Historical Geography Journal ISSN 2782-6511 (Print) | ISSN 3034-5286 (Online)

Bedirkhan E. Eskenderov
Independent Researcher (Russia, Kaspiysk)
ORCID: 0000-0001-7556-8440
Email: b.eskenderov@mail.ru

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UDC 94(395.6)
DOI: 10.58529/2782-6511-2026-5-1-32-39

ABSTRACT. The article is devoted to the history of Caucasian Albania, specifically its northwestern territories. Caucasian Albania has generally received little scholarly attention, primarily due to the paucity of historical materials that have survived to this day. The northwestern provinces studied in the article, namely Hereti, Movakani and Kambisena-Kambechani, even against such a meager background, stand out due to the minimum amount of information available about them. Analyzing available data presented in historiography and published sources leads, in addition to clarification of territorial boundaries, to adjustments of some milestones in the political and social history of these provinces, and to unexpected conclusions. Thus, the region of Kambisena-Kambechani may have belonged to ancient Armenia in the early stages, but later authors indicate it as a province of Caucasian Albania. However, the region of Hereti, which was originally part of Albania, at some point left the Albanian kingdom and became subject to the neighboring Georgian principality and switched to the Georgian language. But what is interesting is that the population of Hereti itself — the Hers that actually gave rise to the ethnotoponym Hereti — has survived to this day under a different name — the Ingiloys. Having lost both their language and their original culture during the course of their difficult history, they have still preserved their ethnic identity and even their own self-designation in their environment. The research revealed that their language may have also been preserved. Some written artifacts suggest that they are written in the once extinct language of the Her people.

KEYWORDS: Caucasian Albania, Hereti, Movakani, Kambisena, Hers, Ingiloys, Sinai palimpsests

For citation: Eskenderov B. E. [Western Provinces of Ancient Caucasian Albania, 2nd Century BC — 6th Century AD]. Istoriko-geograficheskiy zhurnal [Historical Geography Journal], 2026, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 32–39. DOI: 10.58529/2782-6511-2026-5-1-32-39 (In Russian).

Received 3 March 2025
Accepted 19 September 2025

© 2026 The Author

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Tatyana V. Zhibrova
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Voronezh State University (Russia, Voronezh)
ORCID: 0000-0002-1261-4435
E-mail: tashazhibrova@rambler.ru

Denis A. Lyapin
Doctor of Historical Sciences, Bunin Yelets State University (Russia, Yelets)
ORCID: 0000-0002-2078-2404
E-mail: lyapin-denis@yandex.ru

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UDC 94(47)”16″
DOI: 10.58529/2782-6511-2026-5-1-40-51

ABSTRACT. Russian settlers to the southern steppe outskirts in the 17th century perceived the forest as a special, closed space, fenced off from the main world. Here, people, whose life was usually public, could express various sides of their personality. For some, the forest was a place of religious solitude, for others — robbery and violence; some used it to hide from enemies, others — for secret meetings. For each person, the forest was a source of firewood and building materials. A person’s perception of the forest as a kind of protected space largely depended on the prevailing circumstances and personality traits. Refracted in the mind, in the everyday space, the forest acted as a crystal, reflecting all the complexity and contradictions of human nature, a place where everyone expressed their individuality. The article considers the following aspects of the forest in the everyday space of people in the southern districts of 17th century Russia: a place of salvation during the Tatar raid; a source for economic activity; a space of disputes and conflicts; a place of religious practices; an area of antisocial behavior; the sphere of personal space and the territory of death. The study draws on a wide range of sources, primarily related to local administrative practices. The forest, therefore, emerges not simply as a natural landscape but as a multifaceted phenomenon, embedded in the social and spiritual lives of the settlers. It served not only as a material resource but also as an arena for the realization of a wide variety of human aspirations and fears. Its boundaries, both physical and metaphorical, defined the boundaries of what was permitted and what was not, opening up opportunities for both creative and destructive activity. Exploring these aspects allows deeper understanding of the mentality and everyday life of the people who settled the southern Russian borderlands.

KEYWORDS: forest, everyday life, space and people, development of the Steppe, historical consciousness

For citation: Zhibrova T. V., Lyapin D. A. [The Forest in Everyday Space of 17th Century Man (The Case of Russia’s Southern Borderlands)]. Istoriko-geograficheskiy zhurnal [Historical Geography Journal], 2026, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 40–51. DOI: 10.58529/2782-6511-2026-5-1-40-51 (In Russian).

Received 13 December 2025
Accepted 12 March 2026

© 2026 The Authors

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