Russian-Chechen conflict

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The Russo-Chechen conflict is an often armed, centuries-old conflict between the Russian (formerly the Soviet ) and various nationalist and Islamic Chechen forces. The formal hostilities date back to 1785 while the elements of the conflict can be further traced.

The Russian Empire initially had little interest in the North Caucasus itself other than as a liaison with its ally Georgia and its enemies, the Persians and Ottomans, but the growing tensions sparked by Russian activities in the region led to a Chechen revolt against the Russian presence in 1785, followed by further clashes and the outbreak of the Caucasus War in 1817. It was not until 1862 that Russia managed to subdue the Chechen rebels. During the Russian Civil War , the Chechens and other Caucasus peoples lived several years in independence before 1921 sovietized were. During World War II , the Chechens saw the German invasion as an opportunity for an uprising against the Soviet regime. In response, they were deported en masse to Central Asia , where they were forced to stay until 1957.

The most recent conflict between the Russians and Chechens took place in the 1990s. When the Soviet Union fell apart , the Chechen separatists declared independence in 1991. At the end of 1994 the First Chechen War broke out and the Russian armed forces withdrew from the region. The fighting began again in 1999 and ended the following year: the Russian armed forces took control of Chechnya .

origin

The North Caucasus , a mountainous region to which Chechnya belongs, extends to or is near important trade and communication routes between Russia and the Middle East , the control of which has been controversial between several powers for centuries. Russia's entry into the region followed Tsar Ivan the Terrible's conquest of the Khanates de Kazan and Astrakhan of the Golden Horde in 1556, in a long struggle for power over the Caucasus against other contemporary powers, including the Persian Empire , the Ottoman Empire and the Khanate the Crimea . Internal disputes prevented Russia from extending its rule in the region until the 18th century; However, after the conquests of Ivan , the Cossacks allied with the Russians began to settle in the plains in the north of the Caucasus , causing tension and occasional clashes with the Chechens, who at that time were increasingly moving into the plains due to the adverse climatic changes in their traditional mountain regions settled down.

In 1774 control of Ossetia , and thus of the strategically important Darial Pass , came from the Ottomans to Russia. A few years later, in 1783, Russia signed the Treaty of Georgievsk with the Kingdom of Georgia , which made Georgia - a Christian enclave encircled by hostile Muslim countries - a Russian protectorate . In order to fulfill her obligations under the terms of the treaty, Catherine the Great , Empress of Russia, began construction of the Georgian Military Road across the Darial Pass, along with a number of fortresses to protect the passage. However, the Chechens, seeing these forces as an intervention into traditional mountain dwelling territories and a potential threat, opposed these activities.

Chechen conflict with the Russian Empire

Sheikh Mansur's rebellion and its consequences (1785–1817)

At this point, Sheikh Mansur , a Chechen imam , began preaching a "purified" version of Islam and encouraging the various peoples of the Caucasus to unite under the banner of Islam in order to protect themselves from new foreign invasions. His activity was viewed by the Russians as a threat to their interests in the region, and in 1785 a force was sent to take him prisoner. This did not succeed, instead his abandoned home village was burned down. On the way back, the Russian troops were ambushed and destroyed by Mansur's supporters, which sparked the first Chechen-Russian war. The war lasted for several years, with Mansur primarily using guerrilla tactics and the Russians carrying out criminal incursions against Chechen villages until Mansur was captured in 1791. Mansur died in captivity in 1794.

In 1801, Russia formally annexed Georgia, strengthening Russia's commitment to the region. In the years that followed, minor and ambush attacks by Chechen fighters against Russian forces relocated through the Caucasus increased. These prompted the Russians to consider more drastic means, especially as two substantial military expeditions in Chechen territory were both defeated. However, these were postponed due to the invasion of Russia by Napoleon in 1812.

Caucasus War (1817–1864)

After Napoleon's French troops were defeated in Russia in the 1812 war, Tsar Alexander I returned his attention to the Caucasus and commissioned one of its most famous generals, Alexei Yermolov , to pacify the region. In 1817 the Russian armed forces under the leadership of Yermolov began an attempt to conquer the Caucasus. Yermolov's brutal tactics, which included economic war, collective punishment, and deportation, were initially successful but were then viewed as counterproductive as they practically ended Russian influence on Chechen society and culture and created enduring enmity among Chechens. Jermolov was revoked in 1827.

A temporary turning point in the conflict came in 1828 when the Muridism movement emerged. It was directed by an Avar , Imam Shamil . In 1834 he united the peoples of the North Caucasus under Islam and declared Holy War on Russia . In 1845, Shamil's forces killed thousands of Russian soldiers and three generals in the Battle of Dargo, forcing Russian troops to retreat.

During the Crimean War of 1853-1856, the Chechens supported the Ottoman Empire against Russia. However, internal tribal conflicts weakened Shamil. He was captured in 1859. The war formally ended in 1862 when Russia promised autonomy to the Chechens and other ethnic groups of the Caucasus. However, Chechnya and the surrounding area including the north of Dagestan were annexed to Russia as Terek Oblast .

Russian Civil War and Soviet Era

After the Russian Revolution , the mountain peoples of the North Caucasus founded the Mountain Republic . It lasted until 1921 when they were forced to accept Soviet rule. Josef Stalin personally conducted the negotiations with the leaders of the Caucasus in 1921 and promised a strong autonomy within the Soviet state. The Soviet Mountain Republic was created that year, but only lasted until it was divided into six republics in 1924. The Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was established in 1934. Clashes between the Chechens and the Soviet authorities broke out in late 1920 during forced collectivization . They decreased in the mid-1930s when local leaders were arrested or killed.

Second World War

Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. According to Soviet sources, the Chechens joined the Wehrmacht , although this claim is questionable given the small amount of evidence available. The German withdrawal began in January 1943 and the Soviet government discussed deportations far away from the Chechen and Ingush homeland. In February 1944, under the direct command of Lavrenti Berias, half a million Chechens and Ingush were removed from their homes and forcibly resettled in Central Asia . They were deported to labor camps in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan . After Stalin's death in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev took power and denounced his predecessor. In 1957 the Chechens were allowed to return to their homeland. The Chechen-Ingush ASSR was re-established.

Post Soviet time

Since the end of the First Chechen War at the latest, a clearly recognizable change in perception has been observed on both sides of the conflict. While in the early 1990s the Chechens took up the "national freedom struggle" against Russia without any denominational reference, from 1996 onwards the focus was on practices of the radical Islamic principle of jihad. Driven by media coverage, this circumstance paralleled the general association of Muslims in Russia with terrorism.

Chechnya Wars

In 1991 Chechnya declared its independence as the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria . According to some sources, tens of thousands of non-Chechen ethnic groups (mostly Russians , Ukrainians and Armenians ) left the republic between 1991 and 1994 amid reports of violence and discrimination against the non-Chechen population. Other sources do not identify emigration as a major factor in the events, instead they point to the deteriorating situation in Chechnya, the aggressive policies of Chechen President Jokhar Dudayev and the domestic political ambitions of Russian President Boris Yeltsin . The Russian army captured Grozny in 1994, but after two years of intense fighting, Russian troops withdrew from Chechnya in accordance with the Khasavyurt Agreement . Chechnya retained its de facto independence until war broke out again in 1999.

In 1999, Russian government forces invaded Chechnya in response to the invasion of Dagestan by Chechen Islamic forces. In early 2000, the city of Grozny was almost completely destroyed by the fighting and Chechnya was brought under Russian control. According to Norman Naimark, there is serious evidence that the Russian government was making plans to deport the Chechens, who lost the war in the mid-1990s .

Current Chechen uprising

Since the end of the Second Chechen War in May 2000, a low-intensity insurrection has continued, particularly in Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan . The Russian security forces managed to kill some of their leaders such as Shamil Basayev . After his death, Doku Umarov took over the leadership of the rebel forces in the North Caucasus. In 2007 Umarow founded the Caucasus Emirate , an Islamist terrorist organization that has been commanded by Mohammed Suleymanov since 2015. The founding of the Caucasus emirate led to an internal split, as Akhmed Chalidowitsch Sakajew , the Prime Minister of the Chechen government in exile, rejected the organization.

The radical Muslims from Chechnya and other republics of the North Caucasus have been responsible for a series of terrorist attacks across Russia, particularly attacks in Russia since 1999, the hostage-taking in a Moscow theater in 2002, the Beslan hostage-taking in 2004, the 2010 and Moscow Metro attacks the 2011 terrorist attack at Moscow Domodedovo Airport .

bibliography

  • John B. Dunlop: Russia Confronts Chechnya: Roots of a Separatist Conflict . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1998, ISBN 978-0-521-63619-3 .
  • Patrick James: Evolutionary Theory and Ethnic Conflict . Ed .: Goetze, David. Praeger, Westport, Connecticut 2001, ISBN 978-0-275-97143-4 .
  • Daniel R. Kempton: Unity or Separation: Center-Periphery Relations in the Former Soviet Union . Ed .: Terry D. Clark. Praeger, 2001, ISBN 978-0-275-97306-3 .
  • Charles King: The Ghost of Freedon: A History of the Caucasus . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2008, ISBN 978-0-19-517775-6 .
  • Rajan Kumar: Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict Resolution: A Case Study of Chechnya . Hope India, Gurgaon 2006, ISBN 978-81-7871-119-5 .
  • Jeronim Perovic: The North Caucasus under Russian rule. History of a multi-ethnic region between rebellion and adaptation . Böhlau, Cologne, Vienna, Weimar 2015, ISBN 978-3-412-22482-0 .
  • Robert W. Schaefer: The Insurgency in Chechnya and the North Caucasus: From Gazavat to Jihad . ABC-CLIO, 2010, ISBN 978-0-313-38634-3 , p. 49–61 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  • Richard H. Shultz: Insurgents, Terrorists, And Militias: The Warriors of Contemporary Combat . Columbia University Press, New York 2006, ISBN 978-0-231-12982-4 .
  • Sebastian Smith: Allah's Mountains: The Battle for Chechnya . Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2005, ISBN 978-1-85043-979-0 .
  • Robert Bruce Ware: Chechnya: From Past to Future . Ed .: Richard Sakwa. Anthem Press, London 2005, ISBN 1-84331-165-8 , A Multitude of Evils: Mythology and Political Failure in Chechnya, pp. 79-115 .
  • Christian Paul Osthold: Politics and Religion in the North Caucasus. The relationship between Islam and resistance using the example of Chechens and Ingush (1757–1961) . Reichert. Wiesbaden 2019. ISBN 978-3-95490-397-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chronology for Chechens in Russia. University of Maryland , archived from the original on December 20, 2013 ; accessed on October 12, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Chechnya - Narrative. (PDF) University of Southern California , archived from the original on September 2, 2016 ; Retrieved on October 12, 2017 : "Russian military involvement into the Caucasus started early in the 18th century and in 1785–1791 the first major rebellion in Chechnya against the imperial rule took place."
  3. ↑ Halbach, Uwe: Islam in Russia . Ed .: Pleines, Heiko / Schröder, Hans-Henning: Country Report Russia. tape 1066 . Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 2010, ISBN 978-3-8389-0066-7 , p. 462 f .
  4. ↑ OP Orlov, VP Cherkassov: Россия - Чечня: Цепь ошибок и преступлений. Memorial , accessed October 12, 2017 (Russian).
  5. ^ Norman M. Naimark : Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe . Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mass 2002, ISBN 978-0-674-00994-3 , pp. 106 .
  6. ↑ Robert Parsons : Basayev's Death Confirmed. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty , accessed July 8, 2006 .
  7. ↑ Bill Rogio: US designates Caucasus Emirates leader documentary Umarov a global terrorist. Long War Journal , June 25, 2010, accessed on July 10, 2013 : “After Basayev's death in 2006, the Chechen and Caucasus jihadists united under the command of Doku Umarov, one of the last remaining original leaders of the Chechen rebellion and a close associate of al Qaeda. "
  8. ↑ http://www.rferl.org/content/north-caucasus-insurgency-selects-new-leader/27043027.html
  9. ↑ Carol Williams: A history of terrorism out of Chechnya. Los Angeles Times , accessed April 19, 2013 .
  10. ↑ Gregory Feifer: Ten Years On, Troubling Questions Linger Over Russian Apartment Bombings. In: RFE / RL. Retrieved September 9, 2009 .
  11. ↑ Artem Krechetnikov: Moscow theater siege: Questions remain unanswered. In: BBC News. Retrieved October 24, 2012 .
  12. ↑ Chechen rebel claims Moscow attacks. In: al-Jazeera . Retrieved March 31, 2010 .
  13. ↑ Chechen terrorist claims responsibility for Domodedovo Airport bombing. In: Russia Today . Retrieved February 8, 2011 .
  14. ↑ Chechen warlord documentary Umarov admits Moscow airport bomb. In: BBC News. Retrieved February 8, 2011 .