My attitude towards Chechnya and Chechens. Statuses about Chechens

The truth about Chechens - “real men” and “invincible warriors”

Not a single site took this article of mine, even the most frostbitten resources sent me to hell. One guy even said: “Are you crazy? Because of this text, a war could start.” Well, cool - the first banned article in my career.

On February 3, I, like most of the male population of Russia, raised a couple of toasts to the defenders of the Fatherland. I drank these glasses alone, but with all my heart, mentally congratulating all the soldiers who defended the Motherland. A most of spent the day in front of the TV screen, clicking on the remote control. 70 percent of holiday programs were dedicated to the Great Patriotic War, 10% to Afghanistan and 20% to Chechnya. After looking at the dead, bearded faces of Chechen bandits and the ruins of Grozny, I began to think: why did this Chechnya become such a thorn in the paw of the Russian bear, why was it not squashed in a couple of days, like a cockroach?

There are two reasons for this for me. Firstly, the leadership is completely corrupt Russian army, which during the years of the Chechen campaigns was looking for personal gain rather than working in the interests of the country. Secondly, the absence of all human qualities among the Chechen militias - I won’t call them militants: for me this is a film genre, and besides, such a word implies at least some kind of nobility. The combination of these two factors led to the fact that too many Russians died in Chechnya for such an anti-terrorist operation. First-year soldiers who did not know how to properly hold a machine gun went to the mountains to fight. The Chechens, under the leadership of mercenaries, shot at these defenseless targets and began to consider themselves the best warriors in the world. In their opinion, Vainakhs = terminators. And this despite the fact that Chechnya was torn apart piece by piece, and part of the population was not destroyed only because Russia is a civilized Christian country.

So, after all, who are the Chechens and why have they always represented a problem for Russia? A quick excursion into history is indispensable here.

History does not know the exact origin of the proto-Vainakh tribes. First written source O ancient period the history of the Vainakhs is the work of a major Armenian encyclopedist of the 6th century. Anania Shirakatsi “Armenian Geography”. There he mentions the self-name of the Chechens “Nokhchamatyans” - people who speak Chechen: “At the mouth of the Tanais River live the Nakhchamateans (Naxamats) and another tribe.” Where they came from is not important to us. Their lifestyle is important. Nokhchi has always been a headache for neighbors. While other tribes were engaged in cattle breeding or agriculture, the ancient Chechens did not recognize work as such and traded in robbery and horse theft.

The history of the Russian-Chechen confrontation dates back to the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th century, when Russia waged numerous long and persistent wars with Turkey, Persia, Crimean Khan. Caucasus ridge was a natural barrier between Russia and its enemies, so it was strategically important for the Empire to keep it under control. At this time, the highlanders began their terrorist attacks. One of the first documented facts of an attack on Russian troops was the attack of the Chechens in 1732 on a Russian battalion making the transition from Dagestan to Stavropol. From 1785 to 1791, gangs of Chechens treacherously (and they could not do otherwise) attacked Russian farmers who were developing the areas of what is now Stavropol. At the end of the victorious war with Napoleon, Alexander I began a series of Caucasian wars. He was prompted to take this step by constant Chechen robberies, robberies, mass cattle thefts, the slave trade, and attacks on military garrisons. These wars lasted until 1864, and acquired their greatest scope in 1834, when Imam Shamil became the head of the rebellious highlanders.

By the way, this character is still an example for every Chechen. These days, young Chechen pop stars sing songs about the enemy of Russia, on whose conscience more than a liter of spilled Orthodox blood is made.

Shamil was caught and destroyed. Along with him, a number of rebel imams were expelled. When Field Marshal Paskevich took the reins of the army into his own hands, our army resorted to “scorched earth” tactics - the rebel villages were completely destroyed, and the population was completely destroyed. There was no other way out - only this helped break the resistance of the Chechens. However, isolated bandit attacks were observed until the 1917 revolution. Well, “nokhcho” cannot live any other way.

Why did they last so long? Maybe because they are strong, brave and smart? The answer to this question will be given by the following historical fact- already time Civil War.

Anton Ivanovich Denikin is one of the main leaders White movement- was under the command of the so-called Wild Division, formed from Chechens and Ingush. The “savages” went to fight against him, thinking that in this way they were resisting Russian Empire. In the memoirs of a certain man with the significant surname Breshko-Breshkovsky, the valor and invincibility of this division were mentioned. Like, they all showed themselves to be just John Rimbaud during the First World War. Information about the personality of this Breshko-Breshkovsky has not been preserved in history, but his myth about the Wild Division remains.

In 1919, Denikin sent these “terminators” under the leadership of General Revishin to Ukraine to suppress the Makhno uprising. The wild cavalry division, reinforced by several marching squadrons and artillery, was in the second echelon strike group. Moving through the territory of Ukraine, they really forced themselves to be afraid - they robbed the local population, raped women, slaughtered adults and children.

And in the first real battle, the Chechen-Ingush “army” was practically destroyed. In that battle, the opponents repeatedly came into hand-to-hand combat, and at the end of the battle, the Makhnovists shot several native squadrons with cart machine guns. The “Wild Division” lost more than a thousand soldiers, and the Makhnovist rebels lost about forty. This is how eyewitnesses of those events described the defeat of the Chechens:

- “with one blow the head, neck and half of the body were cut off, or half of the head was beveled as precisely as if they were cutting a watermelon.”

“The wounds of the Chechens were mostly fatal. I myself saw chopped skulls, I saw a hand completely cut off, a shoulder cut to the 3rd-4th rib - only well-trained cavalry soldiers could chop like that.”

After this, the surviving Chechens categorically declared that they did not want to fight anymore, voluntarily abandoned their posts and Denikin’s army and went to their home in the Caucasus. General Revishin later managed to create another Wild Division, but there was no semblance of discipline in it - only primitive robbery remained - the main business of the Chechens from century to century. The team was called the Chechen Cavalry and was transferred to Crimea. What they were doing there was described excellently and succinctly by General Slashchev-Krymsky:

- “Magnificent robbers in the rear, these highlanders slept through the Red raid on Tyup-Dzhankoy in early February, and then just as magnificently fled, abandoning all six guns. There were so few Reds that the counterattack I launched did not even catch them, but only found guns that had sunk in the ice. I especially felt sorry for the two lungs: the castles and panoramas were carried away by the Reds and the corpses of the guns remained.”

And the Chechen “exploits” of the Civil War were summed up by Dmitry de Witte, an officer of the Wild Division.

“The share of a Chechen as a warrior is small; by nature he is an abrek robber, and not a brave one at that: he always selects a weak victim for himself and, if he defeats her, he becomes cruel to the point of sadism. In battle, his only motive is the thirst for robbery, as well as a sense of animal fear of the officer. They cannot withstand a stubborn and prolonged battle, especially on foot, and easily, like anyone else. wild man, at the slightest failure they panic. Having served for about a year among the Chechens and having visited them at home in the villages, I think that I will not be mistaken in asserting that all the beautiful and noble customs of the Caucasus and the adats of antiquity were created not by them and not for them, but, obviously, by more cultured and gifted people tribes."

Under Soviet rule, Chechnya was given a lot of land and Sharia was recognized. The area began to develop. In 1925, the first Chechen newspaper appeared. In 1928 - Chechen radio. Illiterate Chechens began to be taught the alphabet. Two pedagogical and two oil technical schools were opened in Grozny, and then the first national theater. True, it was never possible to create a Chechen intelligentsia. Why - look who is the worst student in college. In MGIMO, RGSU, RGGU, for example, the Chechens, Ingush and, for some reason, the Vietnamese are considered the stupidest.

How did the descendants of the Wild Division thank the Soviet authorities? Terror and pogroms of government institutions, disruption of grain procurement in the lowland parts of Dagestan and Ingushetia, demand to replace the elected bodies of Soviet power with elders Chechen teips. In total, from 1920 to 1941, 12 major armed uprisings (with the participation of 500 to 5000 bandits) and more than 50 less significant ones took place in Chechnya and Ingushetia alone.

Now let's jump to terrible years Great Patriotic War. From June 22 to September 3, 1941, over 40 insurgent bandit manifestations were registered. By February 1943, gang formations in 20 villages of Chechnya numbered more than 6,540 people. And this is at the most difficult time for the country. So was the decree of the State Defense Committee of the USSR No. 5073 of January 31, 1944 on the liquidation of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and deportation from places really unjustified? permanent residence Chechens, Ingush, Karachais, Balkars?

Only in 1957, the Supreme Council of the USSR issued a resolution on the restoration of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and allowed the repressed peoples to return to their historical homeland. The Chechen question has arisen again. Despite the fact that in the shortest possible time the Russians brought the region to the pre-war level of oil production and industrial development, the attitude of the locals towards them did not change. The more indigenous people came, the more Russian workers left, not wanting to risk their lives. In the 90s - when there were almost no Russians left in Chechnya - their production, economy, and science finally stopped.

Why not Tsarist Russia, neither the Soviet nor the modern were able to completely suppress Chechnya? After all, Chechens are still warriors. Try to remove cockroaches without the help of chemicals. You smack them with your slipper, and new ones crawl out from under the baseboard, and even hiding behind female cockroaches. You think whether it’s worth killing the females, it’s a pity, but at this time these insects are desperately copulating under the baseboard, dreaming that their children will quickly grow up and climb on you. Cockroaches do not have the morals of people; they are ready to do any meanness and baseness. But you have a moral - you don’t want to take Dichlorvos.

It is also difficult to fight with the Chechens because of their “code of male honor” - this code has nothing to do with chivalry the slightest attitude. Blood feud, for example, is a monstrous archaism in the 21st century; in Chechnya it is the norm of behavior. A Chechen is not allowed to make mistakes. Having made a mistake, he will resist and insist that he is right until the end. This is drilled into them from a young age: I remember in first grade Chechen boy took a pencil case from a classmate. She asked for it back and was hit in the head with the same pencil case. The teacher tried to force the boy to apologize, but the little animal stood all day in the corner without squeezing out a word. They are also forbidden to look funny - so home-grown Petrosyans will never appear in Chechnya. They are gradually developing a KVN culture, but there is nothing funny about it. It is forbidden to forgive - this is absolute savagery, in Chechen language There are not even the words “mercy” and “forgiveness”.

It is forbidden to lose. In the 90s, when I was boxing, bearded men approached me before sparring.

Hey, listen, right now you're going to fight with my nephew - lose to him, otherwise you'll regret it.

Doesn't fuck!

That day, I thrashed the Chechen so much that I received a scolding from the coach: don’t hurt your own people, because the competition is coming soon. We had to spend the night in the trainer's room, without food. But the next day, when my friends came for me in three cars, and there wasn’t a single bearded face in the area, I received some kind of moral satisfaction.

So should we restore Chechnya for them? Is it worth raising their culture? Is it worth showing the unfunny Chechen KVN team on television? Is it worth developing football and making the Terek club (which is not called a “political project” among fans) a full-fledged team?

By the way, about football: in the opening match of the 2008 season, the entire stadium in Grozny was deafeningly booed Russian Anthem. Listening to this whistle then, I realized: Russia will have to take Slippers more than once. Today, in the background latest statements and Kadyrov’s actions, I was strengthened in this thought.

From time immemorial, Chechens have been famous as hardy, strong, dexterous, inventive, tough and skillful warriors. The main features of the representatives of this nation have always been: pride, fearlessness, the ability to cope with any life difficulties, as well as high respect for blood kinship. Representatives of the Chechen people: Ramzan Kadyrov, Dzhokhar Dudayev.

Take it to yourself:

Origin of the Chechens

There are several versions of the origin of the name of the Chechen nation:

• Most scientists are inclined to believe that the people began to be called this way around the 13th century, after the village of Bolshoi Chechen. Later, not only the residents of this area began to be called this settlement, but also all neighboring villages of a similar type.
• According to another opinion, the name “Chechens” appeared thanks to the Kabardians, who called this people “Shashan”. And, allegedly, representatives of Russia simply slightly changed this name, making it more convenient and harmonious for our language, and over time it took root and this people began to be called Chechens not only in Russia, but also in other countries.
• There is a third version - according to it, other Caucasian peoples originally called the inhabitants modern Chechnya Chechens.

By the way, the word “Vainakh” itself translated from Nakh into Russian sounds like “our people” or “our people.”

If we talk about the origin of the nation itself, it is generally accepted that the Chechens have never been a nomadic people and their history is closely connected with the Caucasian lands. True, some scientists claim that in ancient times, representatives of this nation occupied larger territories in the northeastern Caucasus, and only then migrated en masse to the north of the Caucasus. The very fact of such a relocation of the people does not raise any particular doubts, but the motives for the move are not known to scientists.

According to one version, which is partly confirmed by Georgian sources, the Chechens at a certain moment simply decided to occupy the North Caucasus space, where no one lived at that time. Moreover, there is an opinion that the name Caucasus itself is also of Vainakh origin. Allegedly, in ancient times this was the name of the Chechen ruler, and the territory received its name from his name “Caucasus”.

Having settled in the North Caucasus, the Chechens led a sedentary lifestyle and did not leave their native places unless absolutely necessary. They lived in this territory for hundreds of years (from about the 13th century).

Even when in 1944 almost the entire indigenous population was deported due to the unfair accusation of supporting the Nazis, the Chechens did not remain on “foreign” land and returned to their homeland.

Caucasian War

In the winter of 1781, Chechnya officially became part of Russia. The corresponding document was signed by many respectable elders of the largest Chechen villages, who not only put their signature on paper, but also swore on the Koran that they accepted Russian citizenship.

But at the same time, the majority of the nation believed this document a simple formality and in fact they were going to continue their autonomous existence. One of the most ardent opponents of Chechnya's entry into Russia was Sheikh Mansur, who had enormous influence on his fellow tribesmen, since he was not only a preacher of Islam, but was also the first imam North Caucasus. Many Chechens supported Mansur, which later helped him become the leader of the liberation movement and unite all the dissatisfied mountaineers into one force.

Thus it began Caucasian War, which lasted almost fifty years. Ultimately, Russian military forces managed to suppress the resistance of the mountaineers, although extremely tough measures were taken to achieve this, including burning hostile villages. Also during that period, the Sunzhinskaya (named after the Sunzha River) line of fortifications was built.

However, the end of the war was very conditional. The established peace was extremely shaky. The situation was complicated by the fact that oil deposits were discovered on the territory of Chechnya, from which the Chechens received practically no income. Another difficulty was local mentality, which was very different from the Russian one.

The Chechens then repeatedly staged various uprisings. But despite all the difficulties, Russia greatly valued the representatives of this nationality. The fact is that men of Chechen nationality were wonderful warriors and distinguished themselves not only physical strength, but also with courage, as well as an unbending fighting spirit. During the First World War, an elite regiment was created, consisting only of Chechens and called the “Wild Division”.

The Chechens have indeed always been considered wonderful warriors, in whom composure is amazingly combined with courage and the will to win. The physical characteristics of representatives of this nationality are also impeccable. Chechen men are characterized by: strength, endurance, agility, etc.

On the one hand, this is explained by the fact that they lived in rather harsh conditions, where physically weak person it was extremely difficult to exist, and on the other hand, because almost the entire history of this people is connected with constant struggle and the need to defend their interests with arms in hand. After all, if we look at the events that took place in the Caucasus, both in ancient and modern times, we will see that the Chechen people always remained quite autonomous and, in case of dissatisfaction with certain circumstances, easily went into a state of war.

At the same time, the military science of the Chechens has always been very developed and the fathers with early childhood They taught their sons to wield weapons and ride horses. The ancient Chechens managed to do the almost impossible and create their own invincible mountain cavalry. They are also considered the founders of such military techniques as roaming batteries, the technique of blocking the enemy, or the deployment of “crawling” troops into battle. From time immemorial, the basis of their military tactics was surprise, followed by a massive attack on the enemy. Moreover, many experts agree that it was the Chechens, and not the Cossacks, who were the founders of the partisan method of warfare.

National characteristics

The Chechen language belongs to the Nakh-Dagestan branch and has more than nine dialects that are used in oral and written speech. But the main dialect is considered to be flat, which in the 20th century formed the basis of the literary dialect of a given people.

Regarding religious views, then the overwhelming majority of Chechens profess Islam.

Chechens also attach great importance to observing the national code of honor “Konakhalla”. These ethical rules of conduct were developed in ancient times. And this moral code, to put it extremely simply, tells how a man should behave in order to be considered worthy of his people and his ancestors.

By the way, Chechens are also characterized by very strong kinship. Initially, the culture of this people developed in such a way that society was divided into various teips (tribes), to which the Vainakhs had affiliation great importance. Attitude to one or another clan was always determined by the father. Moreover, to this day, representatives of this people, when meeting a new person, often ask where he is from and what teip.

Another type of association is “tukhum”. This was the name given to teip communities created for one purpose or another: joint hunting, farming, protecting territories, repelling enemy attacks, etc.

Chechen. Lezginka.

The national Chechen cuisine, rightfully considered one of the most ancient in the Caucasus, also deserves special attention. From time immemorial, the main products that Chechens used for cooking were: meat, cheese, cottage cheese, as well as pumpkin, wild garlic (wild garlic) and corn. Special importance is also attached to spices, which, as a rule, are used in huge quantities.

Chechen traditions

Living in the harsh conditions of mountainous terrain also left its mark on the culture of the Chechens and their traditions. Life here was many times harder than on the plain.

For example, mountaineers often cultivated the land on the slopes of peaks and, in order to avoid accidents, they had to work in large groups, tying themselves with one rope. Otherwise, one of them could easily fall into the abyss and die. Often half the village gathered to carry out such work. Therefore, for a true Chechen, respectable neighborly relations are sacred. And if there was grief in the family of people living nearby, then this grief was for the entire village. If a breadwinner was lost in a neighboring house, then his widow or mother was supported by the entire village, sharing food or other necessary things with her.

Due to the fact that work in the mountains is usually very hard, the Chechens have always tried to protect members of the older generation from it. And even the usual greeting here is based on the fact that an older person first they say hello, and then ask if he needs help with anything. Also in Chechnya it is considered in bad taste, if a young man passes by an older man doing hard work and does not offer his help.

Hospitality also plays a huge role for Chechens. In ancient times, a person could easily get lost in the mountains and die from hunger or an attack by a wolf or bear. That is why it has always been unthinkable for Chechens not to let a stranger into their house who asks for help. It doesn’t matter what the guest’s name is or whether he knows the owners, if he is in trouble, he will be provided with food and lodging for the night.

Take it to yourself:

Of particular importance in Chechen culture There is also mutual respect. In ancient times, mountaineers moved mainly along thin paths encircling peaks and gorges. Because of this, it was sometimes difficult for people to disperse on such paths. And the slightest careless movement could cause a person to fall from the mountain and die. That is why Chechens, from early childhood, were taught to respectful attitude to other people, and especially to women and the elderly.

Emotions often take precedence over cold logic, so then I had difficulty recording exactly political events and the changes taking place in the situation with Chechnya. At the emotional level, there was already a clear reflex of a negative reaction to any mention of the name of this republic or simply to the word “Chechen”. Yes, I remember how on one of Victory Days they showed video footage of the explosion at the Chechen stadium where Akhmat Kadyrov died on TV. I remember a bearded guy in a tracksuit who spoke little Russian, standing next to Putin. Then I found out that his name is Ramzan Kadyrov. But against the backdrop of war newsreels imprinted in my consciousness, these events meant absolutely nothing to me.

Stop feeding the Caucasus

IN student years, when I discovered the Internet, I continued to be drawn to this topic. I read the horrifying details of the “Russian genocide” in Chechnya, watched videos of Wahhabis cutting off the heads of Russian soldiers, and became even more saturated with hatred. Over time, another topic became popular on the Internet - about how billions of Russian money are being poured into Chechnya. I remember these demotivators, where they compared the skyscrapers in Grozny with the destroyed houses of some Ryazan, and the newly-minted hero of Russia Kadyrov, sitting in an expensive car, with a WWII veteran standing in the passage. And that’s why Navalny’s speech in October 2011 with the slogan “Stop feeding the Caucasus!” was met with complete admiration in my face.

I don’t know what made me pay such close attention to the Caucasian topic from year to year. But I always paid attention to new and new news feeds in which the word “Chechnya” sounded. And sometimes in the flow of information I came across good reviews about this region. The blogs contained reports from those who visited there and spoke well of the republic. And at some point, at the next blogger event, I saw the first Chechen in my life - the LiveJournal ambassador from this republic, Zaura - and he didn’t really look like the reckless thug that my fantasy depicted.

Over the years, I have acquired a very valuable trait - if information about something is contradictory, then you need to personally verify this, form your own own opinion, find the original source. So, for example, in the spring of 2014, at the first opportunity I rushed to Crimea to see with my own eyes the events of the “Crimean spring”, to communicate with the local population (and, first of all, with Crimean Tatars), because the media were filled with diametrically opposed opinions on the topic of the Crimean referendum and the annexation of the peninsula to Russia.

The same story happened with Chechnya. I decided that I definitely had to visit the republic myself, look with my own eyes at the Chechens, at how they live, in order to form my own personal opinion. Moreover, this was not supposed to be a “popular” press tour, during which guests are shown exclusively best sides life, but something closer to reality. Just get in the car and drive around Chechnya.

Unexpectedly, in this desire I found the support of Natasha, who also wanted to go there. To be honest, I didn’t even discuss what her motivation was (now I’m writing these lines and I understand that I’ve never asked her about it). At first, I doubted whether it was worth taking the girl into this “enemy camp.” But over time, we added a trip to Chechnya to our list of road trips, and when in September after the wedding we were choosing a route for a road rally (we wanted somewhere to the south), we chose not Crimea or Sochi, but Chechnya. To be honest, even our parents were not told the specific purpose of our trip until recently, resorting to the vague wording “to the Caucasus.”

First impressions

The first day in Chechnya was the most stressful for me. At noon we arrived in Grozny, parked our car in the center and just went to look for a place where we could have lunch. No city map, no navigation, nothing. As in any of our journeys, everything is purely on a whim. I didn’t let go of Natasha’s hand and was ready at any moment for some kind of provocation against us. Honestly, it’s funny to remember now, but I walked through Grozny with one thought - one more lane and I’ll have to protect my woman. We found some establishment similar in ambiance and service to the Belgorod Potapych, and I kept turning my head around, tracking any glance in our direction and trying in vain to understand what the people around were talking about.

It didn’t “let me go” even at night, when we checked into some hotel on the outskirts of the city (all the others were booked for the next two days due to the Russian Judo Championship taking place in Grozny). I seriously thought that someone might break into our room. But the more time we spent in Chechnya, the more absurd my fantasies seemed to me.

I couldn't wrap my head around the awareness of the surrounding calm. “Well, how so!?”- exclaimed my inner voice - “ There was a war going on here for a decade, everything was in ruins, and Russians were getting their heads cut off! How is this even possible - measured quiet life as if nothing had happened? Where does this goodwill towards us come from? Is this all sincere? Where's the catch?. I looked for this very “trick” in every look, in every intonation in the conversation with us. And I didn’t find it.

The more we discovered Chechnya, the more surprised I was that this was a normal region of our country. If you step aside from these elaborate skyscrapers of “Grozny City” and just look at the city and its surroundings, you will see an ordinary well-groomed corner of Russia. Clean, tidy. It is not true that “federal money is poured in for show.” A colossal amount of work has really been done here to restore the entire republic. I can’t imagine how it was possible to eliminate all the consequences of hostilities in such a short time. But the republic is nice to look at. Good roads, neat houses.

And at some point they let me go. I allowed myself to exhale. A beautiful, calm Chechnya opened before my eyes, with sympathetic people living their everyday life. But you can’t get out of your head everything that I read and watched before? After all, my fears are not groundless? After all, Lermontov's “An angry Chechen crawls ashore, sharpens his dagger” It was written a century and a half ago, and is there any justification for this century-old enmity?

A look from the other side

I started asking myself everything more questions in search of an understanding of the situation. At night, when you stand and listen to the silence of the Caucasus mountains, you get to look at the situation from the side opposite to the one from which you have always looked at it. You know, I end up with a huge text that only a few will read, and only 0.01% of them will accept my point of view, but I will write it and let it be useful even for just one of you.

I looked at the history of Russian-Chechen relations from the Chechen side. Have you ever thought about what it looked like for them? The Chechens, or as they were originally called - Nokhchi - lived here for hundreds of years. The invasion of the Mongol horde drove them from the plains into the mountains, where they survived for centuries in difficult conditions. The Russians, meanwhile, having thrown off the burden of invaders, began to build an Empire. Having taken Kazan and Astrakhan, their gaze turned towards the Caucasus. When the Chechens began to return to their ancestral lands, they were faced with the fact that the Terek Cossacks had already settled there. The empire was growing, and now it had set the goal of taking Georgia, lying beyond the Caucasian ridge, under its influence. And let’s admit, the annexation of “strategically important territories” did not always proceed peacefully. Yes, there was an imposition of one's will. And the Chechens had every right not always agree with the rules that were established for them. The response to disobedience was often punitive measures on the part of the Russians.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Caucasian War began, which lasted about 50 years. Half a century, just imagine! For entire generations of mountaineers, war became a way of life. You can read in detail about the prerequisites and chronology of the conquest of the North Caucasus, for example, on Wikipedia. Imagine that some people came to your home and said that you will now live by their rules, or they will fight with you. Will you resist if you disagree? The Chechens decided that they would. Such a character trait. Did they have the right to do this? Everyone will answer this question for themselves.

And even after the main resistance forces were broken and the region was annexed to the Russian Empire, riots broke out here every now and then. Yes, you just need to honestly admit to yourself that it was we, the Russians, who came to the region located one and a half thousand kilometers from Moscow and decided that this was also our land. It was not the Chechens who started this hostility. It's strange, but this simple thought had never occurred to me before. At first, the Russians needed control over the Caucasus, which was considered the Empire's sphere of influence. And at the end of the 19th century, oil reserves were found in the region, and this also predetermined Russia’s interest in it.

After February revolution The communists skillfully converted the mountaineers’ hatred of “imperialism”, using them in the fight against the same Cossacks, who supported the whites. They did not disdain tricks like slogans “Long live Soviet power and Sharia!” and promises to return the original Caucasian lands to their peoples. And after the dirty deed was done, they began to tighten the screws in their own way. Yes, in November 1920, the creation of the Mountain Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed with its capital in Vladikavkaz, consisting of six administrative districts, one of which was the Chechen National District (two years later transformed into the Chechen autonomous region). It looked as if, after a century of the war for independence, the Chechens had finally achieved the emergence of their own territorial entity. But at the same time, the Soviet (and for the locals, the same “Russian”) government began to dictate its own living conditions.

Surplus appropriation. Collectivization. A gradual struggle against religious institutions that did not fit into the concept of “building communism.” Naturally, such interference in the local way of life met with resistance, which was harshly suppressed by the troops of the Soviet government. In total, from 1920 to 1941, 12 major armed uprisings and more than 50 less significant ones occurred on the territory of Chechnya and Ingushetia. Some particularly rebellious villages were deported outside the North Caucasus.

Naturally, not all Chechens rushed to defense during the Great Patriotic War Soviet Union(although many fought bravely for him). Some saw this war as an opportunity to gain long-awaited independence. As a result, everything turned into one of the dirtiest pages Soviet history- deportation of the Chechen-Ingush people.

On January 29, 1944, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR Lavrentiy Beria approved the “Instructions on the procedure for the eviction of Chechens and Ingush,” and on January 31, a decree was issued on the deportation of Chechens and Ingush to the Kazakh and Kyrgyz SSR. On February 20, Beria arrived in Grozny and personally led the operation, where, under the guise of “exercises in mountainous areas,” an army of 100 thousand people was transferred. On February 21, he issued an order to the NKVD for the deportation of the Chechen-Ingush population.

493 thousand Chechens were loaded onto freight trains and taken to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Everyone - old people, children, women - was rounded up like cattle in the winter and taken a thousand kilometers away from their native land. According to official data, 780 people were killed during the operation - those who categorically resisted or were inactive. According to “unofficial” data, we will never know how many victims there were. About 1,200 more people died during transport. 44.5 thousand people among the deportees died in the first year of exile (almost every tenth).

The restriction on the movement of Chechens and Ingush was strictly in effect until the death of Stalin, and only after that they began to gradually return to the territory of the republic. However, they did not have any benefits to restore life in their homeland, and they were completely forbidden to settle in a number of mountain villages.

At the same time, Chechnya was inhabited by Russians. I, too, had never thought about this before, but imagine what happened - the Chechens fought for decades with the Russians for the right to live independently, in the end they were all deported from their native land, and when they began to return there, those same people live in their place Russians. Dubious ground for friendly relations... Nevertheless, the Soviet government managed to keep this tension under control, and even by the time of the collapse of the USSR, every fourth resident of Chechnya was Russian.

Naturally, when the USSR began to burst at the seams, and the Baltic states and Central Asia, in Chechnya, talk about independence has once again taken center stage. And the local population, who did not see anything good in an alliance with the Russians recent years At least two hundred naturally enthusiastically supported this idea. I admit that it would be worth doing this, but the leaders new Russia for some reason they decided that the same Russians, who are 90% Crimea or Donbass, can easily exist outside our state, but Chechnya definitely needs to be taken under control once again. Naturally, by force! And another meat grinder began.

When I now, through the prism of time and knowledge, begin to think about what this war was for on our part, I do not find a logical answer. Why did the Russian guys die? For a land that has always been foreign to us? Which they always wanted to have contrary to the wishes of the people who inhabited it? It was some kind of hell unleashed by the hands of politicians, and the truth in it was once again not on the side of the Russians.

No matter how much I love my country and its history, over time, looking from the outside, I had to admit to myself that in this whole story with the “evil Chechens”, we, the Russians, were the bad guys. And all the negativity that we received from century to century appeared because we wanted to possess what does not belong to us. Did the Chechens have the right to resist these ambitions? Yes, they did. And because of their character, they would resist until the last living person.

“But there was one nation that did not succumb to the psychology of submission at all - not loners, not rebels, but the entire nation. These are Chechens"- Solzhenitsyn wrote in his “Archipelago”. And you, being in Chechnya, see this pride in literally every person, which seems to be absorbed with mother’s milk. A pride that no weapon can knock out of them.

Current Chechnya

I can talk for a very long time about what happened and why everything happened this way and not otherwise. But the past cannot be undone, so I will move on to the present. Whatever they say, in today's realities we have a unique situation - it seems that for the first time in several centuries we live in peace with the Chechen people in the same state. In colossal short term managed to restore everything that was destroyed and create an infrastructure that allows the republic to live no worse than other regions of Russia. For the first time, the Russians gave the Chechens the opportunity to live the way they want - without aggressively imposing their will, taking into account their interests.

I understand why you can see portraits of Akhmat Kadyrov and Putin on every corner in Chechnya - because these two people were able to come to an agreement and bring peace to their land. “So that there is no war”, “a peaceful sky above”, “so that there is a home and work” - these are the key wishes of the residents of Chechnya. We can say that in our historical era there was a new birth of the Chechens as a nation, and this would not be an exaggeration. They got legal right live on their land the way they want. And when we began to communicate with them as human beings, another side of the Chechen people opened up before us.

Yes, we are very different from them both in mentality and in the stage of development of society. But it is important to realize that attempts to impose our will, to reshape them to the standards we are accustomed to are doomed to failure. Chechens have a completely different way of life, character, religion, and system of relationships in society from ours. But this does not mean that they need to change their way of life by force. At the same time, their proud character contains those features that captivate with their sincerity and perseverance. By coming to them in peace, you receive peace in return.

Returning to the title of this post, I will summarize my conclusions. My attitude towards Chechens can be expressed in one word - respect. I admire both the resilience of their character, commitment to their values, and the strength to forgive past grievances and move on. And I am very often ashamed of my compatriots who continue to produce these hostile clichés towards the Chechens. In this regard, the residents of the republic have done a lot larger step forward, having learned to leave in the past all the troubles that Russian ambitions brought to their land.

Chechnya is beautiful. I sincerely hope that the good neighborly relations that we have with its people now will strengthen. Other options peaceful life We are not in the same state with these people.

CHECHENS, Nokhchiy(self-name), people in Russian Federation, the main population of Chechnya.

According to the 2002 Population Census, 1 million 361 thousand Chechens live in Russia. According to the 2010 Census, 1 million 431 thousand also live in Ingushetia, Dagestan, Stavropol Territory, Volgograd Region, Kalmykia, Astrakhan, Saratov, Tyumen Region, North Ossetia, Moscow, as well as in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, etc.

Ethnonym

In Armenian sources of the 7th century, Chechens are mentioned under the name "nakhcha matyan" ("speaking the Nokhchi language"). In documents of the 16th-17th centuries there are tribal names of Chechens ( Ichkerin residents, Okoks, Shubuts, etc..). The name Chechens was a Russian transliteration of Kabardian "sheshei" and came from the name of the village of Bolshoi Chechen.

Language

Chechens speak the Chechen language of the Nakh group of the Nakh-Dagestan branch of the North Caucasus language family. Dialects: flat, Akkinsky, Cheberloevsky, Melkhinsky, Itumkalinsky, Galanchozhsky, Kistinsky. The Russian language is also widespread. Writing after 1917 was first based on Arabic, then Latin script, and since 1938 - based on the Russian alphabet.

Religion

Believing Chechens are Sunni Muslims. There are two widespread Sufi teachings - Naqshbandi and Nadiri. The main deities of the pre-Muslim pantheon were the god of the sun and sky Del, the god of thunder and lightning Sel, the patron of cattle breeding Gal-Erdy, the patron of hunting - Elta, the goddess of fertility Tusholi, the god of the underworld Eshtr. Islam penetrates Chechnya in the 13th century through Golden Horde and Dagestan. Fully Chechens converted to Islam in the 18th century. An important element Chechen society are Sufi communities-virds together with clans (teips), although priority social role currently played by ordinary civil institutions.

Traditional activities

Agriculture and cattle breeding. The Chechens raised sheep, cattle, and thoroughbred horses for riding.. There was economic specialization between the mountainous and lowland regions of Chechnya: receiving grain from the plains, the mountain Chechens sold their surplus livestock in return. Jewelry and blacksmithing crafts, mining, silk production, and bone and horn processing were also developed.

Cloth

Traditional men's clothing Chechens - shirt, pants, beshmet, Circassian coat. Men's hats are tall, flaring hats made of valuable fur. The hat was considered a personification manhood, knocking it down entailed blood feud.

Main elements women's clothing Chechen - shirt and pants. The shirt had a tunic-like cut, sometimes below the knees, sometimes to the ground. The color of clothing was determined by the status of the woman and differed among married, unmarried and widowed women.

There are legends about the courage, unbridledness and rebellion of the Chechens. But what made them like this? Perhaps we should consider the history of the Chechen people in historical context.

"Ruthless as tigers"

The turn of the 17th-18th centuries was marked by numerous wars between Russia and Turkey, Persia, and also with the Crimean Khanate. Since our country was separated from our enemies by the Caucasus Range, it was strategically important to seize control over it. But it turned out to be not so simple. The mountaineers did not want to be conquered at all. So, in 1732, the Chechens attacked a Russian battalion that was making the transition from Dagestan to Stavropol. From 1785 to 1791, Chechen gangs more than once treacherously attacked Russian military garrisons and peaceful farmers who were developing the lands of what is now Stavropol. The confrontation between Russians and Chechens reached its peak in 1834, when Imam Shamil became the head of the rebels. The Russian army, led by Field Marshal Paskevich, resorted to “scorched earth” tactics: villages whose population was on the side of the rebels were destroyed, and their inhabitants were completely exterminated... In general, the resistance of the Chechens was broken, but individual “sabotage” against the Russians continued until the revolution 1917. “They amaze with their mobility, agility, and dexterity. In war, they rush into the middle of the column, a terrible massacre begins, because the Chechens are as agile and merciless as tigers,” writes V.A. Potto in the book “The Caucasian War in Selected Essays, Episodes, Legends and Biographies” (1887). When, during one of the battles, the Russians asked the Chechens to surrender, they replied: “We do not want mercy, we ask one favor from the Russians - let them let our families know that we died as we lived - without submitting to someone else’s power.”

"Wild Division"

During the Civil War, many Chechens and Ingush went to serve in the “Wild Division” under the command of General Denikin. In 1919, this “division” carried out a real massacre in Ukraine, where it went to suppress Makhno’s uprising. True, in the very first battle with the Makhnovists, the “savages” were defeated. After which the Chechens announced that they no longer wanted to fight with Denikin and voluntarily returned to their Caucasus. Soon it was formally established in the Caucasus Soviet power. However, from 1920 to 1941, 12 large armed uprisings against the Bolsheviks and more than 50 smaller riots took place on the territory of Chechnya and Ingushetia. During the war years, the number of sabotages by the local population led to the abolition of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the deportation of local residents.

“Come free!”

Why has it always been so difficult with the Chechens? Because the foundations of their culture are fundamentally different from ours. So, they still have blood feud in use. In addition, a Chechen does not have the right to admit his mistakes. Having made a mistake, he will still insist until the very end that he is right. It is also forbidden to forgive your enemies. At the same time, the Chechen people have the concept of “nokhchalla,” which means “to be a Chechen.” It includes a set of ethical rules accepted in Chechen society. According to him, a Chechen should be restrained, taciturn, unhurried, and careful in his statements and assessments. The norm is considered to be offering help to those who need it, mutual assistance, hospitality, respect for any person, regardless of his kinship, faith or origin. But at the same time, “nokhchalla” implies rejection of any coercion. From childhood, Chechens are raised to be warriors and defenders. Even the ancient Chechen greeting says: “Come free!” Nokhchalla is not only an internal feeling of freedom, but also a willingness to defend it at any cost.4 The old Chechen song, which later became the anthem of “free Ichkeria,” says: Rather, granite rocks, like lead, will melt, Than hordes of enemies will force us to bow! Rather, the earth will ignite in flames, Than we will appear to the grave, having sold our honor! We will never submit to anyone. Death or Freedom - we will achieve one of the two. The Chechens themselves claim that among them there are true bearers of the “holy traditions of the Vainakhs” - adats - and there are those who have deviated from these canons. By the way, the word “Vainakh” means “our people.” And once upon a time, a person of any nationality could become “one of our own” for the Chechens. But, of course, subject to compliance with their customs. Those Chechens who engage in robbery and robbery, who become terrorists, are not “true Vainakhs.” They use their powerful temperament for unworthy purposes. But judging the entire Chechen people by them is a big mistake.