa Khalybey and Shabat.

In the mountainous regions of Abkhazia, some of the most steadfast centres of resistance were Dal and Tsabal, Pskhu, Akhchypsy, and Khaltsys.

The people stood on the brink of exhaustion.

In Dal conditions became so desperate that, after firefights with imperial troops and Gurian militia, Abkhazians were forced to cut down and split trees in order to extract the bullets lodged within, melt them again, and reuse them against the enemy.

The population of Dal and Tsabal was divided into:

marshan — princes, rulers
aamsta — nobles
ankhaayu — free inhabitants
agrua — dependent class

Agrua was not an ethnic term but a social classification, common among Abkhazians, Abazin-ashkhar communities, and Ubykhs.

It remains widely used in the Abkhaz diaspora today with the same meaning.

Archives and historical works preserve extensive material about the inhabitants of the Tsebelda Military District.

Collected, they would fill several substantial volumes.

Here the author cites only one observation, made in 1851 by Admiral L.M. Serebryakov, who travelled through Tsabal (Tsebelda):

“Under the rule of their princes there is an obedient, patient, and warlike people, accustomed to moderation and able to endure the greatest labours and privations. They are remarkable for their good character and, in every respect, the best among the peoples inhabiting the coastal regions.

The Tsebeldians are generally well armed. With ease and without fatigue, they cross 40 or more versts of difficult mountain terrain, using a staff tipped with iron — which also serves as a rest for shooting. Even after such marches they gather and sing and dance around the bivouac fires.

One cannot help but love the Tsebeldians upon closer acquaintance. They deserve to be cared for, so that their social structure may be gradually improved for the benefit of the people.”[10]

Such sympathetic assessments, however, were rare. The principal policy of Tsarism in the Caucasus was aimed at the destruction and expulsion of the highlanders. Progressive contemporaries did not support this policy; later, members of the imperial family would concede that:

“the pacification of the Caucasus is a shameful stain in the history of Russia.”

Yet the fact remains: millions of Caucasian mountaineers were expelled from the lands their ancestors had inhabited for millennia.

A considerable number of documents relating to the expulsion of the highlanders has survived. Below, the author presents one such document:

“Nominal Family-by-Family List of the Inhabitants of the Tsebelda Military District Who Resettled to Turkey” (June 1867)

Along with:

“List of Inhabitants of the Pitsunda and Dranda Districts Who Resettled to Turkey”.

These expulsions were punitive measures taken by the Tsarist administration following the Abkhaz uprising of 1866, during which around 20,000 Abkhazians were deported:

From Dal and Tsabal — 2,512 households
From Pitsunda and Dranda Districts — 855 households (selectively)

Each entry in the lists records the head of household and the number of family members.

The original documents are preserved in the CSHAG (TsGIAG — Central State Historical Archive of Georgia). In several places the text is difficult to read; the same names appear in variant spellings.
Where possible, corrected approximations of proper Abkhaz pronunciation have been provided.

The author notes that these lists offer readers insight into the patterns of Abkhaz resettlement in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Regarding the term agrua, the lists contain names such as Sasrykua Agrua, Gedlach Agrua, etc. The author emphasises again: this is not an ethnic designation, but a social one.

For example, in the document “Information on the Mutual Relations of the Tsebelda Population” compiled by Captain-Lieutenant Karganov in 1866, it is written:

“The agrua estate bears obligations to the nobles and free residents. They may redeem themselves, whereupon their owner grants them land for their own use.”

Unfortunately, no lists are presently available for other stages of forced resettlement, although some smaller documents survive, offering a partial picture of Abkhaz distribution in the mid-nineteenth century.

The coastal territory from the Gumista River to the Kodor River was at that time known as the “Abkhazian District.”

Across this district were the settlements of the Aquin (Sukhum) Abkhazians, including:

Gumysta, Iashtkhua, Akyna, Aguara, Byrts, Guma-du, Guma-khuchy, Akapa, Abydza, Abzhakua, Pyrnaut, Markhaul, Alakumkhara, Tsylta, Aibakhutsa, Bagbaran, Alan-du, Chicha uzh, Chablarkha, Gulrypsh, Babysh-ira, Kats-igylarta, Kelashur, Dranda, Pshhap, Narzyn, Khetsrypsh, Dapua-kyt, Pshakua, Bgazh-iashta, Tsambeikuara, Gurdzaul, Abgydzyrra, Auarcha, Naa…

This entire district, every single inhabitant, was expelled in 1877.

After the events of 1877–1878, the Abkhazians were declared by the Tsarist administration to be a “guilty population” (vinovnoe naselenie).
A set of harsh restrictions was imposed upon them:

They were forbidden to settle between the rivers Aapsta and Kodor.
They were forbidden to reside within 7 kilometres of the seashore.
They were forbidden to live in the mountains.
They were forbidden to settle in towns.
They were forbidden to bear weapons.

In practice, these measures amounted to the creation of reservations for the Abkhazians.

Furthermore, all land from the Bzyb River to the Shvacha-psta River was transferred to state ownership, as was the entire Gumistinsk section, which included Dal and Tsabal, whose indigenous population the article discusses.

__________________________

[1] R. Fadeev, The Caucasian War, Moscow, 2005, p. 205.
[2] G. A. Dzidzaria, Works, vol. III, Sukhum, 2006, p. 239.
[3] Iv. Drozdov, “The Last Struggle with the Highlanders in the Western Caucasus,” Caucasian Collection, Tiflis, 1877, vol. 2, p. 457.
[4] “On Pitsunda,” State Archive of Krasnodar Krai (GAKK), fond 260, opis 1, delo 61, ll. 27–31 rev.; Abkhazovedenie, no. 7, Sukhum, 2012, p. 178 (prepared for publication by A.S. Agumaa).
[5] É. Reclus, Man and Earth, vol. V, St Petersburg, 1908, p. 479.
[6] N. Ya. Marr, “Terms from Abkhaz–Russian Ethnic Relations,” in: N. Ya. Marr, On the Language and History of the Abkhazians, Leningrad, 1938, p. 177.
[7] [E. Pittard], “The North Caucasian Republic,” Vol’nyi Gorets, Tiflis, 25 December 1919, no. 21, pp. 2–3.
[8] Grove, The Cold Caucasus, St Petersburg, 1879, p. 213.
[9] G. A. Rybinsky, “Abkhaz Letters,” Kavkaz, 1894, no. 12.
[10] Admiral L. M. Serebryakov, “The Road from Sukhum to the Kuban Across the Main Caucasus Range,” Morskoi Sbornik, St Petersburg, 1865, no. 6, pp. 92–93.