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The authors consider the problem of the Central Caucasus peoples’ joining Russia in Soviet and modern historiography. The purpose is to determine the main trends of the regional segment of Soviet historiography which remain relevant in the modern discourse, and to present the modern vector of research of the problem under consideration. There is given the periodization of the Soviet historiography. It is revealed that in the 1930s the formula of “absolute evil” was replaced by that of “the lesser evil” from the point of view of non-Russian peoples’ joining Russia. In the 1950s, there was taken a course to substantiate the progressive role of non-Russian peoples’ joining Russia and there appeared the idea of the voluntary nature of their joining. The article shows the fate of those historians who could not unconditionally accept the change in the research paradigm. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of modern historiography; its fundamental difference from the Soviet one is shown - the study of the issue without any ideological guidelines and its transfer exclusively into a scientific plane. The motive for addressing the problem is the research interest in the modernization processes of the post-reform period. As a result of the multifaceted research, there has been revised the assessment of the role of the socio-cultural institutions that served the goals of the peaceful conquest of the Central Caucasus peoples, and their positive role has been identified.

The authors analyze the activities of Iran's consular services in the Caucasus, their role in Russian-Caucasian diplomatic relations, in particular, in the processes of Iranian labor migrants’ adaptation to host societies. The authors aim to expand historical knowledge of Iranians’ staying in the Caucasus, to restore a complete picture of the history of migration processes in the region. There are revealed the features of Iranian-Caucasian diplomatic relations in the pre-Soviet period, the situation of migrants and their legal support, the activities of the consulates in preserving the Iranian cultural identity, internal and external problems in Iran’s consular services. There have been introduced into scientific use the documents of political and consular missions of Iran in the Caucasus for 1905-1911 stored in the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, materials of Iranian periodicals of the period under consideration, as well as the personal files of the vice-consuls stored in the Persian Table Foundation (f. 144) of the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire. They made it possible to determine the significant contribution of consular services to the development of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The conclusion is made about the greatest success of these relations in the Terek region, which is due to the favorable conditions of its developing economy for labor migrants and such subjective factors as the personal qualities of a number of vice-consuls, the level of their interaction with the Russian authorities. The activities of the vice-consuls successfully combined the promotion of the incorporation of migrants into the Russian economy and culture with the creation of conditions for the preservation of Iranian cultural identity.