REVISITING ARCHAEOGRAPHY OF MILITARY HISTORY OF THE CAUCASUS: A CASE-STUDY OF D.C. BUSHEN'S ACTIVITIES

Abstract

The article addresses some issues of the 20th century national archeography. It draws on official papers from the Russian State Military Historical Archive (RGVIA) and on published memoirs of the Russian minister for Defence D.A. Milyutin. As falsification of the national military past is becoming more commonplace, the significance of reviewing the historical experience of collection and publication of documents on military history grows. The article analyses the archeographical activities of the Imperial General Stuff officer D.C. Bushen (1826-1871). In the 1850s -1860s he collected, edited and redacted papers on military history concerning the incorporation of the Caucasus into the Russian Empire. Having analysed the yet unintroduced into scientific use archival documents, the author reconstructs the process Bushen's archiographical work, along with all the challenges he faced. The article focuses on the results of Bushen's work, as well as on the archeographical techniques he used. Unfortunately, all collected and prepared for print documents on the incorporation of Georgia into the Russian Empire, as well as on military campaigns in Persia, Turkey and Caucasus remain unpublished. All his papers, arranged in chronological order to form separate volumes, were transferred for safeguarding to the archive of the Military-topographical department. They are now stored in fond of the "Military scientific archive" in the Russian State Military Historical Archive (RGVIA). The author comes to the conclusion that D.C. Bushen's activities were sponsored by the military authorities as a part of scientific project to write an official history of the Caucasus annexation. Bushen managed to collect and edit a large collection of documents on the Caucasus incorporation into the Russian Empire, which may provide a source base for the next generation of historians