CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MILITARY ESTATE (PAZHILAL) IN THE AVAR NUTSALDOM ON THE BASIS OF MEDIEVAL WRITTEN SOURCES AND ORAL TRADITION

Abstract

On the basis of the Daghestani Arabic-language sources of the 16th-17th centuries we es-tablish the presence of a military estate in the Avar Nutsaldom known as Pazhilal. They lived at least from the IX century until the second half of the XIV century in the fortress Akaro, a few kilometers north of Khunzakh, the capital of the Avar Nutsaldom. The written sources emphasize that, unlike the rest of the population, they did not pay taxes. Moreover, according to other sources, they received payment for their military ser-vice and had a number of agricultural plots, which they rented out and received additional income that allowed them to concentrate exclusively on their occupation, without being distracted by agricultural and other work. Oral tradition, archaeological excavations, written sources of the 19th - early 20th centuries as well as archival material of the 19th century allows us to characterize more thoroughly the subject of our study. A complex consideration of all the facts at our disposal and the introduction of a new and extremely valuable source - the Pazhilal agreement of the 17th century - allowed us to conduct a retrospective study to identify all the distinctive features of this institution of the medieval state in the Eastern Caucasus. We have also traced some analogies between cer-tain components of the military institutions of the Avar Nutsaldom with similar phenomena in the history of Armenia, Georgia, and especially - Iran. This helped us to identify the Iranian roots of certain terms and come to the conclusion that this component of the military culture of the Avar Nutsaldom was formed as a result of Iranian influence on local traditions.

Keywords

• daghestan
• hunzakh
• warfare
• history of state and law
• source studies