Who are the Chechens really? Chechens or Chechens. Part 2 Arrest, exile and martyrdom

In the late 12th or early 13th centuries, Christianity began to spread among the Chechens. His traces are still visible in the ruins of temples, on holidays: Kistins and Ingush celebrate the new year, the day of the prophet Elijah and Trinity Day. In many places they sacrifice rams in honor of the Holy Virgin, St. George and St. Marina.

In the early 18th century, the Chechens converted to Sunni Islam. In their religious customs, in addition to Christian and Mohammedan elements, the Chechens retained many elements of primitive paganism, among other things, the phallic cult. Often found in the country, small bronze naked priapic figurines are worshiped by men as guardians of the flocks, and by women who embrace them, begging for male children.

Among the Kists and Galgai we find an even more interesting custom. A childless woman goes to a hut with two exits, in which a priest, a representative of the matsel (mother of God), sits in one shirt and asks him to give children, after which she leaves through another exit, all the time facing the priest.

During their independence, the Chechens, in contrast, did not know the feudal system and class divisions. In their independent communities, governed by popular assemblies, everyone was absolutely equal.

We are all “bridles” (that is, free, equal), the Chechens say. Only a few tribes had khans, whose hereditary power dates back to the era of the Mohammedan invasion. This social organization (lack of aristocracy and equality) explains the unparalleled stamina of the Chechens in the long struggle against the Russians, which glorified their heroic death.

The only unequal element among the Chechens were prisoners of war who were in the position of personal slaves. They were divided into laevi yasir; the latter could be redeemed and returned to their homeland. The legal system represents the usual features of tribal life. Blood feud until recently was in full force.

The clothes of men are the usual clothes of the highlanders of the Caucasus: chekmen made of yellow or gray home-made cloth, beshmets or arkhaluks of different colors, mostly white in summer, cloth leggings and chiriki (a kind of shoes without soles). The elegant dress is sheathed with a braid. The weapon is the same as that of the Circassians, special attention is paid to its decoration. Women's costume is no different from the picturesque costume of the Tatars.

Chechens live in villages - auls. The houses are turluch, inside they are neat and bright, the houses of the mountain Chechens are stone and less neat. Windows without frames, but with shutters to protect against cold and wind. From the side of the entrance - a canopy to protect from rain and heat. For heating - fireplaces. Each house has a kunakskaya of several rooms, where the owner spends the whole day and returns to his family only in the evening. The house has a fenced-in yard.

In food, Chechens are moderate, content with urek, wheat stew, barbecue and corn porridge. Bread is baked in specially arranged round ovens in the yard.

The main occupations of the Chechens are cattle breeding, beekeeping, hunting and arable farming. Women, whose position is better than that of the Lezgins, are responsible for all household chores: they weave cloth, prepare carpets, felts, cloaks, sew dresses and shoes.

Appearance

Chechens are tall and well built. Women are beautiful. Anthropologically, the Chechens represent a mixed type. Eye color, for example, varies (in equal proportion) from black to more or less dark brown and from blue to more or less light green. The hair color also shows transitions from black to more or less dark blond. The nose is often upturned and concave. The facial index is 76.72 (Ingush) and 75.26 (Chechens).

In comparison with other Caucasian peoples, the Chechen group is distinguished by the greatest dolichocephaly. Among the Chechens proper, however, not only many subrachycephals are found, but also quite a few pure brachycephals with a head index from 84 and even up to 87.62.

Character

Chechens are considered cheerful, witty, impressionable people, but they are less sympathetic than the Circassians, due to their suspicion, inclination to deceit and severity, developed, probably, during the centuries of struggle. Indomitability, courage, dexterity, endurance, calmness in the fight are the traits of the Chechens, long recognized by everyone, even by their enemies.

More recently, the ideal of the Chechens is robbery. Stealing livestock, taking away women and children, even if for this you had to crawl tens of miles underground and risk your life in an attack, is a favorite thing for a Chechen. The most terrible reproach a girl can make to a young man is to tell him: “Get out, you are not even capable of stealing a ram!”

Chechens never beat their children, but not out of particular sentimentality, but out of fear of making them cowards. The deep attachment of the Chechens to their homeland is touching. Their exile songs (“O birds, fly to Little Chechnya, say hello to its inhabitants and say: when you hear a cry in the forest, think of us wandering among strangers without hope of an outcome!” and so on) are full of tragic poetry.

Chechens are a Caucasian people of the East Mountain group, who occupied the territory between the rivers Aksay, Sunzha and the Caucasus Range before the war. Now they live mixed with Russians in the Terek region, east of, between the Terek and the southern border of the region, from the Darial to the source of the Aktash River.
The Sunzha River divides the extremely fertile country of the Chechens into two parts: Greater Chechnya (high) and Lesser (lower). In addition to the Chechens themselves (in the Grozny district), which are divided into several different tribes, they include:

cysts;
Galgai;
Karabulaki;
The most hostile tribe to us, who completely moved to) and the Ichkerians.

All Chechens, not counting the Ingush, numbered 195 thousand people in 1887. The name "Chechens" originates from the name of the village of Bolshoy Chechen (on the Argun), which once served as the central point for all meetings at which military plans against Russia were discussed. The Chechens themselves call themselves "nakhchi", which translates as "people" or "people". The closest neighbors of the Chechens call them "Misjegs" (and Kumuks) and "Kists" ().

There is no data about the ancient fate of the Chechen tribe, except for fantastic legends about foreigners (Arabs), the founders of this people. Starting from the 16th century, the Chechens consistently fought against the Kumuks and, finally, against the Russians (from the beginning of the 17th century). In our historical acts, the name of the Chechens is found for the first time in the agreement between the Kalmyk Khan Ayuka and the Astrakhan governor Apraksin (1708).

Until 1840, the attitude of the Chechens towards Russia was more or less peaceful, but this year they betrayed their neutrality and, embittered by the demand from the Russians for the issuance of weapons, went over to the side of the famous Shamil, under whose leadership for almost 20 years they waged a desperate struggle against Russia, which cost the latter enormous sacrifices. The struggle ended with the mass emigration of one part of the Chechens to Turkey and the resettlement of the rest from the mountains. Despite the terrible disasters that befell the first immigrants, emigration did not stop.

10,000 (2007 estimate)
Georgia
4 000 (2007)
Kyrgyzstan
4 000 (2008)
Language: Chechen Religion: Islam Related peoples: Ingush, Batsbi

Chechens(self-name nokhchi, in units number - nohcho(translated as "Noah's people", "the people of Noah"; "Noh" / "Noah" - Noah, "Che" / "Chii" - the suffix of belonging. It may have passed from the form "tsIi" - blood, offspring) - the most numerous autochthonous people of the North Caucasus, numbering about 1.5 million worldwide, the main population of Chechnya.

resettlement

At the moment, the vast majority of Chechens live on the territory of the Russian Federation, namely, in the Chechen Republic. There were several settlements in the history of the Chechen people.

Anthropology

They belong to the Caucasian variant of the Balkan-Caucasian race of the large Caucasoid race.

Story

History of the ethnonym

The ethnonym "Chechens" is of Turkic origin, most likely from the village of Chechen-aul. Kabardians call them shashen, Ossetians - qætsæn, Avars - burtiel, Georgians - cysts, dzurdzuki.

Theories of the origin of the Chechens

The problem of the origin and the earliest stage in the history of the Chechens remains not completely clarified and debatable, although their deep autochthonism in the North-Eastern Caucasus and a larger territory of settlement in antiquity seem quite obvious. It is possible that the proto-Vainakh tribes moved from Transcaucasia to the north of the Caucasus, but the time, causes and circumstances of this migration, recognized by a number of scientists, remain at the level of assumptions and hypotheses.

Based on the research of V. M. Illich-Svitych and A. Yu. Militarev, a number of other major linguists, when correlating their data with archaeological materials, in particular A. K. Vekua, the fundamental works of T. V. Gamkrelidze and V. Ivanov, A. Arordi, M. Gavukchyan and others, one can come to the following conclusions regarding the origin and settlement of representatives of the ancient ethno-language of the Vainakhs.

Sino-Caucasian - within the Armenian Highlands and Anatolia - Armenian Mesopotamia (not only the ancient and some modern languages \u200b\u200bof the Mediterranean and the Caucasus, such as the Hittite, Hurrian, "Urartian", Abkhaz-Adyghe and Nakh-Dagestan, in particular Chechen, are genetically associated with it, Lezgi, etc., but also, oddly enough, the languages of the Sino-Tibetan group, including Chinese).

The Pranostratic community in its modern sense took shape in the Armenian Highlands. From its southeastern part, the descendants of representatives of the western area of the Sino-Caucasian community during the 9th-6th millennium BC. e. spread throughout the Northern Mediterranean, the Balkan-Danube region, the Black Sea and the Caucasus. Their relics are known as the Basques in the Pyrenees and the Adyghes or Chechens in the Caucasus mountains. The northern neighbors of the ancient Semites were the speakers of the ancient Anatolian-North Caucasian languages, represented mainly by two branches of the western, Hattian - in Asia Minor (with branches in the North Caucasus in the form of the linguistic ancestors of the Abkhaz-Adyghe peoples), and the eastern, Hurrian - in the Armenian Highlands ( with branches in the North Caucasus in the form of the ancestors of the Nakh-Dagestan peoples).

The written source about the ancient period in the history of the Vainakhs is the work of a prominent Armenian scientist and encyclopedist of the 6th century. Anania Shirakatsi "Armenian geography" in which the self-name of the Chechens "Nokhchamatians" is mentioned for the first time - people who speak Chechen:

The main trade routes connecting the peoples of Europe and the East passed through the territory of Chechnya, which occupies a very important strategic position. Archaeological excavations show that the ancestors of the Chechens had extensive trade and economic ties with the peoples of Asia and Europe.

Chechens in the history of Russia

The very name "Chechens" was a Russian transliteration of the Kabardian name "shashan" and came from the village of Bolshoy Chechen. From the beginning of the 18th century, Russian and Georgian sources began to call all the inhabitants of modern Chechnya "Chechens".

Even before the Caucasian War, at the beginning of the 18th century, after the Grebensky Cossacks left the Terek right bank, many Chechens who agreed to voluntarily accept Russian citizenship were given the opportunity to move there in and then in 1765.

During the Caucasian War, under the leadership of General Alexei Yermolov, the Sunzha line of fortifications was built, in -1822 on the site of some Chechen and Ingush villages. After the capture of Shamil, the destruction of a number of rebellious imams, and also with the transition under Field Marshal Ivan Paskevich to the “scorched earth” tactics, when the rebellious villages were completely destroyed and the population was completely destroyed, the organized resistance of the highlanders was suppressed in 1860.

But the end of the Caucasian war did not mean complete peace. A special dispute called for the land issue, which was far from in favor of the Chechens. Even by the end of the 19th century, when oil was found, the Chechens hardly got any income. The tsarist government managed to maintain relative calm in Chechnya due to the actual non-interference in the internal life of the mountaineers, bribing the tribal nobility, free distribution of flour, fabrics, leather, clothes to poor mountaineers; appointment of local authoritative elders, leaders of teips and tribes as officials.

Chechens are considered cheerful, witty ("French of the Caucasus"), impressionable, but they are less sympathetic than the Circassians, due to their suspicion, propensity for deceit and severity, developed, probably, during the centuries of struggle. Indomitability, courage, dexterity, endurance, calmness in the fight - the features of Ch., long recognized by everyone, even their enemies.

USSR

1990s and aftermath

Language

The Chechen language belongs to the Nakh branch of the Nakh-Dagestan languages, included in the hypothetical Sino-Caucasian macrofamily. It is distributed mainly in the Chechen Republic and in the Khasavyurtovsky, Novolaksky, Kazbekovsky, Babayurtovsky and Kizilyurtsky regions of Dagestan, as well as in Ingushetia and other regions of the Russian Federation and in Georgia, and partially in Syria, Jordan and Turkey. The number of speakers before the war 1994-2001 - approx. 1 million people (according to other sources, approx. 950 thousand). Planar, Shatoi, Akkin (Aukhovsky), Cheberloevsky, Sharoevsky, Melkhinsky, Itumkalinsky, Galanchozhsky and Kist dialects are distinguished. In phonetics, the Chechen language is characterized by complex vocalism (the opposition of simple and umlauted, long and short vowels, the presence of weak nasalized vowels, a large number of diphthongs and triphthongs), initial combinations of consonants, an abundance of morphonological alternations, primarily a change in vowel stems in various grammatical forms (ablaut ); in grammar - six nominal classes, multi-case declension; the composition of verbal categories and ways of expressing them are common for East Caucasian languages. Syntax is characterized by the widespread use of participial and participle constructions.

The literary Chechen language took shape in the 20th century. based on the flat dialect. Until 1925, writing in the Chechen language existed on an Arabic basis, in 1925-1938 - on Latin, from 1938 - on the basis of Russian graphics using one additional character I (it has a different meaning after different letters), as well as some digraphs (kh, ab, tI, etc.) and trigraphs (yy). The composition of digraphs in the Chechen alphabet is similar to the alphabets of the Dagestan languages, but their meanings are often different. Since 1991, attempts have been made to return to the Latin script. The first monographic description of Chechen was created in the 1860s by P. K. Uslar; Subsequently, a significant contribution to the study of the Chechen language was made by N. F. Yakovlev, Z. K. Malsagov, A. G. Matsiev, T. I. Desherieva and other researchers.

It is the official language of the Chechen Republic.

Religion

Chechen teip- This is a community of people related to each other by blood relationship on the paternal side. Each of them had their own communal lands and a teip mountain (from the name of which the name of the teip often came). Teips within themselves are divided into "gars" (branches) and "nekyi" - surnames. Chechen teips are united in nine tukhums, a kind of territorial unions. Blood relations among the Chechens served the goals of economic and military unity.

In the middle of the 19th century, the Chechen society consisted of 135 teips. Currently, they are divided into mountainous (about 100 teips) and plains (about 70 teips).

Currently, representatives of one teip live dispersed. Large teips are distributed throughout Chechnya.

List of tukhums and their teips:

Akkintsy

1. Akkoy, 2. Barchakhoy, 3. Vyappy, 4. Zhevoy, 5. Zogoy, 6. Nokkhoy, 7. Pkharchakhoy, 8. Pkharchoy, 9. Yalkhoroy

Melchi

1. Byasty, 2. Binasthoy, 3. Zharkhoy, 4. Kamalkhoy, 5. Kegankhoy, 6. Korathoy (Khorathoy), 7. Meshiy, 8. Sahankhoy, 9. Terthoy

Nokhchmakhkahoy

1. Aleroy, 2. Aitkhaloy, 3. Belgatoy, 4. Benoy, 5. Bilttoy (Beltoy), 6. Gordaloy, 7. Gendargenoy, 8. Guna, 9. Dattykhoy, 10. Zandakoy, 11. Ikhirkhoy, 12. Ishkhoy , 13. Kurchaloy, 14. Sesankhoy, 15. Singalkhoy, 16. Kharachoy, 17. Ts1ontaroy (Tsentoroi), 18. Chartoy, 19. Chermoy, 20. Shirdi, 21. Shuonoy, 22. Egashbatoy, 23. Elistanzhkhoy, 24. Enakhaloy, 25. Enganoy, 26. Ersenoy, 27. Yalkhoy. 28. Sarbloy

TIerloy

1. Bavloi, 2. Beshni, 3. Zherakhoy, 4. Kenakhoy (Khenakhoy), 5. Matsarkhoy, 6. Nikara, 7. Oshny, 8. Sanahoy, 9. Shuidy, 10. Eltparkhoy.

Chanty (Chech. ChIantty)

1.Chantiy (Chech. Chianty). 2. Dishny. 3.Zumsoy. 4.Hachara. 5. Hildehyaroy. 6. Khokkhtoy 7. Kherakhoy.

Cheberloy

One of the oldest settlers on the Chechen land, according to the stories of historians and linguists Krupnov.Karts. 1. Arstkhoi, 2. Acheloi, 3. Baskhoi, 4. Begacherkhoi, 5. Barefoot, 6. Bunikhoi, 7. Gulatkhoi, 8. Dai, 9. Zhelashkhoi, 10. Zuirkhoi, 11. Ikhara, 12. Kezenoi, 13. Kiri, 14. Kuloy, 15. Lashkaroi, 16. Makazhoy, 17. Nokhchi-keloy, 18. Nuikhoi, 19. Oskhara, 20. Rigakhoy, 21. Sadoy, 22. Salbyuroy, 23. Sandakhoy, 24. Sikkha, 25. Sirkhoy, 26. Tundukhoy, 27. Harkaloy, 28. Khindoy, 29. Khoy, 30. Tsikaroy, 31. Chebyakhkinkhoy, 32. Cheremakhkhoy 33. Nizhaloy, 34. Orsoy,

Sharoy

1. Buti, 2. Dunarkhoy, 3. Jogalda, 4. Ikaroy, 5. Kachekhoy, 6. Kevaskhoy, 7. Kinkhoy, 8. Kiri, 9. Mazukhoy, 10. Serchikha, 11. Khashalkhoy, 12. Himoy, 13. Hinduhoy, 14. Khikhoy, 15. Hulandoy, 16. Hyakmada, 17. Cheyroy, 18. Shikaroy, 19. Tsesi.

Shatoy

1. Varanda, 2. Vashindara, 3. Gatta, 4. Gorgachkha, 5. Dehesta, 6. Kela, 7. Muskulkha, 8. Marsha, 9. Nihaloi, 10. Memory, 11. Row, 12. Sanoi, 13. Satta (Sada), 14. Tumsa (Dumsoy), 15. Urdyukha, 16. Hakkoy, 17. Khalkeloy, 18. Khalg1i, 19. Harsenoy.

Empress Alexandra Feodorovna Romanova... Her personality in Russian history is very ambiguous. On the one hand, a loving wife, mother, and on the other, a princess, categorically not accepted by Russian society. A lot of mysteries and mysteries are connected with Alexandra Fedorovna: her passion for mysticism, on the one hand, and deep faith, on the other. Researchers attribute to her the responsibility for the tragic fate of the imperial house. What mysteries does the biography of Alexandra Fedorovna Romanova keep? What is its role in the fate of the country? We will answer in the article.

Childhood

Alexandra Fedorovna Romanova was born on June 7, 1872. The parents of the future Russian Empress were the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt Ludwig and the English Princess Alice. The girl was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and this relationship will play an important role in the formation of the character of Alexandra.

Her full name is Victoria Alix Elena Louise Beatrice (in honor of her aunts). In addition to Alix (as the relatives called the girl), the duke's family had seven children.

Alexandra (later Romanova) received a classical English education, she was brought up in strict traditions. Modesty was in everything: in everyday life, food, clothing. Even the children slept in soldiers' beds. Already at this time, shyness can be traced in the girl, all her life she will struggle with natural shading in an unfamiliar society. At home, Alix was unrecognizable: nimble, smiling, she earned herself a middle name - “sun”.

But childhood was not so cloudless: first, a brother dies as a result of an accident, then her younger sister Mei and Princess Alice, Alix's mother, die of diphtheria. This was the impetus for the fact that the six-year-old girl withdrew into herself, became aloof.

Youth

After the death of her mother, according to Alexandra herself, a dark cloud hung over her and obscured all her sunny childhood. She is sent to England to live with her grandmother, the reigning Queen Victoria. Naturally, state affairs took away all the time from the latter, so the upbringing of children was entrusted to the governess. Later, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna would not forget the lessons she received in her youth.

Margaret Jackson - that was the name of her tutor and teacher - moved away from stiff Victorian mores, she taught the girl to think, reflect, form and voice her opinion. Classical education did not provide for versatile development, but by the age of fifteen, the future Empress Alexandra Romanova understood politics, history, played music well and knew several foreign languages.

It was in his youth, at the age of twelve, that Alix first met his future husband Nikolai. This happened at the wedding of her sister and Grand Duke Sergei. Three years later, at the invitation of the latter, she again comes to Russia. Nikolai was subdued by the girl.

Wedding with Nicholas II

Nikolai's parents were not happy with the union of young people - in their opinion, the wedding with the daughter of the French Count Louis-Philippe was more profitable for him. For lovers, a long five years of separation begins, but this circumstance has rallied them even more and taught them to appreciate the feeling.

Nikolai does not want to accept the will of his father in any way, he continues to insist on marriage with his beloved. The current emperor has to give in: he feels the approaching illness, and the heir must have a party. But here, too, Alix, who received the name Alexandra Fedorovna Romanova after the coronation, faced a serious test: she had to accept Orthodoxy and leave Lutheranism. She studied the basics for two years, after which she is converted to the Russian faith. It should be said that Alexandra entered Orthodoxy with an open heart and pure thoughts.

The marriage of the young took place on November 27, 1894, again, it was conducted by John of Kronstadt. The sacrament took place in the church of the Winter Palace. Everything happens against the backdrop of mourning, because 3 days after Alix's arrival in Russia, Alexander III dies (many then said that she "came for the coffin"). Alexandra notes in a letter to her sister a striking contrast between grief and great triumph - this rallied the spouses even more. Everyone, even haters of the imperial family, subsequently noticed the strength of the union and the fortitude of the spirit of Alexandra Feodorovna and Nicholas II.

The blessing of the young couple on the board (coronation) took place on May 27, 1896 in the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow. From that time on, Alix the “sun” acquired the title of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna Romanova. She later noted in her diary that this was the second wedding - with Russia.

Place at court and in political life

From the very first day of her reign, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna has been a support and support for her husband in his difficult state affairs.

In public life, a young woman tried to encourage people to charity, because she absorbed this from her parents as a child. Unfortunately, her ideas were not accepted at court; moreover, the empress was hated. In all her sentences and even facial expressions, the courtiers saw deceit and unnaturalness. But in fact, they were just used to idleness and did not want to change anything.

Of course, like any woman and wife, Alexandra Romanova had an effect on her husband's state activities.

Many prominent politicians of that time noted that she negatively influenced Nicholas. Such was the opinion, for example, of S. Witte. And General A. Mosolov and Senator V. Gurko state with regret the non-acceptance of it by Russian society. Moreover, the latter blames not the capricious character and some nervousness of the current empress, but the widow of Alexander III, Maria Feodorovna, who did not fully accept her daughter-in-law.

Nevertheless, her subjects obeyed her, not out of fear, but out of respect. Yes, she was strict, but she was the same in relation to herself. Alix never forgot her requests and instructions, each of them was clearly considered and balanced. She was sincerely loved by those who were close to the empress, knew her not by hearsay, but deeply personally. For the rest, the empress remained a "dark horse" and the subject of gossip.

There were also very warm reviews about Alexander. So, the ballerina (by the way, she was Nikolai's mistress before the latter's wedding with Alix) mentions her as a woman of high morals and a broad soul.

Children: Grand Duchesses

The first Grand Duchess Olga was born in 1895. The people's dislike for the Empress increased even more, because everyone was waiting for the boy, the heir. Alexandra, not finding a response and support for her undertakings from her subjects, completely delves into family life, she even feeds her daughter on her own, without using the services of anyone else, which was atypical even for noble families, not to mention for the empress.

Later, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia are born. Nikolai Alexandrovich and Alexandra Fedorovna raised their children in simplicity and purity of spirit. It was an ordinary family, devoid of any arrogance.

Tsarina Alexandra Romanova herself was engaged in education. The only exceptions were subjects of a narrow focus. Great attention was paid to sports games in the fresh air, sincerity. The mother was the person to whom the girls could turn at any moment and with any request. They lived in an atmosphere of love and absolute trust. It was an absolutely happy, sincere family.

Girls grew up in an atmosphere of modesty and goodwill. Mother independently ordered dresses for them in order to protect them from excessive wastefulness and to cultivate meekness and chastity. They very rarely attended social events. Their access to society was limited only by the requirements of palace etiquette. Alexandra Feodorovna, the wife of Nicholas 2, was afraid that the spoiled daughters of the nobility would adversely affect the girls.

Alexandra Fedorovna coped brilliantly with the function of the mother. The Grand Duchesses grew up as unusually pure, sincere young ladies. In general, an extraordinary spirit of Christian splendor reigned in the family. This was noted in their diaries by both Nicholas II and Alexander Romanov. The quotes below only confirm the above information:

“Our love and our life are one whole ... Nothing can separate us or reduce our love” (Alexandra Fedorovna).

“The Lord blessed us with a rare family happiness” (Emperor Nicholas II).

Birth of an heir

The only thing that marred the life of the spouses was the absence of an heir. Alexandra Romanova was very worried about this. On such days she became especially nervous. Trying to understand the cause and solve the problem, the empress begins to get involved in mysticism and even more hits on religion. This is reflected in her husband, Nicholas II, because he feels the mental anguish of his beloved woman.

It was decided to attract the best doctors. Unfortunately, among them was a real charlatan, Philip. Arriving from France, he inspired the Empress with thoughts of pregnancy so much that she really believed that she was carrying an heir. Alexandra Feodorovna developed a very rare disease - "false pregnancy". When it turned out that the belly of the Russian tsarina was growing under the influence of a psycho-emotional state, an official announcement had to be made that there would be no heir. Philip is expelled from the country in disgrace.

A little later, Alix nevertheless conceives and gives birth on August 12, 1904 to a boy - Tsarevich Alexei.

But she did not receive the long-awaited happiness of Alexander Romanov. Her biography says that the life of the Empress from that moment becomes tragic. The fact is that the boy is diagnosed with a rare disease - hemophilia. This is a hereditary disease, the carrier of which is a woman. Its essence is that the blood does not clot. A person is overcome by constant pain and seizures. The most famous carrier of the hemophilia gene was Queen Victoria, nicknamed the grandmother of Europe. For this reason, this disease has received such names: "Victorian disease" and "royal disease". With the best care, the heir could live up to a maximum of 30 years, on average, patients rarely crossed the age barrier of 16 years.

Rasputin in the life of the Empress

In some sources, you can find information that only one person, Grigory Rasputin, could help Tsarevich Alexei. Although this disease is considered chronic and incurable, there is a lot of evidence that the "man of God" could allegedly stop the suffering of an unfortunate child with his prayers. What explains this is hard to say. It should be noted that the illness of the Tsarevich was a state secret. From this we can conclude how much the imperial family trusted this uncouth Tobolsk peasant.

A lot has been written about the relationship between Rasputin and the Empress: some attribute to him exclusively the role of the savior of the heir, others - a love affair with Alexandra Feodorovna. The latest conjectures are not unfounded - the then society was sure of the adultery of the Empress, rumors circulated around the betrayal of the Empress to Nicholas II and Gregory. After all, the elder himself spoke about this, but then he was pretty drunk, so he could easily pass off wishful thinking. And for the birth of gossip, much is not needed. According to his inner circle, who did not harbor hatred for the august couple, the main reason for the close relationship between Rasputin and the imperial family was exclusively Alexei's bouts of hemophilia.

And how did Nikolai Alexandrovich feel about rumors discrediting the pure name of his wife? He considered all this nothing more than fiction and an inappropriate interference in the private life of the family. The emperor himself considered Rasputin "a simple Russian man, very religious and faithful."

One thing is known for certain: the royal family had deep sympathy for Gregory. They were among the few who sincerely grieved after the murder of the elder.

Romanov during the war

The First World War forced Nicholas II to leave St. Petersburg for Headquarters. State concerns were taken over by Alexandra Fedorovna Romanova. The empress pays special attention to charity. She perceived the war as her personal tragedy: she sincerely grieved, seeing off the soldiers to the front, and mourned the dead. She read prayers over each new grave of a fallen warrior, as if he were her relative. We can safely say that Alexandra Romanova received the title of "Saint" during her lifetime. This is the time when Alix is more and more attached to Orthodoxy.

It would seem that the rumors should subside: the country is suffering from war. No, they have become even more cruel. For example, she was accused of being addicted to spiritualism. This could not be true, because even then the empress was a deeply religious person, rejecting everything otherworldly.

Help to the country during the war was not limited to prayers. Together with her daughters, Alexandra mastered the skills of nurses: they began to work at the hospital, helping surgeons (assisted in operations), carried out all kinds of care for the wounded.

Every day at half past ten in the morning their service began: along with other sisters of mercy, the empress cleaned up amputated limbs, dirty clothes, bandaged severe wounds, including gangrenous ones. This was alien to the representatives of the upper nobility: they collected donations for the front, visited hospitals, opened medical institutions. But none of them worked in operating rooms, as the empress did. And all this despite the fact that she was tormented by problems with her own health, undermined by nervous experiences and frequent childbirth.

The royal palaces were converted into hospitals, Alexandra Fedorovna personally formed sanitary trains and warehouses for medicines. She vowed that while the war was going on, neither she nor the Grand Duchesses would sew a single dress for themselves. And she remained true to her word to the end.

Spiritual image of Alexandra Romanova

Was Alexander Romanov really a deeply religious person? Photos and portraits of the Empress, which have survived to this day, always show the sad eyes of this woman, some kind of grief lurked in them. Even in her youth, she accepted the Orthodox faith with full devotion, refusing Lutheranism, on the truths of which she was brought up from childhood.

Life shocks make her closer to God, she often retires for prayers when she tries to conceive a boy, then - when she finds out about her son's fatal illness. And during the war, she passionately prays for the soldiers, the wounded and those who died for the Motherland. Every day, before her service in the hospital, Alexandra Fedorovna sets aside a certain time for prayers. For these purposes, a special prayer room is even allocated in the Tsarskoye Selo Palace.

However, her service to God consisted not only in zealous pleas: the empress launched a truly large-scale charitable work. She organized an orphanage, a nursing home, and numerous hospitals. She found time for her maid of honor, who had lost the ability to walk: she talked with her about God, spiritually instructed and supported her every day.

Alexandra Fedorovna never flaunted her faith; most often, on trips around the country, she visited churches and hospitals incognito. She could easily merge with the crowd of believers, because her actions were natural, came from the heart. Religion was for Alexandra Feodorovna a purely personal matter. Many at court tried to find notes of hypocrisy in the queen, but they did not succeed.

So was her husband, Nicholas II. They loved God and Russia with all their hearts, they could not imagine another life outside of Russia. They did not distinguish between people, did not draw a line between titled persons and ordinary people. Most likely, this is why an ordinary Tobolsk peasant, Grigory Rasputin, at one time “got accustomed” in the imperial family.

Arrest, exile and martyrdom

Alexandra Fedorovna ends her life by martyrdom in the Ipatiev House, where the emperor's family was exiled after the 1917 revolution. Even in the face of approaching death, being under the muzzles of the firing squad, she made the sign of the cross over herself.

"Russian Golgotha" was predicted to the imperial family more than once, they lived with it all their lives, knowing that everything would end very sadly for them. They submitted to the will of God and thus defeated the forces of evil. The royal couple was buried only in 1998.

“The martyrdom of the royal family, and even more so the unspeakable moral torments experienced by it, endured with such courage and high spirits, oblige us to treat the memory of the late Sovereign and his wife with special reverence and caution.”

Gurko Vladimir Iosifovich

As you know, the wife of the last Emperor of Russia Nicholas II was the beloved granddaughter of the English Queen Victoria - Princess Victoria Alice Elena Louise Beatrice of Hesse-Darmstadt. She was the fourth daughter of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, and Duchess Alice, daughter of Queen Victoria of England.

In the history of Russia, the German princess Alice of Hesse was remembered as Alexandra Feodorovna, the last Empress of Russia.

The magazine site has prepared 20 interesting and short facts about the life of one of the most powerful and noble, highly moral women of the 20th century - Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.

The name given to her consisted of her mother's name (Alice) and the four names of her aunts. Alice was considered the favorite granddaughter of Queen Victoria, who called her Sunny("Sun"). Nicholas II very often called her Alix - a derivative of Alice and Alexander.

kinship

Nicholas II and Princess Alice were distant relatives, being descendants of German dynasties; and their marriage, to put it mildly, "had no right to exist." For example, along the line of her father, Alexandra Feodorovna was both a fourth cousin (a common ancestor is the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm II) and a second cousin of Nicholas (a common ancestor is Wilhelmina of Baden). In addition, the parents of Nicholas II were the godparents of Princess Alice.

Love story

The love story of the Russian Tsar and the granddaughter of the English Queen begins in 1884. He is a sixteen-year-old youth, slender, blue-eyed, with a modest and slightly sad smile. She is a twelve-year-old girl, like him, with blue eyes and beautiful golden hair. The meeting took place at the wedding of her older sister Elizabeth (the future Great Martyr) with Nikolai's uncle, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. Both Nikolai and Alice (as the future Russian Tsarina was then called) from the very beginning felt deep sympathy for each other. Nikolai gives her a precious brooch, and she, brought up in puritanical morality, in embarrassment and shyness, does not dare to take it and returns it to him.

Their second meeting takes place only five years later, when Alice comes to Russia to visit her older sister. But all this time, Nikolai remembers her. “I have loved her for a long time, and since she stayed in St. Petersburg for six weeks in 1889, I love her even more deeply and sincerely.” Nikolai's cherished dream is to marry Alice. However, Nikolai's parents have other plans.

Marriage

In 1889, when the heir to the Tsarevich was twenty-one years old, he turned to his parents with a request to bless him for marriage with Princess Alice. The answer of Emperor Alexander III was short: “You are very young, there is still time for marriage, and, in addition, remember the following: you are the heir to the Russian throne, you are engaged to Russia, and we will still have time to find a wife.”

Against the marriage of Alice and Tsarevich Nicholas were Queen Victoria and the latter's parents, who hoped for his marriage to a more enviable bride - Helen of Orleans, daughter of Louis Philippe, Count of Paris. (Bourbon dynasty) However, Tsarevich Nikolai is by nature soft and timid, in matters of the heart he was adamant, persistent and firm. Nicholas, always obedient to the will of his parents, in this case painfully disagrees with them, declaring that if he fails to marry Alice, he will never marry at all. In the end, the parents' consent to kinship with the English crown was obtained ... True, other circumstances contributed more to this - the sudden severe illness of Emperor Alexander III, who died suddenly a month before the wedding of lovers, and the full support of Princess Alice's sister - Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna and her husband, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich (5th son of Emperor Alexander II)

"Happy only in the circle of relatives and friends"

When the girl was 6 years old, a tragedy occurred in the family - she fell ill with diphtheria and her mother and sister died. The girl remembered for the rest of her life how an oppressive silence reigned in the palace, which was broken by the crying of the nanny behind the wall of little Alice's room. They took away the toys from the girl and burned them - they were afraid that she would become infected. Of course, the next day they brought new toys. But it was no longer the same - something loved and familiar was gone. The event connected with the death of the mother and sister left a fatal mark on the character of the child. Instead of openness, closure and restraint began to prevail in her behavior, instead of sociability - shyness, instead of smiling - external seriousness and even coldness. Only in the circle of the closest people, and there were only a few of them, she became the same - joyful and open. These character traits remained with her forever and dominated even when she became the Empress. The Empress felt happy only among her own.

"Royal Illness"

Alice inherited the hemophilia gene from Queen Victoria.

Hemophilia, or "royal disease", is a severe manifestation of a genetic pathology that struck the royal houses of Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. Thanks to dynastic marriages, this disease spread to Russia. The disease manifests itself in a decrease in blood clotting, therefore, in patients with any, even minor, bleeding, it is almost impossible to stop.

The difficulty of registering this disease is that it manifests itself only in men, and women, remaining outwardly healthy, transfer the affected gene to the next generation.

From Alexandra Feodorovna, the disease was passed on to her son, Grand Duke Alexei, who from early childhood suffered from heavy bleeding, who, even with a fortunate combination of circumstances, would never have been able to continue the great Romanov family.

Grandmother and granddaughter

Queen Victoria and her family. Coburg, April 1894. Sitting next to the Queen is her daughter Vicki with her granddaughter Theo. Charlotte, Theo's mother, stands right of center, third from the right of her uncle the Prince of Wales (he is in a white tunic). To the left of Queen Victoria is her grandson Kaiser Wilhelm II, directly behind them are Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich and his bride, nee Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt (six months later they will become the Russian emperor and empress)

The Queen of England loved her granddaughter very much and took care of her upbringing in every possible way. The castle of the Duke of Darmstadt was saturated with the “atmosphere of good old England”. English landscapes and portraits of relatives from foggy Albion hung on the walls. Education was conducted by English mentors and mainly in English. The Queen of England constantly sent her instructions and advice to her granddaughter. Puritan morality was brought up in a girl from the very first years. Even the cuisine was English - almost every day rice pudding with apples, and at Christmas goose and, of course, plume pudding and a traditional sweet pie.

Alice received the best education for those times. She knew literature, art, spoke several languages, took a philosophy course at Oxford.

Beautiful and kind

Both in her youth and in adulthood, the Queen was very pretty. This was noted by everyone (even enemies). As one of the courtiers described her: “The Empress was very beautiful ... tall, slender, with a magnificently set head. But all this was nothing in comparison with the look of her gray-blue eyes, amazingly lively, reflecting all her excitement ... ”. And here is a description of the Tsaritsa, made by her closest friend Vyrubova: “Tall, with thick golden hair that reached her knees, she, like a girl, constantly blushed from shyness; her eyes, huge and deep, animated with conversation and laughed. At home, she was given the nickname "sun". More than all the jewels, the Queen loved pearls. She adorned them with her hair, and hands, and dresses.

Kindness was the main character trait of the Queen, and her desire to help everyone around her was constant.

Her kindness to her husband and children oozes from every line of her letter. She is ready to sacrifice everything to make her husband and children feel good.

If any of the acquaintances, not to mention those close to the Queen, had difficulties, misfortunes, she immediately responded. She helped both with a warm sympathetic word and financially. Sensitive to any suffering, she took someone else's misfortune and pain to heart. If someone from the infirmary, in which she worked as a nurse, died or became disabled, the Tsaritsa tried to help his family, sometimes continuing to do so even from Tobolsk. The queen constantly remembered the wounded who passed through her infirmary, not forgetting to regularly commemorate all the dead.

When Anna Vyrubova (the closest friend of the Empress, an admirer of Grigory Rasputin) had a misfortune (she got into a railway accident), the Tsarina sat at her bedside for days and actually left her friend.

"White Rose", "Verbena" and "Atkinson"

The empress, like any woman "with position and opportunities", paid great attention to her appearance. At the same time, there were nuances. So, the Empress practically did not use cosmetics and did not curl her hair. Only on the eve of the big palace exits did the hairdresser, with her permission, use curling tongs. The Empress did not get manicures "because His Majesty could not stand manicured nails." Of the perfumes, the Empress preferred the "White Rose" perfume company "Atkinson". They are, according to her, transparent, without any impurity and infinitely fragrant. She used "Verbena" as toilet water.

Sister of Mercy

Alexandra Fedorovna during the First World War took up activities that were simply unthinkable for a person of her rank and position. She not only patronized sanitary detachments, established and took care of infirmaries, including those in Tsarskoye Selo palaces, but together with her older daughters she graduated from paramedic courses and began working as a nurse. The Empress washed the wounds, made dressings, assisted in operations. She did this not to advertise her own person (which distinguished many representatives of high society), but at the call of her heart. The "infirmary service" did not cause understanding in the aristocratic salons, where they believed that it "detracts from the prestige of the highest authority."

Subsequently, this patriotic initiative led to many bad rumors about the obscene behavior of the queen and two senior princesses. The Empress was proud of her activities, in the photographs she and her daughters were depicted in the form of the Red Cross. There were postcards with a photograph of the queen assisting the surgeon during the operation. But, contrary to expectations, it caused condemnation. It was considered obscene for girls to court naked men. In the eyes of many monarchists, the queen, “washing the feet of the soldiers,” lost her royalty. Some court ladies stated: “The ermine mantle was more suitable for the Empress than the dress of a sister of mercy”

Faith

According to contemporaries, the empress was deeply religious. The church was the main consolation for her, especially at a time when the heir's illness worsened. The empress stood full services in the court churches, where she introduced the monastic (longer) liturgical charter. Alexandra's room in the palace was a combination of the empress's bedroom with the nun's cell. The huge wall adjacent to the bed was completely hung with icons and crosses.

last will

Today it is reliably known that the royal family could have been saved by the diplomatic efforts of European countries. Nicholas II was laconic in his assessment of possible emigration: “In such a difficult time, not a single Russian should leave Russia,” Alexandra Feodorovna’s moods were no less critical: “I prefer to die in Russia than to be saved by the Germans.” In 1981, Alexandra Feodorovna and all members of the royal family were canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, in August 2000 - by the Russian Orthodox Church.

"The Rapture of Power"

Alexandra Feodorovna was full of initiative and longed for a lively cause. Her mind constantly worked in the field of those issues to which she had a concern, and she experienced rapture with power, which her royal husband did not have. Nicholas II forced himself to engage in state affairs, but in essence they did not capture him. The pathos of power was alien to him. Ministerial reports were a heavy burden for him.

In all the specific questions accessible to her understanding, the Empress understood perfectly, and her decisions were as businesslike as they were definite.
All the persons who had business relations with her unanimously asserted that it was impossible to report any matter to her without first studying it. She posed many specific and very practical questions to her speakers, concerning the very essence of the subject, and went into all the details and in the conclusion she gave instructions as authoritative as they were precise.

Unpopularity

Despite the sincere efforts of the Empress in the cause of mercy, there were rumors among the people that Alexandra Feodorovna defended the interests of Germany. By personal order of the sovereign, a secret investigation was carried out into "slanderous rumors about the relations of the Empress with the Germans and even about her betrayal of the Motherland." It has been established that rumors about the desire for a separate peace with the Germans, the transfer of Russian military plans by the Empress to the Germans, were spread by the German General Staff.

A contemporary, who personally knew the queen, wrote in her diary: “The rumor ascribes all the failures, all the changes in appointments to the empress. Her hair stands on end: no matter what she is accused of, each layer of society from its own point of view, but the general, friendly impulse is dislike and distrust.

Indeed, the "German Queen" was suspected of Germanophilia. Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich wrote: “It is amazing how unpopular poor Alike is. It can certainly be asserted that she did absolutely nothing to give reason to suspect her of sympathy for the Germans, but everyone is trying to say that she sympathizes with them. The only thing you can blame her for is that she failed to be popular.

There was a rumor about the "German party", rallied around the Queen. In such a situation, the Russian general said to the British at the beginning of 1917: “What can we do? We have Germans everywhere. The Empress is German. These sentiments also affected members of the royal family. Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich wrote to the tsar’s mother in September 1914: “I made a whole graphic, where I noted the influences: Hessian, Prussian, Mecklenburg, Oldenburg, etc., and most harmful of all I recognize the Hessian ones on Alexandra Feodorovna, who remained German in her soul , was against the war until the last Minute and tried in every possible way to delay the moment of the break.

The queen could not help but know about such rumors: “Yes, I am more Russian than many others ...” - she wrote to the king. But nothing could prevent the spread of speculation. The noblewoman M. I. Baranovskaya said in the volost government: “Our empress cries when the Russians beat the Germans, and rejoices when the Germans win.”

After the abdication of the sovereign, the Extraordinary Investigation Commission under the Provisional Government tried and failed to establish the guilt of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna in any crimes.

Comparison with Catherine II

During the war years, the intervention of the queen in state affairs increased. This violated established traditions and lowered the authority of Nicholas II. But the rumors, of course, exaggerated the influence of the empress: "The emperor reigns, but the empress, inspired by Rasputin, rules," the French ambassador M. Paleolog wrote in his diary in July 1916.

In post-revolutionary pamphlets, she was called "Autocrat of the All-Russian Alice of Hesse." Friends of the Empress allegedly called her "the new Catherine the Great", which was played up in satirical texts:

Ah, I made a number of plans,
To become "Catherine"
And Hesse I am Petrograd
I dreamed of calling over time.

Comparison with Catherine II could give rise to other historical parallels. It was said that the empress was preparing a coup in order to become regent with her young son: she de "intends to play the same role in relation to her husband that Catherine played in relation to Peter III." Rumors about the regency (sometimes even about the joint regency of the empress and Rasputin) appear no later than September 1915. In the winter of 1917, there were rumors that the tsarina had already assumed some formal function of regent.

After February, the statements about the omnipotence of the queen were confirmed by the assessments of authoritative contemporaries. declared: “All power was in the hands of Alexandra Fedorovna and her ardent supporters. The empress imagined that she was the second Catherine the Great, and the salvation and reorganization of Russia depended on her.

Family life lessons

In her diaries and letters, the Empress reveals the secret of family happiness. Her family life lessons are still popular today. In our time, when the most elementary human concepts of duty, honor, conscience, responsibility, fidelity are called into question, and sometimes simply ridiculed, reading these records can be a real spiritual event. Advice, warnings to spouses, thoughts about true and imaginary love, reflections on the relationship of the closest relatives, evidence of the decisive importance of the home atmosphere in the moral development of the child's personality - these are the range of ethical problems that concern the Queen.

All are equal before God

Alexandra Feodorovna with her daughters

A lot of evidence has been preserved that the king and queen were unusually easy to deal with soldiers, peasants, orphans - in a word, with any person. It is also known that the Queen inspired her children that everyone is equal before God, and one should not be proud of their position. Following these moral guidelines, she closely followed the upbringing of her children and made every effort to ensure their comprehensive development and strengthening of the highest spiritual and moral principles in them.

Languages

As you know, the Empress knew two languages before her marriage - French and English; there is no information about the knowledge of the German language of a German by origin in the biography of the princess. Obviously, this is due to the fact that Alix was brought up personally by Queen Victoria, as the favorite granddaughter of the latter.

After her marriage, Princess Alix had to learn the language of her new homeland within a short period of time and get used to her way of life and customs. During the coronation in May 1896, after the disaster at the Khodynka field, Alexandra Fedorovna went around the hospitals and "asked in Russian." Baroness S.K. Buxhoevden claimed (obviously exaggerating) that the Empress was fluent in Russian and “could speak it without the slightest foreign accent, however, for many years she was afraid to talk in Russian, afraid to make some mistake.” Another memoirist, who also met Alexandra Fedorovna in 1907, recalled that "she speaks Russian with a noticeable English accent." On the other hand, according to one of the people closest to the Empress, Captain 1st Rank N.P. Sablina, "she spoke good Russian, although with a noticeable German accent."

Despite some disagreement between the memoirists, we can confidently state that Alexandra Fedorovna coped with all the difficulties of the Russian language and confidently mastered it. Nicholas II contributed to this to a large extent, for many years he found time to read Russian classics aloud to her. That is how she acquired considerable knowledge in the field of Russian literature. Moreover, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna also mastered the Old Church Slavonic language. The pious Empress regularly attended church services, and liturgical books formed the basis of her personal library in the Alexander Palace.

Nevertheless, in most cases, the Empress, for ease of communication with her husband, preferred English to Russian.

Charity

From the first days of anointing, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna Romanova wanted to slightly change the life of high Russian society. Her first project was the organization of a circle of needlewomen. Each of the court ladies who were in the circle had to sew three dresses a year and send them to the poor. True, the existence of the circle was short-lived.

Alexandra Fedorovna was an ascetic of charitable assistance. After all, she knew firsthand what love and pain are. In 1898, during the outbreak of famine, she donated 50,000 rubles from her personal funds for the starving. She also provided all possible assistance to needy mothers. With the beginning of the First World War, the Empress donated all her funds to help the widows of soldiers, the wounded and orphans. At the height of the war, the Tsarskoye Selo hospital was converted to receive wounded soldiers. As mentioned above, Alexandra Feodorovna, together with her daughters Olga and Tatyana, were trained in nursing by Princess V.I. Gedrots, and then assisted her in operations as surgical nurses. At the initiative of the Empress, workhouses, schools for nurses, a school of folk art, orthopedic clinics for sick children were created in the Russian Empire.

By the beginning of 1909, 33 charitable societies were under her patronage., communities of sisters of mercy, shelters, shelters and similar institutions, including: the Committee for Finding Places for Military Ranks Suffered in the War with Japan, the House of Charity for the Mutilated Soldiers, the Imperial Women's Patriotic Society, the Guardianship of Labor Assistance, the school of nannies of Her Majesty in Tsarskoye Selo, the Peterhof Society for Helping the Poor, the Society for Helping the Poor with Clothes in St. Petersburg, the Brotherhood in the name of the Queen of Heaven for the charity of idiotic and epileptic children, the Alexandria Women's Shelter and others.

Alexandra Novaya

In 1981, Alexandra Fedorovna and all members of the royal family were canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, in August 2000 - by the Russian Orthodox Church.

During the canonization, Alexandra Feodorovna became Tsarina Alexandra the New, since among the saints there was already a Christian saint with the same name, revered as a martyr Tsarina Alexandra of Rome ...

The Chechens themselves call themselves Nokhchi. Some translate it as Noah's people. Representatives of this people live not only in Chechnya, but also in some regions of Dagestan, Ingushetia and Georgia. In total, there are more than one and a half million Chechens in the world.

The name "Chechen" appeared long before the revolution. But in the pre-revolutionary era and in the first decades of Soviet power, some other small Caucasian peoples were also often called Chechens - for example, the Ingush, Batsbi, Georgian Kists. There is an opinion that this is essentially one and the same people, separate groups of which, due to historical circumstances, were isolated from each other.

How was the word "Chechen" born?

There are several versions of the origin of the word "Chechen". According to one of them, it is a Russian transliteration of the word "shashan", which was used to designate this people by the Kabardian neighbors. For the first time, it is mentioned as the “Sassan people” in the Persian chronicle of the 13th-14th centuries, authored by Rashid ad-Din, which refers to the war with the Tatar-Mongols.

According to another version, this designation comes from the name of the village of Big Chechen, where at the end of the 17th century Russians first encountered Chechens. As for the name of the village, it dates back to the 13th century, when the headquarters of the Mongol Khan Sechen was located here.

Starting from the 18th century, the ethnonym "Chechens" appeared in official sources in Russian and Georgian, and later it was borrowed by other peoples. Chechnya became part of Russia on January 21, 1781.

Meanwhile, a number of researchers, in particular, A. Vagapov, believe that this ethnonym was used by the neighbors of the Chechens long before the appearance of Russians in the Caucasus.

Where did the Chechen people come from?

The early stage of the history of the formation of the Chechen people remains hidden from us by the darkness of history. It is possible that the ancestors of the Vainakhs (this is how native speakers of Nakh languages, for example, Chechens and Ingush are called) migrated from Transcaucasia to the north of the Caucasus, but this is only a hypothesis.

Here is the version put forward by Georgy Anchabadze, Doctor of Historical Sciences:
“Chechens are the most ancient indigenous people of the Caucasus, their ruler bore the name “Kavkaz”, from which the name of the area originated. In the Georgian historiographic tradition, it is also believed that the Caucasus and his brother Lek, the ancestor of the Dagestanis, settled the then deserted territories of the North Caucasus from the mountains to the mouth of the Volga River.

There are also alternative versions. One of them says that the Vainakhs are the descendants of the Hurrian tribes who went north and settled in Georgia and the North Caucasus. This is confirmed by the similarity of languages and culture.

It is also possible that the ancestors of the Vainakhs were tigrids - a people who lived in Mesopotamia (in the region of the Tigris River). If you believe the old Chechen chronicles - Teptars, the point of departure of the Vainakh tribes was in Shemaar (Shemar), from where they settled in the North and North-East of Georgia and the North Caucasus. But, most likely, this applies only to a part of the tukhkums (Chechen communities), since there is evidence of settlement along other routes.

Most modern Caucasian scholars are inclined to believe that the Chechen nation was formed in the 16th-18th centuries as a result of the unification of the Vainakh peoples, mastering the foothills of the Caucasus. The most important unifying factor for them was Islamization, which took place in parallel with the settlement of the Caucasian lands. One way or another, it cannot be denied that the core of the Chechen ethnic group is the eastern Vainakh ethnic groups.

From the Caspian to Western Europe

Chechens did not always live in one place. Thus, their earliest tribes lived in the area that stretched from the mountains near Enderi to the Caspian Sea itself. But, since they often stole cattle and horses from the Grebensky and Don Cossacks, in 1718 they attacked them, chopped many, and drove the rest away.

After the end of the Caucasian War in 1865, about 5,000 Chechen families moved to the territory of the Ottoman Empire. They began to be called Muhajirs. Today their descendants represent the bulk of the Chechen diasporas in Turkey, Syria and Jordan.
In February 1944, more than half a million Chechens were deported by order of Stalin to the regions of Central Asia. On January 9, 1957, they received permission to return to their former place of residence, but a certain number of immigrants remained in their new homeland - in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

The first and second Chechen wars led to the fact that a significant number of Chechens moved to the countries of Western Europe, Turkey and the Arab countries. The Chechen diaspora has grown in Russia as well.

Today a friend called, said that they would soon publish an article on the topic I voiced "". And then I remembered that after that discussion () I wanted to write explanatory material. But I got busy and forgot. Since there will still be an article on this topic, I will not separately unsubscribe the whole material. However, I will outline some points.

Where did the word "Chechen / Chechen" come from? There is no exact version in Russian. The main ones are two. According to the first, the origin of the word is due to the settlement "Chechen-aul". According to the second, the word is a distorted Arabic "shishani" ("Chechen" in Arabic sounds like "shishani").
How the Chechens were called in the old (pre-Soviet) times, again, it is not known exactly. In the literature of those years, there is both a “Chechen” (in Lermontov’s “An evil Chechen crawls ashore”), and a “Chechen” (in the same Lermontov - “An old Chechen - Kazbek Ridges is a poor native, When he escorted me through the mountains, About the old days to me told the story ... "; or Zagoskin's "the son of Prince Mamtryuk and the same as him, a Chechen - he would cut everything"). On what basis was it written "Chechen" or "Chechen" (based on the rhyme, or from the prevailing at that time word forms), unknown.In modern dictionaries it is written - "Chechen", outdated.

According to the spelling adopted during the Soviet era, the word "Chechen" was used. So it was written in books and newspapers, so it was said in correct speech, so it was studied at school. Based on what rules of the Russian language, the word "Chechen" was obtained, is unclear. But apparently there were no special rules. Otherwise, it is difficult to reduce in one rule such names as "Ossetian", "Georgian" on the one hand, and "Kabardian", "Dargin" on the other.

However, the word "Chechen" did not go away. It was used in everyday speech to emphasize the dismissive attitude towards the Chechens. Why exactly "Chechen" was dismissive is not clear. But apparently, distorting the name of the nationality itself seemed offensive. An analogy is the use of the disparaging "Armenians" instead of the correct "Armenian".

Why do today's not even always young people know that it was the word "Chechen" that was used? Perhaps for the reason that in the period before the beginning of the 90s in the USSR little was known or heard about the Chechens.

The very peak of the beginning of recognition that there is such a nation as the Chechens fell on the years of the first war (94-96). And I think that it was in those years en masse that it became customary in Russian society to call Chechens Chechens. It went, presumably, to a greater extent from the federal military that fought in Chechnya. It is clear that they used the word "Chechen" among themselves. Then it went exponentially. The soldiers left and spread the word "Chechen" - in their stories, books, songs about the war.

In addition, due to all the well-known events, the number of people who learned that there is such a nation as the Chechens has grown by several orders of magnitude compared to Soviet times. And one of the common expressions about the Chechens was precisely Lermontov's "an evil Chechen is crawling ashore." So in the end, in the minds of many, it became fixed - "Chechen".

In the section on the question How to speak correctly? Chechens or Chechens? given by the author Someone doesn't The best answer is It will be more pleasant for them if you call them Nokhchi (a Chechen in Chech. language) or Vainakh (they call themselves so proudly from ancient times!

How was the word "Chechen" born?

Meanwhile, a number of researchers, in particular, A. Vagapov, believe that this ethnonym was used by the neighbors of the Chechens long before the appearance of Russians in the Caucasus.

Where did the Chechen people come from?

From the Caspian to Western Europe