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WEB EXCLUSIVE
CHECHNYA: A TIME TRAIL
Whatever the outcome of the present fighting in Chechnya, it is unlikely to prove conclusive. Nor is it likely to dampen the fervor with which the Chechen people pursue their goal of independence, a battle they have been fighting for more than 200 years, resisting attempts drive them out of the region or to assimilate them. The struggle long ago became a defining part of Chechen identity and one for which they have often paid a heavy price. Through the pages of TIME and other Web resources, here is a history of Chechnya's struggle.
The Land, the History, the Culture
The Early Years | 1988 - 1996 | 1997 - present
The Land, the History, the Culture
Chechnya is one of a necklace of states that fringe the North Caucasus Mountains--the geographical divide between Europe and Asia. The fertile lowlands of the north extend down to Grozny,  south of which the plains give way to forested hills as far as the vast mountains and glaciers that mark the southern border with Georgia. The Chechen people are--and have always been--a predominantly rural people, working as farmers and herdsmen. Around 100 ago, however, the region assumed greater economic and strategic importance with the discovery of large reserves of oil. (The History and Politics of Chechen Oil, by Robert E. Ebel)
In 1996 the Chechen Republic of Ichkeriya (to give it its proper title) had an estimated population of 921,000. As recently as 1989, Grozny itself had a population of some 400,000--half of them Russian. By 1995 only 182,700 people were left in the capital.
Ethnically, the Chechens and their near neighbours, the Ingush, appear to have inhabited the region for several thousand years, speak a distinct language of their own (though most can also speak Russian) and have been predominantly Muslim under the influence of Sunni missionaries from the 17th to the 19th centuries. Johanna Nichols, of the University of California at Berkeley, has posted a useful paper, "Who Are the Chechen?" (Jan 1995), on Chechnya's cultural traditions.
Earlier Struggles
Over the centuries, the Chechens have found their land fought over by Ottomans and Persians. Ivan the Terrible and Boris Godunov both sought to exert control in the Caucasus with little success. But resistance to Russia's expansionist tendencies can usefully be traced to 1732, when Russian colonial forces were defeated in a skirmish in the village of Chechen-aul by the Noxche tribe of the region, who from that point on came to be known in Russia as Chechens. Russian incursions in the region grew until 1783 when Catherine the Great signed a treaty which handed her military control of Georgia to the south. In Sheikh Mansur, the Chechens found an inspirational leader who, declaring holy war on Russia, united all the near-isolated tribes of the North Caucasus and mobilised their resistance until his capture in 1791.
The fighting went on, however, culminating in the Caucasian War of 1817-64, during which Imam Shamil emerged as a charismatic leader. 
Illustration of Imam Shamil leading from the front, circa 1854
Corbis |  |
(A colorful account of the Shamil's military career can be found in The Jihad of Imam Shamil, from the Haqqani Foundation of the U.S.) Grozny was founded at this time by the Russians as one of a number of fortress towns from which they waged a ruthless and destructive campaign, which finally took Chechnya in 1858. Over the next decade many Chechens were deported or fled to the Ottoman Empire and Russians began to settle in the lowlands--a process that accelerated with the discovery of oil near Grozny in 1893. For a thorough account of this period and beyond, see the briefing paper prepared by Edward Kline, President of the Andrei Sakharov Foundation.
Sporadic resistance to Russian rule continued and with the coming of the Russian Revolution a Chechen Oblast (autonomous province) was established in 1922. It merged with that of the neighboring Ingush in 1934 and became a Soviet Republic in 1936, though Stalin's purges of that period cost the lives and liberty of thousands of Chechens and did nothing to win their support as war with Germany loomed. The German invasion of Russia in World War II came close to Chechnya, as this report from TIME, Oct. 19, 1942, shows. In 1944, Chechnya paid a shocking price for continued defiance of Russian rule which, Stalin charged, went so far as collaborating with the German invaders. On Feb. 23 and 24, 400,000 Chechen and Ingush people--almost the entire population--were rounded up and deported, mostly to Kazakhstan. 30-50% of them are estimated to have died within the year--one of the most devastating incidents of ethnic cleansing in the 20th century. Yet, amid the turbulence of the war, the episode went largely unnoticed outside the region. In the issue of July 8, 1946, TIME sourly noted:
"The Soviet Union has a social system of its own but borrows from others ... from tribal jurisprudence, group punishment for individual guilt ... Because 'many' Chechens and Crimean Tartars fought on the side of the Germans and the 'main mass of the population ... did not give opposition,' their 'autonomous' republics were expunged by Moscow. Charged with treason, sabotage and collaboration, an estimated 400,000 men, women and children were driven from the land on which their ancestors had lived for untold generations, and ordered to trek eastward. Where? Nobody knew--probably to the vast Kazak steppes beyond the Caspian Sea."
Only with the passing of Stalin did Russia begin to acknowledge its inhumane crime against the Chechens. General Secretary Khruschev's address to the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in February 1956 sounded heartfelt, but stopped short of legally returning land and property to the Chechens. Eventually in Jan. 1957, the ban on their return was lifted and their autonomy as a Soviet Republic restored.
More of the Chechnya Trail: 1988 - 1996 | 1997 - present
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WEB EXCLUSIVES
Chechnya Diary
TIME's Moscow Bureau Chief Paul Quinn-Judge spends five days traveling in and around war-torn Chechnya
Fight or Flight?
TIME's Moscow correspondent Andrew Meier on the efforts of Russian sons and mothers to avoid the war in Chechnya
On the Edge
Ingushetia's President Ruslan Aushev talks to Paul Quinn-Judge about the war in Chechnya
No Place to Go
Paul Quinn-Judge travels to Nazran on the Chechnya border and describes the war's effect on a group of refugees
BACK IN TIME
OCTOBER 19, 1942
Men and Mountains
NOVEMBER 25, 1991
Misstep in Chechen-Ingush
MARCH 15, 1993
Breakaway Dancing
DECEMBER 12, 1994
Fire in the Caucasus
DECEMBER 26, 1994
Rebellion in Russia
JANUARY 16, 1995
Death Trap
JANUARY 23, 1995
Looking for the Next Step
Letter from Officer X
JUNE 25, 1995
Assault at High Noon
AUGUST 14, 1995
Halfway to Peace
DECEMBER 4, 1995
Rebels without a Pause
MAY 6, 1996
Cutting off the Head
AUGUST 26, 1996
Fury and Defeat
WEB RESOURCES
Links to other Web resources on Chechnya
Chechnya
From the Encyclopaedia Britannica
Imam Shamil
From the Encyclopaedia Britannica
The Chechen Home Land
Resources about Chechnya and Caucasus wars
Chechen Info File
From ANU (Australia)
Chechen Republic (Russia)
Detailed maps
Chechen Republic Online
Information and images on Chechnya, monitored by the Government of the Chechen Republic
Informational, Cultural and Economic Representation of Chechen Republic Ichkeria in Finland
News from Finland-based pro-Caucasian groups and associations
North Caucasian Bibliography
Links to materials on the Caucasus
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