The Chechens In The North Caucasus Region

The common dichotomized classification of Islam in the Caucasus (“traditional” versus “fundamentalist”) does not take into account all major processes taking place in the region. The Sufi-Wahhabi discourse simplifies the social interactions between Muslims and suggests homogeneity of each of these categories. In this paper I would show how the term “Wahhabi” has been employed by the local community of Muslims who live in the Georgian Pankisi gorge  (Chechen Kists) to express their resistance towards new and radical ideas and practices. In this social conflict, Sufi brotherhoods assume the role of the defenders of traditional order, while the reformists attempt at changing not only religious but also social structures.

An abbreviated version of this review essay will be published in the peer-reviewed journal Iran and the Caucasus (Brill) in one of its issues this year; its editorial board has given permission for the current extended version to be published here in our own journal.
Ilyas Akhmadov’s book The Chechen Struggle: Independence Won and Lost—with co-author Miriam Lanskoy, Director for Russia and Eurasia at the National Endowment for Democracy—is an insightful, searing and moving account of the Chechen independence struggle in the Northern Caucasus against Russia. The same is true for Akhmadov’s more recent book Chechnya’s Secret Wartime Diplomacy: Aslan Maskhadov and the Quest for a Peaceful Resolution—with Nicholas Daniloff, a renowned journalist and former Director of the Northeastern University School of Journalism, as the co-author.
The latter book presents in separate chapters the transcripts of twenty-four secretly sent audiotapes by Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov between 1999 and 2003 to Akhmadov as Foreign Minister of the separatist government abroad from 1999 to 2005. The last chapter presents a letter by Maskhadov to the European Union of 25 February 2005 shortly before his

As the Commissar for Nationalities’ Affairs, Josef Stalin claimed that he was following Lenin’s policy of self-determination for ethnic groups within the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic (RSFSR). While paying lip-service to the principle of self-determination in permitting ethnic groups to maintain their own language and culture, he did not want to follow the principle to its logical conclusion, that is, national independence from Russia. Instead he invoked the concept of “autonomous republics” with a federation of Soviet Republics under the central rule of the Communist Party and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) after 1922. But the degree of “autonomy” of the “republics” was limited, because real power resided in the Community Party.

Even though Stalin was an ethnic Georgia, after he succeeded Lenin in 1924 he divided one ethnic group against another, as in the case of Muslim Abkhazis and Ossetians against the Orthodox Christian Georgians. In the 1930s Stalin began to suppress ethnic languages and promote the Russian language and culture. He also began a policy of “ethnic cleansing” by forcibly relocated ethnic populations, such as the Tatars from the Crimean Peninsula. The Ukrainians felt that Stalin’s forcible collectivization of agriculture was a form of genocide in which millions of Ukrainians starved to death.

After the Munich Agreement in 1938 and the dismembering of Czechoslovakia, Stalin took advantage of the situation to annex the Ukrainian region west of the Carpathian Mountains. In 1939 he signed a non-aggression pact with Germany and immediately invaded Norway, the Baltic States, and eastern Poland. But in June 1941Hilter invaded Russia as he said he would in Mein Kampf.  Suspecting that the Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Estonians, and Latvians were collaborating with the Germans, he escalated his policy of forcible relocation. The Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Estonians, and Latvians were divided between those who welcomed the Germans as liberators and those who celebrated their eventual defeat on the eastern front. The Jews were a different matter. Both the Germans and some Ukrainians participated in their extermination during the war. Stalin felt that they were not a legitimate nationality, because they had no territory of their own in Russia. He also suspected their Zionist aspirations as a threat to their loyalty to Russia.

By the end of the war, the USSR had annexed Bessarabia and Bukovina from Romania; Ruthenia from Czechoslovakia; the Karelian peninsula in eastern Finland; the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania; and Königberg in East Prussia. The United Nations was established to prevent another world war, but gave the victorious powers (the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and China) permanent seats on the Security Council with veto power over major issues. Russia insisted on having three seats in the General Assembly (for Russia, Ukraine, and Belorussia). With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Baltic Republicans and Ukraine obtained their independence and became members of the UN General Assembly, and in 2004 the Baltic States became members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union. Today, the Baltic States has a Russian-speaking minority, but in eastern and southern Ukraine the majority of the population is Russian-speaking. Under the UN charter aggression is defined as any forcible change in the national boundaries, and precluded the UN from interfering in internal affairs of member nations. Ironically, these conditions have worked against peaceful resolutions of conflicts today in places like Ukraine and Chechnya by allowing a legalistic definition of aggression to trump the principle of self-determination. The result has been the use of military force instead of UN-sponsored plebiscites to address issues of national identity.

The Chechen and wider-Vaynakh nation faces a major turning point in its history. Despite the destruction of the wars, the nation has an unprecedented chance to rebuild and re-envision itself through its three-hundred-thousand-strong refugee diaspora in Europe, unprecedented access to information and prosperity, and its youngest and fastest-growing population on record.

Situación de Chechenia en la última década, marcada por un contexto histórico de gestación del conflicto. Este trabajo hace un análisis de los datos aportados principalmente dentro el campo de estudio del ámbito español en relación a los trágicos sucesos en la pequeña marca territorial del Cáucaso. En él pretendo hacer también referencia a otros autores a susodicha temática. Espero que esto ayude a otros a comprender como se mueven las fichas de un tablero de ajedrez, y que ejerce de gravedad en ellas para impulsar un movimiento o otro hacía la destrucción de ambos jugadores dentro del conflicto, gracias.

Статья посвящена теме зарождения и развития идеологии русскоязычного джихадизма, предшествовавшей той стадии джихадистского движения, которая связана с ближневосточными событиями последних нескольких лет. В статье развивается идея, что тему джихадизма в России необходимо рассматривать не столько в контексте исламской проблемы или как результат влияния из-за рубежа, сколько как пример постсоветского радикализма, который формировался на отечественной идейной и интеллектуальной базе. В работе утверждается, что зарождение и развитие этой содержательно довольно разнообразной идеологии происходило под большим влиянием советских и постсоветских интеллектуальных традиций, которые и сделала эту идеологию такой эффективной в российском контексте.

This article is devoted to the origin and development of the propagandist ideology of Russian-language Jihadism, which is linked with the events in the Middle East over the last few years. It develops the idea that the jihadism in Russia should be considered not so much in the context of the Islamic issue or as a result of the influence of foreign countries, but rather as an example of post-Soviet radicalism, formed on a native ideological and intellectual base. The article states that this meaningfully diverse ideology originated under the influence of Soviet and post-Soviet intellectual traditions, which made this ideology so effective in the Russian context.

Arguably, most traditional societies conform to a predominant religion, state, emperor, nation, ethnicity, or to a predominant collection of tribes and clans; multi-clan or other mixed groups with residential unity and self-identification in hamlets, villages, towns or other localities; and finally to extended families and nuclear families. In this research note I discuss some (preliminary) observations of mine, and those of Dettmering, Sokirianskaia and some other scholars, observers and others on the identified, claimed or actual (sub-)clans and other kinship or localised ethnic (sub-)groups however defined among the Chechens in distant and more recent history. Further research is required to determine with more confidence what roles any such surviving kinship and ethnic (sub-)groups may have played during particularly the First Russo-Chechen War (1994-1996) and the first high-intensity phase of the Second Russo-Chechen War (1999-2005), which since then has morphed into a collection of small-scale insurgencies across the North Caucasus.

357 collaboration between political anthropology and political science. Social scientists working on Central Asia have sometimes shown the blurring of boundaries between state and society and how the state and its elites are far from a unitary, strategic, or cohesive actor (Jones Luong, 2002; Cummings and Nørgaard, 2004; Radnitz, 2010; Cummings, Juraev, Pugachev, Temirkulov, Tiulegenov and Tursunkulova, 2013). Writers have also been aware of the symbolic and performative nature of statehood (Adams, 2010; Marat, Reeves, Raysanagam, and Beyer, 2013). This book is a call to push further the work done independently by both disciplines, and it suggests useful collaborative ventures for the future.

VOLUME I - FROM REVOLUTION TO WAR

"Freedom or Death!" With this slogan in 1991 Chechnya proclaimed independence. A people of a million souls, led by General Dzhokhar Dudaev, challenged the authority of the Soviet Union. This book traces the troubled history of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, never recognized by any government, yet capable of exercising its authority for a decade, and to continue to exist today, almost thirty years after its constitution, albeit in the form of government in exile. It is the story of a visionary political experiment, capable of inspiring a people to the point of challenging one of the greatest powers on the planet, convinced that it can win armed only with its faith. And, incredibly, capable of really winning, forcing Russia to bow its head. But it is also the story of an idea that did not stand up to reality: misery, religious fanaticism, military anarchy were the constants that dragged independent Chechnya into two devastating conflicts, from which the country came out totally destroyed, prey to the lords of war, fundamentalism and the brutality of an occupying army. A complete chronicle of the entire parable carried out by Chechen independence, from the Revolution of autumn 1991 to the present day.

The first volume of this series deals with the period between the so-called "Chechen Revolution" of autumn 1991 and the outbreak of the First Chechen War, with an in-depth introduction to the history of the Vaynakhs and the evolution of Russian-Chechen relations.

СОДЕРЖАНИЕ
Кавказское общество: между локальностью и глобальностью. Денис Соколов
Роль миграционных сетей в формировании ногайского (этно)национального проекта. Ахмет Ярлыкапов

Чеченцы в Европе: формирующаяся «диаспора, порождённая конфликтом». Денис Соколов
Чеченская послевоенная диаспора в Норвегии и её восприятие правовых моделей. Марьям Сугаипова, Юлие Вильхельмсен
Память и нарратив о войне среди двух поколений чеченцев в ЕС: опыт формирующейся диаспоры. Анн Ле Уэру, Од Мерлен
Сравнительный анализ ценностных стратегий старшего поколения и молодёжи среди европейских мигрантов:
факторы новой модели идентичности (на примере мигрантов-чеченцев в Бельгии). Лидия Курбанова
Борьба в прошлом за настоящее и будущее: история в политике и политика в истории. Аббаз Осмаев

Протесты на Северном Кавказе: политические смыслы и социальные последствия. Денис Соколов
Ингушетия: социальная модернизация и протесты. Ирина Стародубровская
Постколониальная ловушка на примере ингушских протестов 2018–2019 годов. Зарина Саутиева, Денис Соколов
«Мы не надеялись победить…» (Махачкала: короткая история городского активизма). Сергей Манышев Институциональные гибриды — драйверы развития? Регулирование земельно-ресурсных противоречий в горно-рекреационных районах Северного Кавказа (пример Приэльбрусья). Алексей Гуня

Abstract: This essay provides a selected bibliography on the history and cultures of the Caucasus region. A great part of this study consists of books, articles, symposiums papers, undergraduate and postgraduate thesis and Ph.D dissertations written in Turkey. This study reveals that, although there are numerous studies on the region, the Caucasian history and cultures still calls for scholarly attention due to its geo-strategic importance.

Keywords: Caucasus, Bibliography, Culture, Historiography, Turkey

Öz: Bu makale çalışması dünyanın en önemli coğrafyalarından biri olan Kafkasya’nın tarihi ve kültürü üzerine hazırlanmış bir bibliyografya denemesidir. Bibliyografya denemesinin büyük bir bölümünü Türkiye’de, Kafkasya tarihi üzerine hazırlanmış kitap, makale, sempozyum, bildiri, lisans, yüksek lisans ve doktora tezleri
oluşturmaktadır. Tarihin ilk dönemlerinden günümüze çok önemli olaylara sahne olan bu zorlu topraklar günümüzde de tarihçilerin ve sosyal bilimcilerin ilgisini çeken bir alandır.

Anahtar Kelimeler: Kafkasya, Bibliyografya, Kültür, Tarihçilik, Türkiye

The region called the Caucasus has been a significant area throughout history as in nowadays. “The Caucasus” name was firstly used in the beginning of the 19th century. This region is near the Black Sea and Caspian Sea and in the borders of
both Europe and Asia. The Caucasus is politically divided into two as Northern Caucasus and Southern Caucasus. Geopolitically the area is important because of the neighbor states. In this research, a very significant 23-page report titled “Kafkasya Ahvaline Dair Rapor” which was published by Harbiye Nezareti, Karargâh-ı Umumi İstihbarat Şubesi and in Dersaadet Matbaa-yı Askeriye in 1918 (1334) and on which the title “Secret” is written is evaluated. The publish date on the report is written as 1916. This date is a date which is on just the First World War years. So in this booklet which was published by Harbiye Nezareti, Karargâh-ı Umumi İstihbarat Şubesi, the Caucasus and its periphery during the First World War years is explained. The publish of this booklet by the intelligence of the Ottoman Empire shows the importance given to the region. Furthermore, ethnic and religious structure of the region has always been significant. For this reason, the information about population in the Caucasus in the beginnings of the First World War (1914) is given from the records of Ottoman Archives of Prime Ministry. According to the information from the records, Muslim and Christian population percentages are determined in the region according to the record of “Kafkasya Salnamesi” (the Caucasus Year Book) which was written by Russian government. The report was written by German Hert Folg and his friend Dr. Rays who were working as mülazım in the Ottoman Dragon Army. The aforementioned report is consisted of these titles: General situation of the Caucasus, Escape to the Caucasus, Residence in the Caucasus, Residence in Baku, Acemistan and Kurdistan, the Roads in the Region, Railway of Batum-Baku, and the Committees in the Region. In our study according to the Caucasus report which was published by Ottoman intelligence, the Caucasus policy of the Ottoman Empire and the Caucasus and its periphery during First World War years is analyzed.

17. yüzyıl boyunca yapacakları savaşlara finansman sağlamak için teker teker borç batağına saplanan Avrupalı monarşiler gibi Osmanlı ve Rus monarşileri de 18. yüzyılın ikinci yarısından itibaren sermayedar savaş baronlarının pençesine düşmüşlerdi.  Kafkasya, amansız birer rakip hâline getirilen bu iki imparatorluğun savaş arenalarının başında geliyordu. 19. yüzyılın sonu ve 20. yüzyılın başları arasındaki bir asırlık sürede Kafkasya Dağlıları, başkalarının savaşlarının kurbanları olmuş, sürekli değişen dengeler içinde kâh stratejik ittifaklar kurarak, kâh savaşarak özgürlük ve bağımsızlıklarını korumaya çalışmışlardı.  Bu süre zarfında istisnasız her nesli toplu sürgünler ve soykırımlara uğrayan Kafkasya halkları vatanlarını savunmak için mücadele ederlerken kendi istemleri dışında başka güçlerin savaşlarının da baş aktörleri hâline gelmişlerdi.  En az dış güçlere karşı verdikleri mücadeleler kadar birbirlerine karşı da savaşmak zorunda bırakılan bu halklar, insanlık tarihinin en trajik hikayelerinden birisinin konusu olmuşlardı.
Cem Kumuk, Kafkasya Dağlılarının yaşadıkları tecrübelerin önemli kilometre taşlarını bu paylaşım mücadelesinde yer alan ülkelerin arşivlerinden derlediği ve daha önce hiç yayınlanmamış pek çok belgeyle okurların ilgisine sunuyor.  Çalışmasını özellikle ideolojik kaygılar ve kaynak eksikliği yüzünden üzerinde yeterince çalışılamamış olan ihtilaller ve dünya savaşları dönemi üzerinde derinleştiren Kumuk, bu döneme dair ezberlenmiş “doğruları” değiştirecek belgeler ortaya koyuyor.  Kafkasya Dağlılarının son iki asırlık tarihine eleştirel bir bakış açısıyla yaklaşan Kumuk’un bu çalışması, Kafkasya Tarihi okurları için yeni bir kilometre taşı hâline gelecek.

Tolstoy's story is based on a real incident in one of Russia's campaigns of conquest, of a deposed Chechen leader who escapes to the Russian side, with the objective of enlisting them in a campaign to return him to power. Tolstoy was in the military in that campaign, though he did not personally meet the charismatic Hadji Murad.

Öz Dağıstan ve Kuzey Kafkasya Cumhuriyeti (Birleşik Kuzey Kafkasya Cum-huriyeti) 11 Mayıs 1918'de ilan edilmiştir. Bu cumhuriyet Osmanlı Devleti tara-fından tanınmıştır. 30 Ekim 1918'de imzalanan Mondros Mütarekesi'ni mütea-kip Osmanlı Ordusu Kafkasya'dan çekilmiştir. Dağıstanlılar önce Çarlık Rusya ile ardından Bolşeviklerle savaşmışlardır. Kızıl Ordu'nun Dağıstan'ı işgal etme-siyle 20 Ocak 1921'de Rusya Federatif Sovyet Sosyalist Cumhuriyeti'ne tabi Dağıstan Sovyet Cumhuriyeti kurulmuştur. Sovyetler döneminde Hasavyurt, Kızlar ve Acıgöl bölgelerinin Dağıstan'a dâhil edilmesi ve 1991'de Sovyetlerin dağılması sonrası yapılan yeni düzenlemelerle Dağıstan bugünkü şeklini al-mıştır. Biz bu makalede Dağıstan'ın tarihi, coğrafi, stratejik, ekonomik ve sos-yal özelliklerini açıklayarak, Dağıstan'ın Türk tarihi ile ilgisini ortaya koymaya çalışacağız. Dünyanın hem etnik hem dil yönünden en karışık bölgesi olan Kaf-kasya ve Kafkasya'nın en karışık bölgesi olan Dağıstan tarihini anlayabilmek için konuyu üç alt başlık altında değerlendireceğiz. Dağıstan hakkında genel bir bilgi verildikten sonra, birinci bölümde 1917'deki bağımsızlık girişimine ka-dar ki olan kısım, ikinci bölümde 1991'de Sovyetlerin dağılması sonucu kuru-lan Rusya Federasyonu'na tabi Dağıstan Cumhuriyeti'ne kadar olan kısım, üçüncü bölümde ise 1991'den günümüze kadar olan kısım incelenecektir. Son bölümde Dağıstan hakkındaki sorunlara değinilecektir. Sonuç olarak Dağıs-tan'ın Türk tarihi ile ilgisi ve Türkiye için Dağıstan'ın önemi ortaya konacaktır.
Relationship Dagestan With Turkish History And The Importance Of Dagestan For Turkey

Abstract

Dagestan and The Republic of North Caucasia (United North Caucasus Republic) declared on 1918, 11 th of May. This republic was recognized by the Ot-* İstanbul Üniversitesi Türkiyat Araştırmaları Enstitüsü Yüksek Lisans Öğrencisi.

The Liberation Army of Kosova (Ushtria Çlirirritare e Kosovës,
UÇK) or 'KLA'' has been the best known Albanian rebel movement in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s. Its most important offshoots have been the National Liberation Army (Ushtria Çlirimtare Kombetare, UÇK) or 'NLA' in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac {Ushtria Çlirimtare e Presheves, Medvegfes dhe Bujanovcit, UÇPMB) in southern Serbia. Between 1979 and 2001 most Albanian rebel groups were bom, grew and withered, though some groups existed since the 1970s and even earlier. Still the arrival ofthe Kosova Liberation Army surprised Western policymakers. Analysts are uncertain about the intentions of this rebel movement and its offshoots and political successors.
This paper contains a structured comparative analysis ofthe two
major Albanian militant formations: KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) and NLA (National Liberation Army). The analysis presents the Albanian grievances in Kosovo and FYR Macedonia and critically examines the origins, structure and success of the two Albanian militant groups. The analysis ends with an evaluation of the current state of popular grievances and the current state of these two organizations.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the massive Soviet ethnic cleansing of the Turkic Karachais and Balkars and Vainakh Chechens and Ingush from their North Caucasian homelands. This article examines the stated justifications, mechanisms, and results of these deportations. Among its findings are that the official Soviet justifications have no validity and that contrary to the claims made by some North American based scholars that the deportations were acts of racial discrimination and genocide as these terms are currently defined in international law. The article deals with the false claims of treason against the deported peoples, their removal from the North Caucasus and resettlement in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and their later return to their ancestral homelands.

The review article analyses several key publications on the Chechen conflict in the light of the portraits of Maskhadov and other prominent figures of the post-1991 Chechen insur-gencies, with a view on the inner controversies between secularist and jihadist wings of this anti-Russian separatist movement.

Kafkasya’nın Rusya tarafından kolonizasyonu 16. yüzyıla kadar uzanan oldukça uzun bir tarihsel süreci kapsar. Söz konusu süreç içinde bölgeye Kazakların iskânı Rusya tarafından önemli bir kolonizasyon yöntemi olarak kullanılmıştır. Bölgede yürütülen askeri faaliyetlerin yanı sıra ekonomik faaliyetler ve eğitim faaliyetleri de yerel halkların kontrol altına alınmasında önemli unsurlar olmuştur. Bu faaliyetlerin alt yapısını ise Kazak stanitsaları ile kale kentlerden oluşan ve zaman içinde tüm Kafkasya’yı saran “hat sistemi” sağlamıştır. Kuzeydoğu Kafkasya’nın Rusya topraklarına dâhil edilme sürecini “ara zemin” kavramından faydalanarak inceleyen yazar, Kazaklarla yerel gruplar arasındaki ilişkileri değişik boyutlarıyla ele almakta, Kafkasya’nın Rusya tarafından kolonizasyonuna farklı bir perspektiften bakmamızı sağlamaktadır.

On December 4, a group of Chechen insurgents in three vehicles, despite being detected in the outskirts of Chechnya’s capital city, carried out an unprecedented attack on Grozny. After hours of fighting, insurgents, isolated in the republic’s Press House building and a nearby school, situated in the city center, killed 14 and wounded three dozen local policemen. In turn, 11 insurgents were killed. The December 4 attack raised questions about the strength of the Chechen insurgency and the capability of local authorities to stem it. This article claims that given the immense control and severe penalization imposed by pro-Moscow Chechen authorities, the social base of the Chechen insurgency is largely lost, which makes its revival unlikely.

Chechnya is a strategic country for Russia because it is located in the North Caucasus, a region considered at the same time a barrier and a bridge between Europe and Asia. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union Chechnya and the entire North Caucasus have been affected by political, sociocultural and economic problems exploded in local conflicts and insurgency. This paper firstly gives an overview of the Russian – Chechen relations during the last centuries with the purpose to understand the roots of the problems that caused the conflict. Successively, this article investigates Ramzan Kadyrov's leadership and management of Chechnya and tries to answer the question if a stable and authoritarian regime such as that imposed in the Chechen Republic is better than a failing democratic process. Also, this paper aims at establishing if Chechnya after the war and the reconstruction process could be considered a stable country or the Kremlin's next failure.

This article analyses the official discourse of the Chechen authorities and posits that it reflects the government's efforts as self-legitimation. This investigation seeks to identify the mechanisms exploited by the Chechen regime to boost self-legitimacy by examining the 'News' programme on the Chechen state television channel 'Grozny' , which, in the authoritarian setting of Chechnya, became the government's mouthpiece and a propagator of official discourse. To provide for the context and to boost findings, the study is complemented by a discursive analysis of one more historicalpolitical television programme and a political advertisement that was broadcast by the same channel during the period in which the fieldwork took place. The collected data is processed using Critical Discourse Analysis.

After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Soviet leadership fully mobilized Kazakhstan's populations for war. Communist Party and government officials in Moscow and Almaty responded to this crisis by conscripting ethnic Kazakhs into the Red Army, mobilizing the republic's industrial workers and collective farmers for intensified production, and waging a grandiose propaganda campaign designed to instill Soviet patriotism in these soldiers and laborers. During the war, Soviet authorities also deported large Soviet German and North Caucasian populations to Kazakhstan, where local Party and government officials forced them to eke out a desperate existence on the Gulag's "special-settlements." This dissertation is the first English-language study that analyzes these wartime mobilizational campaigns inside Kazakhstan. Drawing on a wide range of previously unexamined archival holdings in Kazakhstan and Moscow, published documentary collections, Soviet newspapers, and memoirs, the dissertation argues that mobilization catalyzed the integration of the republic's population into Soviet military, economic, and ideological institutions. As a direct result of this integration, the republic's Kazakh population acquired a much stronger Soviet identity, but the boundaries of Kazakhstan's ethnic hierarchy became more pronounced and the republic's status as a raw materials base for Russia became more firmly entrenched.

Exploring the case study of the Moscow-led counterinsurgency in Chechnya, this article shows the crucial importance of cultural knowledge understood in an ethnographic sense in terms of patterns of social organization, persisting value systems, and other related phenomena – in the relative success of the eradication of the Chechnya-based insurgency. Using a range of first-hand sources – including interviews by leading Russian and Chechen experts and investigative journalists, and the testimonies of eyewitnesses and key actors from within local and Russian politics – the article explains the actual mechanisms of Moscow's policy of Chechenization that have sought to break the backbone of the local resistance using local human resources. To this end, the study focuses on the crucial period of 2000–2004, when Moscow's key proxy in Chechnya, the kadyrovtsy paramilitaries, were established and became operational under the leadership of Akhmad Kadyrov, which helped create a sharp division within Chechen society, reducing the level of populace-based support for the insurgents, thereby increasing support for the pro-Moscow forces.

This book pioneers a socio-cultural insight into the history and presence of the violence in Chechnya.  It explores the organization of Chechen society with emphasis on the role of clans (teips, nekyes), persisting values and norms (concepts of male honor, blood feud), the evolution of Chechen nationalism, and the predominantly violent relationships between Russia and the Chechens throughout modern history in order to better explain the most recent periods of confrontation. It concentrates on the Second Chechnya War and subsequent terrorist attacks in Moscow and Beslan and the spreading of violence throughout the North Caucasus. This is the first book to assess the most recent violence in Chechnya in the wider context of cultural, social and political changes in the North Caucasus and Russia. The author also investigates the situation of the Chechen insurgency, the expansion of the conflict into the neighboring areas of the North Caucasus, and Moscow's controversial policy of Chechenization.

This article analyses the historical roots and cultural characteristics of the Chechens and Albanians, and how they relate, in their recurrent conflicts with the Russians and Serbs, to long-term grievances, the second variable of my Brutalisation theory. In this article I also explain why the theory departs from the grievance rather than greed premise. Indeed, most of the Chechen and Albanian grievances appear to be based on real and correctly perceived, i.e. absolute deprivations. More fundamentally, given my post-constructivist proposition on the “acting-out” of norms, values and beliefs irrespective of factual or invented origins, I seek to show that martialism, (Sufiinspired) resistance, and (male) egalitarianism have helped to shape and sustain historic grievances, Islamisation (particularly among Chechens), nationalist aspirations and traditional violence-values in Chechen and Albanian societies. Finally, I describe how pre-1979 trauma’s and devastations destroyed most records, buildings and symbols of their cultures and histories, as a cautionary note to my efforts to trace both the factual and mythologised foundations of their identities.

The article examines the role of muridism as an important state-forming ideological element of Imam Shamil`s theocratic state – the Imamate, during the period of his rule (1834–1859). It presents key moments of the forming of the ideology of muridism, its aspects which differentiate it from the Sufi tariqa Naqshbandiyyia-Khalidiyya and which were used for establishing the Imamate. The article indicates how muridism was adapted to the North-Eastern Caucasian realities and the confrontation between the Imamate and the Russian empire.

This article focuses on so-called violence-values (a composite term coined by the author), the first variable of the author’s Brutalisation theory, which combines elements from disciplines ranging from anthropology to military psychology. It forms part of my ongoing research, which explores the values (norms, customs, beliefs), aims (objectives, aspirations, ideologies) and methods (targets, tactics, techniques) of violence by Chechen and Albanian separatists during the last Cold War and first post-Cold war periods, i.e. between the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on 24 December 1979 and the attack by Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda (The Base) network on the United States on 11 September 2001. Through a meticulous exposition
and comparison with international norms
of traditional morals on violence that still are salient in the remarkably similar communities of Chechens and Albanians, the author hopes to underpin his post-constructivist position that a genuine “acting-out” of norms, values and beliefs in vendettas, battles and other contests can shape one’s identity, irrespective of whether these attributes are primordial, i.e. factual, or constructed, i.e. invented.

Główne czynniki ewolucji systemu politycznego Inguszetii w latach 1992-2020. Zarys problemu. Artykuł opublikowany w pracy zbiorowej: Między tradycją a modernizacją. Teoria i praktyka badań politologicznych państw eurazjatyckich. Księga jubileuszowa dedykowana prof. Tadeuszowi Bodio, pod red.