On the activities of officers of the Caucasus corps in studying the Caucasus during the period of administration of the Caucasus and South Caucasia by general I. F. Paskevich

In the first third of the 19th century, the Russian Empire took important geostrategic positions in the South Caucasia, the North-East and North-West Caucasus as a result of three victorious wars with Persia and Turkey, which were secured by several peace treaties. Russia’s confident victories over its closest geopolitical rivals have enabled it to begin its final affirmation in the Caucasus. To realize this task, it was necessary to have reliable information on geography, ethnography, topography, possess statistical data, possess information about internal socio-political relations. The North-West and North-East Caucasus, which have been major military action centers since the 1930s, were particularly difficult to achieve. Despite the difficulty of carrying out exploration work in the territory of the mountainous part of Dagestan, Chechnya and Cherkessia, the officers of the Caucasus Corps still managed to conduct the necessary reconnaissance and hidden observations that contributed to the accumulation of information about them. At the end of 1828, on the initiative of Paskevich, a group of officers of the Caucasus corps was formed to gather information about the Caucasian Mountains. The Russian army and the Russian army were able to use the Russian military force. The work was entrusted to four officers of the Caucasus Corps — Iskrytsky, Zubov, Bartenev and Novitsky. Information about this left by the participant of these explorations G. Novitsky in his published in 1871. «Memories…» [25]. However, the author only gives the names of officers without indicating initials and any other additional information. Due to the lack of information about these three officers, the historical literature has established the erroneous idea that except for G. Novitsky they all died soon in the mountains. The publication attempts to identify these officers, their biographies and their service by reliable sources, thereby refuting the unfounded conclusions on their deaths.