There are other indications of theirancient Christian faith preserved in their language. The Chechen names for Monday, Friday, Suturday and Sunday are clearly of Georgian origin as well the Chechen word for cross zhaar. The first monuments of the Chechen language are parchment psalters from c. 11th century written in Georgian alphabet.
What is Chechen culture like?
Chechen society is indeed marked by a martial spirit, linked to a very strict code of honour and dignity: every man is considered first and foremost a warrior. His weapons are his dearest possessions. On the other hand, Marsho – freedom – is a central concept in both Chechen culture and the Chechen psyche.
Why are there tensions between Russia and Chechnya?
The Caucasian wars became a prominent theme in Russian culture, and the Chechens a symbol of the heroic struggles of the mountain peoples to preserve their independence. A number of factors explain the particularly sharp tensions in relations between Moscow and Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.
Did foreign religious terrorists turn Chechen leaders religious?
The article shows that the flow of foreign religious terrorists into the republic, as well as financial assistance to the Chechen population and its fighting leaders, turned the Chechen leaders from predominantly secular ones into extremely religious ones.
What is the history of Chechnya?
This stems largely from the writings of nineteenth-century Russian poets and novelists: the poets Alexander Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov, the novelist Leo Tolstoy, and the playwright Alexander Griboyedov presented Chechnya in a romanticized way, portraying the Chechen people as lone and noble fighters.
What is the Chechnya region?
Chechnya is a highly mythologized region in traditional Russian imagination . This stems largely from the writings of nineteenth-century Russian poets and novelists: the poets Alexander Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov, the novelist Leo Tolstoy, and the playwright Alexander Griboyedov presented Chechnya in a romanticized way, portraying the Chechen people as lone and noble fighters. The Caucasian wars became a prominent theme in Russian culture, and the Chechens a symbol of the heroic struggles of the mountain peoples to preserve their independence.#N#Reference Lapidus#N#6
What was the cause of the Chechen conflict?
The struggle over the political status of Chechnya triggered by the growing wave of national self-assertion throughout the region resulting from Gorbachev’s reforms was shaped by a long history of Russian–Chechen conflict whose origins date back to the Caucasian wars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Moscow’s policy has been to reintegrate Chechnya into the political structures of the Russian Federation and turn day-to-day control over to loyal, handpicked Chechen leaders. For the Russian interventionists, the secession of Chechnya posed a threat to Russian statehood as it might undermine the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Russia, and thus it was to be prevented at all costs.
What was the pretext for the invasion of Chechnya?
According to Litvinenko and Felshtinsky, before the first Chechen war, an explosion on the river Yauza was the pretext to the invasion into Chechnya. The explosion on 18 November 1994, took place on a railroad track crossing the river Yauza in Moscow. The explosion was carried out by Captain Andrei Shelenkov whose body was found nearby after the explosion. Litvinenko and Felshtinsky also claim that the September 1999 Russian apartment building terror-bombing campaign used hexogen (i.e. cyclonite; RDX) as the explosive and was blamed on Chechen terrorists despite there being not the slightest shred of evidence that Chechens were behind it. It later turned out that the bombings were done by the Russian security agencies themselves caught by local police and citizens in the city of Ryazan planting live explosives (i.e. hexogen) with live detonators in an apartment building. In A. Litvinenko and Y. Felshtinsky (2007) Blowing up Russia: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB Terror (New York: Encounter Books); see also: D. Satter (2002) The shadow of Ryazan: Who was behind the strange Russian apartment bombing in September 1999? Russian and Eurasian Studies, 19 April, http://www.sais-jhu.edu/depts/res Google Scholar
How much money did Yeltsin give to Chechnya?
In 18 August 1997, Yeltsin said that while Moscow had allocated $138 million to Chechnya this year, only $21 million had reached the National Bank of Chechnya. ‘The devil only knows where the money is going,’ said Mr Yeltsin after a 90-minute meeting with Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov in the Kremlin. In P. Ford (1997) Only $21 million of the $138 million committed eventually reached Chechnya. Christian Science Monitor, 19 August. Google Scholar
What was the first generation of Chechen fighters?
The first generation of Chechen fighters consisted of volunteers who rose in the patriotic defense of their homeland. They fought not only for themselves and their families but also for the ancestors who perished in the deportation of 1944 and in the Caucasus war of the nineteenth century. … The ‘never again!’ sentiment that reduces the whole world to the dilemma of survival. It provided the extraordinary determination and moral edge to the Chechen fighters in the first war. 25
What was the social success of the Soviet regime?
According to Moshe Gammer, one of the major social successes of the Soviet regime was the creation of a single homogeneous Soviet elite in all parts of the USSR. This elite was intensely Sovietized and Russified, aloof from its own people and strongly tied to Moscow. Gammer claims that the major obstacle to a Russo-Chechen compromise, and the major cause for the wars in Chechnya, was the absence of a Chechen partokratiia – a Chechen elite Sovietized and Russified with strong ties to Moscow.#N#Reference Gammer#N#16 That is also Richard Sakva’s argument:
Why did Basayev say a school was selected?
Answering the criticism, Basayev not only claimed responsibility for the operation at Beslan but, subsequently, even apologized publicly for his miscalculation of Putin’s response, asserting that a school was selected because even the Russian authorities would think twice about attacking buildings crammed full of children. A few weeks later, after the Beslan siege, the Chechen resistance website carried the following message: