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6 Why is there stability in Dagestan but not in Chechnya? Enver Kisriev The formulation of the question ,hasdemonstratedenviablepoliticalstability.This Caucasian republic, unique in its multi-ethnic composition,1 undergoing radical changes and similarly experiencing serious social transformations, nevertheless successfully preserved its integrity; it did not allow mass inter-ethnic clashes,socialdisorderanduprisings,andrefrainedfromborderdisputeswithneighbours. Although there were instances of serious tension in the republic (the last
to secure the safe and sound release of our colleagues, often without making any material concessions. No overarching theory applies to every situation. For example, while publicly holding Russian and Dagestani deputies to account for the abduction of Swiss MSF head of mission Arjan Erkel in Dagestan in 2002 accelerated his release ( McLean, 2016 ), the Congolese militias who are likely holding the four MSF staff members abducted in the DRC on 11
This book deals with the institutional framework in post-socialist, after-empire spaces. It consists of nine case studies and two contributions of a more theoretical nature. Each of these analytical narratives sheds some light on the micro-politics of organised violence. After 1990, Serbs and Croats were competing over access to the resources needed for institution building and state building. Fear in turn triggered ethnic mobilisation. An 'unprofessional' riot of Serbs in the Krajina region developed into a professional war between Serbs and Croats in Croatia, in which several thousand died and several hundred thousand people were forcefully expelled from their homes. The Herceg-Bosnian style of resistance can be surprisingly effective. It is known that most of the heroin transported along the Balkans route passes through the hands of Albanian mafia groups; that this traffic has taken off since summer 1999. The concept of Staatnation is based on the doctrine according to which each 'nation' must have its own territorial State and each State must consist of one 'nation' only. The slow decline and eventual collapse of the Soviet and the Yugoslav empires was partly triggered, partly accompanied by the quest for national sovereignty. Dagestan is notable for its ethnic diversity and, even by post-Soviet standards, its dramatic economic deprivation. The integrative potential of cooperative movements at the republican, the regional and the inter-state level for the Caucasus is analyzed. The book also offers insights into the economics of ending violence. Finally, it addresses the question of reconciliation after ethnic cleansing.
collective memory and rewriting their history. Prominent among those are the official national political leaders and historians of the Autonomous Republics of Dagestan and Chechnya. After nearly a century and a half of Russian and Soviet imperial predominance in this region, they can now, for the first time, create new historical narratives without any direct external interference from St
8 Networks and narratives: the road to war in the Balkans and Caucasus The task of this chapter is to map the road to war in the Balkans and Caucasus. In order to do this the chapter is broken down into three constituent parts. Building on the last chapter, the analysis engages with localised social networks which informed the armed resistance movements in Kosovo and Chechnya. Firstly we turn to the battle of Gudermes in Chechnya in 1998, and the incursion into Dagestan in 1999. This demonstrates how the former nationalist-separatist movement fragmented in a
–93), the son of a diplomat, spent much of the 1840s travelling through Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. After taking part in a series of military expeditions that took him to Circassia and Dagestan, Gagarin produced paintings and illustrations that dealt with the Russian conquest of the fierce and defiant peoples of the Caucasus, sometimes represented in the person of Imam Shamil, ruler of the Caucasian Imamate. Like Gagarin, the illustrator Vasilii Fedorovich Timm (1820–95) travelled across the Caucasus and recorded his
and to get access to additional resources. The weakening of the central authorities and the elimination of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which broke the ethnic balance in administrative structures, accelerated ethnic mobilisation, especially in the regions where strong ethnic grievances had persisted – such as regions with resettled ethnic groups (oppressed peoples, many peoples of Dagestan, etc.); regions with a territorial hierarchy of ethnic units (Georgia, Azerbaijan); or with an administrative hierarchy for ethnic groups (especially, in dual
Federation. Indeed, forty-nine regions can be called purely Russian areas. In those regions, representatives of the ethnic majority make up 85 to 98 per cent of the population. The largest per centage of Russians in any region is now found in Tambov oblast (97.8 per cent).15 (5) The ethnic republics make up just 28.6 per cent of the territory and only 15.7 per cent of the population.16 Furthermore, of the twenty-one republics, the eponymous population comprises a majority in only seven; Chechnya, Chuvashiya, Dagestan,17 Ingushetiya, Kalmykiya, North Osetiya-Alaniya, and
triggered the first Chechen war (1994–96), which Russia lost on the battlefield. Since October 1999, Russia has again engaged the Chechen guerrillas, trying to re-establish its state authority. Surprisingly, Chechnya’s neighbour, 2 Introduction the republic of Dagestan, has avoided internal turmoil and has opted to stay within the Russian Federation. Kisriev’s Chapter 6 in this volume discusses the factors that caused the very different response to the Soviet breakdown by these two republics which share many structural similarities. In Yugoslavia, there were also four major
, and 10.4 times higher than in the Republic of Dagestan.25 In 1999 the average level of unemployment in the Russian Federation was 13.4 per cent but there were wide variations across the country ranging from 5.6 per cent in Moscow City to 31.2 per cent in Dagestan, 33.4 per cent in North Osetiya-Alaniya, and 51.8 per cent in refugee flooded Ingushetiya.26 There are also significant variations in the level of poverty across the Federation. In 1995 there were 51 subjects of the Federation where a quarter of the population or higher were living below the officially