Kubachins - History and Cultural Relations

The time of the origin of the Kubachins has not been established. The Arabian historian Baladzori (end of the ninth century) mentions Zirekhgeran-Kubachi in relation to historical events of the sixth century. In the early Middle Ages the town of Kubachi was the center of an administrative unit in the area and played an active role in the political life of the northeastern Caucasus. In the sixth century the people of Zirekhgeran became tributaries of Iran. Zirekhgeran was subdued by the Arabs in 738-739, and a yearly tax was imposed on the inhabitants. In the thirteenth century Kubachi was subjected to the Mongol invasion. Tamerlane invaded Kubachi in 1396; residents were forced to submit and deliver to him a great deal of armor plate and coats of mail. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries first the Kaitag utsmi (feudal prince) and then the Kazikumukh khan made attempts to subjugate the village of Kubachi, but it defended its independence. In the eighteenth century Kubachi endured the invasion of the hordes of the Iranian conqueror Shah Nadir. After the unification of Daghestan with Russia at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Kubachi became part of the Kaitag-Tabasaran District of Daghestan Province. The October Revolution brought radical changes to the lives of the Kubachins. A jewelry cooperative association was founded—it is now the Kubachi Art Combine. Schools, stores, a hospital, and cultural-educational establishments were opened. Even today Kubachi remains a major center of ethnic artistic production of Daghestan and of the Russian Federation. Since the distant past the Kubachins have maintained cultural and economic relations with the surrounding population and with the people of the Caucasus, the Near and Middle East, and Russia.