The history of cultural transformations that took place in Kabarda under the influence of Islamic reformism at the turn of the 19th – 20th centuries is traced in the article drawing on the material of «Memoirs» of the famous Adyghe educator, linguist, writer and collector of folklore Kh.U. El'berdov. The relevance of such work is due to the fact that to date, the memoirs of Kh. El'berdov have not been considered not only in this, but also in other plans. Attention is paid to the descriptions of old-method education, its traditions and attributes, evidence of its relevance and prevalence in Kabarda. The social conditions in which the ideas of the new methodologists were implemented, the development by the Circassians of the rather extensive geography of the spread of reform schools, episodes of the confrontation between the Jadids and Kadimists were determined. Many details of the embodiment of the ideas of Islamic reformism in Kabarda are revealed through the history of the intellectual searches of Kh. El'berdov himself and his famous mentor – M.M. Fanziev. Taking into account the time of writing «Memoirs», the analysis is carried out taking into account the transformation of the system of value representations, the inevitable presence of interpretative limits that set the writer standards for reflecting the events described.