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The Chechen Wars were two wars fought between the Russian Federation and Chechen separatists in the Caucasus in the 1990s and 2000s, part of a wider conflict between the Russian state and the ethnic Chechen people which goes all the way back to the eighteenth century. The First Chechen War was fought between December 1994 and August 1996 as a result of the creation of the independent Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. The war ended in something of a stalemate. It was followed by the much longer and bloodier Second Chechen War between 1999 and 2009. This included considerable fighting in Chechnya and terrorist attacks in many Russian cities. The war eventually ended when the Russian government of Vladimir Putin convinced many of the former Chechen leaders to abandon their cause in return for being given lucrative posts in the new Russian-dominated Chechnya. Thus, the wars ended in victory for the Russian government. The conflicts led to considerable migration out of the Chechnya region to avoid the bloodshed.[1]
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Chechen Wars chronology of events
The Chechen Wars were the culmination of longstanding ethno-political tensions in the North Caucasus region and the Russian state. This region lies between the Sea of Azov in the west and the northern end of the Caspian Sea in the east. One of the major ethnic groups of the North Caucasus are the Chechens, a people who refer to themselves as the Nokhchiy. These are a Nakh people whose roots can be traced back to prehistoric times in the North Caucasus. In more recent times their identity has become distinct in the region for their adherence to Islam, generally being surrounded by Orthodox Christians.[2]
Because of their distinctive culture, religion and ethnicity, the Chechens faced persecution by the government of the Russian Empire after it conquered the entire region south to the Black Sea and into the Caucasus in the eighteenth century. Then, under Soviet rule in the twentieth century, more sustained persecution was commenced, most notably when Joseph Stalin attempted to break up the Chechen dominance of the North Caucasus by transplanting hundreds of thousands of Chechens to elsewhere in Russia in 1944. This led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Chechens and could be identified as either an attempted genocide or certainly as ethnic cleansing.[3]
These anti-Chechen policies of the Soviet state left a bitter legacy and so when the USSR began to collapse in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Chechen separatists attempted to free themselves entirely from Russian rule and to establish their own state. In 1991 the All-National Congress of the Chechen People moved to hold elections for an independent state. This would eventually result in the formation of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria with the city of Grozny as its capital. However, unlike with virtually every other part of the former USSR, Boris Yeltsin, the leader of the post-Cold War Russian Federation, was determined to maintain control over Chechnya. Thus, in December 1994 he launched the First Chechen War to try to re-conquer Chechnya. Much of the conflict centered on the Battle for Grozny, which the Russians succeeded in capturing in 1995. However, the following year, Chechen separatists reclaimed the city and the First Chechen War effectively ended in August 1996 with Chechen victory.[4]
The Second Chechen War commenced in 1999 in response to internal instability within the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, in large part brought about by Chechen warlords in the employ of the Russian security forces. Then in August 1999 Chechen religious warriors led an incursion into the Russian province of Dagestan, a move which precipitated a Russian response. A much bloodier conflict than the First Chechen War followed, one marked by warfare in Chechnya itself and also a terrorist campaign against Russia by Chechen jihadists, the most notorious incident of which was the Beslan school massacre of September 2004, an episode which resulted in well over 300 deaths. Eventually the Russian government gained the upper-hand in the war, in large part by bribing several of the Chechen leaders, offering them lavish positions in a Russian-dominated Chechnya in return for betraying their own cause. The war ended in 2009 with the de-facto conquest of Chechnya by Russia and the promotion of Ramzan Kadyrov, a son of the former head of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Akhmad Kadyrov, to become the highly corrupt ruler of Chechnya. The Second Chechen War is understood to have resulted in between 50,000 and 80,000 deaths and the displacement of many more Chechens.[5]
Extent of migration associated with the Chechen Wars
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The Chechen Wars were precipitated by a long period of migration of ethnic Chechens from the Chechnya region to other parts of Europe. The most sinister element of this was the forced deportation of hundreds of thousands of Chechens from their homeland to others parts of the USSR in Central Asia by the regime of Joseph Stalin in 1944. Stalin was himself a native of the wider Caucasus, hailing from Georgia. Over 100,000 Chechens died during this effort to break up the ethnic identity of the Chechen people, while it also ensured that the Chechen diaspora in Russia is nearly as large as the Chechen population within historic Chechnya itself.[6] The era of the Chechen Wars in the post-Cold War period also saw tens of thousands of Chechens migrating away from historic Chechnya, particularly so during the most intense period of the fighting in the Second Chechen War of the 2000s. Key destinations were Turkey, France, Austria, Belgium and Germany.[7]
Demographic impact of the Chechen Wars
The demographic impact of the Chechen Wars and the wider conflict between the Russian state and ethnic Chechens has been significant. The forced transplantation of Chechens out of their homeland by the Soviet Union in the mid-1940s has resulted in the emergence of Chechen communities in many disparate parts of Russia, notably in Moscow and some of the other large cities in the west of the country, as well as in the region around the Ural Mountains. There are also tens of thousands of ethnic Chechens in countries like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan which have since acquired their independence. There are an estimated 100,000 Chechens in Turkey, making it the largest center of the Chechen diaspora outside of the former lands of the USSR, although only a few thousand Chechens are officially recorded as having migrated there during the wars.[8] In Europe, France is home to the largest Chechen community in the European Union, with over 65,000 Chechens living there. There are 40,000 in Germany, 30,000 in Austria and 17,000 in Belgium. Thus, many people in countries like these will be able to trace their family history back to Chechnya and the displacement which occurred there either under Soviet rule or as a result of the Chechen Wars of the 1990s and 2000s.[9]
Explore more about the Chechen Wars
- Chechnya Profile at BBC News
- Russia, Cemetery Records records collection on MyHeritage
- Russia, Births and Baptisms, 1755-1917 records collection on MyHeritage
- Family History Surprises for Borussia Dortmund Players at the MyHeritage Blog
References
- ↑ https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/olj/sa/sa_aug00bag01.html
- ↑ Anna Zelkina, ‘Islam and Society in Chechnia’, in Journal of Islamic Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2 (July, 1996), pp. 240–264.
- ↑ https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/massive-deportation-chechen-people-how-and-why-chechens-were-deported.html
- ↑ Emil Pain, ‘From the First Chechen War Towards the Second’, in The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Winter/Spring, 2001), pp. 7–19.
- ↑ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-18190473
- ↑ https://jamestown.org/program/remembering-the-1944-deportation-chechnyas-holocaust-2/
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20140615055058/http://www.chechnyaadvocacy.org/refugees.html
- ↑ https://jamestown.org/program/the-chechen-diaspora-in-turkey-2/
- ↑ https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/refugees-from-chechnya-seek-new-life-in-germany-a-918720.html