Chechnya’s centuries-long bloody strife goes global

(Guardian) – This small Russian republic, nestled in the mountainous Caucasus, has produced some of the world’s most implacable fighters and most ruthless terrorists. Other places are also generators of far-flung violence beyond their own borders – Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are obvious examples – but none has as long a history of war, resistance, and terror as Chechnya.

The history of Chechnya is one of imperialism gone terribly wrong. In the 13th and 14th centuries, Chechens were among the few peoples to fend off Mongol conquerors, but at a terrible cost. Turks, Persians, and Russians sought to seize Chechnya, and it was finally absorbed into the Russian Empire in 1859.

Chechens are not ethnically or culturally Russian, and have now been fighting for generations to free themselves from Russian rule. Russian attempts to suppress Chechen separatism have even made a contribution to world literature, in the form of Leo Tolstoy’s masterful novella, Hadji Murad [pdf], which the critic Harold Bloom has called “my personal touchstone for the sublime of prose fiction, to me the best story in the world.”

Tolstoy served with a Cossack regiment assigned to fight Chechens in the 1850s – a stark reminder of how long this conflict has festered. A hardy plant, the thistle, is for Tolstoy the perfect symbol of Chechnya and its “desperately brave” rebels.

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Ever since the fall of 1999, when the second Chechen war began, the people of Chechnya have in effect been deprived of the right to travel outside Russia. Residing or studying abroad, taking business trips or performance tours, participating in international forums or art exhibits–these are opportunities open to Russians of all eighty-nine provinces, except Chechnya. Here it takes superhuman efforts to get a passport even when it is a matter of life or death.

Dagestan: Influx of refugees and consequences of Chechen separatist movement

After the Tzarnaev family fled Chechnya, they lived in Dagestan. The need for travel documents is clear to get a visum for the U.S. and somehow obtain refugee status. The family stayed for one year at the most in Kyrgyzstan, obtained passports(!) and left for the US in 2001.

Even an ethnic Kyrgyz from Uzbekistan whose husband is a Kyrgyz citizen, said she has been applying for citizenship for five years without success. She finally decided just to pay the bribe, but was priced out of that $1,000 option, twice the rate from the previous year. “It is big business for passport people.”  

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