Historical perception of Caucasians’ cold winds of change in Caucasus
By LISA KAAKI, [email protected]
Published: Jul 28, 2010
In `Let Our Fame Be Great,’ Oliver Bullough takes us to
the Caucasus Mountains which run from the Crimea to the Caspian Sea and
form Russia’s southern border. This area is known to us because
of the war in Chechnya and the armed confrontation between Georgia and
Russia over South Ossetia. The author lived in Russia for seven years
until 2006. He was a journalist, first for local magazines and
newspapers and then for Reuter’s news agency; he reported
throughout Russia, Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan but preferred working
with the people from the Caucasus and he tells the stories of this land,
a region of great ethnic diversity, with dozens of native languages and
dialects. Many of the events he describes are revealed for the first
time because the struggle of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus has
been mostly forgotten for 200 years.
Russia’s struggle to conquer the Caucasus began in 1783 when it
defeated the steppe nomads, the Nogai, the last remaining descendants of
Genghis Khan in Europe. The Russian General Alexander Suvorov had
assembled the Turkic-speaking nomads at the Yeya Fortress. Once, they
had sworn allegiance to Empress Catherine, they were ordered to gather
up their belongings, and resettle on the plains, south of the Urals.
Some rebelled but the disciplined Russian soldiers were ready and in the
words of the 19th century historian, Vasily Potto: `The Tatars
were pushed into the marshy river and, seeing no salvation, in a fit of
helpless anger, destroyed their own treasures, slaughtered their wives
and drowned their infants,’ and Suvorov recovered 300,000
horses, 40,000 head of cattle as well as 200,000 sheep.
The Nogais who had not attended the meeting, agreed to avenge the
massacre but they were met with a staunch resistance. Relentlessly,
chased across the steppe, `the Russians left the valley choked
with their dead. By destroying the Nogais and winning the steppes, they
had opened the door to the Caucasus mountains, and, after the Caucasus
mountains, to the lands of Georgia and Armenia, and to Turkey and Persia
too. Russia had discovered its destiny, and the Caucasus peoples were
standing in its way. For them life would never be the same
again,’ writes Oliver Bullough.
Few nations knew about the destruction of the Nogai nation; the British
were beginning their industrial revolution and both the Americans and
the French were establishing democratic rule. The Russians had a green
light to fight all the southern tribes and nothing was going to stop
them.
The annihilation of the Nogais was followed by the Circassia, genocide,
when as many as 300,000 Circassians died from hunger, violence, drowning
and disease when Russia expelled them from their lands in 1864, the year
they were defeated. Over a quarter of a million Circassians left Russia
during that time. It is estimated that between a million and 1.2 million
Circassians fled before or after 1864 and live now in Turkey, Israel,
Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Circassians are known for their code of conduct, `habze’
based on respect, obedience and loyalty. According to the author, this
loyalty to their new homes had been a characteristic of the Circassians
ever since the tragedy of 1864. They earned a reputation as tough
soldiers for the simple reason that Circassian loyalty does not know
borders. They fought for the Ottoman Turks until their state collapsed
after the First World War. They even fought for the Turkish Republic
against the Greeks, although their leader, Ethem, was never given
thanks. In return for his loyalty, he was sent away by Ataturk who
accused him of being a traitor. Circassians went on to serve their new
rulers in Jordan, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. Nowadays, however, the
Circassians are no longer the fighters they once were, and few among the
young generation are likely to enter a military academy.
Not all Circassians left their homeland, a tenth of them accepted
Russia’s conditions that they abandon their resistance. Murat
Berzegov, one of their descendants, headed an organization known as the
`Circassian Congress’ aiming for Russia to recognize the
destruction of his nation as genocide: `People say I am too
tough, they say we should just get on with developing music and
language, but that would be to neutralize our organization… What
is the point of developing language anyway if we don’t have a
future of some kind? If there is no future then why bother?’ He
says, adding that young Circassians were connecting with each other, and
young Circassians realized what had happened to their nation and why
they were spread all over the world. Despite, Berzegov’s
efforts, Circassians are still fighting for justice and their appeals
are passed by in silence.
After the Circassians were defeated and wiped out, their fellow Muslims
the Karachais were allowed to continue their lives as animal herders for
the rest of the nineteenth century. Under Stalin’s ruthless
rule, their half-hearted support for the communist regime was deemed
unacceptable. During World War II, the Soviet authorities found the
perfect excuse to get rid of the Karachai nation.
In 1943, a secret decree stated that the Karachais behaved traitorously
and collaborated with the Germans. On Oct. 12, and 14, 1943, the
government officially abolished the Karachai Autonomous Oblast. A total
of 69,267 people were deported: The Karachai nation was the first of
four North Caucasus nations that were deprived of their lands and
deported onto the steppes of Central Asia.
The next people in line were the Balkars, Turkic herders living in the
highest mountains of the Caucasus. Forces from the Soviet secret police,
NKVD which would later be renamed the KGB, sent a report in 1943 stating
that the Balkars had collaborated with the German army and suggested the
possibility of deporting them. The Balkars were effectively removed from
their homes between December 1943 and May 1944; they were sent off to
villages and towns in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan where temperatures would
reach minus forty degrees and food was scarce. Azret Khadzhiev, a Balkar
born in 1934 remembers sixty years later, that he was staying with
family friends on the night of the deportation, he was sent off to
Kazakhstan without his parents. He lived with distant relatives but when
they could no longer feed him, he had to go to an orphanage full of
children lost in the deportations. `I was there for all that
winter and people died everywhere. The collective farm fed us but when
the wind was blowing and it was cold they could not reach us and
that’s when we would go hungry. People died but God helped, and
I survived. The second winter I was lucky and was taken in by distant
relatives in a different region’ he says.
According to official documents, 38,000 Balkars and 68,000 Karachais
were resettled. According to the author, in April 1949, the population
of Karachais was 57,491 and the Balkars were 31,873: A decline of 15
percent and 16 percent: `The scattered populations were in
danger of disappearing altogether, while the restrictions on movement
and work stopped them finding each other and re-establishing family or
neighborly groups.
The most brutal war Caucasia had ever seen happened in the 1990s in
Chechnya. The Chechens had been accused of taking the opportunity to
gain their independence during the Second World War. On the Feb. 23,
1944, the official celebration day for the Red Army, the Chechens were
taken by train and dumped in the steppes of Kazakhstan. They were left
alone to fend for themselves and with nothing to eat save a herb,
`orach’. They eventually made their way to the city of
Almaty which they helped build into the capital and financial centre of
Kazakhstan. A great majority eventually returned to Chechnya after the
death of Stalin in 1953. The actual rebirth of a Chechen National
movement started in 1988 with the foundation of a movement known as
`Kavkaz’ which means `Caucasus’ in
Russian. A year later, Doku Zavgayev was the first ethnic Chechen to
head their government since their exile. Under the pressure of the young
nationalists, the local government proclaimed its sovereignty within the
Soviet Union in November 1900. The same year, a national congress was
set up, and the most high-ranking Chechen in the Soviet air force, Major
general Dzokhar Dudayev was invited to speak. In his speech he made it
clear that he wanted Chechnya to gain its independence, and he was
clearly prepared to fight for that.
In August 1991, a group of hardliners criticized violently the reforming
leadership. When Boris Yeltsin defeated the conservatives, the Chechens
took it as an opportunity: they elected Dudayev who wasted no time to
declare Chechnya’s independence on Nov. 2, 1991. The
Chechen’s defiant resolve ended in a gruesome war which began
when in 1994 the Russians assaulted Grozny in the most brutal way. The
Chechens’ fought bravely a terrible war and the Russians
eventually pulled out in 1996.
The region then sank into complete chaos culminating in the murder of
six foreign aid workers during their sleep. After this worst deliberate
attack in the history of the Red Cross, most foreign charity workers
left Chechnya after December 1996. Faced with no work and no alternative
sources of income, many Chechen joined Basayev’s
extremists’. According to the author, `he would be
uniquely responsible both for prolonging the Chechen’s ability
to resist the invading Russian forces, and for blackening his
nation’s name in the eyes of the world. He himself admitted that
he was a terrorist. Thanks to him, his whole nation was to be known as
terrorists.’
A number of horrific apartment bombings in Moscow, in Volgodonsk and in
the Dagestani town of Buynaksk, produced more than 300 casualties and
caused the Russian troops to return to Chechnya. This violent onslaught
ended with the death of 25,000 Chechens while about 200,000 fled into
exile, almost 20 percent of the Chechen population. Unlike during the
1994-1996 war, Chechens did not unite to fight the enemy, they were
split into various factions headed by Maskhadov, Kadyrov, Basayev and
Khattab.
`It was a heavy price to pay for this handful of men’s
failure to reach an agreement. And they are all to blame for
that’ says Oliver Bullough.
Chechens are still choosing to leave on their own accord. They have
little to look for in a country with a lack of education, an economy in
shambles, a land littered with mines and the risk of still being
arrested. In 2008, Chechens were the third largest group seeking refuge
behind Iraqis and Somalis. They head mainly for Austria, Poland and
France and establish discreet communities. If the Chechens refuse to
unite under the command of their exiled politicians, the Russian
government refuses to compromise on the Chechens’ dream of
independence and this has resulted in a wave of political killings which
show no sign of abating.
`Let Our Fame Be Great’ uncovers the little known
history of the Caucasian Muslims and their continuous struggle for
independence. The narrative moves backwards and forwards, highlighting
the complexity of the region. Many of the events in the book have been
described for the first time. Rich with anecdotes, personal memories,
and a thorough research, Oliver Bullough brings to life the captivating
history of people who have almost been completely forgotten. The
Russians have obliterated in their minds all facts pertaining to their
Caucasian wars but the Circassians, the mountain Turks, the Ingush, the
Chechens and the others will never forget. And this book will help the
rest of the world to remember the `defiant people of the
Caucasus.’
© 2010 Arab News
From: A. Papazian