Russia’s struggle to conquer the Caucasus began in 1783 when it defeated the steppe nomads, the Nogai, the last remaining descendants of Genghis Khan in Europe. The Russian General Alexander Suvorov had assembled the Turkic-speaking nomads at the Yeya Fortress. Once, they had sworn allegiance to Empress Catherine, they were ordered to gather up their belongings, and resettle on the plains, south of the Urals. Some rebelled but the disciplined Russian soldiers were ready and in the words of the 19th century historian, Vasily Potto: “The Tatars were pushed into the marshy river and, seeing no salvation, in a fit of helpless anger, destroyed their own treasures, slaughtered their wives and drowned their infants,” and Suvorov recovered 300,000 horses, 40,000 head of cattle as well as 200,000 sheep.
The Nogais who had not attended the meeting, agreed to avenge the massacre but they were met with a staunch resistance. Relentlessly, chased across the steppe, “the Russians left the valley choked with their dead. By destroying the Nogais and winning the steppes, they had opened the door to the Caucasus mountains, and, after the Caucasus mountains, to the lands of Georgia and Armenia, and to Turkey and Persia too. Russia had discovered its destiny, and the Caucasus peoples were standing in its way. For them life would never be the same again,” writes Oliver Bullough.
Few nations knew about the destruction of the Nogai nation; the British were beginning their industrial revolution and both the Americans and the French were establishing democratic rule. The Russians had a green light to fight all the southern tribes and nothing was going to stop them.
The annihilation of the Nogais was followed by the Circassia, genocide, when as many as 300,000 Circassians died from hunger, violence, drowning and disease when Russia expelled them from their lands in 1864, the year they were defeated. Over a quarter of a million Circassians left Russia during that time. It is estimated that between a million and 1.2 million Circassians fled before or after 1864 and live now in Turkey, Israel, Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Circassians are known for their code of conduct, “habze” based on respect, obedience and loyalty. According to the author, this loyalty to their new homes had been a characteristic of the Circassians ever since the tragedy of 1864. They earned a reputation as tough soldiers for the simple reason that Circassian loyalty does not know borders. They fought for the Ottoman Turks until their state collapsed after the First World War. They even fought for the Turkish Republic against the Greeks, although their leader, Ethem, was never given thanks. In return for his loyalty, he was sent away by Ataturk who accused him of being a traitor. Circassians went on to serve their new rulers in Jordan, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. Nowadays, however, the Circassians are no longer the fighters they once were, and few among the young generation are likely to enter a military academy.
Not all Circassians left their homeland, a tenth of them accepted Russia’s conditions that they abandon their resistance. Murat Berzegov, one of their descendants, headed an organization known as the “Circassian Congress” aiming for Russia to recognize the destruction of his nation as genocide: “People say I am too tough, they say we should just get on with developing music and language, but that would be to neutralize our organization… What is the point of developing language anyway if we don’t have a future of some kind? If there is no future then why bother?” He says, adding that young Circassians were connecting with each other, and young Circassians realized what had happened to their nation and why they were spread all over the world. Despite, Berzegov’s efforts, Circassians are still fighting for justice and their appeals are passed by in silence.
After the Circassians were defeated and wiped out, their fellow Muslims the Karachais were allowed to continue their lives as animal herders for the rest of the nineteenth century. Under Stalin’s ruthless rule, their half-hearted support for the communist regime was deemed unacceptable. During World War II, the Soviet authorities found the perfect excuse to get rid of the Karachai nation.
In 1943, a secret decree stated that the Karachais behaved traitorously and collaborated with the Germans. On Oct. 12, and 14, 1943, the government officially abolished the Karachai Autonomous Oblast. A total of 69,267 people were deported: The Karachai nation was the first of four North Caucasus nations that were deprived of their lands and deported onto the steppes of Central Asia.
The next people in line were the Balkars, Turkic herders living in the highest mountains of the Caucasus. Forces from the Soviet secret police, NKVD which would later be renamed the KGB, sent a report in 1943 stating that the Balkars had collaborated with the German army and suggested the possibility of deporting them. The Balkars were effectively removed from their homes between December 1943 and May 1944; they were sent off to villages and towns in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan where temperatures would reach minus forty degrees and food was scarce. Azret Khadzhiev, a Balkar born in 1934 remembers sixty years later, that he was staying with family friends on the night of the deportation, he was sent off to Kazakhstan without his parents. He lived with distant relatives but when they could no longer feed him, he had to go to an orphanage full of children lost in the deportations. “I was there for all that winter and people died everywhere. The collective farm fed us but when the wind was blowing and it was cold they could not reach us and that’s when we would go hungry. People died but God helped, and I survived. The second winter I was lucky and was taken in by distant relatives in a different region” he says.
According to official documents, 38,000 Balkars and 68,000 Karachais were resettled. According to the author, in April 1949, the population of Karachais was 57,491 and the Balkars were 31,873: A decline of 15 percent and 16 percent: “The scattered populations were in danger of disappearing altogether, while the restrictions on movement and work stopped them finding each other and re-establishing family or neighborly groups.
The most brutal war Caucasia had ever seen happened in the 1990s in Chechnya. The Chechens had been accused of taking the opportunity to gain their independence during the Second World War. On the Feb. 23, 1944, the official celebration day for the Red Army, the Chechens were taken by train and dumped in the steppes of Kazakhstan. They were left alone to fend for themselves and with nothing to eat save a herb, ‘orach’. They eventually made their way to the city of Almaty which they helped build into the capital and financial centre of Kazakhstan. A great majority eventually returned to Chechnya after the death of Stalin in 1953. The actual rebirth of a Chechen National movement started in 1988 with the foundation of a movement known as “Kavkaz” which means ‘Caucasus’ in Russian. A year later, Doku Zavgayev was the first ethnic Chechen to head their government since their exile. Under the pressure of the young nationalists, the local government proclaimed its sovereignty within the Soviet Union in November 1900. The same year, a national congress was set up, and the most high-ranking Chechen in the Soviet air force, Major general Dzokhar Dudayev was invited to speak. In his speech he made it clear that he wanted Chechnya to gain its independence, and he was clearly prepared to fight for that.
In August 1991, a group of hardliners criticized violently the reforming leadership. When Boris Yeltsin defeated the conservatives, the Chechens took it as an opportunity: they elected Dudayev who wasted no time to declare Chechnya’s independence on Nov. 2, 1991. The Chechen’s defiant resolve ended in a gruesome war which began when in 1994 the Russians assaulted Grozny in the most brutal way. The Chechens’ fought bravely a terrible war and the Russians eventually pulled out in 1996.
The region then sank into complete chaos culminating in the murder of six foreign aid workers during their sleep. After this worst deliberate attack in the history of the Red Cross, most foreign charity workers left Chechnya after December 1996. Faced with no work and no alternative sources of income, many Chechen joined Basayev’s extremists’. According to the author, “he would be uniquely responsible both for prolonging the Chechen’s ability to resist the invading Russian forces, and for blackening his nation’s name in the eyes of the world. He himself admitted that he was a terrorist. Thanks to him, his whole nation was to be known as terrorists.”
A number of horrific apartment bombings in Moscow, in Volgodonsk and in the Dagestani town of Buynaksk, produced more than 300 casualties and caused the Russian troops to return to Chechnya. This violent onslaught ended with the death of 25,000 Chechens while about 200,000 fled into exile, almost 20 percent of the Chechen population. Unlike during the 1994-1996 war, Chechens did not unite to fight the enemy, they were split into various factions headed by Maskhadov, Kadyrov, Basayev and Khattab.
“It was a heavy price to pay for this handful of men’s failure to reach an agreement. And they are all to blame for that” says Oliver Bullough.
Chechens are still choosing to leave on their own accord. They have little to look for in a country with a lack of education, an economy in shambles, a land littered with mines and the risk of still being arrested. In 2008, Chechens were the third largest group seeking refuge behind Iraqis and Somalis. They head mainly for Austria, Poland and France and establish discreet communities. If the Chechens refuse to unite under the command of their exiled politicians, the Russian government refuses to compromise on the Chechens’ dream of independence and this has resulted in a wave of political killings which show no sign of abating.
“Let Our Fame Be Great” uncovers the little known history of the Caucasian Muslims and their continuous struggle for independence. The narrative moves backwards and forwards, highlighting the complexity of the region. Many of the events in the book have been described for the first time. Rich with anecdotes, personal memories, and a thorough research, Oliver Bullough brings to life the captivating history of people who have almost been completely forgotten. The Russians have obliterated in their minds all facts pertaining to their Caucasian wars but the Circassians, the mountain Turks, the Ingush, the Chechens and the others will never forget. And this book will help the rest of the world to remember the “defiant people of the Caucasus.”
