In fact it was the Soviet policy of Divide et impera! that has led to the fragmentation of these nations. This paper is of the opinion that only by narrowing down the artificial terminology one can comprehend the true nature of the identity politics in the Northwest Caucasus. Therefore all the subdivisions of the Circassians (Adyge, Kabardians, Cherkess) will hereafter be studied under the same heading as will be the Karachay and the Balkars.

Speaking a language that is a member of Adyge-Abkhaz branch of Northwest Caucasian language family the Circassians are believed to have inhabited this part of the Caucasus from the time immemorial .(2) Until the second half of the 19th Century they occupied the territory that extends from the shores of the Black Sea to the River Terek and Sunzhi delta. Nevertheless archaeological and linguistic evidence supports the hypothesis that people speaking dialects ancestral to Circassian may have extended deep into the present area of Ukraine in prehistoric times. (3)

Historically, until the Russian conquest , the Western Circassians lived in free tribal societies whereas the Eastern Circassians (mainly the modern day Kabardians) fashioned a highly stratified aristocratic society. Having survived the Mongolian, Khazar and Alan invasions throughout two millenniums they encountered with the Tsarist Russian Armies in the first half of the 19th Century. As all the other North Caucasian peoples they fiercely fought the Russian Army but were defeated and decimated by it in 1864. As a result of the Russian conquest, the overwhelming majority of the Circassians, around 1.200.0000, were forced to flee to the Ottoman lands of whom around 800.000 (4) survived the tragic exodus. Their descendants today comprise a sizeable Circassian Diaspora in Turkey and the Middle East.

The Circassians who had remained in the North Caucasus participated, with the other North Caucasian peoples, in the short-lived independent state of Mountaineers Republic of the North Caucasus formed in 1918,which became part of the new Soviet Union and was renamed the Soviet Mountain Republic in 1921. Within a few years the Mountain Republic disintegrated and the Circassians were divided into three categories as the Adyge (self designation in Circassian language), the Cherkess (name by which the Circassians by then had been called by the Turks and the Russians) and the Kabardians (name of the one of the biggest tribes of the Circassians). At various times during the Soviet period the Circassian inhabited lands were placed in the following administrative units;

1) Adygea Autonomous Oblast within Krasnadar Krai (separated from Cerkess AO, it later became the Republic of Adygea in the Russian Federation)

2) Cerkess Autonomous Oblast within Stavrapol Krai (first separated from then later in 1957 merged with the Karachay AO in Karachaevo-Cherkessia AO that later became the Republic of Karachaevo-Cherkessia in the Russian Federation)

3) Kabardin Soviet Socialist Autonomous Republic (existed between 1944-1957 later included the Balkars after their return from exile to become once again Kabardino-Balkaria Soviet Socialist Autonomous Republic within the RSSFR)

4) Shapsough National Ogrug (the Shapsough were a Circassian tribe and this national ogrug was abolished after the World War II.)

Although the Circassians' culture and way of life is, more or less, similar to that of the other North Caucasians', nonetheless in terms of the role of religion in the formation of national identity Islam is not as significant and important part of Circassian national identity as it is for the Chechens and the Dagestanis. The Russo-Circassian Wars of the 19th Century were not fought, on the whole, along the religious lines but rather on the part of the Circassians it was a national independence struggle (partly as an extension of highly idealised individual freedom). In many ways, after the Georgians and the Armenians, the Circassians came closest of all the Caucasian peoples to developing the prerequisites for nationhood even in the 19th Century. (5)

Today the Circassian nationalist organisations such as the Adyge Khase, Kabardian National Congress and the Union of World's Circassians organise their nationalist manifesto around the themes, such as the continuity of the scatteredness of the Circassian population and the demographic disadvantages of the Circassians in the republics they live. Establishing a close relationship with their ethnic kin, the Abkhaz, and supporting them in their "independence" war against Georgia also dominated the nationalist agenda throughout 1992-1994. Mass repatriation of the Diaspora Circassians and the unification of Circassian lands in one single republic within the Russian Federation are the objectives that were being pursued vigorously until recently. Nonetheless, since the beginning of the second half of the last decade the goal of establishing "Greater Circassia" seems to have been replaced by the appreciation that national interests are best served if the Circassians aim at acquiring more autonomy wherever they live.(6) Exception to this is that Adyge nationalist movement is the most powerful and popular in Karachaevo-Cherkessia from which it aims to secede to revive Cherkessian autonomy. As yet it failed to do so.

However the nationalists were partially successful in achieving some of their goals. Adygea Autonomous Oblast was upgraded to republican status in July 1991 and renamed Republic of Adygea. Also both in Adygea and Kabardino-Balkaria, the republican laws passed that gave the Circassian Diaspora constitutional rights to resettle in these republics .(7) The day May 21st has been designated in both republics as official mourning day for the Circassians who, in the last century, had to flee their homeland.

THE KARACHAY-BALKARS

The Karachay-Balkars who speak a Turkic language are believed to be the remnants of the Kipchak Turks who arrived in the Caucasus around 13th and 14th Centuries.(8) Since they inhabited the inaccessible areas of the northern slopes of the Caucasus Mountains, around the Mount Elbrus and Dombay, not much knowledge about them existed

until the 19th Century. They, too, took part in the struggle against the Russian invasion and accordingly suffered from the consequences of the final defeat in 1864. A number of Karachays also fled to Turkey.

After the World War I they were a component of the independent state of Mountaineers' Republic of the North Caucasus, which was to become Soviet Mountain Republic in 1921. As a result of Soviet social engineering, the Karachay-Balkars were divided into two nationalities and the Karachays formed, with the Cerkess, Karachay-Balkar Autonomous Oblast within Stavropol Krai, which later split into separate Karachay and Cerkess National Oblasts, again, within the same Krai. The Balkars, however, were placed under the jurisdiction of Kabardino-Balkaria.

The single most important event which shaped the Karachay-Balkar national identity irreversibly took place during the World War II. They were accused by Stalin of collaboration with the invading German Nazi Armies and for this reason first the Karachays in November 1943 and Balkars in March 1944 were deported, along with the Chechens, Ingush, Volga Germans, Meskhetians, Kalymuks and the Crieman Tartars, to the steppes of Central Asia. Consequently the Karachay National Oblast and the Balkar part of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria was abolished. During the deportations they lost around one third to half of their numbers .(9) Their lands were incorporated into the neighbouring regions. Within a short time the terms Karachay and the Balkar were deleted from Soviet official terminology as though these peoples had never existed. Even after they were eventually allowed in 1957 to return to their homeland, following Khrushchev's condemnation of Stalin's actions at the 20th Communist Party Congress in 1956, human suffering and grievances caused by the deportations has never healed. Rehabilitation of their lands has, to this day, remained as a powerful element of the Karachay-Balkar nationalist discourse. (10)

During the Glasnost period there were calls in both Karachay region and Balkaria to unite in one Karachay-Balkar Republic but this initiative has never become a rallying point of the masses. Rather, the Karachay and the Balkars pressed to create their national units separately within the Russian Federation. However once it proved more problematic to realise these national projects than initially thought out, the Karachay elite opted against the division of their republic to hold on to the power it held in Karachaevo-Cherkessia. The previous head of the republic Vladimir Khubiyev, ethnic Karachay, ruled the republic for 19 years.

The Balkars organised a referendum in November 1991 calling for a separate Balkar Republic. However the central authorities rejected this intention. The Balkar National Congress proclaimed independence in 1996. The republic was on the verge of a civil war. Major violence was only averted by the actions of president of the republic Vladimir Kokov, a Kabardian, and by promotion of Sufian Beppayev, leader of the Balkar National Congress, to a senior governmental appointment to distribute federal compensation to the families of the deported Balkar .(11) Drive for separation lost its appeal further when a power-sharing agreement was adopted according to which the President would be Kabardian whereas the position of Prime Minister would be preserved for a Balkar. Since then a relative calm has prevailed in the republic.

II- MOTIVES FOR ETHNIC UNREST BETWEEN THE CIRCASSIANS AND THE KARACHAY-BALKARS

Since the early 1990s through the transition from Soviet Union to multinational Russian Federation, the Northwest Caucasus has seen an increasing polarisation of these two national groups in the North Caucasus. On more than one occasion a large scale civil war along ethnic lines seemed to be looming in both Karachaevo-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria. Since the presidential elections held in the early 1999 in Karachaevo-Cherkessia there have been many street protests, attended by thousands of people, organised by the rival ethnic groups in support of their own candidate. Street clashes occurred daily. Cafes and shops were bombed.

So why did this picture emerged? The reasons for this outcome can be grouped as socio-economical, political, historical and psychological.

SOCIO-ECONOMICAL REASONS

The North Caucasus region is the least economically developed region of the Russian Federation. Republican economies of the region are heavily subsidised by Moscow. In 1997 according to households' purchasing power rate, out of 88 regions of the Russian Federation Karachaevo-Cherkessia ranked 79th and Kabardino-Balkaria 81st. (12)

Since the unemployment is rampant and economic assets of these republics are few, the power to control these assets and the flow of subsidies from Moscow to the republican budgets are of crucial importance. Thus rival politicians found themselves supported by their own ethnic group vigorously to only be in charge of the republican economies.

ROLE OF POLITICIANS AND THE POLITICS

The mayor of regional capital Cherkessk and a candidate in the presidential elections in Karachaevo-Cherkessia in 1999 Stanislav Derev, a Cherkess, was able to mobilise the Cherkess and the Abaza (a Circassian subgroup, politically allied with the Cherkess) in their thousands after he had been defeated in dubious circumstances by the Karachay candidate Vlademir Semenov for he owns the biggest beverage factory in the republic and employed around 5000 of the Cherkessk's mainly Cherkess and Abaza residents. Therefore an economic and ethnic dimension was added to his political struggle for power. He provides the financial backing for the Adyge Khase, Adyge nationalist movement.

Another example of how economics and personal interests may change the course of events in local politics in the North Caucasus is that many of the leaders of the Balkar National Congress also became loyal supporters of the republican ruling elite in Kabardino-Balkaria after gaining prominent positions within government to control the lucrative tourist business in the republic. This aroused suspicions as to how committed they were to their nationalist causes. (13)

HISTORICAL REASONS

As mentioned previously, the Soviet policy of dividing nations into two or more sub-nations and then forcing them to live within the same administrative unit with ethnically and culturally unrelated national groups is the single most important factor for the presence of deep ethno-political divisions and social unrest in the Northwest Caucasus. The Circassians already suffered from years of fighting during the tsarist Russia and majority of them fled their homelands. Their lands have been colonised and they have become a minority. The Circassians have never fully recovered from the tragedy of the 19th Century.

The Karachay -Balkars also went through the ordeal of deportations and suffered enormous destruction during the exile years. In Karachay's case their lands were taken away and they had to rebuild their lives from the scratch. Rather than living among their ethnic kin the Circassians and the Karachay-Balkars have been made to suffer from the historical injustice of being divided and marginalized in their own country. The resentment which was allowed to foster exploded into open conflict as soon as the Communist state collapsed.

PSYCHOLOGICAL REASONS

"Never Again!" has recently become the national motto for the Circassians and the Karachay-Balkars. The psychological aspect of their hundreds of years of suffering from wars, deportations and exoduses which resulted in their becoming minority in their own countries has only added fuel to the fire of the Circassian and Karachay-Balkars nationalisms to create their own small enclaves where they could survive free from outside domination.

Otherwise no other logical explanation can be found to understand why in the early 1990s there were attempts to create five small republics in Karachaevo-Cherkessia. (14)

In the Caucasian context, numbers do matter. In both Karachaevo-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria the smaller nations were more eager to secede and form their own territorial unit, which are the Balkars and the Cherkess-Abaza. If the insecurity these smaller nations feel is not erased by political power-sharing on the republican level then the possibility of a conflict to erupt mounts.

CONCLUSION

In the North Caucasus, fragmentation, rather than integration, is the prevailing trend.(15) Unless the central authorities in Moscow move to resolve the problems of the region within a wider perspective, which includes the possibility of redrawing the borders of the three republics with their consent or creating a federal republic made up by the Circassian and Karachay-Balkar regions, and develop a new understanding of the region's needs there is evidence to believe that new conflicts are inevitable in the Northwest Caucasus.

*These 1995 population figures are taken from Robertson's Russia &Eurasia Facts &Figures Annual, volume 22,1997, pp 20-23 as cited in Anna Matveeva, The North Caucasus: Russia's Fragile Borderland, The Royal Institute Of International Affairs, London, 1999, p.82, 84,87.

THE BIBLIOGRAPHY:

I. Anna Matveeva, The North Caucasus: Russia's Fragile Borderland., London, The Royal Institute Of International Affairs ,1999.

II. Amjad Jaimoukha, A Handbook : The Circassians., London, The Curzon Publishing, 2001.

III. Paul B. Henze, Circassian Resistance to Russia in The North Caucasus Barrier., p.62-111. London, C. Hurst & Co., 1992.

IV. Ramazan Traho, Circassians' , Central Asian Survey, vol.10, no 1 / 2, pp, 1-63, 1991.

V. Ramazan Traho, Literature on Checheno- Ingushes and Karachay-Balkars', Caucasian Review, no.5, pp.79-96, 1957.

VI. Robert Conquest, The Nation Killers: the Soviet deportation of nationalities. Macmillan, 1970

VII. Sebastian Smith, Allah's Mountains: Politics and War in the Russian Caucasus., London, I. B. Taurus & Co Ltd, 1998.

VIII. Suzanne Goldenberg, Contested Borders in the Caucasus., Brussels, Vubpress-VUB University Press, 1996.

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(1) Anna Matveeva, The North Caucasus: Russia's Fragile Borderland, The Royal Institute Of International Affairs, London, 1999,p.1.

(2) See Paul B Henze, Circassian Resistance to Russia in The North Caucasus Barrier ,Hurst & Company, London, 1992,p .67

(3) There is a city in Southeast Ukraine named Cerkassk. See W.E.D. Allen, Russian Embassies to the Georgian Kings (1589-1605), Cambridge: Hakluyt Society, 1970, Vol. I,p.24 cited in Paul B.Henze ,Circassian Resistance to Russia in the North Caucasus Barrier, Hurst & Company, London, 1992,p.67
(4) Various estimates range between 600.000 and 1.500.000(including a large number of Abkhaz and number of Chechen, Dagestani and Karachays).

(5) Henze, Circassian Resistance to Russia, p.67

(6) The author has at various times been members of these organisations and has therefore been able to follow closely the discussions from within the movement both in the Caucasus and in the Diaspora. Nevertheless, the debate can also be monitored in IWPR Caucasus Reporting Service No 43,44,46,48 at http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?caucasus_index.html

(7) In Adygea, the potential returnees are offered a free a plot of land to settle in.

(8) The Columbia Encyclopaedia, VI. Edition, which can be viewed at http://www.bartleby.com/65/ka/Karachay.html

(9) For a more accurate account of the deportations, see Robert Conquest's The Nation Killers: the Soviet deportation of nationalities. Macmillan, 1970.

(10) See the articles published throughout 1998 in the Karachayevo-Balkarski Mir, a local newspaper published and distributed in Karachaevo-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria, of the deputy leader of the Karachay nationalist organisation "Cemagat ( Society) " Kazbek Comayev.

(11) Matveeva, The North Caucasus: Russia's Fragile Borderland, p.88

(12) ibid., p. 57

(13) See the article by Khasen Laipanov, Trouble Brewing in the North in IWPR Weekly Report No.13, Jan 7th,2001 at www.iwpr.net/index.

(14) These are the Karachay, Cherkess, Abazinian , Battalpashinskaya and Urupso-Zelenchukskaya Republics. The last two were proclaimed by the Cossack movement.
(15) Matveeva, The North Caucasus: Russia's Fragile Borderland, p. 79.

 

*BY ZEYNEL A. BESLENEY
MA in RUSSIAN STUDIES
The School of Slavonic Studies,
University College London



Editor's Note: Our thanks are due to Mr.Besler for his kind permission to publish his article on our web site

© 2002 Agency Caucasus