About the book: year / "Muscovites and Circassians" - under this title in 1846 the novel "Tricks in the Caucasus" was published in Leipzig in German ( author E. Khamar-Dabanov), telling about the behind-the-scenes sides of the Caucasian War. In Russia, the novel was published in 1844; that same year, almost its entire circulation was destroyed. After all, it was about this work that Emperor Nicholas I said: “We know nothing about the Caucasus, but this lady opens our eyes.” And Minister of War A.I. Chernyshev was even more categorical: “This book is all the more harmful because every line in it is true!” What caused such indignation among those in power? Exposing the incompetence, self-will and corruption of the tsarist administration, the mediocrity of the generals, the aplomb of the officers. The author told the truth about the Caucasian War, the very truth that was carefully hidden. Here is the fanaticism (it’s hard to even find another word) of the head of the right flank of the Caucasian line, General G. Kh. Zass, who ordered the heads of the murdered Circassians to be cut off. And numerous reports about the conquest of dozens of tribes, the main goal of which was rewards for expedition participants. And the spread of false rumors about the highlanders. Of course, such truth was undesirable for the military leadership, many of whose faces recognized themselves in the characters of the work. The novel “Tricks in the Caucasus” was no longer published in pre-revolutionary Russia. It was republished only in 1986 and for 35 years it has become a bibliographic rarity. About who was hiding behind the pseudonym E. Khamar-Dabanov (E. P. Lachinova, wife of General E. E. Lachinov, who served in the Caucasian Separate Corps), reader learns from the appendix to our publication - an article by the famous Caucasus expert E. G. Veidenbaum, published in the newspaper "Caucasus"» (1901. № 13–14).