Madzhalis

Madzhalis (Маджалис; Dargwa: Мажалис) is a rural locality (a selo) and the administrative center of Kaytagsky District of the Republic of Dagestan, Russia. Population: During the Russian Empire, the settlement was the administrative capital of the Kaytago-Tabasaransky Okrug.

History
Located on the Boghan river, Madzhalis (also spelled Majālis) was historically one of the capitals of the Qaytaq people. It was founded by the utsmi Sultan-Ahmad (who died in 1588); previously, it had been a place where people had gathered for tribal meetings. It was later succeeded as Qaytaq capital by Bashli sometime in the 18th century.

National composition
According to data from 1869, out of 287 households in the Madzhalis, 169 spoke Kumyk, 118 spoke Kaitag. According to family lists of 1886, Dargins made up 60% of the population, the remaining 40 were Mountain Jews. According to the list of populated areas of the Dagestan region in 1888, only “Tatars” are indicated in the nationality column, which meant Kumyks, who made up the majority, and Jews.

The Scottish baron and traveler John Abercromby wrote in 1889 that Madzhalis, except for its Jewish element (quarter), was inhabited by “Tatars”. The scientist-historian E.I. Kozubsky in 1895 indicated that the main nationality of the Madzhalis was the Dargins, and the main language was Kumyk, which was somewhat different from the language of the northern Kumykia.

Russian anthropologist Pavel Svidersky noted in 1901 that Madzhalis consists of two villages: Dargins and Mountain Jewish, as well as several houses of Russian administration workers.

In the 1940s, part of the Dargins from the village of Abdashka was resettled to the village, who formed a separate quarter in the village. In 1968, residents of the burnt village of Darsha were resettled to Madzhalis.

Jewish Quarter
Mountain Jews lived in the Tuben-Aul (“Lower Aul”) quarter, where they moved in the 19th century after a pogrom in three Jewish villages located nearby.

Local Jews, in addition to their native language, also knew the Dargin and Kumyk languages. Jews were engaged in agriculture, in particular leather production and viticulture and winemaking. In 1867, there were 80 Jews families in Madzhalis. In 1926 there were 69 of them. In the 1930s, the synagogue in the village was demolished. At the same time, a Jewish collective farm was established, which was later merged with the Dargin one. After the war, most of the Mountain Jews left for Derbent, Buynaksk and Makhachkala. In 1994, there were only 7 Jewish families in the village.

Economy
Deposits of phosphorites, clays and loams; iodine-bromine and boron mineral waters.

Culture

 * Museum of Local Lore.
 * Weather station.
 * Mounds (15 km east of Mount Hokuz-Danna - 6); settlement (14 km east of the village - Gyaur-Tepe, Samanlyk-Tepe, Khazka-Tepe).

Archaeological excavations
A burial ground dating back to the 1st millennium BC was found 50 meters south of the Madzhalis 2nd settlement. One of the graves was an oval pit with two bones flexed on the left side, oriented to the south, accompanied by 21 bronze hemispherical plaques, a bronze cap, piercings, an iron socketed spearhead, 8 bone arrowheads, a temple decoration, and a jar vessel.

Near the village, a bronze dagger of the Western Asian type, dating from the 12th-10th centuries BC, was also found.

Tombstones with Arabic inscriptions were discovered in the village. Some of them date back to the 14th-15th centuries. There are also monuments dating from the 14th-15th and 15th-16th centuries.