Letters from captivity as a unique source of the Caucasian war period

The article discusses the letters of hieromonk Samuil from the circassian captivity of the Caucasian war period. The attention is paid to the circumstances of the capture of the priest, the attitude of the circassians to him, the variants of the development of events for the ransom of the priest from captivity, as well as his alleged future fate. There are used as sources the documents of the state archive of the Krasnodar Krai (Krasnodar, Russian Federation) and the documents of the Central state historical archive of Georgia (Tbilisi, Georgia). The authors came to the conclusion that the letters from the captivity are very rare source of period of the Caucasian war. These letters represent the historical, linguistic, theological value, allow to look at the situation through the eyes of a priest. The tolerable position of the prisoner is largely due to the fact that the slave owner was planning to ransom him, as the only hope for redemption faded, the fate of the priest was lost in the lives of numerous composition of slaves in Circassia. Copyright © 2017 by Sochi State University. Copyright © 2017 by Academic Publishing House Researcher s.r.o.