“We are as despondent as a dove is despondent when its children are removed...”: the southern vector of foreign economic relations of the population of the North Caucasus at the end of the 18th – beginning of the 19th centuries

Introduction. The work reveals the importance of trade exchange for the highlanders of the North Caucasus at the end of the 18th – beginning of the 19th centuries. Such economic contacts were sustainable and made it possible to build communication ties both within the region and beyond. In Caucasian studies, this part of the life of local peoples traditionally receives attention from researchers who analyze what and how the inhabitants of the region exchanged and bought. An assessment is made of the impact of trade on the political situation in the region and its sociocultural consequences.

Materials and Methods. The article uses various types of sources both those already introduced into scientific circulation and those identified by the author in the State Archive of the Krasnodar Krai. Narrative materials are used to evaluate the phenomenon being studied through the eyes of contemporaries. In the course of the study, the author relied on the principles of historicism and objectivity, which made it possible to consider the phenomenon under study in connection with the political, socio-economic and cultural processes that took place both in the region and in adjacent territories. Both general scientific research methods, in particular analysis and synthesis, and special ones historical-comparative, historical-typological – were used. All this made it possible to analyze the external vector of trade priorities of the peoples of the North Caucasus, showing its importance for the life support system of local societies.

Analysis. Without questioning the very fact of the existence of trade among the North Caucasian peoples, we must state its primary orientation towards external relations. The Russian direction should be considered separately, since in the end it will become dominant in the commercial contacts of the autochthonous population. But besides it, there were and had well-established traditions of barter relations with other peoples who were ready to purchase the goods of the North Caucasian highlanders and offered them their products. Results. Trade contacts played an important role in the life support system of the population of the North Caucasus. There was an exchange of agricultural and livestock products for various handicrafts. The promising markets that North Caucasian societies were oriented towards were Eastern Georgia, Persia, and the Ottoman Empire. The level of local trade did not go beyond exchange, but even on such a scale, commercial activity led to the gradual integration of the highlanders into the orbit of the cultural and political paradigms of their trading partners and contributed to integration rapprochement

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