Senior Researcher
Dagestan Scientific Center
Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography
Makhachkala, Dagestan

About the Author

Friday, December 10, 1999

EurasiaNews Feature Article
Published With Permission from the Author

The misfortune of the Caucasus, they say, lies in its geography. The 1100-kilometer long Caucasian mountain range marks the crossroads between Europe, Asia, and the Near East. For the last 130 years, history has fated that the Caucasus be in the orbit of the Russian state.

In the 19^th century, the technological and numerical superiority of the Tsar’s army and the implementation of a policy of "divide and rule" among the regions 50-odd ethnic groups naturally had an effect over time. The most dramatic outcome of the Russian Empire’s Caucasian Wars was not, however, military but demographic. Russia subjected the entire Circassian nation to a policy of genocide and forced deportation to the Ottoman Empire. Other groups, such as the Karachai, Nogai, Chechens, Ossetians and Dagestanis, were also forced to emigrate en masse. At the same time, Russia began colonizing the region, thereby bolstering its political dominance of the North Caucasus with a demographic dominance.

In 1944, Stalin’s deportation of the Chechens, Ingush, Karachais, and Balkars to Central Asia and Siberia further boosted Russian dominance at the expense of the indigenous inhabitants. When these groups returned to their native lands in 1958, territorial conflicts erupted between the Ingush and the Ossets, Chechens and Laks, and others. As for the Caucasian diaspora abroad, it is now estimated to number more than 2 million, even as assimilation threatens to swallow it up. Less than one half of today’s one million Chechens currently resides in the Chechen republic. Ingushetia now, like Dagestan in 1994-96, is drowning in the waves of many thousands of Chechen refugees.

Those "fathers of the nation," including those of the Chechen nation, who resort to violence while pursuing the supreme goal of self-determination, might benefit from paying attention to the ideological priorities of the global community as well as the material and demographic resources of their own people. It is well known that the internationally recognized principle of self-determination contradicts the equally widely recognized principle of the inviolability of state borders. The attempts of various nations to overcome this contradiction have been provoked not just by the ideology of nationalism, however, but also by the chauvinism of the dominant nation, and by its social and religious intolerance.

The unfolding history of the Balkans, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Trans-Dniester, and the Caucasus demonstrates that attempts to achieve national self-determination all too often end in wars and human catastrophes. The use of inadequate and inappropriate methods in the struggle for national and state self-determination, and for independence—such as terrorism or attacks on the borders of neighbors—only increases the risks of suffering and loss for one’s own nation. Those who lay claim to leadership should respect their own relatively small nations, and protect them from catastrophe—particularly demographic catastrophe. Otherwise, the fruits of independence that are so ardently desired may not even be attained, or, conversely, may be seized by those that one would be hard-pressed to designate as the best elements of the nation—by terrorists and kidnappers.

In the area of international relations, the North Caucasus represents a strategically important zone. Its natural and mineral resources, the Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline, the undefined status of the Caspian Sea, and the de facto independence of Chechnya in 1996-1999, have all attracted the interests of outside powers. It is in this context that the Chechen separatists have chosen to see in Dagestan a repetition of the Chechen experience—not only as a stimulus to the international recognition of Chechnya but also as a route to achieve domination over the North Caucasus for Chechnya, and for Chechnya’s acquisition of access to the Caspian and Black seas.

The attainment of these goals is constrained by Dagestan’s inclusion in the Russian Federation, and the position of Georgia, which has no desire to strain its relations with Russia for the sake of assisting Chechnya in achieving territorial aggrandizement and ties to the outside. To do this would run the risk of Russia re-igniting the rebellion in Abkhazia. Moreover, Georgia has not forgotten that Chechen field commander Shamil Basaev earlier fought for the Abkhaz against Tbilisi.

Among other North Caucasians, not just the Dagestanis, but even Chechnya’s ethnic kin, the Ingush, are wary of the probable consequences that would follow a Chechen triumph in the war with Russia. It is important to make note of this fact. The nations of the North Caucasus know from their historical experience with the united state formation that was established by Imam Shamil in the 19^th century and with the later independent Mountain Republic of 1918-20, which included all the North Caucasian peoples, that the indispensable condition of their unity lies in the unconditional recognition of equality, and respect for all the indigenous peoples. This implies respect not only for the one-million strong Chechens, but even for the 3,000 Khvarshin people with their linguistic and cultural peculiarities—whose village of Pervomaiskoe was razed in the course of Salman Raduev’s raid into it during the last Russo-Chechen war; and the 30,000 Andi people who selflessly defended their homeland during Basaev’s and Khattab’s incursion into the Botlikh region of Dagestan this summer.

It might seem boastful for me, as a Dagestani, to assert that the decisive questions of the North Caucasus have always been decided and will be decided again in Dagestan. But any expert on the region would agree. For Russia, the loss of Dagestan would necessarily entail the loss of the North Caucasus as a whole.

What goals were Basaev, Khattab, and the other field commanders pursuing when they invaded Dagestan? They, and perhaps their sponsors—who are said to include Ossama bin Laden—can best answer this question. The propaganda of Chechen spokesman, Movladi Udugov, portrayed their acts as the opening stages in the liberation of Dagestan from Russia. But the reality is otherwise: the Dagestanis recognized them as enemies, as aggressors. The people, including 30,000 armed volunteers, supported the Russian army. The call to establish an Islamic state in Dagestan was supported by only a few thousand Wahhabis in a handful of villages (Karamakhi, Chabanmakhi, and others). Dagestanis subsequently came to regard the latter as traitors. A clear and absolute majority of the Dagestani people supports the idea of a secular state.

After 1996, the issues of "deferred status" and "Islamic law" which were repeatedly invoked in Chechnya, but never implemented, did not win the residents of Chechnya fame in the rest of the North Caucasus as exemplary Muslims. Kidnappings, cattle rustling and other forms of robbery, and the constant attacks from Chechen territory on border posts did not enhance the Chechen people’s reputation. After five years of criminal terror, and especially after the unprovoked aggression in the Botlikh and Novolakskii regions, many Dagestanis became convinced that the main threat to their personal and national security came from the territory of Chechnya. In contrast, the population of Dagestan understands that their republic’s inclusion in the Russian Federation is a guarantee of economic and social stability. The resumption of warfare first in Dagestan and now in Chechnya not only forces Moscow to think about the future of the North Caucasus, but also other world capitals as well as the North Caucasians themselves.

Dagestan should not suffer from its geography, but should rather prosper from it. The republic is linked by sea and rail with southern Russia, Azerbaijan, and Iran. There are opportunities for the transit of cargo and Azeri oil, the development of Dagestan’s own petrochemical resources, copper, and other natural resources, and, finally, the republic has an educated and hardworking labor force. All of these things give grounds for optimism in the long-term. But only political stability will allow Dagestan’s resources to be developed and exploited.

A wise man once said "give the Caucasus peace and do not search for paradise on the River Euphrates." As for the Dagestanis themselves, they can say, "we fought in the 18^th century against Nadir Shah of Persia, in the 19^th century against the Russian Tsar and Empire, and in the 20^th century for and against the Bolsheviks, and against Nazi Germany." We must now hope that Dagestan can enter the 21^st century as a peaceful, secular, democratic country, where tolerance, the absence of outside enemies, and openness toward international economic and cultural ties become the norm.

May God the Most High help us on this true path.

Born in the Charodinskyi district of Dagestan, Magomedkhan Magomedkhanov received his doctorate in 1984 from the Institute of Ethnography, USSR Academy of Sciences. Since 1983 he has been the Senior Researcher at the Institute of History, Archeology, and Ethnography of the Dagestan Scientific Centre of of the Russian Academy of Science. His research interests include contemporary ethnic and ethno-cultural problems in Dagestan and the North Caucasus, inter-group consciousness and stereotyping, poly-linguism and assimilation, and the revival of Islam in Russia. He is also currently directing the project "Dagestani Peoples Abroad." Dr. Magommedkhanov is the author of over sixty publications on topics ranging from "Democratization to Ethnic Conflict in the Caucasus" through "Dagestanis in Turkey" to "Table Manners in Dagestan." In addition to the Dagestani languages of Archi, Avar, Lak, Kumyk, and Dargi, he speaks Russian, English, Turkish, and Arabic. He is married and the father of two children.