THE FEMALE COMPONENT IN MOUNTAIN-COSSACK RELATIONSIN THE XVIII-XIX CENTURIES
The article presents some aspects of interethnic relations in the North Caucasus in the XVIII-XIX centuries. For a long time, being neighbors and interacting with the Caucasian peoples, the Cossacks absorbed new features into their culture and way of life, at the same time transferring some of their own to the highlanders. It is shown how this interaction manifested itself in the sphere of women’s interests, as well as in their destinies. There was a process of direct inclusion of the Cossacks in the process of integration of the Caucasian peoples into the Russian state within the framework of both military confrontation and trade and friendly interaction. The main factors that infl uenced the evolution of the mentality and behavioral stereotypes of the Cossacks are investigated: military aggression of the Highlanders; the presence of peaceful villages; trade, kunach and atalych relations with the Caucasians; kinship with women and children of the High-landers, etc. And if the attacks of the mountaineers contributed to the development of combat skills, the other factors on the contrary led to a decrease in potential xenophobia, to the development of mutual understanding and goodneighborly relations. The practice of concluding Russian-mountain marriages had a special infl uence on the stabilization of interethnic interaction. The article emphasizes the role of women as a stabilizing factor in the relations between the Cossacks and the mountain peoples.