The Caspian Region, Volume II: The Caucasus

The Caspian Region Volume II The Caucasus

Edited by Moshe Gammer

The Caspian Region Volume II The Caucasus

Edited by Moshe Gammer

First published 2004 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. © 2004 Moshe Gammer for selection and editorial matter; individual contributors their contribution All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-00512-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-714-65248-2 (Print Edition)

Contents

Maps

vii

Preface

ix

Contributors

xi

Abbreviations

xiv

Glossary

xvi part i quiet conflicts? georgia

1. Two-Way Mirror Nationalism: The Case of Ajaria Monica Duffy Toft 2. Javakheti: Region of Tension between Georgians and Armenians Judith Hin

3 23

part ii unattainable ideal? attempts at unity in the northern caucasus 3. From the Idea of Caucasian Unity to Regional Fragmentation: The North Caucasus, 1990–1999 C. Cem Og˘ uz

41

4. The Congresses of the International Circassian Association: Dilemmas of an Ethno-National Movement Chen Bram

63

v

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part iii the volcano to erupt next? daghestan 5. Societal Conflict-Generating Factors in Daghestan Enver Kisriev

107

6. Daghestan: Inter-ethnic Tensions and Cross-Border Implications Anna Matveeva

122

7. The ‘Wahhabis’ of the Northern Caucasus vis-à-vis State and Society: The Case of Daghestan Anna Zelkina

146

8. Rural Muslims’ Nationalism in the Post-Soviet Caucasus: The Case of Daghestan Vladimir Bobrovnikov

179

Index

198

vi

Maps

1. The Caspian Region

xx

2. Georgia: Administrative Division

5

3. The Northern Caucasus: Administrative Division

43

4. The North-Western Caucasus: Ethnic Composition

66

5. Daghestan: Ethnic Composition

109

6. Daghestan: Administrative Division

111

vii

Preface

The importance of the Caucasus lies in its being a crossroads between two seas and two continents. Furthermore, all the main present and planned pipelines for the transfer of Caspian oil and gas pass through this area or near it. However, the area has also been known for its instability, coups and violent wars such as those in Chechnya, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia and between the Ingush and the Ossets. All these have received a great deal of publicity and are therefore deliberately omitted from this book. Rather, the intent is to bring to the reader’s attention other potential conflicts and those that have not been solved. The Caucasus is now divided between the Russian Federation north of the main range and three independent states – Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia – south of it. Nevertheless, such a division is not easy to apply in analysis, since in reality the political borders do not correspond to geographical, economic and ethnic ones. A great many issues and relationships spill over beyond political borders and conflicts are in some cases interconnected. The conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, for example, are strongly connected to the Northern (Russian) Caucasus, while the war in Chechnya has affected both Georgia and Azerbaijan. Chapter 1 deals with a conflict that seems to have been solved, and analyses the solution. At the same time it suggests a novel way of understanding some relationships between majority and minority groups. Chapter 2 discusses a potential conflict that, if neglected or mishandled, might deteriorate into a second Nagorno-Karabakh. The Northern Caucasus is ethnically one of the most diverse areas in the world. Nevertheless, all its aboriginal ethnic groups share a sense of affinity and cultural unity as ‘mountaineers’. Thus attempts at political unity are intertwined with disputes and conflicts. Part II discusses two such attempts at unity. Chapter 3 analyses an attempt ix

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that seems so far to have failed to unite all the peoples of the Northern Caucasus in the ‘Confederation of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus’ (which later changed its name to the ‘Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus’). Chapter 4, on the other hand, deals with an attempt that so far seems to have been quite successful. At the same time it analyses a unique phenomenon of two (or even three) national movements of diaspora peoples, with the ‘centre’ of one of them located in three separate autonomous republics and one autonomous district. It therefore also contains theoretical implications for the study of national movements, diaspora peoples and the relationships between centre and diaspora. Part III is dedicated to Daghestan. This unparalleled ethnically diverse – over 30 native ethnic groups inhabit it, in addition to some non-native ones – autonomous republic of the RF ‘belongs’ to 14 officially recognised nationalities. With galloping economic, social, national and political crises following the dissolution of the USSR, the transfer to a ‘market economy’ and the semi-isolation caused by the wars in Chechnya, Daghestan has so far disappointed the frequent predictions that it would be the scene of the next conflagration. Chapter 5 analyses the factors that might cause such a conflagration. Chapter 6 analyses the implications of national problems and conflicts in Daghestan for neighbouring entities and vice versa. The last two chapters use Daghestan as a case study for reexamining larger issues connected to Islam. One is that of fundamentalist Islam, or ‘Wahhabism’, as it is dubbed in the FSU. With both the West and (to a lesser extent) Russia increasingly targeting fundamentalist Islam as their chief enemy, it has become fashionable for governments to call their enemies ‘fundamentalists’ or ‘Wahhabis’ in order to gain international sympathy, recognition, legitimisation and/or support. However, are all those so designated really ‘fundamentalists’, and do they pose a real threat? Chapter 7 deals with these questions. The last question is that of the complex, ambivalent relationship between Islam and nationalism. A great many studies have been published over the years discussing various areas of the world with a Muslim population, from the Arab world to the Indian sub-continent and South-East Asia. More recently the Muslim areas of the FSU, both outside and inside the RF, have been added to that list. Chapter 8 is an important contribution to the description and analysis of this question.

x

Contributors

Dr Vladimir Bobrovnikov is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is the author of Custom, Crime and Ethnography among the North Caucasian Muslims (Moscow: Vostochnaya literatura; forthcoming) and of more than 80 articles and chapters on the contemporary history and anthropology of Muslim village community and customary law in the Northern Caucasus (Daghestan). He is working now on the English version of his above monograph. Chen Bram is an applied anthropologist and social psychologist. He works as a consultant specialising in multiculturalism and in crosscultural issues. He is a PhD candidate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His dissertation deals with ‘Multiculturalism and Ethnicity – the case of the “Mountain Jews” in the Caucasus and in Israel’. He is also engaged in research on the Circassians (Adighe) as a Diaspora people, in the Caucasus and in Israel, at the Truman Institute of the Hebrew University. Dr Moshe Gammer is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University. He is the author of Muslim Resistance to the Tsar. Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and Daghestan (London: Frank Cass, 1994) and numerous articles and chapters on the modern and contemporary history of the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Middle East. In addition to this book he has edited Political Thought and Political History: Studies in Memory of Professor Elie Kedourie (London: Frank Cass, 2003). Judith Hin is a PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam. Her dissertation deals with multi-ethnicity and state-building in Georgia, focusing on the Armenian minority. She is also conducting research xi

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on the Ajarian Autonomous Republic (Georgia) for a comparative study on the prevention of conflict in the post-Soviet space at Brown University (USA). Dr Enver Kisriev is Senior Research Associate and head of the Sociology Section at the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of the Daghestani Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Makhachkala. He is the author of over 120 publications on the ethno-cultural, political and religious problems of Daghestan and is an expert on public opinion palls in the republic. His latest publications include Nationality and the Political Process in Daghestan (Makhachkala, 1998) and The Republic of Daghestan: A Model of Ethnological Monitoring (Moscow: ????????, 1999; both in Russian). Dr Anna Matveeva is currently working at Deloitte & Touche in London. Her previous positions include a research fellowship at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) in London, where she coordinated the ‘Central Asian and Caucasian Project’. Prior to her involvement with Chatham House, Dr Matveeva worked as the manager of the Former Soviet Union programme for the London-based NGO ‘International Alert’. She is the author of The North Caucasus: Russia’s Fragile Borderland (London: RIIA, 1999) and articles on politics and security in the Caucasus. She has also given numerous interviews to the printed and electronic media. C. Cem Og˘ uz is a PhD candidate at the Department of International Relations, Bilkent University, Ankara and a researcher at the RussianUkrainian Affairs Department at Bilkent University’s Center for Eurasian Strategic Studies. His dissertation deals with the ‘Caucasian Front during the First World War, 1914–18’, and his main research areas include relations between Russia and Turkey, contemporary Caucasian affairs, and Russian foreign policy orientation after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Dr Monica Duffy Toft is Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government and Assistant Director of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. Her research interests include ethnic conflict, civil wars, and the meaning of territory. She is completing two book manuscripts: The Geography of Ethnic Conflict: Identity, Interests, and Territory and an edited volume, The Fog of Peace: Strategic and Military Planning under Uncertainty. xii

CONTRIBUTORS

Dr Anna Zelkina is Research Fellow at the Department of Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She is the author of In Quest of God and Freedom. Sufi Responses to the Russian Advance in the Northern Caucasus (London: C. Hurst, 2000) as well as a number of articles on religion and society in the Northern Caucasus and Central Asia. She is a regular commentator on the political situation and religious affairs in the Caucasus for the BBC and CNN.

xiii

Abbreviations

Agitprop AMPC ANF ASSR CC CIS CMPC CP CPC CPID CPSU EC EEC EIA EU FSK FSU ICA IPD IRP KGB KNB

Agitatsiia/propaganda Assembly of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus Abkhaz National Forum Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic Central Committee Commonwealth of Independent States Confederation of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus Communist Party Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus Congress (Majlis) of the Peoples of Ichkeria and Daghestan Communist Party of the Soviet Union European Community European Economic Community Energy Information Administration of the US Department of Energy European Union Federal’naia Sluzhba Kontr-Razvedki (Federal Counter-intelligence Service) former Soviet Union International Circassian Association Islamic Party of Daghestan Islamic Renaissance Party Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) Komitet Natsional’noi Bezopasnosti (Committee for National Security) xiv

ABBREVIATIONS

KOMSOMOL KPC m NATO NEP NGO NKVD OMON OSCE RF SIC SDMD SSR TACIS UMR UN UNEP USAID USSR

Kommunisticheskii Soiuz Molodezhi (Young Communist League) Kabardin People’s Congress million North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Novaia Ekonomicheskaia Politika (New Economic Policy) non-governmental organisation Norodnyi Kommisariat Vnutrennikh Del (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs) Interior Ministry Special Forces Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe Russian Federation Scientific Information Center Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of Daghestan Soviet Socialist Republic (European Union) Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States Union of Russian Muslims United Nations United Nations Environment Programme United States Agency for International Development Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

xv

Glossary

‘Adat (from Ar. ‘Ada ) – in the Caucasus customary law (as opposed to Muslim religious law). Adyge Khabzah (Ad. Circassian law) – refers to a system of rules, etiquette, laws and an ethos. Khabzah provides rules of behaviour and moral codes. Adyghe Kh’ase (Ad. Circassian council) – local or regional organisation, mainly in the diaspora. ‘Ajam (Ar. ‘non-Arabs, aliens’) – Arabic script modified to transliterate native Caucasian languages. ‘Alim (Ar. ‘learned person’) – Muslim religious scholar. Amir (Ar. ‘commander, ruler, head’) – chairman. Aqsaqal (Tc. ‘white beard’) – head of a human group. Aspirant (R.) – research student in Soviet (and post-Soviet) institutions of higher education. Aul (in the Caucasus from Tc. awul) – mountain village. Bilqa (Da. ‘help’) – see Gway. Birlik (Tc. ‘unity’) – the Nogay national movement in Daghestan. Bo (Av. ‘people, army’) – see Jama‘at. Bolmats (Av. ‘people’s language’) – common tongue of the Avars. Bulqa (Ku. ‘help’) – see Gway. Cema‘at (Tc.from Ar. Jama‘a – ‘gathering, community’) – the Karachay national movement. Dhikr (Ar. ‘memory’) – Sufi ritual of the glorification of God. Dibir – see Mulla. Duma (R. ‘council’) – The lower house of the Russian parliament. Fuskha (Ar.) – the literary language. Gamgebeli (G.) – mayor. Ghazi-Kumuk (from the name of the main Lak settlement) – the Lak national movement in Daghestan. xvi

GLOSSARY

Glasnost (R. ‘openness’) – Gorbachev’s policy of democratisation. Gosudarstvennyi Sovet (R. ‘state council’) – the Collective Presidium of Daghestan. Groong (Arm. ‘white swan’) – an Armenian organisation in Georgia. Guberniia (R. ‘governorate’) – administrative division in imperial (Tsarist) Russia. Gway (Av. ‘help’) – traditional mutual aid assistance. Haj (Ar.) – the pilgrimage to Mecca that each Muslim has to perform if able once in his/her lifetime. Imam (Ar. leader ) – the man leading the prayer; religious and/or political leader. Al-Islamiya (Ar. ‘Islamic’) – the Muslim cultural association in Daghestan. Jadid (Ar. ‘new’) – supporter of reformist Islam in Russia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The term comes from the new educational method (usul-i jedid) and the new school (mekteb-i jedid) introduced by the movement. Jama‘at (Ar. Jama‘a) – a rural community in Daghestan comprising a single village or a group of neighbouring villages. Before the nineteenth century usually an independent polity. Jami‘at ul-Muslimin (Ar. ‘community of Muslims’) – the Darghin ‘Wahhabi’ movement in Daghestan. Javakhk (Arm. ‘Javakheti’) – an Armenian movement in Javakheti. Jihad (Ar. ‘effort’) – holy war against the infidels. Contrary to a common belief in the West, it is not one of the five basic commandments of Islam and not even a personal obligation of each Muslim. Kavkazskii Dom (R. ‘the Caucasian home’) – a political movement in Chechnya aiming at the unification of the Caucasus. Kazennye zemli (R. ‘treasury lands’) – state lands in pre-Soviet Russia. Kazma (Ku. ‘cattle-hamlet’) – a hamlet occupied seasonally by shepherds moving with their cattle in the summer pastures. Khan (Tc.) – the supreme political leader of a tribal group among Eurasian tribesmen. Khuravo (Dar. ‘people, army’) – see Jama‘at. Kolkhoz (R. ‘collective farm’) – the main form of village community in the Soviet Union. Established during ‘collectivisation,’ it was based on the collective ownership of land. Komsomol (R. ‘Young Communist League’) – the party organisation for young people. All university students were obliged to be members. Korenizatsiia (R. ‘nativisation’) – the Soviet policy of replacing Russian party and government functionaries by natives in the 1920s in the ‘Eastern periphery’ of Russia. xvii

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Krai (R. ‘land’) – an administrative division in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. Kulak (R. ‘Fist’) – an official Soviet term in 1920s–1940s meaning the ‘petit bourgois’ village elite who had to be eliminated. Kutan (R.) – see Kazma. Litsa kavkazskoi natsional’nosti (R. ‘persons of Caucasian nationality’) – persons suspected of racketeering and criminal activities and thus liable to police and civilian harassment due to their ‘Caucasian’ (or more specifically Chechen) looks. Madrasa (Ar. ‘place of study’) – institution of higher (religious) studies in Islam. A person who has completed his studies is acknowledged as an ‘alim. Mahalla (Ar. ‘place’) – neighbourhood. Maktab (Ar.) – traditional Islamic primary institution of education. Marsha (La. ‘help’) – see Gway. Medrese (Tc.) – see Madrasa. Mel (Lz. ‘help’) – see Gway. Mestnichestvo (R. ‘localism’) – regional influences. Mufti (Ar.) – interpreter of the Islamic law. In Soviet and post-Soviet Russia the head of the Spiritual Board of Muslims. Mulla (Tc. and Tj. from Ar. Mawla – ‘companion’) – Muslim religious functionary usually officiating at the level of a local mosque. Murid (Ar.) – a disciple of a Sufi Sheikh. Namus (Rutul – ‘honour’) – the Rutul National Movement. Narodnoe Sobranie (R. ‘the People’s Assembly’) – the parliament of Daghestan. Nomenklatura (R.) – the list of party members eligible to state and party positions and thus in general the social stratum of party members. Perestroika (R. ‘restructuring’) – the economic policy of Gorbachev. Plemia (R.) – tribe. Politburo (R. ‘political bureau’) – the small group of Central Committee members in charge of the day-to-day running of the USSR. Pomest’e (R. ‘estate’) – land owned privately. Pravovoe gosudarstvo (R.) – law-bound state. Priusadebnye uchastki (R.) – personal plots. Qadi (Ar. ‘judge’) – a judge according to the Shari‘a. Respublika (R.) – republic. Rodina (R. ‘homeland’) – an office established by the Soviet administration to develop contacts with Circassians outside the Soviet Union. The office offered assistance to students from countries such as Jordan and Syria to study in the Caucasus and encouraged cultural relations between the various Circassian communities. xviii

GLOSSARY

Russkoiazychnoe nasselenie (R. ‘russophone population’) – Soviet and post-Soviet term intended to augment the numbers of Russian minorities in the non-Russian republics. Sadval (Lezghin ‘unity’) – the Lezghin National Movement. Shari‘a (Ar.) – the Islamic code of law. Shura (Ar. ‘consultation’) – a consultative council. Sovkhoz – (R. ‘Soviet farm’) – a form of village community in the Soviet Union established during collectivisation, in which the land was owned by the state and the peasants were state employees. Tarikat (T.) – see Tariqa. Tariqa (Ar. ‘path’) – the mystical way of a Sufi order and thus also a Sufi order. Tenglik (Ku. ‘equality’) – the Kumyk National Movement. Tsadesh (Da. ‘equality’) – the Darghin National Movement. Trudovye kollektivy (R. ‘working collectives’). Tukhum (Ir.) – Clan, lineage. Turki (Ar. ‘Turkic’) – the Arabic script modified to transliterate Turcic languages. Ukaz ((R.) – decree. ‘Ulama (Ar.) – pl. of ‘Alim. Ulema (T.) – see ‘Ulama. Voisko (R. ‘army’) – the largest military and political Cossack unit. Vol’noe obshchestvo (R. ‘free community’) – see Jama‘at. Waqf (Ar.) – religious endowment. Wird (Ar.) – a branch of a Sufi Tariqa. Zakat (Ar.) – alms. One of the five basic commandments of Islam. Ziyara (Ar. ‘visit’) – a visit to a holy place. Ad. = Adyghe; Ar. = Arabic; Arm. = Armenian; Av. = Avar; Da. = Darghin; G. = Georgian; Ir. = Iranian; La. = Lak; Lz. = Lezghin; R. = Russian; Tc. = Turkic; Tj. Tajik/Persian.

xix

Littoral states Other Caspian Region states

Map 1: The Caspian Region

xx

PART I QUIET CONFLICTS? GEORGIA

1

Two-Way Mirror Nationalism: The Case of Ajaria Monica Duffy Toft

INTRODUCTION

Reading through the recent history of what is now Georgia, one is struck by the uncanny resemblance of its current political arena to that of earlier ages. In the sixteenth century, for example, ‘local dynasts manoeuvred among the contenders for political hegemony, sometimes choosing the king, other times the great empires that bordered Georgia’.1 In the early twentieth century, the Georgian Republic was ‘inhabited by several minority groups . . . In its endeavour to create a homogeneous national state, the Tiflis government showed little sympathy for the attempts of those minority groups to secure political and cultural autonomy.’2 Both descriptions apply equally to contemporary Georgia, which remains plagued by internal strife and external interference. Despite Georgia’s internal conflict and the dire predictions that Ajaria too would fall prey to the worst excesses of nationalism, Ajaria acquired the distinction of being the only region not to suffer largescale violence in the post-Soviet period. This article offers an explanation to two questions: why conflict emerged between Batumi and Tbilisi; and why this conflict did not materialise into large-scale violence. This explanation hinges on the notion of ‘two-way mirror nationalism’. Two-way mirror nationalism describes a situation in which one group does not think of itself as an ‘other’, but another group does. The concept takes its name from the metaphor of a twoway mirror, in which a person standing on one side of the mirror sees her own reflection, while a person standing on the other side sees not her own reflection, but the woman on the other side. Much of the literature on identity formation assumes that this 3

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process is roughly synchronous.3 That is, once one group considers itself distinct from another, members of other groups simultaneously see themselves as distinct.4 While it is clear that this generalisation is a useful and empirically accurate simplification of the process of national identity formation, in some important cases it does not happen that way, and the difference can have significant positive and negative consequences for the groups involved. This chapter is therefore intended to serve as a first step toward better understanding of the dynamics of national identity formation, and the consequences, positive and negative, of asynchronous national identity formation. Germany’s Jews in the 1930s are an example of victims of two-way mirror nationalism. While Germans came to see Jews as distinct others (non-Germans), German Jews continued to regard themselves as part of the German nation, included in the national concept of the volk. Given the Nazi state’s agenda, the act of distinguishing Jews from the volk therefore became the necessary prerequisite to the attempted destruction of Jews first in Germany, then later throughout Europe. That effort at annihilation was facilitated, one could argue, by the delay between the time when the Nazis formed a conception of a volk distinct from the Jewish population, and the time when Germany’s Jews came to see through the mirror themselves. Similar dynamics are to be found in Ajaria. Tbilisi represented its interests as a state trying to hold together what has been termed by many a ‘mini-empire’ and also as a Christian nation under siege by minorities. From this Christian Georgian perspective, the Ajars, who share the same ethnicity as Georgians but are Muslim, were seen as part of the minority problem. The Ajars, however, viewed themselves as Georgians and hence part of the majority. Tensions ran high in the early 1990s over this issue of national identification; violence was averted as each side came to recognise that the other was not as threatening to each other’s interests as they initially thought. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The Development of Georgian National Identity Georgia experienced independent statehood under a Menshevik socialist government for a three-year period from 1918 to 1921. Independent Georgia entered into alliances with Western states, and was recognised by 22 countries, including Soviet Russia in 1920. This was the first time in the modern period that Georgians had complete political control over their historic homeland and had an opportunity to gain prominence.5 Before the revolution, Armenian businessmen 4

Map 2: Georgia: Administrative Division

THE CASPIAN REGION

dominated the urban environment and, with Russians, occupied the most important posts in government.6 But independence was shortlived. In 1921 Bolshevik troops invaded Georgia, and it became a Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR). In 1922, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan became the Soviet Socialist Republic of Transcaucasia. The Georgians feared that this indicated not only imperial centralisation, but Russian domination.7 In 1936 the Republic of Transcaucasia was re-divided into its original three components and Georgia again became an SSR. Stalin’s Georgian background did not save his homeland from his worst and it suffered as badly as other regions in the Union.8 Georgians and non-Georgians alike endured the imposition of a political system that favoured Russians and Russian chauvinism, and readily suppressed any hints of nationalism.9 Georgian nationalism first developed as national self-protection against the pressures and the blandishments of the ‘higher culture’ of the Russians. As the Soviet system evolved, however, the titular nationalities developed their own version of chauvinism.10 Within Georgia this meant that the republic became a protected area of privilege for Georgians.11 They received the bulk of the rewards: the leading political positions in the republic; the largest subsidies for cultural projects; and access to a vast economic network of illegal operations.12 Armenians, Abkhazians, Ossetians, Ajarians, Kurds, Jews and other minorities within Georgia were at a considerable disadvantage in the competition for the budgetary pie. Resentment among minorities in Georgia emerged as a by-product of what they perceived as the imposition of a Georgian higher culture and an inaccessible Georgian economy. Close kinship ties, combined with the dominance of a distinctly Georgian caste within the republic’s political elite, ‘reinforced the exclusionary character of politics in the republic, the sense of superiority of the titular nationality and the inferiority of the nonGeorgians’.13 Georgian nationalism, like that of other titular nations, looked both upward against Russians and downward against the minorities living in the republic. Threats to the nation were perceived to emanate not only from the dominance of Russia and Russian language and culture, but also from the minority nations and their respective languages, religions and culture. The most noticeable apprehension seemed to centre on the question of the demographic balance in the republic.14 Considerable alarm developed after the 1979 Soviet census revealed that the Georgians accounted for some 68.8 per cent of the republican population, and that some of the non-Georgian nationalities had significantly higher birth rates than Georgians. The anxiety in the intellectual community was significant and a 1983 6

THE CASE OF AJARIA

report discussing demographic trends warned that if these trends continued Georgians would become a minority in their own territory within 30 years.15 During perestroika, events and actors in Georgia followed a similar course to the rest of the USSR, with different entities seeking greater autonomy. Georgians rapidly developed a powerful opposition to the old order. However, in the multinational context of the Georgian republic – where severe strains had alienated ethnic minorities from the dominant nationality through the Soviet period – the policies and rhetoric of leaders, the choices and use of potent symbols, would either work to ameliorate these divisions in a unified struggle for independence and democracy, or reinforce and exacerbate the interethnic divisions within the republic. Tragically, Georgians made political choices that deepened social and ethnic divisions.16 The cause of ‘Georgia for Georgians’ in Tbilisi intensified, ignoring the fact that large proportions of the nation’s inhabitants were neither Georgian nor Christian. In mobilising the ‘Georgian’ population for independence (including the adoption of numerous policies that favoured Christian Georgians over other groups in the republic), Georgia’s minorities felt threatened and organised in response. So, as Georgians mobilised against Moscow, Georgia’s ethnic minorities rallied against an exclusively Christian Georgian Tbilisi.17 AJARIA AND AJARS

At the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union there were three autonomous entities in Georgia: the South Ossetia Autonomous Oblast, the Ajarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR), and the Abkhaz ASSR.18 The region known as Ajaria is located in the south-western part of Georgia. Its western border is the coastline of the Black Sea, to the south is Turkey, and to the east and north lies the rest of Georgia proper. Its territory is 3,000 square kilometres.19 From the sixteenth to late nineteenth centuries the region was under Ottoman rule. In 1878 the region was transferred to Russia. After the Bolshevik Revolution Ajaria was first part of independent Georgia then occupied by the Ottoman Empire. In 1921 Kemalist Turkey officially transferred Ajaria to Moscow, which placed it again within Georgia (occupied only days by the Red Army).20 In 1922 Ajaria became an ASSR within the Federal Soviet Socialist Republic of Transcaucasia, and in 1936 within the SSR of Georgia. Whereas South Ossetia and Abkhazia were established on the basis of nationality, Ajaria’s territorial division was grounded in religion. In this respect the Ajarian ASSR was an anomalous entity within 7

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the USSR.21 The Ajars are considered to be ethnic Georgians, although they are Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school. They converted to Islam in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when the Ottoman Empire occupied the western portion of Transcaucasia. Their written language is Georgian, although they speak a Gurian dialect that contains numerous Turkic words. According to Bennigsen and Winbush the Ajars are deeply attached to their faith, and there are few Christian–Muslim marriages among them.22 In the 1926 census, the Soviets categorised the Ajars as a distinct ethnic group. But in the 1939 census, the Ajars were folded into the same category as the Georgians, even though some Ajars continued to distinguish themselves from the Georgian population.23 Today most Ajars and Georgians consider the Ajars to be Georgian in terms of descent and familial lineage. Religion, however, is another matter and complicates the relationship between Ajars and ‘other’ Georgians. Ajars see this as a non-issue: Ajars are Georgians regardless of their faith. They do not see themselves as ‘others’ in the Georgian nation. This is not the case for Christian Georgians. That Ajars are Muslims does not accord with the commonly held sentiment that to be Georgian means being a Christian. In contemporary discourse, most Georgians and most descriptions of Georgians envision members of the Georgian nation as professing Christianity.24 Thus the Ajars are seen as a sort of contradiction, and perhaps even more perniciously as an aberration that needs to be corrected. For Christian Georgians (and for this chapter’s purposes) the key question is whether a Georgian can be a Muslim.25 Given the limited information about such matters, the question can only be partially explored. Yet the following case might shed some light on this issue. In the mid-1980s a series of articles targeting the Muslims of Ajaria appeared in Georgian newspapers, but did not target the Azeri population, which is also Muslim. Why would Muslim Georgians be targeted, but not other Muslims? Elizabeth Fuller advanced the argument that the attacks against the Ajars were the result of the Soviet fear of Islamic fundamentalism coming across the border from Turkey into the Soviet Union.26 Yet this argument fails to explain why Azeris would not also be targeted since they too would be susceptible to the same Islamic influence. This chapter would posit a different explanation – one that focuses on the demographic balance in Georgia reported by the 1979 census. Georgian (read Christian Georgian) intellectuals and authorities feared that they would be out-birthed by non-Georgians. The Ajars were targeted precisely because they were viewed as Georgian, albeit as aberrant Georgians.27 Here was a group of Georgians with higher than average birth rates who simply needed 8

THE CASE OF AJARIA

to be secularised, if not Christianised (which was not allowed to be openly spoken of under the Soviet system). If they could be detached from Islam, then the Georgian nation’s numbers would increase and the threat of the Georgian nation being overtaken by minorities and ‘questionable’ Georgians would be reduced.28 If one considers that the main Georgian newspapers readily discussed – and continue to discuss – such issues, and that the Georgian Central Committee advocated and implemented policies ‘which called for the intensification of atheistic education in Ajaria’29 and the official resettlement of Georgians into traditionally ‘Georgian’ areas, then such an interpretation does not seem mistaken.30 Secularising or converting Ajars would thus make them Georgians (in the eyes of Christian Georgians). Ajars would no longer be ‘others’. This brings one to the question of exactly how many Ajars there were in the Georgian Republic. As mentioned above, Ajars were not counted as a distinct nationality after the 1926 census,31 thus concrete figures are hard to come by. According to the 1989 census the population of the Ajar Republic totalled 381,000, of whom 317,000 were Georgians.32 With the countryside considered to be largely Muslim and the capital, Batumi, non-Muslim, the number of Ajars has been estimated to be around 130,000–160,000, or 34–42 per cent of the total population of Ajaria.33 The number of Ajars living outside of Ajaria is very small. One expert has explained that this lack of outmigration beyond the homeland is similar to the migratory (or rather non-migratory) patterns of ‘other’ Georgians.34 CONFLICT OF INTERESTS

Ajaria has its own parliament, government, and economic policies, but submits more than three-quarters of its tax revenues to Tiflis.35 Georgia’s only oil refinery is located in the capital, Batumi. With a population of 136,000, Batumi is an important industrial port. Currently it is home to a large petroleum-refining operation and it is expected to become a major hub for the transit of oil from the Caspian Sea.36 Ajaria has also a large agricultural sector which produces tobacco, tea and citrus.37 In order to keep Ajaria tied to Georgia, Tbilisi refused during the Soviet era to allow Batumi to develop much of its infrastructure or build power stations. Ajaria continues to depend on Tbilisi for electric power, whose supply has been characterised as a catastrophic shortage. Ajaria suffered economically as a result. Nevertheless, Ajaria has persisted in strengthening its economic autonomy, including a request (that was turned down by Tbilisi) to turn the republic 9

THE CASPIAN REGION

into a free economic zone. In 1994, a large field of methane was discovered in the Black Sea off the shelf of Ajaria. Yet, in view of Tbilisi’s sensitivity, the Ajar leadership insisted that the discovery was not found in Georgia, but Georgian ‘Ajaria’, and as such would help to alleviate the energy problems for all of Georgia.38 While violent conflicts broke out in the rest of Georgia, Ajaria remained a bastion of stability. This happened despite the fact that Batumi sought greater autonomy and the centre resisted these demands. Furthermore, in the case of Ajaria, calls for greater autonomy were at first met with much greater resistance than those of the other autonomous entities. While Abkhazia’s autonomy was not questioned at all, only its degree, proposals were advanced in Tbilisi to abolish Ajar autonomy altogether.39 The chief proponent of abolishing Ajaria’s autonomy was Zviad Gamsakhurdia,40 who on 14 November 1990 became the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR. Gamsakhurdia’s ‘Round Table/Free Georgia’ coalition won 155 of 250 seats on a platform that was to a great extent common to all the parties competing in the elections.41 It called for an independent Georgia, with a free market economy, a multiparty system and a legal system that protected the rights of all citizens. It also supported the strengthening of the rights of Georgians, the protection of the Georgian language and restricted immigration. Unlike the other parties, Gamsakhurdia’s coalition added a messianic message of a Georgia for Christian Georgians. In terms of foreign policy, he envisioned a Georgia that would serve as the mediator between East and West, Islam and Christianity.42 Thus Ajars could not help but notice that while moving towards greater independence under perestroika, Georgia was also moving towards a more exclusive conception of what it meant to be a Georgian. Furthermore, the status of the Ajar Republic was directly and publicly threatened. Not surprisingly, therefore, Gamsakhurdia’s Round Table got only 24 per cent of the vote in Ajaria in the elections for the Supreme Soviet. The Communist Party, viewed as being less hostile to the non-Georgian minorities, came in first with 56 per cent.43 In view of these results, Gamsakhurdia retreated, stating that the abolishment of Ajar autonomy would have to come by local initiative.44 At some point in December 1990 or January 1991, the Ajar Supreme Soviet passed a draft law that obliged candidates for the republic’s parliament to be permanent residents of Ajaria.45 Two rationales emerged to explain the law, neither of which revealed secessionist tendencies. The first reason was that the law was intended to protect the positions of bureaucrats and cronies in the republic. The second reason hinged on representation and implied that parliamentarians needed to come from Ajaria in order for the Ajar Supreme 10

THE CASE OF AJARIA

Soviet to function properly and pass legislation that served the best interests of the republic’s population. Neither rationale at the time provided evidence that the law reflected a separatist sentiment emerging. The debate at this point was not whether Tbilisi would have control over the republic, but how much they would exert.46 The Georgian Supreme Soviet declared the law invalid, since it violated the constitutional right of citizens ‘to elect and be elected to Councils of People’s Deputies and other elected state organs’.47 It was then sent back to the Ajar Supreme Soviet to be amended so that all citizens of Georgia would be eligible to run for the republic Supreme Soviet. The Ajar Supreme Soviet did so in early February 1991. In the meantime, Gamsakhurdia sent a fellow coalition member, Tengiz Putkaradze, to Batumi to act as Tbilisi’s prefect in the republic. Ajar officials feared that his appointment marked the beginning of a purge. Indeed, shortly thereafter, the Chairman of the Ajar Supreme Soviet Tengiz Khakhva resigned (at his own request), and Aslan Abashidze was elected in his place.48 The elections to the Supreme Soviet were then delayed from 31 March to 28 April 1991.49 Before 28 April, rumours surfaced that the Georgian Supreme Soviet had abolished Ajaria’s autonomous status. In response several thousand workers staged mass demonstrations in Batumi to defend the republic’s autonomy. Abashidze met with the demonstrators in an attempt to persuade them that the rumours were untrue. Yet the demonstrators remained unconvinced and demanded that local officials be placed in positions currently held by those appointed from Tbilisi. As demonstrations continued members of the Georgian National Guard fired off shots, but no one was hurt and the violence did not escalate. The demonstrations did not end until 24 April. Elections were postponed once again until June. Shortly thereafter Nodar Imnadze, the acting first deputy chairman of the Supreme Soviet and a ‘Round Table/Free Georgia’ supporter, was killed by security guards after having opened fire on a meeting in the Supreme Soviet building. (Abashidze was injured.) Contrary to what might have been expected, the killing of Imnadze did not bring relations between Batumi and Tbilisi to explosion. In May 1991 officials from Tbilisi visited Ajaria to discuss issues related to the economic and political development of the republic. A month later Gamsakhurdia himself visited the republic and stated that while Ajaria remained ‘the cradle of Georgian Christianity’, the new Georgian government would remain committed to freedom of conscience. He added that any decision on the autonomous status of Ajaria would have to come solely from the local population.50 Elections to the Supreme Soviet were finally held on 23 June 1991. Voter turnout was low at 60.2 per cent overall and less than the 11

THE CASPIAN REGION

required threshold of 50 per cent in 11 of the 40 districts. No single party/block garnered a majority of the votes. Round Table/Free Georgia came in first with 48 per cent, followed by the Ajara electoral block with 20 per cent.51 The Ajar Oblast Organisation of the Georgian Communist Party came in third with 18 per cent. Because in only five districts candidates received a majority in the first round, runoff elections were held on 10 July. Turnout was even lower (in part because the polling took place on a Wednesday rather than on a Sunday). Round Table/Free Georgia obtained the largest number of seats, followed by the Communist Party, and then the Ajara block. Ajar nationalism was simply not evident. During the height of the confrontation between Batumi and Tbilisi, Tbilisi accused Batumi of separatism. Yet if one looks at the evidence carefully, one finds that although resentment over the dominance of Christianity in Georgia was heard and felt in Batumi, the issue of contention was not separatism per se, but the much more limited question of whether Ajaria would remain an autonomous republic. Separatism can be described as non-existent to extremely limited. In 1989 for example, the then chairman of the Ajar ASSR Council of Ministers, Guram Chigogidsze, stated in a speech to the Georgian Supreme Soviet that a separatist organisation in Ajaria consisted of six persons at most and did not represent the views of the population at large.52 Similarly, the head of the Ajar branch of the Georgian Writer’s Union, Pridon Khalvashi, wrote that ‘no separatist inclinations of any kind exist in Ajaria’.53 In 1991, when the status of Georgia vis-à-vis the USSR was still not clear and Batumi feared provocation by Tbilisi, the Supreme Soviet of Ajaria called for the creation of a headquarters for the defence of the republic. The decree declared that Ajaria shared common Georgian interests and that the defence preparations were designed to maintain order. In flowery terms the decree went on to say that Ajaria had always been, and would be committed to the ideal and realisation of Georgian unity: We remind everybody, both friends and enemies, that Ajaria is the region in which the population has not only heroically defended itself over centuries, but has also defended the whole of Georgia and has constituted a kind of shield for it. Ajaria has heroically resisted countless conquerors, has been the first to take upon itself the blows of the invaders, has been a support for our fatherland, and has held high the banner of Georgian unity. The unshakeable spirit and the genetic code of our heroic ancestors are still alive in us. If the interests of our motherland demand this, the whole of Ajaria will rise again and be the vanguard of its defenders.54 12

THE CASE OF AJARIA

Two points should be emphasised in this passage: first, the Supreme Soviet’s insistence that the unity of Georgia was in the interests of the republic – and that the republic alone should be responsible for insuring that unity – and second, the reference to the historic and heroic deeds of the ancestors. It is the responsibility of the present generation not to insure the future of the coming ones but to guarantee the continuation of the ancestors’ deeds, which remain embodied within the present generation. As if to emphasise their seriousness, the authorities in Batumi distributed automatic weapons to citizens and established volunteer units to support the republic’s security forces.55 All units were put on alert during the December 1991 coup, which overthrew Gamsakhurdia – and remained so throughout 1992 as civil war loomed in Georgia.56 NON-VIOLENT RESOLUTION

After the coup Abashidze came under increasing pressure from parliamentary deputies in Tbilisi, who accused him of usurping power and establishing a dictatorship.57 In March 1992, for example, a group of deputies wrote a letter to the commander-in-chief of the CIS armed forces Evgenii Shaposhnikov and Colonel-General Valerii Patrikeev, the commander-in-chief of the Transcaucasus Military District. In it they accused Russian military forces of arming Gamsakhurdia’s troops in exile in Chechnya and helping to prop up the regime of Abashidze. Another letter, signed by 23 deputies of the Ajar Supreme Soviet, accused Abashidze of violating the Ajar constitution by refusing to convene the Supreme Soviet of Ajaria between October 1991 and March 1992. The deputies attacked Abashidze’s move towards an independent economic policy, accused him of dictatorial policies and claimed that he had sought to protect his rule by issuing weapons to those loyal to him, because he lacked the support of both the parliament and the majority of the population. Finally, they stated that Ajaria had never before had such an anti-Georgian leadership.58 Four months later another letter accused Abashidze of trying to persuade public opinion to dissolve the Supreme Soviet of Ajaria.59 Abashidze rejected such criticism as slander. His support for Gamsakhurdia and opposition to the coup was not personal, he insisted, but rather the violation of democratic principles: ‘I will repeat once again that deposing the republic’s lawfully elected leaders was a mistake.’60 He continuously insisted that he was committed to stability and to Georgia’s territorial integrity. He rejected the accusation that he was a dictator, and denied charges that he was pro-Russian, pro-Islamic or pro-Turkish: 13

THE CASPIAN REGION

The situation in South Ossetia and Abkhazia cannot be compared with the state of affairs in Ajaria. Our republic is an administrative unit that is inhabited by members of various nationalities, but all of them are citizens of Ajaria, and hence of Georgia as well. We have never had, and never can have, any territorial claims against Georgia . . . Ajaria is historically a part of Georgia, and there has never been any instance in history in which Ajaria has created problems for its motherland [i.e. Georgia]. Reports that Ajaria intends to become part of Turkey are totally unfounded [emphasis added].61

Rather than harp on differences in religion, Abashidze stressed the importance of advancing the economic interests of the republic, not the cultural interests of the Ajar nation. What he sought for Ajaria, he stated, was a stable political system, which would allow for the development of the economy. This was highlighted in the slogan adopted by his party, ‘Ajarian Revival: Wealthy people mean a Wealthy state’, which he later extended to ‘A Wealthy state is a Strong state.’62 Abashidze was quite vocal in his opposition to Tbilisi’s use of force in Abkhazia. Throughout the conflict he tried to arrange meetings between the two sides. According to him, Abkhaz leader Ardzinba was willing to negotiate the status of the republic, and it was the centre that was unwilling to negotiate and closed off channels of communication: He [Ardzinba] did indeed blame the Georgian leadership in extremely categorical terms for their decision to bring in the troops . . . I rather agreed with him. Our leaders were after all uncompromising too; they were responsible for turning an internal political problem into a bitter military conflict. The main thing as far I was concerned was that Ardzinba was at that time willing to settle the question of the demarcation of functions between the centre and the autonomous formations via talks.63

In his opinion, it was this issue that led to the current situation and the stalled negotiations over Abkhazia’s status.64 Nevertheless, Abashidze remained committed to maintaining Georgia’s political integrity. In an interview in October 1994 he stated: Ajaria is zealously preserving Georgia’s territorial integrity. This is borne out by its entire history. Ajaria cannot be separated from Georgia. It is not from Georgia we are splitting ourselves. Rather, we are distancing ourselves from those decisions which are harmful to Georgia.65 14

THE CASE OF AJARIA

In another interview, he said, ‘I well remember the moment during the discussion when I suddenly realised that my disagreement [over the use of force] might be seen not so much as concern for Georgia’s integrity and interests as a calculated political approach to the problem by the chairman of a similar autonomous republic’s Supreme Council.’66 Two points are worth noting here. First is Abashidze’s sense that he was not only a leader of a republic within the borders of Georgia, but also a representative of a greater Georgian state. As such he took, early on in the struggle between Sukhumi and Tbilisi, a vocal stance and attempted to persuade the parties to adopt courses of action that would not hurt the interests of Georgia proper (as these would hurt Ajaria as well). Second, and more interesting, is his recognition of the power of precedent in how his actions were being interpreted. Was he the leader of another secessionist republic, or did he have the interests of a greater Georgia in mind? The evidence clearly supports the second point. So throughout the period of 1991–93, while Georgia was facing ethnic conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and civil war over control of government in Tbilisi, the situation in Ajaria remained relatively stable. There were moments of tension between the centre and Batumi, but relatively speaking, these were not of the scope (economic as opposed to ethnic) or magnitude (ballot rather than bullet) as those in other reaches of that chaotic country. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ajaria advanced moderate demands for sustaining its administrative status within Georgia’s state structure. Given its own fight with Moscow, however, Tbilisi at first not only resisted such claims but threatened to deprive Ajaria of its existing rights and freedoms. Georgia viewed Ajaria and the Ajars as a threat. A key component of that assessment came from the simple fact that from the Georgian point of view, the Ajars were ‘fallen’, or ‘other-than-Georgians’. The fact that they were ethnically and linguistically the same as true (Christian) Georgians did not matter: Christian Georgians saw them as different, perhaps in need of redemption by conversion. From the Ajar point of view, however, the religious distinction carried relatively little weight: Ajars were Georgians. The Ajar–Georgian mirror was in this sense a two-way mirror. This meant three things: first, the Ajars were loyal to Tbilisi’s stated aim of maintaining the integrity of the Georgian state. Therefore, at no time did they support secessionist claims by other nations 15

THE CASPIAN REGION

within Georgia.67 Second, the Ajars were reluctant to involve Russia in their struggle with Tbilisi. In fact, although Abashidze kept the Russian card in his deck,68 and let Tbilisi see it, he never played it, even when Tbilisi appeared poised to deny any separate identity to the Ajars by completely abolishing all autonomous administrative and political structures.69 As noted above, Gamsakhurdia, confident of victory, held an election-as-referendum in Ajaria. The result of the election came as a stunning surprise. His view that Ajaria should be legitimately absorbed into Georgia was soundly trounced even though a majority of Ajaria’s citizens were Christian Georgians. Gamsakhurdia then reversed himself. Third, the struggle between Ajaria and Tbilisi revealed something important to Tbilisi: unlike the Abkhaz, the Ajars had not advanced their demands as a prelude to achieving de facto political autonomy. By the time the crisis passed, Tbilisi had come to see the Ajars as the Ajars saw themselves: true (and loyal) Georgians whose quest for economic autonomy had been just that, nothing more. The Ajar case suggests that the nature of the centre’s perception of threat is the key determinant of the effects of two-way mirror nationalism on the groups involved. Tbilisi’s real threat, and its ultimate conflict, was with Moscow. Had Tbilisi’s fears been framed differently – for example as the threat of Georgian state disintegration per se – the outcome of the conflict between Ajaria and Tbilisi over Ajaria’s modest demands might have been quite different. But on the contrary, Russia was deeply implicated in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where violence did break out. Georgia’s real fight was with Russia, and the most important question for Tbilisi in that fight was one of loyalty to the Georgian state,70 rather than disagreements over the distribution of resources and privileges within the Georgian state. Once Tbilisi understood that Ajars were simply attempting to gain a greater share of resources and privileges, and that they were loyal to the state, they became ‘Georgians’, and the threat of violence fizzled out. NOTES 1 Ronald Grigor Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 2nd edn, p. 47. 2 Richard Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism 1917–1923 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 3rd edn, p. 212. 3 National identities have histories and the degrees to which they may be subject to change are constrained by those histories. It might therefore be more accurate to refer to the dynamics of national identity reformation or modification, rather

16

THE CASE OF AJARIA

4

5

6 7

8

9

than the more grandiose term ‘formation’. For purposes of this analysis when I use the term formation, I mean to include the more subtle meaning of reformulation or modification. Calling up a literature devoted to asymmetrical national identity formation and conceptions is difficult: there seems to be a black hole. For a discussion of the reemergence of Russian nationalism and its impact on other national identities see Roman Szporluk, ‘The Imperial Legacy and the Soviet Nationalities Problem’, in Lubomyr Hajda and Mark Beissinger (eds), The Nationalities Factor in Soviet Politics and Society (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990), pp. 123. These lands had not been united under a single political authority since the fifteenth century. Eastern Georgia (Kartli and Kakheti) was absorbed into the Russian Empire in 1801, Mingrelia in 1803, Imeretia in 1804 and Abkhazia in 1810. John F. R. Wright, ‘The Geopolitics of Georgia,’ in John F. R. Wright, Suzanne Goldenberg and Richard Schofield (eds), Transcaucasian Boundaries (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), p. 136. Ronald Grigor Suny, ‘Georgia and Soviet Nationality Policy’, in Stephen F. Cohen, Alexander Rabinowitch and Robert Sharlet (eds), The Soviet Union Since Stalin (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980), p. 207. This policy was seen as heavy-handed in Moscow as well. Lenin was deeply concerned over the progress of the Bolshevik nationalities policy and especially the ‘Georgian question’. While he did want to consolidate Soviet power (not Russian domination), he did not agree with Stalin’s (and Ordzhonikidze’s, who headed the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee) heavy-handed methods. Before his final stroke incapacitated him, Lenin was considering taking disciplinary action against Stalin and Ordzhonikidze and reconsidering the nationalities policy for the Soviet Union. See Pipes, The Formation, pp. 266–93. The 1930s, for example, brought the same terror and purges of intellectuals and political leaders. During this period, Georgia was under the control of Lavrentii Beria, a Mingrelian (as opposed to Georgian) native of Georgia. In 1931 and 1932, respectively, Beria became the head of both the Georgian and the Transcaucasian party organisations. He retained these posts until 1938, whereupon Beria became the People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs (NKVD). Nevertheless, Beria retained influence in the region through his appointees in the republic such that one scholar labelled Georgia as Beria’s personal ‘fiefdom’. Although Stalin did try to curtail some of Beria’s influence in Georgia, the latter continued to dominate the region until Stalin’s death in 1953. Following the power struggle in the Kremlin, Beria himself was arrested four months after Stalin’s death, and died under mysterious circumstances. The most widely accepted account is that he was assassinated by political rivals in Stalin’s succession struggle. In the meantime, Vasilii Mzhavanadze was appointed first secretary of the Georgian Communist Party. He retained this post for 19 years. His tenure was marked by stability, but gross graft and corruption. He was replaced by Shevardnadze. Suny, The Making, pp. 287, 304–8. See also Suny’s The Revenge of the Past (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), pp. 113–20 and Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, The End of the Soviet Empire, trans. Franklin Philip (New York: Basic Books, 1993), especially Chapter 2, entitled ‘The Mafiocracy’. Suny, for example, argues that the 1956 student demonstrations in commemoration of Stalin (in reaction to Khrushchev’s de-Stalinisation campaign) were the result of patriotic pride for a fellow Georgian, and indicated growing national awareness. The severe crackdown by Moscow, resulting in dozens killed and hundreds wounded, revealed a nervous and confused centre. Suny, The Making, pp. 302–4.

17

THE CASPIAN REGION 10 The Soviet Union was a federal state that consisted of 15 union republics. These republics were based on dominant nationalities whose names were attached to the republic. Each union republic bordered a foreign state and all remaining administrative units were contained within and accountable to these 15, including 20 Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics (ASSRs), eight autonomous areas (oblasti), and ten autonomous districts (okruga). 11 Suny, The Making, p. 290. 12 Suny points out that while from 1960 to 1971 the rate of Georgia’s national income grew at the third lowest rate in the USSR, in 1970 Georgians had savings accounts nearly double those of average Soviet citizens. Suny, ‘Georgia and Soviet Nationality Policy’, p. 213. 13 Suny, The Making, p. 318. 14 Azerbaijani birth rates were almost double those of Georgians. Concerns about the ethnic balance were a consistent theme among Georgian intellectuals; described as a sort of paranoia. There was speculation that the resettlement of Georgians with ‘exceptionally high birth rates’ following natural disasters to areas where the Georgian population was ‘under siege’ was in part designed to bolster the Georgian presence in those regions. Elizabeth Fuller, ‘Disastrous Weather in Georgia Accelerates Resettlement of Svans’, Radio Liberty Research Bulletin, RL 134/87, 27 March 1987, p. 1; Fuller, ‘Marneuli: Georgia’s Potential Nagorno-Karabakh?’, Radio Liberty Research Bulletin, RL 477/88, 18 October 1988, p. 4. See also ‘Georgian Writers Discuss the Demographic Situation’, Radio Liberty Research Bulletin, RL 404/84, 22 October 1984. Svans are ethnic and Christian Georgians who speak a different language, but within the South Caucasian language grouping (i.e. of the same family as Georgian and Mingrelian). Bernard Comrie, The Languages of the Soviet Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 196–7. 15 ‘Georgian Writers Discuss the Demographic Situation’, RL 404/84. 16 Suny, The Making, p. 318. 17 There was much interplay between the Georgian movements and demonstrations and the minority movements and demonstrations. The anti-Russian/antiMoscow demonstrations in April 1989 (culminating in the death of 19 people on 9 April 1989, referred to as ‘Bloody/Black Sunday’) by Georgians was precipitated by secessionist moves in Abkhazia. 18 For the structure of the Former Soviet Union see note 10 above. 19 In comparison, the territory of Georgia totals 69,700 square km. 20 Xenia Joukoff Eudin and Robert C. North, Soviet Russia and the East: 1920–1927 A Documentary Survey (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1957), pp. 106–12. 21 Whereas most of the autonomous entities were established on the basis of language or nationality, Ajaria was afforded autonomous status on the basis of religion. The only other one was Birobidzhan, the designated ‘Jewish’ homeland. 22 Alexandre Bennigsen and S. Enders Wimbush, Muslims of the Soviet Empire: A Guide (London: Christopher Hurst and Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), p. 208. 23 The number of ethnonational groups in the Soviet census declined from 192 in 1926 to 97 in the 1939 census. This ‘decline’ in the number of groups has been attributed to two related factors (1) a change in terminology used to categorise people from the more particular narodnost’ (people) to the larger natsional ‘nost’ (nationality) and (2) the desire to show that the peoples of the USSR were coming together. See Brian Silver, ‘Ethnic and Language Dimensions in Russian and

18

THE CASE OF AJARIA

24

25

26 27 28

29 30

31

32 33

Soviet Censuses’, in Ralph C. Clem (ed.), Research Guide to the Russian and Soviet Census (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 70–97. Shireen Hunter points out that as soon as the ‘Georgians’ were offered a chance to debate the nature of their political system, the idea of a ‘theo-democracy’, or ‘a Christian state ruled on democratic but not secular principles’ was advanced. Shireen Hunter, The Transcaucasus in Transition (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1994), p. 112. See also Jonathan Aves, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Georgian Nationalist Movements, 1987–1991’, in Geoffrey A. Hosking, Jonathan Aves and Peter J. S. Duncan (eds), The Road to PostCommunism: Independent Political Movements in the Former Soviet Union 1985–1991 (New York: Pinter Press, 1992), p. 159. For a scathing account of the damage that Islam had done to the Georgian nation, language, and Ajaria see Pridon Khalvahi’s article, ‘Belief in the Existing, or Belief in the Non-Existent’, Komunisti, 1 February 1986, English translation, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 8 March 1986. Khalvashi was the head of the Ajar section of the Georgian Writer’s Union. This article first appeared in the Ajar party and government newspaper Sabchota Achara in January, and was republished in Komunisti a month later. Komunisti was the newspaper of the Georgian Party and government and had a circulation of 700,000. See Elizabeth Fuller, ‘Islam in Ajaria’, Radio Liberty Research Bulletin, RL 221/86, 4 June 1986; Fuller, ‘Disastrous Weather in Georgia Accelerates Resettlement of Svans’. Azerbaijanis, by contrast, would remain Azerbaijanis regardless of their faith. The problem with this argument is that if the two groups are ethnically identical, then the difference in birth rates logically inheres in their religious differences. It follows that ‘conversion’ could be expected to regularise birth rates (in this case, downward) across both groups. On the other hand, the Muslim Georgians were chiefly rural, and so the differences in birth rates may correspond to this or some other salient difference, such as overall income or education. Fuller, ‘Islam in Ajaria’. One could go even further and make the case that there was a sort of double desperation given the religion of these Georgians and their high birth rates. In May 1981, for example, Zaria Vostoka quoted the first secretary of the Ajar oblast Party Committee regarding the fact that a quarter of the republic’s population was of school or college age and that this population had higher birth rates than did Georgia writ large. The insinuation was that these students needed to be converted before they advanced into adulthood. A census was also conducted in 1937 and the Ajars were listed as a distinct nation. There was a total of 88,230 in the Soviet Union, and of these 88,217 lived in the Georgian Republic. This census was not officially published or publicly available. The official reason provided was that it was statistically flawed in its underestimation of the total number of the population. Western scholars believe that one reason for not publishing the results might have been that the census revealed the substantial impact of the purges and collectivisation on the population. The 1937 census has since been published. See Vsesoyuznaya perepis’ naselniia 1937g. Moscow: Institut istoroii SSR, 1991, pp. 83 and 95. For a discussion of the 1937 Soviet census see Lee Schwartz, ‘A History of the Russian and Soviet Censuses’, in Clem (ed.), Research Guide, pp. 48–69. The total population of Georgia in 1989 was roughly 5.4 million. Data obtained from Bennigsen and Enders Wimbush, Muslims of the Soviet Empire, p. 208. Bennigsen and Wimbush are leading experts on the peoples of this region and for this reason I feel more comfortable relying on their estimates.

19

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34

35 36 37 38 39 40

41

42 43 44

45

Other estimates from more general sources have put the number as high as 200,000. The 1995 World Factbook estimates that 11 per cent of Georgia’s population is Muslim. If we subtract the percentages of known non-Ajar Muslims – the 6 per cent who are Azeris and the 1 per cent who are Abkhaz, and another 1 per cent for Kurds and Muslim Ossetians – then we are left with a figure of 3 per cent Muslim, or 162,000, which is consistent with Bennigsen and Enders’ high estimate. This figure is also consistent with the 1926 census which officially recorded the Ajar population as just under 4 per cent of the total Georgian population. Personal correspondence with Zaal Anjaparidze, head of information at the Caucasian Institute for Peace, Democracy, and Development in Tbilisi, Georgia. Over 90 per cent of all Georgians world-wide and 95 per cent of FSU Georgians live in Georgia. When asked about the number of Ajars, Anjaparidze equated Ajars with Georgians: ‘Ajarians (called in such a way after the region of their residence) consider themselves as an integrated part of the Georgian nation, but not separate ethnic groups, despite their Moslem belief.’ Daily Telegraph, 24 May 1993, p. 25 and Georgian Radio, 17 September 1994. Moscow News, 23 September 1994 and Nezavisimaia gazeta, 6 April 1995. Narodnoe Khoziaistvo Gruzinskoi SSR za 60 let [The National Economy of the Georgian SSR in Sixty Years] (Tbilisi: Izdatel’stvo Sabchota Sakartvelo, 1980), pp. 82 and 126. Georgian Radio, 17 September 1994. Elizabeth Fuller, ‘Zviad Gamsakhurdia Proposes Abolition of Ajar Autonomy’, Report on the USSR, Vol. 2, No. 48, 20 November 1990, pp. 13–14. The son of a leading Georgian literary figure, Zviad Konstantinovich Gamsakhurdia was born in 1939. Gamsakhurdia obtained his doctorate in philology and was a scholar of Shakespeare, a writer, and an editor of samizdat papers and journals. During the Soviet period, Gamsakhurdia was a respected human rights activist and was a co-founder of the Tbilisi branch of the Helsinki group. He was arrested several times and from 1977 to 1979 was imprisoned for his views. This coalition consisted of supporters of Gamsakhurdia. A true popular front in Georgia failed to emerge as the opposition to the government divided into competing coalitions. The National Democratic Party and Georgian National Independence Party merged to form the National Congress. Stephen F. Jones, ‘Georgia: A Failed Democratic Transition’, in Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras (eds), Nations and Politics in the Soviet Successor States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 297. Also see Hunter, The Transcaucasus in Transition, p. 112. Elizabeth Fuller, ‘Gamsakhurdia’s First 100 Days’, Report on the USSR, Vol. 3, No. 10, 8 March 1991, p. 10. This polling was practically the inverse of the election outcome in Georgia proper, where the Round Table won with 62 per cent and the Communists got 26 per cent. Although he modified his position somewhat, Gamsakhurdia did not acknowledge publicly that his statement on the abolition of the republic caused the weak support for his Round Table/Free Georgia Coalition. Rather, he blamed it on subversive imperialist agents operating in the republic. Suny, The Making, p. 400, n. 26 and Fuller, ‘Zviad Gamsakhurdia Proposes Abolition of Ajar Autonomy’, p. 14. The following discussion draws heavily on Elizabeth Fuller’s ‘Georgia’s Adzhar Crisis’, Report on the USSR, Vol. 3, No. 32, 9 August 1991, pp. 8–13.

20

THE CASE OF AJARIA 46 Concern over Islam did play a role in the demonstrations, especially over the nationalist government’s strong Christian bend, but this concern did not translate into an ‘Ajaria for Ajarians’, but rather a ‘Georgia for All Georgians, Christian and Muslim’. 47 Fuller, ‘Georgia’s Adzhar Crisis’, p. 9. 48 Abashidze’s appointment did not occur without some opposition. He was a Muslim and drew much of his support from the Muslim population in Ajaria. Thus it is not surprising that much of his opposition came from Christian Georgians living in Ajaria. Nevertheless he was seen as a Communist functionary whose most recent post under the Soviet system was as head of the ministry of communal services in Tbilisi. Abashidze was born in 1938 to a princely family that ruled Ajaria until the nineteenth century. He was trained as an economist, and similar to Gamsakhurdia a philologist. Elizabeth Fuller, ‘Aslan Abashidze: Georgia’s Next Leader?’, RFE/RL Research Report, Vol. 2, No. 44, 5 November 1993, p. 23. 49 This was the second delay. The elections were originally scheduled for 3 March 1991. 50 Fuller, ‘Georgia’s Adzhar Crisis’, p. 12. 51 This block consisted of the Republican Party and the Georgian Popular Front, two opposition parties with similar platforms to Round Table. The other major contender was the Ajar Oblast Organisation of the Georgian Communist Party. 52 Svobodnaia Gruziia, 25 September 1991, p. 1, FBIS-SOV-91-195, 8 October 1991, p. 81. 53 Fuller, ‘Zviad Gamsakhurdia Proposes Abolition of Adzhar Autonomy’, p. 14. 54 Interior troops are charged with maintaining order within the borders of the state. Svobodnaia gruziia, 25 September 1991, p. 1, FBIS-SOV-91-195, 8 October 1991, p. 81. 55 According to one report, 4,000 weapons, including automatic weapons, machine guns and grenade launchers, were distributed. BBC, 17 August 1992. 56 Gamsakhurdia’s presidency lasted only until January 1992, when rivals ousted him and established a military council. Civil war emerged as supporters of Gamsakhurdia – the Zviadists – sought to restore his presidency. The Zviadists launched their campaign from Mingrelia, the region of Gamsakhurdia’s birthplace. Mingrelia also borders on Abkhazia. By August 1992 the secessionist struggle in Abkhazia and the activities of the Zviadists collided when the latter kidnapped federal officials and Tbilisi believed they were being held in Abkhazia. Tbilisi moved in government troops to free the kidnap victims, but used the occasion also to try to threaten Abkhazia and prevent the region’s secessionist bid. Civil war emerged on another front. 57 Fuller, ‘Aslan Abashidze: Georgia’s Next Leader?’, pp. 23–6. 58 They protested the way Abashidze was elected into office; not by secret ballot, but by a show of hands. This was done on the insistence of Gamsakhurdia so that he could see who was supporting whom, ‘I want to see who is going to vote for whom, and in general, clear up for myself who is who?’, Megapolis-Express, No. 32, 1991, p. 19. Russian Press Digest, 10 August 1991. 59 Fuller, ‘Aslan Abashidze: Georgia’s Next Leader?’, p. 23. 60 He also acknowledged the influence and authority that Shevardnadze had to offer Georgia. Nezavisimaia gazeta, 6 October 1993, p. 1, FBIS-SOV-93-193, 7 October 1993, p. 68. 61 Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 27 June 1992, p. 3, CDSP, Vol. 44, No. 26, pp. 31–3. 62 Ibid. 63 Ibid.

21

THE CASPIAN REGION 64 Ibid. 65 Moscow Russian Television Network, 3 October 1994, FBIS-SOV-94-193, 5 October 1994, p. 44. 66 Trud, 20 October 1994, p. 5, FBIS-SOV-94-204, 21 October 1994, p. 56. 67 Abashidze objected to the use of force to solve the Abkhaz–Georgian dispute (at least before it became obvious that Russia was actively intervening – a response provoked by premature Georgian attempts at a fait accompli). However, he distinguished between the legitimacy of the means employed to resolve the crisis and the legitimate aim of Georgia’s policy: the maintenance of Georgia’s territorial integrity. 68 Compared to Russian intervention in Abkhazia, any meaningful Russian military support for Ajaria would have been much more expensive and complicated in any case, because unlike in the former conflict, Russia did not share a common border with Ajaria. 69 This gives rise to a puzzle: why would a loyal Georgian consider the intervention by the very state which had held Georgians in patronising and humiliating bondage for centuries? The answer is that, like Shevardnadze, Abashidze is much more a statesman than a nationalist: his first concern throughout the crisis was the safety and security of his people, not the national identity of an Ajar people. If security mattered more than identity, then Russian intervention made sense, since it would have prevented bloodshed, though only at the cost of swallowing a healthy dose of nationalist crow. 70 The strongest evidence in support of this argument is the palpable sense of responsibility Tbilisi demonstrated toward the Abkhaz nation itself. Georgian Vice-Premier Alexandr Kavadze stated: ‘As for the forms of autonomy and management, particularly in Abkhazia, I believe the Abkhazes – unlike the Armenians, Greeks, and Azerbaijanis, and other people living in Georgia – have no other native land but Abkhazia. Consequently, we must do everything to ensure their rights. This is a matter of honour for our state.’ Moscow News, 13 September 1992.

22

2

Javakheti: Region of Tension between Georgians and Armenians Judith Hin

INTRODUCTION

The important geo-political position of the Caucasus – on the crossroads between East and West, between the Muslim and the Christian worlds – has once more become apparent in the rivalry over access to the Caspian oil reserves. The interests involved are so numerous and complex that they have strongly affected traditional alliances and long-standing antagonisms. While in the short term existing pipelines – both through Russia and through Georgia – can be used, additional export capacity will be needed. Therefore, alternative pipeline plans are developed, the most frequently discussed of which is a new pipeline from Baku through Georgia and Turkey to the port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean. However, in order to secure this (or any other) pipeline both the competition between the various external powers has to be settled, and the internal political situation of the states in the Caucasus should stabilise.1 This chapter will examine the argument of Akinci2 that Javakheti, the southern border region of Georgia where the majority of the population is Armenian, could become the ‘bottle-neck’ of this pipeline.3 ARMENIANS IN JAVAKHETI

Armenians have lived in the southern border region of Javakheti since the beginning of the nineteenth century when the land, belonging to the Ottoman Empire, was conquered by the Russian Empire in 1829. Until then the region had been inhabited by Georgian Muslims, but they moved away under pressure of the Russians, who considered it 23

THE CASPIAN REGION

safer to have a Christian population on the border with the Muslim world.4 The abandoned hamlets of Akhalkalaki (Javakheti) were resettled by thousands of Ottoman Armenians encouraged to migrate by the Russian forces. The area had thus acquired an overwhelming majority of Armenians,5 especially as Georgians were prohibited from settling in certain areas in southern Georgia.6 According to the census of 1873, 71 per cent of the total population in Javakheti – without the capital Akhalkalaki – were Armenians, 12 per cent were Russian ‘Dukhobors’,7 6 per cent Georgians, and the remaining 11 per cent of the population consisted of Tatars, Turks, Greeks, Kurds and Ossetians.8 After the Bolshevik revolution and the Ottoman invasion of Transcaucasia, the Treaty of Batum of 1918 between the just independent Transcaucasian Federative Republic and the Ottoman Empire9 assigned the county of Javakheti to the latter. Nevertheless, the states of Georgia and Armenia, which declared their independence from the Transcaucasian Federative Republic shortly after, both laid claims to the region. Georgia – as heir to the Georgian kingdoms – grounded its claim on historic, geographic, strategic and economic considerations, first and foremost the 1783 Russo-Georgian treaty of Georgievsk. Armenia, for its part, emphasised the ethnic composition of the population in the region and its geographical continuity with Armenia. At the end of 1918, as the Ottoman forces withdrew from Transcaucasia in accordance with the Mudros Armistice,10 a war broke out between Georgia and Armenia over Javakheti. Intervention of the British and French brought this short but inconclusive war to an end in December 1918 with a compromise guaranteed and supervised by the Allies: Georgian administration was established in Javakheti, which included Armenian and Muslim representatives.11 But relations between Georgia and Armenia, and between Georgians and Armenians in Georgia remained strained.12 As Jones notes: The Armenians in Javakheti, just like the Abkhaz and the Ossets at that time, started revolts against the Georgian regime after, in 1919, minority quotas were removed from the Constituent Assembly and Georgianization programmes were launched in schools and the government administration. Georgians thus became convinced that the minorities were a potential ‘fifth column.’ The repressive reaction of the Georgian government to these ethnic tensions, on the other hand, intensified the alienation of the minorities from the new Georgian state.13

After the Bolshevik take over of Georgia (1921), it was united with Armenia and Azerbaijan to form the Transcaucasian Federation, 24

JAVAKHETI: REGION OF TENSION

which was one of the founding members of the USSR. In 1936, the Soviet regime dissolved the federation, and Javakheti was allocated to the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR). In 1944 and again in 1979 demands were raised by local Armenians for more autonomy in the region but these demands were never satisfied.14 During the regime of Stalin, the remaining Muslims in the region – who have become known as the ‘Meskhetian Turks’ – were deported to Uzbekistan in 1944 and their place was taken by Christian Georgians and Armenians. In the new Republic of Georgia, independent since 1991, the Armenians still form the overwhelming majority of the population in Javakheti. According to the last Soviet census of (1989), the Armenians accounted for 91 per cent of the population in the region, 5 per cent were Russians, and only 3 per cent Georgians.15 However, since then the picture has changed a little because most Russian Dukhobors have left Javakheti; at first because they wanted to return to Russia, but later because they were pressurised by Russian and Georgian agitators, and, in addition, were caught in the middle of a competition – sometimes backed up by arms – between Armenians and Georgians over the resettlement of vacant houses.16 According to the Gorelovka Village Soviet more than 60 per cent of the Russian Dukhobors left Javakheti between 1991 and 1995.17 Therefore the proportions of both Armenians and Georgians in Javakheti are nowadays slightly higher. Because the region is adjacent to Armenia, the Armenians of Javakheti have many possibilities to promote their own language, culture and traditions. Armenian is their first language and the majority, including the local politicians, hardly speak Georgian at all. Almost all institutions in Javakheti, are Armenian – schools, churches, the media, cultural organisations, youth organisations and socialpolitical organisations. Most street signs and names of shops are written in Armenian, and characteristic Armenian food and drink are everywhere on sale. The Russian ruble, not the Georgian lari, is the accepted currency.18 Thus, while the real distance from Tbilisi is relatively great – the 160-km road is in such a pronounced state of decay that it takes eight hours to negotiate it by coach – the mental distance to Georgia is far greater. People in Javakheti hardly consider themselves to be citizens of Georgia: they think of Yerevan as their capital and when they are planning a trip to Tbilisi, they speak of ‘going to Georgia’. This orientation towards Armenia is clearly seen in many facets of everyday life. Except for a single coach line to Tbilisi, all the coach routes have their destinations in Armenia; the best and, therefore, the most frequently visited hospital is located just across the border in 25

THE CASPIAN REGION

Armenia; Armenians in Javakheti use the airports in Armenia when they take a plane; Armenia is the most important location for trade and higher education;19 and although Georgian television is nowadays received in Javakheti – which was not the case in the first six years of Georgian independence – the Armenians always watch Armenian or Russian channels. One striking exception to this orientation on Armenia is the massive participation of the Armenians in Javakheti in the presidential elections in Georgia of 1995. One could argue that the Armenians feel themselves to be citizens of Georgia after all, that the Soviet imperative to vote still prevails among the people, or that the Armenians in Javakheti do not dare to openly show their rejection of the state. However, one could equally argue that they prefer to let sleeping dogs lie: by keeping a low profile in a national election and thus not alarming the Georgian authorities, they are able to preserve their informal autonomy in the region. Life in Javakheti is difficult. Besides the harsh climate and the lack of natural resources, roads hardly exist, goods are scarce, hospitals lack windows, and the unemployment rate is very high. The main sources of income are the Russian military base located in the region, foreign labour in Russia, agriculture (the principal crops are potatoes and barley), peddling, and, according to customs officials, smuggling of contraband petrol, copper and leather goods by armed smugglers.20 Although the conditions are not worse than those in other rural areas in Georgia, the Armenians blame Tbilisi for particularly neglecting this region because of their nationality. This strengthens the Armenians’ perception that they do not really belong to Georgia but are more closely related to Armenia. This perception has intensified since the collapse of the USSR. To Javakheti Armenians the feeling of being part of the Georgian SSR was less important during Soviet times. The Armenian SSR was also part of the Soviet Union – making all Armenians Soviet citizens. Nowadays, Javakheti is a peripheral area of Georgia situated on the border with Armenia. Javakheti Armenians are officially Georgian citizens and foreign visitors in Armenia. Furthermore, according to Muradyan – an Armenian member of parliament in Tbilisi – the feeling among Armenians in Javakheti of being discriminated against is not always based on perception alone. Thus, in the case of land privatisation, for example, one cannot but suspect the intentions of the Georgian government, which charges higher prices for the poor agricultural lands in Javakheti than for the fertile lands elsewhere.21 Indeed, the Georgian government has paid little attention to Javakheti since independence. As in other regions of Georgia, the local administration receives allocations which are barely sufficient to 26

JAVAKHETI: REGION OF TENSION

cover the salaries of state employees. Very small sums of money are left for road maintenance, electricity supply and other services. In the main town of Javakheti – Akhalkalaki – electricity supply and telephone maintenance have improved not because of help from the government, but because these companies were privatised and supported by the Russian military base nearby. The Georgian, Armenian and Russian schools are in a terrible state of disrepair: they lack windows and heating, their walls have lost their plaster, and they suffer from a chronic shortage of textbooks. Nevertheless, Georgian schools are in a somewhat better state. The Georgian school in Akhalkalaki, for example, was given a new building, and in the second town of Javakheti – Ninotsminda – a new Georgian school was established in 1996 and teachers enticed to work in it by higher pay. More important, their textbooks have been provided by the government free of charge. Armenian and Russian schools do not receive textbooks from the Georgian government, with the exception of those dealing with Georgian history. Georgianlanguage textbooks have only recently been provided by the British Embassy. Armenian schools receive their books directly from the government of Armenia, until recently free of charge.22 In addition, the majority of Armenian and Russian schools lack Georgian-speaking teachers. These facts testify to the lack of influence and initiative of the Georgian government. However, since 1997 the attitude of Tbilisi has been changing: a sum of about US$250,000 has been promised to repair schools in Javakheti, Armenian students from Javakheti have been encouraged to enter the Georgian pedagogical department of the Tbilisi State University, and Georgian-speaking teachers willing to work in Javakheti have been paid bonuses. POLITICAL ACTORS AND ETHNIC POLARISATION

Although local elections were introduced in Georgia only in 1998 – the Georgian president tended to appoint the local leaders himself up until that time, in spite of constitutional provisions of 1995 for democratically elected local governments – Armenians were always overwhelmingly represented in the local executive bodies in Javakheti.23 In both districts of the region – Akhalkalaki and Ninotsminda – 95 per cent of the local politicians, including both gamgebeli (mayors), are Armenian. Also the police force is composed predominantly of Armenians.24 Nevertheless, the governor of the larger Meskheti-Javakheti province is Georgian, and even though he speaks Armenian, the Armenians of Javakheti do not feel that he represents them. That this perception 27

THE CASPIAN REGION

is at least partly true was shown at a party conference in the region, where the governor delivered a speech in Georgian, although Armenians form the majority of the population in Meskheti-Javakheti (54 per cent) and most of them cannot understand Georgian.25 (Still, no one – Armenians or Georgians – objected to this fact.) Furthermore, the office of the governor is located in Meskheti, where Georgians form the majority and which is accessible with difficulty from Javakheti. Therefore, the Armenians regard this administrative arrangement of combining Javakheti with Meskheti as aimed at weakening their local authority.26 The local government in Akhalkalaki would prefer to have their own governor, who would, of course, be an Armenian. Real authority within Javakheti, however, lies not with the official institutions and politicians, but with local social–political Armenian organisations, such as ‘Javakhk’(the Armenian for Javakheti) and ‘Odar’, which apparently have affiliated paramilitary groups (e.g. one called ‘Phidani’).27 These movements, founded in 1988 after a similar movement was established in Nagorno-Karabakh, are often closely related to representatives in the official institutions. Although these organisations officially claim that their aim is the preservation of Armenian traditions and the promotion of Armenian culture, language and education, they obviously also have political goals. For example, Javakhk mobilised support in the region for the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh during their war with Azerbaijan.28 Furthermore, Javakhk has been taking a similar position to that of the government of Armenia and opposed to the agreement between Georgia and Turkey to build a railway from Marabda (near Tbilisi) to Kars in Turkey. This would follow the same route as the proposed pipeline and, thus, cross Meskheti-Javakheti. In 1995, Javakhk rejected this plan on the grounds that such a railway would not bring much economic advantage but only overload the markets in Georgia with cheap Turkish products of low quality.29 Recently, however, Armenians in Javakheti started to argue that, instead of passing through MeskhetiJavakheti, a new railway can be constructed from Marabda to Giumri in Armenia and continue from there to Kars over an already existing line. The Georgian government, while not admitting in public to the strategic control such an arrangement would give the Armenians over trade with Turkey, say that the Armenian solution would be much longer than a shortcut through Meskheti-Javakheti.30 In 1995 Javakhk officially demanded from the president of Georgia greater autonomy to Javakheti through the implementation of federalism, because they believed that regional autonomy was a precondition for an improved situation in the region. According to the leader of the movement, 28

JAVAKHETI: REGION OF TENSION

During the time of Gamsakhurdia (1990–1992), non-Georgian people were seen as being second-class citizens and thus all Armenians in Javakheti were prepared to fight for independence. Now this has changed, but we still want more autonomy. Our final aim is complete separation from Georgia and to become an independent state, but since this would cause war at the moment because neither Armenia nor Georgia would accept independence, it is up to our children to decide on this issue in the future.31

In 1999, anti-Turkish and pro-Russian nationalists formed a political party out of this social–political organisation (Javakhk) calling it ‘Virk’ (the name of one of the 15 provinces of historical Armenia which comprised the northern regions of present-day Armenian and southern Georgia).32 Besides their aim for a ‘federal’ Georgia in which Javakheti would be a separate unit, they are against the possible construction through the region of a pipeline carrying Azerbaijani oil to the Turkish Mediterranean coast.33 Apart from these movements, an Armenian society – Parvana, named after the biggest lake in Akhalkalaki – exists in Javakheti, and since 1990 has been purchasing the houses of emigrating Russian Dukhobors for young Armenian families. It is supported by Javakhk, by Groong (White Swan, another Armenian organisation in Georgia, which is mainly active in Abkhazia and Tbilisi), and by the Armenian patriarch in Armenia. However, it has faced fierce competition from Georgian organisations, such as the Society for the Revival of Javakheti and the Foundation of Merab Kostava.34 These have been resettling in Javakheti Georgian migrants, who come from various places in Georgia where land hunger or natural disasters forced them to leave.35 The majority of these Georgians have settled compactly in a few villages. That ethnic polarisation is evolving in Javakheti is very clear: Georgian and Armenian organisations have been competing over the purchasing of houses in the region in order to resettle their own people only. In 1993 half of the houses purchased for Georgians were left uninhabited, because there had not been enough Georgians willing to live in the difficult climate of Javakheti and, moreover, among an Armenian majority. According to Georgian sources, part of these houses were then bought, illegally taken, or even destroyed by Armenians. According to Armenian sources, the Foundation of Merab Kostava prevented Armenians from buying the houses legally, so Armenians started to occupy some of these houses. In general Armenians claimed to be afraid that ‘Georgians’ – the Foundation of Merab Kostava – planned to expel all Armenians from Javakheti. The fact that most social institutions in the region are Armenian 29

THE CASPIAN REGION

should neither be interpreted as sign of ethnic mobilisation among the Armenians, nor taken as a sign that the Georgian government tolerates Armenian cultural autonomy. Rather, these institutions are simply relics from the Soviet period, and even then they were established not in order to represent and preserve the culture, values and interests of the Armenians, but with the aim of demonstrating and propagating the prestige of the Soviet system36 and retaining the integrity of the Soviet Union by keeping Armenians passive and quiet. For example, the local Armenian newspapers in Javakheti – Pharos (Lighthouse) and Arshalurs (Sunrise) were already established in 1935 by order of the regime.37 Moreover, these Armenian institutions can hardly be considered as being independent because they are still financed by the (Georgian) state. As the editor of Vrastan (Armenian for Georgia), the Armenian state newspaper in Georgia, explained: ‘When Armenians are critical of President Shevardnadze, the newspaper can only try to reflect this in an article by quoting it as the opinion of someone.’38 The editor of the Armenian programme of the Georgian state radio even denied that being dependent on state finances could be a problem, because even in their political programme ‘they never had any criticism on the Georgian regime’.39 Indeed, the Georgian government uses the existence of these organisations and its financial support of them to prove that Armenians are treated equally. Nevertheless, they intensify the identity among the Armenians. However, there are three Armenian institutions in Javakheti which are neither relics from Soviet times nor financed by the Georgian state: the two ‘consultation centres’ of Yerevan University, which were opened in Ninotsminda in 1993 and in Akhalkalaki in 1994, and an Armenian–Russian International University, which started to function in Ninotsminda in 1997. According to the director of the Yerevan University branch in Ninotsminda, the Georgian government had allowed these ‘universities’ to open because the economic crisis prevented most people from studying in Yerevan or Tbilisi.40 According to a 1996 motion of the Parliamentary Committee on Education, Science and Culture, however, these ‘consultation centres’ were functioning on a temporary basis until legislation regulating the activity of foreign educational institutions was passed.41 The Georgian government responded immediately to these initiatives by establishing in Javakheti a branch of the Tbilisi National Institute, where the language of instruction is Armenian but the study of the Georgian language is allocated double the amount of time than any other subjects. Also, the director of the Georgian State University of Akhaltsikhe (in Meskheti) unveiled plans for a branch in Javakheti. 30

JAVAKHETI: REGION OF TENSION DYNAMIC FORCES

The dissatisfaction among the Armenians in Javakheti and the demands voiced by their leaders are influenced by the historical background of the region, by the geography and by the concentration of the group. These are, however, neither the only nor the main reasons. The opportunity structure provided by the Georgian government plays an important role as well. The approval for Yerevan University to establish branches in Javakheti is only one of the examples mentioned above of how governmental rules influence ethnic polarization. Considering the influence of the opportunity structure in Georgia on the attitude and demands of the Armenians in Javakheti, one of the principal factors is the constitutional status of their citizenship. The current constitution, adopted in 1995, states that citizens of Georgia have equal rights in social, economic, cultural, and political life, irrespective of their language, nationality, ethnicity, or religion, and are entitled to develop freely, without discrimination or interference whatsoever, their own culture and to use their native language in private life and in public.42

However, until recently nationality was registered on identity cards, just as during the Soviet period. This means that although during the first years of independence no distinction in status existed formally between Georgians and Armenians, their classification according to ethnicity meant that nationality continued to play a significant role in society and could be used by the authorities to influence and control the Armenians – just as it had been done in Soviet times. To the Armenians this codification of nationality in passports confirmed their feeling that they were not considered equal citizens. While the government responded by removing the recording of nationality on identity cards, the opportunity to discriminate against Armenians – and other ethnic minorities – has remained because they are always distinguishable by their surnames.43 In short, one can assert that the Armenians in Javakheti do not feel that the Georgian government is granting them equal opportunities. Armenians blame the government for neglecting their needs, economically and politically, and they demand more autonomy through their interest groups with illegal paramilitary organisations. Since these demands from the state imply a change in the structure of the regime and are expressed by unauthorised groups, one may conclude that the Armenians in Javakheti do not legitimise the Georgian regime. In fact, these Armenians hardly consider themselves to be citizens of Georgia 31

THE CASPIAN REGION

at all. The situation in Javakheti, therefore, can be considered potentially unstable. All this notwithstanding, the Armenians, at least at the moment, are probably not ready to support their demands by all means. First, the lessons of the bloody conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh keep them from starting an armed revolt against the Georgian regime. Second, the political discord among Georgians which facilitated the revolt of the Abkhaz and the Ossetians has been reduced significantly under Shevardnadze’s leadership. Third, unlike the Abkhaz and the Ossetians, the Armenians in Javakheti have no independent local governmental institutions, because the region has never been an autonomous unit within Georgia. Nevertheless, the situation in Javakheti is tense enough for any trigger to escalate the existing ethnic polarisation into ethnic conflict. Russia could supply such a trigger, having both means and motives to destabilize Georgia. Since 1994 there has been a Russian military base in Akhalkalaki, where reportedly many Armenians are serving who have adopted Russian citizenship. Local Armenians perceive this deployment of Russian troops in Javakheti as a blessing: to start with, they feel it protects them from their old enemy, Turkey. Second, they enjoy an important source of income and facilities, and – according to hearsay – of arms.44 Russia is thus in a position to encourage Armenian unrest. Furthermore, an ethnic conflict in Javakheti, might be to Russia’s advantage, since it would alter the regional balance of power in Russia’s favour. The international oil consortium might decide to abandon the pipeline options through Georgia and export Azerbaijani oil through Russian territory. Moreover, in case of conflict, Russia could send a peace-keeping force to Georgia – like the one in Abkhazia – and endorse the importance of the Russian military base in the region. On the other hand, Russia probably also realises that an eruption of new conflicts in Georgia can also set the whole Caucasus on fire, which would harm Russian interest as well – for instance, in Chechnya, through which the Russian pipeline passes. Another political actor who might have an interest in supporting the Armenians in Javakheti, and thereby creating conflict, is Armenia. In the first place ‘Greater Armenia’ – including Javakheti – is a concept which is said to have adherents in mono-ethnic Armenia as well as among the Armenian diaspora the world over. According to the leader of the Javakhk movement, it was even discussed in Armenia in 1988 whether Nagorno-Karabakh or Javakheti should be conquered first.45 Another interest of the nationalists in Armenia is their will to obstruct any oil transport from Azerbaijan as long as there is no peace agreement which guarantees the independent status of Nagorno-Karabakh. These allegations are supported by the bloodless coup of February 1998, which replaced President Ter-Petrosyan (who 32

JAVAKHETI: REGION OF TENSION

had been willing to compromise on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh in order to make it possible for Armenia to profit from the Caspian oil exports) by Robert Kocharyan, the former president of NagornoKarabakh, who proclaimed: ‘No peace, no oil.’46 On the other hand, it is not to Armenia’s advantage to stir up a conflict in Javakheti because Yerevan could not handle another war, especially not with its only friendly and Christian neighbour which, moreover, provides it access to the sea. Finally, the ‘Meskhetian question’ may be another factor that can help to raise the political temperature in Javakheti. As mentioned before, the Meskhetian Turks were deported from MeskhetiJavakheti in 1944 in order to prepare for a possible Soviet invasion of Turkey. While most deported peoples were allowed to return to their homelands in the 1950s, the Meskhetians – like the Crimean Tatars and the Volga Germans – were rehabilitated but not allowed to return.47 After an outbreak of ethnic violence against them in Uzbekistan in 1989, the Meskhetians – now numbering between 150,000 and 200,000 – fled to Russia while hoping for repatriation to Meskheti-Javakheti.48 The prospect of their return is a great source of tension: the Meskhetians want to return to lands that have long been inhabited by others – mainly Armenians – who strongly object to this. This resettlement, which for a small number of Meskhetians was recently approved of by Presidential Decree,49 could lead to unrest, which Armenians could use as a pretext to revolt against the Georgian state and to demand more autonomy. Moreover, if there is an Armenian backlash against Meskhetians in Javakheti, Turkey may not be able to remain passive due to popular sympathy for the Meskhetians.50 INVESTMENT AND ETHNIC CONFLICTS

For Georgia, the proposed long-term pipeline project is crucial both economically and politically. The pipeline would provide employment, and transit fees would augment the state budget, and improve the trade balance.51 This would lead to further economic reforms and accelerate the reconstruction of a country that experienced three civil wars in the 1990s. Furthermore – and probably of even greater importance to the Georgian government – an oil pipeline through its territory would make Georgia of strategic interest to the US and other Western powers and decrease its dependence on Russia. Since the proposed pipeline project through Georgia can be secure only when the internal ethnic tensions are settled, the Georgian government is under pressure to take a closer look at the internal 33

THE CASPIAN REGION

political problems. The question, however, remains as to what extent the Georgian government is seriously willing to change the situation in Javakheti so that the Armenians living there would lower their demands, ethnic polarisation would be halted, and the chance for an ethnic conflict minimised. In general, Georgians view Armenians and other ethnic minorities as stumrebi (guests), living in Georgia at the tolerance of the majority.52 This attitude developed at the end of the nineteenth century, when the Georgian national consciousness was reviving. This national consciousness culminated in 1918, when the Georgians were able to establish an independent republic of their own, in which they finally regained power in the capital Tbilisi – where Armenians had been the economic and political dominant group up to that time. Paradoxically enough, this feeling was further fostered during the Soviet period because the Soviet regime emphasised the dominance of the titular groups in the Union Republics and downgraded the status of non-titular nationalities. Consequently, when Georgia became an independent state, the majority of Georgians had a rather nationalistic attitude. This attitude softened, to a certain extent, only after their first democratically elected president, Gamsakhurdia – a former dissident, elected president by a vast majority of Georgians – turned out to be an authoritarian and nationalistic leader who provoked ethnic conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia by pursuing a policy of ‘Georgia for the Georgians’. With this president ousted dramatically, and ceasefire agreements made in the conflict areas, peace finally returned in 1994, and the Georgian regime started to make some concessions. They accepted both Georgian and Abkhazian as the state languages, and proposed possibilities for a federal system which would grant former autonomous regions extended self-rule. These concessions, however, concentrated mainly on the regions which had been autonomous during Soviet times, and were not directed at other areas where nonGeorgian groups were concentrated, like Javakheti. Nevertheless, over recent years the attention on Javakheti from the Georgian government has also increased. As mentioned above, an extra budget was promised to improve schools in Javakheti, and measures were taken to improve the Georgian language classes at Armenian and Russian schools in the region. Besides, senior politicians started to visit the region more regularly, and the government began to discuss a plan to introduce elected local governments, instead of appointed ones. On the other hand, however, the examples of the higher prices for privatised land in Javakheti; of the Armenian government supplying textbooks to Armenian schools in Javakheti; of permitting branches of Armenian universities in the region; of 34

JAVAKHETI: REGION OF TENSION

allowing part of the Meskhetian refugees to return to Javakheti; of accepting the use of a foreign currency in the region; of concentrating investments in education mostly on Georgian schools; and of the governor delivering a speech in Georgian while the majority of the people in the region are not able to understand it, do not altogether prove that the government is doing everything within its power to reduce ethnic polarisation in Javakheti. Georgian politicians often explain this shortage of governmental attention and investments in Javakheti with the argument that all regions in Georgia are dealing with a difficult economic situation and that they see no reason why Javakheti should be favoured. In order to secure the unity of Georgia and to be able to guarantee the security of the pipeline, however, the government will have to do more than formally allow Armenians to be citizens of the state with equal rights, and more firmly integrate its Armenian population of Javakheti by taking active measures to give them the feeling that they have the same opportunities in Georgia as other ethnic groups. Besides economic support for the region this also includes granting Armenians more autonomy, because they want nothing short of some kind of self-rule. However, since most Georgians still perceive Armenians as guests in Georgia, and the previous civil wars made them aware that autonomy in border regions can threaten the integrity of the state, it is not likely that the Georgian government will meet the demands of Armenians in the near future. Therefore, the situation in Javakheti will not stabilise, and while the Armenians themselves probably would not start a revolt at the moment, there is the possibility of stirring up the dissatisfaction and changing it into an ethnic conflict. This chapter thus supports Akinci’s argument that the chance of MeskhetiJavakheti becoming the bottle-neck of the Baku–Ceyhan pipeline is reasonable and that if present ethnic polarisation deteriorates into an ethnic conflict, obviously, for Armenians to sabotage the oil pipeline would be a relatively easy, and greatly effective, means to fight the Georgian regime. NOTES 1 A classical problem. e.g. in the Middle East, currently, several pipelines are lying unused for political reasons, and Myanmar villages along the pipeline route were forcibly relocated in order to secure the gas transport to Thailand. 2 Ugar Akinci, ‘Javakhetia: the bottle-neck of Baku–Ceyhan pipeline’, Silk Road: A Journal of West Asian Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2 (December 1997), ISSN 1096–5769. 3 Administratively Meskheti is part of the Meskheti-Javakheti region. However: since the majority of Armenians live here; existing Armenian interest groups remain here; and the influence of Russia and Armenia is more extensive in this

35

THE CASPIAN REGION

4 5 6

7 8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23

part than in Meskheti the focus of this chapter is on Javakheti. This is so despite the fact that the proposed pipeline would actually pass the capital of Meskheti and would only bend towards the capital of Javakheti without passing it. Revaz Gachechiladze, The New Georgia; Space, Society, Politics (London: UCL Press, 1995), p. 28. Richard G. Hovannisyan, The Republic of Armenia, Vol. 1, The First Year, 1918–1919 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), p. 70. Lia Melikishvili, Early Manifestations of Ethnic Conflict Definition of Social Circumstances in Polyethnic Societies, Short report for the programme ‘Conflict Situations in Polyethnic Society; the case of the Gorelovka Village Soviet in Ninotsminda’ by the Caucasian Department of the Institute of History and Ethnology, Tbilisi, 1996, p. 6. A Protestant sect of the Orthodox Church. Kameral’noe opisanie Akhalkalaskogo Uezda (bez goroda Akhalkalakski) [A Kameral Description of the Akhalkalaki Uezd (without the city of Akhalkalaki)], 1873, Georgian National Archive, Fond 254, 3rd book, Vol. 1, No. 275/ 19238–276/19239. A follow-up of the Brest–Litovsk Treaty between Bolshevik Russia and the Ottoman Empire in 1918. Hovannisyan, The Republic of Armenia, pp. 100–1. Ibid., p. 116. Ronald Grigor Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), p. 202. Stephen Jones, ‘Georgia, a Failed Democratic Transition’, in I. Bremmer and R. Taras (eds), Nations and Politics in the Soviet Successor States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 288–310. Interview with professor at the Department of Archaeology, Zaliko Kikodze, September 1995. Georgia, Highest Council of Social Economic Information, The National Composition of Georgia, Statistical summary based on the Soviet Census of 1989, Tbilisi, 1991. Melikishvili, Early Manifestations, pp. 10–13. Ibid., p. 7. The ‘lari’ is the official currency of Georgia since 2 October 1995. Interview with member of parliament from Javakheti (National Democratic Party), S. Tsintskaladze, November 1995. Jonathan Aves, Georgia: From Chaos to Stability? Former Soviet South Project (London: The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1996), p. 45. Interview with Genadi Muradyan, September 1997. This provision was decided upon in an agreement between the Georgian and the Armenian governments requiring the Georgian government to pay for the books at the Georgian schools in Armenia as well (Vice-Minister of Education, G. Shavashidze, interviewed by the author, September and November 1995). However, since Georgians make up only 0.04 per cent of the population in Armenia (Soviet Census 1989) there will be hardly any Georgian schools there. Nowadays Armenia does not deliver any books to Javakheti for free: schools have to pay for them (Head of Education in Ninotsminda, R. Sokochyan, interviewed by the author in November 1997). Javakheti is not an administrative unit in itself; it is made up of two administrative units – the districts of Akhalkalaki and Ninotsminda – and together with the four districts of Meskheti (Samtskhe in Georgian) form the province of MeskhetiJavakheti.

36

JAVAKHETI: REGION OF TENSION 24 Interview with George Khutsishvili, October 1995. 25 Party conference of the Citizens Union of Georgia to elect a new chairman and a few new advisors to the chairman for the region of Meskheti-Javakheti, 14 September 1997. 26 Interview with leader of the Armenian movement, Javakhk, in Javakheti Norik, November 1995. And ‘Javakhet’i, Ararsebuli politikis nakvalevi – khelisup’lebis mier mart’uli ak’ jerjerobit’ mkholod adamiant’a neba aghmochnda [Javakheti, a Non-Existent ‘Spot’ in the Policy; The Governing Power Does not Have Much Authority]’, Seven Days (weekly), 23–30 November 1995, pp. 1–3. 27 Same sources as previous note. 28 Aves, Georgia, p. 45: ‘The author was able to observe for himself the strength of these organizations and was told by their representatives that fighters from Nagorno-Karabakh came to ‘‘rest” in the region’. 29 Ibid. 30 Akinci, ‘Javakhetia: the bottle-neck’. 31 Norik (interview), see note 26. 32 Liz Fuller, ‘Georgian parliament reviews situation in Akhalkalaki’, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Caucasus Report, Vol. 2, No. 16 (21 April 1999). 33 Emil Danielyan, ‘Georgia’s Armenian-populated region in limbo, Newsline Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 20 September 1999. 34 The ‘Foundation of Merab Kostava’ consists of (former) supporters of the nationalistic president Gamsakhurdia, and is also active in the rest of Georgia. 35 Melikishvili, Early Manifestations, p. 17; and interview with leader of an expedition in Ninotsminda for the Caucasian Department of The Institute of History and Geography, October 1997. 36 Valery Tishkov, The Mind Aflame: Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Conflict in and after the Soviet Union (London: Sage, 1997), p. 39. 37 Interview with Manuk Karachanyan, editor of Arshalurs, the local Armenian newspaper in Ninotsminda, November 1997. 38 Interview with Van Baiburt, editor of Vrastan, the state Armenian newspaper in Georgia, September 1997. 39 Interview with Susanna Hachatryan, editor of the Armenian radio in Georgia, September 1997. 40 Interview with Rubik Changoyan, the director of the consultation centre of the Yerevan University in Ninotsminda, on 14 November 1997. 41 ‘They Pay for Tuition With Pigs: Higher Education in Ninotsminda’, Alia, 13–14 January 1998, p. 2 (in Georgian). 42 Article 38. 43 Invariably ending on ‘yan’. 44 Which might be either a sign of Russian support to the Armenians, or of failing authority and poor working conditions in the Russian army. 45 Norik (interview), see note 26. 46 Akinci, ‘Javakhetia: the bottle-neck’. Moreover, Robert Kocharyan’s hand is strengthened by Russian weapons: according to an investigation conducted in 1997 by the Russian Duma’s Defence Committee the government recently (and clandestinely) shipped $1 billion worth of heavy military equipment to Yerevan: Ariel Cohen, ‘Russia won’t be left out’, Washington Post, 8 March 1998, p. C03. 47 To their houses in the restricted Soviet border area, Gachechiladze, The New Georgia, p. 183. 48 According to some people, it is a Russian plot to encourage them to return to Georgia: Akinci, ‘Javakhetia: the bottle-neck’. 49 Technical Cooperation Centre for Europe and Central Asia, Deported Peoples of

37

THE CASPIAN REGION the Former Soviet Union: The Case of the Meskhetians (Geneva: International Organisation for Migration, 1997), p. 3. 50 Akinci, ‘Javakhetia: the bottle-neck’. 51 Georgia nowadays exports hardly anything besides some wine, tea and mineral water. 52 Suny, The Making, p. 325.

38

PART II UNATTAINABLE IDEAL? ATTEMPTS AT UNITY IN THE NORTHERN CAUCASUS

3

From the Idea of Caucasian Unity to Regional Fragmentation: The North Caucasus, 1990–1999 C. Cem Og˘uz

In October 1999, Shamil Basayev, the famous Chechen commander whose occupation of Daghestani territory in the summer of the same year is alleged to have led to the second Russian intervention in Chechnya, argued that he saw the future of the Caucasus as a confederate state, which included the Cossacks as well.1 In fact, the idea of Caucasian unity is not a new one. Johar Dudayev, the retired Air Force general who became the president of Chechnya following the disintegration of the Soviet Union, stated on several occasions that unless all the republics separated from Russia, the independence of the Caucasus could not be achieved. The way to realise this was to unite the Caucasian peoples in a confederation.2 One of the first decisions of the National Chechen Congress, a broad-based popular front uniting all the republican political movements, was to set up a political party in the Chechen-Ingush Republic called the Caucasian Independence Party.3 The main objective of the party was to sponsor regional integrative attempts; henceforth, Dudayev went on with the consolidation of Caucasian unity. In the meantime, there were certain regional developments that were strengthening the expectations of the Chechens. According to a policy paper of the Russian Federation (RF), in the early 1990s integration in the North Caucasus was developing at full speed.4 Amongst the integrative attempts that were working towards regional unity, the most important was the Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus (CPC), which, following its active involvement in the Abhkaz–Georgian war, had enjoyed a remarkable level of support across the Caucasus. The Russian military invasion of Chechnya at the end of 1994 was 41

THE CASPIAN REGION

followed by a widespread belief – both in the West and in Russia – that the war would spread to neighbouring republics. The CPC’s active involvement in the Abkhaz–Georgian war was quoted as a precedent to that. However, to a keen observer it was apparent as early as 1992, that a large-scale Caucasian War – like the 30-year resistance (1829–59) led by the Naqshbandi-Khalidi Sufi order against Russian conquest of the Caucasus – was somewhat unlikely. The incompatible policy preferences of the CPC’s members and the lack of mutual understanding between the leaderships of the Confederation and of the Chechens, prevented a clear definition of the Confederation’s purpose. This fact was the most crucial handicap for its future. While the Chechens saw in it an important means towards independence, the leadership of the Confederation regarded it as a forum of regional cooperation, on the model of the European Union.5 As a result, the Confederation was inactive during the Chechen war and, after it, simply disappeared. Nevertheless, the reason the members of the Confederation avoided involving themselves in the Chechen war was not merely the disagreements between the Chechen and the Confederation’s leadership, but rather certain other factors that added to the sensitivity of the region. By questioning the activities of the Confederation, this chapter will thus analyse the changing dynamics of the region and their implications for the future. THE ORIGINS OF THE CONFEDERATION OF THE PEOPLES OF THE CAUCASUS

After the Tsarist regime was toppled in March 1917, the national leaders of the inhabitants of the mountains formed in Vladikavkaz a Union of Mountain Peoples (Soiuz Gorskikh Narodov). On 20 October 1917, this Union and the Terek Military Government formed by the Terek Cossacks united in a Terek–Daghestan government (Tersko–Dagestanskoe Pravitel’stvo). Following the clashes between the Cossacks and the Chechen and Ingush, the Terek–Daghestan Government dissolved itself in January 1918. In May 1918, some deputies of the dissolved Terek–Daghestan administration proclaimed, under Ottoman protection, the independence of the Northern Caucasus and established the North Caucasian Republic (the Mountain Republic) on 11 May 1918. However, the independent Mountain Republic was soon crushed by Denikin’s ‘white’ forces. Towards the late 1980s, coinciding with radical changes in Soviet politics, a group of intellectuals forwarded the idea of revitalising this North Caucasian Republic. Upon the initiative of the Abkhaz 42

Map 3: The Northern Caucasus: Administrative Division

THE CASPIAN REGION

National Forum (ANF; a popular movement uniting nationalist and democratic forces in Abkhazia),6 Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Kabarda, Cherkess, Chechen and Ingush delegates convened in Sukhumi on 25–26 August 1989 the First Congress of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus. The Congress established the Assembly of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus (AMPC), to be headed by Musa (Iurii) Shanibov, the vice-president of the Kabardin People’s Congress (KPC).7 The fundamental aim of the movement was to set up a Caucasian federal republic. The Assembly was supposed to serve as a kind of ‘parallel parliament’ to coordinate the activities of its members.8 Over the following two years, meetings were held in Nalchik (Kabardino-Balkaria), Vladikazkaz (North Ossetia), Groznyi (Chechnya) and Makhachkala (Daghestan). On 1–2 November 1991, at its Third Congress in Sukhumi (Abkhazia),9 the AMPC evolved into the Confederation of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus (CMPC), declaring itself to be the legitimate heir of the aforementioned North Caucasian Republic of 1918,10 with its capital in Sukhumi. Abaza, Abkhaz, Avar, Adyhge, Aki Chechen, Dargwa, Kabarda, Lak, Osset (from both South and North Ossetia), Cherkess, Chechen and Shapsug delegates, who were elected at national congresses (conferences), attended the Congress. The Turkic nations, namely the Balkars, the Karachai, the Kumyks and the the Nogays, refused to participate in the congress.11 Also, the Dargins and the Lezghins did not respond to the invitation.12 The Treaty on the Confederative Union of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus was subject to ratification in the national congresses and parliaments of those people who built the CMPC (Article 20). Shanibov, after becoming the head of the Presidential Council,13 pointed out that the CMPC was composed of the peoples of the Caucasus, rather than of the official governments of the autonomous republics.14 The agenda of the Confederation included the improvement of socio-cultural and political cooperation among its members, peaceful solutions to disagreements among the peoples of the North Caucasus and the creation of a united defence system against foreign aggression.15 THE ABKHAZ–GEORGIAN WAR: THE ACTIVE INVOLVEMENT OF THE CMPC

In the North Caucasus historical experiences play a significant role in regional politics. In August 1989, with the adoption of the Law on the State Programme for the Georgian Language, which made the teaching of Georgian in all schools obligatory and required Georgian 44

THE NORTH CAUCASUS, 1990–1999

language and literature tests as prerequisites for entry into higher education, the fears of the Abkhazians, who repeatedly suffered cultural persecution in the past, reached new heights. It was considered by the Abkhazians a renewed attempt at Georgianisation and raised fears reviving the images of 1918–21, when the Menshevik government of Georgia invaded Abkhazia and ruled the region with an iron fist and of 1935–53 when under Stalin and Beria the Abkhazians suffered political oppression.16 The repercussions of this Georgian initiative in the North Caucasus, however, were more serious. It led to a spontaneous association with the Ubykh, a north-west Caucasian people of Circassian origin, who were forcibly deported by Russia to the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century. Over time, the Ubykh were assimilated by the Turks and with the last Ubykh speaker, Tevfik Esenn, dying in 1992, the Ubykh became extinct as an ethnic group. Thus the extinction of the Ubykh ‘loomed large in the minds of all North Caucasians as a symbol of oblivion’.17 This time, however, the North Caucasians were determined not to sit back and watch this fate befall the Abkhaz.18 The peoples of the North Caucasus strongly supported the Abkhaz initiative to defend themselves through the unity of Caucasian nations against foreign aggression. The aforementioned Third Congress of November 1991, which was convened with financial support from the ANF,19 announced that it was ready to provide the Abkhazian authorities with material support.20 The Treaty on the Confederative Union of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus stated that the Confederation was prepared to face any aggression with united forces. According to Shanibov, the people of the Caucasus and other small peoples of the former Soviet Union (FSU) saw their own destiny reflected in the fate of Abkhazia.21 For small nations, unification was the only way to defend themselves and to withstand attempts to suppress their national-democratic movements.22 Georgian troops invaded Abkhazia on 14 August 1992. The Abkhazian National Guard failed to oppose the advancing Georgian forces because the Abkhazians had not been ready and the Georgian attack came as a surprise.23 The resolution adopted at the extraordinary session of the parliament of the CMPC demanded the withdrawal of the Georgian troops from the territory of Abkhazia before 21 August and compensation for the damage inflicted during the occupation.24 This ultimatum was regarded in Tbilisi as a bluff.25 On 21 August, after Georgia had not complied, the Confederation ‘ordered’ the arrest of ethnic Georgians within the territories of the CMPC as prisoners of war. Furthermore, despite a would-be opposition of republican or federal authorities, it called on volunteers to go 45

THE CASPIAN REGION

to fight in Abkhazia.26 This decree of the CMPC had a profound effect on the populace and thousands of volunteers, belonging to various national groups, arrived in Abkhazia. Already on 27 August the headquarters of the Georgian forces in Abkhazia announced that 4 ‘irregulars’ of the CMPC were detained in Sukhumi and 32 in the Gulripshskii raion.27 The importance of the Confederation’s support of the Abkhazians was evident: first, its armed formations played a notable role in the war, both before and during the September 1993 offensive, in which the Georgian forces were driven out of Abkhazia with heavy casualties. Second, it applied pressure on the various Caucasian autonomous republics to support Abkhazia. Thus, for example, Adyghe members of the Confederation’s armed forces warned the Adyghe government at the beginning of the crisis that it would be held responsible if they continued to follow a neutral line regarding the war in Abkhazia.28 Third, the leadership of the Confederation threatened that Georgia’s insistence on a military solution to the Abkhaz problem would result in a hundred-year war involving the entire Caucasus, which the Abkhazian leadership used very effectively. For example, Vladislav Ardzinba, the Abkhaz leader, said in an interview that the war in Abkhazia had to be stopped because it threatened to expand into an all-Caucasian conflict.29 Fourth, and most important, the Confederation put strong pressure on Moscow to interfere. Thus the deputy chairman of the Adyghe government, Ruslan Hajibekov, warned that Moscow stood to alienate the North Caucasian people because it was reacting very slowly,30 and the president of Adyghea appealed to Yeltsin to take the necessary measures immediately, since only Russia could stop Georgia.31 This verbal pressure added to the CMPC’s involvement in the war, its threats to expand it and threats by the Cossacks that they would take decisive steps to protect the Slav population in Abkhazia.32 Consequently, the Russian Supreme Soviet announced that the war in Abkhazia was leading to the spread of violence into the territory of the RF,33 and President Yeltsin added that Russia could not stand aside ‘when human rights [were] violated and the interests of citizens of Russian descent [were] trampled upon’.34 At the beginning of the crisis Moscow chose to remain passive for several reasons. Russian forces were on the verge of battle with secessionist Chechnya; the collapse of Georgia’s territorial integrity could have some implications for Russia’s own; and the Confederation’s armed formations backed particularly by the Chechens, as an alternative power structure, posed a threat to the central government.35 Also, while Russia, under the pressure of the Georgian authorities, 46

THE NORTH CAUCASUS, 1990–1999

was trying to stop the Confederation’s involvement in the Abkhaz– Georgian war, certain announcements of the Confederation, such as its rejection of Moscow’s jurisdiction within the territory of its members or its threats to expel officials representing the federal government from particularly Kabardino-Balkaria,36 if Moscow continued to follow a pro-Georgian policy bothered the Russian authorities. The Confederation had never been registered by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the RF. Its legality was questionable. Thus, the Russian Ministry of Justice decided that the actions of the CMPC were a gross violation of the Federal Constitution. Shanibov was called for a talk at the Kabardino-Balkarian Ministry of the Interior in Nalchik and arrested there on 23 September 1992. The leadership of the Confederation backed by various national movements such as the Kabardin People’s Congress strongly supported its leader, and called for the release of Shanibov, the resignation of the federal prosecutor and the withdrawal of OMON troops – the Interior Ministry Special Forces – from the republic.37 Thousands of people held demonstrations in Nalchik and clashed with OMON troops. As a result Valerii Kokov, president of Kabardino-Balkaria, introduced a state of emergency in the capital. Nevertheless, the unrest and clashes continued – Shanibov’s escape from prison notwithstanding. In Shanibov’s words, they were the inevitable result of the struggle between the Kabardino-Balkarian authorities who, through the Federation Treaty, were bound to the RF and the ‘freedom-lovers’ who were supporting the unity of North Caucasia.38 A few days after his arrest, Shanibov ‘escaped’ from prison in unexplained and even suspicious circumstances and went to Abkhazia. Some rumours claim that he was released by the Kabardino-Balkarian authorities due to the mounting pressure from the KPC and the Adyghe Khase, the political organisation of the Adyghe people, and their fear of a possible coup by the opposition. Other rumours maintain that the Russians let him out to prevent the unrest from spreading into other areas of the Caucasus. This uncertainty about Shanibov’s escape, the fact that upon his return to Nalchik a few years later he was not prosecuted,39 as well as his close relations with some nationalistic circles in Moscow, including Sergei Baburin,40 the chief expert on the Caucasus of the communist-controlled Duma and the head of the radical parliamentary factions, reinforce suspicions that Moscow manipulated the Confederation’s activities for its own aims. Shamil Basayev, for one, believes that ‘it was in Russia’s interests to have the Abkhaz–Georgian conflict grow into war so that both sides would be brought to their knees’.41 The aforementioned Russian policy paper42 pointed out a crucial fact concerning the region: history demonstrated that attempts 47

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toward Caucasian integration had always been anti-Russian in nature. The primary task of Moscow in the current developments was, therefore, to thwart the re-emergence of such an ‘unpleasant’ situation.43 Furthermore, ignoring these integrative attempts would mean losing the initiative to the Chechen leadership. Moscow thus took some concrete steps to control the developments that were working towards regional unity and to neutralise the CMPC.44 One such attempt was the Piatigorsk round table on the North Caucasus of October 1992, which aimed to create an inter-parliamentary forum of the North Caucasian republics. While opening the first meeting of the round table, the chairman of the Soviet of the Nationalities, Ramazan Abdulatipov, and Vice-Premier Sergei Shakhrai underlined their hope that this movement would become the main instrument for resolving the political and national problems of the region.45 However, these efforts did not yield positive results because they were implanted from above and lacked a social base in the region. Furthermore, after its success in the Abkhaz-Georgian war, the CMPC enjoyed widespread support among the peoples of North Caucasus. Its international reputation was also on the rise. With the incorporation of the Akki Chechens, the Darghins, the Lezgins and the Rutuls, the Confederation included representatives of 16 minorities and nationalities. Also the Karachay, the Nogay, the Kumyks and the Cossacks joined the Confederation as observers. The strength of the CMPC lay in the fact that it had support from popular movements and organisations and its leaders enjoyed considerable authority among their peoples – Shanibov in Kabarda, Konstantin Ozgan (the mayor of the Abkhazian town of Gudauta and a member of the ANF) in Abkhazia and Denga Khalidov (the leader of the Social Democratic Party of Daghestan) in Daghestan. Under these circumstances, the unclarity behind the question ‘Who used whom?’ during the Abkhaz–Georgian war, was not significant. The crucial problem was whether the Confederation would hold together. The Chechen war would provide the answer. Before that, however, the CMCP faced another Challenge. THE INGUSH–OSSET CONFLICT: THE CMPC AS A REGIONAL FORUM

The Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics (ASSRs) and the autonomous oblasts of the North Caucasus played the role of laboratory for the USSR’s nationality policy.46 Stalin’s policy was specifically designed to cut off all connections among the mountain peoples.47 Thus, contact on the official level between two local autonomies could only be made through Moscow.48 The deportations of four of the North Caucasian nationalities during 1943–44 – the Chechens, the 48

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Ingush, the Karachay and the Balkars – deepened this intricacy of the Soviet legacy. First, they caused territorial disputes among the deported and those who were settled in their lands. Second, they created a rift between ‘repressed’ and ‘non-repressed’ peoples that was a source of friction.49 The dispute between the Ingush and the Ossetians over the control of the Prigorodniy raion and the part of the city of Vladikavkaz east of the river since the Second World War is one of the most accurate reflections of these premises. The history of this strife is too long to be dwelt on in this chapter. However, as early as 1991, it was apparent that an armed conflict would erupt because both sides started an arms race.50 Furthermore, the settlement of refugees from South Ossetia in the disputed districts,51 who, following the destructive clashes with the Georgian forces in the course of 1990 and 1991, had to flee to North Ossetia, and the ambiguity of the Law on the Rehabilitation of Peoples Subjected to Repression added fuel to the smouldering fire. Articles 3 and 6 of the law passed by the Russian parliament on 26 August 1991, stated that the peoples involved would have their territories restored to them; however, the measures to implement the decision were not specified. The restoration of the Ingush Autonomous Republic in June 1992 deepened the crisis because the formation of a republic was proclaimed but there was no definition of its boundaries, its location, or its capital. Being aware of the high number of potential internal conflicts among its members, one of the goals of the CMCP was to act as a regional forum that would prevent the occurrence of such disputes among its members. Article 12 of the aforementioned Treaty on the CMPC stated that ‘questions within and between the subjects of the Confederation would, with agreement of the parties, be examined in the Confederation’s Court of Arbitration’. The members of the Court were elected during the November 1991 Congress in Sukhumi. Its decisions were of ‘a recommendatory character’ and were influenced by ‘the general opinion of the united peoples’. Indeed, in 1990 the Confederation managed to reach a compromise between the Laks and the Aki Chechens in Daghestan.52 In February 1944, the entire population of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR was deported to Kazakhstan and Siberia under the pretext that they had collaborated with the Germans during the Second World War. Chechens and Ingush in other cities and regions of the Soviet Union, including Aki Chechens from Daghestan, shared their fate. On 7 March 1944 the Chechen-Ingush Republic was liquidated and territories of the Vedensk district, including the Khasavyurt region, of the former Chechen-Ingush Republic was annexed to Daghestan. By order of the authorities, 61,000 people from the highlands were 49

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forcibly resettled into these newly formed Daghestani territories.53 Following the Chechen-Ingush Republic’s restoration in 1957, the Chechen and Ingush peoples were permitted to return to their native lands, but the Khasavyurt region remained under Daghestan’s control. Consequently, the Aki Chechens who succeeded to return to Daghestan found their ancestral lands occupied by the Laks and Avars. Once Soviet control vanished, the Aki Chechens were among the first who raised the question of their ancestral lands. In 1991, with the help of the Confederation, a peaceful solution to the dispute was found. The Khasavyurt district was to be returned to the Aki Chechens and the Laks were to be resettled on land to the north of Makhachkala. Nevertheless, the dispute remained unresolved since funds for resettlement were not forthcoming. The Ingush–Osset disagreement signified a very sensitive situation in the region, since the dispute could have become the source of further regional divisions. The leaders of the Confederation, most of whom were historians, knew that religion has been one of the factual reasons for regional divergence. Therefore, they repeatedly announced their determination to act for the Caucasian people of differing origins and religions. According to Shanibov, religion could lead to unexpected developments because it has been used throughout history as a means of a divide-and-rule policy.54 A conflict between the Muslim Ingush and the mainly Christian Ossetians thus could cause further divisions that, at the final analysis, would result in the emergence of two opposing blocks in the region. In this regard, the Cossacks were of vital importance. At the Emergency Congress in Groznyi on 3 October 1992 the name of the Confederation was changed to the Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus (CPC), in a move that aimed to open access for the Cossacks.55 Shanibov stated that the leadership of the Confederation envisaged an area of cooperation stretching from the Black Sea to Makhachkala, on the Caspian coast.56 On 15 December 1991, during a meeting in Nalchik57 and again on 28 February 1992 in Groznyi58 the Confederation called for a moratorium on the use of force, so that, with the support of the Ingush and Ossetians, peaceful solutions to their disputes could be found. However, it was extremely difficult to reach an agreement because, after the Chechen-Ingush ASSR was abolished in 1944, its territory was broken in such a way as to ensure the impossibility of its reinstatement in its original form.59 In addition, problems were usually anchored in the local customs. In Ingushetia, for instance, a son who failed to maintain his father’s house was seen as bringing dishonour upon the family name.60 In October 1992, clashes erupted. Having failed stop the Ingush 50

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side and to prevent the entrance of Russian troops (invited by North Ossetia) into the area, the Confederation put the blame on the Ingush. This was but the peak of a deterioration of relations between the two sides. Although members of the Confederation since August 1989, the Ingush refused to participate in the November 1991 congress in Sukhumi.61 The Confederation’s leadership’s specific attention to the Ossetians was most probably what bothered them: during the 17–18 October 1992 meeting in Groznyi, for instance, North Ossetia was described as the ‘spine’ of Russia in the North Caucasus. It was a republic that could easily change the political and national balances in the region.62 Consequently, the Confederation even threatened Ingushetia with expulsion because it had concealed its preparations for an armed attack on North Ossetia.63 There are even claims that North Ossetia was supported by armed formations of the North Caucasus.64 (North Ossets and Russian troops were also backed by the Cossacks, who were furious about the Ingush claim to land in the Prigorodnyi raion.65) According to Shanibov, the Ingush–Ossetian clashes were the greatest misfortune that could have happened to the North Caucasus.66 He accused the Ingush of being responsible for the clashes67 and Georgia and Russia of fomenting unrest by pitting one side against the other for their own purposes.68 For the Confederation the clashes signified a division within it. In the words of Yusup Soslambekov (a member of the National Chechen Congress and a close associate of the Chechen President Dudayev who was unanimously elected to the chairmanship of the Confederation’s parliament during the Congress on 1–2 November 1991), the work of the Confederation in this conflict suffered a terrible moral defeat because North Ossetia and Ingushetia were both members. The Confederation was also unsuccessful in acting as a peacekeeping force in the conflict,69 the approval of both the Ingush and the Osset leadership notwithstanding,70 because Russian forces – using this golden opportunity to isolate secessionist Chechnya – had already been deployed in the area. Nevertheless, the prestige of the Confederation did not suffer too much mainly because its success in the Abkhaz–Georgian war was still fresh in the minds. FROM ACTIVITY TO INACTIVITY: THE CHECHEN WAR AND THE CMPC

Moscow’s response to Chechnya’s declaration of independence in 1991 was very harsh. Fearing that the secession could trigger a domino effect all over the country, President Yeltsin sent troops to Vladikavkaz and threatened to invade Chechnya unless the 51

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declaration of independence was rescinded. The CMPC called on the Caucasian peoples to defend the Chechen people against Russian aggression,71 but even it was surprised by the results: in response, volunteer battalions from other areas of the North Caucasus arrived in Groznyi.72 A Turkish journalist wrote that there was general support for Dudayev as the symbol of pan-Caucasian unity.73 When the Russian parliament declined to approve Yeltsin’s orders and Russian troops were recalled, a fragile truce was in force between the two sides. Between 1991 and 1994, threats that a Russian military intervention in Chechnya would lead to a new Caucasian War became one of the main tactics employed by the Chechen leadership. The Chechens also indicated that Russian intervention could have implications on other parts of Russia, because, in Dudayev’s words, ‘the RF was not homogeneous and other ethnic communities would support the Chechens’.74 Shamil Basayev was convinced that the other Muslim republics in the North Caucasus would at least carry out sabotage and mass demonstrations if the Russians invaded Chechnya.75 There are signs that the Russian government also believed that a war in Chechnya would spread to neighbouring republics. The FSK, Russia’s Federal Counter-intelligence Service, for instance, warned that a military operation would irritate other Muslim autonomous republics like Tatarstan, would stir up the other Caucasian nations and increase the power of the CMPC.76 However, once the war had broken out both the Confederation and the peoples of the North Caucasus abstained from becoming involved in it. Within this setting, the extraordinary congress of the Confederation in Groznyi on 2–4 October 1992 requires special attention because it reflected, for the first time, the deep divergence in approach between the Chechens and the other members of the Confederation. As mentioned above, during the November 1991 congress in Sukhumi, the Confederation was shouldered with a very massive goal: to become the successor of the Mountain Republic of 1918. However, the Confederation made no serious attempt to realise this target. Just before the Congress, Dudayev may have thought that the situation was ripe to seize the initiative. In the beginning of September 1992, he convened a ‘Caucasian Round Table’ in Groznyi, which called on the various entities of the Caucasus to create a ‘Caucasian home’ within which each nation would enjoy security and an opportunity to develop freely. It also reaffirmed the need to set up a confederation of Caucasian states, a single system of collective security in the region and a supreme regional council of the Caucasus.77 Towards the end of the month, rumours, corroborated by the president of the International Circassian Association, Iurii Kalmykov,78 claimed that 52

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Dudayev was planning to proclaim a Caucasus mountain state. These were, however, denied by Movladi Udugov, chairman of the State Committee of the Chechen Republic for Press and Information, as ‘misinformation’.79 The extraordinary congress of the Confederation in Groznyi proposed that the official leaders of the republics rejected the (Russian) Federation Treaty of March 1992, which only 2 of the 21 republics, Tatarstan and Chechnya, refused to sign, as being at variance with the national interests of the peoples of the North Caucasus. All sociopolitical organisations and movements were advised to demand that the leaders of their republics should seek ‘real independence’. It also demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops from the area, the creation of a joint regional force to ensure national security, and the North Caucasian official leaders’ recognition of the independence of Chechnya, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.80 However, while both sides shared a consensus on issues of principle, they were discordant on practical measures, first and foremost in their approach to RussoCaucasian relations.81 The Chechens were demanding independence, hence they categorically refused to stay within the RF. Shanibov called Chechnya ‘the flagship of freedom in the region’. Nevertheless, he insisted that the other members of the Confederation should, for the time being, link their future with Russia.82 The first deputy chairman of the Confederation, Denga Khalidov, stated that at least ten years would be required to form a true Caucasian confederation. Within that period, he added, a confederate treaty should be signed with Russia.83 Dudayev, on his part, accused the leaders of the Confederation of behaving just like the Moscow-appointed officials of the republics.84 Under these circumstances, the response of the Confederation to the Russian invasion of Chechnya differed markedly from that to the Georgian invasion of Abkhazia. The extraordinary congress of the CPC in Nalchik (11 December 1994) described the Russian invasion as ‘the beginning of the second Caucasian War’,85 and called on the Caucasian peoples to ‘help the Chechens defend themselves against Russian aggression’.86 It warned President Yeltsin that some circles within the presidential administration had provoked the political and military situation in Chechnya.87 In addition, it invited the upper house of the Russian parliament, the Federation Council, to help resolve the dispute by negotiations with the legally elected Chechen government.88 Nevertheless, these calls remained words and the Confederation meticulously refrained from any involvement in the conflict throughout the war of 1994–96. Even when Yusup Soslambekov, a Chechen who over time became one of the main opponents to Dudayev in Chechnya, was elected chairman of the CPC in 1996,89 no affinity could be arrived at between the Confederation and the Chechen leadership. 53

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However, a closer look would reveal that this deep chasm was not between the Chechens and the CPC leadership, but rather between them and the Adyghe members of the Confederation supported by the Ossetians. The differences between the two sides centred not only on their approach to the role of Moscow, but also on the place of religion and nationalism in the region. Until the twentieth century, Islam was the only bond of unity in the North Caucasus. Its people had no national consciousness in the modern sense of the term.90 The Soviet period, particularly the Stalin era, changed this situation drastically. To destroy regional consciousness and unionist tendencies that were perceived as threatening the integrity of the Soviet state, nationalities were devised on territorial and/or linguistic principles and divided along artificially created ethnic lines. Such is the case of the Adyghe. Today there are three Adyghe ‘peoples’, namely the Kabarda, the Cherkes and the Adyghe, and several small isolated groups of Adyghe such as the Shapsugs and the Abaza. The Ossetians, though admittedly one people, are divided between Russia (North Ossetia) and Georgia (South Ossetia). The circumstances of the post-Soviet period inevitably caused an ethnic awakening that was far from being exclusively nationalistic. Rather, the restoration of the old order is the basic political national aspiration of most (though not all) of the North Caucasian nations today. The first policy preference of such nations is unification with their co-ethnics. This tendency is particularly active among the Ossets and the Adyghe. Dominant Adyghe organisations such as the Adyghe Khase, the KPC and the Adyghe National Congress, each of which talked about a revision of borders, favour the unification of all the Adyghe in their ancestral lands with the possible inclusion of those territories occupied by the Shapsugs.91 This tendency determines the stance of the Adyghe and the Ossetians toward Moscow, because efforts to unify mean an unavoidable war with Georgia. To alienate Russia, a potentially powerful ally against Georgia, cannot be risked. On the other hand, the basic present problem of the Adyghe republics is closely related to demographic considerations. None of them enjoys a clear majority within their territories; there is even no single city where they constitute the majority. This creates a sensitive situation vis-à-vis the Russian population and especially the Cossacks living in these areas. The Adyghe have, therefore, been trying to carefully avoid any provocation of both groups, and classify their movement as ‘patriotic’ rather than ‘nationalistic’.92 This fear of provoking the local Russians and thus Moscow was one of the main reasons for their reproach to Dudayev that he was too ambitious and behaved like a general not like a statesman.93 Another reason for maintaining a close relationship with Moscow is the Adyghe leadership’s belief 54

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that the federal structure of Russia has beneficial aspects for them in the cultural, economic and technical fields.94 During the 1994–96 war with Russia, Dudayev attempted to win the support of the Muslim communities of the FSU, and the North Caucasus in particular, by his call for jihad. However, a Western journalist observed that there were very few volunteers from the other North Caucasian republics.95 Islam still retains a crucial place in the Caucasus, but faces important restrictions. The legacy of Soviet atheism has in the post-Soviet period toned down the religious passions that once led to ghazavat. Besides, there are religious divisions within ethnic groups that are restricting the scope of action, as in the case of Ossetians, where both Christian and Muslim Ossets were fighting the Muslim Ingush.96 Muslim Adyghe, on the other hand, were fighting Christian Georgia on the side of their (mainly) Christian brothers the Abkhaz. Thus, the concerns of both the Adyghe and the Ossets determined the stance of the Confederation to the role of Islam. Finally, the Muslim nations of the Northern Caucasus, particularly the Adyghe, are cautious about their religious revival because of its potential to lead to a confrontation with the Slavic population, especially the Cossacks. The Adyghean president, for example, admitted in 1992 that his people had begun to feel the import of religion. However, he claimed, such religious import was due to the current ‘fashion’.97 Also Dudayev tried to reassure the non-Islamic population of the region. He stated that he divided neither region into north and south, nor according to religious belief.98 As early as 1991, Dudayev confirmed his intention to create a united armed force, a Caucasian army which would lead, essentially, to the union of the Caucasian states. The Stavropol and Kuban krais as well as the Volgograd and Rostov oblasts, with their Cossack population, were to be part of this union.99 He also insisted on including the Transcaucasian states in the Caucasian union and tried to mediate between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh war.100 Over time, however, the role of Islam in Chechen politics increased.101 The leaders of the Confederation, Shanibov in particular, rejected Dudayev’s approach, because to them the notion of brotherhood, which had been the main motivation behind the Confederation, was based on common culture and history. In that regard, the Transcaucasian nations were different from the North Caucasian peoples.102 Furthermore, even if they agreed to the premises of his policy vis-à-vis the Cossacks the response of the latter has been mixed. In May 1993, for instance, the Stavropol Agreement on Principles of Cooperation and Mutual Aid between the Confederation and the Cossacks of southern Russia that was signed 55

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by Shevtsov, was considered to be illegal by Starodubtsev, the ataman of the Terek Cossacks.103 Even if there was some closeness between the two sides in those days, this stemmed from the fact that both were fighting against Georgia in the Abkhaz war. In 1994, relations further deteriorated due to the problem of territorial exchange between Adygea and Krasnodar Krai. The Adyghe parliament formally proposed to the Krasnodar authorities an exchange of territory with the Krasnodar Krai so that Adyghea could be contiguous to both Karachay-Cherkess and Abkhazia. The Cossacks perceived this as a dangerous idea of creating a Muslim belt from the Black Sea to the Caspian.104 At the time this difference of opinions was concealed by other members of the Confederation by what they called the ‘Dudayev factor’. Dudayev was believed to wish to establish Chechnya’s ascendancy over other North Caucasian people. Indeed, from the beginning, Dudayev did not conceal his opinion that the Chechen nation, with its economy, history, geographic location and the impact of current developments, should play the leading role in the efforts towards independence and unity in the North Caucasus.105 Whether Dudayev really wanted to become the new ‘Shamil’ of the Caucasus is open to discussion, but this label was used to justify the inactivity of the Confederation, as well as its various members, in the Chechen war. Even the Abkhaz, who had been massively supported by the Chechens in their war with Georgia, used this ‘Dudayev factor’ as an excuse for their non-involvement in the Chechen war.106 CONCLUSION

Besides the aforementioned differences in policy preferences of member nations, there were two other obstacles of vital importance to the successful attainment of the CPC’s three goals to unite all the Caucasian peoples in one single state; to create a common defence system against foreign aggression; and to resolve peacefully the disagreements amongst the peoples of the North Caucasus. First, the radical decisions of the Confederation between 1989 and 1991 were allowed by the fact that, following the disintegration of the USSR, the RF was in a process of transformation and the central government’s authority over its federal subjects was week. Even in North Caucasian republics where the old nomenklatura with its repressive methods was still in power, like Kabardino-Balkaria or Daghestan, the popular movements enjoyed a considerable degree of freedom of action. The September 1992 events in Nalchik are, perhaps, the most notable example to this. Except for the Chechens, 56

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however, none of the national movements that were at the same time members of the Confederation succeeded in taking advantage of this situation to seize power. After 1992 this interregnum ended and Moscow seemed to realise that the Confederation could be used against an insubordinate Georgia. Henceforth, Moscow determined the scale of the Confederation’s activities and this had an important impact on its second aim of creating a common defence system against foreign aggression. In a period when the Confederation was facing the dilemma of whether to become registered with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and to obtain legal recognition, the armed formations of the Confederation used in the Abkhaz war could not be transformed into a permanent body. In Shanibov’s words, this decision conflicted with the federal constitution, as well as with those of the various republics involved, and had to be cancelled.107 Thus, the idea of a system of collective defence broke down. Second, from the beginning the Confederation failed to include all the Caucasian peoples. Whereas the Adyghe members of the Confederation were cautious about becoming a tool of Dudayev’s plans, there were other peoples who believed that the interests of the Adyghe occupied the foremost position within the Confederation. The Karachay Cema‘at, and the National Council of the Balkar People, the popular movements of the Balkars and Karachay aiming to restore their autonomy within the pre-1943 borders, refused to join the Confederation, since they are facing an array of problems with the Cherkes and Kabarda respectively. Furthermore, together with the Kumyks and Nogay of Daghestan they formed the ‘Assembly of Turkic Peoples’ which was supported by Chechnya108 and Azerbaijan. Shanibov accused these Turkic nations of having divided the region and claimed that they ‘aimed to revive the ancient Kipchak state’.109 The division within the Confederation apart, this division on the regional level overshadowed the aim of the Confederation to act as a regional forum for the peaceful solution of disputes. In 1997, just after the presidential elections in Chechnya, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, the acting president after the death of Dudayev who lost the elections, reportedly initiated a new movement in Groznyi for the unity of the Caucasus and for ‘liberation from Russian colonialism’ (Kavkazskii Dom).110 In fact, such attempts have been growing in recent years, particularly since the Chechen victory of 1996. However, after the CPC experience it seems to be unrealistic to assume that such attempts will succeed to comprise all the Caucasian peoples or become more effective. The factor that united the members of the Confederation in the first half of the 1990s was neither religion nor culture, nor common history. Rather it was 57

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the war against Georgia. The factor that has curbed the CPC and is of crucial importance for any future attempt at integration of the Caucasus is whether the Caucasian peoples are willing to follow the Chechens and defy Russia. So far most of them have not. Each of these peoples has its own set of reasons to court Moscow, or at least not to antagonise the only arbiter in the area. Even the Ingush, ethnically related to and indirectly supporting the cause of the Chechens, have distanced themselves from their cousins’ aspirations because the Kremlin promised them that Ingushetia would be returned to its borders of 1944.111 Being aware of this, Moscow pursues a ‘stick and carrot’ policy. However, the stability in the region is temporary and Moscow’s policy is an issue of serious concern and a potential source of future conflicts, since the level of disappointment of these people is going to be another decisive factor for the future of the region. NOTES 1 Tomas Valasek, ‘Interview. Shamil Basayev,’ Jane’s Defence Weekly, Vol. 32, No.14 (6 October 1999), p. 32. 2 See Cevher [Johar] Dudayev, Özgürlük Kolay Deg˘il [Freedom is not so Easy] (I˙stanbul: Turan Kültür Vakfı, 1996), p. 107. 3 Marie Bennigsen-Broxup, ‘After the Putsch, 1991’, in Abdurahman Avtorkhanov and Marie Bennigsen-Broxup (eds), The North Caucasus Barrier: The Russian Advance towards the Muslim World (London: Christopher Hurst, 1992), p. 236. 4 Sovet Bezopasnosti RF, Rabochaia Grupa Spetsial’noi Mezhregional’noi Kommissii, Obosnovanie Sovremennoi Natsional’noi Politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii na Severnom Kavkaze [The Basis of the Present-day National Policy of the Russian Federation in the North Caucasus] (Moscow, 1992), p. 46. 5 ‘Kafkasya Halkları Konfederasyonu, Hedef Avrupa Modeli Birlik [The Confederation of the Caucasian Peoples, The Objective is Unity on the European Model]’, Kafkasya Gerçeg˘i (Samsun), No. 9 (July 1992), p. 11. 6 Musa Y[uriy] S¸enibe [Shanibov], Kafkasya’da Birlig˘in Zaferi [The Victory of Unity in the Caucasus], trans. Nartan Elbruz (Istanbul: Nart, Yayıncılık, 1997), p. 33. 7 A Kabarda social scientist and senior lecturer at the Kabardino-Balkar University. In the past, a Komsomol member and a Party official. 8 Minority Rights Group, The North Caucasus: Minorities at a Crossroads (London, 1994), p. 30. 9 This congress was regarded as the continuation of the first of 1917 and the second of 1918. The three congresses that followed the 1918 congress (the third, fourth and fifth) were not taken into account because they were convened by the Bolsheviks. 10 Article 1 of the Treaty on the Confederative Union of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus, 2 November 1991. B. G. Hewitt, ‘Abkhazia: A Problem of Identity and Ownership’, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 12, No. 3 (1993), pp. 267–323. 11 ‘Kafkasya Dag˘lı Halkları Konfederasyonu, Bas¸kan S¸enibe Açıkladı: Dag˘lıların

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26

27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

Yüzyıllar Boyu Arzu Ettikleri Birlig˘i Gerçekles¸tiriyoruz [The Confederation of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus, President S¸enibe Reveals: We are Realizing the Unity of which the Mountaineers Have Dreamed for Centuries]’, Kafkasya Gerçeg˘i, No. 7 (January 1992), p. 2. Ibid, p. 2. The structure of the Confederation was set up in a very democratic way. At the top of the Confederation there was a president and the Presidential Council, with one representative of each nation on the Council. The Parliament of the Confederation had three representatives from each people and was responsible for developing the programme of the Confederation’s work on a yearly basis. ‘Kafkasya Dag˘lı Halkları Konfederasyonu’, p. 1. ‘Kuzey Kafkas Halkları Konfederasyonu [The Confederation of the Peoples of the Northern Caucasus]’ Yedi Yıldız (I˙stanbul, the unofficial publication of the Confederation in Turkey), No.1 (January 1994), p. 20. ‘Report of a UNPO Mission to Abkhazia, Georgia and the Northern Caucasus’, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 12, No. 3 (1993), p. 331. John Colarusso, ‘Abkhazia’, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1995), p. 83. Ibid, p. 83. ‘Kafkasya Dag˘lı Halkları Konfederasyonu’, p. 3. Ibid. Stanislav Lakoba, ‘Abkhazia is Abkhazia’, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1995), p. 104. Musa S¸enibe [Shanibov], ‘Yeniden Dog˘us¸a Hizmet Etmek [To Serve to the Revival]’ Kafkasya Gerçeg˘i, No. 3 (January 1991), p. 14; Musa S¸enibe, Kafkasya’da Birlig˘in, p. 35. ‘Report of a UNPO Mission’, p. 334. Russia TV Channel, 19 August 1992 as quoted by BBC, Summary of World Broadcasts (SWB), Part 1: the Soviet Union, SU/1465 C2/2, 21 August 1992. Aleksei Zverev, ‘Etnicheskie Konflikty na Kavkaze, 1988–1994 [Ethnic Conflicts in the Caucasus, 1988–1994]’, in B. Koppiters (ed.), Spornye Granitsy na Kavkaze [Disputed Borders in the Caucasus] (Moscow: Ves’ Mir, 1996), p. 57. ‘Ukaz Prezidenta i Predsedatel’ia Parlamenta Konfederatsii Gorskih Narodov Kavkaza [Decree of the President and the Chairman of the Parliament of the Confederation of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus]’, Nalchik, 21 August 1992, Kafkasya Gerçeg˘i, No. 10, October 1992, p. 76. ITAR-TASS, 27 August 1992 in SWB, SU/1472 C1/2, 29 August 1992. ‘Adige Halkına ve Adige Cumhurbas¸kanına Çag˘rı [Appeal to the Adyghe People and to theAdyghean President]’, Kafkasya Gerçeg˘i, No. 10 (October 1992), p. 70. Trud, 7 May 1993 as quoted in US, Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), 17 May 1993, p. 107. Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 21 August 1992 – SWB, SU/1469 C3/1, 26 August 1992. A. A. Carımov [Dzharymov], Özerklikten Cumhuriyete Adige [Adyghea, from Autonomy to Republic] (Ankara: Türk Kalkınma ve I˙s¸birlig˘i Ajansı, 1996), pp. 196–7. ITAR-TASS, 25 August 1992 – SWB, SU/1470 C1/2, 27 August 1992. ITAR-TASS, 25 September 1992 – SWB, SU/1497 C2/1, 28 September 1992. Russia TV Channel, 6 October 1992 – SWB, SU/1505 C3/6, 7 October 1992. Obosnovanie Sovremennoi Natsional’noi Politiki , pp. 40–1. Moscow Radio, 29 August 1992 – SWB, SU/1474 C1/1, 1 September 1992. ITAR-TASS, 24 September, 1992 – SWB, SU/1495 I, 25 September 1992.

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THE CASPIAN REGION 38 ‘27 Eylül Olaylarının Perde Arkası [The Background of the Events of 27 September]’ Marje (Ankara), February 1993, p. 7. 39 The criminal case against him had not been dropped, but it was not progressing in any way. 40 Zverev, ‘Etnicheskie Konflikty na Kavkaze, 1988–1994’, p. 58. 41 Segodnia, 1 February 1994 – FBIS, 16 February 1994, p. 22. 42 Obosnovanie Sovremennoi Natsional’noi Politiki. 43 Ibid., p. 45. 44 Ibid., p. 46. 45 Rossiiskaia Gazeta, 20 January 1993 – FBIS-USR-93–013, 5 February 1993. 46 Barasbi Baytugan, ‘The North Caucasus’, Studies on the Soviet Union, Vol. XI, No. 1 (1971), p. 27. 47 Moshe Gammer, ‘Unity, Diversity and Conflict in the Northern Caucasus’, in Y. Ro’i (ed.), Muslim Eurasia: Conflicting Legacies (London: Frank Cass, 1995), p. 165. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid., p. 167. 50 A. G. Zdravomyslov, Mezhnatsional’nye konflikty v postsovetskom prostranstve [Inter-National Conflicts in the post-Soviet Space] (Moscow: Aspekt Press, 1997), p. 89. 51 Ingush Memorial, Report on the Mass Violation of the Rights of Citizens of Ingush Nationality in the RF 1992–1995 (Nazran-Moscow: Zerkalo, 1996), p. 11. 52 Suzanne Goldenberg, The Pride of Small Nations (London: Zed Books, 1994), p. 181. 53 Tak eto bylo. Natsional’nye represii v SSSR, 1919–1952 gody [That is How it Was. National Repressions in the USSR, 1919–1952] (Moscow: Insan, 1993), Vol. II, p. 219. 54 S¸enibe, ‘Yeniden Dog˘us¸a’, p. 15. 55 ITAR-TASS, 3 October 1992 – SWB, SU/1504 C1/2, 6 October 1992. 56 ‘Zamanımız Kafkas Halklarının Ulusal Bilince ve Bag˘ımsızlıg˘a Sarılması Zamanıdır [Now is the Time for the North Caucasian Peoples to Lead the Way towards National Consciousness and Independence]’, Kaf-Der Bülten (Ankara), No. 5 (January 1994), p. 2. 57 ‘Kuzey Kafkas Halklarına Çag˘rı [Appeal to the North Caucasian Peoples]’, Kafkasya Gerçeg˘i, No. 8 (April 1992), p. 1. 58 ‘Kafkasya Dag˘lı Halkları Konfederasyonu Parlamentosunun 4. Toplantısı [The Fourth Session of the Parliament of the Confederation of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus]’, Marje, July 1992, p. 25. 59 Julian Birch, ‘Ossetia: A Caucasian Bosnia in Microcosm’, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1995), p. 53. 60 Goldenberg, The Pride of Small Nations, p. 210. 61 ‘Kafkasya Dag˘lı Halkları Konfederasyonu, Bas¸kan S¸enibe’, p. 2. 62 ‘Kendimizden Bas¸ka Kimse Bize Yardımcı Olmayacaktır [Nobody Will Help Us but Ourselves]’, Kafkasya Gerçeg˘i, No. 11 (January 1993), pp. 8–9. 63 RIA News Agency, 13 November 1992 – SWB, SU/1540 B/3, 17 November 1992. 64 Zdravomyslov, Mezhnatsional’nye Konflikty, p. 91. 65 Vanora Bennett, Crying Wolf (London: Picador, 1998), pp. 149–50. 66 Interfax, 1 November 1992 – SWB, SU/1528 B/5, 3 November 1992. 67 S¸enibe, Kafkasya’da Birlig˘in, p. 34. 68 Interfax, 1 November 1992 – SWB, SU/1528 B/5, 3 November 1992.

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THE NORTH CAUCASUS, 1990–1999 69 ‘Interviews. President of Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus on the Future of this Organization and on the Situation in Chechnya’, Caucasus Review, Vol. I, No. 2, 1994, p. 15. 70 ‘Kafkasya Milli Hareketlerinin Oset-ingus¸ Anlas¸mazlıg˘ına Bakıs¸ı [The Caucasian National Movements’ Stance Towards the Ingush–Ossetian Disagreement]’, Kafkasya Gerçeg˘i, No. 11 (January 1993), pp. 18–19. 71 S¸enibe, Kafkasya’da Birlig˘in, pp. 42–3. 72 Goldenberg, The Pride of Small Nations, pp. 185–6. 73 Ethem Baykal, ‘Çeçen Bag˘ımsızlıg˘ı ve Dudayev [Chechen Independence and Dudayev]’, in S. Mansur (ed.), Çeçenler [The Chechens] (Ankara: Sam Yayınları, 1993), pp. 185–91. 74 ‘Ins Irrenhaus, Interview mit Praesident Dschochar Dudayev über seine Wiedersacher,’ Der Spiegel, No. 41 (October–December 1994), pp. 176–7. 75 Anatol Lieven, Chechnya. Tombstone of Russian Power (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1998), p. 96. The interview took place in August 1994. 76 Ibid., p. 89. 77 Ostankino Channel 1 TV, 13 September 1992 – SWB, SU/1488 B/3, 17 September 1992. 78 Interfax, 29 September 1992 – SWB, SU/1500 B/1, 1 October 1992. For the Association as well as for Kalmykov see Chapter 4 in this volume. 79 Radio-1, 30 September 1992 – SWB, SU/1500 B/2, 1 October 1992. 80 ITAR-TASS, 4 October 1992 – SWB, SU/1504 C1/1, 6 October 1992. 81 ITAR-TASS, 3 October 1992 – SWB, SU/1504 C1/2, 6 October 1992. 82 Ibid. 83 Interfax, 4 October 1992 – SWB, SU/1504 C1/1, 6 October 1992. 84 S¸erif Asuyev, ‘Çeçen Bas¸kanlıg˘ına Seçilis¸inin Yıldönümünde Cohar Dudayev’le Bir Söyles¸i [An Interview with Johar Dudayev on the Anniversary of His Election to Presidency in Chechnya]’, Kafkasya Gerçeg˘i, No. 11 (January 1993), pp. 12–14; Dudayev, Özgürlük, p. 85. 85 ‘Rezoliutsiia Chrezvychainogo S’ezda Narodov Kavkaza [The Resolution of the Extraordinary Congress of the Caucasian Peoples]’, Nalchik, 11 December 1994. The author is thankful to Ömer Aytek Kurmel, the representative of the Confederation in Turkey, for allowing the use of this and the other documents quoted below. 86 Ibid. 87 ‘Obrashchenie k Prezidentu Rossiiskoi Federatsii B. N. Eltsinu [Appeal to the President of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin]’, Nal’chik, 11 December 1994. 88 ‘Obrashchenie k Federal’nomu Sobraniiu Rossiiskoi Federatsii [Appeal to the Federation Council of the Russian Federation]’, Nal’chik, 11 December 1994. 89 Indeed, during the congress in Nalchik on 21 December 1994, Shanibov was replaced by Ali Aliev, who, until the election of Yusup Soslambekov, served as acting chairman of the Confederation. 90 Alexandre Bennigsen and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, Islam in the Soviet Union (Bristol: Pall Mall Press, 1967), p. 16. 91 The Abkhaz desire to be attached to the RF lies partly in the fact that, in the words of the Abkhazian Foreign Minister, Smyr Zurab, ‘within the RF there are living Adyghe groups who are ethnically, culturally and linguistically related to Abkhaz’: ‘Röportaj: Adigey Abhazya Kardes¸lig˘i [Report: The AdygheAbkhazian Brotherhood]’, Kaf-Der Bülten, No. 12 (August 1994), p. 4. 92 ‘Çerkes Bilim Heyeti Türkiye’de [The Circassian Delegation is in Turkey]’, KafDer Bülten, No. 12 (August 1994), p. 5.

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THE CASPIAN REGION 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101

102 103 104 105 106 107 108

109 110 111

For example, see Carımov, Özerklikten, pp. 193–4. ‘Çerkes Bilim, p. 5. Lieven, Chechnya, pp. 84, 101. In North Ossetia there is a considerable number of Muslim Ossets. ‘Dönüs¸ için Bir Hazırlık Dönemi Gerekiyor [Time is Essential for Organizing the Return]’, Marje, August 1992, p. 32. Segodnia, 31 May 1994 – FBIS, 20 June 1994, pp. 44–7 Ostankino Channel 1 TV, 23 February 1992 – SWB, SU/1313 B/10, 25 February 1992. ‘Dudayev Azeri ve Ermeniler Arasında Arabulucu [Dudayev is the Mediator between the Azeris and the Armenians]’, Kafkasya Gerçeg˘i, No. 11 (January 1993), p. 18. As early as 1992, Dudayev stated that the place of Islam in Chechen politics would depend on the political situation in the Republic and the outside pressure to which it was subjected. If negative external factors intensified, Islam would become stronger. For Dudayev’s thoughts concerning the role of religion, see Dudayev, Özgürlük, p. 82. ‘Kafkasya Halkları Konfederasyonu, Hedef’, p. 12. Segodnia, 13 August 1993 – FBIS, 1 September 1993, pp. 22–3. David Nismann, ‘Russia and the Caucasus’, Perceptions, Vol. I, No. 2 (June–August 1996), p. 76. I˙zzet Aydemir, ‘Röportaj: C. Dudayev [Interview: J. Dudayev]’, Marje, June 1992, pp. 20–2. Paula Garb, ‘Abhazya Raporu [Report on Abkhazia]’, Kaf-Der Bülten, No. 30 (February 1996), p. 10. Kaf-Der Bülten, No. 5 (January 1994), p. 9. Over time, the proximity between these Turkic nations and the Chechens grew. When the Russian invasion of Chechnya began, Dudayev and a Balkar general, Sufiyan Beppayev, who formerly commanded Russian troops in Transcaucasia (Azerbaijan and Georgia), reportedly discussed over the telephone the possibility of opening a second front – ‘Russia’s Own Vietnam Syndrome’, Newsweek, 30 January 1995, p. 36. Also, Russian media reported that the Chechens, particularly Salman Raduyev, the famous Chechen commander and a nephew by marriage of Dudayev, trained the armed formations of the Balkars – Il’ya Maksakov, ‘Pravitel’stvo poka ne sformirovano [The Government is not Formed yet]’, Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 12 March 1997, p. 3. S¸enibe, Kafkasya’da Birlig˘in, pp. 15, 39. Marie Bennigsen, ‘Chechnia: Political Developments and Strategic Implications for the North Caucasus’, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 18, No. 4 (1999), p. 547. Mahomed Mamilov, the deputy chairman of the Ingush People’s Council, quoted by Lieven, Chechnya, pp. 70–1.

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4

The Congresses of the International Circassian Association: Dilemmas of an Ethno-National Movement1 Chen Bram

Founded at the beginning of the 1990s, the International Circassian Association (ICA)2 brings together Adyghe and Abkhaz activists from the republics and districts in which Adyghe (including Cherkes, Adygheans and Kabardians) and Abkhaz (Abkhazians and Abaza) reside in the North Caucasus, as well as activists from the Circassian diaspora throughout the world.3 The ICA’s activities have given rise to a number of questions about continuity and change in the Caucasus: the ICA represents a new phenomenon, and has embraced novel formulas for action. At the same time, it has rallied to a banner last unfurled by the United Circassian Front during the final stages of their war against Russia in the nineteenth century – although the Circassians have never had a common political entity of their own.4 The aim of this chapter is to review the evolution of the ICA, the congresses it has held, its components and activities. In particular, it will examine several major dilemmas relating to the ICA’s activities. More noteworthy than the mere novelty of the ICA’s activities is the insight this provides into broader issues, and the fact that it leads one to engage in a yet broader discussion of the Circassian question – a discourse on the Circassians in the Caucasus against the background of the developments and ethnic conflicts in the region, and an examination of the Circassians as a diaspora people. CIRCASSIANS, ADYGHE AND ABKHAZIANS

The Adyghe and the Abkhaz are indigenous Caucasian people. In the wake of the Russian conquest of the Caucasus, a good part of the 63

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Circassian people fled/left their homeland, settling eventually in various areas within the Ottoman Empire. It is difficult to determine the number of emigrants who left at that juncture: estimates range from hundreds of thousands to 1.5 million persons.5 The majority of Circassians have lived within the confines of the present day Republic of Turkey, although a small portion of them were settled by the Ottoman authorities in other parts of the empire – primarily in regions that were far from the centre in order to counterbalance local forces that were straining against Ottoman rule.6 Thus, some Circassians settled east of the Jordan river,7 in various parts of Syria – particularly on the Golan Heights – and in the eastern Galilee in Israel. During the twentieth century, secondary migration patterns produced Circassian communities in Europe and the US. Demographic statistics on concentrations of Circassians throughout the world are virtually non-existent. Various estimates place the number of Circassians in the North Caucasus today at around 0.5 million people.8 The largest Circassian population resides in Turkey – probably 2–3 million – it is, however, very difficult to arrive at any estimate of this population.9 Populations of under 100,000 reside in Syria and Jordan, with significant numbers residing in, for example, Germany, Holland, the US and Yugoslavia.10 These communities are primarily Adyghe, with some Abkhaz as well. The largest population of Abkhaz outside the Caucasus is in Turkey – about 350,000.11 The Circassians who remain in the Caucasus are nowadays divided among three autonomous republics within the RF. According to the last Soviet census, approximately 570,000 Circassians lived in the Caucasus in 1989. About 391,000 Kabardians (roughly 93 per cent of the Kabardians in the Caucasus) resided in the Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous Republic. Accounting for 48.2 per cent of the population, the Kabarda – one of the Circassian tribes – were, thus, the largest nationality in the republic. In Adyghea some 95,000 Adyghe were counted, or 76 per cent of those who identified themselves as ‘Adyghe’. They constitute 22 per cent of the population of Adyghea, the majority being Russian. At the time of the census Adyghea was an Autonomous District. In 1990 it declared itself an Autonomous Republic and this status became official some time later. In Karachai-Cherkesiia about 40,000 Cherkes were counted, making up 9.6 per cent of the population.12 Karachai-Cherkesiia had been an Autonomous District too, which declared itself an Autonomous Republic. Circassians also inhabit the area of Shapsugia, on the shores of the Black Sea, which is part of the Krasnodar krai in the RF. A small Circassian community lives in the city of Krasnodar, as well as in other cities and towns in the krai – 21,000 according to 64

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the 1989 census. Additional groups live in various parts of the Caucasus, and in the major cities of Russia. The majority of these populations speak one of the various dialects of the Adyghe language (Kabarda, Western-Adyghe, etc.), and identify themselves as ‘Adyghe’. The term ‘Adyghe’ implies a common identity and outlook and hints at the ethical-behavioural code that unites all Adyghe – though in a number of distinct variations – the Adyge Khabzah. Thus, when a member of this people encounters a person he suspects to be an insider, he will ask in his native tongue, ‘Are you an Adyghe?’ The Abkhaz are commonly viewed as a separate people, in close historical, cultural and linguistic ties with the Adyghe. Abkhazia lies along the shores of the Black Sea, to the south-west of the largest concentrations of the Adyghe. Until the dissolution of the USSR it was an Autonomous Republic within Georgia. Since then a conflict has been seething with various degrees of intensity between Abkhazia and Georgia.13 According to the 1989 census 93,267 Abkhaz then living in Abkhazia amounted to 18 per cent of the population. A group that serves as a link between the Adyghe and the Abkhaz are the Abaza.14 This group is quite similar to the Abkhaz in terms of language, ethnic identity and culture, but lives north of the main range of the Caucasus, primarily in Karachai-Cherkesia, in close proximity to the Adyghe.15 The 1989 census reported 33,000 Abaza, 88 per cent of whom lived in Karachai-Cherkesia. Social ties – including some intermarriage – as well as local political cooperation exist between the Abaza and the Adyghe. This is why they have been able to serve as a liaison between these groups, for the Abaza also live among both the Adyghe and the Abkhaz in the various Circassian communities outside the Caucasus. Despite their closeness to the Abkhaz, the Abaza like to emphasise their own separate identity; at the Circassian congresses this manifests itself in the use of their separate symbols alongside the Abkhazian flag and the flag common to all the Adyghe (12 stars and 3 crossed spears on a green background). Today, the Great Caucasian range separates Abkhazia from most Circassian communities. In the past the Abkhaz and the Adyghe enjoyed territorial continuity – the Adyghe dwelling along the shore of the Black Sea immediately to the north of the Abkhaz. The remnants of these groups, particularly the Shapsug, can be found in the greater Shapsug raion (district) of the Krasnodar krai, near the city of Tuapse. Another community in this area were the Ubykh, who lived in between the Abkhaz and the Adyghe in the district surrounding the city of Sochi. The Ubykh thus formed a cultural, linguistic and geographical bridge between their two neighbours.16 As a result of the 65

Map 4: The North-Western Caucasus: Ethnic Composition

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Russian conquest in the nineteenth century, the Ubykh ceased to exist as a separate group with its own language. Today, the descendants of the Ubykh live among the Adyghe in Turkey. The term ‘Circassian’ has had a number of different meanings and shades of meaning at different times and in different places. In Russia and the Caucasus the name takes on a double meaning: it is used generally to refer to all the Adyghe, and specifically to identify the Adyghe-speaking residents of Karachai-Cherkesia. Thus, although actually an external label, great weight is attached to the term ‘Circassian’, since this is the principal label by which the Adyghe are referred to. Their name for themselves, ‘Adyghe’, is not even familiar to many of those who use the term Circassian freely. As a result, this originally outsiders’ label has to a large extent been adopted by the Circassians/Adyghe themselves, both in and outside the Caucasus.17 In the Middle East, on the other hand, the term ‘Circassian’ refers to any person of Caucasian origin, and particularly to Adyghe and Abkhaz. In fact, this is the name commonly used everywhere to refer to the diaspora communities of the north-western Caucasus. Indeed the name has also, to a large extent, been adopted by these communities themselves, and expresses the strong affiliation and cooperative organisational efforts between the Adyghe and the Abkhaz outside the Caucasus. The complexity and multi-level uses of these terms stem from geographical and historical links but, as one would like to suggest, they also enable context-dependent choices in relation to identity. Against this background, the fact that the ICA – the organisation that unites Adyghe and Abkhazians – has adopted the name ‘Circassian’ is of enormous significance, even if it is dominated by the Adyghe. Thus, on the one hand, the ambiguity occasioned by this multi-level use is exploited by the movement’s leadership, for it enables the movement to simultaneously be an Adyghe organisation and a general organisation that unites Adyghe and Abkhaz-Abaza. On the other hand, the name is indicative of the partnership between the various Adyghe subgroups, and the Abkhaz and Abaza. THE ICA AND ITS CONGRESSES

The idea of establishing a comprehensive worldwide organisation of all the various Circassian communities throughout the world was raised in a meeting of representatives of the Circassian diaspora in Europe and Turkey, that was held in Holland in 1989.18 Following that, the first congress of representatives of the Circassian communities of the Caucasus and the diaspora was held in Nalchik, the capital of the 67

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Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous Republic, in May 1991. At that congress the ICA was officially established, its leadership chosen, its various internal institutions established, and a decision was taken to hold a congress of the organisation every two years. The second congress of the ICA was held in 1993 in Maikop, the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Adyghea. In 1995, a congress was to be convened in Abkhazia, but due to the conflict there and the general situation in the Caucasus at that time, it did not take place. Thus, the third congress of the ICA was held a year later, in the summer of 1996, in Cherkessk, the capital of the Karachai-Cherkes Autonomous Republic. The fourth congress of the organisation was initially scheduled to take place in the Shapsug Autonomous District, but was held, due to organisational difficulties and, apparently, political considerations, in the city of Krasnodar in 1998. On the final day of the congress, representatives of the participating delegations visited Shapsugia. The fifth congress was held in Nalchik between 27 and 30 July 2000 under heavy security provided by the Kabardino-Balkarian authorities (which reflected the tension in the region following the outbreak of the second war in Chechnya). Zaurbay Nakhatova, a member of the Kabardino-Balkar parliament, was chosen as the new ICA Chairman and replaced Boris Akbashev.19 Participants in the ICA congresses represented Circassian communities from the Caucasus and elsewhere. The delegations from the Circassian/Adyghe communities in the Caucasus were divided according to official Russian/Soviet classifications: Kabarda, Cherkesia, Adyghea, the Shapsug district, representatives of the Circassian community of Krasnodar and representatives of other communities in Russia (for example Moscow and St Petersburg) formed by ‘internal migration’. There were also delegations from Abkhazia and of the Abaza from Karachai-Cherkesia. Representatives of the Circassian diaspora in the Middle East included a delegation from Turkey, which was actually composed of several groups from different regions (these included Abkhazians from Turkey), a delegation from Jordan (which, at least at one of the congresses, included representatives of two competing Circassian organisations in that country), a delegation from Syria and one from Israel. There were also delegations from communities in Europe and the US.20 At the second congress of the ICA in Maikop, a delegate from Yugoslavia also participated. But under the prevailing state of affairs in the region in 1996, no representative of this small community arrived.21 There has been a great deal of continuity among the congress participants, since in many instances the same delegates continue to represent their communities time after time; on the other hand there has also been some turnover. 68

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In some cases, ambiguity has arisen concerning the method of electing delegates. Because no uniform system of election has been instituted, differences have occurred between the better organised communities (the so-called Adyghe Kh’ase, meaning Circassian council – a term generally used in the diaspora to refer to local or regional organisations), and those with state-wide or national representation. As it stands, the ICA generally equates voting mandates with the size of each delegation. Thus, the last congress in Krasnodar approved a new division of mandates. For instance, four mandates were accorded to the representatives of each of the autonomous republics of the Caucasus, four to the Abkhazian delegation, nine to the representatives from Turkey, four to those from Syria (one of which goes to the Syrian Abaza community), and so forth. Among the groups to be accorded mandates will be the representatives of Rodina – the organisation in the Circassian republics responsible for maintaining contacts with Circassian diaspora.22 The ICA has a permanent secretariat under the direction of a chairman elected during the course of each congress. This secretariat is currently based in Cherkessk. The first chairman of the ICA was Iurii Kalmykov, who resigned from this position shortly after the second congress in Maikop in the summer of 1993, having been appointed in April 1993 as Minister of Justice of the RF. The chairmanship was restored to Kalmykov after he stepped down from the Russian government in December 1994, in consequence of events in Chechnya.23 Since Kalmykov’s death in 1997, his former deputy, Boris Akbashev, has served as chairman. Despite the confusion regarding the manner of selecting representatives, and other organisational difficulties, the ICA has succeeded in laying the foundations of continuity and organised activity through a novel combination of an established organisation based on the representation of constituents, with by-laws and resolutions decided by vote, and the more voluntary character of Circassian community organisations outside of the Caucasus. This voluntary character, along with the network of informal ties that exist between the various community activists, constitutes an important factor in the establishment of the ICA (this in spite of the numerous difficulties and tensions inherent in these renewed affiliations). This network of relationships offers a counterweight to the overly bureaucratic and convoluted character of Russo-Soviet political culture and organisational attitudes that some of the Circassian delegates from within the Caucasus brought with them to the ICA. The congresses were planned in cooperation with the autonomous republics in which they took place. This cooperation was particularly evident in the congresses of Maikop (1993) and Cherkessk (1996). 69

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The atmosphere prevailing at these meetings reveals the many changes that have occurred in the region, and testifies to the long road traversed by the Circassian congresses. The first congress was organised in relative secrecy, in an atmosphere of apprehension and doubt as to the significance of the congress, to Moscow’s reaction to it, how it would be viewed by other ethnic groups in the Caucasus, and how local Russian leaders might react to it. The Maikop congress was planned in close cooperation with the Republic of Adyghea, and great emphasis was laid on the ceremonial aspect and on publicising the existence of the congress, both locally and with sights set on Moscow. In Cherkessk in 1996 as well, there was cooperation between the ICA and the local Autonomous Republic, but the grave situation in the Caucasus weighed heavily on the proceedings – the congress followed closely upon the outbreak of hostilities in Abkhazia, and in Chechnya. The importance of the congress was also diminished by the general economic recession undergone by the region during that period. The arrangements for the Krasnodar congress were the direct result of political cooperation between the leadership of the ICA and Kondratenko, the governor of the Krasnodar krai. Indeed, one could say that it was the government of the Krasnodar krai that hosted the congress and the governor was anxious to be seen as the event’s patron. THE ICA’S OBJECTIVES: BETWEEN CULTURAL REVIVAL AND NATIONAL REAWAKENING

Boris Akbashev, the current president of the ICA, noted in an article published in 1998 in the ICA journal that the organisation’s goal was ‘to serve the idea of the cultural and historical revival of the Circassian people’.24 Earlier in the article, Akbashev remarked that ‘it is very difficult to preserve ourselves as a united people today, without well defined and understood national interests and a general national idea which would unite us’.25 Akbashev was summarising a several years long foundation-laying process. In similar terms the Circassian congresses have, since their inception, been moving along a continuum between clearly nationalist-oriented activity and congresses with primarily social and cultural aims. The objectives, declared at the congresses over years of activism, can be divided into a number of categories: • To create a movement that will reinforce Circassian identity, and will act to strengthen ties between Circassians the world over – particularly between Circassians in the Caucasus, and the Circassian 70

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diaspora – through the establishment of a world Circassian movement. Beyond this objective lies the concept of working towards the return of Circassians from the diaspora to the Caucasus. • More immediately: to get recognition of the ‘genocide and exile of the Circassian people’ implying recognition of the movement, and of the Circassians’ right to return to their homeland, and to foster their own identity.26 • Social and particularly cultural goals, including efforts to promote, resuscitate and preserve the language and traditions, and general activities in the field of education and culture. A specific goal in the cultural realm which has encountered numerous difficulties, is the aspiration toward the creation of a unified written Circassian/ Adyghe language. At the moment two close written languages exist – Western Adyghe and Eastern Adyghe (Kabarda). The differences between them are brought into sharper relief by dissimilar spelling systems. There are also voices advocating latinisation of the language (a demand coming mainly from Turkish Circassians). • Political objectives related to the current situation in the Caucasus, like the status of the Circassian-Adyghe republics and the issue of Abkhazia. These categories are interconnected, and quite broad by nature. They contain internal factors related to what is going on within each community, as well as an attempt to achieve external recognition of the Circassians, and acknowledgement of the dilemmas they are trying to deal with by various bodies – international organisations, like the UN, and national governments, particularly that of Russia. The objectives of the ICA, summarised briefly above, have been expressed at most ICA congresses in lengthy documents bearing a broad and vague character. Furthermore, many of the ICA’s goals overlap with those of other bodies – either organisations within the autonomous republics in the Caucasus where Circassians live, or various organisations represented in the ICA. This duality has produced covert tension in the operations of the ICA. Is the primary aim the holding of these conferences per se, letting the relationships and interaction established between different groups promote these goals, or is the ICA a practical organisation taking concrete actions to achieve its purposes? The results of this tension, as well as the accomplishment in holding the congresses were best expressed by Shami: Although little programmatic action is adopted, and less executed, the meetings provide the opportunity for the development of a common discourse, one with clear overtones of nationalism.27 71

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Yet, what is precisely the essence of such a ‘nationalism’? And what does it lead to? A comparison with movements of other diaspora peoples evokes another question: political independence of the Adyghe areas has not been marked as a goal by the ICA; nor, for that matter, was the unification of these regions within the RF. Formally, it appears that the ICA has not been challenging the political status quo with regard to the status of the Circassians in the Caucasus. The nationalist objectives of the ICA have been limited to raising general awareness of the Circassian issue, and to resolving specific problems such as a change in the status of Adyghea from an Autonomous District to that of an Autonomous Republic, or an improvement in Shapsugia’s position within the Krasnodar krai. The question of repatriation was also presented as an issue to be advanced through cooperation with the Russian authorities.28 The nature of the organisation’s activity and the definition of its goals thus raise the question as to whether this is a national movement, a movement for cultural and social revival, or a combination of both – that is, an ethno-national movement that takes a pragmatic approach, whose activities remain mainly within the cultural and social domain but proceed on the basis of a nationalist rationale. In light of worldwide developments, such as globalisation, the unification of Europe and a concurrent ethnic awakening, the question arises as to what extent the ICA’s activities evidence a new direction in ethno-national movements in general in the admixture of a moderate, pragmatic political approach, in a combination (inherent in the ICA’s components) that engenders, as shall be seen below, countless paradoxes of multiple identities manifesting themselves simultaneously at the congresses, and a few types of interrelated discourses carried on simultaneously on the ethno-national, local (the various autonomous republics), regional communities, and in the diaspora communities and the socio-cultural levels. Traditional nationalist discourse stimulated the ambition for a great uniformity of all the components of the discourse, in an attempt to amalgamate the nation. In this case, it seems that even if aspirations to uniformity are sometimes expressed at the different kinds of discourse, in actual fact the actions are taken in acceptance of more pluralistic basic precepts – both in regard to the ICA itself, and even more so in reference to the issue of the ethnonational identity of the Circassian people.

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THE INTERNATIONAL CIRCASSIAN ASSOCIATION AMBIGUITY AND DUALITY: AN ADYGHE OR A CIRCASSIAN MOVEMENT?

As already noted, the ICA unites the various groups of the Adyghe, the Abkhaz and the Abaza – although to a great extent the Adyghe are dominant. Probing the conduct of the ICA, one is led to question the framework in which it is constructed, in particular with regard to the cooperation between the Adyghe and the Abkhaz. The partnership between these two groups within the framework of the ICA may be analysed from two points of view: the factors which brought about and facilitated this partnership, and its significance for the participants in the ICA. The war in Abkhazia played a major role in this partnership, although its seeds had been planted long before – during their shared exile and even before that, in the cooperation between the Adyghe, the Abkhazians and the Ubykh in their resistance to the Russian conquest in the nineteenth century. The close ethno-linguistic relationship of the Adyghe and the Abkhaz, and their long historical bonds are at the root of their partnership. Emigration intensified the strength of these bonds, as Adyghe-Abkhaz communities were formed in the Middle East. In some cases, adjacent Adyghe and Abkhaz villages were established; in others mixed villages were set up. The shared destiny and cooperation between these two groups of émigrés is expressed directly in their partnership within the ICA, although, as shall be seen below, current developments in the Caucasus have played an equally important role. Structural Factors and Common Components of Identity The shared experience of exile is crucial to understanding the bond between Adyghe and Abkhaz. In Turkey, all immigrants from the Caucasus are viewed as Circassians. Thus, a common Circassian identity has developed among those immigrants, in parallel to a tendency to preserve the separate identity of each specific group. In Turkey, Caucasian immigrants do not learn their traditional languages, and one of the principal tools for maintaining their identity is the immigrants’ club. In these clubs, and in other organised community activities, both Adyghe (that is, the various groups of Adyghe) and Abkhaz participate.29 Their joint endeavours contribute to the shaping of a common over-all group identity, without obstructing the existence of their separate identities. These activities are usually carried out in Turkish, both because this is the language common to all the various groups, and as a direct result of Turkification and a concomitant erosion of command of the Caucasian languages – a 73

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trend that strengthens the bonds among all the immigrants from the north-western Caucasus. As the status of the original languages weakens, cultural symbols become increasingly central for the preservation of identity. Renewed ties with the Caucasus have served, in recent years, as an additional channel for identity preservation among some of the diaspora Circassians.30 As a distinct group in the diaspora the Abkhazians stand out mainly in Turkey. In Syria as well as in Jordan, where their numbers are smaller, the Adyghe and the Abkhaz live together. This integration is carried on in the Circassian communities of Europe and the US. In most communities the Adyghe are in the majority, which is underlined by the fact that Abkhaz sometimes learn the Adyghe language.31 In some cases the Abkhaz and the Abaza have become integrated into the Adyghe Circassian communities while in other, communes of Abkhaz have maintained their distinct group identity. The partnership of the Circassians in the diaspora, and their critical role, especially that of their largest group, the Circassians of Turkey, in the establishment and activity of the ICA, have undoubtedly contributed to the reflection of this relationship within the ICA, and to its evolution as a ‘Circassian’ ICA – with all of the duality of meaning inherent of the term, as denoting the Adyghe on the one hand, and all the residents of the north-western Caucasus on the other.32 Political Factors and Symbolic Components Cooperation between the Abkhaz and the peoples of the North Caucasus existed prior to the establishment of the ICA. In 1989, in reaction to the implied threat that Georgian nationalism posed to Abkhazia, the Assembly of North Caucasian Peoples was founded. In November 1991, this body was reformulated as the Third Congress of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus convened in Sukhumi. At this congress, the Assembly was redefined as the Confederation of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus (CMPC). ‘The new confederation’, declared the statement, ‘is the legitimate successor of the independent North Caucasian Republic (Mountain Republic) created on 11 May 1918.’33 The CMPC included representatives of 16 peoples from the North Caucasus (among these were the Adygheans, the Abaza, the Kabardinians, the Cherkess and the Shapsug) as well as the Abkhazians.34 The intensification of ethnic conflicts in the Caucasus limited the scope of the CMCP’s activities, which certainly merits separate study.35 For the purposes of this article, it suffices to note that around the mid-1990s the organisation adopted a more inclusive appellation 74

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– the Confederation of Caucasian Peoples (CPC)36 – but it was also around this time that the organisation’s influence began to wane. An important factor in its decline was the CMCP’s vague framework with regard to defining the identity of its members. It seems that the shared North Caucasian identity is a minor component in the concrete ethnic identities. This is particularly true with regard to the affinities between the peoples of the north-eastern and the northwestern Caucasus.37 Against this background, it seems that the union between the Adyghe (and their subgroups) and Abkhazians within the framework of the ICA followed a trend which began with their concurrent cooperation within the CMPC, and later became their major channel of cooperation. Colarusso observes that the Abkhaz, ‘as most of their kinsmen from the North Caucasus massif have already come to realise . . . must federate with other people to survive’.38 Developments since these words were penned have only served to reinforce their significance. Whereas the CMPC provided a loose framework for such a federation, the cultural and historical affinities and the strong ethnic ties between the Adyghe and the Abkhaz served as a more solid foundation for a federation assured of continuity, and less subject to external influences. As noted above, this cooperation developed within the framework of the CMPC, not in opposition to it. Iurii Shanibov, the president of the CMPC, was an active member of the ICA, and took part in its conferences. The cooperation between the Adyghe and the Abkhaz has thus been expressed within the framework of the ICA, which enabled it to emphasise ethno-national and not only purely regional elements. This union supplied the participants with a strong position with regard to regional cooperation, as was clearly manifested in the cooperation between the ICA and the administration of the Krasnodar krai at the last conference. Collaboration with the Adyghe, and with Northern Caucasians generally, has been virtually the Abkhazians’ sole option in their struggle with the far more powerful Georgia, given the fact that Russia does not support their position and their increasing international isolation. This policy was clearly discernible when fighting erupted in Abkhazia in August 1992. Shanibov’s organisation, the CMPC, played an important role in enlisting volunteers from the North Caucasus to fight alongside the Abkhazians. (Their participation in the fighting apparently influenced the outcome.) Nevertheless, the ICA also had an effect. After all, most of the volunteers were Adyghe who came from the Adyghe communities of KabardinoBalkaria, Karachai-Cherkesia and Adyghea. A number of activists at the Circassian congresses in Maikop (1993) and Cherkessk (1996), including some who had served as commanders of these volunteer 75

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forces, claimed that these volunteers, who numbered in the thousands, were a decisive factor in some of the most important battles in the conflict. The UN report on events in Abkhazia, for example, records the involvement of volunteers from the North Caucasus in the conquest of the city of Gagra on 1 October 1992.39 The influence of Circassians from the diaspora upon the ties between the Abkhazians and Adyghe has been discussed above. This influence took concrete form in the Circassian agitation over the issue of Abkhazia, expressed in protests and demonstrations (one such demonstration took place in front of the UN headquarters in New York), and recruitment of aid and assistance for Abkhazia. These actions strengthened the Abkhaz–Adyghe partnership, and institutionalised it. The events in Abkhazia were of central importance at the Circassian congress in Maikop in 1993. Fighters returning from these battles were honoured throughout the congress. A great many of its resolutions dealt with the situation in Abkhazia and called on Russia, Georgia, the West and the UN, to end the conflict by recognising the right of the Abkhazians to self-determination in their homeland, and condemning Georgian aggression. This alliance was given a cultural-symbolic dimension at the conferences. Thus, for example, a Kabarda music composer was presented as a composer of the Abkhaz people as well; an Abkhaz vocalist sang in Adyghe, and Adyghe singers performed songs dedicated to the Abkhaz people. This akin cultural framework is thus being used to build a symbolic bridge that fortifies the joint organisational framework within which the distinct identity of each member group is preserved. Practical considerations apart, the symbolic significance of the collaboration between the Adyghe and the Abkhaz is not a matter to be viewed lightly. The symbolic dimension is critical to understanding the Adyghe involvement in this conflict, and sheds light on an additional facet of this alliance. The Abkhazians have viewed the conflict as a struggle for survival, first and foremost the survival of their culture and language. The Circassians generally, and diaspora Circassians particularly, viewed this struggle as a continuation of their own nineteenthcentury struggle for survival against Russia, and at the same time as an heroic manifestation of the struggle to preserve Circassian identity, both in the Caucasus and in the diaspora. For the Adyghe, the war in Abkhazia was both a symbol and a conduit for nationalist feelings. The demographic realities of the north-western Caucasus – the Russian supremacy and the Adyghe status as a minority in their own homeland – created a situation in which meaningful change in the region was inconceivable. Moreover, many Adyghe activists expressed the feeling 76

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that the Adyghe ‘had already paid a heavy price for their unbending struggle – the genocide of the Adyghe ensuing from the exile/transfer of most of the population, which involved the deaths of tens of thousands of victims’.40 These feelings were expressed particularly with regard to the contemporary Chechen struggle, emphasising the very different strategic choice made by the Adyghe. Nevertheless, a forming national movement needs a struggle, and in this sense the war in Abkhazia became a national struggle around which the Adyghe ethno-national movement could unite. This does not mean at all that the Adyghe were not profoundly involved in and deeply concerned for the Abkhaz. Rather, it means that simultaneously to this concern, the circumstances enabled the Adyghe to rechannel nationalist feelings to an adjoining theatre, where the enemy were the Georgians rather than the Russians. This term applies both to Russia as a vastly superior power, and to the Russians who have for more than a century co-existed (or rather multi-existed) with the area’s original population – or what was left of it. One result of this co-existence is the adoption by a significant portion of the population of a certain layer of the Russian (and in previous years SovietRussian) identity, at least in the sense of citizenship and occasionally also as an additional layer of cultural identity among the educated strata. In addition to being an outlet for nationalist feelings reinvigorated by the disintegration of the USSR, the war in Abkhazia was a consolidating factor and stimulated the ICA’s establishment. This could be seen in the manner in which participants in the congresses related to the war – emphasising motives of heroism, sacrifice and military success. From a political perspective, involvement in the Abkhazian conflict both extended the power of the ICA, and supplied the Adyghe in their various autonomies with an additional bargaining chip vis-àvis both Moscow and other groups, especially when the situation in Chechnya escalated. Thus, the Adyghe involvement in Abkhazia served as a tool for both achieving local political goals and conducting a policy of relative conciliation and understanding with the Russians. The coordination of the Circassian congresses was, at the initial stages, a primarily Adyghe initiative. As the Abkhazian conflict escalated, cooperation with the Abkhazians solidified and the Abkhaz became an integral part of the ICA. In the 1998 congress in Krasnodar, for example, the Abkhazian delegation included a number of ministers and senior officials, including the deputy prime minister.41 Still, this structure of the ICA also creates many dilemmas, principally revolving around the question: to what extent can the ICA be a movement with Adyghe nationalist and, especially, cultural goals, 77

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while having to overcome pre-existing splits within Adyghe society, and at the same time be a movement which unites Adyghe and Abkhazians? These Adyghe nationalist-cultural aims have been promoted by the main activists in the Congress – most of them Adyghe – while the Abkhaz have been promoting Abkhaz culture within their own structures (usually represented in the ICA).42 It seems that the logic underlying the union between the Adyghe and Abkhazians as a structural basis for the IAC, their common background and shared destiny in the diaspora notwithstanding, is primarily political – that is, based on the exigencies engendered by the current situation in the Caucasus. To a certain extent, the ethnonational duality of the participants is mirrored in the duality of the IAC’s aims. On one level, it is an ethno-national movement with political objectives. The emphasis here is on the Circassian – read, Adyghe–Abkhazian – aspect of the movement, and specific goals vary in accordance with the local context of the different partners. On another level it is a movement which places greater stress on the cultural and social renaissance of a diaspora people – and here, the focus is on the Adyghe. The challenge faced by small nations trying to overcome these discordant themes makes their joint endeavours worthwhile, perhaps even essential, despite the dilemmas occasioned by such efforts. THE ICA AND THE AUTONOMOUS REPUBLICS OF THE NORTH CAUCASUS

The Adyghe Kh’ases – the Adyghe councils – are the dominant organisational framework, which, together with diaspora bodies, helped create the ICA. The ICA is actually a network of Adyghe Kh’ases whose existence stems from the Adyghe tradition of local organisations. Usually Kh’ases in central areas, such as the capital cities of the autonomous republics have connections to, or are even incorporated into similar organisations in nearby localities. The ICA started as a loose association among these Kh’ases in and outside the Caucasus. Naturally, the relationship between each of these organisations and the local autonomous government has changed over the time and place span. The ventures of the Adyghe Kh’ase of Kabardino-Balkaria are particularly noteworthy. During the early 1990s, this Kh’ase maintained an intricate relationship with both the central government in Moscow and the Kabardino-Balkar authorities. The activities of this Kh’ase included an element of opposition, or at least objection, to the present status quo. This was expressed in its involvement in a diversity of 78

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events, including various protests and especially demonstrations in support of Abkhazia. The destruction of the statue of Lenin in Nalchik during a demonstration in the early 1990s and, by contrast, the ‘survival’ of a similar sculpture in Maikop, are illustrative of the atmosphere in Kabardino-Balkaria, in the creation of which the local Adyghe Kh’ase played a key role. On the other hand, their differences notwithstanding, a fairly high level of ties, even coordinated action, has always been kept between the leadership of the Kh’ase and the authorities of the autonomous republics. The Kh’ase leaders also did their best not to get into direct confrontation with Moscow’s representatives assuming that such a conflict could cause manipulations which would result in greater Russian involvement. This approach was consistent with the stated position of the Kh’ase regarding the need for cooperation between all of the ethnic groups in KabardinoBalkaria.43 The proximity of Kabardino-Balkaria to Chechnya, and the fact that it is the place where the Adyghe constitute a plurality of the population, made the Kh’ase’s activity all the more significant in terms of its political potential. Extensive ties exist between the local governments and the Kh’ase, and despite occasional friction between them, these ties persisted throughout the 1990s, including in KabardinoBalkaria. The first congress, in Nalchik in 1991, enjoyed backing (and even assistance) from the government of Kabardino-Balkaria. Kabardinian leaders have continued to support the congress ever since.44 Although differences among the autonomous republics of the North Caucasus make it difficult to generalise, all in all it appears that local governments have remained ambivalent with regard to the ICA. At times there are clear conflicts of interest, with the ICA constituting a certain threat to local politicians, while at other times it seems that the local governments, having come to terms with the existence of the Congress, are trying to gain the greatest possible advantage from its activities. Such advantage may manifest itself in general political terms, for example, the ability to exert pressure on Moscow via the ICA regarding certain issues, without engaging in a confrontation between the local government and the central administration. One example of this is the question of what status to accord the Circassians who return to the Caucasus. The ICA has a clear stance on this issue, and its actions have served as a conduit for the government of Adyghea to deliver messages and exert pressure on Moscow. However, the issue of return to the Caucasus also exemplifies the possibility for duality and competition between the different republics and the ICA, since the Rodina offices in the republics had been the ones to organise contacts with the diaspora already during the Soviet 79

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period. These contacts had been mainly limited to visits by delegations and hosting students from the Middle East.45 This rivalry between the Kh’ase and Rodina was especially conspicuous in Kabardino-Balkaria. Later, rivalry over dominance in relations with the Circassian diaspora also surfaced in some cases between representatives of the ICA and the local governments. In Adyghea, there was less tension on this front, and a greater degree of cooperation between the ICA and the local government, with regard both to this issue and to the treatment of Circassians requesting permission to return to the Caucasus. In KabardinoBalkaria, and even more so in Karachai-Cherkesia, the fact that the government represents the multi-ethnic structure of the republic further complicates its already complex relationship with the ICA. It provides an additional source of tension with the ICA, who represent one group (or two, in the case of Karachai-Cherkesia), and whose activities hint at the theoretical possibility of an entirely different political order in the region. The ICA poses, thus, a hidden threat, particularly in the local arena. Yet to openly oppose its activities might constitute a much greater danger. On the other hand, the ICA provides the ruling bodies in the republics (or the local Circassian-Adyghe leadership, in the case of Karachai-Cherkesia, where the Turkic Karachai constitute a majority) with an additional channel to increase their power and ability to manoeuvre vis-à-vis the central government in Moscow and within their own autonomous republics. The ICA also provides a forum for meeting, and an additional channel of communications for leaders of the republics. Indeed, ICA activists are cognisant of the importance of maintaining contact and coordinating operations among the leaders of the various republics, for the sake of promoting common Circassian interests. The third congress, in 1996, proposed to establish a joint coordinating body of the republics. A report to the fourth congress, in 1988, said that this idea was significantly advanced by the agreement between the three republics to establish a joint interparliamentary commission.46 In conclusion, a situation has developed, in which the governments of the republics have a certain interest in the continued activity of the ICA. At the same time, however, they wish the ICA to remain an amorphous, auxiliary, body and a ‘potential threat’ to Moscow – not a rival framework to the republics. This paradoxical situation has contributed to the ICA’s ability to survive, but has also placed constraints on its development. The republics have supported the ICA’s activities in various forms. It would have been hard to hold the congresses without the consent, and sometimes even the involvement and aid of the local govern80

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ments. Still, the ICA in general, and the local organisations that comprise it, have funds of their own – mainly contributed by businessmen and other supporters – which have enabled them to function independently. Furthermore, these funds produce a balance of power with the republics which enables continued cooperation with them. Of course, there is also some overlap at the individual level: the ICA provides a vehicle for local leaders with political ambitions to accumulate political power and rack up achievements – and vice versa. UNITY AND PLURALITY: A CENTRE-LESS ETHNO-NATIONAL MOVEMENT

Until now the congresses of the ICA have been held each in a different city, which either serves as a centre, or is related to one of the Circassian communities in the Caucasus. This hints at the complex dynamics of unity and plurality, as well as at the lack of a clear centre for this movement – not merely in the geographic sense, but first and foremost in the figurative or symbolic sense. This situation reflects the persistence of the frail character of past Circassian attempts at unity: the existence on various levels of a clear, common identity, coupled with a virtual absence of its expressions in the organisational, and even the day-to-day, context. What is meant here is, first of all, an amorphous, loose identity common to all the tribes who have considered themselves Adyghe. Parallel to it exists a common Abkhaz–Abaza identity, which is part of a broader identity of the north-western Caucasus. This broader identity gained strength during the war against Russia in the nineteenth century, and included in addition to the above two also the Ubykh. The extent to which these identities exist and their significance, are issues which need to be addressed separately. For the purposes of this article, the question is, to what extent is the joint organisation a novelty and to what extent does it express continuity? At least in one case, the absence of a clear centre, the continuity is obvious. The complicated relationships with the autonomous republics have contributed to this complexity. Those republics artificially created by Russia have, over the years, developed their own separate existence. Beyond the political and organisational interests of the political establishment in these republics, a local identity has evolved in each based largely on pre-existent tribal identities. These new local identities project on the ability of all the groups in the North Caucasus that describe themselves as Adyghe or Circassian, to unite. An individual’s self-identification as a ‘Kabardinian’ or a ‘KarachaiCherkesian’ is no less important than either one’s tribal identity, or 81

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even one’s identity as a ‘Circassian’ or one’s overall identity as an ‘Adyghe’.47 This situation produces an inherent tension in the ICA’s activities, for much energy is devoted to the perpetual need for maintaining a balance between the various groups (most importantly, between the representatives of the various republics). The lack of a clear centre impairs the ICA’s ability to become a truly influential body, able to carry out its resolutions effectively. To this must be added the linguistic division of Adyghe into two primary dialects, each being the basis for a written language, coupled with the necessity of giving expression to the Abkhazian–Abaza languages as well. The 1998 Krasnodar congress clearly exposed this reality. The principle of representation, and the need to allow for the various component bodies of the congress resulted in the decision to hold the congress in the Shapsug (Lazarovskii) district. However, as noted, organisational difficulties and other considerations resulted in the congress eventually being held in Krasnodar, the capital of the krai in which the Shapsug district lies, and at the same time a Russian city containing only a relatively small Adyghe community. Thus, it lacked the greater influence, and the profound significance on both the social level and the symbolic plain which the previous meetings of the ICA in locations with large concentrations of Circassians had had. The Krasnodar meeting represented, thus, a sort of ‘routinisation’, with the emphasis turning to issues of structure and organisation while much of the enthusiasm and charisma that accompanied the founding of the organisation had subsided. The headquarters of the ICA has, for the past few years, been located in Cherkessk, the capital of Karachai-Cherkesia. There are a number of practical reasons for this, beginning with plans and preparations for the third congress, held there in 1996. Among these, one might note the location of the city in between the two major concentrations of Circassians – in Kabardino-Balkaria and Adyghea; its proximity to the nearby Russian transportation and communications centres of Mineral’nye Vody and Piatigorsk; and the fact that the republic (Karachai-Cherkesia) is a meeting ground for Adyghe and Abaza, both partners in the ICA. However, beyond these explanations, provided by activists of the movement, the decision, after a discussion about the headquarters’ location – or rather the compromise that had led to the decision in the Krasnodar congress to maintain the ICA’s headquarters in Cherkessk – is symbolic of some of the fundamental patterns of the ICA. Cherkessk thus represents a compromise between the two strongest segments, first of all numerically, of the movement: the Kabardinians and the Adygheans. As with the linguistic issue, a rivalry persists between these groups, their cooperation 82

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notwithstanding. The choice of Cherkessk enables a compromise; but it also symbolises the movement’s character, in that its permanent headquarters are located in a republic in which the Circassians are a minority not only in relation to the Russians, but in relation to the Karachais as well, and where the Russian influence is heavily felt. THE ICA AND EVENTS IN THE NORTHERN CAUCASUS

The events in the Caucasus since the dissolution of the USSR call for an examination of the establishment of the ICA and the course it has taken vis-à-vis the situation in the north-west Caucasus, the ethnic and national conflicts in the region, the relations between the Circassians and the Russian authorities in Moscow, and most importantly, the conflict in Chechnya. The ICA’s involvement in the conflict in Abkhazia has already been discussed. In sharp contrast to that involvement, the ICA – and the Circassians in general – have adopted a much more circumspect, highly ambivalent stance vis-à-vis the situation in Chechnya. Apart from a handful of clashes, the Circassian areas have remained calm in the wake of the hostilities in Chechnya and Abkhazia, the many predictions of ethnic flare-ups throughout the Caucasus notwithstanding.48 A change in this atmosphere of calm has taken place only since the spring of 1999, with the eruption of violence between the Circassians and the Karachais in Karachai-Cherkesia centred on the presidential elections in that small republic. Unlike the events in the eastern Caucasus, the conflict in Karachai-Cherkesia is between the two largest ethnic minority groups in the republic,49 not with Moscow. Ever since the ICA’s inception, its leaders have been careful to maintain proper relations with the Russian Federal authorities. Throughout the 1990s the Circassians’ decision, contrasting to that of the Chechens, to cooperate with the authorities of the RF has become growingly apparent. At the same time, the ICA’s leaders have used the congresses in various ways to convey the message to Moscow that this state of affairs should not be taken for granted, but is dependent upon the quality of the mutual relations and their reciprocity. In other words, the implied message was intended to support the Circassians’ endeavours to promote their cause within the framework of the current political order. Examples of this can be seen in the achievement of certain rights, and in the eligibility of Circassians returning to the Caucasus to naturalise, in spite of the Russian apprehensions about this process. Symbolism has played an important role in the communication of these messages. Thus, on the one hand, representatives of the RF were 83

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invited to the second congress in Maikop, but so were representatives of Chechnya and Tatarstan – an autonomous republic which was then exploring the limits of independence from Moscow – and the flags of Chechnya and Tatarstan as well as the RF were unfurled alongside Circassian and Abkhazian flags. On the other hand, the ICA’s president at that time, Iurii Kalmykov, gave notice at the conclusion of the congress that he was obliged to resign his position, due to his appointment as Minister of Justice of the RF. This indecision became untenable when the situation in Chechnya deteriorated.50 Kalmykov resigned (or was ‘encouraged’ to do so) in December 1994 in protest against the Russian policy in Chechnya. Still, the more the situation in Chechnya worsened, the clearer it became that, even if some Circassians identified with the Chechens in one way or another, they would not join an armed struggle against Russia. The difference between the ICA’s approach, and that of the Circassians’ generally, to the conflict in Chechnya – where an ambivalent and remote posture was preserved during most phases of the war – and the conflict in Abkhazia is striking. The fears of a conflagration of the Caucasus expressed in the media by all sorts of experts, seem not to have taken into consideration the obvious distinction between the eastern part of the North Caucasus (from Ingushetia eastward), and the Circassian areas. Even at the height of resistance to the Russian conquest in the nineteenth century this division made it difficult for the two sides to collaborate. The fact that the Adyghe, unlike other peoples of the Caucasus, were not ‘deported’51 in World War II, magnified these differences, and influenced their attitude towards Russia. The 1996 Cherkessk congress, and especially the1998 Krasnodar conference, marked a new phase in the relationship between the ICA and the RF. The ICA’s opting to work within the framework of the RF, and more distinctly this as contrasting the Chechen choice, made its position so clear as to preclude ambivalent symbolic signals like the invitation of Chechnya’s representatives to participate in the 1993 congress. At the same time, potential tension with Moscow was now focused on the Abkhazian question, hinting at the problematic role played by Russia while the conflict in Abkhazia had continued and at the blockade on Abkhazia. The message conveyed by the ICA has been centred on unremitting support for the Abkhazians, thus insinuating to Moscow that sharp Russian action against Abkhazia will challenge Russian interests in the north-western Caucasus. At the Krasnodar conference in the summer of 1998 a new element was added – regional cooperation between the ICA and the administration of the Krasnodar krai, headed by Kondratenko, which is 84

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increasingly important, in light of the growing tensions between centre and periphery in the RF. Ostensibly there are tremendous differences between Kondratenko, the Russian nationalist strenuously opposed to immigrants, foreigners and Jews, and the ICA. Nevertheless, in spite of the differences in style, the two do share common interests. The Krasnodar krai, like other areas in the North Caucasus, has been flooded with immigrants from other areas and saturated with ethnic tension. Immigration from Abkhazia, where economic distress is palpable, has lately joined that from other areas; in this sense, the Krasnodar authorities and the Circassians have a common interest in trying to change the state of affairs in Abkhazia. Moreover, cooperating with the Circassians actually increases Kondratenko’s power both inside the krai and vis-à-vis Moscow. From the Circassians’ point of view, cooperation is desirable for a number of reasons. First, it stems from the will to improve the lot of the Shapsug Circassians who live along the coast of the Black Sea in the Lazarovskii district within the Krasnodar krai. In this sense holding the congress in Krasnodar followed from the decision to hold it each time in a different concentration of Circassians. The difficulties inherent in holding the conference in the Shapsug area created the platform for cooperation with the Krasnodar krai, in which, it seems, Kondratenko’s administration was a dominant component. This cooperation is also necessary to the authorities in Adyghea. Finally, in many respects it allows the Circassian leaders to engage in a dialogue with Moscow from a position of relative strength. On another level, this cooperation expresses the over-all policy of the Circassians towards various determinants in the Caucasus. Relations with the RF apart, it is a manifestation of the Circassians’, and especially the Adyghe’s, position vis-à-vis the local authorities in the krais (Krasnodar and Stavropol); the Russian residents of the Caucasus (who now constitute a majority in some areas), including the newly formed organisation of Cossacks; and the other peoples of the Caucasus, some of whom share with the Circassians the government structures in the autonomous republics, i.e. the Karachais and the Balkars. As noted above, the mere establishment of the ICA posed a potential threat to the prevailing order in these two republics and throughout the Caucasus, with ramifications for relations with neighbouring peoples. The congress organisers were well aware of this, and meticulously underscored their cooperation with neighbouring peoples with a symbolic-ritualistic expression. This was especially explicit in the strengthening of ties with representatives of other groups (like the Balkars, the Karachais and the Cossacks), and in the prevention of possible tension. The establishment of the CMPC was also important in this respect, as was its subsequent conversion into the Congress of 85

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Peoples of the Caucasus (with the intention of including the Cossacks and other ‘local’ Russians). In its congresses the ICA has underlined the importance of maintaining good relations with the surrounding peoples by the inclusion of folkloric orchestras and artists from the different ethnic groups in the region in the artistic programme. Their presence in the region was, thus, symbolically acknowledged. Despite all of this, the tension in Karachai-Cherkesia has grown into a conflict that remains unresolved,52 in which one can see some of the processes discussed above: the renewed Circassian efforts at mass organisation following the break-up of the Soviet Union; ties with the Circassians in the diaspora, which cause apprehensions of a change in the balance in a republic, where Circassians are a minority; and, finally, the construction of a movement that has nationalistic components, while successfully maintaining good relations with Russia. According to partial data it seems that, in the conflict in Karachai-Cherkesia, the Circassian presidential candidate enjoyed the support of the local Russian population and other groups (such as the Greek community). In the case of Karachai-Cherkesia all this caused a shift in the status quo ante, and increased tension with the Karachais, which was influenced at the same time by processes of ethno-national revival among the Karachais and their kin, the Balkars. Although this conflict as a whole does not have direct connection with the ICA, the effect of the Circassian reawakening on the events is discernible. In addition to this general influence the selection of Cherkessk as the location of the ICA’s secretariat cannot be divorced from the events. Naturally, the Chairman of the ICA, Boris Akbashev, is involved in what is happening and his connections in Moscow might have influenced the tenor of Russia’s intervention in the conflict. To conclude, regarding the issue of relations with the Russian administration, and for the most part that of the internal relations in the north-western Caucasus, it seems that the existence of the ICA has contributed to the relatively peaceful state of affairs in the north-west Caucasus. It has provided a platform for the need for a renewed expression of Circassian identity in the post-Soviet era without undermining the basic political order in the region – that is Russian domination. The general tendency of ‘playing according to the Russian rules of the game’ can be seen also in the ICA decision to hold the next congress in Nalchik, and not, in line with the aspiration of many participants, in Abkhazia. Also the solidifying patterns of activity emphasise the desire for regional stability, although the events of the summer and fall of 1999 in Karachai-Cherkesia show that the Circassian renaissance does influence the relations among communities in the region, and especially between the Adyghe/Circassians and the Karachais/Balkars. 86

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The ICA’s character as an organisation that does not challenge the basic order in the region has also on the whole influenced the nature of the association (and the movement it represents). Although the organisation serves as a channel for the expression of identity, and the advancement of demands, as a separate association, its significance is primarily symbolic. However, while this symbolic significance is salient with regard to the political dimension in the Caucasus, it seems that this symbolic aspect has taken on importance that has practical consequences for the relationship between Circassians in the Caucasus and the Circassian diaspora. RELATIONS WITH THE DIASPORA

A central facet of the ICA’s activity is connected to its being a novel framework uniting all the Circassian communities throughout the world: in the Caucasus, in Turkey and the Middle East, and communities that sprang up as a result of second-tier immigration to western Europe and the US. The ICA’s importance stems from its success in creating such a common framework – the first since the Circassians’ tragic departure from the Caucasus in the 1860s. The ICA brings together Circassians from all of the communities the world over, although naturally most striking is the encounter between the Caucasus – the centre, the historical homeland – and the Circassian diaspora. The Circassian case stands out as a perfect example of a diaspora people, in that the majority of Circassians live nowadays outside of the Caucasus. This situation affects the complex relations between the centre and the diaspora manifest in the ICA’s functions. Further complications lie within the political dimension; the communion between those who experienced life under the Soviet regime and who now live either under Russian rule (i.e. Adyghe and Abaza) or in a state of political uncertainty; and in conflict with Georgia (the Abkhazians), and communities that are more closely associated with the West. This facet is particularly conspicuous in reference to the Circassians who come from Europe and the US; but it is also apparent with respect to the communities in Turkey and Jordan. The complex relationship between the diaspora and the centre was expressed already in the way the ICA was founded. Formally, the founding congress took place in the Caucasus, and thus both the dominant and the controlling role in it was played by the activists from the Caucasus. However, the initiative for the congress, and a significant part of the forces propelling its activities, originated in the diaspora. This situation resulted most probably from the different influences to which activists in the Caucasus and in the diaspora had 87

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been exposed. Circassian activists outside the Caucasus, particularly those in Europe, were exposed to ideas and developments the world over concerning ethnic and cultural identity, identity preservation and self-determination. The debate over these issues was at its height at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. At the same time, the preoccupation with identity preservation and the meaning of Circassian identity in the diaspora, took on an existential character; and the question of the relationship between the various communities, especially their relationship with the motherland in the Caucasus, became naturally central.53 Moreover, in the meetings, and already at the earliest stages, a clear relation was established between diaspora and centre activists: while the energy and motivation brought by the diaspora activists are essential and crucial to the meetings, domination of the congress and its operations has been left to activists from the communities in the Caucasus. Practical considerations were the main factor in creating this situation: since the conferences are taking place in the Caucasus, the ‘host’ populations naturally dominate. And, given the poor state of communications with the region until recently, it is also obvious that the majority of the burden and the responsibility for organising the conferences would rest with activists from the Caucasus, and so would control their character. The relationship between activists from the diaspora and from the Caucasus is rife with complexities and ambiguities. On the one hand, the encounter between representatives of various communities, particularly between those of the Caucasus and the diaspora, is far from being smooth: years of being cut off had created many differences, which have resulted in a lack of trust and in communication difficulties.54 In the specific case of the ICA, differences in organisational and political culture are added. On the other hand, there are ‘symbolic’ elements which even the situation: the diaspora activists regard the Caucasus as the ‘centre’ in a symbolic sense, which projects on the organisational level as well. Thus, to begin with, many of them have been ready to operate within the dominant role left to the Caucasus activists, or at least they have abstained from expressing any wishes to withdraw from this partnership, which is at the base of the ICA, when differences of opinion arise. In this way, the obstacles notwithstanding, the congresses have become a venue where the interchange was successful, and certainly more optimistic than other encounters. The ability of diaspora activists to mobilise various resources also helps maintain a certain balance of power, although it does appear that one of the by-products of this situation is the reduced participation of young leaders from the diaspora in the congresses. The great difference among, and the divergent interests of, activists 88

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from the various communities also contribute to shaping the relationship among the participants. Another difficulty underlying this encounter originates in the linguistic situation: difficulties in comprehension exist among speakers of various Adyghe dialects, not to mention Adyghe and Abkhaz. However, beyond this looms the issue of the status of the Russian language at the congresses.55 The gradual build up of the status of Russian testifies to the dominant position of the activists from the Caucasus; to the importance of the local and regional political agenda; and to the use of the ICA as a conduit for transmitting messages and for communications with Moscow and with various political forces in the region – especially the administrations of the Krasnodar and Stavropol krais. In the bottom line the organisational dominance of the activists from the Caucasus is expressed also in the political agenda of the ICA. Until now, the role played by the diaspora activists has been relatively limited. Some have underlined their participation by financial terms, through contributions, while others – by promoting cultural projects. Nevertheless, it appears that the cooperation between the Caucasus and the diaspora communities, at least that related to the ICA’s activities, is still in its beginning, and its potential has not yet fully been realised. While this is the state of things with regard to specific activities of the ICA, on a broader plain an expanding network of informal ties can be observed between Circassians the world over, and especially between diaspora Circassians and the Caucasus. The regular holding of the ICA’s congresses has undoubtedly contributed to this situation. Cultural and educational bonds have grown, taking the form of students arriving to study in the Caucasus, of mutual visits, of exchanges of youth delegations as well as delegations from cultural clubs, etc. In the case of the tiny Circassian community in Israel, one result of the tightening ties with the Caucasus was the reception in Galilee of an Adyghean teacher, who was sent to teach the Adyghe language in the schools in Circassian villages in Israel – perhaps the only place outside of the Caucasus where the study of the Circassian language forms part of the state school curriculum. (At the same time, however, this entails many difficulties, inter alia because of the small size of the community and its multilingual character).56 Another thing that stood out in the encounter of this community with the Circassians in the Caucasus, was the religious gap between them. This gap was especially noticeable in the case of the Israeli Circassian community, but it is significant in the relationship between Circassians from the diaspora in general – and those in the Middle East in particular – and the Circassians in the Caucasus.57 The differences between the Caucasus and the diaspora in the expression of religious identity have given rise to religious and 89

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cultural-religious activities, which were made possible and assisted by the unbroken bond created by the ICA’s meetings. In the ICA’s operations, on the one hand, the Circassian identity is emphasised, while the Islamic identity is secondary. In the course of the congresses, symbolic and nominal place is occasionally given to prayer or to Qor’anic verses quoted in the speech of one delegate or another. Beyond that, however, Islamic identity, and even more the need to give it actual collective expression, is allocated a relatively marginal place both by most of the delegates, and in the ICA’s operations. Still, some Circassian activists from the diaspora acted during the gatherings to open Islamic religious establishments in Circassian areas where such institutions had previously not existed. In recent years, mosques have been constructed in most of the villages in the three republics where the Circassian population is concentrated. In visits to such villages, one is told that these mosques had been built ‘by the residents, who collected money’, but it appears that donations from abroad played a major role in this process. Within the limited framework of this article, suffice it to note that these have usually been elements with a moderate orientation, who represent a very different course from the increasing ‘Wahhabi’ activity in areas to the east.58 The involvement of diaspora Circassians in this activity takes a variety of forms, sometimes separate and sometimes combined. In some cases the influence of diaspora activists is felt through financial support to religious institutions. In others through activities influenced by the Sufi movement via activists affected by Sufi brotherhoods abroad (for example in Turkey), as well as through religious-educational action by activists seeking to reverse the total ignorance regarding Islam and its commandments in this region. These act out of a religious motivation which is inter-connected with the view that Circassian and Islamic identities are mutually compatible and complementary. This subject, which is outside the scope of the present chapter, merits further discussion on a broader scale.59 The institutionalisation of ties among Circassians in the Caucasus and the diaspora is definitely one of the ICA’s successes. The continuity of the congresses sustains such links. Still, in the final account, some of these ties are, quite naturally, reflected in relations with the autonomous republics, who are in possession of the proper apparati to manage and develop such links. These expanding ties have also significant political consequences. These were manifest in the creation of a Circassian lobby in the diaspora that draws attention toward events in the Caucasus, and works to establish cooperation between the states where Circassians live and the autonomous Circassian republics in the Caucasus.60 90

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The most apparent example of involvement by a foreign country in the ICA’s congresses is that of Jordan. Prince ‘Ali, the son of the deceased Jordanian King Hussein, attended the third congress in Cherkessk (1996). The Prince’s participation stems probably from his personal interest in Circassian affairs, but it also reflects official Jordanian policy. It is in Jordan more than anywhere else that Circassians have reached the status of a civilian and military elite close to the royal house.61 Jordan’s involvement in Circassian affairs is thus not at all surprising. In recent years, Circassians in Jordan, and Prince ‘Ali personally, have initiated cooperation and coordination among Circassian leaders in Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Israel. Thus, a preparatory meeting took place in Amman between Circassian leaders from a number of countries in the region, in anticipation of the fourth congress in Krasnodar (1998). This resulted in increased cooperation in the social and cultural domains between communities in the region, with Jordan as its epicentre. Leaders of the Circassian communities in the Middle East met again in Amman in February 1999 to condole with the royal family upon the demise of King Hussein. A major issue in the relationship between Circassians in the Caucasus and in the diaspora is that of the return of exiles to the Caucasus – whether this is termed ‘repatriation’ or ‘re-emigration’.62 Examining the available options for a return to the Caucasus, and encouraging it, have been at the core of the ICA’s activities from the very outset. In June 1991 a repatriation programme was initiated in the three Circassian republics and in Abkhazia. However, in the latter efforts to implement this programme were one of the causes of the rising tension between Abkhazians and Georgians/Mingelians.63 Later developments and the outbreak of war rendered repatriation unfeasible (if one ignores the Abkhaz volunteers who joined the fighting). The day-to-day handling of persons returning to their homeland in the North Caucasus has quite naturally devolved upon the republics themselves. Nevertheless, the ICA has also contributed to these efforts in a number of ways: it exerted efforts to improve the legal status of returnees vis-à-vis Russia, emphasised the need to establish institutional frameworks to assist the migrants,64 and strengthened ties between potential immigrants from outside the Caucasus with organisations that deal with these issues in the Caucasus. Some of the ICA’s activists have provided a personal example, when they themselves returned to the Caucasus and continued from there their activity in the ICA.65 Repatriation to the Caucasus is, apparently, a common interest to Circassians the world over. To the Circassians in the Caucasus it promises to alter somewhat the demographic balance in the Caucasus 91

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and, more important, to nourish the development of Circassian culture. For some diaspora Circassians, who live under conditions which hamper the expression of their cultural identity, and in some cases other hardships, it apparently provides a solution. However, for most Circassians in the diaspora, return (to the Caucasus) is not a real option for the immediate future, even though the idea of return has had a tremendous symbolic significance. The congresses in the Caucasus, and the success in making repatriation a real option (at least de jure), have created an interesting situation. The existence of this possibility, and the necessity of making a choice between the ideology of return and continued existence outside the Caucasus, have triggered among some of those diaspora Circassians who are not interested in return the evolution of a Circassian identity integrated with a local and civic identity. In other words, it is a process whereby communities proceed from a state of ‘dispersion’ to the state of ‘diaspora’.66 This, in turn, fuels the tendency of younger activists to concentrate their energies on this process, and not on activity in the ICA. Nevertheless, this does not essentially hinder the development of an ethnic and national discourse, although this is a different discourse. The dilemma of ‘nation or diaspora’ is no longer posed.67 Rather it is the replacement of a national idealistic-romantic myth by a renewed struggle for self-determination, both inside and outside the Caucasus. As emphasised by Shami,68 the attitude to the Caucasus in this new discourse is ambiguous. Moreover, the modalities of this discourse change in accordance with each local context. Instead of a collection of communities whose existence is partly based on, and who are unified by, a common aspiration – or a sort of ‘myth’ linked to the notion of exile from the homeland, and, to a certain extent, to the (more or less utopian) hope of a return to that homeland – a new definition is developing, of a people for whom being dispersed all over the world is an integral element in its identity. These definitions have an ethno-national character, but this ethno-nationalism has new components, which distinguish it from the traditional nationalist discourse. Moreover, these new components affect not only the perception of identity adopted by Circassians in the diaspora, but that of Circassians in the Caucasus as well, and the ways they elect to express their own national identity. In this renewed discourse the motherland, the Caucasus, remains a central place. An illustration to this is a fascinating event connected with repatriation to the Caucasus – the ICA’s successful activity and involvement in organising the rescue of Circassians from Kosovo and bringing them to the Caucasus. Representatives of the small Circassian community in Yugoslavia had taken part in the 1993 congress of the ICA, but in 1996 no Yugoslav representative attended. The meetings 92

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were rife with rumours to the effect that many members of this community had been murdered in the bloody events in Bosnia. When the situation in Kosovo deteriorated, in 1998, communication was established between the ICA and the tiny Circassian community in that area. Paradoxically, the Muslim Circassians were being threatened by the Albanians on account of their good relations with the Serbs. After long weeks of agonising preparations, Circassian activists succeeded in obtaining safe passage out of Kosovo for most of the Kosovar Circassians, as well as their orderly absorption in Adyghea. In August, 1998, the refugees arrived in Adyghea. Shortly afterwards, construction began on a rural-style residential neighbourhood for them in the Maikop area. This project has intertwined the practical and symbolic meanings of repatriation: the successful rescue of Circassians from Yugoslavia supplied an example of a concrete action which would very likely not have been executed but for the ICA’s efforts. As such it had also a general importance for the ICA’s operations, for while many Circassians acknowledged the importance of the congresses, many lamented that they were ‘just talk’. The Kosovo mission took the hypothetical possibility of a return to the Caucasus, and, at a critical juncture, transformed it into a realistic option, underscored the significance of the Caucasus as a homeland, and reinforced solidarity among far-flung Circassian communities throughout the world. Furthermore, it underlined the importance of the ICA as a true representative of this solidarity, and supplied this solidarity with a practical meaning even if its manifestations in other spheres were still at an embryonic stage. CONCLUSION

The tension between plurality and unity seems to be a central issue in understanding the totality of the groups in the north-western Caucasus, first, the various people and groups who define themselves as belonging to the broad category of ‘Adyghe’, and second, all people and groups who are called (usually by outsiders) ‘Circassians’, who upon the founding of the ICA, adopted this name in order to get organised in association with political, social and cultural components. Smeets has pointed out, in an article entitled ‘Circassia’, that in fact a political entity of that name has never existed.69 The establishment of the ICA accomplishes two opposite effects simultaneously. The ICA symbolises the theoretical possibility that such an entity could exist, and gives it an organisational expression by successfully creating a Circassian or even an all-Circassian framework 93

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graced with continuity and even certain achievements. At the same time, the ICA, its structure and methods of operation institutionalise and strengthen patterns which underscore that a Circassian polity of the sort envisaged – at least in the political-territorial sense – is not, for the time being, a realistic option or a credible objective. The ICA and its operations thus continue the fundamental tension between unity and plurality that is typical of the Adyghe and of all the North Caucasus. In this light the ICA may be viewed as a new manifestation of an old pattern, which emphasises a common cultural identity not expressed by a single political organisation. However, the founding of the ICA, and some of its operations, have an unmistakably political character, even if its main political importance lies not in specific actions, but rather in its potential, as a ‘marker’ and a warning, particularly in terms of internal relations within the RF, and the place of minority groups within it. Paradoxically, the Circassian diaspora has contributed substantially towards bringing this about. Although internal distinctions among the various Adyghe subgroups have been preserved in the diaspora, as have the distinctions between Adyghe and Abkhaz, their common destiny as a minority in foreign lands has brought them closer, emphasised their common interests and thus cooperation – which has projected on cooperation between the various groups in the Caucasus as well. In this respect, the establishment of the ICA, its activities and especially the continuity of its operations have, first of all, an important cultural-social meaning. The alliance between the Adyghe and the Abkhaz within the ICA is built through the use of similar cultural contents and historical ties that facilitate the creation of a symbolic union, which in turn strengthens a joint organisational framework within which the distinct identity of each group is preserved. On a different level, exactly the same occurs among the various Adyghe groups, who, though closer to each other, still desire to preserve their separate identities (e.g. differences based on dialect). From another angle attention should be paid to differences among the various communities along lines of citizenship. In other words, the proximity between Abkhaz and Adyghe living in Turkey is no less than that between Adyghe living in Turkey and in Jordan, or in the Caucasus, although here one deals with different axes or variables associated with multidimensional identity. This can lead to tension and emphasis on contrariety in relation to the common identity, which indeed happens in encounters between Circassians from different countries. Against this tension, a movement has been created with a structure that allows cooperation without tugging the balance of internal power too far. It was not a coincidence that the first Circassian film 94

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was shown at the second congress in Maikop. This was an artistic film that dealt, not with the wars in the Caucasus, but rather with the internal disputes and what they cost society during the period preceding the Russian invasion of the Caucasus. And the lesson about the cost of these disputes in fending off enemies from the outside later on is obvious. This artistic utilisation of a bygone era brings to the fore the debate over the essence of the Circassian efforts to organise within the ICA, and the meaning of the contemporary Circassian identity. The question of essence of the organisation arises even from the name Circassian. The dimness and the ambiguity connected to this name, which refers both to the Adyghe alone and to all the inhabitants of the north-western Caucasus, have already been pointed out. This ambiguity allows the simultaneous co-existence of various perceptions of the essence of the events and their meaning in the collective sphere, and particularly in terms of the boundaries of that collective, and the essence of the Circassian ethno-national/cultural movement. The tension between the apparent comprehensibility of the discussion on Circassia and Circassian to the participants – members of the group as well as scholars, both local and external – and the need to qualify this discussion when the scholar relates to the manner in which a discussion on ethno-national units is understood in the modern culture, is the same tension that lies at the very base of the ICA’s operations. One of the dimensions of this tension has to do with the question of how relevant to this region is a discussion of nationalism in its modern Western meaning, and how appropriate it is to analyse various developments among the Circassians – since the struggle against Russian imperialism in the nineteenth century, and even before – on the basis of a desire leading to the formation of a national political entity, or to relate to any stages on the road toward forming such an entity. A study of the ICA can open the door for a theoretical discussion of this issue. It seems that such a tension is reflected in the history of the north-western Caucasus since the Russian penetration of the area as well as in the external understanding of the region in ethnic and national terms. Here the door opens for a wider discussion which has been touched upon by Shami.70 However, within the confines of the current discussion, suffice it to state that the ICA’s activity is a fascinating subject of study offering the opportunity to examine the theoretical questions of the relation between ethnic identity and national identity. This case demonstrates the need for a less dichotomous theoretical approach to the dispute between those who emphasise ‘invented’ components in a national identity and ‘the creation of traditions’,71 and those who emphasise continuity and affinity between 95

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ethnic and national identity through the reprocessing of common cultural components.72 One such example, described above, is the novel use of the category Circassian along with the continuity of cultural and historical components which acquire a new meaning. No less significant directions for discussion relate to a common situation, which becomes extraordinarily salient in this region and is particularly conspicuous in the ICA’s activities – the existence of several identities side by side, and the meaning of this multi-identity in the context of ethnic and political relations. This issue has been mentioned here mainly in relation to the tension between the autonomous republics and all-Circassian activities, and in relation to the significance of cooperation between Adyghe and Abkhaz. However, it is no less relevant to other factors mentioned but not fully developed in this article, such as the importance of the Russian civic (and sometimes cultural and political) identity of the inhabitants of the region, as well as the importance of the local civic identity of diaspora Circassians. These identities are context-dependent and therefore different discourses develop on local and civic identity, and the relation between it and the common Circassian (ethno-) national identity.73 To this one must add the complexity with regard to religion and religious world views, which have not been touched upon in this article. This complexity seems marginal in terms of the ICA, but it is quite important to a broader discussion of ethnic identity in the northwestern Caucasus on the one hand (and an additional feature that clearly distinguishes this region from the eastern Caucasus), and in the Circassian diaspora on the other hand. These evoke questions concerning the meaning of ethnicity and nationalism in an era of globalisation which includes post-nationalist components. Side by side with, and perhaps before these elements, is the demographic factor. That is the activity of Circassian movement, with distinct ethno-national components in a region with a clear Russian majority, is critical to an understanding of the ICA’s essence, its constraints, and the status and fate of the Circassians in the Caucasus in general. These circumstances have, in turn, greatly influenced the character of the activity. It seems that the founding of the ICA, and the character of its activities, have had a direct effect on the continued relative stability and calm in the north-western Caucasus, at a time of bitter conflicts in adjacent areas. At the same time, its establishment seems also to have contributed to the measured success of the Abkhazians in their struggle against Georgia – all this despite the fact that during most of the period of its activity the ICA as an organisation has taken very few concrete steps. Despite a ‘routinisation’ in its activity, and difficulties stemming from a web of problems and multifaceted identities, the ICA’s continued operation serves to solid96

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ify and intensify the bonds among all the Adyghe, and between them and the Abkhaz. The ICA’s very existence yields a change in the status of the Circassians (both Adyghe and Abkhazians) as a diaspora people and expresses the attempts to preserve ethnic and cultural identity while anchoring it in new frameworks adapted to the demands of the epoch. If one looks at the ICA’s achievements, and the link between its activity and the preservation of relative stability in the region, one discerns that this form of organisation constitutes a truly interesting development on the background of the debate on nationalism at the close of the twentieth century. NOTES 1 This chapter draws primarily on anthropological fieldwork undertaken within Circassian communities both in and outside the Caucasus, focusing in particular on the three most recent congresses of the ICA: in Maikop (1993), in Cherkessk (1996) and in Krasnodar (1998). In the context of this work, my intention is to provide an overview of the ICA, and to understand the ICA in the broader context of ethnic and national issues, and the form these issues take in the Circassian case. I shall do my best to paint a general picture, focusing less on detailed analyses of specific data collected either from fieldwork or from the discussion of methodological questions relating to ethnographic studies. The ethnographic material within this larger picture will be informed through the integration of an outsider’s point of view (the atik point of view, in anthropological terminology), with a description based on a participant’s point of view, that of the activists at the Circassian congress in whose society I was (the imak point of view). 2 The official symbols of the ICA congresses include the name of the organisation in three languages: in Adyghe Duneipsu Adyge Xace, in Abaza Aduney Cherkes Adgilara, in Russian Mezhdunarodnaia Cherkeskaia Assotsiatsiia. Another translation from Adyghe might be, ‘World Circassian Council’ or ‘World Circassian Association’. ‘ICA’ appears in an English language publication recently produced by members of the organisation. 3 In this article, the name ‘Adyghe’ is used as the common self-appellation of all the peoples of the north-western Caucasus who are considered Circassians and speak one of the Adyghe dialects. ‘Adyghea’ refers to the Autonomous Republic of that name. Residents of this republic shall be called ‘Adygheans’. The term ‘Cherkes’ describes the Adyghe population of Karachai-Cherkesia. ‘Abkhazians’ refers to speakers of Abkhazian who are residents of Abkhazia – not to be confused with the Abaza who live in the northern Caucasus. The terms ‘Circassian’ and ‘the Circassian Association’ are used only where spokesmen for these groups or organisations use them. It thus applies to both the Adyghe and Abkhaz-Abaza, depending on the context. 4 R. Smeets, ‘Circassia,’ Central Asian Survey, Vol. 14, No. 1(1995), p. 107. 5 According to Ottoman sources 600,000 – H. Inalchic ‘Çerkes’, EI 2, Vol. II, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1983, pp. 21–5; according to Russian accounts 418,000 left between 1861 and 1864 – Jersild Austin Lee, ‘From Savagery to Citizenship: Caucasian Mountaineers and Muslims in the Russian Empire’, in Daniel R. Brower and Edward J. Lazzerini (eds), Russia’s Orient. Imperial Boundaries and

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6 7 8 9

10

11 12

13

14 15

Peoples, 1700–1917 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), p. 112, note 11; Smeets, ‘Circassia’, p. 112; K. Karpat, ‘The Hijra from Russia and the Caucasus’, in D.F. Eickelman and J. Piscatory (eds), Muslim Travels (London: Routledge, 1990), pp. 132–5; A. Uner Turgey, ‘Circassian immigration into the Ottoman Empire, 1856–1878’, in W. B. Hallaq and D. P. Little (eds), Islamic Studies Presented to Charles J. Adams (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991), pp. 193–217. The lack of clarity regarding this subject stems in part from the difficulty of determining what portion of the emigrants were Adyghe and what portion belonged to other Caucasian groups, and what percentage of all the emigrants entering the Ottoman Empire at that time were Caucasians (some, for example, were Bulgarians). For example, in Syria various Bedouin tribes. N. Lewis, Nomads and Settlers in Syria and Trans-Jordan, 1800–1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 96–114. S. K. Shami, ‘Ethnicity and Leadership: The Circassians in Jordan’, University of California, Berkeley, 1982 (unpublished PhD dissertation), pp. 39–52. Sources as in note 5 above. Estimating the number of Circassians in Turkey is problematic due to ‘Turkification’ encouraged by the government. Official Turkish estimates are thus low. Smeets (‘Circassia’, p. 109) estimates the Circassian population in Turkey to be approximately 1 million, while Colarusso (J. Colarusso, ‘Abkhazia,’ Central Asian Survey, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1995), pp. 75–97) notes that around 6 million Turks are of Circassian descent. These figures are not necessarily inconsistent – it is simply a question of what people one is talking about, and which individuals are counted as Circassian. Furthermore, people tend to use definitions of identity in a differential and circumstantial way; thus, the statistics vary depending upon the general state of affairs in Turkey and in the Caucasus, even apart from the questions of identity and demography raised by mixed marriage, linguistic attrition, urbanisation of the originally rural population of the northern Caucasus, etc. Adyghe make up the largest group of northern Caucasians, followed by Abkhazians, Daghestanis and Chechens. Akbashev claims that more than 80 per cent of Circassians live outside of the Caucasus today, and that they are spread out among 40 different countries: B. Akbashev, ‘Prophet in his Homeland’, Circassian World, No. 1 (spring 1998), pp. 5–6 According to Colarusso, ‘Abkhazia’, p. 81. These demographic data are taken from Smeets (‘Circassia’, pp. 109–12) and H. Krag and L. Funch, The North Caucasus: Minority at a Crossroad (London: International Minority Rights Group, 1994), p. 16. The table presented in this latter work does not relate separately to the Circassian population of KarachaiCherkesia, but lumps the Cherkes together with the Adyghe – a further example of the problematic nature of ethnic labels and definitions. For a description of the controversy in Abkhazia and the roots of the conflict, see Colarusso, ‘Abkhazia’, pp. 75–96 and B. G. Hewitt, ‘Abkhazia: A Problem of Identity and Ownership’, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 12, No. 3 (1993), pp. 267–323. Abaza is the term used by the Abaza themselves; ‘Abazinians’ can occasionally be seen in literature on the subject. Language is one of the determinants between the Abkhaz/Abaza and the Adyghe. Linguistic identity also clarifies the connection between them: they constitute separate and mutually incomprehensible languages belonging to the AbazaCircassian group of languages of the north-western Caucasus. Each of these

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16 17

18 19

20

21

22

languages is further subdivided, so there are in fact four main linguistic subgroups containing numerous dialects: Western Adyghe and Kabarda (or Eastern Adyghe) on the one hand, and Abkhaz and Abaza on the other. See the discussion in Smeets, ‘Circassia’, pp. 108–9 and Hewitt, ‘Abkhazia: A Problem . . .’, p. 268. Colarusso, ‘Abkhazia’, p. 76. An additional dimension is added to the complexity of the word ‘Circassian’ when one considers the clear distinction between the insiders’ term, ‘Adyghe’, and the outsiders’ label, ‘Cherkes’ or ‘Circassian’ – although even here there are distinctions between sub-groups. Thus, for example, the Kabarda, who – particularly in the Caucasus – generally tend to emphasise their identity as Kabarda, and are less inclined to use the term Circassian in reference to themselves, tend to view themselves as Adyghe, and use this term to define their basic ethnonational identity. And cf. discussion in Smeets, ‘Circassia’, pp. 107–25. Another conference, with a cultural agenda, was held in Ankara in the same year. The congress took place when this chapter was in the final stages of editing and naturally conclusions regarding it and the current situation in the area deserve a further study. However, reports from congress participants seem to confirm that the main processes described here, and especially the routinisation of the congress activity, continue along the same lines. Nakhatova’s election seems to reflect the growing influence of Kokov, the president of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic. In places where the Circassian communities are either very large – as in Turkey – or geographically distant from each other – as in the US – the delegations were quite naturally made up of the various community components. At the first congresses, there was some confusion concerning the exact composition of some of the delegations, and as to the basis upon which their representatives were selected. Indeed, there were even rumours that the community was in dire straits, or had even been partly annihilated in the war in Bosnia. On the subject of the Yugoslav community, see A. Popovic, ‘The Cherkess on Yugoslav Territory’, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 10, No. 1/2 (1991), pp. 65–79. In 1998, the fate of this small community, which is concentrated primarily in a village near Kosovo, was one of the principal subjects of discussion which occupied the congress participants, in light of the fighting in Kosovo. (For the return of this community to the Caucasus, see below.) In Bulgaria as well, there are Circassian villages which have undergone complete or partial Turkification. To the best of one’s knowledge, there has never been any contact between the ICA and this community. Rodina (meaning ‘homeland’ in Russian) was founded during the Soviet era, with the aim of establishing ties with Circassians in the diaspora. After the break-up of the USSR, the organisation continued to operate from inside the Circassian republics of the Caucasus, especially in Kabardino-Balkaria, which, as an Autonomous Republic within the Soviet system, was the doyen of the CircassianAdyghe areas. Among other functions, Rodina made arrangements for hosting Circassian students registered at the University of Nalchik, particularly those coming from Syria and Jordan. The organisation was also involved in student exchanges, and strove to maintain mutual ties with diaspora communities. A very complex relationship existed between Rodina and the Kabardian Adyghe Kh’ase. This stemmed in part from intensifying competition between them during the 1990s. In various interviews, informants hinted that an additional, hidden purpose of Rodina was to represent Soviet interests in Middle Eastern countries, using the Circassian population of these areas as instruments to further this agenda. The fact that representatives of Rodina joined the ICA illustrates a process in which cooperation triumphed over rivalry. Apparently, Rodina’s acceptance as a body represented in the ICA was facilitated by the opportunity

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23

24 25 26 27 28

29

30

31 32

this gave the ICA to take advantage of Rodina’s organisational infrastructure, as well as its favourable status in Moscow. Kalmykov submitted his letter of resignation on 30 November 1994, and stepped down on 7 December 1994, after attempting unsuccessfully to resolve the conflict in Chechnya and prevent the entry of the Russian army into the republic (Akbashev, ‘Prophet in his Homeland’, p. 14). An understanding of the way Kalmykov’s role is interpreted today may be gained by observing the central position occupied by Kalmykov’s image as ‘prophet in his homeland’ in the first issue of the International Circassian Association’s magazine (see that article, and additional articles in the same issue of the magazine). Akbashev, ‘Prophet’, p. 7. Ibid., p. 5. Ibid., p. 6. Shami, ‘Ethnicity and Leadership’, p. 92. This approach has become increasingly sharpened during the 1990s. Akbashev, (‘Prophet’, p. 7) expresses this with extreme clarity: ‘We realise that history can’t be turned backwards, that today it is impossible to redraw boundaries, return all Circassians to their homeland, and create united statehood.’ It is true that these phrases were influenced by the fact that they were published in the official journal, ‘registered in the state committee of the RF’, but they apparently do express the opinion of most of the ICA’s participants. In some of the areas where they reside, they cohabitate with immigrants belonging to other groups – Daghestanis for the most part, but Karachai and small numbers of other groups as well. In general, distinct divisions are maintained among these groups, particularly where rural populations are concerned. This, at least, is what I observed during my visit to such communities in Turkey. Emigré communities in Syria apparently maintain the same character and divisions, according to oral reports which reached me during the course of my fieldwork. It is possible to differentiate between various trends in the approach to ethnic identity by examining the relationship to the Caucasus, whereas among a certain segment of the Circassian population in Turkey, emphasis is placed on the idea of return to the Caucasus – S. K. Shami, ‘Disjuncture in Ethnicity: Negotiating Circassian Identity in Jordan, Turkey and the Caucasus’, New Perspective on Turkey, Vol. 12 (1995), p. 84. In other communities, such as those of Israel and the US, the emphasis is on cultural and national ties with, rather than return to, the Caucasus: C. Bram, ‘Circassian Re-Emigration to the Caucasus’, in S. Weil (ed.), Routes and Roots: Emigration in a Global Perspective (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1998), pp. 205–22. A phenomenon similar to what has occurred to the Ubykh: Smeets, ‘Circassia’, p. 109. For communities composed of a majority of Adyghe (such as the Circassians in Israel), and for some of the Adyghe of the north-western Caucasus, unifying these communities under the single denomination Circassian did not come naturally, in comparison with the acceptance of this term by communities in which Circassian was already used to refer to Adyghe and Abkhaz together. During the course of my fieldwork in the first years of the ICA’s existence (upon a visit to Kabardino-Balkaria in 1990, and to Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachai-Cherkesia and Adyghea in 1993), and particularly during my time spent in a Circassian village in Israel, I witnessed this ambivalence. Whereas the name chosen for the ICA and its meaning, have evoked diverse reactions among activists who have become involved in the ICA’s work but who have a less perfect familiarity with all the details. It is also conceivable that the identity of the researcher, and the

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33 34 35 36 37

38 39 40

41

42

43

point of view he embraces, do have an influence here. In this context, it is interesting that for Shami in her fascinating article focusing on the issues of identity that arise when Circassians from Turkey and Jordan are introduced to the Caucasus, this conflict does not arise. The Abkhaz are referred to as one of the other Caucasian groups found in the Middle East, like the Chechens and the Daghestanis – although in a parenthetical remark, she notes that ‘The Abkhaz and Ubykh are usually glossed as Circassian/Adyghe, and there is also intermarriage between the various north Caucasian groups in communities outside the Caucasus’ – ‘Disjuncture in Ethnicity’, p. 83. This brings a number of issues to the fore regarding Circassian/Adyghe identity, which demand investigation in their own right. Hewitt, ‘Abkhazia: A Problem . . .’, p. 288. In addition to groups from more eastern regions, including Aki Chechens, Laks, Ossetians and others. See Hewitt, ‘Abkhazia: A Problem . . .’, pp. 304–5, Appendix 4. See Chapter 3 in this volume. Ibid. Despite this, the organisation may be credited with a number of achievements: in addition to fostering collaboration between Abkhazia and the North Caucasus, it had a positive influence on reducing tensions in the region, and encouraging cooperation between various groups, particularly in the north-western Caucasus, and between Cossack revivalists and ethnic groups from the Caucasus. Colarusso, ‘Abkhazia’, p. 79. Hewitt, ‘Abkhazia: A Problem . . .’, p. 294. Terms other than ‘genocide’ have been used in various instances in reference to these events: ‘catastrophe’, even ‘the Adyghe holocaust’ – a term I heard used on a number of occasions among Circassians in Israel, but which I encountered among Circassians living elsewhere as well (Circassian Israelis use this term as part of a larger trend of adopting an ‘Israeli’ vocabulary and terminology. It is also important to point out that different speakers in the congresses relate to the Israeli/Jewish experience of re-emigration, especially people from the Caucasus who witnessed the large migration of Jews from the former USSR to Israel since 1989). This representation bore additional significance vis-à-vis the local administration in the Krasnodar krai which as noted hosted the congress, in light of the growing problem of refugees flooding into the district from Abkhazia, in addition to refugees from other parts of the Caucasus. Meaning the bodies represented at the congress: the Abkhazian government, which declared its independence in Sukhumi, and the Abaza organisations. These organisations are connected to Abkhaz organisations and communities in Turkey and elsewhere. This is the way one of the Kabardian Kh’ase leaders described the situation in the republic during the summer of 1990: ‘The Russians wanted to accomplish here what they did in Chechnya. Anti-Russian declarations were disseminated throughout the city . . . among the various peoples . . . The authorities in Moscow wanted to create an anti-Russian movement in order to justify sending troops into the region. The Kh’ase opposed such provocation, and managed to resolve the crisis. We held demonstrations and gatherings in order to prevent tension and clashes between different groups, whereupon the militia [i.e., the police – CB] took the posters [i.e. the anti-Russian propaganda – CB] down. We summoned 20,000 people to a demonstration, and took a stance against ethnic provocations. The media credited Kokov [speaker of the parliament at that time; later became president of the republic – CB] with this achievement.’ This version of events was

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44 45

46

47

48 49 50

51

52

53

immediately met with reservations on the part of other individuals present who were not members of the Kh’ase. Although the specific unfolding of events here are not the subject of this chapter, the manner in which such things are recounted is nevertheless important, as it reveals the complex stance adopted by the Kh’ase. In interviews with activists from Kabardino-Balkaria, I was informed that the government of the republic, under the leadership of Kokov, contributed 40 million rubles to the third congress, held in Cherkessk. For a discussion of the return to the Caucasus and the various organisations and government bodies, see C. Bram, ‘Muslim Revivalism and the Emergence of Civic Society – a Case Study of an Israeli-Circassian Community’, in A. Sela and I. Zilberman (eds), The Emergence of Civic Society Among the Israeli Palestinian Citizens (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming), and note 19 (ibid.). For more sources see also note 19 on Collarusso’s article (ibid.). I have no information as to whether concrete action has been taken on this agreement; it is clear, though, that ties between the republics have been strengthened. This fact itself constitutes an additional source of tension in Karachai-Cherkesia, where the majority, as noted above, is Karachai. And see ‘Report to the IVth Congress of the ICA’, Circassian World, No. 2 (summer 1998), p. 7. I place particular emphasis on this fact as it applies to the Adyghe. The situation for the Abkhaz–Abaza is quite different, for they have two distinct population centres: Abkhazia itself constitutes a sort of centre for the Abkhaz, with the Abaza located along its periphery. Igor Rotar, ‘The Western Republics of the North Caucasus – A Seat of Calm in a Zone of Instability’, Russia and the Muslim World, No. 8 (74), pp. 18–21 (translation from Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 13 May 1998). The Russians form the majority in the republic. About the conflict in Chechnya and its various phases see F. Splidsobel-Hansen, ‘The 1991 Chechen Revolution: The Response of Moscow’, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 13, No. 3 (1994), pp. 395–409 and S. E. Cornell, ‘A Chechen State?’, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 16, No. 2 (1997), pp. 201–15. The Soviets transferred, or ‘deported’ several north Caucasian nationalities (such as the Karachai, Balkars, Ingush and Chechens) to Central Asia, using the pretext that they cooperated with Nazi Germany during the Second World War. See R. Conquest, The Nation Killers (Glasgow: Macmillan, 1970), pp. 9–12, 64–6, 95–111; H. Krag and L. Funch, The North Caucasus: Minority at a Crossroad (London: International Minority Rights Group, 1994), pp. 12–13. The conflict surfaced just when this chapter was in the final stages of writing: as these lines are being penned, violent clashes are taking place, fuelled by the contest between Cherkes and Karachai candidates over the presidency of the republic. The Cherkes candidate is Stanislav Dereb, a businessman who is currently serving as the mayor of Cherkessk; Vladimir Semianov is the Karachai candidate. The Cherkes claim that the results of the elections in July 1999, which brought Semianov to power, were fraudulent. This sparked Cherkes demonstrations in protest, which, by September, had developed into violent clashes – which necessitated a major Russian intervention aimed at calming the state of affairs in the republic. This subject merits separate study, including a more precise analysis of the situation in Karachai-Cherkesia. About the various forms which the preoccupation with identity has taken in the diaspora, see both Shami’s works quoted above and her ‘Displacement, Historical Memory and Identity: The Circassians in Jordan’, in S. K. Shami (ed.), Mobility, Modernity and Misery: Population Displacement and Resettlement in The Middle East (New York: Centre for Migration Studies, 1994), pp. 189–201.

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THE INTERNATIONAL CIRCASSIAN ASSOCIATION See also Bram, ‘Muslim Revivalism’. 54 Shami, ‘Disjuncture in Ethnicity . . .’, pp. 89–91. 55 The congress is a fascinating arena for the intersection of numerous languages, and would be a good subject for a more comprehensive sociolinguistic analysis. 56 C. Bram, Hakhinukh b’Qerev HaCherkessim b’Yisrael [Education Among the Circassians in Israel] (Report presented to the Ministry of Education) (Jerusalem: The School for Educational Leadership, 1994). 57 For a broader discussion of this topic see Bram, ‘Muslim Revivalism’, and ‘Circassian Re-Emigration’, pp. 210–22. 58 See Chapter 7 in this volume. 59 It is interesting to examine the influence of religion on the current conflict in Karachai-Cherkesia, for the Karachai and Balkars are also experiencing a religious revival; within a short span of years, mosques have been built in most Karachai and Balkar villages. Mosques have also been constructed in most Circassian/Adyghe villages – although it is fairly obvious that in KarachaiCherkesia the religious revival is occurring within an ethno-national context. 60 Cf. Colarusso, ‘Abkhazia’, pp. 83, 95. 61 Shami, ‘Displacement’, p. 83. 62 For a fuller discussion of this issue see J. Colarusso, ‘Circassian repatriation’, The World and I (November 1991), pp. 656–69; Shami, ‘Disjuncture in Ethnicity’, pp. 84, 87–95; Bram, ‘Circassian Re-Emigration’, pp. 205–22; Bram, ‘Shivat Kavkaz’, pp. 127–36. 63 Colarusso, ‘Abkhazia’, p. 81. 64 The utility of learning from Israel’s experiences in this field has been pointed out at the ICA’s congresses. 65 Other activists have resided in the Caucasus for a few years, or have transferred some of their activities to the region. For example, A. Lavai, a Circassian leader from Israel who taught Islam at the University in Maikop, and who is currently serving as Imam in a Circassian village in Galilee; or Batiray Özbek, a scholar who recently published an important bibliography on the Circassians, Bibliographie der Tscherkessen, Ethnographie der Tscherkessen 5 (Ankara: [n. publ.], 1997) – and who has conducted much of his work in the Caucasus. 66 While state of ‘dispersion’ or ‘exile’ is understood as a consequence of war, transfer and other outside factors, and therefore is a destiny, in the state of diaspora the individual and communities choose to stay outside the homeland. Although it is not a clear-cut bi-polar/black-and-white division (‘the choice’ is influenced by various historical and political factors) it helps in pointing out a sociological and psychological change. 67 Shami ‘Disjuncture in Ethnicity’, p. 92. 68 Ibid., p. 92. 69 Smeets, ‘Circassia’, p. 107. 70 Shami, ‘Disjuncture in Ethnicity’, pp. 79–82. 71 B. Anderson, Imagined Communities (London and New York: Verso, 1991) (originally published in 1983). 72 A. D. Smith, The Ethnic Revival (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); ‘Ethnic Election and Cultural Identity’, Ethnic Studies, Vol. 10 (1993), pp. 9–25. 73 Shami, ‘Disjuncture in Ethnicity’, p. 93.

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PART III THE VOLCANO TO ERUPT NEXT? DAGHESTAN

5

Societal Conflict-Generating Factors in Daghestan Enver Kisriev

Under the late communist regime no real political life existed in the country. That is, there were no open clashes among different social forces, which characterise political life in general. The agony of the regime known in history as perestroika, liberated the social forces distorted by a long unnatural existence. These forces, running into collision with each other, started to shape the country’s political life. Economic-geographical, regional, ethnic and other social peculiarities of the huge country have gained political value and started producing results that will eventually define the future of Russia. Daghestan has such peculiarities, which make their impact on the nature of the political process there. This chapter will try to identify and describe in the most general manner these peculiarities. A hindsight examination of the various social conflicts that have emerged in Daghestan since perestroika allows one to come to general conclusions about the factors behind these conflicts. Of course, each specific conflict has its own particular nature and its unique complex of causes. Nevertheless, a long-term observation of social conflicts in Daghestan enables one to single out a group of permanently existing factors, which in the bottom line define the contents of conflicts. These will be defined as societal1 conflict-generating factors, because they characterise Daghestani society in general and lie – implicitly and/or explicitly – at the bottom of the various social tensions and direct clashes. These societal conflict-generating factors can be classified into geo-political, ethno-political, socio-political and ideological. The term ‘geo-political conflict-generating factor’ implies the intensive colonisation of the plains by the mountaineers (highlanders). 107

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Beginning in the 1950s, it had reached by the 1970s such a scope as to create social tension. The prehistory of this conflict-generating factor goes back to fundamental econo-cultural, historic-ethnographic counterposition between the mountains and the plains. The cradle of Daghestani civilisation was in the mountains, while the coastal plain was since antiquity its periphery. After the political situation in the Caspian plain had stabilised, in the fifteenth century, economic, cultural and political ties between the mountains and the plain started to grow. Mountaineers have always migrated to the plains but this was an extremely limited phenomenon because of malaria. That is why the economy since the middle of the first millennium ad has developed along the lines of semi-nomad livestock-breeding. In the summer the mountaineers drove their sheep up to the alpine pastures above the mountain villages. In the winter, when malaria was dormant, they descended with their livestock to the uninhabited lands in the plain, only to return into the mountains at the first signs of warmer weather. The lowlanders specialised in agriculture, mainly growing wheat. As a result of this economic specialisation, the mountains vs. plains contraposition acquired a symbiotic economic character with rather distinct ethnic differences. The Nogays, the Terek Cossacks and the Russians, the Kumyks, the Azeris and the Tats have always lived in the plains. The various ethnic sub-groups of the Avars, the Laks, the Darghins, the Tabasarans, the Lezghins, the Aguls, the Rutuls and the Tsakhurs have lived in the mountains. The possibilities for the further development of agriculture in the mountains of Daghestan are rather limited. The ‘mountain problem’ has, therefore, been on the agenda since Daghestan was annexed to Russia. After the establishment of the Autonomous Republic of Daghestan, in 1920, organised resettlement of mountaineers to the plains was attempted. Even though all the attempts were doomed to failure and ended in tragedy – many settlers died of malaria and the survivors ran in panic back into the mountains – such attempts continued until the beginning of the Second World War. Only after the war, in the beginning of the 1950s, when malaria was successfully suppressed, was resettlement re-attempted, and this time successfully. Since then, this process has been proceeding very intensively. The development of the irrigation network on the plain enabled settlers to expand the area of arable lands. Therefore, at first there were no signs of negative reactions from the local population to the settlement of the mountaineers. However, in the mid-1970s the local authorities lost their control over the settlement of mountaineers and it became considerably accelerated. As a result of the drastic changes in the demographic and ethno-cultural circumstances in the plains, the local population started to suffer material and psychological discomfort. 108

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Map 5: Daghestan: Ethnic Composition

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Protests were already being voiced by indigenous intellectuals, but these were easily suppressed by the authorities. The ideological basis for the resettlement was the concept of shaping a unified Daghestani nation as part of the forming of the multi-national community of the Soviet people. By the beginning of perestroika the process of resettlement had already radically changed the ethno-demography of the lowland. Mono-ethnic before, all the lowland raions and the majority of settlements had by then become ethnically mixed. In the Kizilyurt raion 80 per cent of the population are now Avars. In the Khasavyurt raion the mountain ethnic groups – Avars, Darghins, Lezghins and Laks – are now about 45 per cent and in the Kizlyar raion over 57 per cent. The Darghins now comprise 45 per cent of the population in the Kayakemt raion, which had always been a Kumyk area. While the Avars and the Darghins settled mainly in the raions traditionally inhabited by Nogays, Kumyks and Russians, the Lezghins predominantly moved to areas historically inhabited by Azeris. (There was also migration of highland Lezghins into lowland areas traditionally inhabited by other Lezghin groups.) At the present, 55 per cent of the population of the Derbent raion – previously inhabited mainly by Azeris and partly by Tats – are of mountain origin.2 Thus, a societal conflict-generating factor (defined here as geo-political) had arisen and has been steadily growing during the last 40 years. The crux of the matter is that the lands of the plain seem to be an object of distribution and redistribution and, consequently, of a conflict among the representatives of mountain and lowland peoples. It is not at all accidental that the first and most active political movement (the problem of Aki Chechens excluded) has become the political movement of the Kumyks – the main Daghestani lowland nationality. On 19 November1989 Tenglik (Equality) was established in the village of Endirey. A month later , a congress of the Nogays founded Birlik (Unity). Birlik’s activity has been provoked by the fact that well over 70 per cent of the lands in the Nogay raion are secured for mountain farms (as summer pasture). The same can be said about the activities of the Russian Cossack organisations formed on the territory of the Kizlyar and Tarumovsky raions. The most radical slogans which these, to all purposes political, organisations set for themselves aim at obtaining one kind or another of independence from the republican authorities, in order to secure their own control over what is going on in their ethnic territory. At that time all the republican authorities’ attention was drawn to the resolution of the problem of the Novolakskii (the former Aukhovskii) raion. Nevertheless, the formation of the Kumyk and Nogay movements and their very radical political goals, as well as the energetic actions of the Aki Chechens in defence of their interests, 110

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Map 6: Daghestan: Administrative Division

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strongly impressed public opinion and stimulated the growth of nationalist moods and the formation of national movements among other Daghestani peoples. The Popular Front named after Imam Shamil – established on 16 November 1990, that is a year after the formation of Tenglik – was initially an organisation of mountain settlers in the plains. Its aim was to defend their interests against the growing political pressure of Chechen, Kumyk, Nogay and Russian Cossack organisations. Only later, in 1992, did the Front become a purely Avar organisation. A succession of most serious social conflicts in Daghestan have unfolded against the background of contrariety between the settlers and original inhabitants of the lowlands. Some of them developed into direct clashes resulting in human casualties. Sometimes mass contraposition was directly connected to struggles for power and posts in the government within the political elite of the republic. Thus, on 22 October 1991, when the struggle at the highest echelons of power in Daghestan intensified following the banning of the Communist Party (of the Soviet Union), Tenglik blocked the railway and the federal highway near the village of Aksay and organised a mass rally in the central square of Makhachkala to protest against ‘the Cadres policy of the Supreme Soviet of Daghestan’. On that occasion a major effort was needed to avert wide-scale clashes between Kumyk demonstrators and Avar counter-demonstrators, organised by the Avar Popular Movement. Conflicts most frequently occur over the distribution of new allotments of land or when local dwellers try to prevent mountain newcomers from settling in their villages. A great many less conspicuous conflicts constantly occur in multi-ethnic rural areas, generated by a ‘conflict of cultures’ among members of different ethno-cultural groups. All this leads to the massive re-armament of the population of the lowlands – both original and settlers – and to the establishment of informal armed organisations, supplying ‘our people’ with needed support and safety. The influx of mountaineers to the plains has not diminished, but is steadily growing. In the conditions of market economy the mountains have no economic prospects. This crucial factor together with high density of population and a comparatively high birth rate in the mountains promise a continued permanent influx of migrants to the plains. Meanwhile, no empty land is left in the lowlands. A reduction of the geo-political conflict-generating factor, or at least a translocation of the problems related to it to the sphere of legal relations, can be achieved only if a land reform takes place that unequivocally defines the ownership over allotments, and regulates the conditions under which they can be bought, sold and leased. However, a resolu112

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tion of the land problem in Daghestan is greatly complicated by a series of significant circumstances. As a matter of fact, semi-nomadic stock-breeding still remains a major agricultural sector in the mountains. In order to continue to exist it needs the preservation and upkeep of the vital traditional infrastructure, such as flock driving roads, stock stations and winter pastures in the plains. However, this traditional economy is facing the new, private-ownership-based market relations as well as social and economic processes, such as the decline of agriculture in the mountains and the intensive migration of mountaineers to the lowlands. All these circumstances promise that the geo-political conflict-generating factor will for a long time yet cause various societal conflicts in Daghestan. The term ‘ethno-political conflict-generating factor’ implies the impact of Daghestan’s ethnic structure on the development of its political process. Daghestan has been since the times of Caucasian Albania (fourteenth century bc) a single ethno-cultural and geostrategic entity. At the same time, it has always been ethnically fragmented. Beginning in the early Middle Ages very stable local polis-like communities started to form in Daghestan. These later evolved into the core of the socio-political and civic identity of Daghestan’s population. During all this time, from the early Middle Ages and up to the establishment of Russian rule in Daghestan, larger political entities also existed – various feudal principalities such as the Shamkhalate of Tarku, the Khanate of Kazi Kumukh and the Utsmiate of Tabasaran. However, at the base of Daghestan’s social structure were city-states, known then and now as jama‘ats. The term Daghestan as a name of a country consisting of divergent but internally similar and interrelated political entities is found in written documents from the fourteenth century.3 The Daghestani nationalities, now at the focus of a political discourse, existed then only as a ‘thing in itself’ to use a Kantian expression. The formation of the present-day Daghestani nationalities – Avars, Darghins, Lezghins, Laks, Tabasarans, Nogays, Tats, Rutuls, Aguls, Tsakhurs – was done by the communist regime within the notions of ‘nation’ and ‘nationality’ developed by Marxism-Leninism and in the framework of its national policy of ‘peoples’ right to selfdetermination’. True, the concept of peoples’ right to self determination was deprived of any political value, but was on the other hand exhaustingly filled up with ethnographic content. The contemporary Daghestani nationalities were formed from above, as a result of decisions by the authorities on the establishment of ‘scientifically based’ nomenclature of nationalities and their registration in the document of civilian condition. Of course, ethnographic peculiarities and identities 113

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formed in peoples’ minds were also taken into account. However, the factors determining the direction for national self-identification were not necessarily always indices of ethno-cultural proximity and relationships but could rather be, let’s say, the nationality of certain high official, or any other, social or political (and far from being ethnographic) factor. Coming into the world as a result of intentional administrative decisions, the nationalities nevertheless started to acquire concrete significance in the Daghestanis’ consciousness. At first this materialisation of the new national identity took place in the minds of Daghestan’s artistic and scientific intelligentsia, as well as among the party functionaries and the state’s officialdom. Thereafter it spread to all the strata of the population. Gradually, nationality as a major characteristic of personal identification has acquired ever growing importance in Daghestan. By the time of perestroika, nationalism within the political and artistic elites had already gained an enormous role in decision-making in all spheres of life, including official ones. The last 30–35 years of the USSR were marked by a growing public attention to nationality. Since traditionalist morality based on personal loyalty and trust had gradually been replacing ideological principles and juridical norms within the political elite of the rotting regime, bonds based on common nationality, being surrogates of traditional infra-communal relations, were gaining in significance. Thus, mono-ethnic inter-dependence and support chains started to be formed in Daghestan, with its peculiar multinational structure. At first they were limited to the political elite and were invisible on the surface. But by the beginning of perestroika they could already be noticed by an experienced observer. Following the decline and the subsequent collapse of the communist regime the republic’s elite lost the support it had enjoyed from the old power structures. Being composed of representatives of Daghestan’s major nationalities, this elite could find its replacement only in systems of trust relations: among personal friends, relatives and members of the same nationality. In fact, with the conditions of the ruin of law and order, the entire society – not only its political elite – regressed to the primary network of personal and ethnic ties and assistance. This found its reflection in the emergence of the national movements of Daghestan’s peoples and the enormous upsurge in their popularity. At first these movements defied the authorities and served as channels of mass mobilisation for the opposition. Soon enough, however, the national movements turned into a political institution aimed at merging the old (formal) and new (charismatic) elites. While high-ranking officials seeking support have – openly or secretly – joined the ranks of the national movements’ leadership, the new con114

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figuration of national leaders has been included in the ruling elite. The result is that Daghestan’s multinational structure has become the determining political factor. The nationalities, which until recently had played no political role at all and had merely been objects of the ‘nationality policy’, have now become the major subjects of the political process. One observes that the mobilisation of the political forces in Daghestan occurs along the firm base of ethnic community rather than along the contemporary ideological party principles. The ethno-political factor proved to be so significant to the system of regrouping forces within the republic’s leadership, that it could not have been overlooked in the New Constitution of Daghestan, adopted on 26 July 1994. Several provisions in this basic legal document of the republic point to the political institutionalisation of the Daghestani nationalities. Thus, according to the constitution the ‘State Council’ (Gosudarstvennyi Sovet) – the supreme body of executive power in the republic – may not include ‘more than one representative of each nationality’ (article 88). Furthermore, the constitution ‘guarantees that all the nationalities of Daghestan shall be represented’ in the Parliament of the republic – the ‘People’s Assembly’ (Narodnoe Sobranie) – (article 72). Correspondingly, the special ‘Law of Elections to the People’s Assembly of the Republic of Daghestan’ specifies a procedure that secures not merely that all the principal nationalities are represented, but also ensures that representation corresponds to each nationality’s ratio in the population.4 Some of the more important rules regulating the national balance have not been spelled out in the constitution, laws or any written regulations. Nevertheless they are strictly observed. Thus, according to an unwritten law the heads of the three branches of government must be members of three different nationalities. Also the deputies of the prime minister have to belong to different principal nationalities. The same rule applies to the deputies of the chairman of the People’s Assembly. Thus, the term ‘ethno-political conflict-generating factor’ indicates the political discourse developing in Daghestan in which nationalities are handled as if they were social classes. This led to the introduction of the Basic Law of Legal Norms, which openly equate nationality as a political category. From an historical perspective the ethno-political factor will, most probably, continue to considerably determine interethnic conflicts on all the levels of social structure and in many points of social interaction. The term ‘socio-political conflict-generating factor’ signifies the tendencies caused by the transformations in the social structure of Daghestani society, the rapidly growing disparity within the republic’s population. 115

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The principles of competition, of striving to obtain personal success are deeply imbedded in the arch-types of Daghestan’s traditional culture. The severe living conditions in the mountains, the nonexistence of political despotism and rigid class hierarchy, together with a developed system of private ownership of the means of production – including land – made achievement of success highly conditional on one’s personal qualities. The redistribution of public property in the last decade has destroyed the former scale of prestige and completely transformed the social structure of Daghestani society. Social polarisation is particularly sharp between the population as a whole on the one hand, and the money and ruling elites formed in the transformation processes of recent years on the other. Nowhere in Russia can one observe such an income gap between the population at large and a small circle of the richest families as in Daghestan. The population of the republic has reached unprecedented deprivation. According to most social indicators, Daghestan occupies one of the bottom places among the regions of Russia, with an eightfold gap between it and the richest members of the Russian Federation (RF). The average income in Daghestan is well below the official minimal subsistence level of the RF. (To compare, in Moscow the average income is five times the minimum subsistence level.) An average wage in Daghestan comes up to a third of the average wage in the RF.5 Unemployment has been rising at a catastrophic pace. Its level is twice the average in the RF. Unemployment is particularly high in the rural areas of Daghestan. As a result, rural youth pours to the towns, where it fills the ranks of informal or criminal entrepreneurs. Many Daghestanis leave the republic in search of livelihood. However, there is a growing tendency now in Russia to drive so called ‘persons of Caucasian nationality’ (litsa kavkazskoi natsional’nosti) out. This augments the negative social results of the growth of unemployment and, furthermore, provokes an anti-Russian disposition among the youth of Daghestan. The rise in death rates and the fall in birth and marriage rates testify to the state of Daghestan’s population. In the rural areas families that include many pensioners and/or children are now considered to be well-off because they receive allowances from the state. Families which include many members of working age have no future in the rural environment. As already stated, agriculture in the mountain areas of Daghestan is economically worthless.6 Under the influence of growing deprivation the main social institutions in Daghestan are being transformed. Thus, a new tendency has appeared and is growing rapidly in the rural areas – divorce of 116

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young couples just before the birth of the first child, in order to receive single mother child support, which is significantly higher than family child allowance. Another serious social indicator is the increase in tuberculosis cases. The spread of TB in the republic is reaching threatening proportions. By the beginning of 1999 over 70,000 people needed medical care, more than 6,000 of them actively ill. However, the most alarming indicator is the fact that 70 per cent of the infected are retail traders, including many engaged in food and drinks. If the main mass of the population has been ‘lumpenising’, on the other pole of Daghestan’s society an unprecedented concentration of property has taken place. Huge fortunes are now concentrated in the hands of a tiny part of the population. Nowadays, the number of families that have huge economic means and define the system of internal political relations in Daghestan can tentatively be estimated at roughly 200. In other words these are approximately 1,000 nuclear families – about 6,500 people – or 0.3 per cent of the population. Another 5–7 per cent of the population have considerably improved their economic standing and supply the support base for the propertied elite. The following sector of the republic’s population (some 20–25 per cent) has been able to keep with enormous efforts its previous economic standing – about two to five times the minimal subsistence level. The main mass of the population (about 70 per cent) live in utter poverty. All these circumstances have an essential impact on the level of social tension in the republic. The number of demonstrations, protests and strikes in Daghestan is on the rise. If in the early 1990s such protests were mainly motivated by a variety of ideological reasons, at the present their motives are exclusively material. Teachers, doctors and other employees demand to be paid their salaries and social allowances. The number of labour disputes in both state and joint stock enterprises has risen drastically. The sharp rise in crime and the authorities’ inability to cope with it provoke the use of illegal measures to fight it. Thus cases have been reported of organised trials of criminals by their rural commune outside the state law. These seem to enjoy public approval.7 (See also below.) By ideological conflict-generating factors the existence in society of conflicting ideologies is implied, that might either cause directly, or be used to motivate, existenting conflicts among people. Using ideological indicators, Daghestani society should, first of all, be divided into two poles: those who are oriented towards European norms and values and those who are oriented towards the East, i.e. first of all towards Islamic norms and values. One may say that numerically 117

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these two tentatively defined poles are more or less equal. Obviously the number of those Daghestanis oriented towards European values is higher in urban areas. They are more numerous among the Laks, the Lezghins and other Southern Daghestani peoples, not to say among the Russians and other russophone Daghestanis. Only about 15–20 per cent of the population are ‘believers’, that is observe fully all the obligatory commandments of Islam. However, a significant part of the population regard themselves as believing Muslims and gravitate towards Muslim values. The proportion of believers is higher among the Avars, the Darghins, the Kumyks, the Azeris and the Aki Chechens. Although potentially very significant, these ideological polarisations of Daghestani society are not, at the moment, consciously at odds with each other. One can further tentatively divide those Daghestanis who are oriented towards Europe into Communists and Democrats. The former are by far more numerous, the latter are no more than 8–10 per cent of all those oriented towards Europe. These poles articulate distinctly their differences; however, conflicts between them arise during election campaigns only and even then they are limited to the printed press and to public debates. Part of those keeping, or oriented towards, Islamic values should be divided into three distinct groups: 1. Traditionalists are those who adhere to, or are oriented towards, the traditional – to Daghestan’s existent popular Islam. To them Islam is neither politics nor ideology, but a way of life. 2. The ‘Tariqatists’ are those who are organised in Sufi fraternities, headed by their Sheikh. The Tariqat was introduced to Daghestan at the beginning of the nineteenth century and supplied the ideological and organisational basis for the national liberation movement of the mountaineers against Russian colonisation. At the present 15 Murid fraternities are registered in the republic. They are all characterised by the tough discipline and loyalty of the Murids (disciples, adherents) to their Sheikh, to whom they are bound by a sacred vow. Almost all of them are mono-ethnic in composition. 3. The ‘Wahhabis’ – supporters of a pure, cleansed of local traditions, Islamic doctrine and a strict religious behaviour – are fairly few in numbers, only about 2–3 per cent of those Daghestanis oriented towards Islamic values. They are concentrated predominantly in the rural mountain and piedmont areas of central Daghestan and adjacent lowland raions of the republic. These are several mountain Avar raions, known for their Wahhabis’ open insurrection against the authorities; the raion of Buinaksk (where the three 118

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Darghin villages of Karamakhi, Kadar and Chabanmakhi are located); and the lowland raions of Kizlyar and Khasavyurt. Some evidence points to the recent setting up of Wahhabi groups among the Lezghins in Southern Daghestan. Even though the number of Wahhabis is insignificant, their influence on the political process in the republic has been growing in importance. First, they are well armed, which strongly motivates the population in the mountains to equip themselves with weapons for self-protection. It is enough for a small number of Wahhabi followers to appear in a village for its entire population to start procuring arms to protect themselves. Second, the Wahhabis’ criticism of the traditional Islamic leadership stimulates strong enmity between these two religious groups. More dangerously, it radicalises the traditional Islamic leadership. Thus, for example, in 1999 the Spiritual Board of the Muslims of Daghestan strongly protested against a proposed monument to Imam Shamil to commemorate his bicentennial on the ground that Islam prohibits realist human images. This demand was so unexpected, decisive and unanimous that the authorities of the republic had no choice but to revoke their decision to erect a statue of the leader of the national liberation movement of the Caucasian mountaineers. Isolated armed clashes have already occurred between groups of Wahhabis and local traditional believers, some resulting in human casualties. However, the danger that this kind of conflict may escalate is not very great. This is because they usually take place in ethnically homogeneous rural communities. All the societal conflict-generating factors discussed above should be regarded as an objective, perpetually moving background that constantly affects societal relations and defines the model of the political process that is developing in Daghestan. In each particular social conflict one can discern the impact of one of these factors. In serious conflicts, threatening the stability of Daghestan’s society, one can observe the simultaneous influence of at least two. At the same time, it would be erroneous to think that in the concrete political process entire social categories of citizens are its subject. Conflicts, as a rule, are not between all the settlers from the mountains and all the original lowland-dwellers. Nor do they take place between whole nationalities, social classes or ideological groups. None of these social categories is the real subject of the political process in Daghestan. Rather, they are fully definite organisations which, as a rule, are absent from the public political discourse and seem, therefore, not to exist in reality. 119

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One may call these latent organisations ‘ethnic parties’, since they possess all the attributes of West European political parties: • the needed minimal amount of ideological unity and corporate interest required to mobilise social forces; • an organisational structure composed of an authoritative leader (or leaders) and a number of activists sufficient to carry out all the necessary activities; and • financial support from members of the propertied elite and the massive support of specific segments of the population. The only difference is in the fact that the massive financial supporters of these parties, as well as their leaders, belong as a rule to the same sub-national ethnic community consisting of a single rural settlement or a group of neighbouring villages, that is the entity known in Daghestan as jama‘at.8 One can meet people belonging to various nationalities among the functionaries (activists) of ethno-parties. However, the key structural components of these political entities usually come from a single, closely knit ethno-cultural community. Moreover, no Daghestani nationality has a sole political centre, i.e. one single ethno-party. As it is, ethno-parties serve the interests of specific communities and cannot, therefore, stand for the entire nationality as a whole. Usually the leaders of such ethno-parties do not unite with other groupings belonging to their nationality; rather, if necessary, they would forge an alliance with ethno-parties representing other nationalities against ‘their own’. The struggle of the political elites in Daghestan frequently reaches extreme manifestations. Within the three recent years 50 cases were registered of violence against persons with official standing. Seventeen people were assassinated, eight of them members of the republican parliament. As a rule such cases failed to be solved. Only recently two trials have been initiated against people accused of such deeds. Both have to do with assassination attempts on the mayor of Makhachkala, Said Amirov. This does not mean, however, that these terrorist acts have remained unpunished. One has serious ground to believe that those who ordered these acts of violence were themselves often the victims of acts of counter-violence. The emerging political structure of Daghestan, encompassing a great number of political ethno-parties, forms a very complicated and dynamic interweave of force-fields pulling in two directions. Among the upper strata a permanent struggle for command is being waged in which both political bargaining and the use of force are employed. Meanwhile, vertically the elite has been reinforcing its ties with its mass support. Thus, by way of numerous compromises and flare-ups 120

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of fierce confrontations a dynamic balance of power at the top and an increase of control over social mass processes at the bottom have been taking shape. NOTES 1

2 3

4 5 6 7 8

The term ‘societal’ is rarely used in Russian sociology. This is probably so because there are two terms in Russian for ‘social’ (sotsial’nyi and obshestvennyi). It would be incorrect to call the factors singled out in this article ‘social’, because it does not specify the exact social conflict-generating factors in mind. Furthermore, it would imply that one intends to deliberate on all the social conflict-generating factors. The term societal was coined in1903 by the sociologist A. G. Keller, who used it to refer to organised aspects of social life in complicated societies with developed government, social class structure and institutions (D. M. Gvishiani (ed.), Kratki slovar po sotsiologii [A Concise Dictionary of Sociology] (Moscow: Politizdat, 1988), pp. 333–4). Later on, this term was used to signify phenomena and processes within a specific community as a whole (N. Aberkromby, S. Hill. and B. Ternerm, Sotsiologicheskii slovar [Sociological Dictionary] (Kazan: Kazan University Press, 1997), p. 304). By calling the singled-out conflict-generated factors ‘societal’, I mean that they cover the entire society as a whole and are intricate system-complexes. See Osnovnye natsional’nosti Respubliki Dagestan. Statisticheskii sbornik [The Main Nationalities of the Republic of Daghestan. A Statistical Collection] (Makhachkala: Izdatel’stvo Goskomstat RD, 1995). See M. G. Gadzhiev, O. M. Davudov and A. R. Shikhsaidov, Istoriia Dagestana s drevneishikh vremen do kontsa XV v. [The History of Daghestan From the Most Ancient Times to the End of the Fifteenth Century] (Makhachkala: Izdatel’stvo DNTs RAN, 1996). Konsitutsiia Respubliki Dagestan [The Constitution of the Republic of Daghestan] (Makhachkala: Izdatel’stvo ‘Iupiter’, 1994). See Uroven zhizni nasseleniia Dagestana. Statisticheskii sbornik [The Living Standards of the Population of Daghestan. Statistical Collection] (Makhachkala: Izdatel’stvo Goskomstat RD, 1997). Ibid. The most notorious terrorist acts committed in Daghestan in the recent few years have not been touched here, because this is a study of processes taking place in the wide strata of society that facilitate the expansion of social conflicts. For a detailed description of the nature of the traditional polities (jama‘ats), see Mamaikhan Aglarov, Sel’skaia obshchina v Nagornom Dagestane v XVII – nachale XIX v [The Rural Community in Mountainous Daghestan in the Seventeenth – Beginning of the Nineteenth Centuries] (Moscow: ‘Nauka’, 1988).

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Daghestan: Inter-ethnic Tensions and Cross-Border Implications Anna Matveeva

CONFLICT AND STABILITY

Daghestan, ‘the Land of Mountains’, the largest and southernmost autonomous republic in the North Caucasus, has emerged as the most volatile after the Chechen Republic. Its multi-ethnicity – Daghestan is populated by 34 ethnic groups1 – has been an obstacle to authoritarian tendencies.2 But rivalry between ethnic groups for power and resources is an important factor in Daghestani internal politics which precludes a more coherent government from developing. So far, Daghestan remains, at least officially, one of the most economically depressive regions of the Russian Federation, suffering from unemployment, social polarisation and rampant crime.3 At the present, the most important challenges to stability come from within the republic and stem from a weakness of government. At the same time, cross-border tensions exacerbate the situation. In a way, all the republican border areas are populated by divided peoples: Chechens on the border with Chechnya, Lezghins on the border with Azerbaijan and Russians on the border with Stavropol krai. Potentially, they pose a threat of secession from Daghestan, taking with them the territories they consider as their historical homeland. Moreover, neighbouring states or territories can use their ethnic kin to pursue their own political goals within Daghestan and vice versa: Daghestan (and Russia, of which Daghestan is a constituent part) can exploit these opportunities to their own advantage. However, these manipulation schemes do not reflect the existing situation. In reality one encounters chaotic efforts by groups of bewildered people who try to come to terms with the new social and economic realities. These feel that they have nothing to rely on but their 122

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ethnic identity and the group solidarity it provides. Moreover, some feel that because of their ethnic origin they suffered more than other groups from the collapse of the USSR (Lezghins), or from post-Soviet developments (Chechens). Others feel growing anxiety that they might have no stake in a new order primarily based on ethnic solidarity of indigenous groups (Russians). Thus, in this grey area of present instability and uncertainty about the future, informal networks and arrangements are shaping up. Furthermore, post-Soviet disorder and the Soviet legacy of cynicism and alienation cause people not to trust the authorities to provide for their needs. Thus they have often to take direct action to protect themselves and their property, as do Daghestani populations bordering on Chechnya. Chechen attacks from across the border after the end of the first Russian–Chechen war have been the most powerful external source of instability for Daghestan. The attacks culminated in the August 1999 intervention by Chechen field commanders into bordering highland Daghestan and ferocious confrontation with the Russian troops over the Islamist strongholds in central Daghestan. These events, together with bombing raids by Moscow, led to the second Russian– Chechen war, in which Daghestanis came firmly on the Russian government’s side and have benefited from their loyalty. Anti-Chechen sentiment started to proliferate in the republic, and this had a negative impact on the situation of the Daghestani Chechen population, who were suspected of siding up with the enemy and involvement in terrorism on Daghestani territory. Finally, the Russian federal government’s weakness throughout the 1990s, albeit in the short term, meant that the republican authorities increasingly had to rely on their own might in coping with instability on the borders and the grievances of the divided peoples. Russia’s Federal Border Troops play a role in protecting the border between Daghestan and Azerbaijan, but cannot effectively provide a secure and fair border regime. At the same time, tensions among North Caucasians in Stavropol krai and Russians in Daghestan are issues too sensitive to be openly discussed, given Daghestan’s heavy financial dependency on Moscow and the fact that the position of the Daghestani authorities within the republic relies on their ability to distribute federal subsidies among powerful groupings. This chapter will outline the situation of four divided peoples in Daghestan – Chechens, Lezghin, Russians and Avars – and the relations between them and their neighbours across the border. It will then proceed to assess the conflict management patterns employed by the Daghestani authorities, and their relative success and failure. The chapter will conclude with prospects for conflict and stability in the republic. 123

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The Chechens are one of the indigenous ethnic groups in Daghestan, numbering some 90,000 (4.5 per cent of the population). Prior to the Russian military intervention in Chechnya in 1995, the attitude of the local Chechens and Daghestanis as a whole towards the Dudayev regime was negative and his independence bid was regarded as unrealistic. This negative attitude changed after the storming of Groznyi in 1994, which sent shock waves across the Caucasus. Although sympathising with the Chechen predicament and disapproving of the military operation, the authorities in Daghestan maintained strict neutrality between the Russian federal government and the Chechens. After the end of the first war, the Daghestani authorities started to fear that if Chechnya gained independence, it would have a dramatic impact on Daghestan. This fear has been only exacerbated by postwar developments. Russian troops have been withdrawn from Chechnya into Daghestan (most notably, the 136 Motorised Rifle Brigade stationed in Buinaksk and a paratroopers’ regiment in Botlikh), and the border is no longer properly guarded, allowing criminal gangs from Chechnya to enter Daghestan. Subsequent developments showed that internal turmoil in Chechnya, with blood feuds and a struggle for power forging alliances and enmities across the North Caucasus, was more destabilising for Daghestan than the straightforward conflict between Chechnya and Russian federal authorities. Instability was promoted by the following factors: violence in border areas and territorial claims pursued by various Chechen politicians and field commanders; a military link between Islamic radicals in Chechnya and in Daghestan; tensions around the local Chechen population and militarisation of Daghestan. In the inter-war periods official relations between Johar4 and Makhachkala5 remained tense, although the Daghestani authorities tried to initiate a dialogue. The People’s Assembly of Daghestan established inter-parliamentary relations with the Chechen parliament in January 1998. The main obstacle in official relations was the Chechen leadership’s reluctance to sign a ‘Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation’, drafted by the Daghestani side in November 1996 in order to provide a framework for practical measures. The chairman of the State Council of Daghestan (the supreme post in the republic), Mahomedali Mahomedov, failed to sign the treaty in February 1998 during his visit to Johar, as the Chechen leadership argued that while Chechnya is an independent state, Daghestan is a constituent part of the Russian Federation and therefore could sign a bilateral agreement only with an individual raion (district) of Chechnya, not with 124

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the Chechen government. This, however, did not prevent Chechnya from signing treaties with the Stavropol krai, and with Tatarstan and Bashkorstan. The Daghestani position was that the republic had already signed similar treaties with Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, both independent states. The stance adopted by the Daghestani leadership towards the Chechen authorities was apprehensive of provoking any hostile reaction. The Daghestani authorities raised their voice only once, during Mahomedov’s visit to Johar. They protested against the kidnapping of Yusuf Khibirov, the deputy minister for agriculture, in the summer of 1997 on Chechen territory while travelling on official business. This initially cautious stance can be explained by a fear of undermining the position of President Aslan Maskhadov and his relatively moderate supporters. Another probably more plausible explanation is that Daghestan suffered its own political and social turmoil. The Daghestani leadership feared that any violation of the status quo could have completely jeopardised internal stability. It chose to play a balancing act to mitigate the existing tensions rather than to adopt a more active policy. For a long time the Daghestani leadership did not respond publicly to any claims on its territory coming from the other side of the border, however widely publicised. Meanwhile, the ideas of unification between Chechnya and parts (or all) of Daghestan have been articulated in Chechnya. The ‘Islamic Nation’ movement, founded in Johar in August 1997 at a congress of Chechen and other North Caucasian delegates, declared as its proclaimed goal the creation of an ‘Imamate’ – a state formation which should incorporate all the lands unified by Imam Shamil, the leader of the Caucasian War against the Russians in the nineteenth century. The then foreign minister of Chechnya, Movladi Udugov, the principal Chechen ideologue under President Dudayev’s regime, who chaired the movement, pointed out that the territories of Daghestan populated by ethnic Chechens should join the first independent state in the North Caucasus. According to the ‘Islamic Nation’ unionists, the movement did not aspire to annex the ‘historical’ Chechen lands, but would rather promote Chechnya joining Daghestan in a single Islamic state. It calls for the restoration of Daghestan to its ‘historical borders’. This was a convenient formula to avoid accusation of pursuing territorial claims on Daghestani territory. As articulated by Udugov, ‘our aim is to prevent the splitting of the Chechens and the peoples of Daghestan on the grounds of ethnicity, to preclude Chechnya from being isolated from Daghestan’.6 In the view of some Chechen strategists, such a unified Chechen–Daghestani state would enjoy increased economic viability enhanced by the access to the Caspian Sea, and might have 125

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more chances to gain recognition in the long run. The way to achieve this was articulated by Udugov at a round table with Daghestani authorities in December 1997 in Novolakskii raion where he expressed the view that Daghestan was a Russian colony and the revival of the peoples of Caucasus was impossible without decolonisation. In April 1998 a Congress of Chechen and Daghestani representatives took place in Johar headed by Shamil Basayev, a prominent field commander responsible for hostage-taking in Budennovsk in 1995, and the then acting prime minister of Ichkeria.7 It was held despite Daghestani officials’ opposition and declared as the ultimate goal of the new organisation the unification of Daghestan and Chechnya into a single free state. Basayev was proclaimed an emir of the joint state. Since then the internal splits in the Chechen leadership came into the open, and even if there was a strategic agenda behind the congress, it failed to materialise. In July 1998 Basayev resigned as prime minister to be appointed a deputy commander-in-chief, a position he left at the end of August 1998 to join the opposition to Maskhadov. Nevertheless, in June the Chechen commanders led by Basayev initiated manoeuvres of the Congress’s military forces which took place in the border areas of Chechnya and Daghestan and which were attended by senior Chechen politicians. In Daghestan this approach was supported by Nadirshah Khachilayev, the chairman of the Union of Muslims of Russia and a Lak from Makhachkala. Khachilayev, a former prominent karate champion turned gangster and one of the richest men in Daghestan, expressed his support for the concept of a free Daghestan unified with Chechnya in an independent state.8 However, since Khachilayev’s involvement in the May 1998 events in Makhachkala when the Khachilayev brothers led their supporters to raid governmental headquarters, his standing as a public figure has diminished, and he was stripped of his deputy’s immunity in September 1998. Yet the most likely ally for the unification course were the Daghestani, or the Aki Chechens (Chechentsy-Akkintsy), who live in lowland Daghestan on the border with Chechnya.9 In 1944 the Aki Chechens were deported to Central Asia together with the rest of the Chechens. Laks and Avars from the mountains were forcibly settled in their villages and the district (Aukhovskii raion) was renamed Novolakskii (New Lak) raion. After rehabilitation the Aki Chechens were resettled in Khasavyurt and Kyzylyurt. But they have aspired to settle back in their old villages and to restore the Aukhovskii raion. The tensions centred around the disputed villages of Leninaul and Kalininaul to where Laks and Avars were resettled during the Second World War to replace the deported Chechens 126

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and over the more cardinal questions of where the Laks and Avars should move to from the villages were they persuaded to do so, and where the resources would come from to facilitate such an undertaking. The Laks were persuaded in 1993 to move to land near Makhachkala, but the Kumyks objected, declaring it their historical homeland. Moreover, climatic conditions there are unfavourable for human habitation due to the marshes.10 These disputes, however, have been overshadowed by what the Daghestani authorities felt was the Aki Chechens’ dubious loyalty. The then Security Council secretary, Mahomed Tolboyev, for example, stated openly that ‘Groznyi has created a bridgehead in the Khasavyurt raion for seizing all of Daghestan. The local Chechens have been assigned the role of the fifth column.’11 There were indeed certain indications which gave rise to various speculations. Basyr Dadayev, the leader of the Aki Chechens, frequently asserted that from the point of view of Chechen historiography, this whole region was ‘the traditional land of the Vainakhs’. In these circumstances the Daghestani government had little incentive to move on with resettlement, fearing that once the Aki Chechens returned to their land, nothing would stand in their way to join independent Chechnya.12 Thus, when in August 1998 Daghestani Chechens blocked the roads in the area for three weeks protesting the lack of progress in resettlement, the authorities used Moscow’s failure to allocate funds for resettlement as an excuse.13 This worsened the position of moderate Daghestani Chechens who wished to disassociate themselves from the developments in Chechnya. At times local tensions led to a situation in which Chechen raids from across the border were resisted by Avars only. In view of their confrontation with the Avars, the Kumyks showed no tendency to assist them. Indeed, the Khasavyurt branch of Tenglik (the Kumyk national movement) declared that the Kumyks would remain neutral and support neither side. In these circumstances a growing tension developed between Chechens and Avars, which the local authorities in Avar populated areas considered as the most acute one in Daghestan.14 Thus a real threat arose of Daghestani Chechens becoming hostage to spontaneous violence in response to abductions and looting from across the border. This almost happened in January 1996, during Salman Raduyev’s raid on Kyzlyar.15 Another, more formidable ally for unification with Chechnya is represented by the forces of radical Islam. The Islamic radicals in the North Caucasus call themselves Salafiyun (following the path of our forebears) or ‘Muslims of the jama‘at’. The authorities used to call them ‘Wahhabis’, but agreed to drop this term in August 1998 when it acquired a derogatory meaning.16 It is believed that the first radicals 127

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in the region appeared as a result of haj.17 Another view is that they already existed in Daghestan in the early 1980s, but the KGB at that time was more effective in suppressing them.18 The link with Islamic radicals in Chechnya was established during the war of 1994–96. The Daghestani radicals who fought in the war in Chechnya, mainly under the Saudi-born field commander Khattab, returned home influenced by the idea of an Islamic state. One of their spiritual leaders, the mullah of Kizilyurt, Bahauddin Mohammed, publicly stated that ‘Daghestan can stay within Russia only if the latter becomes an Islamic state.’19 During 1997 the military and organisational support from Chechnya to Daghestani radical Muslims became more manifest. Islamic radicals were trained in at least four camps in Chechnya under the supervision of Wahhabi instructors.20 It was also widely believed that Arab countries assisted them financially.21 In December 1997 Raduyev’s ‘Johar’s Army’ and the ‘Fighting Squads of the Jama‘at of Daghestan’ signed a Treaty on Military Mutual Assistance. The document stated that both organisations represented forces fighting for a unified Islamic state in the Caucasus and for independence from Russia.22 It is ultimately difficult to establish who is a so-called Wahhabi in Chechnya. Emir Khattab identified himself as such. Raduyev vehemently distanced himself from Wahhabism. It is also known that Khattab and Raduyev were the worst enemies. Udugov, the leader of the ‘Islamic Nation’ abstained from publicly identifying with the Wahhabis, but was widely believed to be one. Probably the initiative of such connections came in many cases from Daghestani groups seeking separation from Russia and ready to forge alliances with anyone who had a military capacity. In December 1997 an armed raid was carried out against the Russian 136th Brigade in Buinaksk. The Central Front for the Liberation of the Caucasus and Daghestan claimed responsibility. A few young men from Karamakhi suspected of taking part in the raid were arrested but soon released. In March 1998 an electric energy distribution station in the disputed Novolakskii raion was bombed. The Sword of Islam claimed responsibility and called upon the Laks to leave the Chechen homeland. The tension reached its peak in August, when three villages in the Buinakskii raion declared the creation of a separate Islamic territory where Daghestani (and Russian) laws were not valid and stated that they were prepared to defend it by force. Chechen field commanders, including Basayev, offered their military support. In the eyes of Daghestani authorities, ‘Wahhabism, although not in possession of a wide social base and not being popular among the 128

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majority of the republic’s Muslim population, represents nevertheless a serious threat by reinforcing religious extremism.’23 Before the alliance with the Chechens had become public, the Daghestani authorities made efforts to incorporate Islamic radicals into the mainstream debate.24 Following that, the response of the Daghestani authorities combined punitive measures and propaganda.25 In December 1997 the People’s Assembly (the Daghestani legislature) passed the ‘Law on the Freedom of Religious Confession’ to conform to the Russian Federal Law. The new law made it very difficult for the radical groups to operate legally. In August 1998, following the assassination of Saidmuhamed-haji Abubakarov, the Mufti of Daghestan and an outspoken critic of Wahhabism,26 and the proclamation of the above Islamic territory, the Daghestani leadership resorted to negotiations with the rebellious Muslims and an unstable compromise was reached.27 In accordance with it, the Daghestani authorities amended the law in September 1998 so as to enable the Wahhabis to practise their beliefs. The reasoning behind the compromise was probably that if they were physically threatened the radicals would turn for support to armed groups in Chechnya. The rise of Wahhabism in the North Caucasus can be explained by the fact that the social grounds for a radical movement have already been ripe.28 It should not be surprising that social and economic discontent is being expressed in Islamic terms and that a more purified and rigorous doctrine gains momentum. For impoverished, disillusioned populations in the mountains the burden of traditional Islam, deeply embedded in demanding Caucasian traditions, has become unbearable. Islamic radicalism is a reaction of the desperate rural populations to the moral decline and lawlessness of the post-Soviet disorder – of those who resent the present injustice and seek a way out. It also crosses ethnic and clan divisions in the society more effectively than traditional Islam. The official Islamic clergy in the North Caucasus often failed to become credible agents of civil society who could serve as intermediaries between the authorities and the population. Instead, the official Islam in Daghestan has been too pliant and has lacked an independent political stance. The Daghestani (and Russian ) leadership looked for an adequate response to the challenges coming from Chechnya. In October 1997 the administrative regime on the border between Chechnya and Daghestan was tightened and the border was temporarily closed. Another measure adopted in November 1997 was to dig a trench along the low-lying sector of the border. The Daghestani deputy interior minister, Mahomed Omarov, complained that effective border protection was prevented by the absence of a legal foundation for enforcing it: While de facto it was an international border, de jure it 129

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was defined as an administrative one, which meant that it could be protected only by local police forces and Interior Ministry troops, not by the Border Guards.29 Furthermore, Russian federal armed units stationed in the republic not only failed to perform their duties, but increasingly became targets for Chechen attacks. The Russian brigade in Daghestan attacked in December 1997, for example, was fired at in February and May 1998. In these circumstances the Daghestani authorities had to resort to measures they were able to undertake locally. In November 1997 the Daghestani Security Council decided to create self-defence units composed of local volunteers in the areas bordering on Chechnya. The proposal meant that the administration heads might have become local barons with private armies. The belated Russian opposition to this initiative came in January 1998, and a number of alternative measures were undertaken by the federal authorities, such as the creation of headquarters in Makhachkala to coordinate the activities of all federal power structures in the republic. However, as Khachilayev’s socalled revolt in May 1998 demonstrated, these headquarters proved completely ineffective. The popular belief in the federal troops’ ability to protect Daghestanis was declining. Political and economic crises in Moscow meant that the federal government’s attention was diverted from the North Caucasus, and the centre had neither the resources, nor sufficient interest to effectively protect the Daghestani/Chechen border. The prospects of Daghestan joining Chechnya in a single entity are minor. The Chechen unification drive tends to overlook the danger posed by the multi-ethnic composition of Daghestan. Even if some groups decide to combine with the Chechens in an attempt to break away, other groups might declare themselves autonomies within the Russian Federation.30 The Chechen pro-independence drive is shared neither by the elites nor by large segments of the population of Daghestan. Separatism is not on the political agenda, and those advocating the creation of an Islamic state and separation from Russia, are in a tiny minority. As articulated by M.-S. Gusayev, Daghestani minister for nationalities: Some political forces in Chechnya are under an illusion that an antiRussia oriented individual can come to power in Daghestan. Equally futile illusions are being cherished by some federal politicians who search for pro-Russian leaders in Chechnya. Moscow, Groznyi and Makhachkala have to come to terms with the real situation.31

The potential danger lies in another direction. The continuous instability in Chechnya exacerbates internal problems and tensions 130

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within Daghestan. Domestic political fragmentation makes Daghestan exceptionally vulnerable to penetration of external political and criminal interests. To sum up, violence in the border area coupled with suspect loyalty of the Daghestani Chechens and a challenge presented by Islamic radicalism make relations with Chechnya the most serious threat to stability in Daghestan. LEZGHINS AND RELATIONS WITH AZERBAIJAN32

The Lezghins live on both sides of the river Samur, which is the border between Daghestan and Azerbaijan since 1860. According to the last Soviet Census (1989) 250,000 (c.58.5 per cent of) Lezghins lived in southern Daghestan and 177,000 (c.41.5 per cent) in northern Azerbaijan.33 The dissolution of the USSR transformed the border with Azerbaijan from merely administrative into an international one, and made the Lezghins into a truly divided people disrupting social ties, preventing economic interaction and undermining cultural viability of the community.34 This entails three major problems. The Border Regime Azerbaijan’s reluctance to join the CIS in 1992–93 and its rejection of Moscow’s bid to station Russian border guards on the Azerbaijani– Iranian border led to a gradual tightening of the border regime. The situation was further aggravated by the 1994–96 war in Chechnya. In December 1994 Russia closed the border with Azerbaijan and introduced controls and customs. Officially this was done to secure the border against the smuggling of weapons and mercenaries to Chechnya, but it was also used to score a point against Azerbaijan.35 The establishment of border controls came as a shock to the local population. The tactic adopted by the Lezghins on this issue was to lobby the Daghestani People’s Assembly to put the issue on the political agenda and force the government to raise it with Moscow. Indeed, in April 1996, under pressure from the Daghestani government, the border regime was relaxed and local residents, mainly Lezghins, were allowed to cross the border freely. In August 1996, after the Khasavyurt Accords had been signed, the Russian government decided to open the border and increase the number of local conscripts in the border troops. However, tensions remained over the issue of whether a 5 km-wide ‘alienation zone’, where free movement of people and cultivation of land was prohibited, should be established. Although its enforcement has been postponed because of the protests of the local population, the decision is still in force. Only 70 131

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per cent of the border is delimited, leaving plenty of room for frequent local disputes between farmers and border guards. The latest episode happened in December 1998, when Azerbaijani border guards moved their post into the no man’s land in the delta of the Samur river. In response, over one hundred Daghestanis attempted to cross the border and cultivate lands near the village of Garakh, over which they claim rights.36 The Lezghins in Daghestan Some Lezghins complain of unfair personnel policies by the Daghestani authorities, that is that Lezghins do not hold top positions in the government.37 The Lezghins in Azerbaijan Although there are no discriminatory policies against them on the personal level, the Lezghins’ campaign for national-cultural autonomy is vehemently rejected by the Azerbaijani authorities. Daghestani Lezghins fear that the continued existence of their ethnic kin in Azerbaijan as a distinct community is threatened by what they consider Turkic nationalistic policies of forceful assimilation.38 Interethnic tensions between Lezghins and Azeris spilled over from Azerbaijan to Daghestan also. They started in 1992 when the Popular Front came to power in Azerbaijan, but reached a peak in mid-1994, the time of heavy losses on the Karabakh front. In May that year violent clashes occurred in Derbent (Daghestan), and in June in the Gussary region of Azerbaijan. Since then the situation has stabilised, although Azerbaijani authorities allege a link between Lezghin activists and Karabakh Armenians and a cloud of suspicion surrounds the Lezghin community in Azerbaijan. In Daghestan Lezghin activists initially organised themselves in a national movement named ‘Sadval’ (‘Unity’). In 1991 Sadval called for the creation of an independent Lezgistan. The Daghestani authorities, though sympathetic to the fate of divided peoples, were against this claim and it was officially dropped by Sadval at its sixth congress in April 1996. Nevertheless, in October 1998 retired General Muhutdin Kahrimanov, responsible for ideological work with soldiers and officers in the Soviet army and a head of the Council of Elders of the Lezghin people (a Sadval splinter group) organised a meeting in Derbent on the eve of the presidential elections in Azerbaijan and demanded the creation of a Derbent autonomous region within the Russian Federation, outside Daghestan.39 The history of Sadval is full of internal feuds. Unlike most 132

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Daghestani national movements, Sadval and its splinter groups have neither included rich and assertive individuals at the top nor enjoyed the patronage of a powerful official. There are a number of Lezghin businessmen who have provided financial support, although on a modest scale. At the seventh Sadval congress, in November 1998, when a conflict between radicals and moderates threatened to split the movement,40 Nasyr Primov, a businessman from the Magaramkent raion, was co-opted into the Political Council of Sadval. He was either to be appointed at a later stage as its co-chairman – together with Ruslan Ashuraliev, a former wrestling champion – or to become its sole chairman if the movement finally split.41 It is unclear whether Primov can play such a role.42 Ashuraliev was elected to the Daghestani National Assembly (the republican parliament) in 1999 as a delegate from a Lezghin region of Akhty, and Sadval’s profile and activities lost relevance following escalating tensions around Chechnya. Sadval activists are mainly members of the intelligentsia, with little grassroots support and no co-operation from the Daghestani authorities. The latter have developed good relations with Azerbaijan. This should not be surprising in view of the fact that relations between the two elites have been facilitated by the fact that both belong to the old Soviet nomenklatura and that personal relationships go a long way back. From 1996 the Daghestani authorities took a more active approach, exchanging official visits with Azerbaijan, signing a ‘Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation’ and supporting efforts at economic co-operation and border delimitation. Thus, the prime minister of Azerbaijan, Artur Rasizade, attended Mahomedov’s inauguration ceremony in July 1998. Non-governmental (although sponsored by the authorities) meetings have been encouraged. Thus, for instance, veterans’ organisations met in Kuba (Azerbaijan) in November 1998.43 It should not come as a surprise, therefore, that in May 1998 the Azerbaijani authorities were alarmed by the situation in Daghestan following the Khachilayev revolt. A senior delegation of the Ministry of National Security of Azerbaijan visited the area, and troops were moved closer to the border.44 Still unresolved problems remain, centring on the distribution of the Samur river waters and the regulation of cross-border trade.45 Furthermore, unlike Daghestan, Azerbaijan does not acknowledge the existence of a Lezghin problem caused by the new international border. While the direct influence of the Lezghin national movement over political developments is minimal, extremely vocal individuals can easily damage Daghestani–Azerbaijani relations and put a cloud of suspicion over the Lezghins in general. In September–October 1997 a number of ‘sports camps’ emerged in the Magaramkent raion (Daghestan). They were widely believed to be run by the Lezghins 133

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(although Lezghin organisations in Daghestan distanced themselves from them). The trainees were obviously undergoing military training, but nobody possessed firearms, and the authorities had no legal cause to arrest them. (Eventually one person was arrested and two others escaped.) The Azerbaijani authorities were very alarmed and moved troops closer to the border. The Daghestani authorities appealed to the federal government to move their border troops and the 136th Brigade (stationed in Buinaksk). Meanwhile local villagers staged street protests alleging that the trainees were involved in the murder of a local businessman.46 After the intervention of the republican authorities the camps seem to have been closed down. Recent activities of the Lezghin organisations in Daghestan have most probably been aimed at developments in Daghestani internal politics, such as the elections to the People’s Assembly and the referendum on the introduction of a directly elected presidency, and motivated by the desire to come under the spotlight in the presidential electoral campaign in Azerbaijan in the autumn of 1998. Furthermore, the strengthening of the Azerbaijani state, the freezing of the NagornoKarabakh conflict, the expectations of oil revenue and the opening of the Azerbaijani–Daghestani border, various investments in projects and infrastructure and, finally, state support for education in the Lezghin language all resulted in a marked improvement of the situation of the Lezghin community in Northern Azerbaijan. Moreover, the law and order situation in Northern Azerbaijan compares favourably with that in Daghestan. Nevertheless, the authorities in Baku have remained suspicious of the Lezghins and fear that their (and other minorities’) grievances might be used by Russia to destabilise Azerbaijan.47 Ayaz Mutalibov, the expresident of Azerbaijan in exile in Russia, has been accused of sending messengers to Daghestan to plot against Azerbaijan, an allegation he vehemently denies.48 Trials were held of Lezghins accused of the July 1994 explosions in the Baku metro and in April 1998 Habib Abuyev, a Lezghin from the Gussary raion, was convicted of an attack on a border post in 1993 and of an attempt to create independent Lezgistan, and sentenced to 13 years in prison.49 Furthermore, Azerbaijan has alleged that a link existed between Sadval, which it believed operated illegally in Azerbaijan,50 and the Armenian secret services. In April 1998 Azer Aslanov, an Azeri Lezghin accused of organising terrorist acts on behalf of Armenian secret services and deputies to the Daghestani People’s Assembly, was sentenced to life imprisonment and in October 1998 a Lezghin extradited from Russia was accused of terrorism on behalf of Armenia.51 The Lezghin issue is, thus, caught up in the tense relations between Russia and Azerbaijan, which are characterised by mutual suspicion 134

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and disagreement over a number of important issues, such as the legal status of the Caspian Sea, the export route for Caspian oil and the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. The North Caucasus is a potential security concern for Azerbaijan. Its leadership, distrustful of Russia’s intentions, has been pursuing a policy of rapprochement with Chechnya as a counterbalance to Russia’s potential interference in Azerbaijani internal developments. Such a policy, however, contained its own dangers, such as the spillover of instability, in which case the Daghestani authorities would no longer be able to maintain a buffer zone between Chechnya and Azerbaijan. This policy approach has backfired on Azerbaijan as the second Russian–Chechen war started when the Russian authorities suspected the Azerbaijani government of supporting Chechen terrorism, and threatened to expel Azerbaijani ‘guest workers’ from the territory of the Russian Federation. The situation is further complicated by the war in Chechnya. This completed the disruption of official economic ties that followed the dissolution of the USSR and opened many illegal opportunities, including arms and drugs trafficking. Given the extreme poverty in Southern Daghestan, it is hardly surprising that people are prepared to exploit these opportunities. The deteriorating criminal situation and breakdown of law and order have led to powerful criminal interests and networks wielding real power and manipulating popular sentiment. An example of such a manipulation was the blocking, in autumn 1998, of the Azerbaijani–Daghestani border by Daghestani long-distance lorry-drivers.52 The situation was deteriorating because food and oil had been illegally exported to Azerbaijan, causing price rises in Daghestan.53 Three factors might contribute to potential destabilisation: • If Azerbaijan experiences an oil boom and all its citizens profit from it, the Azerbaijani Lezghins will gain considerable advantage over their kin across the border, creating striking economic disparity between two communities. This would be regarded by the Daghestani Lezghins as even more unfair if the main export pipeline goes via Georgia and Turkey, avoiding unstable Daghestan. If, however, an oil boom fails to materialise, ethnic solidarity might be strengthened and irredentist calls might reappear. • A spillover of instability from Chechnya to Daghestan and increased internal volatility in Daghestan might have a domino effect. Moreover, if law and order in Daghestan continues to break down, there is a real danger of the Lezghin movements being exploited by criminal groups, as is already the case with several other national movements. • Economic crisis in Russia severely affects Moscow’s capacity to 135

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subsidise deprived areas, such as southern Daghestan. This crisis, as well as the policy of expelling Caucasians from Russia’s large cities, has grave repercussions on the Azerbaijani shadow economy as well. Many young Azerbaijani citizens from the countryside who worked in Russia are now forced to return. Rising unemployment and gloomy economic prospects can easily add fuel to the existing tensions. RUSSIANS AND RELATIONS WITH STAVROPOL KRAI

Two different Russian groups live in Daghestan: urban Russians drawn in as technical experts and industrial managers during the industrialisation of the republic; and rural Russians, mainly of Cossack origin, who were annexed to Daghestan in the last major border redraw in 1957–58, when several Russian (formerly Cossack) agricultural raions were transferred to the North Caucasian autonomous republics.54 The Tarumovskii and Kyzlyar raions were annexed to Daghestan. Throughout the 1990s the volatile situation in the republic, and especially the rising crime, the shrinking legal economy and the predominance of the shadow semi-legal networks, inter-ethnic tensions, the spillover of instability from Chechnya, social polarisation and the rapidly declining living standards have pushed growing numbers of people to depart from Daghestan.55 Apart from members of the local intelligentsia, those who leave are mainly the Russians and the Jews.56 Russian immigration into inner, ethnically neutral regions of Russia has been a general trend,57 and according to President Yeltsin, Russians were leaving the North Caucasus at almost the same pace as they were leaving the new independent states of the former USSR.58 The Russians are thus becoming rapidly a disappearing minority. At the present they are only 6 per cent of Daghestan’s population as compared to 9 per cent in 1989.59 However, those who leave are mainly urban Russians. With the collapse of the numerous defence enterprises in the republic, many became unemployed. The absence of clan support and lack of free capital made Russians particularly vulnerable to changing economic circumstances and rampant crime. Furthermore, many of them retained family links elsewhere in the Russian Federation and had a better chance to start a new life if they decided to move. The rural Russians of Cossack dissent are more likely to stay and have formed an organisation to lobby their rights within the republic; however, the younger and more able ones are also inclined to leave. The Daghestani leaders managed to persuade Moscow that ethnic 136

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Russians do not face any specific problems in the republic. Nevertheless, socially prestigious niches were taken over by members of indigenous groups, and only token Russians remained in quasi-power positions, while real power lies firmly with representatives of the titular groups. This pattern of low-key pressure on Russians which the Daghestani social environment put them under, is mirrored by attitudes to people from Daghestani indigenous groups who move to work or come for trade to Stavropol krai. The rich and conservative krai, renown for xenophobic attitudes towards Caucasians, is already under significant immigration pressure. The annual migration rate to Stavropol krai is 1.5 per cent, which means that every twelfth immigrant from the RF is registered in Stavropol krai.60 Resentment of North Caucasians in the krai has been intensified by the terrorist acts in Mineral’nyie Vody in 1993–94, when buses with schoolchildren and holiday-makers were held at gunpoint to extort money from the authorities, the hostage-taking in Budennovsk in 1995 when Shamil Basayev’s men seized the hospital with hundreds of people trapped inside to pressurise the Russian government to stop the bombing raids on Chechnya, the spillover of crime from neighbouring Chechnya following the conclusion of the 1994–96 war and by immigration pressure. All these provide fertile ground for extremism against Caucasians to such an extent that in April 1998 the Ministry of Nationalities of Daghestan recommended to Mahomedov to pay an official visit to Stavropol krai and express his support for the Daghestani diaspora there. The relations between the Stavropol krai population and authorities and its North Caucasian neighbours, especially the Chechens, remain extremely tense.61 The Budennovsk raid demonstrated the necessity to protect the border areas to the krai authorities. Thus the administration increased its support for the Cossacks, whose influence is stronger in the southern borderland areas of the krai. The rise of the Cossack movement in Stavropol krai, with the tacit encouragement of the krai authorities, causes concern to the North Caucasian leadership.62 Yet the Cossack movement, internally split and lacking decisive leadership, does not present a credible force capable of substantive military or political undertakings. What is perhaps more important is the activity in the krai of various nationalist organisations, such as Derzhava [Strong Power] or Russkoe Patrioticheskoe Dvizhenie Stavropolia [Russian Patriotic Movement of Stavropolie], both locally founded, underfunded and rather weak groups. Recently Russkoe Natsionalnoe Edinstvo [the Russian National Unity], an ultra-right group contesting parliamentary seats and adhering to a ‘Russia for Russians’ ideology, headed by Aleksandr Barkashov, a plumber from 137

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Moscow turned fascist, has stepped up its activities and has been joined by some Cossacks. In September 1998 it organised a conference attended by 450 delegates from Russia’s southern regions.63 The Barkashov faction wants either to leave Daghestan and Chechnya to their own fate but to reunite the Cossack Tarumovskii and Kyzliar raions with Stavropol krai, or to abolish the autonomy of the North Caucasian republics and transform them into Russian-ruled guberniias. It is this latter idea that has increasingly been gaining popularity. AVARS AND RELATIONS WITH GEORGIA

Although hardly a divided nation, Avars – the largest of the titular nationalities of Daghestan – have their ethnic kin living in Georgia (Kvareli) and Azerbaijan (Zakataly and Belokany). Under President Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the first president of Georgia famous for his nationalist credentials, who died in Chechnya under dubious circumstances, an attempt was made to expel the Avars in Georgia. After President Eduard Shevardnadze, former Communist leader of Georgia and later Soviet foreign minister, came to power, these policies were officially rebuffed. Nevertheless, some Avars feel they are being pushed into Daghestan.64 The Daghestani authorities tried to resettle up to 7,000 Avars from Georgia in the Nogay steppe, where the population density is the lowest in Daghestan (two persons per sq. km).65 However, the Nogays strongly resented further advancement of highlanders into their historic homeland, and the problem has never been fully resolved. CONFLICT MANAGEMENT BY THE DAGHESTANI AUTHORITIES

The Daghestani Ministry for Nationalities, headed by Mahomedsalikh Gusayev,66 is the government agency dealing with cross-border conflicts, although Mahomedov keeps the issues under close personal control. The Daghestani Security Council, by contrast, is a weak body dependent on the personality of its leader. It is headed at the moment by Akhmednabi Makhtihajiyev, appointed in September 1998. The success of the Daghestani authorities’ conflict management has depended on the strength of the opponent. In the Lezghin case it has been fairly successful. The Lezghin movement, internally split and lacking political realism, was an easy target for pressure, though it has been used to release steam. Moreover, the interests of the Daghestani and Azerbaijani authorities coincided, since both were more inter138

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ested in stability than in dubious territorial acquisitions. Thus they played a joint game, though using different means. The Chechen separatists, supported by some politicians and field commanders, have been a much stronger enemy, and the Daghestani authorities have been here on the retreat. Tactics that worked with Heidar Aliev – persuasion in common interests – failed with Maskhadov. After all, Aliev is an ex-KGB general and ex-member of the Politburo. Maskhadov, on the other hand, rose to prominence on the wave of nationalistic politics. Unlike those of Azerbaijan’s president, the powers of the president of Chechnya are extremely weak, and one cannot be sure that he could deliver his commitments. The Daghestani authorities tried, therefore, to negotiate with powerful field commanders and opposition politicians, using Daghestani ‘strong men’, such as the above-mentioned Khachilayev brothers, as go-betweens. The Khachilayevs had access to most of the important field commanders, including Basayev, and were also in contact with Movladi Udugov. However, just as Maskhadov cannot master his field commanders, the Daghestani government is far from being able to control its informal leaders. Thus, one group of weak players is trying to negotiate with another no less feeble set of actors, while the strongmen on both sides exploit the situation to their own advantage. It is hardly surprising that no progress has ever been made. In relations with their own Chechens the Daghestani authorities have been caught in between two contradicting goals, each of them a danger: they needed to restrain the nationalist aspirations of the local Chechens and especially the irredentist demands of some of them, and at the same time they had to protect the Chechens from the anger of other groups, most notably the Avars, who suspected that the local Chechens were cooperating with armed bands from across the border. The additional necessity of dealing with radical Islam, although it had received a major setback as a result of the Chechen invasion, has not disappeared altogether, has turned conflict management from a challenge to almost a ‘mission impossible’. With regard to their Russian population the Daghestani authorities are in a weak position and have no obvious course of action. On the one hand, the government officially pursues inclusive policies, which enable Russians to stay. It supports the movement of Russians and Cossacks in Daghestan just as it supports others. Nor are Russians targets of violence because of their ethnic origin. On the other hand, the factors contributing to their exodus stem not from a set of policies directed at them, but are the result of the overall dynamics of the development of Daghestan as a political entity. The resurgence of Russian fascist groups in the Stavropol krai is a new phenomenon. So far, Russian nationalism has been extremely 139

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weak and helpless compared to that of other groups in the FSU.67 However, if it were to grow, Stavropol krai, with its strained interethnic relations and vicinity to Chechnya, would provide the most fertile ground for it. Many Daghestanis entered the krai temporarily and stayed thereafter, but never managed to obtain proper registration. If the situation deteriorates, the Stavropol krai leadership can make a legitimate case that these people belong to Daghestan and should return there. In view of this it is unclear how the Daghestani authorities can protect them. Moreover, the financial dependence of Daghestan on the federal budget, its leadership’s inability to establish law and order in the republic and its fear to lose power severely reduce the possibilities of attracting the federal government’s attention to grievances of Daghestanis outside the republic. CONCLUSION: FUTURE PROSPECTS

To be fair to the Daghestani authorities, they have a spectrum of potential or actual conflicts around the whole perimeter of the republic. Moreover, power struggles in the capital and crack-down on the informal networks occupy a supreme priority on the leadership’s agenda. Resources which can be diverted to improvement of situations in the border areas are minimal, while at least on the border with Chechnya the situation remains highly volatile. As a result of its resistance to the Chechen intervention in August 1999, which demonstrated its loyalty to Moscow, Daghestan managed to attract political and financial support from the centre. The federal government, in its turn, obtained a vivid confirmation that Daghestanis, both the leadership and most of its population, are committed to staying within the Russian Federation. Moreover, the Russian government learnt the lesson that the Chechen separatist drive is exclusive to the Chechen republic and is unlikely to be replicated by other North Caucasians. The Chechen failed intervention, an effective response organised by Daghestanis and anti-Chechen mobilisation within Daghestan, helped the authorities to strengthen their grip on power and assert themselves over their enemies, i.e. leaders of the informal ethnic networks and the radical Islamists. However, the Daghestani leadership may have acquired a new cause for concern. Putin’s new Russia may well become more centrally administered and the federal government is likely to attempt to gain an upper hand in its dealings with the regions and the republics. This might mean more interference from Moscow in Daghestani internal politics and into conflict management. Still, whether Putin will live up to such an assertive agenda remains to be seen. 140

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The situation in Chechnya will produce an impact on Daghestan for years to come. The remaining Chechen fighters and those who have joined their ranks are committed to fight to the end since they believe that accommodation with Russia is not possible. Russian federal troops, as well as Daghestani villages in the border areas, are likely to remain targets for guerrilla attacks and cross-border tensions will require constant attention on behalf of the Daghestani authorities. What is more likely to follow are years of instability with endemic violence. As the population is forced to protect itself, acquire arms and get organised into self-defence units, weapons proliferation will be another obstacle to de-escalation. Relations of the new Russia with Azerbaijan may also grow more hostile, following the rift between the two countries over the pipeline route to transport Caspian Sea oil and the latter’s increasingly pro-US orientation. The Daghestani leadership is committed to preserve a good relationship with Azerbaijan; however, the subsequent power change when President Aliev leaves the top political office in his country may significantly challenge the status quo. Tense relationships between Russia and Azerbaijan are likely to exacerbate the consequences of the division for the Lezghin community. At the same time, since the process of separation has already been under way for a decade, there is a strong chance that changes will be peacefully absorbed. In short, peace and development remain remote goals in Daghestan, and tensions involving its border populations add fuel to the internal problems. While the Lezghin issue is dormant at present, and Russians acquired an additional boost of morale from a more assertive federal centre, Chechnya presents the most acute danger.

NOTES 1 For a view on whether in fact there are 34 groups, see Magomed Magomedkhanov, ‘Rents in the Fabric of Government’, Perspective, Vol. 8, No. 4 (March–April 1998), p. 5. 2 For politics of multi-ethnicity see Enver Kisriev, Natsionalnost i politicheskii protsess v Dagestane [Nationality and Political Process in Daghestan] (Makhachkala: Daghestani Research Centre, Russian Academy of Science, 1998). 3 Situatsionnyi Tsentr pri Presidente RF, Federal’noe Agentstvo Pravitel’stvennoi Sviazi i Informatsii, Regiony Rossii [The Regions of Russia] (Moscow: Situatsionnyi Tsentr pri Presidente RF, Federal’noe Agentstvo Pravitel’stvennoi Sviazi i Informatsii, 1997). 4 The capital of Chechnya, formerly Groznyi. 5 The capital of Daghestan. 6 Igor Rotar ‘Nezavisimyi Dagestan zhiznenno vazhen dlya Chechni [Independent

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7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24

25

Daghestan is Vitally Important for Chechnya]’, Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 12 February 1998. The official name of Chechnya. ‘Chechnya Repeats Territorial Claims on Daghestan’, RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 1, No. 182, Part 1 (18 December 1997). For historical background see Iu. Kul’chik, L. Kuza, S. Margulis et al. (eds), Dagestan: Chechentsy-Akkintsy [Daghestan: Aki Chechens] (Moscow: Institut Gumanitarnykh i Politicheskikh Issledovanii, 1993). Clem McCartney, ‘Daghestan: Situation Assessment Report’ (London: International Alert, 1996). Igor Rotar ‘Daghestan on the Brink of War: Moscow and Groznyi Fight for Influence in the Republic’, Prism, Vol. III, No. 17 (October 1997), Part 2, p. 3. Indeed, local Chechens were excluded from police forces in the border areas. The fact that the majority of Daghestani Chechens voted in presidential elections in Chechnya in January 1997 came as an unwelcome surprise to the authorities. Ilia Maksakov, ‘Ocherednie volneniia Chechentsev Dagestana [The Next Unrest of the Chechens of Daghestan]’, Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 8 August 1998. Interview with Zalimkhan Sadulayev, head of administration of the Charodinskii raion, September 1997. Plans to take local Chechens hostage and exchange them for Daghestani prisoners were articulated by the local Avar armed groupings, and only the involvement of federal troops shifted the focus away from this plan. Enver Kisriev, KyzliarskoPervomaiiskie sobytiia v Dagestane [The Events in Kyzliar and Pervomaiskoe in Daghestan], Research Papers in Applied and Urgent Ethnic Studies, No. 70 (Moscow: Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, 1996). See also Chapter 7 in this volume. Enver Kisriev, ‘Clash of Faith’, WarReport, No. 52 (June–July 1997), p. 16. Interview with Hussein Abuyev (Makhachkala), ex-KGB officer, at that time involved in dealing with the Islamic radicals, April 1998. Abuyev mentioned that 66 people were revealed and detained for questioning in 1983, including Bahauddin; since then they went underground in Soviet times and became active again during perestroika. ‘Organizatory terakta v Buinakske obeshchaiut prodolzhit’ voinu [The Organisers of the Terror Attack in Buinaksk Promise to Continue the War]’, Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 29 January 1998. Igor Rotar ‘Chast’ Musul’man gotova k gazavatu [A Part of the Muslims is Ready for Ghazavat]’, Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 27 January 1998. Interview with Hussein Abuyev, April 1998. Various reasons apart from religious fanaticism are cited in Daghestan, such as an attempt to destabilise the Caspian Sea basin, so that the oil from the Middle East would not face competition. ‘Raduev otmetilsia v Buinakske [Raduyev Reminded of Himself in Buinaksk]’, Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 3 February 1998. Information of the Ministry of Nationalities of Daghestan. The authorities were apprehensive of Wahhabi propaganda. The Daghestani Prosecutor’s office initiated criminal charges against Mahomed Tagayev, the author of Nasha Bor’ba, ili Povstancheskaya Armia Imama [Our struggle, or the Imam’s Army of Rebellion], a book being distributed in Daghestan by the Wahhabis. A parallel was immediately drawn with the early stages of the conflict in NagornoKarabakh when Zorii Balayan’s book, Ochag [Fireside], provoked tensions. Propaganda was reminiscent of the familiar Soviet pattern. Local observers, however, regard it as ‘preaching to the converted’ in a sense that it does not reach the target constituency. Interview with Enver Kisriev, Makhachkala, April 1998.

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DAGHESTAN: INTER-ETHNIC TENSIONS 26 Abubakarov had a reputation for being even more critical of the alternative Islamic movements than the secular authorities. It was also frequently suggested that disagreements simmered about the issue of haj, which Abubakarov sought to gain full control of. 27 For a different version see Chapter 7 in this volume. 28 For a discussion of Islam see Edward W. Walker, ‘Islam in Chechnya’, BPS Caucasus Newsletter, September 1998, pp. 10–15. 29 Ekaterina Tesemnikova and Vladimir Torin, ‘Buinaksk zhivet v osade [Buinaksk Lives Under Siege]’, Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 5 February 1998. 30 Interview with Mahomedsalikh Gusayev, minister of nationalities of Daghestan, Makhachkala, April 1998. 31 ‘Daghestan ostanetsia edinoi nedelimoi respublikoi v sostave Rossii [Daghestan Will Remain a United and Undivided Republic Within Russia]’. Interview with M-S. Gusayev, Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 12 May 1998. 32 For detailed information see Anna Matveeva and Clem McCartney, ‘The Lezghins: A Situation Assessment Report’, London, International Alert, 1997. 33 ‘Vsesoiuznaya Perepis’ Naselenia SSSR’ [All-Union Population Census of the USSR], Moscow: Goskomstat, 1990. There is an opinion within the Lezghin community that the true figure of Lezghins in Azerbaijan is much higher. It was envisaged that Azerbaijan would conduct a population census in 1999, and the issue would be finally resolved. 34 M. Kurbanov and G. Iusupova, Lezginy: Problemy Razdelennogo Naroda [The Lezghins: Problems of the Divided People] (Makhachkala: Daghestani Research Centre, Russian Academy of Sciences, 1996). 35 During the war in Chechnya, arms shipments regularly crossed the Azerbaijani– Russian border en route to the Chechen resistance forces. There have been speculations that the Chechen resistance enjoyed the tacit support of Baku. The Chechen government’s decision to name a street in the capital after Heidar Aliev and Maskhadov’s symbolic gift of a pistol may be seen as an indirect confirmation of this – Jamestown Foundation Monitor, 11 May 1998 (Vol. IV, No. 90). 36 Dagestanskaia Pravda, 1 December 1998. The arrangement between the Daghestani and Azerbaijani authorities was to leave 50 hectares of land idle until the border is finally delimited. 37 To be fair to the Daghestani authorities, it is impossible to adhere to an ethnic justice principle in personnel appointments if they still want to preserve a civil principle based on meritocracy. 38 The plight of the Kurds in Turkey was often cited to the author. Interviews in Daghestan, April 1998. 39 Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 6 October 1998. 40 A compromise was reached to resume the Congress in May 1999, but events in and around Chechnya overshadowed the activities of the national movements, including Sadval, and no further developments took place. 41 Derbentskie Novosti, 20 November 1998 and Dagestanskaia Pravda, 28 November 1998. 42 Molodezh Dagestana, 20 November 1998. 43 Dagestanskaia Pravda, 4 November 1998. 44 ANS-Press, 23 May 1998, cited by Eldar Zeinalov in News of the Lezghin Region, No. 5 (1998), Azerbaijani Centre for Human Rights. 45 This caused delay in signing the border trade agreement between Daghestan and Azerbaijan which had originally been scheduled for 30 November 1998. Dagestanskaia Pravda, 1 December 1998. 46 Various speculations involving Armenian, Russian and Chechen security services

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47

48 49 50 51 52 53 54

55 56 57

58 59 60

61 62 63 64

were discussed in the republic, including the CIS executive secretary and media tycoon Boris Berezovskii’s mission to the states of the South Caucasus to discuss conflict resolution and foster Berezovskii’s own political ambitions, and Russia’s attempts to intimidate Azerbaijan. In the view of the author, while such possibilities existed in 1993–94, the moment for Russia’s interference in conflicts on its borders is now over. In Daghestan Lezghin activists privately claim that in 1994 Russian military stationed in the republic proposed supplying the Lezghin organisations with arms if they were prepared to fight for Lezgistan. However, there is no independent evidence to verify these claims. Turan Information Agency, 3 July 1998, cited in News of the Lezghin Region, No. 7 (1998), Centre for Human Rights of Azerbaijan. 525-ji Gazet, cited in News of Lezghin Region, No. 4, April (1998), Azerbaijani Centre for Human Rights. The author’s attempts to find evidence of Sadval’s existence in Azerbaijan led to no result. I am inclined to believe Daghestani Lezghins who claim that currently there are no Sadval activists in Azerbaijan. ANS TV (Baku), 8 October 1998. BBC Monitoring Service, 9 October 1998. Vremia, 7 October 1998. Novoe Delo, 27 November 1998. This was done in order to provide the republics with wheat-growing capabilities because the mountain peoples originally did not grow wheat, maize being the main culture, and also to ensure their further Russification by supplementing them with sizeable Russian communities. There is a widespread belief that the former Cossack raions were allocated to the North Caucasian republics as a compensation to the deported peoples for the lands they lost. This is not true: the republics gained territories irrespective of whether people were deported from them or not. For an alarmist view see Dagestan: Nizhne-Terskoe Kazachestvo [Daghestan: The Lower Terek Cossacks], Research Paper No. 28 (Moscow: Rossiiskii Nauchnyi Fond i Institut Gumanitarnykh i Politicheskikh Issledovanii, 1995). Source: Ministry of Nationalities of the Republic of Daghestan. Timothy Heleniak, ‘Internal Migration in Russia During the Economic Transition’, Post-Soviet Geography & Economics, Vol. 38, No. 2 (1997), and Robert Kaiser, ‘The Nationality Composition of Migration in Russia’s Republics’, paper presented at the Association for the Study of Nationalism Annual Convention, New York, April 1998. Jamestown Foundation Monitor, Vol. 4, No. 109 (8 June 1998). Russians leaving Daghestan: 3,794 in 1994; 5,460 in 1995; 3,757 in 1996; 3,815 in 1997 (source: Ministry of Nationalities of the Republic of Daghestan, April 1998). Michael McFaul and Nikolai Petrov (eds), Politicheskii al’manakh Rossii [Political Almanac of Russia], Vol. 2: Sotsial’no-politicheskiye portrety regionov, [Socio-Political Portraits of the Regions] (Moscow: Moscow Carnegie Centre, 1998), p. 404. According to the Governor of Stavropol, Aleksandr Chernogorov, 25,000 ethnic Chechens live in the krai. Chernogorov at the Johar meeting, April 1998. Information of Ministry of Nationalities of Daghestan. Ministry of Nationalities of Daghestan, Makhachkala. Personal interviews, April 1998. Russian Public TV, 5 September 1998. BBC, SWB, 6 September 1998. When International Alert was conducting a seminar in Makhachkala, a Kvareli Avar representative came from Georgia to convey a message to the author from

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DAGHESTAN: INTER-ETHNIC TENSIONS his co-villagers about ethnic discrimination by the Georgian local authorities. Makhachkala, March 1997. 65 The land designated for this resettlement was used in Soviet times as pasture rented by Georgia. 66 An Agul from Agulskii raion educated in Makhachkala who made a career as a former Communist functionary in the Soviet period, and later was appointed to supervise nationalities’ relations. 67 Anatol Lieven, Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1998).

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7

The ‘Wahhabis’ of the Northern Caucasus vis-à-vis State and Society: The Case of Daghestan Anna Zelkina

Since the mid-1990s a new force has come to dominate the religious and political scene in the Muslim republics of the FSU. In Russia both the pundits and policy makers often describe it under the term ‘Wahhabism’. The term Wahhabism itself has come to be associated with political extremism and radical fundamentalist Islam. It has become a common practice to describe any group or individual who justify and/or apply violence in their political struggle, as Wahhabis, irrespective of their religious agenda.1 At the same time the term Wahhabi is used to describe all those who seek to promote a leading role of Islam in the personal, social and political spheres. Since virtually all politicians, particularly those in opposition, pay – at least nominally – tribute to religion and religious freedoms, the term Wahhabism has become extremely evasive. Depending on where one’s political sympathies lie it can be applied to describe both a terrorist and an individual who seeks to promote social justice through peaceful means. The use of this term is further complicated by the fact that most Muslims who are described as Wahhabis vigorously oppose the label.2 This chapter intends to explore the different forms of Islam, including its traditional Sufi and the new political and radical ones, that are becoming an increasingly important social and political factor in Daghestan. It argues that in order to have a meaningful discussion of the various forms of Islam, as well as to understand the tension that such division has created, it is imperative to put the issue of Islam and its place in the North Caucasus in historic perspective. It would also be helpful to clarify that ‘political Islam’ in this chapter means a religious movement that seeks to integrate the laws of the shari‘a (traditional Islamic code of law) into all spheres of private and 146

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public life, while ‘radical Islam’ means a movement that justifies the use of violence, including terrorism, in advancing this goal. Following the recent scholarship on fundamentalist movements in contemporary Islam, I have also adopted the less emotionally charged and misused term ‘Islamists’ to describe those who ‘conceive of Islam as an ideology, a total mode of life and work for the establishment of Islamic societies, and eventually states, based on Islamic law’.3 THE HISTORICAL SETTING

The uncertainty in terminology and the vague understanding of such concepts as political and radical Islam as well as misappropriation of the term Wahhabism can, to a certain extent, be explained by the Soviet legacy. For over 70 years religion was viewed by the Soviet regime as an enemy of the state and as ‘opium for the masses’. The construction of socialism was deemed impossible without destroying any form and manifestation of religion.4 The tactics that the Bolsheviks gradually came to adopt towards Islam were two. On the one hand they sought to undermine the position of the Muslim religious leadership and institutions. On the other hand they used them as vehicles in their secularisation campaign.5 In order to be able to operate, the official Muslim religious establishment6 was compelled to compromise and accept the constraints and limitations imposed by the regime. This altered the very nature of the Islamic religious establishment: ‘When the Soviet regime decided to reach a modus operandi with religion, including Islam, the religious establishment itself underwent a process of secularisation as a condition for survival’.7 Soviet secularisation was closely associated with the Bolshevik policy that aimed at creating new Soviet national intelligentsias.8 This was, perhaps, one of the most successful of all Soviet campaigns. Within several decades a new class of Soviet bureaucrats and professionals emerged, who received a communist-style secular education, occupied leading positions in administration and state institutions and owed their very raison d’être to the Soviet system. Although they did not completely lose their links with their Muslim heritage, their Muslim identity was recast in secular terms as part of a cultural rather than a spiritual heritage. Together with the official Islamic functionaries (religious officials), they came to promote what can be identified as the Soviet secular version of Islam. This type of Islam had different manifestations on the official and popular level. Official Islam could function only under the watchful eye and supervision of Moscow. On the popular level it found its expression in the perpetuation of Islamic customs and folk rites practised outside (and often 147

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despite) state control, which was made possible by the Soviet policy that accepted folk customs as ‘elements of indigenous culture’. Although not desirable, these ‘remnants of ethnic identity’ were tolerated and did not encounter the same level of persecution as religious rites. In an attempt to cling to their Muslim identity, Soviet Muslims came to reinterpret their traditional customs and beliefs, some of which had little relevance to Islam, as part of their broader Islamic heritage. The local folk customs as well as religious tradition were maintained through, and officiated by, the ‘parallel’ religious leaders who functioned largely outside the framework of the official religious institutions (although it has recently been suggested that the gap between the two was never an abyss as heretofore assumed).9 It would, however, be an oversimplification to assume that Islam in the FSU was confined to the official Soviet clergy and populist semipagan customs and rites. Despite the ongoing arrests and persecutions, there was an elaborate network of underground religious primary and secondary schools (maktabs and madrasas).10 These centres produced some well-educated mullahs (Muslim ‘clerics’ usually officiating at the level of a local Mosque) and ‘ulama (religious scholars), who perpetuated the long-standing tradition of Muslim learning,11 and secured the traditional position of high spiritual authority for the Daghestani Muslims. In Daghestan (as well as in Chechnya) the perpetuation of the Islamic tradition and, one can argue, its very resistance to Soviet assaults, was closely linked to the Sufi institutions. For centuries the history of Islam in the northern Caucasus has been closely linked to the Sufi tradition.12 The semi-clandestine nature of the Sufi orders, that had become closely integrated in the local social structure, proved to be most resilient to the Soviet onslaught and well suited to operate in the hostile environment. The tariqa leaders organised the religious and to a considerable degree social life of the Muslims in Chechnya and Daghestan. In most parts of Daghestan13 and throughout Chechnya and Ingushetia they provided education both at the underground schools and at the ritual gatherings for moulids. The latter were devoted to the Prophet Muhammad and his companions and performed in the form of songs, sung mostly in local languages. The moulids were widely attended and easily accessible to listeners, who through these songs received elementary education in Islamic history and basic tenets of faith.14 The role of religious authorities extended far beyond the sphere of religious rites. In addition to purely religious matters, the Sufi leaders continued to regulate the social life of north Caucasian Muslims. They collected taxes15 and officiated at religious ceremonies (all 148

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matters of family life continued to be largely within the jurisdiction of the religious authorities); they mediated in disputes between clans and jama‘ats (rural communes) and to a certain extent continued to regulate land ownership.16 Therefore, religious, particularly Sufi, authorities were viewed by the Muslims as the keepers of the old traditional social order. They remained tightly integrated into the social structure and throughout the Soviet period preserved their high social status. The Soviet authorities constantly complained that ‘the word of a mullah or of the leader of the murid (local Sufi) group had greater authority in some villages than the word of the local Party leader’.17 In Soviet times, all manifestations of Islam that went beyond the Soviet secular version were labelled as ‘reactionary, ‘fanatical’ and ‘fundamentalist’. In Chechnya in the 1970s the people often referred to the followers of a local Qadiri Sheikh, Batal Hajji, as Wahhabis. This term seems to have originated in the KGB reports filed on the members of this wird (Sufi group), who were renowned for their extremely strict compliance with the Islamic laws and rigorous observance of religious rites.18 This use of the term Wahhabi exposes to what extent the Muslims of the northern Caucasus (as well as other Soviet Muslims) became separated from the mainstream ideological and political developments in the rest of the Muslim world. No doubt Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, the seventeenth-century founder of the movement who specifically targeted the Sufi practices and institutions, would have strongly rejected the idea that the followers of a Sufi tariqa with their daily practice of vocal dhikr (Sufi ritual of the glorification of God) accompanied by music and dancing would be described as Wahhabi, considering that the man who gave his name to the Wahhabi movement specifically targeted the Sufi practices and institutions and devoted his whole life to the destruction of Sufi tradition.19 This misappropriation of the term Wahhabi captures in an ironic way the particular character of radical Islam in the Soviet northern Caucasus. As noted by Alexandre Bennigsen: Contrary to the situation in other countries that have Sufi orders (Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, the Arab countries), where fundamentalist currents and organizations are independent and often opposed to Sufi activity, in the Soviet Union fundamentalist and radical Sufi tendencies are often, but not always in harmony.20

This difference notwithstanding, the development of fundamentalist tendencies in the late Soviet and post-Soviet northern Caucasus were not confined to Sufi Islam. Some developed outside the Sufi framework and were more in line with the political Islamic doctrines 149

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worked out elsewhere in the Muslim world. Moreover, the 70 years of Soviet legacy modified the Sufi tradition in Daghestan and the Chechen-Ingush lands at least in one respect. While in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the political (mostly anti-Russian) activities were organised and carried out under the auspices of the Sufi orders, from the middle of the twentieth century the political involvement of the Sufi leaders started to decline. The tariqa leaders largely confined their activities to the religious and social spheres and refrained from active politics. After the collapse of communism they have remained on the fringes of the political system,21 contrary predictions notwithstanding.22 The politicisation of Islam in the late Soviet and post-Soviet northern Caucasus has been developing outside and mostly in opposition to the indigenous Sufi tradition. THE FIRST MUSLIM REFORMERS

Already in the late 1970s a small number of religious thinkers emerged, who defined Islam in terms different to both the Sufi and the official Soviet interpretations. These thinkers advocated the necessity to return to early Islam as preached and practised by the Prophet and his companions. In doing so they followed the intellectual trend that had dominated religious developments elsewhere in the Muslim world since the late nineteenth century. One can speculate to what extent their theories were influenced by the ideas imported from abroad and, to what extent developed independently. One thing is clear – despite the Iron Curtain a limited amount of religious literature did find its way into the Soviet Union. It was brought by Soviet Muslim contract workers in the Middle East (who were contracted through the Soviet authorities), tourists and official Muslim clergymen. Alongside the much sought after copies of the Qur’an and other religious publications, this illegal literature included the works of radical Muslim ideologists such as ‘Ala al-Din al-Mawdudi,23 Hasan al-Bana24 and Sayyid al-Qutb.25 These authors reinterpreted Islam in the context of the realities of the twentieth century and promoted it as the only unique religious system that can ensure social justice, economic prosperity and political independence to the Muslims.26 Their clear-cut and encompassing ideas that advocated the supremacy of Islam in all spheres of life, must have been close to the heart of those Soviet Muslim thinkers, who sought a way forward from the hypocritical and corrupt Soviet system and the subservient position of religious institutions. In Central Asia, the religious thinkers that came to see the necessity to reform Islam formed the so called ‘purist 150

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communities’.27 In Daghestan, according to Malashenko, the number of purists before the beginning of Gorbachev’s reforms had never been more than six or seven people.28 Few as they were, these thinkers seem to have prepared the ground for the reformist Islamic movement that started in earnest after the end of Soviet rule and developed as one aspect of the general Islamic revival in Daghestan. POST-SOVIET ISLAMIC REVIVAL

In Daghestan, as in most other Muslim republics, the Muslims tested the waters of political liberalisation through reasserting their religious freedom. The first wave of political demonstrations in Daghestan (spring–summer 1989) demanded the restoration and reopening of old mosques and the construction of new ones. In 1990 Daghestani women staged a hunger strike demanding that the authorities lift restrictions on haj (annual pilgrimage to Mecca, participation in which is one of the official duties of Muslims at least once during their lives). Most of these demonstrations were organised under the auspices of the traditional Sufi authorities. One of the manifestations of this affiliation were public dhikrs performed on more than one occasion by demonstrators in the central square of Makhachkala. Both the Sufi leaders and the Daghestani activists had, however, confined their demands to religious and social/economic spheres.29 No political demands were put forward. Furthermore, the representatives of both the official and parallel (often but not always Sufi) Islam have explicitly forbidden the use of religion for politics. In the worlds of the late mufti of Daghestan, Said Muhammad Abu Bakarov: ‘Islam is not above politics. Islam is politics. Islam is social sphere, way of life, charity, absolutely everything. But politicisation and ideologisation of Islam is wrong.’30 This denouncement of political activities was aimed at the creation of Muslim political parties, rather than at the involvement of the Muslim religious authorities in any matters politique. After all, throughout the Soviet period the official Muslim clergy was closely involved in various Soviet political campaigns. Nor did their involvement with political leaders and authorities diminish after the end of Communism. From the early days of liberalisation, Islam became incorporated into the power struggle among various political forces.

151

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One can single out two patterns of the involvement of religion in political life. The first is associated with the attempt of secular politicians to draw on religious ideology and derive additional legitimisation from religion. In this case religion is a subordinate element in the complex political game and the political debate is not centred on religion and religious matters. The second type of politicisation of religion is linked to the attempt to bring religious values and ethics into the political sphere. It is often, though not necessarily always, advanced by religious authorities who take a more active political stance. In this case the debate around religion, the interpretation of its fundamentals and the place that it should play in the society becomes of central importance. In Daghestan the predominant tendency in the late Soviet and early post-Soviet period (roughly between 1987 and 1994) was the appeal to Islam by secular politicians. It was closely linked to the national awakening that interpreted religion as part of national heritage. The impact of nationalism on Islam in Daghestan was twofold. On the one hand, the secular politicians saw Islam as an important, albeit subsidiary part of national identity and sought to restore Islamic practices as part of the national heritage. On the other hand, the religious authorities themselves became split on ethnic grounds. One of the legacies of Soviet rule was the promotion of ethnic identity at the expense of the broader Islamic affiliation. In Daghestan even the religious authorities came to operate largely through an ethnically defined social network. As a result in the late 1980s a number of ethnically defined spiritual boards split from the Central Spiritual Board of the Daghestani Muslims,31 established close links with corresponding national popular movements32 and endorsed their political and economic agendas. The Central Spiritual Board of Daghestan, on the other hand, maintained close (and largely subservient) relations with the government.33 The realignment between secular politicians and religious authorities was a two-sided process. Appeal to Islam provided the secular leaders with additional legitimisation and they sought endorsement and patronage from influential religious figures, such as Sayyid Apandi from Chirkey or Tajuddin of Khasavyurt.34 Despite their appeal to Islam, the competition between the leaders of the ethnic national fronts and the old Soviet-style nomenklatura was confined almost exclusively to a secular framework.35 Admittedly, the new generation of Daghestani politicians were more open to the incorporation of Islamic values into their political programmes and the ethnic spiritual boards were less suspicious of the spontaneous manifestations of people’s religiosity. However, both new and old gen152

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eration leaders saw religion as subservient to politics and appealed to secularised Sufi-oriented Islam. THE EMERGENCE OF ISLAMIC POLITICAL PARTIES

It has been often noted that Islamic doctrine makes the separation between worldly and spiritual affairs difficult. This does not imply that there has not been separation between religion and politics in practice, but only that such a separation is always open to criticism by religious thinkers. According to a leading scholar on Soviet Islam, ‘Just as ethics are its personal dimension, so politics constitute the social aspect of Islam. On this level, secularisation, which is not a concept inherent to a system that does not recognise the legitimacy of opting out must be perceived as a political act.’36 Therefore the secularisation of society and politics can in itself become a target for those Islamic politicians who seek to bring Islamic norms and values into the social and political sphere. One can argue that once the pressure from outside had been lifted the very logic of Islam was bound to lead to a re-politicisation of Islam in the FSU. In 1990 the first all-Soviet Muslim political party, the Partiia Islamskogo Vozrozhdeniia (the Islamic Renaissance Party; IRP) was formed.37 The party programme openly stated its adherence to the principle that Islam and politics cannot and should not be separated and saw the only way out of the social and political crisis in ‘following the path of God’.38 It is characteristic that the first Islamic party that sought to bring Islamic values into political discourse was inspired not by the religious clergy (official or unofficial) but by Muslim intellectuals. The first chairman of the IRP, Ahmedqadi Ahtayev, was an Avar MD. Its press secretary, Waliahmed Sadur, was a Tatar scholar from Moscow. It appears that the most active members of the party (including Ahmedqadi Ahtayev) were Islamic reformers and purists. However, the members of the party upheld different views on the place of Islam in society and disagreed on the models of the Islamic state. Therefore, despite its considerable political ambitions as a party of all the Muslims of the Soviet Union (later the Russian Federation), the IRP failed to develop a comprehensive ideology and a coherent internal structure. In the first years of its formation, the IRP was an alternative rather than an opposition party to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It sought an ideological compromise between religion and communism and was explicitly opposed to the disintegration of the USSR and later the RF. The leaders of IRP saw their main task 153

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in promoting the ‘truly Islamic way of life’, advancing Islamic learning and encouraging the political activity of Soviet Muslims. They organised evening classes of Arabic and basics of Islam for adults and promoted religious education among children, and launched the publication of the first religious newspaper, Islamskie novosti (‘Islamic News’), which aimed to ‘restore true Islam’. The specialised religious publishing house, Santlada, launched the publication of the so-called ‘Islamic library series’ that was to promote the knowledge of Islam among its readers. Despite its moderate political agenda, the secular and religious officials in the Muslim republics denounced the IRP as fundamentalist and extremist. In Daghestan the authorities attempted to halt the party’s activities; they arrested its leaders and launched a campaign in the media to discredit them.39 Unlike their comrades in the Central Asian republics (which were soon to become independent), however, the Daghestani authorities had to comply with Moscow’s line, which allowed for greater religious freedoms than the local officials would have liked. The organising committee of the IRP was registered in Moscow and the Daghestani authorities had eventually to recognise the party and allow its activities.40 It did not, however, become particularly strong and its Daghestan membership never exceeded 3,000. Another political organisation in Daghestan that incorporated religious ideology into its programme was Islamskaia Demokraticheskaia Partiia (the Islamic Democratic Party, IDP). Like the IRP, the IDP was organised not by religious authorities but by a professional and religious activist – Abdurashid Saidov, an MD by profession who combined his secular vocation with the study of Muslim tenets.41 At the time of its establishment, in 1990, the party seemed to be a replica of DemRossiia (‘Democratic Russia’). While its leader, Abdurashid Saidov, is known to sympathise with the idea of the partial integration of the shari‘a laws into the legal system,42 this demand was not included in the party’s programme. Instead it merely stated that the aim of the party was ‘to assist the creation of a law bound state system (pravovoe gosudarstvo) where the laws do not contradict religion and the interests and aspirations of the people’.43 These two rather different parties openly articulated their adherence to Islamic norms and practices, and thus marked the beginning of political Islam in Daghestan.44 Their existence set a precedent and attested to what degree secular politicians in Russia and Daghestan were prepared to accommodate religion as an independent player in the social and political discourse. The reaction was overwhelmingly negative. Both the local authorities and the majority of the national intelligentsia found the very emergence of political parties claiming an Islamic character and advocating the creation of an Islamic state, 154

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albeit in the distant future, threatening. The labels ‘fundamentalists’ and ‘Wahhabis’ were immediately applied to any party that appealed to Islam in its political programme.45 The leaders of both the IRP and the IDP were apprehensive about these labels. They emphasised that their foremost task was to advance Muslim learning and culture in society and associated themselves with the Salafiyya movement.46 CHANGE OF THE RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE IN DAGHESTAN

By 1993–94, the initial agitation on issues of religious practices and institutions had declined, Islam had become by then fully legalised and re-established as an official religion; Mosques – restored or new ones – had been opened in each village, and in some areas in each village quarter. All restrictions on performing religious rites had been lifted; the ziyarats (places of visitation) of popular sheikhs and saints had been restored; moulid and dhikr ceremonies had become legalised and were performed publicly to mark holidays and important public events. Qur’anic schools were now able to function legally and several Islamic institutes and universities had been established. Ironically, it was the religious liberalisation that produced a new challenge to traditional Islam in Daghestan. With no institutionalised clergy, Islam makes the interpretation of its fundamentals open to any Muslim who can read the Qur’an and has a basic religious education. In this respect the access to religious education through channels other than official Soviet institutions or underground maktabs (generally associated with Sufi structures), removed the monopoly of the traditional religious authorities on the interpretation of Islam. An important factor in the rise of the groups and individuals challenging traditional Daghestani Islam was the renewal of contacts between Daghestanis and the outside world. This was a multi-faceted process associated with the arrival of foreign preachers and missionaries to the FSU and the increasing number of ex-Soviet citizens going abroad for travel, business, education or pilgrimage.47 These contacts unveiled a considerable gap between ex-Soviet Islam and the different interpretations of Muslim tenets developed in the Muslim world in the course of the twentieth century. This difference became even more conspicuous due to the fact that the majority of preachers upheld fundamentalist (reformist) Islam. They denounced Sufi practices as harmful innovations and regarded ex-Soviet Muslims as little more than ‘victims of atheism’ who had lost the true faith. Whether justified or not, the people of Daghestan generally found this view deeply offensive and upheld their own interpretation of 155

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Islam. This pride was, however, mixed with hunger for Muslim learning and an aspiration to compensate for the lack of profound religious education. Furthermore, the shortage of funds made the assistance of Muslim states, organisations and individuals welcome.48 Such assistance, however, often proved to have strings attached. For example, the majority of scholarships distributed to Muslims of the RF bypassing official Muslim and state structures, were to religious institutions which spread the fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.49 In the course of the early 1990s a number of missionaries from the Middle East established themselves in Daghestani religious schools as teachers of Arabic and of Muslim law. In 1993 Muhammad ‘Ali, a Jordanian national settled in Kizilyurt, where he taught at the local madrasa. Earlier, an Egyptian citizen, Abu Malik had established his school in Khunzakh; other Muslim teachers from the Middle East – Salahaddin; Muhammad Sharif – taught for shorter periods in different villages of central and western Daghestan, while Khattab, a notorious military commander and allegedly Islamic preacher from Saudi Arabia, became active in Chechnya and western Daghestan. It appears that the preachers of fundamental Islam from abroad were welcomed mostly in those villages where the idea of ‘true’ Islam had been sown earlier by local Daghestani ‘purists’. For example Abu Malik came to teach at the school in Kizilyurt at the invitation of Bahauddin Mahomedov, one of the first local purists and a radical Muslim thinker in Daghestan. These centres were not only attended by the people of the corresponding villages, but attracted students from all over Daghestan.50 THE ‘PURIST GROUPS’ AND THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW CONFLICT ZONE IN DAGHESTAN

In 1993–94 groups of Muslims appeared in Daghestan who looked distinctly different. They shaved their moustaches, grew their beards, often tucked their trousers into their socks or wore shortened trousers above the ankles. These were Muslims who accepted the fundamentalist interpretation of Islam and denounced the local Sufi-oriented tradition. They were not united in any coherent movement, but ranged from the most radical to moderate groups. Perhaps, the most generally respected as well as the most moderate of the Daghestani Islamists was Ahmad-Qadi Akhtayev, the first chairman of the IRP. Ahmad-Qadi served as qadi (judge) in the local shar‘i court in the village of Kudali (hence the adjective qadi in his name). Although some Islamists tended to accuse him of complacency towards Sufi innovations – he never rejected the Sufi heritage alto156

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gether – and toward ‘corrupt Soviet Muslim clergy’, his deep religious erudition secured him the general respect of both Islamists and traditionalists. He was, perhaps, the most esteemed religious expert in the northern Caucasus, well beyond the confines of Daghestan. His death in 1998 seems to have contributed to the radicalisation of the Islamists of Daghestan, since it left them without a moderate leader who could ease tensions between them and the traditionalists. The most influential present day Daghestani Islamist is Bahauddin Mahomedovich Kebedov from Kizilyurt, known as Bahauddin Hajji or ibn Muhammad al-Daghestani.51 Unlike Ahmad-Qadi and his immediate supporters, Bahauddin denounced the traditional religious authorities and accused those who did not share his understanding of Islam of heresy and apostasy. Not content with merely abstaining from religious rituals such as moulids and dhikrs themselves, his followers did their best to actively hinder these practices. On more than one occasion they destroyed special marks on the graves of local sheikhs and saints, tried to prevent people from performing the ‘heathen ritual’ of ziyara (visitation of holy places such as graves of sheikhs) and actively propagated their world view. Another Daghestani Islamist, Ayyub Omarov, the only religious leader in Daghestan who called himself a Wahhabi, took this trend even further. Born in the raion of Tsumada, he denounced all forms of traditional Islam as apostasy and called for reviving the pure nature of Islam by strictly following the shari‘a in every aspect of everyday life. Following the Prophet’s example he encouraged his followers to engage in trade (mostly charter trade with Turkey), but at the same time to reduce all social dealings with outsiders – Muslims and nonMuslims alike – to a minimum. Allegedly, if an outsider enters one’s house it then has to be cleaned, and cups and dishes used by a nonbeliever thrown away, while the host and his entire family have to wash themselves.52 His followers thus came to form an extremely enclosed community of around five hundred people – mostly from the Tsumada raion and a few Russian and Jewish converts, who seem to have very few if any contacts with other Islamist groups in Daghestan. Despite the significant differences among the various Islamic groups and individuals they became universally labelled as Wahhabis and perceived as an alien and hostile group by most Daghestani Muslims. RADICALISATION OF THE ISLAMIC PARTIES

On the political level the new trend within Islam promoted by the Islamist groups made an impact on the changing character of the 157

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Islamic parties in Daghestan. The IRP had effectively split into two wings. The new leader of a more radical group, Heidar Jemal, upholds a more radical version of political Islam. A strong admirer of the Iranian revolution, he publicly called on several occasions for an Islamic revolution through thoughts and deeds. It does not seem, however, that he has a coherent organisation of followers, and at the moment the IRP appears to stand for little more than a name that can provide a convenient platform for the personal political ambitions of Heidar Jamal. In 1993 the IDP also re-emerged under a different name, Islamskaia Partiia Dagestana (the Islamic Party of Daghestan, IPD) and with a new leader – Surakat Asaiyatilov (the former wrestler), who revised the initial principles of the party that appealed to ‘that part of Daghestani society that shares on a secular basis [my emphasis] the ideas and values of Islam’ and called for the immediate introduction of the shari‘a and the creation of a ‘true Islamic state’ in Daghestan. Despite their radical declarations, both the IRP and the IPD have remained on the fringes of political life in Daghestan.53 More importantly, the rise of political Islam is associated with the new generation of Daghestani politicians who have entered politics since the collapse of the USSR.54 The most prominent of the new leaders who are closely associated with Islamic values is Nadirshah Khachilayev.55 In 1995 he founded the Soiuz Musul’man Rossii (the Union of Russian Muslims, UMR), and became its chairman. The party tried to rise above the ethnic and religious divides and declared that it opposed any ethnic and religious extremism and wanted to settle all matters in accordance with the law of the RF, taking into account the peculiarities, traditions, cultural heritage and the provisions of Islam.56 But Nadirshah Khachilayev never succeeded in fully overcoming ethnic components in his party, the majority of his followers being Lak. Yet it has become increasingly apparent that no leader can rise to a position of all-Daghestani importance without broadening his electorate beyond the confines of his ethnic group. This awareness, combined with growing ambition, prompted various ethnic leaders to look to Islam for additional legitimisation. However, the reference to Islam highlighted the fact that it is no longer a uniform social and political force. While the politicians sought to narrow the gap between the Islamists and the traditionalists,57 the different interpretations of religion seem to create a divide that is both dangerous and difficult to bridge.

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The emergence of the Islamist groups created a new conflict zone. Although the contest between the Islamists and the traditionalists has political and economic overtones, their disagreement centres on the interpretation of Islam. The new conflict cuts across the main fabric of local society, because the Daghestani Islamists had, in effect, put themselves outside the traditional social fabric by adopting a different version of Islam and denouncing the traditional religious authorities. As in most other parts of the FSU, where religion had become a national asset, any deviation from the established religious tradition was seen as a challenge to social cohesion. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the revival of traditional Islam and the spread of the new purist groups occurred in the same regions of high mountain Daghestan.58 According to statistics offered by the Russian press, 75.8 per cent (6,195 members) of all active Sufi wirds (branches) and 71.6 per cent (2,755 members) of the active purist groups are located in the 11 districts (raions) of western and central Daghestan.59 The traditionalist Muslims fiercely resisted the Islamists. While the Islamists accused the rest of Daghestan’s Muslims of heresy and disbelief, the Sufi sheikhs and the official Muslim authorities denounced their opponents as apostates.60 They prohibited them from entering the mosques,61 and tried on many occasions – often successfully – to expel the leading activists from their villages. Thus, in 1995 Muhammad ‘Ali and the local purist teacher, Bahauddin Mahomedov, were expelled from Kizilyurt and their madrasa closed.62 In 1997 the people of Tsumada expelled Ayuub Omarov who settled in Astrakhan (hence his nickname Ayyub Astrakhanskii) and was shortly afterwards joined by his followers from the region. The official religious authorities in Daghestan and Russia spearheaded the struggle against the Islamists. The Spiritual Board of Daghestan, and particularly the mufti of Daghestan, Abu Bakarov, combined efforts with the Daghestani government in order to close the mosques and madrasas of the so called Wahhabis and prevent their leaders from preaching. In1995 the council of ‘ulama of Buynaksk banned the teaching of Wahhabi ideas and closed their mosque, while the mufti Abu Bakarov was allegedly responsible for the expulsion of Bahauddin and Muhammad ‘Ali from Kizilyurt and for closing down their madrasa. In 1998 the chairman of the Council of Muftis of the RF,63 Ravil Gaynutdin, went further and called for the outright ban on ‘private gatherings at home, where people talk about their own understanding of Islam’.64 On the ground level the traditional authorities mostly associated with the Sufi orders called for the radicalisation of the struggle against 159

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the Islamists. Thus, Zeynuddin, a Qadiri sheikh from Karamakhi, for example, allegedly called for the execution of the ‘bearded ones’ and stated that the death of one Wahhabbi was preferred to a jihad against the infidels.65 According to unconfirmed reports, at least three Islamists were publicly executed upon sentences passed by the self-proclaimed local Councils of Elders.66 The escalation of the conflict became unavoidable. In 1996 several people were killed and a few dozen wounded in an armed clash between the traditionalists and Islamists in Kizilyurt. This was the first in a series of clashes between the two camps, many of which have occurred in the raions of Buinaksk, Tsumada and Khasavyurt. THE STAND-OFF BETWEEN THE ISLAMISTS OF THE QADAR JAMA‘AT AND THE DAGHESTANI OFFICIALS

The capacity of the Daghestani authorities to check the spread of the Islamist groups and ideas was tested by the emergence of the so-called ‘Islamic jama‘at’ on the territory of the three villages of Karamakhi, Chabamakhi and Qadar. Prior to the Soviet reorganisation the three villages formed one jama‘at. In 1936 the Soviet authorities abolished the jama‘at structure and transformed their territories into Communist collective farms. Thus, a kolkhoz (collective farm) named Leninskii KOMSOMOL (Lenin’s Young Communist League) appeared on the territory formerly known as the Qadar jama‘at.67 Despite this reorganisation, the basic jama‘at structures resurfaced under new names and the members of the collective farm maintained their affiliation and jama‘at identity.68 The first confrontation between the Daghestani authorities and Muslims of the three villages occurred in the wake of Gorbachev’s perestroika. Despite the liberalisation introduced in Moscow, the Daghestani Soviet officials refused to allow the local people to construct a new mosque in Karamakhi. (At that time only one mosque was open in the entire district – in Qadar.) In 1986 a delegation of Muslims representing the Karamakhi jama‘at arrived in Moscow to solicit permission to build new mosques. Permission was granted but the Daghestani authorities tried to obstruct the construction. In 1987, despite the difficulties, the first mosque in Karamakhi was completed. The people elected an imam and opened a maktab. Among the teachers in the Karamakhi maktab was Bahauddin Muhammad (Mahomedov) of Kizilyurt, who taught there for a short period of time in the early 1990s. In 1992 he returned to Kizilyurt and opened a madrasa where he and Muhammad ‘Ali propagated Islamist ideas. Among their students were a number of Muslims from 160

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the Qadar jama‘at, who on their return transformed their jama‘at into a major centre of purist Islam in the republic. They established close links with other Islamists in Daghestan and when Muhammad ‘Ali was expelled from Kizilyurt invited him to settle in Karamakhi. However, when the latter arrived, tension between the Islamists and the traditionalists reached boiling point. The supporters of traditional Islam held public meetings and set out on a popular march to Makhachkala, demanding that the republican authorities expel Muhammad ‘Ali and all the other Wahhabis from their villages. This brought the confrontation to the republican level. Following orders from above local police raided the Islamists’ houses, searching for arms and ammunition. Although allegedly no arms were found, the police arrested several people in the jama‘at as well as natives of these villages who lived in Makhachkala. In the course of 1996 the confrontation between the Islamists and local police had become a regular feature of life in the jama‘at and according to the Islamists it was this confrontation that prompted them to acquire arms.69 The situation escalated further in December 1997, following the raid allegedly staged by Khattab against the Russian military base in Buinaksk. The Daghestani authorities were quick to accuse the Islamists of Karamakhi, Chabanmakhi and Qadar of participation in this ‘terrorist’ action (the allegations were always vigorously denied by the Islamists themselves) and launched a series of arrests of Islamic activists.70 In retaliation, the Islamists blocked the road with trucks and prepared for armed resistance. The police were forced to retreat, but these actions amounted to the declaration of an unofficial war between the local police and the Islamic activists in the villages. In defiance of the Federal (Russian) law on religious freedom, the Daghestani authorities passed a decree that put a ban on ‘Islamic practices along Wahhabi lines’. The religious practices and all social activities of the Islamists were denounced as anti-state activities. By that time the Islamists of Karamakhi and the other villages of the jama‘at had already become a significant social force. Through a combination of threats and persuasion they imposed certain aspects of shari‘a law in the jama‘at. They closed the wine store in Karamakhi and opened a new maktab in its place; tried to arrest the rise of crime, took measures against extortion,71 destroyed poppy fields in the vicinity of the villages and established a shura – a consultative council that operated according to the shari‘a. In a republic submerged in corruption to such an extent that 40 per cent of the members of parliament are allegedly linked to criminal groups,72 these measures won the local Islamists considerable respect and a certain degree of tolerance from their co-villagers. 161

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People started to settle matters of jama‘at life at mosques and at public gatherings. The shura replaced the de facto village administration and the Islamists’ squads substituted the local police.73 The local and central Daghestani authorities watched the developments with growing apprehension. In May 1998 a full-scale confrontation between the Karamakhi jama‘at and the Daghestani authorities erupted, provoked by the political crisis in Makhachkala. On 21 May 1998 the police stopped and tried to search the car of Nadirshah Khachilayev. Outraged by the event, his supporters occupied the building of the Daghestani government. After a short exchange of fire with the police they left the building, but Nadirshah Khachilayev had to escape from Daghestan. In Karamakhi, the Islamists used the moment of political crisis: they destroyed the building of the local administration, dissolved its representatives and expelled the police from their villages. This was the logical continuation of the gradual process in which the local administration had been replaced by alternative religious structures and it finalised the emergence of the jama‘at as de facto outside any control of the Daghestani officials. Once the crisis in Makhachkala was resolved, the central Daghestani authorities accused the jama‘at of aspirations towards independence and threatened the use of force. In retaliation the Islamic activists of Karamakhi established checkpoints along the only road leading to the villages and mined the surrounding forests. Green or black flags with white inscriptions of ‘la ilaha illa-llahu’ (‘there is no deity but God’ in Arabic)74 were hoisted on these checkpoints to mark ‘the territory governed by the shari‘a’, which came to be described as ‘the Islamic jama‘at’. The political and religious elite of Daghestan appealed to Moscow to bring in troops and destroy the Islamists of Karamakhi and arrest the spread of fundamentalist Islam in the region. However, at that time the position of the Russian officials in Moscow towards the Islamists fluctuated over the entire scale between the threat to stage preventive operations against the Wahhabis in Daghestan and to bomb their camps, and willingness to enter into negotiations in order to prevent bloodshed. Trying to forestall the events, the Islamists of Karamakhi boasted of the military experience of fighting Russian troops they had gained during the 1994–96 war in Chechnya.75 They invited Chechen military experts who fortified the villages, while the most radical Chechen commanders – Khattab,76 Shamil Basayev77 and Salman Raduyev78 – declared that they were ready to assist their ‘brothers’ if the Russian and Daghestani authorities started military actions against the jama‘at. These declarations provoked a mixed reaction from the people of Karamakhi,79 but they also warned Moscow of the danger that if Russia used force against these villages 162

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the confrontation might lead to a full-scale war similar to that of 1994–96. For various reasons that deserve a separate discussion, Moscow was not ready in 1998 for such a confrontation and preferred a political solution to the crisis. In the summer of 1998 a number of highranking politicians, including the minister of internal affairs, Sergei Stepashin, visited Daghestan and negotiated with the leaders of the ‘Islamic jama‘at’. These negotiations were accompanied by ‘military exercises’ in which planes carried out sorties over the three villages, but an outright confrontation was carefully avoided. In July 1998 the Commission for Countering Terrorism in the Russian Federation [Komissiia po Bor’be s Terrorizmom] set up following the attack in Buinaksk, announced that it did not consider Wahhabism an extremist movement and suggested distinguishing between ‘the extremist wing [of the movement] and its religious core’.80 While the Russian statement cleared Wahhabism in July 1998, the Daghestani secular and religious officials were clearly upset at Moscow’s decision not to bring force to settle the conflict. They bitterly accused Russia of indecisiveness and betrayal.81 Trying to counterbalance Russia’s complacency with the Wahhabi threat they held a number of meetings at the governmental level which outlawed and condemned Wahhabi activities. At one of these meetings the Mufti Abu Bakarov came out with a fierce speech, in which he accused the Islamists of destabilising the situation in the republic. A few days later Abu Bakarov and his bodyguards were car-bombed and killed leaving Friday noon prayer at the central mosque of Makhachkala. The authorities were quick to accuse the ‘Wahhabis of Karamakhi’ of this terrorist action and the negotiations seemed to be in jeopardy. Despite accusations in the Daghestani media, there was little evidence that the Islamists were in any way involved in the assassination.82 In fact, public anger was directed against the government no less than at the Islamists. Demonstrations and marches swept through the republic and the government was accused of failing to establish safety in the republic. At the same time a member of the Russian parliament for Daghestan, the minister for nationality affairs, Ramaz Abdulatipov, accused the government in Makhachkala of conspiring with organised crime and called for the introduction of direct (RF) presidential rule (with a special envoy of the Russian president to run Daghestan).83 In early September 1998 the stand-off between the Daghestani government and the jama‘at of Karamakhi started to decrease. The Islamists lowered their black banners of jihad and removed the checkpoints from the road. Finally, on 16 September 1998 a ‘peace treaty’ 163

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was signed by the chairman of the State Council, Mahomedali Mahomedov, and the minister for nationality affairs, Mahomed Gusayev, on behalf of the government and by Mukhtar Akayev, the amir of the Islamic jama‘at. The Islamists recognised the local nonIslamic authorities, allowed the police to re-establish its presence in the jama‘at and promised to cooperate with the Daghestani authorities. At the same time the latter reversed the1997 law that denounced Wahhabism as anti-state activity, and agreed not to name the Islamists of Karamakhi Wahhabis.84 The authorities also promised to stop any illegal persecution of Muslims with the distinct features of the Islamists (such as a beard, certain clothes) and allocate TV time for religious broadcasts. It seems that the activists of the Islamic jama‘at were as much interested in reaching an agreement as the Federal government. The main occupation of the people in these three villages is long-distance trade of locally grown vegetables. The stand-off had hampered free travel and considerably restricted their business. Furthermore, unlike their Chechen ‘brothers’, most of the Daghestani purists do not uphold the idea of independence. They interpreted the confrontation not as a religious one but rather as their response to the corruption and crime in the republic. Jarullah, the military leader of the purists, justified the confrontation and later expulsion of policemen from the jama‘at on the grounds that they were outsiders from Buinaksk, tightly linked to criminal elements there, who had no regard for the local people.85 This interpretation of events not only reveals the complex blend of social and economic factors that caused the conflict, but clearly shows the degree to which traditional identities have persisted even among those Daghestani Muslims who consciously promote Islamic identity above ethnic or communal ones. The legal implications of the dispute between the Daghestani authorities and the jama‘at of Karamakhi highlighted the problem of compatibility between the shari‘a and the secular constitution of the republic, and on a more global scale the issue of relations between regional self-rule and the relations between Russian and local legislation (on the republican as well as the smaller, district levels). This fundamental issue was carefully avoided in the negotiations, which therefore led to a temporary truce rather than to a lasting peace. ISLAMISTS IN THE REGIONAL CONTEXT

The Daghestani Islamists reconfirmed Daghestan’s historic standing as a stronghold of Islam whose scholars and religious officials have been universally respected throughout the region. Still, it was not the 164

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only place where Islamist ideas took root.The emergence of revisionist Islam has been a universal phenomenon that has crossed both ethnic and national borders and has become a feature of religious life in all Muslim areas of the FSU, including the Caucasus. A comparison and a discussion of the links between various Islamist groups in the FSU go well beyond the scope of the present chapter. Yet it is impossible to understand religious developments in Daghestan without considering the religious, political and social situation in neighbouring Chechnya, which had a strong impact on the internal development of the Islamist movement in Daghestan as well as preconditioning the ultimate Russian policy towards its members. One of the immediate effects of the first Chechen war of 1994–96 was the radicalisation of northern Caucasian political groups and the flooding of the area with easily accessible and much aspired for arms and ammunition. It bred a new generation of young men who saw their main purpose in life as fighting the enemy, and promoted a new generation of politicians whose legitimisation was based on their participation in the armed struggle against the Russian troops. Although during the war the main issue was that of Chechen independence, many interpreted their struggle in religious terms and revived the memories of the nineteenth-century resistance that united both Chechens and Daghestanis in a common theocratic state.86 When the war ended in a peace agreement with Moscow, some military commanders interpreted it as a temporary truce rather than a lasting peace with Russia. In the atmosphere of a virtually completely destroyed economy, many young men found it difficult to settle back into peaceful life and searched for self-realisation through joining the armed groups that could provide much-romanticised military training and weapons. Islam, which for centuries was an emblem of the anti-Russian resistance was an obvious ideology that could provide additional legitimation to these armed groups. However, as in Daghestan, it has become evident that Islam ceased being a unifying force and in itself served as a source of friction in society. While the majority in Chechnya still appealed to traditional Sufi Islam, the Islamist groups that had started to appear in the republic from the early 1990s strengthened their position, not least through their active part in the war against Russia. With the activisation of the struggle for power between various politicians, some of them adopted revivalist Islam as their socio-political and religious creed. As a result the competition between Maskhadov and his opposition acquired distinctly religious overtones.87 All members of the opposition, including Shamil Basayev, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev,88 Movladi Udugov,89 Vaha Arsanov and Salman Raduyev, demanded the Islamisation of the state institutions and the strict following of the shari‘a principles. 165

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Yet they differed in their understanding of the way in which the shari‘a should be interpreted. Salman Raduyev appealed to Sufi tradition. The position of Shamil Basayev fluctuated between Sufi and Islamist interpretations according to the political alliances of the moment, but he never took a fully anti-traditionalist stand. Other leaders of the opposition, including Movladi Udugov and Zelimkhan Yandarbiev became more closely associated with the Islamist ideology. All these politicians, however, were secular leaders with little if any religious education. The religious inspiration came mostly from the more educated Islamic leaders of Daghestan and the Middle East who had settled in some Chechen villages (particularly in Gudermes and Urus Martan). A territory outside any Russian, or indeed any other type of central control, Chechnya offered a safe haven to Islamists from Daghestan who tried to escape social and/or political pressure in their own communities as well as for those who wanted to prepare themselves for military jihad. Thus, a peculiar alliance was formed between the military leaders of Chechnya and religious activists from Daghestan. This alliance had considerably destabilised the situation in Chechnya and had far-reaching implications for the whole region. Among other things some argued that the military/Islamist groups led to further deterioration of the criminal situation. Thus most people in Chechnya linked the widespread kidnapping business to the Islamist groups of Gudermes and Urus Martan and blamed outsiders for promoting slave trade.90 While many Chechens reacted painfully to the emergence of a strong well-armed group of social outsiders from among both Chechen youth and foreign Islamists (from Daghestan or the Middle East), the issue of ‘foreign involvement’ became a favourite topic among Russian pundits and politicians. There have been many speculations about the financial base of the military-religious camps on Chechen territory, and the role played by International Islamic fundamentalist organisations and Islamic states – such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and others – in sponsoring Islamic fundamentalism in the region. Yet so far it has proved almost impossible to state with any degree of certainty where from and how much money has been reaching the Caucasus. Persistent reports claim that any ‘new arrival’ to a military camp received US$500 (or even US$800) as an immediate ‘reward’. Each conscript was provided with arms and maintenance (about US$300 per month) during his military training and association with the ‘brigades’. Whether these reports are based on real evidence or are the result of popular imagination, it is clear that for the young unemployed men who seek a meaning to their lives, the very access to arms and military training combined with even 166

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basic maintenance was appealing enough to encourage them to join the military formations. THE WAY TOWARDS AN ISLAMIC STATE AND A NEW CHECHEN WAR

The Daghestani Islamists and Chechen opposition leaders formed several and often interchangeable political alliances such as the Majlis (or the Congress) of the Peoples of Ichkeria and Daghestan (CPID), that called for the expulsion of Russia from the Caucasus and the creation of an Islamic state on the territory of Chechnya and Daghestan. Yet the position of Islamists in Daghestan had varied views on the political future of Daghestan in relation to the RF. When, in the heat of the confrontation between the Daghestani authorities and the Qadar jama‘at, Shamil Basayev declared that he was ready to assist his ‘brothers’ in Daghestan, the latter denounced the declaration as a provocation and tried to distance themselves from the independence-seeking Chechen commander. At the same time the Chechen First Deputy Premier T.-A. Atgeriyev and the Mufti Ahmad Qadirov declared that ‘Basayev’s statement contradicted the Chechen leadership’s official policy, and that . . . meddling in Daghestan’s affairs is not only a mistake but also a provocation that aims at preventing the strengthening of the Chechen state.’91 Despite clear signals that not only common Daghestanis, but also many of the so-called Wahhabis were not receptive to the idea of a jihad on Daghestani soil, a joint armed group of Chechen commanders and Daghestani Islamists crossed into the Botlikh and Tsumada raions and declared the creation of the shari‘a state.92 After a short period of panic in the Kremlin, the newly appointed Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered the army to engage in combat operations, and within weeks the armed groups from Chechnya were expelled from both raions. The expulsion was made considerably easier by the fact that the reaction of the Daghestani population was overwhelmingly negative. The majority of the residents in the Botlikh and Tsumada raions left their villages and took refuge in Makhachkala. At the same time volunteers from all over Daghestan formed popular brigades ready to resist the Islamist/Chechen armed groups. It appears that even most Islamists saw the interference from the outside as a violation of Daghestani dignity and did not join them. Although reportedly some Islamists from Karamakhi joined Shamil Basayev’s groups, the official reaction of the religious leader of Karamakhi was negative. Similarly, Ayyub Astrakhanskii, the most radical of all Islamist leaders in Daghestan, denounced the incursion. The Russian authorities preferred to ignore the attempts of the 167

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Islamists to distance themselves from the events in the Tsumada and Botlikh raions. In September 1999, once the ‘Islamic fighters’ of Shamil Basayev were expelled, the military presented the people of the Qadar jama‘at with an ultimatum demanding that they surrender their arms to the Daghestani authorities or face the Russian army. The demand was predictably rejected and the Russian military started an air campaign followed by a ground operation. Unlike in Botlikh and Tsumada, where the Russian army scored a quick and easy victory, the Islamists of Karamakhi defended their jama‘at with much more vigour, but were eventually outforced by the Russians and escaped into Chechen territory.93 The Russian decision to turn against the Qadar jama‘at signified the recent change of Russian policy in the region. In late August 1999 the Russian army launched a massive air campaign in the territory of Chechnya itself and the second Chechen war became a reality.94 POSTSCRIPT

At present the political situation in the northern Caucasus is dominated by the ongoing hostilities in Chechnya, which in many ways have affected the whole region. Russian re-definition of the so-called Wahhabis as a prime enemy allowed Daghestani authorities to consolidate their anti-Islamist activities. Many of those associated with the new Islamic groups have been arrested and are facing charges.95 Others have left the region.96 In late June 2000 the People’s Assembly of Daghestan (Narodnoe Sobranie Dagestana) sent to the Russian parliament an addition to the Law on the Freedom of Speech and Religious Organisations, which outlawed the ‘Wahhabi religious movement’. Therefore, on the surface it appears that the traditional political and religious establishments have gained the upper hand in their struggle with the ‘new Islam’. Yet, as a populist ideology that can mobilise a powerful social movement, Islamism is far from being defeated. One cannot but agree with the Mufti of the Asian part of the RF, Nafigulla Ashirov, who warned that it was impossible to censor ideology and called to draw a distinction between Wahhabism as an ideology and extremism as a political activity.97 Yet it seems that the current Russian policy in Chechnya with its extremely high level of violence and massive abuses is bound to promote both Islamic radicalism and political extremism further. Moreover, the falling standards of secular education and the growing number of men who receive solid religious education in the Islamic centres of the Near and Middle East can promote a new type of educated elite, capable of challenging the traditional religious authorities and the established political order. 168

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Therefore the contest between the new and old interpretations of Islam as well as the readjustment of religious ideology and forms of authority to the new realities of post-Soviet Daghestan has just started. APPENDIX: APPEAL BY NADIRSHAH KHACHILAYEV98

God Almighty sends people adversaries and opposition so that they do not become arrogant and do not sink in the sins of haughtiness. God Almighty sends opposition to the rulers in order to save them from the feeling of irresponsibility and non-accountability. Any permissiveness makes a person to monopolise truth and turn him into a live idol that claims the attributes of God Almighty and tries to become the shadow of God on earth. This is a major sin for any believer and by doing so he abuses the fundamental principle of Islam, i.e. ‘la ilaha illa-llahu wa Muhammad rasul Allahu’ – there is no deity but God Almighty and Muhammad is His Prophet. [Let us see] how the current religious authorities of Russian Muslims – muftis, ‘ulama’ Caucasian sheikhs of various tariqas – behave. They call us to be loyal to the authorities, which have sunk in corruption, which worship the power of the dollar and high office! Is it not a good reason to start radical reforms in the administration of the Spiritual Directorates and Muftiates in Russia? The Muftiates have always demanded, and continue to demand, loyalty to the existing government, whatever its character. They try to promote among the faithful the Christian dogma ‘Bogu Bogogo, kesariu kesarevo’, which means that Islam should not interfere in the affairs of the state. This is a huge mistake, since God created all things alive and not alive – and His laws are relevant to everything. Even a common Friday prayer is close to politics. The Prophet Muhammad was at one and the same time God’s messenger, a politician, a military leader and a ruler. In present-day Russia, and especially in the Caucasus, the traditionalists like to refer to the uncompromising authority of the Sufi Sheikhs – Muhammad al-Yaraghi, Jamal al-din al-Ghazi-Ghumuqi, Mansur and Kunta Hajji, the Imams Ghazi Muhammad, Hamzat-Bek and Shamil. They claim that they, the present-day tariqatists and traditionalists, continue the legacy of those Sufi leaders and hold their banner. Speaking about the faith of their fathers, which they uphold, they mean first of all the heritage of Imam Shamil and his teachers, the Sheikhs of the Naqshbandi tariqa. Those traditionalists certainly realise that anyone who criticises the path of the tariqa, linked to the names of the heroes of the Caucasian War, will immediately encounter the outraged reaction of the Muslim community. 169

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But they are wrong in that they see themselves as the upholders of Shamil’s legacy and the legacy of the two Imams of Chechnya and Daghestan that preceded him and the legacy of other Sheikhs of the tariqa. Because if they cast a glance on the path of the Sufis of the time of the Caucasian War, they will easily notice that from the beginning to the end it is full of reformation. The Imam of Chechnya and Daghestan [Shamil] was granted an inspiration to say: ‘the Qur’an says that and we will do like that’, ‘Our Prophet said that in his Hadith and it therefore is right’, ‘In such circumstances he [the Prophet] acted like that and hence we should follow his example.’ At the same time being a murid of the famous Sheikh of the tariqa, the murshid Kamil Kutb (early nineteenth century) he never said: ‘My Sheikh says so, he believes so,’ or ‘I order thus, I command thus.’ This [behaviour] was the cornerstone of the success of the Great Imam, of his reforms, of the establishment of the mountain state – the Imamate – which was able to fight for 25 years against a mighty empire. The inner foundations of Shamil’s movement was the Sufi tariqa of the Naqshbandi, which demanded submission to God Almighty alone, recognised only His power and upheld only His law in [personal] life and state affairs. And who support the present-day mullahs and ‘ulama’ who consider themselves to be the traditionalists and guardians of the tradition of their forefathers? They say: ‘What else do we need? The mosques are being built, we are allowed to pray. We can [openly] read the Qur’an – who prevents you being a true Muslim?’ This is true. But there is another crude truth. Society must have full and not half-hearted opportunity to learn the laws of God, to fulfil all requirements of Islam. This is a natural wish of Russia’s Muslims. That is what, probably, gave rise to the ‘Wahhabis’ (although talking about the need for reforms in religion did not mean this particular form of reformation). Their emergence is logical, and the very traditionalist Muslims gave rise to them and now try to fight against them. In our days people, especially the younger generation, have become particularly impressed by those public religious developments that are taking place in our country. And while previously the religious and political leaders could easily impress their will on the people, now it is virtually impossible. A ‘crowd’ of Soviet Muslim has turned into educated Muslim societies, which can defend their interests and aspirations. People now notice and reject any small lie and insincerity. In this situation both sides involved in violent arguments – the traditionalists and Wahhabis – lose. 170

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Allah says in the Holy Qur’an: ‘I produced you from one Father and Mother and made you different tribes and peoples so that you will know yourselves in kindness and honour.’ At the same time it is impossible to agree with the Wahhabi way of dealing with the problem of Islamic revival. The Wahhabis question the very essence of Sufism, the basics of muridism, the teaching of the Sheikhs and the tariqa, and no one gave them the right [to do so]. Neither the ayats of the Qur’an nor the Hadith of the Prophet reject the path of comprehension of the deepest roots of Islamic faith, they only welcome and encourage it. A true tariqa worships God alone and no one else. Islam prescribes [the following:] even if you decided to criticise someone else, do it carefully in order not to repel the opponent but to convey him to Islam by your good behaviour and good manners. We would be wrong if we did not take into account the time of the communist dictatorship that our fathers had to live through. How much they had to bear, calls from the NKVD, questionings in the KGB. We do not have any right not to treat them with warm gratitude that they at least kept the outwardly attributes of our faith. Muslims must stop all quarrels, and seeking in accord with our teaching those [things] that unite us, we must try to get rid of any form of tyranny. This does not mean that we must leave the RF. No, we must ask the other peoples of Russia to realise themselves as free citizens. That is why I uphold the following position – reformation is an imperative. A sect of pagan priests must give way to true and enlightened Islam. Nadirshah Muhadovich Khachilayev, Deputy of the State Duma, Chairman of the Union of Russia’s Muslims.

NOTES 1 This indiscriminate ascribing of all extreme views to the Wahhabis can be demonstrated by a generally spread view that the propagandist pamphlet Armiia Imama [The Imam’s Army], that advocates terrorism and violence and promotes the idea of cessation of the whole northern Caucasus from Russia was part of the Wahhabi agenda. In fact, it was written by Mahomed Talboyev, who is known as a secular man with radical political views and has no association with the religious groups generally referred to as the Wahhabis. 2 During the confrontation between the so-called Wahhabis of the Qadar jama‘at and the Daghestani authorities, described below, the former demanded that the press and politicians stop calling them Wahhabis. 3 Eva Rosander, ‘The Islamization of Tradition and Modernity’, in E. Rosander and D. Westerland (eds), Islam in Africa and African Islam. Encounter between Sufis and Islamists (London: C. Hurst, 1997), p. 4. 4 The Bolshevik onslaught on Islam started in the late 1920s, when most mosques

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were shut down, Muslim clergy persecuted, the religious waqf property confiscated and jurisprudence outlawed and most Muslim practices banned. As demonstrated by Yaacov Ro’i, the Spiritual Directorates officiated in effect the secularization campaign in the Muslim Soviet Republics. Striking examples to this effect are the fatwas issued by the Spiritual Directorates in 1948 that forbade absence from work on religious festivals, explained that animal sacrifice was not obligatory, that people were exempt from fasting during the month of Ramadan and that the payment of the zakat (special religious tax) had lost its significance under the conditions of socialism, that had liquidated poverty and need. See Y. Ro’i, ‘Secularization of Islam and the USSR’s Muslim Areas’, in idem (ed.), Muslim Eurasia. Conflicting Legacies (London: Frank Cass, 1995), p. 10 (hereafter: Muslim Eurasia). Further on the role of Islamic authorities in the general process of secularisation of the Soviet Muslims see Y. Ro’i, ‘The Islamic Influence on Nationalism in Soviet Central Asia’, Problems of Communism, Vol. 39, No. 4 (July–August 1990), pp. 49–64. The four Spiritual Directorates of the Soviet Muslims were re-established by Stalin in 1943 after a short period of suspension. Ro’i, Muslim Eurasia, p. 1. In Russia and the European republics of the USSR the ‘creation of the new man’ meant the educating of the proletariat and the forging of ‘proletarian intelligentsia’ (proletarskaia inteligentsiia). See A. Malashenko, Islamskoe vozrozhdenie v sovremennoy Rossii [Islamic Revival in Contemporary Russia] (Moscow: the Moscow Carnegie Centre, 1998). In Chechnya most boys received some basic religious education from the quarter mosque mullas, who were also Sufi turqhs (heads of the quarter commune). These classes were held during the official Soviet summer school vacation. Those few who showed particular interest in religious matters would stay with the turqh and go through the full programme of religious and spiritual (Sufi) training. In Daghestan, where the scholarly tradition has deep roots, a few centres of higher religious education existed in addition to summer schools (maktabs). These were attended by students and scholars from other villages and regions. It seems that contacts were maintained between Daghestani and Chechen religious authorities. Tajuddin of Khasavyurt; Sayyid Apandi of Chirkey; Ahmad-qadi Ahtayev; and Bahauddin Omarov are but a few of the Daghestani religious authorities who emerged from these centres. The Sufi tradition in Daghestan goes back to the first centuries of Islam. In Chechnya and in Ingushetia the Islamisation of the population was mostly realised by the Sufi sheikhs. Furthermore, the Sufi orders were responsible for most anti-Russian movements in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as well as for the unification of various North Caucasian tribes and polities into a common state (1830s to 1859). For more on the Sufi tradition and its role in the northern Caucasus see A. Bennigsen and A. E. Winbush, Mystics and Commissars (London: C. Hurst, 1985); M. Gammer, Muslim Resistance to the Tsar. Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and Daghestan (London: Frank Cass, 1994); A. Zelkina, In Quest for God and Freedom. The Naqshbandi Order in Chechnya and Daghestan and its impact on social and political life of the nineteenth century Northern Caucasus (London: C. Hurst, 2000). The Sufi orders were particularly active in the central and western parts of Daghestan, while among the Nogays in the north and the Lezghin in the south they were hardly present. From the 1970s these moulids started to be recorded. These tapes, together with

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25

26 27

other forms of local samizdat and tapes in Arabic smuggled from the Middle East were frequently sold at local markets. Sadaqa (voluntary contribution) was generally distributed by both active believers and non-believers on religious holidays as well as at celebrations such as birth, marriage, burial. Zakat (alms) was collected mostly from the active tariqa followers. In a number of Daghestani raions land was distributed according to the traditional system of ownership in defiance of Soviet authorities. By and large the Daghestanis managed to preserve the pre-Soviet system of land ownership and suited the kolkhoz structure to traditional norms. Thus, the kolkhoz lands consisted of the communal land while the private allotments were kept as podsobnoe khozia’stvo (plot in individual use). The religious authorities were entrusted with keeping records of the land ownership and regulating disputes. For traditional forms of land ownership in Daghestan and their evolution during the Soviet period, see V. O. Bobrovnikov, ‘Evoliutsiia sotstial’nykh i pozemel’nykh traditsii khushtadinskogo jama’ata v XIX–XX vekakh [The Evolution of the Social and Land-Ownership Traditions of the jama‘at of Khushtada]’, in Tamara Sivertseva, Mikhail Roschin and Vladimir Bobrovnikov, Dagestan: Selo Khushtada [Daghestan: The Village of Khushtada] (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Instituta Vostokovedeniia Rosskiiskoi Akademii Nauk, 1995), pp. 47–62. Fanny E. B. Bryan, ‘Internationalism, Nationalism and Islam before 1990’, in M. Bennigsen-Broxup, The North Caucasus Barrier. The Russian advance towards the Muslim World (London: C. Hurst, 1992), p. 207 (hereafter: ‘Internationalism’). The followers of Batal Hajji, known as beloshapochniki for wearing white hats, tried to abstain from any participation in Soviet life. They manufactured their own clothes, refused to take employment at the Soviet institutions and organisations (including collective farms) and lived in a tightly knit community of fellow beloshapochniki. Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (1703–92) after whom the movement is called, was one of the first modern religious thinkers vigorously opposed to the Sufi tradition and practices, which he saw as later innovations corrupting the very nature of Islam. Bennigsen, Mystics and Commissairs, p .4. Even in Chechnya the Sufi leaders remained largely detached from active politics. e.g., Bryan, ‘Internationalism’, pp. 202, 214. Mawlana A. A. Mawdudi (1909–79) was a Pakistani Islamic radical thinker and the intellectual force behind the Jamaat-i Islami movement in that country. See J. Esposito, Islam the Strait Faith (New York: Oxford University Press. 1992). Hasan al-Bana (1906–49) was the founder, in 1928, of al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin [the ‘Muslim Brotherhood’] (a fundamentalist Islamic organisation) in Egypt. About him, see R. H. Dekmejian, Islam in Revolution. Fundamentalism in the Arab World (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1985); T. Gerholm, ‘The Islamisation of Contemporary Egypt’, in E. Rosander and D. Westerland (eds), Islam in Africa, pp. 127–62. Sayyid Qutb (1906–66) was also an Egyptian Islamic thinker and activist. He succeeded Hasan al-Bana as the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood after the latter’s assassination and remained its leader until his own execution in 1966. For further details see the above quoted sources. For a detailed analysis of the evolution and theories of Islamic fundamentalist thinkers see Y. Choueiri, Islamic Fundamentalism (London and Washington: Pinter, 1997). For example, the communes of pure Islam in the Ferghana valley that later

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28 29

30 31

32 33

34

35 36 37

38

39 40 41 42 43 44

formed the basis for the Adolat groups. On the Adolat see A. Zelkina, ‘Islam and Security in the New States of Central Asia: How Genuine is the Islamic Threat?’, Religion, State and Society, Vol. 27, Nos. 3–4 (1999), pp. 335–72. Malashenko, Islamic Revival, p, 128. From 1985 on, the economic situation in Daghestan has been deteriorating. One reason for that is the reforms in the Soviet Military Industrial Complex, which led to the closure of most industrial enterprises (the majority of which were linked to the MIC) in Daghestan. In addition, financially strained Moscow failed to fully provide Makhachkala with the technical and monetary assistance that constituted 85 per cent of Daghestan’s budget. This failure, coupled with the widespread corruption, had devastating effects on the local economy. Quoted from Abu Bakarov’s last interview, given on 21 August 1998, shortly before his assassination, and published in Izvestiia, 25 August 1998. The split in the Central Daghestani Spiritual Board was formally caused by the demand to purge it of those authorities who had cooperated with the Communist Party and the KGB. However, the struggle for the leading position in the Directorate also revealed the intense competition between various ethnic groups in Daghestan. The strongest (numerically) fronts are the Avar ‘Popular Front named after Shamil’; the Kumyq Tenglik; the Lezghin Sadwal; the Lak Kazi Kumukh and the Nogay Birlik. For an overview of the developments within the Spiritual Directorate in Daghestan, see Amri Shikhsaidov, ‘Islam in Daghestan’, in L. Johnson and M. Esenov (eds), Political Islam in Russia and Central Asia (Stockholm: SIIR, 1999), pp. 59–71. Sayyid Apandi and Tajuddin are Sufi sheikhs of the Naqshbandiyya-Khalidiyya, the Qadiriyya and allegedly also the Shadhiliyya orders. Both have elaborate networks of followers – allegedly 5,000 and 3,000 respectively – in most areas of the republic of Daghestan. Mahomedali Mahomedov, the Chairman of the State Council (the de facto President) of the Republic, as well as many members of the government and the Central Spiritual Board of Daghestan follow Sayyid Apandi of Chirkey, while Haji Makhachev, the Avar businessman, new generation politician and leader of the Avar Popular Front and his associates follow Tajuddin of Khasavyurt. The new generation of Daghestani leaders grew from big business. Ro’i, ‘Secularization’, p. 7. The congress was attended by about 200 delegates. Later the Organising Committee of the congress officially registered in Moscow, which allowed it to legalise its activities, at least in the RF. For the history of the IRP, see Malashenko, Islamic Revival, pp. 75–80. The first paragraph of its programme states that ‘the IRP is a religious political organisation that unites Muslims who actively participate in spreading Islam, observe Islamic rules, participate in religious and cultural, social and political and economic life following the principles of Islam – ‘Programma i ustav Islamskoi partii vozrozhdeniia’, Moscow, 1990, pp. 6, 8, as quoted in Malashenko, Islamic Revival, p. 76. For the accounts see Malashenko, Islamic Revival, p. 79. The IRP was outlawed in all Central Asian republics. Like Ahmadqadi Ahtayev, the leader of IRP, Abdurashid Saidov was an MD. Malashenko, Islamic Revival, p. 89. Ibid. There were several other parties in Daghestan that claimed an Islamic character.

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45

46

47 48

49 50 51 52

53

54

However, the IRP and the IDP were, perhaps, the only two that operated as supra-national political entities. Others never crossed ethnic boundaries. The membership of jama‘at al-Muslimin, for example, consisted exclusively of Darghins. Igor Tkachev suggested that the term Wahhabis was first used in KGB reports on active religious politicians in the late 1980s. Igor Tkachev, ‘Strana pobedivshego Vakhkhabizma’, Kommersant Weekly, 20 April 1999. This suggestion sounds plausible. In the late 1980s, Soviet intelligence services were following closely the emergence of the new alternative parties and political organisations, which immediately became ‘fundamentalists.’ The Salafiyya replaced the earlier Wahhabi and reformist movements in Islam. Unlike both, the Salafiyyun interpreted Islam as part of the national-patriotic struggle and were primarily concerned with the ethical and educational role of religion. They preferred these fields over political struggle and operated as a welfare organisation. The first adherents of the Salafiyya organised into local groups, which operated on the communal level. They then attempted to coordinate the different local groups. It was at this stage that the Salafiyya was transformed into a political reformist movement with political parties gradually replacing the welfare organisations. For Islamic reform in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries see Choueiri, Islamic Fundamentalism. It appears that although the doctrine of the first Islamic parties in Daghestan was, indeed, closely related to the Salfiyya, their transformation into political organisations occurred more rapidly than in the Middle East. In 1997 alone over 12,000 Daghestani Muslims went on haj as compared to the few of the Soviet times. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Pakistan were particularly active at the state level in providing funds to restore old and build new mosques, and sending copies of the Qur’an – in 1989, for example, Saudi Arabia alone sent 1,000,000 copies of the Qur’an to the Central Asian Republics. The Islamic University in Moscow was also sponsored by foreign donors The majority of such educational institutions to which ex-Soviet Muslims went to study were in Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. For example, many Muslims from Karamakhi, the future centre of purist Islam, attended the school at Kizilyurt and studied under both Bahauddin and Muhammad ‘Ali. Bahauddin was born in the village of Santlada, but became known particularly through his religious activity in Kizilyurt and hence is often referred to as Bahauddin of Kizilyurt. Ayyub Astrakhanskii was born in Kvanada. On him see V. Bobrovnikov, ‘Dagestan’, Islam na territorii byvshey Sovetskoy Imperii. Entsiklopedicheskiy slovar’, Issue 1, Moscow and St Petersburg: 1998; T. Panova, ‘Vakhabity goroda Astrakhani [the Wahhabis of Astrakhan]’, Segodnia, 15 August 1998. At the time both the IRP and the IDP had to a large extent lost their influence. A new political party, the Union of Daghestani Muslims, was formed and led by Nadirshah Khachilayev. To a considerable extent it is also ethnically oriented and the majority of its active members are Laks. The creation of the UDM coincided with the beginning of a new period in Daghestan’s politics, when the influence of Islam over society and politics became more profound and Islam turned from secondary into the primary raison d’être of certain political groups. These leaders are generally associated with local big business and came into politics through the ethnic popular fronts. For example, Haji Makhachev is the chairman of the major Daghestani oil company Dagoil and head of the Avar

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55

56 57 58

59

60 61 62 63

64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

Popular Front named after Imam Shamil’. Mahomed Khachilayev (Nadirshah’s brother) is associated with the fishing industry and made his way into parliament as the head of the Lak people’s movement Kazi-Kumukh. Other politicians come from the military – for example, the chairman of the Lezghin national council, General Muhiddin Kakhrimanov – or from sport, like the head of the Union of Avar jama‘ats, Zaglav Abdulabekov, who was a wrestling champion. In religious matters he accepted a position somewhat similar to that of AhmadQadi Akhtayev. While he did not denounce the Sufi tradition altogether, Khachilayev called to ‘cleanse’ the religious establishment from corruption and advocated a more literal implementation of the shari‘a in all aspects of private and public life. For more, see Shikhsaidov, ‘Islam in Daghestan’. The best example of such effort can be seen in the open letter written by Nadirshah Khachilayev that I am translating in full in the appendix. About 90 per cent of the restored mosques and madrasas are located in the central and western parts of Daghestan. The Naqshbandi and the Qadiri orders are also thriving with over forty wirds (sub-branches) operating in these areas – Bobrovnikov, Daghestan, p. 124. The statistics published by Ilia Maksakov in Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 18 March 1998, are slightly different, but present the same picture. The correlation between the traditionalist (Sufi) and purist (Wahhabi) activists in Daghestan is as follows: in the Buynaksk raion – 1000:800; in the Khasavyurt raion – 1170:460; in the Kizilyurt raion – 790:500: in the Tsumada raion – 575:475; in the Shamil raion – 480:37; in the Gumbet raion – 430:37; in the Untsuqul raion – 320:135; in the Kazbek raion – 410:10; in the Gergebil’ raion – 410:30. See also ‘Vliianie ekstremistov sil’no preuvelicheno’, Nezavisimaia Gazeta – Religiia, 18 March 1998. In an interview with Izvestiia, 25 August 1998, Abubakarov accused the purists of being worse than animals, for ‘They bury their dead with less dignity than a good Muslim buries his cat.’ In the village of Karamakhi, for example, the purists were not allowed to pray in the village mosque. Until they built their own mosque they used to adjourn for communal prayer at private houses. Both moved to Karamakhi. In 1996 Bahauddin left for Chechnya at the invitation of Yandarbiev. He settled first in Gudermes and later in Urus Martan. The Council of the Muftis of the Russian Federation emerged in 1990 as an alternative body to the Central Spiritual Board of the Muslims of Russia and the European Countries of the CIS (the former Spiritual Board of the European USSR and Siberia). Interview with Izvestiia, 12 August 1998. According to the Islamists such calls were made frequently in the Friday sermons in Karamakhi – e.g., Mukhtar Atayev to Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 19 August 1998. Maksim Shevchenko, ‘Dagestanskie fundamentalisty,’ Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 19 August 1999. Ibid. On different forms of identity among Daghestani Muslims and the perpetuation of the jama‘at organisation, see Zelkina, ‘The construction of ethnic identity’. Shevchenko, ‘Dagestanskie fundamentalisty’. Altogether eight Islamists were arrested, six of them from Karamakhi. Seven were released because no evidence could be found against them. The eighth disappeared without a trace. One of the most effective measures was the rejection of jama‘at protection to local criminals. Thus, when the people of a neighbouring jama‘at caught a man from Karamakhi who had tried to extort money from a lorry driver, the Islamist

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72 73 74 75 76 77

78

79

80 81 82 83 84

85 86

activists denounced him and refused to mediate on his behalf. Jarullah to Maksim Shevchenko, Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 19 August 1998. These statistics were published in ‘What the papers say’, 17 February 1998. Eleven policemen were stationed in the villages in 1997–98 and were de facto out of work. These banners were similar to those raised by Chechen fighters during the war in Chechnya. The few Daghestani volunteers who participated in the Chechen war did so on religious grounds. Thus the Islamists of Karamakhi call themselves mujahiddin and boast of their military experience in the war of 1994–96. Khattab has allegedly close personal ties with Karamakhi. He had visited the area many times and is married to a woman from the jama‘at. Born in 1965, Shamil Basayev was one of the Chechen military commanders during the first war of 1994–96. In 1996 he and his men were besieged in a local hospital in Buinaksk that arguably set up the process of peace negotiations between the Russian government and the Chechen military commanders. It was also this terrorist act that made Basayev a local hero in Chechnya and terrorist number one in Russia. At the 1996 presidential elections Basayev came second after Maskhadov. After a short period of cooperation he formed a strong opposition to Maskhadov’s government. The rivalry between the two was only partially resolved after the beginning of the second war in Chechnya in September 1999. Salman Raduyev was a relative of the first Chechen president, Johar Dudayev. He fought alongside Dudayev in the war of 1994–96. After Dudayev was killed he refused to recognise his death and formed the so-called ‘Johar’s Army’. This consisted mostly of young men who opposed Maskhadov’s presidency. In January 2000 he was captured by the Russians and at the moment of writing is in the Lefortovo prison in Moscow. The links between the Islamic purists of the Karamakhi jama‘at and other regions of Daghestan with the Chechen military commanders is a controversial subject, since alliances are being formed and broken on a perpetual basis. Thus the media are full of reports of mutually exclusive declarations by the leaders of Karamakhi about their alliance with such figures as Raduyev, who is simultaneously named as both a sworn enemy and a potential ally. Declaration of Pavel Krashennikov, minister of justice and coordinator of the Commission as published by Interfax – BBC, Summary of World Broadcasts (SWB), 21 July 1998. See, for example, Mufti Abu Bakarov’s last interview, Izvestiia, 25 August 1998. There were hints that led to other possible enemies of the Mufti who might have seized the opportunity to settle their accounts with him while putting the blame on the Islamists. Ekho Moskvy, 18 August 1998. Indeed, following the agreement, no reference to the Karamakhi and other villages as centres of extremism and terrorism was made, while the term Wahhabism became less pronounced at the official level, even though it did not disappear altogether. Interview with Petr Brantov, ‘Vahhabizm s chelovecheskim litsom [Wahhabism with a Human face]’, Russkii Telegraf, 29 August 1998. For the nineteenth-century resistance see M. Gammer, Muslim Resistance to the Tsar. Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and Daghestan (London: Frank Cass, 1994); A. Zelkina, In Quest of God and Freedom (London: C. Hurst and New York: New York University Press, 2000).

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THE CASPIAN REGION 87 On some aspects of the struggle see V. Akaev, ‘Religious–Political Conflict in the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria’, in L. Johnson and M. Esenov (eds), Political Islam, pp. 54–7. 88 A nationalist Chechen writer, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev was vice-president under Dudayev and after the latter’s assassination in 1995 became acting president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria till the presidential elections of 1996, in which he came third after Maskhadov and Basayev. Never fully reconciled to his defeat, Yandarbiyev joined the opposition to the president and from 1998 became increasingly associated with Islamist groups in the republic. 89 Movladi Udugov can be best described as a propaganda guru. In the days of the 1994–96 war he was the most outspoken ideologist of the Chechen resistance. In the early days of Maskhadov’s presidency Udugov became minister of information. However, he soon joined the opposition to Aslan Maskhadov and became associated with the Chechen Islamists. 90 There are sound accusations that the Islamists in Chechnya were involved in the kidnapping business. See, for example, Akaev, ‘Religious–Political Conflict’, p. 49. Yet, another Islamist leader, Nadirshah Khachilayev, was known for his strong stand against the ‘slave trade’ and used his authority to liberate a number of hostages. 91 Quoted in Akaev, ‘Religious–Political Conflict’, p. 52. 92 There have been different explanations for this incursion, including the claim that it was staged by the Kremlin to supply the pretext for a new Chechen war. 93 Notably neither Shamil Basayev nor any other Chechen commander came to assist the Islamists of the Qadar jama‘at in their fight with the Russians. 94 On the escalation of the Russian military campaign in the northern Caucasus, see A. Zelkina, ‘The Chechen future in the Russian Federation’, Helsinki Monitor, 2000, No. 3, pp. 37–46. 95 Among those arrested were Nadirshah Khachilayev and his brother Mahomed. Under public pressure, however, the sentence was not as harsh as expected – Mahomed was sentenced to three years and Nadirshah received a one and a half year sentence but received an amnesty and was released immediately after the court hearings. Those directly associated with the Islamists groups did not receive the same lenient treatment. For example, Mukhtar Mahomedov, a 33-year-old Wahhabi, was sentenced to 18 years in prison and two of his close associates to 15 years each – ‘Beard Killed Wahhabite’, Izvestia Press Digest, 5 July 2000. 96 One of those who left the northern Caucasus was Mahomed Tagayev. However, Kommersant Daily reported his arrest in Istanbul and his likely extradition to the Daghestani authorities for trial on the alleged ‘participation in illegal military formations and calls for mutiny’. Sergei Topol, ‘Ideolog Dagestanskikh vahhabitov priatalsia v Stanbule’, Kommersant Daily, 4 July 2000. 97 Valerii Batuev, ‘Muftii Nafigulla Ashirov: Vahhabizm zapretit’ nevozmoshno [Mufti Nafigulla Ashirov: It is impossible to Ban Wahhabism]’, Vremia MN, 1 July 2000. 98 Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 27 July 1997.

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8

Rural Muslims’ Nationalism in the Post-Soviet Caucasus: The Case of Daghestan Vladimir Bobrovnikov

The disintegration of the Soviet Union has been followed by the growth of anti-Soviet-national and religious movements in the towns and villages of Daghestan. Yet local economy and society have retained a number of Soviet institutions and values, such as collective and state farms (kolkhozes and sovkhozes respectively), general state education and state health services. Moreover, as will be shown below, the formation of national communities in Daghestan was completed during the Soviet period. How can one explain the persistence of the Soviet system in Daghestan in the 1990s? Is there any connection between Soviet structures and the current rise of Muslim nationalism? And what influence might these structures have on the development of post-Soviet Daghestan? These questions will be dealt with in this chapter. The term ‘nationalism’ is used here in the sense accepted in contemporary anthropology and history. It refers both to mental and political processes of grouping people in large congruent ‘nation-state’ communities. Such communities are not primordial, but rather modern ones, proper to industrial and industrializing societies.1 In the Daghestani case their social, economic and cultural foundations, as I shall argue, date back to the Soviet period. In this chapter they will be defined as ‘Soviet legacy’. The Soviet state strongly opposed any nationalist movements. From the 1920s the Daghestanis experienced many national and religious persecutions. On the other hand, the global Soviet reforms promoted the formation of national communities and nationalist mentality among Daghestani Muslims, favouring the ethno-political integration of small ethnic groups of mountaineers as well as the 179

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establishment of regular economic and cultural ties between all the zones of Daghestan. LOCAL AND SOVIET ROOTS OF MUSLIM DAGHESTANI NATIONALISM

Muslim Peasants in Pre-Soviet Daghestan According to contemporary scholars, the modern ethnic and economic characteristics of the three zones of Daghestan – the mountains, the lowlands and the foothills – were formed mainly before the nineteenth century.2 The mountains cover 37 per cent of the total area of the republic of Daghestan and encompass 21 of its 39 districts (raions). Before the revolution they were inhabited by Muslim peoples speaking languages of the Caucasian family. The ‘mountaineers’ lived by terrace agriculture and cattle-breeding, using the lowlands for winter pasture. According to the 1926 census the largest ethnic groups in the mountains were the Avars (176,300), the Darghins (125,700), the Lezghins (112,000), the Laks (39,900) and the Tabasarans (31,900).3 There were also a dozen or so smaller ethnic groups, consisting of a single large village (such as Archi, Bezhta, Botlikh, Kubachi, Khwarshi, Tindi) or of a few relatively small neighbouring ones (such as Bagulal and Chamalal). Before the Russian conquest the mountaineers formed ethnoterritorial, economic and military leagues, known in Russian as ‘free communities’ (vol’nye obshchestva, or bo in Avar and khuravo’ in Darghin). Avar bolmats (common tongue), Kazi-Kumukh (later renamed Lak) and Guney (Lezghin) patois were used as lingua francas.4 The lowlands occupy 51 per cent of Daghestan’s territory, and incorporate ten of its districts.5 Before the revolution they were inhabited by Turkic-speaking Muslim farmers and settled cattle-breeders. The three largest peoples by 1926 were the Kumyks (88,000), the Nogays (36,700) and the Azeris (8,500). These, and especially the Kumyks, were dominant also in the foothills.6 The foothills, in central and northern Daghestan, cover 12 per cent of the republican area and comprise eight of its districts. In and via the foothills the lowlanders and the mountaineers maintained close economic relations – at least since the fifteenth century – and formed a mixed rural population. Administratively and politically these three zones of Daghestan were united only by the pre-revolutionary Russian and Soviet authorities. In fact Daghestan had no ethnic and linguistic unity up to Soviet times. In all three zones of the country only the Muslim scholars (‘ulama) were united by a common religious culture and language – 180

RURAL MUSLIMS’ NATIONALISM IN DAGHESTAN

literary Arabic (al-fusha). Most of the Muslim villagers had no knowledge of Russian before the Second World War. Under Tsarist rule the rural Muslim ethnic groups continued to live in ethnically homogeneous laterally separated communities, the growth of towns and rural outmigration notwithstanding. The strict endogamy of rural communities (jama‘ats) and even of peasant clans (tukhums) preserved their ethnic identity, while economic autarchy of the villages and the self-government of a great many of them enabled them to live secluded, inward-turned lives. At the village level the economy, though a subsistence one, was diversified and combined farming, cattle-breeding, gardening and often home industries. At the turn of the twentieth century a peasant family usually reserved two-thirds of its household production for its own consumption and sold the rest (30–40 per cent) at the local rural markets and fairs regularly held in the largest villages (which were also the economic and political centres of the countryside), such as Khunzakh, Botlikh, Akhty, Kumukh, Kubachi, Aksay and others. The 1868 Code of native rural communities upheld the status quo of the social organisation and the customary law of Daghestani Muslims. Until the mid-1920s Russian officials ruled the natives by means of local oral courts, which consisted of village ‘alims and kept the norms of customary (‘ada) and Muslim (shari‘a) laws.7 A strong ethnic rivalry and quarrels over land among jama‘ats and between mountaineers and lowlanders prevented national consolidation of all the Daghestanis in their struggle against the Russian conquerors in the nineteenth century. This is why the semi-religious union of the mountaineers created by the Naqshbandi brotherhood (tariqa) during the Shamil movement and the large uprisings of 1877 and 1918–21 were reportedly not durable. After their defeat the mountaineers split again into the previous conflicting local communities.8 Ethnic and Social Transformation of the Muslim Village Under Soviet Reforms The abolition of local peasant institutions in Daghestan began in the late 1920s. In 1927 the Bolsheviks suppressed the oral courts all over the republic. Income and charity collections (waqf, zakat) for village mosques and the teaching of Arabic by village ‘ulama were prohibited. These drastic measures transformed the traditional leaders of the rural ethnic groups into outlaws. The most active of them were persecuted during the 1920s–1940s. Thousands were arrested and executed, while the families of village foremen, mullahs (dibirs) and participants in the resistance to Soviet power were deported from 181

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Daghestan in several waves beginning in 1927. Thus about two thousand peasant families and tukhums, so-called kulaks, were deported.9 Following these social and religious persecutions the Soviet regime started the collectivisation drive: first in the lowlands (in 1929–30) and later in remote regions of the mountains and the foothills (in 1934–39). Collectivisation was accompanied by mass resettlement of mountaineers from districts suffering from land hunger and a considerable surplus of population to the lowlands and the foothills where the land was more fertile and the population scant. Until the Second World War some 1,157,000 hectares of former private estates (pomest’ia) and state lands (kazennye zemli) in the lowlands were distributed to small mountain collectives (kolkhozes) and state (sovkhozes) farms. In the 1940s, after the liquidation of malaria in the Terek-Sulak lowland, the Soviet authorities resettled mountaineer volunteers there, and the nomad Nogays. In this resettlement programme, which lasted until the early 1970s, approximately 200,000 Muslim peasants (or 40,000 households) were resettled according to the 1970 census. The settlers established 76 new auls (villages), a great many of them around former mountaineers’ seasonal cattlebreeding hamlets (kutany, kazmalyar).10 Many of the new villages were formed in two typical ways: either a single jama‘at organized a new village keeping its own ethnic culture, language and name (Novye Khvarshini, Novaia Khushtada, Novo-Sasitli, Novo-Vikri and other mountaineer villages in the lowlands were founded in this way). Or several auls belonging to the same ethnic group sent settlers who formed a village with a unified ethnic culture and language.11 Examples of such villages are the Avar Pervomaiskoe and Kokrek, the Lak Novo-Kuli, the Lezghin NovyiAul, the Darghin Sovet-Aul and the Nogay Glavnyi Sulak. On some occasions, however, settlers from ethnically different jama‘ats were lodged by authorities in houses of Kumyk and Russian peasants, for example in Aksay, Kostek, Chont-Aul, Pokrovskoe and other villages. The result was that traditionally homogeneous villages in the lowlands and the foothills were transformed into ethnically mixed ones. In these cases, despite the inevitable assimilation of mountaineers and lowlanders, the villages were usually divided into two: a native part in the centre and the quarter inhabited by the new settlers on the outskirts, each with their own mosque and local Soviet administration. The organized resettlement has massively changed the ethnic and territorial situation in Daghestan. Most mountain districts retained their ethnic homogeneity, although peasant communities have lost former isolation and autarchy. The rural population of the lowlands 182

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and the foothills, on the other hand, became ethnically heterogeneous and historical ethnic borders were irrevocably confused. Moreover, the abolition of Stalin’s internal passport system, attaching people to the land, in the early 1960s caused spontaneous massive migration from collective and state farms to towns and out of Daghestan. Between 1914 and 1926 the number of Daghestanis moving to Russia dropped from 83,317 to 33,697, but from the 1960s to the 1980s the number increased to 627, 200. According to the 1989 census the rate of migration reached 26 per cent of the entire rural population.12 Field study in the villages of the Tsumadinskii district shows that now almost 40 per cent of their permanent residents leave each year for seasonal farm work in Rostov, Krasnodar, Kabarda, Kalmykia or more rarely the Ukraine. In 1992–95 rural schools started teaching only at the end of October because of the seasonal migration of women and adolescents. The massive resettlement and migration during the Soviet period favoured the fusion of ethnic minorities in Daghestan, which created the basis for the Soviet policy of so-called ‘national consolidation’. After all, it was much easier to control large ‘nationalities’ than the numerous isolated pre-revolutionary ethnic groups. Therefore both in the internal passports and in all the Soviet consensus from 1939 onword most of the small Daghestani ethnic groups were registered as part of a more numerous and influential ethnic nationality.13 Thus 13 Ando-Tsez ethnic groups and the Archins were united with the Avars (who belong to the same linguistic sub-group). The Kaytags and the Kubachins became Darghins and the Terkemens – transformed into Kumyks. An unsuccessful attempt was also made to unite the Aguls, the Tsakhurs and the Rutuls with the Lezghins in southern Daghestan. Thus the 30–40 pre-revolutionary ethnic groups were reduced to six large native nationalities. In the 1950s to 1960s three small ethnic groups – the Aguls, the Tsakhurs and the Rutuls – officially obtained the status of nationality. Thus, at the present there are 14 ‘titular nationalities’ in Daghestan – 10 native ones, (including the Nogays) and 4 non-Daghestani ones (of which the Russians are the most numerous). In practice ‘national consolidation’ means instruction in the socalled ‘national’ language in primary schools. In secondary schools Russian is usually the language of instruction. Only Russian and the other 13 ‘national’ languages have been used in all the official correspondance of the collective farms and village Soviets, in governmental decrees, and in the republican and local press. While the idioms of the small ethnic groups have no alphabet and cannot be written, all the ‘national’ languages have a unified script: Arabic, the so-called Ajam script, in the mountains; ‘Turki’ in the lowlands and the foothills 183

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which were used before the revolution, were changed into Latin in 1928, and then into modified Cyrillic alphabets in 1937.14 Both the growing mobility of peasants and the impact of Soviet cultural policy increased the number of languages used by traditionally multi-lingual Daghestanis. At the present, rural men know besides their native idiom some other ‘unwritten’ dialects and one or two ‘national’ languages, as well as Russian (or Azeri in the southern parts). Peasant women and especially teenagers do not have a good command of the languages used by other nationalities in Daghestan. The number of people who can speak, read and write in Arabic has decreased considerably. On the contrary if in 1926 only 39 per cent of Daghestanis could speak Russian fluently, in 1989, 82 per cent of the townsmen and 57.4 per cent of the peasants (60–70 per cent in settlers’ auls) used Russian as their second language.15 Fieldwork data indicate that, contrary to the expectations of Soviet officials, the local ethnic identity appears not to have been completely destroyed, but rather considerably modified within the Soviet state system. Now it consists of several levels: local, national and Daghestani ones. In their villages the mountaineers and the lowlanders identify themselves now, as before the revolution, as belonging to a small native ethnic group (Kostekis, Shinazis, Tindis, etc.). Outside the home village, in different ethnic and linguistic milieus, peasants become representatives of their nationality (Avars, Darghins, Kumyks, Lezghins, etc.). Both mountaineers and lowlanders usually obtain protection and aid from town residents and officials by appealing to their common ‘national’ solidarity. Outside their republic Muslim peasants define themselves as ‘Daghestanis’. In this case Russian (or Azeri in the South) is used as their common group Koine. These data testify to the persistence of a local ethnic identity. In fact, rural ethnic groups have retained the main features of their prerevolutionary ethnic and social values and institutions. In spite of the disintegration of tukhums, village endogamy has survived in the mountains up to the present. Fieldwork data indicate the continuity of underground instruction in Arabic in many mountain auls. Large jama‘ats have clandestinely maintained their Muslim oral courts, which convene in cases of land and inheritance lawsuits between collective farmers. Traditions of the mutual aid assistance while harvesting or building a house (Avar gway, Darghin bilqa, Kumyk bulqa, Lak marsha, Lezghin mel, etc.) have persisted in collective/state farm brigades.16 In the late 1940s a series of semi-religious agricultural festivals, which seemed to disappear during collectivisation, were renewed all over Daghestan. In the 1940s to 1950s the Soviet authorities were compelled to sanction such holidays as the ‘Festival of the 184

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first Furrow’, the ‘Festival of the Flowers’ and ‘Novruz Bayram’.17 The purely religious culture and institutions of rural ethnic groups continued to be outlawed until the late 1980s. (For the period of Muslim enthusiasm see below.) On the other hand, although Daghestani peasants still maintain the vested common interest in favour of their communities, the structures and values of national societies formed in the towns are now superimposed upon local ones. At the present there are eight towns (compared to four before the revolution) in the lowlands and the foothills. Due to the Soviet policy of industrialisation the urban population increased from 85,100 in 1926 to 786,700 in 1989 (43.6 per cent of the population).18 Urban comforts, opportunities of education and high-paying jobs are luring part of the village youths to the towns. The impression emanating from fieldwork is that a large number of peasant teenagers admire city ways and consider townsmen of their own nationality as more refined and ‘lucky’. Their parents are well aware that in fact rural ethnic communities are controlled by larger urban ones through the system of Soviet institutions, and recently also through Party organisations. In Soviet time the peasants’ status outside their native community depended on both the language they spoke and the nationality they belonged to. A national community might hold a high or a low rank in the mobile hierarchy of nationalities, which has secretly been operating in Daghestan since the 1920s. National Hierarchy in Soviet Daghestan In the 1920s to 1930s the policy of ‘nativisation’ (korenizatsiia) favoured replacing pre-revolutionary Russian officials by native ones. Hence Lezghins installed large clans of their own kin and countrymen into the Republican Party structures, Kumyks obtained paramount influence in the Daghestani People’s Commissariat of Agriculture and Azeris seized the powerful Commissariat of Internal affairs (NKVD).19 On the other hand, Moscow was always afraid of ‘bourgeois nationalists’ and used to help weak national groups in their struggles against more powerful ones. Thus, in the late 1930s Lezghin leadership in the republic was replaced by an Azeri one. From the late 1940s to the 1990s Avars retained power in Daghestan.20 Non-Avars had no access to power structures, and their national communities were under Avar mastery. The Lezghins had also to succumb to the Azeris. In southern Daghestan, and even more so in Azerbaijan – where twothirds of the Lezghins (500,000–670,000) live – they were deprived by Azeri officials of many civil rights and of their national language. Consequently about 200,000 Azeri Lezghins were obliged to register 185

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as Azeris. Furthermore, in the 1960s–1980s the small southern ethnic groups of the Rutuls, Aguls and Tsakhurs separated from the oppressed, low-ranking Lezghins and formed their own nationalities.21 The latest changes in the ‘national’ hierarchy occurred after the disintegration of the Soviet state in 1991. The pro-Soviet Avar rulers of Daghestan have lost the support of both the former Soviet government and the Communist Party structures. In 1995 most ex-Party officials managed to be included in Daghestan’s People’s Assembly and State Council (which substituted for the former Supreme Soviet), where the Avar leadership has been gradually substituted by a Darghin one. The Darghin leader Mahomed-Ali Mahomedov became chairman of the State Council and then was twice re-elected as head of government.22 But the attempts of post-Soviet Darghin rulers to control the internal situation have failed. Criminality increased considerably in the towns, especially in the capital, Makhachkala, and in Khasavyurt. Post-Soviet Darghin rulers could not provide protection for members of the Daghestani Federal Parliament, some of whom are Darghins. The murderer of the richest Darghin banker and former deputy of the Russian Duma, Hamid Hamidov, and the organisers of numerous attempts on the life of the Darghin mayor of the Daghestani capital Makhachkala, Said Amirov, have so far not been identified.23 The collapse of the one-party Soviet regime caused the formation of several independent democratic parties in towns in 1991–92. Those parties and the Islamic movement in the countryside were in strong opposition to the ex-Soviet Avar lobby. On 13 June 1991 the Darghin religious group Jami‘at-ul-Muslimin, the Islamic Revival Party and other Islamic groups held a mass rally in Makhachkala demanding that the republic’s government allow a massive haj and reduce its fare for Daghestanis.24 Townsmen, a large number of whom are born villagers, were split into several antagonist national groups. From 1991 to the middle of 1992 Kumyks confronted the Avars, Chechens were in conflict with Laks and Avars, and Lezghins resisted Azeris. Furthermore, all these urban groups claimed to be ‘a national and democratic opposition to the pro-Communist Supreme Soviet’. In the summer of 1991 most of them formed the united committee that held two mass rallies in Makhachkala and Khasavyurt in August and September 1992 respectively. They demanded re-election of the republican government and the withdrawal of Russian internal security troops brought into northeastern Daghestan in the spring of 1992 after a number of bloody clashes between Chechens and Laks.25 186

RURAL MUSLIMS’ NATIONALISM IN DAGHESTAN SOVIET LEGACY IN CURRENT ETHNIC EVOLUTION OF THE DAGHESTANI MUSLIMS

The collapse of the Soviet Union resulted not only in changes in the national hierarchy but also in the rapid growth of nationalist and Muslim enthusiasm in Daghestan. Both the Daghestani and the Russian democratic press viewed this process as ‘the beginning of a large-scale desovietisation in society’.26 On the face of it this seems to be true. In the 1990s peasants and townsmen destroyed most of the monuments of Lenin and other Soviet and party leaders. In the towns many streets were renamed after Imam Shamil, his spiritual teacher Naqshbandi Sheikh Muhammad al-Yaraghi, one of the ideologues of the reformist (jadid) movement of the first half of the twentieth century, Ali Kayayev, and other local Muslim heroes. Almost all the newspapers and magazines changed their Soviet titles. The Tsumada local Kolkhoznik, for example, became Tsumadiezul haraq (The Voice of Tsumada, in Avar) while the popular Avar newspaper Ba‘arab bayraqh (The Red Banner) turned into Haqiqat (The Truth). Political leaders of almost all orientations have publicly rejected Soviet values. The mosques, suppressed under Soviet rule, have been returned to the Muslims, and their number increased from 27 in 1988 to more than two thousand in 2000.27 All this seems to indicate the disappearance of the Soviet system in Daghestan. But in fact, as fieldwork data clearly indicate, Soviet traditions are far more durable than they appear to be. The current desovietisation means merely the abolition of Soviet symbols and official ideology. It has not affected some of the more important Soviet mental values and social institutions. The impact of the Soviet past is particularly visible in three areas: political movements, mentality and ethnic conflicts. Muslim Peasants in Political Movements of Townsmen Both urban national and rural Islamic movements originated in the macrosocial national societies formed following the drastic Soviet reforms. The Avar national intelligentsia in the towns founded several groups, which later united into the Imam Shamil Popular Front. The Kumyk Tenglik, the Lezghin Sadval and the Movement of the Chechen People and several dozens of smaller nationalist groups were formed in a similar way. Most of these movements represent large nationalities that were despotically dominated in the Soviet national hierarchy. They now seek, therefore, either to regain supreme power in Daghestan or to divide the republic into several autonomous polities. The Lak people’s movement Gazi-Kumukh, the Darghin Tsadesh, the Rutul Namus and the society Tabasaran are less radical: they wish only to 187

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preserve the lands which their nationalities received during resettlement and to maintain their cultural autonomy. Thus, like the former Soviet national clans, all the urban national opposition movements provide protection for the ethnic identity and the interests of the main nationalities in Daghestan. Moreover, the national clans and countrymen associations, which had dominated the Soviet administration, supplied the social base and organised mass support to the leaders of the opposition during the rallies of 1991–93.28 In the countryside political activity is veiled by Islam. At present mass enthusiasm aroused by village mullahs and Sufi sheikhs, who obtained total religious freedom by the early 1990s, facilitates communications and political mobilisation of the peasants. The centre of the rural Muslim revival is in Daghestan’s north and west, especially in Akushinski, Buynakskii, Gergebilski, Gunibski, Karabudahkentski, Khasavyurtovskii, Levashinski, Shamilski, Tsumadinskii and Untsukulski districts. Here Avar, Darghin and Kumyk communities have formed a number of Islamic organisations of various political orientations. The above-mentioned Avar Islamic Revival Party (IRP) and the Darghin Jami‘at-ul-Muslimin count several thousand radical village youngsters among their members. Both parties raise similar slogans of religious and political independence for their nationalities, and their organisation is similar to that of the fundamentalist Muslim Brethren in the Arab World.29 Based on the IRP, an educational organisation called al-Islamiyya led by the Avar religious leader Ahmad-qadi Akhtayev was founded in 1996. But in actual fact the fundamentalists do not play a leading part in Daghestan. The majority of Muslim peasants condemn their actions and support those local Muslim scholars (‘ulama) and mullahs (dibirs) inclined to side with the government.30 It should be pointed out that from the very beginning the traditionalist Muslim religious leadership has been split on the basis of nationality as well. At the first session of the Muslims of the northern Caucasus, in May 1989 in Buinaksk, the Mufti Gekkiyev, who had compromised himself by collaborating with the KGB, was deposed. The Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of the northern Caucasus remained without a leader for several months, finally breaking up into independent republican directorates at the beginning of 1990. The Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of Daghestan (SDMD) broke up in its turn into several national ones. The SDMD was headed by one of the leaders of the opposition Avar Islamic-Democratic Party of Daghestan, the rector of the Islamic Institute in Kizilyurt, S.-A. Darbishgajiyev. He was supported, however, only by the Avar jama‘ats, the religiously indifferent Tabasarans and Laks, and also a by small number of Darghins and the Chechens. Soon after the third congress of the republic’s Muslims, held in February 1992 in 188

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Makhachkala, independent Kumyk and Lak Spiritual Directorates were formed in Makhachkala and a separate Darghin Qaziate in Izberbash. These were headed by the former leaders of the Daghestan SDMD, the Kumyk Bahautdin-Haji Isaev and the Darghin AbdullaHaji Alihajiev.31 Thus all the most politically active nationalities of Daghestan – the Avars, the Kumyks, the Laks and the Darghins – formed their own independent political and religious organisations. From the middle of the 1990s an inverse unification process began among the Daghestani imams. In September 1994 the all-Daghestani Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims was reinstated. A new hierarchy was developed so as to gradually close the organisational gap between the Spiritual Directorate and the Muslim village clergy. The chairman of the SDMD was elected by the Council of Daghestani ‘Ulama’ who were to be elected by the congress of the Daghestani Muslims. In May 1994, the SDMD and the Council of ‘Ulama’ issued a decree to set up councils (shura) of mosques attached to all juma-mosques, to set up district councils of the imams, and to create a Supreme Council of spiritual authorities attached to the SDMD including representatives of district councils of the clergy.32 But as my fieldwork data show, in reality this has not been implemented in the majority of the rural districts. At the same time, it should be noted that the Avar sheikhs still keep the SDMD under their control (its mufti before 21 August 1998 was Sayid-Muhammad-Haji Abubakarov, who was assassinated and succeeded by Ahmad-Haji Abdullayev). They could establish close relations with the republican state structures such as the State Council, People’s Assembly and the State Committee for Religious Affairs (the former Administration of Religious Affairs). In 1998 the chairman of the People’s Assembly, Muhu Aliev, declared that the government ‘will help our traditional religious movements . . . and strengthen the Spiritual Directorate in this matter’.33 All this demonstrates that the Soviet legacy in the internal ethnic structures is both important and not necessarily harmful. The fusion of local ethnic, national and Muslim values and institutions in the modern peasant and non-peasant movements supports the inner coherence of national communities and reinforces the ties among local ethnic groups constituting them. This fusion determines the Muslim peasants’ social behaviour and political activities. Fieldwork data reveal that in the countryside the peasants’ local ethnic interests usually prevail over their national ones. Nationalist and religious claims arise within migrant communities in the towns and in rural areas with a mixed population. While sojourning there, peasants often seek membership in their urban ethnic groups by means of participation in nationalist movements. Islam is also playing a significant role in the political mobilisation 189

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of Daghestani peasants. At the present it exerts a rather constructive influence on village political and social evolution by forestalling the chaos that should follow the collapse of the local village administration. In the 1990s many village dibirs were elected into the village administrations. The most popular of them even became deputies at the People’s Council and at the Congress of the Daghestan Peoples held in Makhachkala in November1992.34 In this way the former Soviet institutions, now furthering the consolidation of native national communities, have acquired the immense moral prestige traditionally inherent in Muslim leaders. Muslim Nationalist Mentality There is a strong element of Soviet mentality in the nationalist attitudes of Muslim villagers. Fieldwork in Daghestan has shown that, surprisingly, the respondents involuntarily share some Soviet conceptions of nation and state, their passion for Islam and local mountaineer values notwithstanding. During the Soviet period many notions and ideological clichés were diffused among the peasants and influenced their views. This diffusion was promoted actively through the secondary schools, the mass media, the promotion of Russian (instead of Arabic) as the all-Daghestani vehicle of administrative, political and cultural intercourse and the Russification (or rather Sovietisation) of ‘national’ languages, which introduced into them modern political and scientific vocabulary. Hence such loan-words, in practically all national languages, as partiya (party), revolutsia, sobraniye’(meeting), uchrezhdeniye (office) and calques, such as the Kumyk ish gyun (a day of work on a collective farm) or the Lezghin khkyahunar (elections). According to some recent linguistic studies, this newly introduced vocabulary comprises 40–60 per cent of Russian, or to be more precise, Soviet terms.35 Ideological loans appear to be of yet greater importance. The peasants seem to have adopted the vulgarised Marxist idea of the brutal ‘colonial exploitation’ of all the non-Russian peoples in Tsarist Russia. They translated this into Soviet and post-Soviet realities by regarding Soviet as Russian ‘colonial’ rule and the post-Soviet ‘Moscow rulers’ as ‘heirs of Russian imperialism’, who continue to oppress ‘Muslim nations’. On the other hand, Daghestanis know from experience that subordination to ‘Moscow’ usually gave them some important advantages, such as order, internal security, and land for the mountaineers. Therefore popular attitudes to the Soviet authorities remained, up to the early 1990s, pretty ambivalent. The disintegration of the USSR in 1991 and the subsequent collapse of the centre’s control of Daghestan under Yeltsin caused a drop 190

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in Russia’s prestige and an explosion of national feeling against Russians. Having lost almost all the advantages they had enjoyed under the Soviets, the peasants accuse post-Soviet Moscow democrats of having oppressed and offended the Daghestani Muslims. However, paradoxical as it might look, the desire for the national and religious independence of Daghestan is coupled in their minds with a solid nostalgia for ‘order in the country’, as it was under Stalin, Brezhnev and Andropov. The most popular leader in Daghestan before the second Gulf War in 2003 was Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, whose programme combined populist, Islamic and Soviet-like slogans. Many Daghestanis now believe that their republic should not follow the Russian but rather the Turkish path of modernisation, which they see as combining dominant Islam, a secular state and relative prosperity. The analysis of Daghestani peasant mentality recently gained nationalistic and Muslim tendencies, and presents evidence of the complex fusion of Soviet, nationalist and Muslim slogans shared by most Muslim peasants. The modified Soviet attitude to national problems regarded through the well-known Marxist paradigm of ‘eternal conflict of vested interests between social classes’ here is obvious. Thus we can assume that the Soviet legacy will probably determine the development of Muslim nationalism among peasants and village migrants for a long time, or at least for the next two or three generations of Daghestani Muslims. In cases of conflicts between different national communities this legacy might endanger the political situation in the republic, since the idea of ‘national offences’ has some destructive tendencies. Ethnic Conflicts in the Countryside The dangerous effects on Muslim villages of the third important Soviet legacy have surfaced in several rural conflicts between 1991 and 1997. These conflicts, which had been germinating for several decades up to the 1980s, are centred on three issues: national lands, migrations and diasporas. Ethnic conflicts over land are, certainly, the most dangerous. These focus now mainly on the north-eastern and north-western parts of the lowlands and foothills. Here the settlement of mountaineers occured with the deportation of the whole Chechen population to Kazakhstan in February 1944. Upon their return, in 1957, the Chechens were given back their previous territories in Daghestan, with the exception of the former Kazbegovskii and Aukhovskii raions (renamed Novolakskii raion and forcibly settled mainly by Laks).36 Only in July 1991 did the Third Congress of the Daghestani People’s Deputies decide to restore the latter district to the Chechens. By mutual agreement between the 191

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Laks of the Novolakskii raion and the Kumyks the former were to be resettled in the Kumyk lowland.37 The August 1991 putsch and the Russian–Chechen war of 1994–96 have put off the implementation of this decision for several years. The Russian and Daghestani governments having become sluggish and irresponsible, the Chechen leaders of the Organised Committee for the Restoration of Aukhovskii District tried to seize lands in the district. The local Lak authorities had been able to prevent mass resettlement, but failed to avert unauthorised seizure of Lak lands by Chechens. In September 1991 the Daghestani and Russian governments succeeded in confining the conflict for a while by reaching an agreement with both sides, but by the end of 1992 it flared up again. By l998 Chechen families had seized more than 450 plots of land and were building houses on them. The Chechen governments of both Dudayev and Maskhadov provided economic support to the Daghestani Chechens and encouraged the Chechen mass media in Daghestan to urge the ‘ousting of the Lak, Avar and Darghin settlers out of the historic Chechen lands’.38 In addition, a series of land conflicts has developed in the lowlands between Kumyk auls and village communities of mountaineers (mainly Avars and Darghins) resettled in Kumyk lands after 1957. The foci of such conflicts are usually mixed villages. The attempt to parcel personal plots (priusadebnye uchastki) out of collective farm lands to peasants in early 1992 provoked quarrels and even clashes in the Kumyk villages of Kostek and Aksay, and the Nogay settlement of Glavnyi Sulak in the Khasavyurtovskii and Makhachkalinskii raions.39 Tenglik tried to use these conflicts in its power struggle against the Avar and Lak movements. In September 1992 it held two mass rallies in Makhachkala and its environs demanding to stop Lak resettlement in the Kumyk lowland and territorial demarcation of the nationalities of Daghestan.40 Such serious ethnic tensions between the national leaders of the lowlanders and mountaineers seem to weaken considerably their temporary union against the Daghestani government. All the ethnic land conflicts are a direct result of provocative ethnic boundaries drawn in the lowlands and the foothills in the 1940s–50s. Soviet resettlements and migrations have irreversibly modified the ethnic composition of most rural districts. All the lowland and some mountain (e.g. the Laks) nationalities have lost their territorial integrity. The conflicts are therefore unlikely to be resolved in the foreseeable future. One solution in particular – national territorial demarcation, advocated by a part of the democratic opposition – might be very dangerous to the internal security of Daghestan. If the Daghestani authorities wish to reduce ethnic tensions and to achieve some measure of stability in the rural areas, they must not change the current administrative boundaries of the districts with a mixed population. 192

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It is also important to avoid an abrupt overthrow of Soviet village institutions such as collective and state farms. Most of the abovementioned conflicts were caused by such an abrupt overthrow. The fieldwork data indicate that the Muslim peasants are aware of the potentially dangerous consequences of the sudden abolition of local power and the social institutions inherited from the Soviet period. Not without reason did the majority of the rural population vote twice – at the all-Daghestani land referendum of 28 June and at the Congress of the Daghestani Peoples of 13–14 November 1992 – to temporarily maintain collective farm property and to preserve the existing (Soviet) administrative system.41 The economic stability of Muslim villages has also been negatively affected by social tensions outside Daghestan. The mountain village subsistence is strongly dependent on seasonal migration from Daghestan. Therefore difficulties in regular migration have been very destructive for Muslim village economies and social stability, especially in the Avar, Lak and Lezghin regions, where the rate of migration is the highest in the republic (30–60 per cent of the rural population). Civil and ethnic wars in the Transcaucasia, in Chechnya and in Central Asia (Tajikistan) impede traditional migration to these regions. In 1992 a new law deprived Daghestanis of civil rights in Kalmykiya. In some cases such problems backlash on internal interethnic relations in Daghestan. Thus the Krasnodar Cossacks have been preventing the lease of land to seasonal Muslim migrants for the last five or six years, which in its turn led to a hostile Muslim public mood in Daghestani villages to Christian natives of the republic, especially to the Terek Cossacks.42 Refugees from diaspora communities have probably added to inter-ethnic antagonisms in Daghestan. In the Tsarist and Soviet periods migrants went mainly to central Russia and to Azerbaijan. As a result, more than 170,000 Daghestani Muslims, especially Avars, Darghins and Laks, live now in the Russian-speaking areas of the Volga, Kalmykiya, Kabarda, and the Stavropol and Krasnodar krais. Civil wars caused a massive flight of Laks from Tajikistan, of the small Avar community (16,000) from Georgia, of Kumyk migrants from Chechnya. The mass mobilisation of Azeri Lezghins who lived in Azerbaijan’s north for centuries to the war in Karabakh induced many to escape from Azerbaijan to their relatives in Daghestan. Most refugees returned to their ancestral towns and villages, and formed the most dangerous group in Daghestani urban and rural society.43 Any grievance might cause them to lash out. However, the Russian authorities’ decision to close the frontiers with the Transcaucasian states provoked massive demonstrations by the Lezghins in August and September 1992 and again in April 1994. Yeltsin’s government 193

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had to promise them to establish ‘transparent’ boundaries between Russian and Azeri Lezgistan.44 The same decision for the Georgian border, which divides two Avar communities, may be made by the end of this year.45 These preventive measures are unlikely to resolve the problems of migrations and diasporas, now the common bias to social and economic insecurity in most of the SIC’s countries, which impedes overcoming the crisis of ethnic relations in the Daghestani countryside. But, to my mind, the continuity of ties that traditionally connected Daghestan with other republics of the former Soviet Union mitigates the destructive effects of this crisis. The ties between Daghestan and Russia are now the most important. The latter continues to import cheap grain and food (about 50 per cent annually), fuel (20 per cent of gas and 32 per cent of petrol annually). It also receives more than three-quarters of Daghestani migrants.46 CONCLUSION

It seems that the impact of the Soviet legacy is likely to determine both the future ethnic evolution of the Daghestani Muslims and the development of land, migratory and diasporal conflicts in the republic for a long time. Despite all the official declarations of ‘the lack of national antagonisms and national equality in the USSR’ a secret ranking system of macrosocial national communities has operated in Soviet Daghestan since the 1920s. The local ethnic and religious cultures seem not to have been destroyed completely as had been expected by Soviet officials. Instead, their mental and social structures have been integrated in a rather complicated fusion of Soviet, Muslim and local traditions. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union the movement for national and religious liberation has grown in Daghestani towns and villages as well. But in fact the Muslim mentality and ethnic institutions continue to be largely dependent on the former Soviet nationalities. Their mobile hierarchy is now more apparent than under the Soviet rule. NOTES The sources of the research are both my fieldwork data, obtained in Daghestan in 1992–97, and material collected in the archives and libraries of Makhachkala and Moscow. 1 See Antony D. Smith, Theories of Nationalism (London: Duckworth, 1979); E. J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1730 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 9.

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RURAL MUSLIMS’ NATIONALISM IN DAGHESTAN 2 I. A. Gurlev, Prirodnye zony Dagestana [The Natural Zones of Daghestan] (Makhachkala: Dagestanskoe knizhnoe izdatelstvo, 1972), p. 22; M.-Z. O. Osmanov, Formy traditsionnogo skotovodstva u narodov Dagestana v XIX – nachale XX v. [The Forms of Traditional Cattle Breeding among the Peoples of Daghestan in the 19th and the Beginning of the 20th Centuries] (Moscow: ‘Nauka’, 1990), p. 49. 3 Vsesoiuznaia perepis’ naseleniya 1926 g. [All Union Census of 1926], Moscow: OGIZ, 1928, Vol. 5, p. 342. 4 Iazyki narodov SSSR. [The Languages of the Peoples of the USSR], Vol. IV, Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1967, p. 248; M. A. Aglarov, Sel’skaia obshshina v Nagornom Dagestane v XVII – nachale XIX v. [The Village Community in Upper Daghestan in the 17th – beginning of the 19th Centuries] (Moscow: ‘Nauka’, 1989), pp. 198–202. 5 In 1922–23 and eventually in 1957 the north-eastern Muslim and non-Muslim regions of the present Daghestani Lowlands (part of the the Tsarist Terskaia oblast’ [Province]) were annexed to the republic. 6 At that time the Russians used to name the lowlanders by their most powerful ethnic group – ‘Kumyks’. Similarly the common name of mountaineers in Tsarist Russia was ‘Lezghins’ – Vsesoyuznaya perepis’ naseleniya 1926 g., Vol. 5, p. 346; S. Sh. Gadzhieva, Kumyki [The Kumyks] (Moscow: ‘Nauka’, 1961), p. 45. Even in modern mountaineers’ languages the Kumyks are often referred to as ‘lowlanders’ – e.g. tlara‘al in Avar, dirqhalanti in Darghin and arnissa in Lak. 7 Adaty Dagestanskoi oblasti i Zakatalskogo okruga [The Traditional Laws of the Daghestan District and the Zakataly Sub-District] (Tiflis: 1899), pp. 28–9, 31–9; L. I. Lavrov, Etnografiya Kavkaza [The Ethnography of the Caucasus] (Leningrad: ‘Nauka’, 1982), pp. 117–18, 128–9, 144–5, 196; Aglarov, The Village Community, pp. 119–20. 8 Adaty Dagestanskoi oblasti i Zakatalskogo okruga, pp. 6–8; F. I. Leontovich, Adaty kavkazskikh gortsev [The Traditional Laws of the Caucasian Mountaineers] (Odessa: 1882), pp. 26, 35. 9 Istoriia Dagestana [The History of Daghestan], Vol. III (Moscow: Nauka, 1968), pp. 137, 156, 243–5; Tsentral’nyi Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Respubliki Dagestan (TsGA RD; Central State Archive of Dagestan, Makhachkala), f. 172, op. 17, d. 204, l. 6. 10 Traditsionnoe i novoe v sovremennom byte i kulture dagestantsev pereselentsev [Traditional and New Traits in the Contemporary Mode of Life and Culture of Daghestani Migrants] (Moscow: ‘Nauka’, 1988), pp. 16–19; S. B. Khanukaev, Puti ratsional’nogo ispolzovaniya sel’skikh trudovykh resursov Dagestana [Ways to Rationally Utilise the Rural Workforce Resources of Daghestan] (Makhachkala: Dagestanskoe knizhnoe izdatelstvo, 1991), p. 26. 11 Aglarov, The Village Community, p. 201; R. A. Ramazanov, Shinaz. Kratkie ocherki istorii kul’tury drevnego aula [Shinaz. Short Outlines of the History of the Ancient Aul’s Culture] (Makhachkala: Dagestanskoe knizhnoe izdatelstvo, 1990), p. 14. 12 Trudy narkomzema. Seriia agrarnoi reformy [Works of the People’s Commissariat of Land. Agrarian Reforms Series], Vyp. V, Moscow: OGIZ, 1928, p. 29; cf.: Vsesoiuznaia perepis’ naseleniia 1926 g., Vol. 5, Itogi Vsesoiuznoy perepisi naseleniia 1989 g. [Summary of the All-Union Census of 1989] (Moscow: Politizdat, 1991). 13 See the 1939–89 censuses: Vsesoiuznye perepisi naseleniia 1939, 1950, 1959, 1970 ,1979, 1989 godov.

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THE CASPIAN REGION 14 Iazyki narodov SSSR, Vol. II, pp. 194, 280. Vol. IV, p. 247; D. N. Akhmedov, Natsional’naia pechat’ Severnogo Kavkaza, 1917—1937 [The National Print of the Northern Caucasus] (Makhachkala: Dagestanskoe knizhnoe izdatelstvo, 1989), pp. 39, 45. 15 Traditsionnoe i novoe v sovremennom byte i kulture dagestantsev pereselentsev, p. 34; Lavrov, Ethnography of the Caucasus, pp. 119, 120–7, 137, 148. 16 Traditsionnoe i novoe v sovremennom byte i kulture dagestantsev pereselentsev, pp. 249–53; S. Sh. Gadzhieva, Traditsionnyi zemledel’cheskii kalendar’ i kalendarnye obriady kumykov [The Traditional Agricultural Calendar and the Agricultural Rites of the Kumyks] (Makhachkala: Dagestanskoe knizhnoe izdatelstvo, 1989), pp. 25, 30. 17 Ibid, pp. 135, 164. 18 TsGA RD, f. r-22, op. 22, d. 56, l. 1, d. 58, l. 1; Vsesoiuznaya perepis’ naseleniia 1926 g., Vol. 5, pp. 343–5; Itogi Vsesoiuznoi perepisi naseleniia 1989 g., p. 248. 19 Archives of Dagestani Committee of the CPSU (at present included TsGA RD; Makhachkala), f. 1, op. 7, d. 1, l. 59; Pervaia sessiia Dagestanskogo TsIK [The First Session of the Daghestani Central Executive Committee], Temir-KhanShura, 1922, p. 23. 20 A. D. Daniialov, Vospominaniya [Memoirs] (Makhachkala: Dagestanskoe knizhnoe izdatelstvo, 1991), pp. 145, 169–70, 183–4; Moscow news, 12 January 1992. 21 Daniialov, Memoirs, p. 177; Lavrov, Ethnography of the Caucasus, p. 148; Z. R. Rizvanovyi, Kratkaia istoriia lezgin [A Short History of the Lezghins] (Makhachkala: Dagestanskoe knizhnoe izdatelstvo, 1990), p. 30. 22 Nezavisimaia gazeta, 2 August 2000. 23 Izvestiia, 8 September 1998; pp. 1, 4. 24 At-Tariqa al-Islamiyya (Makhachkala), May–June 1992, Nos. 4–5, p. 3; V. F. Gryzlov, Dagestan: etnopoliticheskiy portret [Daghestan: the ethno-political portrait], Vol. 2 (Moscow: Tsentr po izucheniiu mezhnatsionalnyh otnoshenii Instituta etnologii i antropologii, 1994), pp. 254–5, Vol. 4, p. 186. 25 Kazi-Kumukh (the Lak newspaper, Makhachkala), 26 August 1992, No. 9, pp. 2, 5; Majlis (organ of the Social-Democratic Party of Dagestan, Makhachkala), September 1992, No. 4, p. 1; Halqan Az (in Chechen, Khasavyurt), 16 February 1992. 26 S. Aliev, ‘Natsionalno-demokraticheskie dvizheniya v dagestanskom kontekste [National Democratic Movements in the Daghestani Context]’, in V. F. Gryzlov, Dagestan, Vol. 1, p. 46. See also M. Magomedkhanov, ‘A cautious course through the storm’, War Report, No. 42 (June 1996), p. 31; Dagestan na rubezhe vekov: prioritety ustoichivogo i bezopasnogo razvitiia [Dagestan at the turn of centuries: priorities of a balanced and safe development], Moscow: Regionalnyi Tsentr Etnopoliticheskih Issledovanii DNTS RAN, 1998, pp. 57, 70, 177, 195. 27 Al-Tariqa al-Islamiyya, May–June 1992, Nos. 4–5, p. 8; Al-Ahbar al-Islamiyya (Makhachkala), 28 August, 4 September 1992, Nos. 12, 13; Novoe delo (Makhachkala), 14 January 1994, p. 6. 28 Kumuk ish (the Kumyk newspaper, in Kumyk, Makhachkala), August 1992, No. 4, p. 1; Kazi-Kumukh, 9 September 1992, No. 11, p. 2, 16 September 1992, No. 12, pp. 1, 2. 29 Drugoe nebo (The newspaper of V. S. Meylanov, Makhachkala), 20 August 1991, No. 1, pp. 1–2; Al-Ahbar al-Islamiyya. 4, 11 September 1992, Nos. 13, 14. 30 Jama‘ats often charge them with defending their community interests in land and other local conflicts.

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RURAL MUSLIMS’ NATIONALISM IN DAGHESTAN 31 Lezgistandin habarar (Magaramdhur), November 1993, No. 2, pp. 1, 4; Dagestanskaia pravda, 19 November 1993. 32 As-Salam (Makhachkala), May 1994, No. 1. 33 Cited following the article by Professor Amri Shikhsaidov. See Amri Shikhsaidov, ‘Islam in Dagestan’, in Lena Jonson and Murad Esenov (eds), Political Islam and conflicts in Russia and Central Asia (Stockholm: Utrikespolitiska Institutet, 1999), p. 65. 34 Druzhba (in Chechen; Khasavyurt), 15 September 1992, p. 2; Dagestanskaia pravda, 14 November 1992; Novoe delo, 4 September 1992, p. 4. 35 Iazyki narodov SSSR, Vol. II, pp. 209, 297, Vol. IV, pp. 268–9, 503, 521, 542–3, 559, 589, 625; Kumuk ish, August 1992, No. 4, p. 2; Al-Tariqa al-Islamiyya, May–June 1992, Nos. 4–5, p. 5. 36 For further details, see Chapter 6 in this volume. 37 Dagestanskaia pravda, 19 February 1992. 38 Halqan Az, 14 September 1992; Kavkazskii dom (Groznyi), 26 August 1992, No. 17, p. 1; Dagestanskaia pravda, 12, 29 January 1994; Kazi-Kumukh, 31 January 1994, p. 2. 39 Tenglik (the Kumyk newspaper, Makhachkala), November 1992, No. 16, p. 1; Makhachkalinskie izvestiia, 29 August 1992; Druzhba, 15 September 1992; cf. Dagestanskaia pravda, 18 March, 16 April 1994. 40 Severnyi Kavkaz (Nal’chik), 27 September 1992, No. 38, p. 6; Kazi-Kumukh, 16, 23 September 1992, Nos. 12, 13. 41 Dagestanskaia pravda, 28 June, 14 November 1992; Golos pravdy (organ of the Communist Party of Daghestan, Makhachkala), August 1992, No. 10. 42 Zov predkov (Makhachkala), October 1991, No. 1, pp. 12–15; Novoe delo, 25 March, 1 April 1994. And cf. Chapter 6 in this volume. 43 Lezgi habarar (Moscow), June 1992, No. 3 (7), pp. 3–4; Novoe delo, 22 April 1994, p. 5. 44 See also Chapter 6 in this volume. 45 Dagestanskaia pravda, 18, 19 September 1992, 18 February 1994; Novoe delo, 29 April 1994; Lezgi habarar, [January] 1994, No. 1(11), p. 1; Nabi Abdullaev, ‘Under a Slow Siege: Cross-Border Criminality and Ethnic Separatism Continue Apace’, War Report (November 1997), p. 15. 46 Dagestanskaia pravda, 19 September 1992, 3 February 1994; Kavkazskie novosti (Krasnodar), 12 February 1994, p. 5.

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Index

Italic page numbers refer to maps and tables. Abashidze, Aslan 11, 13–15 Abaza 65–7; Caucasian unity 44; ICA 63, 67, 68, 69, 73, 74, 81–3; Soviet nationality policy 54 Abdulatipov, Ramazan 48, 163 Abkhaz 66; 1989 census 64, 65; Caucasian unity 44; Chechen War and the CPC 56; Circassians and the ICA 63, 65, 67, 69, 73–8, 81–3, 94 Abkhaz National Forum 42–4 Abkhaz-Georgian conflict 32; CMPC/CPC 41–2, 44–8, 57–8; ICA 70, 73, 74–8, 84–5, 96–7; repatriation of Circassians 91 Abkhazia 43; 1989 census 65; Ajaria 14–15; autonomy 10; Circassians 65–7; CMPC 44–8; dissolution of Soviet Union 7–8; ethnic groups 66; Georgian nationalism 34; ICA 68, 71; repatriation of Circassians to 91; see also Abkhaz-Georgian conflict Abkhazians: in Georgia 6; ICA 63–7 Abu Bakarov, Said Muhammad 151, 159, 163 Abu Malik 156 Abuyev, Habib 134 Adyghe: 1989 census 64; AbkhazGeorgian war 46, 47; Caucasian unity 44; Chechen War 54–6; CPC/CMPC 46, 47, 54–6, 57; ICA 63–97; Soviet nationality policy 54; unification policy 54–5

Adyghe Kh’ase 47, 54, 69, 78–80 Adyghe National Congress 54 Adyghea 43; 1989 census and Circassians 64; Abkhaz-Georgian war and the CMPC 46; ethnic groups 66; ICA 68, 70, 82–3; repatriation of Circassians to 93; territorial exchange with Krasnodar Krai 56 Adygheans, ICA 63, 82–3 agriculture, Daghestan 108–10, 116 Aguls 108, 113, 183, 186 Ahtayev, Ahmedquadi see Akhtayev, Ahmad-Qadi Ajaria, two-way mirror nationalism 3–16 Ajars, Georgian nationalism 3–16 Akayev, Mukhtar 164 Akbashev, Boris 68, 69, 70, 86 Akhalkalaki (Georgia) 27, 28 Akhtayev, Ahmad-Qadi 156–8, 188 Aki Chechens: CMPC 44, 48, 49–50; ethnic movements Daghestan 110–12; Islam 118; relations between Daghestan and Chechnya 126–7 Akinci, Ugar 23, 35 ‘Ali, Prince 91 Aliev, Heidar 139, 141 Aliev, Muhu 189 Amirov, Said 120, 186 AMPC see Assembly of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus Arabic 183–4 Ardzinba, Vladislav 14, 46

198

INDEX Batumi (Georgia) 9–10 Bennigsen, Alexandre 8, 149 Birlik (Unity) 110 Bobrovnikov, Vladimir xi 179–94 Bram, Chen xi 63–97 Buinaksk raion (Daghestan), Wahhabis 118–19, 160

Armenia: Javakheti 24–6, 32–3, 34–5; Nagorno-Karabakh and oil exports 32–3; Republic of Transcaucasia 6; Transcaucasian Federation 24–5 Armenians: in Georgia 4–6; in Javakheti 23–35 Arsanov, Vaha 165–6 Asaiyatilov, Surakat 158 Ashivor, Nafigulla 168 Aslanov, Azer 134 Assembly of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus 44 Assembly of North Caucasian Peoples 74 Assembly of Turkic Peoples 57 Atgeriyev, R.-A. 167 autonomous republics: ICA 78–81; national identity 81–2 Avars: 1926 census 180; Aki Chechens 50, 126–7; CMPC 44, 50; conflict with Cechnya 127; creation of nationality 113; Daghestan 109; ethnic tensions in Daghestan 112, 123, 126–7, 186, 192; Islam 118, 187, 188–9; migration in Daghestan 108, 110, 193–4; relations between Daghestan and Georgia 138; Wahhabis 118–19 Azerbaijan: CPC 57; Lezghins and relations with Daghestan 122–3, 131–6, 138–9, 141, 185–6, 193–4; Republic of Transcaucasia 6; Transcaucasian Federation 24–5 Azeris: in Daghestan 108, 109, 185, 186; Islam 118; Lezghins 132, 185–6 Baburin, Sergei 47 Bahauddin Muhammad (Mahomedov) 128, 156, 157, 159, 160–1 Baku-Ceyhan pipeline route, Javakheti 23, 32, 33–4, 35 Balkars 66, 86; CPC/CMPC 44, 57; forced deportations under Soviet rule 49; ICA 85 Barkashov, Aleksandr 137–9 Basayev, Shamil 128; attacks in Stavropol krai 137; Caucasian unity 41; Chechen War 52; Chechens in Daghestan 126, 139; Islamists 165–6, 167–8; Karamakhi 162; Russia and the Abkhaz-Georgian war 47 Batum, Treaty of (1918) 24

Caucasian War 42, 52 centre-periphery, Circassian diaspora 87–93 Chechen War, first 51–6; attacks in Stavropol krai 137; Caucasian unity and CPC 41–2; Daghestan 123, 131, 135; ICA 70 Chechen War, second 167–8 Chechens: CMPC 44; Daghestan 122–31, 139, 140–1, 186, 188–9, 191–2; forced deportations under Soviet rule 48–9; Islam 188–9; see also Aki Chechens Chechnya 43; Abkhaz-Georgian conflict 46; Chechens in Daghestan 122–3, 124–31, 139, 140–1; CMPC/CPC 44, 46, 57; ICA 83–4, 84; Islam 148–50, 164–8; Russian invasion (1994) 41–2; see also Chechen War Cherkes 44, 54, 57, 63, 64; see also Circassians Cherkesia see Karachai-Cherkesia Cherkess see Cherkes Cherkessk (Karachai-Cherkesia) 82–3, 86 Chigogidsze, Guram 12 Christianity: Georgia 4, 7, 8–9, 10, 15–16; Ingush-Osset conflict 50; North Caucusus unity 55 Circassians 63–97, 66; see also Cherkes CMPC see Confederation of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus Colarusso, John 75 collectivisation, Daghestan 182 Communists: Ajaria 10, 12; Daghestan 118 Confederation of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus 44–56, 74–5, 85–6; see also Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus 41–4, 50–1, 53–8, 75, 85–6; see also Confederation of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus

199

THE CASPIAN REGION Cossacks: Abkhaz-Georgian conflict 46; Adyghe unification policy 54; Caucasian unity 41, 42; CMPC/CPC 46, 48, 50, 55–6; Daghestani migrants in Krasnodar 193; ethnic conflict in Daghestan 110; ICA 85–6; Ingush-Osset conflict 50, 51; relations between Daghestan and Stavropol krai 136–8, 139–40; see also Terek Cossacks CPC see Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus cultural identity, Circassians 77–8, 88–93, 94–7 culture, ICA 76, 77–8 Dadayev, Basyr 127 Daghestan 43, 107–94; administrative division 111; Aki Chechens 49–50; Caucasian unity 42; Chechen incursions into 167–8; CMPC/CPC 44, 48, 49–50, 56–7; ethnic composition 109; inter-ethnic tensions 122–41; Islam 148–50, 180–7; nationalism 179–94; Nogays 180; societal conflict-generating factors 107–21; Wahhabism 146–71 Darbishgajiyev, S.-A. 188–9 Darghins 108; 1926 census 180; CMPC 48; CMPC and Caucasian Unity 44; creation of nationality 113; Daghestan 109; Daghestan in Soviet period 183; ethnic conflicts in Daghestan 192; Islam 118, 187–9; migration in Daghestan 110; postSoviet leaders 186 Dargins: CMPC and Caucasian unity 44; Daghestan 109 Dargwa 44 Dudayev, Johar 51; Caucasian unity 41; Chechen War 52–3, 54–5, 57; Chechens in Daghestan 124; CMPC/CPC 52, 55, 56, 57 Dukhobor Russians, in Javakheti 24, 25, 29 education: Daghestan 148, 155–6, 183–4; Javakheti 27, 30, 31 elites: Daghestan 114–15, 116–17, 120–1; Georgian nationalism 6 emigration, Russians from Javakheti 25, 29

Emir Khattab 128, 161, 162 equality, Armenians in Javakheti 31–2 Esenn, Tevfik 45 ethnic conflicts: Daghestan 107–15, 122–41, 191–4; ICA 83–7; Javakheti 23–35; Northern Caucasus 83–7 ethnic groups: Daghestan 108–15, 109, 117–21; Georgian nationalism 3–16; North-Western Caucasus 66; Soviet nationality policy 54 ethnic identity: Circassians 88–93, 94–7; Daghestan 152, 183–5, 187–8 ethno-national movements, ICA 63–97 ethno-parties, Daghestan 119–21 ethno-political conflict-generating factor 113–15 Europe, Circassian diaspora 64, 68, 74, 88 folk customs, Islam in the Soviet Union 148 forced migration: Aki Chechens 126–7; Chechen-Ingush ASSR 49–50; Daghestan under the Soviet Union 108–10, 181–3, 192–3; Meskhetian Turks from Javakheti 25, 33; Soviet nationality policy 48–9; Ubykh 45 foreign investment, ethnic conflict in Javakheti 33–4 Foundation of Merab Kostava 29 Fuller, Elizabeth 8 Gamsakhurdia, Zviad: Ajarian autonomy 10, 11, 13, 16; Avars 138; coup 13; Javakheti 29, 34 Gaynutdin, Ravil 159 Gekkiyev (Mufti) 188 geo-political conflict-generating factors 107–13 Georgia: administrative division 5; Adyghe unification policy 54; Avars in 138; CMPC/CPC 44–8, 57–8; Georgian nationalism in Ajaria 3–16; ICA 74–8, 84–5; identity 3–7; Ingush-Ossetian conflict 51; Javakheti 23–35; Northern Caucasus 43; pipeline through Javakheti 33–4; relations with Daghestan 138; see also Abkhaz-Georgian conflict Georgians: in Javakheti 23–35; repatriation of Circassians 91

200

INDEX Islamists: Chechnya 164–8; Daghestan 147, 156–67, 186 Israel, Circassians 64, 68, 89, 91

Greeks, in Javakheti 24 Gusayev, M.-S. 130, 138, 164 Hajibekov, Ruslan 46 Hamidov, Hamid 186 health, Daghestan 117 Hin, Judith xi–xii, 23–35 Hussein, Saddam 191 ICA see International Circassian Association identity: Circassian 70–4, 81–3, 88–93, 94–7; creation of nationalities by Soviet Union 113–14; Daghestan 113–15, 152, 183–5; Georgia 3–7, 10; see also national identity ideological conflict-generating factors 117–19 IDP see Islamic Democratic Party Imnadze, Nodar 11 income gap, Daghestan 116–17 independence: Chechnya 51–2; Georgia and Ajaria 10; Georgia and Javakheti 25, 26–7; Georgian nationalism 7 Ingush 44, 49 Ingush Autonomous Republic 49 Ingush-Osset conflict 48–51 Ingushetia 43; Ingush-Osset conflict 48–51; Islam 148 International Circassian Association 52–3, 63–97 IPD see Islamic Party of Daghestan IRP see Islamic Renaissance Party irrigation, Daghestan 108–10 Islam: Ajaria 4, 7–9, 15–16; Chechen War 55; Daghestan 117–19, 127–9, 146–71, 179–94; Georgian nationalism 4, 15–16; ICA 90; Ingush-Osset conflict 50; North Caucasus 54–5; Soviet Union 147–51; Wahhabism in Daghestan 146–71 Islamic Democratic Party 154–5, 158 Islamic extremism, Wahhabism 146–71 Islamic fundamentalism, Daghestan 146–7, 149–50, 155–7 Islamic Nation 125–6, 128 Islamic Party of Daghestan 158 Islamic Renaissance Party 153–4, 156–7, 158, 186, 188 Islamic Revival Party see Islamic Renaissance Party

jama’ats: history of Daghestan 113; natonalities 120; Qadar 160–4; Soviet era 182; Sufis 149 Javakheti 23–35 Javakhk 28–9 Jemal, Heidar 158 Jews, in Georgia 6 Jones, Stephen 24 Jordan, Circassians 64, 68, 74, 87, 91, 94 Kabarda: 1989 census 64; CMPC/CPC 44, 57; ICA 68; Soviet nationality policy 54 Kabardians: 1989 census 64; ICA 63, 82–3 Kabardino-Balkaria 43; AbkhazGeorgian war 47; Adyghe Kh’ase 78–80; Circassians and 1989 census 64; CMPC/CPC 47, 56–7; ethnic groups 66; ICA 67–8, 78–80 Kahrimanov, Muhutdin 132 Kalmykov, Iurii 52–3, 69, 84 Karabakh: Lezghin 132, 193–4; see also Nagorno-Karabakh conflict Karachai-Cherkesia 43, 66; 1989 census and Circassians 64; Abaza 65; Circassians 67; ethnic conflict 83, 86; ICA 68, 80, 82–3, 86 Karachais 66; CMPC/CPC 44, 48; conflict with Circassians 83, 86; forced deportations under Soviet rule 49; ICA 85 Karamakhi (Daghestan) 160–4, 167–8 Khachilayev, Nadirshah 126, 139, 158, 162, 169–71 Khakhva, Tengiz 11 Khalidov, Denga 48 Khalvashi, Pridon 12 Khasavyurt raion (Daghestan) 49–50, 119, 160 Khattab, Emir 128, 161, 162 Khibirov, Yusuf 125 Kisriev, Enver xii 107–21 Kizilyurt 160–1 Kocharyan, Robert 33 Kokov, Valerii 47 Kondratenko 70, 84–5

201

THE CASPIAN REGION Kosovo, Circassians 92–3 Krasnodar krai 43; Circassians 64–5; Daghestani migrants 193; ICA 68, 70, 84–5; territorial exchange with Adyghea 56 Kumyks 109; 1926 census 180; CMPC/CPC 44, 48, 57; conflict with Cechnya 127; Daghestan 108, 110–12, 127, 186, 192; Daghestan in Soviet period 183, 185; Islam 118, 187, 188 Kurds: in Georgia 6; in Javakheti 24 Laks 109; 1926 census 180; Aki Chechens 49–50, 126–7; CMPC/CPC 44, 49–50; creation of nationality 113; Daghestan unification with Chechnya 128; ethnic tensions in Daghestan 186, 191–2; Islam 118, 187–9; migration in Daghestan 108, 110, 126–7, 193 land: Daghestan 110, 112–13, 191–2; Javakheti 26 languages: Armenians in Javakheti 25; Circassians 65, 71, 73–4, 82, 89; Daghestan 183–4; nationalism in Daghestan 190 Lezghins 109, 122–3; 1926 census 180; CMPC/CPC 44, 48; creation of nationality 113; Daghestan in Soviet period 183, 185–6; ethnic tensions in Daghestan 123, 186; Islam 118, 187; migration in Daghestan 108, 110, 193; relations between Azerbaijan and Daghestan 131–6, 138–9, 141 Mahomedov, Mahomedali (MahomedAli) 124–5, 164, 186 Makhtihahiyev, Akhmednabi 138 Malashenko, Aleksei 151 Maskhadov, Aslan 125, 165 Matveeva, Anna xii 122–41 Meskheti-Javakheti province 27–8 Meskhetian Turks 25, 33, 35 migration: Daghestan 182–3; ethnic tension in Daghestan 192–4; Javakheti 29; Russians leaving Daghestan 136 Movement of the Chechen People 187 Muhammad ‘Ali 156, 159, 160–1 Mutalibov, Ayaz 134

Nagorno-Karabakh conflict: Javakheti 28, 32, 32–3; relations between Daghestan and Azerbaijan 135 Nakhatova, Zauray, ICA 68 Nalchik (Kabardino-Balkaria) 47, 67–8, 79 Naqshbandi brotherhood 181, 187 national identity: Circassians 70–4, 95–6; Daghestan nationalities 113–15, 152; Georgia 3–7, 10 nationalism: Circassians 70–4; Daghestan 110–12, 113–15, 152, 179–94; Georgia and Ajaria 3–16; Georgia and Javakheti 34; ICA 76–8, 86; Russians in Stavropol krai 136–8, 139–40; Soviet nationality policy 54; two-way mirror 3–16 nationality: Adyghe 54; Daghestan 113–15, 183–5; Soviet policy 48–50, 113–14 Nogays 109; 1926 census 180; Avars from Georgia 138; CMPC/CPC 44, 48, 57; creation of nationality 113; Daghestan 108, 110–12, 192; resettlement 182 nomads, Daghestan 108 North Caucasian Republic 42, 44 North Caucasus: administraive division 43; ICA 63–97; unity 41–58 North Ossetia 43; CMPC 44; IngushOsset conflict 48–51 Novolakskii raion 110–12, 126–7, 191 Odar 28 Og˘uz, C. Cem xii, 41–58 Omarov, Ayyub 157, 159 Omarov, Mahomed 128–9 Ossetians: CMPC/CPC 44, 54–6; in Georgia 6; Ingush-Osset conflict 48–51; in Javakheti 24; revolt 32; Soviet nationality policy 54 Ottoman Empire: Circassians 64; Javakheti 23, 24 Ozgan, Konstantin 48 Parvana 29 Patrikeev, Valerii 13 peasants, nationalism in Daghestan 179–94 perestroika: Daghestan 107, 110, 160; Georgian nationalism 7, 10; Islam 151, 160

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INDEX pipeline routes: Javakheti 23, 32, 33–4, 35; relations between Daghestan and Azerbaijan 135, 141 political Islam, Wahhabism 146–7, 151–71 poverty, Daghestan 116–17 Prigorodnyi raion 49–51 Primov, Nasyr 133 privatisation: Daghestan 116; Javakheti 26 Putin, Vladimir, Chechnya 167 Putkaradze, Tengiz 11 Qadar jama’at 160–4, 167–8 Qadirov, Ahmad 167 radical Islam, Daghestan 127–9, 139, 147, 150–1, 157 Raduyev, Salman 127, 128, 162, 165–6 railways, Javakheti 28 Rasizade, Artur 133 refugees, Daghestan 193–4 regionalism, Caucasian unity 41–58 religion: Circassian diaspora 89–90; conflict in Daghestan 117–19; IngushOsset conflict 50; North Caucasus 54–5; see also Christianity; Islam repatriation: Aki Chechens 126–7; Avars from Georgia moving to Daghestan 138; Circassians 71, 72, 79–80, 83, 91–3; to Daghestan 193–4 Rodina 69, 79–80 Russia (Tsarist): Adyghe and Abkhaz 63–4; Javakheti 23–4 Russian Federation: Abkhaz-Georgian conflict 46–8; Adyghe unification policy 54–5; Caucasian unity 41–2; Chechnya 41–2, 51–6, 124–31, 140–1, 167–8; Circassians 64–5, 91; CPMC/CPC 46–8, 56–8; Daghestan 107, 122, 131–2, 134–6, 138–9, 159; Georgia and Javakheti 32; GeorgiaAbkhazia conflict 76–7; ICA 72, 75, 76–7, 80, 83–5, 86; Ingush-Osset conflict 49, 51; Islamic revival 153–5; Islamists 159; Law on the Rehabilitation of Peoples Subjected to Repression 49; relations between Daghestan and Azerbaijan 131–2, 134–6, 138–9; relations between Daghestan and Chechnya 124–31,

139, 140–1; Russians in Daghestan 136–8, 139–40; see also Chechen War; Soviet Union Russians 66; in Daghestan 108, 109, 110, 122–3; ICA 85–6; in Javakheti 24, 25; relations between Daghestan and Stavropol krai 136–8, 139–40 Rutuls 109; CMPC 48; creation of nationality 113; Daghestan 108, 183, 186; Islamic movements 187–8 Sadur, Waliahmed 153 Sadval (Unity) 132–3, 134, 187 Saidov, Abdurashid 154 SDMD see Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of Daghestan Shakhrai, Sergei 48 Shami, S. K. 71, 92, 95 Shamil (Imam) 112, 119, 125, 169–70, 187 Shanibov, Iurii: Abkhaz-Georgian conflict 45, 47, 57; Assembly of Turkic Peoples 57; CMPC/CPC 44, 45, 47, 48; ICA 75; Ingush-Osset conflict 50, 51; unity with Transcaucasian states 55 Shaposhnikov, Evgenii 13 Shapsugia, ICA 64, 68, 72 Shapsugs 65; CMPC 44; ICA 68, 82, 85; Soviet nationality policy 54 shari‘a: Chechnya 165–6; Daghestan 157, 161–2, 164; IDP 154; Wahhabism 146–7 Shevardnadze, Eduard 30, 32, 138 social polarisation, Daghestan 116–17 societal conflict-generating factors 107–21 Society for the Revival of Javakheti 29 socio-political conflict-generating factors 115–17 Soslambekov, Yusup 51, 53 South Ossetia 43; Ajaria 15; CMPC and Caucasian unity 44; dissolution of Soviet Union 7–8; Georgian nationalism 34; Ingush-Osset conflict 49 Soviet Union: Ajaria 7–13; Aki Chechens 126–7; Caucasian unity 42–4; 1989 Census 64–5; collapse of 7–8, 26–7, 114, 123, 151, 179, 186–94; creation of nationalities 113–14; Daghestan 107, 108–10,

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THE CASPIAN REGION Soviet Union (continued) 114, 123, 179–80, 181–94; deportations from Chechen-Ingush ASSR 49–50; Georgia 6–7, 9–13; Islam 147–51, 181–7; Javakheti 24–7, 30, 33; nationality policy in North Caucasus 48–50, 54, 179, 179–80, 187–94; see also Russian Federation Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of Daghestan 188–9 Stavropol krai 43; CPC 55; relations with Daghestan 136–8, 139–40; Russians in Daghestan 122–3 Stepashin, Sergei 163 Sufism: Chechnya 166; Circassian diaspora 90; Daghestan 118, 148–50, 155–7, 159–60, 188; Islamic revival after collapse of Soviet Union 151; Nadirshah Khachilayev 169–71 Sunni Muslims, Ajars 8 Syria, Circassians 64, 68, 69, 74, 91 Tabasarans 108, 109; 1926 census 180; creation of nationality 113; Islamic movements 187–9 Tatars, in Javakheti 24 Tatarstan: Chechen War 52, 53; ICA 84 Tats 108, 110, 113 Tenglik (Equality) 110, 112, 127, 187, 192 Terek Cossacks 42, 56, 108 terrorism: Daghestan 120, 134; Stavropol krai 137 Toft, Monica Duffy xii, 3–16 Toloyev, Mahomed 127 Transcaucasia 6, 55

Transcaucasian Federation 24–5 tribes, identity 81–2 trust relations, Daghestan 114 Tsakhurs: creation of nationality 113; Daghestan 108, 109, 183, 186 Turkey: Circassians 64, 68, 69, 73–4, 87, 91, 94; Meskhetian Turks in Javakheti 33 Turkic nations, CPC 57 Turks, in Javakheti 24 two-way mirror nationalism 3–16 Ubykh 45, 65–7, 73, 81 Udugov, Movladi 53, 125–6, 128, 139, 165–6 unemployment, Daghestan 116 Union of Mountain Peoples 42 Union of Muslims of Russia (UMR) 126, 158 United States, Circassians 64, 68, 74 Uzbekistan, Meskhetian Turks 33 Virk 29 Vladikavkaz 49–51 Wahhabism, Daghestan 118–19, 127–9, 146–71 Winbush, S. Enders 8 Yandarbiyev, Zelimkhan 57, 165–6 Yeltsin, Boris: Abkhaz-Georgian conflict 46; Chechen War 51–2, 53; Russians leaving Daghestan 136 Yerevan University, Javakheti 30, 31 Yugoslavia, Circassians 68, 92–3 Zelkina, Anna xiii 146–71

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