HATOKSHOKO MOHAMMED ASHA: EMBARKING ON A LEGEND
For more than a century and a half, the fi gure of Hatokshoko Mahomet Asha has been one of the central fi gures in the Circassian historical consciousness. The extraordinary nature of his personality was recognized by his contemporaries; if the Circassians praised his name and composed songs in his honor, then among those who met him on the battlefi eld (although not only there) as an adversary, his chivalrous merits did not go unnoticed. However, the biography of this character to date has not become the subject of special research. n this text, an attempt is made to reconstruct the initial stage of formation, recognizable in the framework of the Circassian cultural tradition of the image of an impeccable husband. It should be noted that folklore data played a decisive role in the narrative. First of all, we are talking about oral reports of residents of the Ulsky Aul (modern Ulyap in the Republic of Adygea) with which the historical debut of the character in question is inextricably linked. Also noteworthy were the interpretative possibilities that opened up when analyzing a song nominally dedicated to another Circassian warrior Ajzheriyuko Kushuk. In correlation of these data with the context of the historical situation formed by written sources, the task was set to clarify the circumstances that determined the prince’s reputation from the very beginning of his entry into the historical proscenium.