It is a custom in South Africa that those who visit the local township and interact with the community are given a traditional South African Xhosa name.
Goncharov's very act of comparing Britain's Xhosa wars with Russia's Caucasian wars proves to Mikhelson that the writer opposes colonial wars of expansion.
There, they engaged in brutal resource wars against the Xhosa and Zulu inhabitants of the region, and carved out two independent states, known as the Boer Republics.
When the Russians arrived in March 1853, the newly appointed Governor, Sir George Cathcart, was negotiating a peace treaty after the eighth British-Xhosa War of 1850–1853.