Chochiev, Georgy V. , Marzoev, Islam-Bek T.
Izvestia SOIGSI. 2024. IIS 53 (92). P.146-169.

Abstract:
Works of the memoir genre can, provided their content is treated critically, serve as an
important means of replenishing factual information about historical phenomena, events,
personalities, etc., especially in situations of absence or insufficiency of relevant documen
tary sources. Due to the quantitative limitations of currently known documents and materials
reflecting the genesis of the North Caucasian post-revolutionary émigré community,
the recollections left by its individual representatives are of particular importance. Among
such writings are the memoirs of the Ossetian White émigré Musa-bey Tuganov, another
fragment of which is published here for the first time in Russian. The relevance of this text
stems primarily from the fact that it reflects – albeit in a subjective and clearly ideological
and class-biased way – many significant and sometimes fateful processes that took place in
the North Caucasus region on the eve of, during and following the Russian revolutions of
1917. The memoirist’s family’s closeness to representatives of the tsarist administration in
the Caucasus during the First World War, his experience of repressions and confiscations
during the “Red Terror”, and his rather close contacts with the followers of Bicherakhov,
Denikin, mountaineer national democrats, British emissaries and other anti-Bolshevik
forces in the region made it possible to leave valuable, to some extent unique evidence that,
despite some inaccuracies and errors, undoubtedly expands and clarifies our knowledge of
the historical era described.

Keywords: Russian Empire, North Caucasus, Vladikavkaz, World War I, Russian revolutions of 1917, civil war, memoirs.

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