Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

Shchus′ subsequently served in Makhno’s forces as a member of the staff of the 3rd Trans-Dnepr Brigade (February–May 1919), chief of the Makhno Cavalry Detachment (July–August 1919), commander of the Cavalry Brigade of the 3rd Army Corps (September–December 1919), member of the staff of the Revolutionary-Insurgent Army (May 1920–April 1921), and chief of staff of the 2nd Army Group (May–June 1921). However, he remained defiantly independent and had many disagreements with his nominal commander, particularly over Shchus′’s propensity to use terror against German colonists in Ukraine. On one occasion, he was arrested and threatened with execution by Makhno, but escaped unharmed. He was killed in combat against Red Cossacks near Poltava.

A flamboyant character, practiced poseur, and notorious womanizer, with film-star good looks, Shchus′ was much photographed, often idiosyncratically dressed in a Russian hussar’s tunic and a sailor’s cap (with the words “St. John of the Golden Tongue” picked out in gold lettering), and usually festooned with bandoliers and hand grenades and brandishing a Mauser revolver and a Caucasian sword. He was the epitome of the romantic image of the Makhnovists.

Shikhlinskii, Ali-Agha Ismail-Agha oglu (23 April 1865–18 August 1943). Lieutenant colonel (1905), colonel (1908), major general (1912), lieutenant general (2 April 1917), general of artillery (Army of the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan, 28 June 1919). The Azeri general Ali-Agha Shikhlinskii, scion of an ancient noble family with extensive landholdings, was born at Qazax (Kazakh) in western Azerbaijan (Elizavetpol′ guberniia) and was a graduate of the Tiflis Military School (1883) and the Mikhail Artillery School in St. Petersburg (1885). After service with the 39th Artillery Brigade at Alexandropol (now Gyumri), he saw action in the China Relief Mission of the Russian Army in 1901–1902 and in the Russo–Japanese War, distinguishing himself for bravery during the siege of Port Arthur. In 1906, he completed a course at the Tsarskoe Selo Artillery Officers School and subsequently taught there. During the First World War, he served in various posts (mostly on the North-West and Western Fronts) concerned with artillery placements—indeed, he became known as the “God of Artillery”—and in September 1917, he was named commander of the 10th Army.

Following the October Revolution, Shikhlinskii resigned his posts and moved to Transcaucasia (initially to Tiflis, then to Baku), where he was involved in the formation of a Muslim (Azeri) Corps. His units supported the Army of Islam during the Battle of Baku (August–September 1918), helping to drive the forces of Central Caspian Dictatorship and their British allies (Dunsterforce) from the city. He subsequently helped build the army of the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan and eventually, in January 1919, became deputy to the minister of war of the republic, Samadbey Sadykhbey oglu Mehmandarov. When the Red Army invaded Azerbaijan in April 1920, Shikhlinskii was arrested, but he was soon released to become assistant people’s commissar for military and naval affairs of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. Like almost all Azeri generals, he was then arrested again, but Shikhlinskii escaped execution due to the intervention of the Bolshevik leader Narman Narimanov. He was instead seconded to Moscow, where he was employed in the Higher Artillery School and various other military-educational institutions during 1920 and 1921, and was attached to the Directorate of the Inspector of Artillery of the Red Army. He then returned to Baku and, from 18 July 1921, taught at the Azeri staff college (and was its assistant head from 1924) until his retirement in 1929. He died at Baku, during the Second World War, and was buried in the Yasamal cemetery.

Shikhlinskii was the author of numerous works of military science. In his honor, streets were renamed in Qazax and in Baku and, in 1980, a tanker of the Azeri merchant fleet was given his name. Apart from many biographical studies, Shikhlinskii appears as a character in A. N. Stepanov’s novels Port Artur (1938) and Sem′ia zvonarevykh (“The Bellringers’ Family,” 1958–1963). He was also the subject of the documentary film Schitalsia bogom artillerii (“He Was Thought of as the God of Artillery,” dir. Z. Shikhlinskii, 1996).