Paul Goble
Vienna, April 17 – In his first decree as president of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov has approved a concept paper for the nationality policy of his republic that not only is fundamentally different from all other such documents in the Russian Federation but one seen likely to trigger a new growth of anti-Russian nationalism there.
At the very least, Sergei Markedonov, one of Moscow’s most thoughtful commentators on ethnic issues in the northern Caucasus, suggests, it will promote a distorted understanding among Chechens of their own recent history and make it difficult if not impossible for ethnic Russians to return there anytime soon.
In an articled entitled “The 100 Days of Ramzan Kadyrov” posted online yesterday, Markedonov notes that both the Russian Federation and many of its constituent elements have adopted concept papers on nationality policy over the last decade (http://www.apn.ru/publications/print16900.htm).
But virtually all of them have contained commitments to the friendship of all the ethnic groups on a given territory, couched controversial issues of the past and present in often artfully ambiguous language, and carefully balanced commitments to primordial ties and constructed identities.
The Chechen document, under discussion since 2003, that Kadyrov has now approved, however, is completely different: It is explicit where other such documents are vague, thus making tension more likely, and it contains a version of recent history that few but the most rabid of Chechen nationalists would find convincing.
In the first second of this concept paper, one entitled “The Culture Specifics of the Chechen Ethnos,” the paper defines as its subject the Chechen nation and not the “multi-national people of Chechnya. It thus casts doubt on the standing of all other groups, both the small number of non-Chechens left and the many more who departed in the 1990s.
Moreover, in focusing on the Chechens as an ethnic group, the paper stresses the conflicts they have had with other groups rather than any possibility of cooperation with them. “In their struggle with conquerors,” it says, “the Chechens have often been driven to the brink of extinction,” even though they have never occupied the lands of others.
Such “ethno-centrism,” Markedonov continues, “essentially simplifies the picture of the past and introduces a set of preferences as to who was a victim [the Chechens] and who was a butcher [a term that appears to extent to all those including the tsars, the Soviets and post-Soviet Russians].”
No one denies that outsiders in both the distant and recent past bear enormous responsibility for the tragedies the Chechen people have faced, the Moscow analyst says, but no one except someone blind to the facts can accept as this paper does that some Chechens are at least partially to blame as well.
But it is the second part of this paper that may have even more negative consequences. Entitled “The Ethnopolitical Situation in the Chechen Republic,” this section describes the enormous destruction that Chechnya has suffered since 1991 but fails to discuss “the de-russification and mono-ethnicization” of its population.
Whatever else Moscow and the Russian forces may have wanted over the last 15 years, Markedonov argues, they were not interested in promoting either of these outcomes. Indeed, most observers would say, these developments can be described as a the product of “ethnic cleansing” promoted by “Chechen ethno-nationalism.’’
In addition, the concept paper devotes a great deal of attention to ‘’Chechenophobia’’ in the Russian media and public life, but it does not discuss any of the causes of this form of xenophobia, at least some of which are to be blamed on the actions of some Chechens.
Given this perspective and the likelihood that it will inform Kadyrov’s policies, Markedonov concludes, ‘’it would be naïve’’ to expect that Russians will return in large numbers to Chechnya or that Chechnya under Kadyrov will promote ‘’the rapid integration of Chechnya into the all-Russian social space.’’
At the very least, the Moscow analyst says, predictions of such outcomes are ‘’premature.’’
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Window on Eurasia: Aleksandr Nevskiy’s Lesson for Russia – Turn East to Defeat the West
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 17 – Both the impulse behind the Northern Crusade which Prince Aleksandr Nevskiy defeated in the ice battle 765 years ago this month and the alliances that Russian hero formed to do so provide analogies to both the challenges Russia may soon face and the best ways it should respond, according to a Muslim commentator.
On the Islamnews.ru website last week, commentator Akhmad Makarov suggests that the West may face defeat in the Middle East and decide to turn against Russia, and that Russia in turn can survive such an onslaught only by forming an alliance with Islam (http://www.islamnews.ru/index.php?name:Articles&file=article&sid=827 and 837).
And because of what he suggests are the obvious parallels with Nevskiy’s activities nearly eight centuries ago, Makarov continues, Russians today need to examine why the Northern Crusade occurred in the first place and why Nevskiy was able to defeat it only by allying himself with the “superpower” of that time, the hordes from the East.
The Northern Crusade was the direct result of the failure of crusaders in the Holy Land, Makarov argues. The knights coming back from that struggle, he suggested, had been brutalized by the experience and quickly proved incapable of fitting into the feudal order in Western Europe.
To get them out of the way and also to expand Rome’s influence eastward, Markarov continues, a series of popes called for a northern crusade against the Slavs, one intended to end the schism in the church by the conversion of the Slavs from Eastern Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism.
Beginning in 1198, various knightly orders advanced inward from the shores of the Baltic Sea, and by 1240, the Teutonic knights had occupied a broad swath of territory including Pskov, Izborsk, and Luga, thereby threatening the economic and political power of the city of Novgorod the Great.
To deal with this threat, the Novgorod veche (council) invited Prince Aleksandr of Pereyaslavl to lead the fight against the papal and Germanic forces. He almost immediately concluded that Novgorod could win only by forming an alliance with the “superpower of that time – the Mongol empire,” even though it was hardly Slavic.
The prince effectively put the lands of Novgorod under the khans by allowing the tax agents of the latter to conduct a survey of property ownership there. According to Makarov, “no government would conduct such a census on the territory of another.” But that was only part of the story, he insists.
In Makarov’s words, Aleksandr “conducted a policy of maximum rapprochement with the horde, and the results were quickly apparent.” In 1241, he ousted the knights from various cities in the Novgorod lands. And in April 1242, he defeated the Teutonic knights on the ice in a battle immortalized by Sergei Eisenstein’s classic film.
But Aleksandr Nevskiy’s ties to the Mongols were even closer than that: Not only did he regularly make use of the envelopment strategy that the hordes had done but he even employed “a limited contingent of Mongol cavalry, the most powerful type of forces at that time.”
These events of almost eight centuries ago are echoed by current developments, Makarov insists. Once again, he argues, a Western “crusade” against Islam in the Middle East is collapsing. Once again, those who launched it are looking for new targets where they can get a victory. And once again, Russian leaders need to look eastward for allies.
On the one hand, Makarov’s arguments are nothing new: For much of the last 15 years, Eurasianists of one stripe or another have argued that Russia is or should be a reflection of its combined Orthodox and Islamic roots rather than part of Western Judeo-Christian civilization.
But on the other, Makarov’s articles do reflect a growing self-confidence among Russia’s Muslims, at least some of whom are now quite prepared to argue that one of that country’s greatest heroes achieved what he did not by relying on his fellow Russians alone but by turning to the Mongols, who shortly thereafter converted to Islam.
Because such discussions of historical figures remain so sensitive in Russia, Makarov is perhaps taking a big risk. But because debates about these figures from the past are often a way to talk about the future, his articles may point to a new trend in the thinking of some Russians about the utlity of close ties with Islam.
Vienna, April 17 – Both the impulse behind the Northern Crusade which Prince Aleksandr Nevskiy defeated in the ice battle 765 years ago this month and the alliances that Russian hero formed to do so provide analogies to both the challenges Russia may soon face and the best ways it should respond, according to a Muslim commentator.
On the Islamnews.ru website last week, commentator Akhmad Makarov suggests that the West may face defeat in the Middle East and decide to turn against Russia, and that Russia in turn can survive such an onslaught only by forming an alliance with Islam (http://www.islamnews.ru/index.php?name:Articles&file=article&sid=827 and 837).
And because of what he suggests are the obvious parallels with Nevskiy’s activities nearly eight centuries ago, Makarov continues, Russians today need to examine why the Northern Crusade occurred in the first place and why Nevskiy was able to defeat it only by allying himself with the “superpower” of that time, the hordes from the East.
The Northern Crusade was the direct result of the failure of crusaders in the Holy Land, Makarov argues. The knights coming back from that struggle, he suggested, had been brutalized by the experience and quickly proved incapable of fitting into the feudal order in Western Europe.
To get them out of the way and also to expand Rome’s influence eastward, Markarov continues, a series of popes called for a northern crusade against the Slavs, one intended to end the schism in the church by the conversion of the Slavs from Eastern Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism.
Beginning in 1198, various knightly orders advanced inward from the shores of the Baltic Sea, and by 1240, the Teutonic knights had occupied a broad swath of territory including Pskov, Izborsk, and Luga, thereby threatening the economic and political power of the city of Novgorod the Great.
To deal with this threat, the Novgorod veche (council) invited Prince Aleksandr of Pereyaslavl to lead the fight against the papal and Germanic forces. He almost immediately concluded that Novgorod could win only by forming an alliance with the “superpower of that time – the Mongol empire,” even though it was hardly Slavic.
The prince effectively put the lands of Novgorod under the khans by allowing the tax agents of the latter to conduct a survey of property ownership there. According to Makarov, “no government would conduct such a census on the territory of another.” But that was only part of the story, he insists.
In Makarov’s words, Aleksandr “conducted a policy of maximum rapprochement with the horde, and the results were quickly apparent.” In 1241, he ousted the knights from various cities in the Novgorod lands. And in April 1242, he defeated the Teutonic knights on the ice in a battle immortalized by Sergei Eisenstein’s classic film.
But Aleksandr Nevskiy’s ties to the Mongols were even closer than that: Not only did he regularly make use of the envelopment strategy that the hordes had done but he even employed “a limited contingent of Mongol cavalry, the most powerful type of forces at that time.”
These events of almost eight centuries ago are echoed by current developments, Makarov insists. Once again, he argues, a Western “crusade” against Islam in the Middle East is collapsing. Once again, those who launched it are looking for new targets where they can get a victory. And once again, Russian leaders need to look eastward for allies.
On the one hand, Makarov’s arguments are nothing new: For much of the last 15 years, Eurasianists of one stripe or another have argued that Russia is or should be a reflection of its combined Orthodox and Islamic roots rather than part of Western Judeo-Christian civilization.
But on the other, Makarov’s articles do reflect a growing self-confidence among Russia’s Muslims, at least some of whom are now quite prepared to argue that one of that country’s greatest heroes achieved what he did not by relying on his fellow Russians alone but by turning to the Mongols, who shortly thereafter converted to Islam.
Because such discussions of historical figures remain so sensitive in Russia, Makarov is perhaps taking a big risk. But because debates about these figures from the past are often a way to talk about the future, his articles may point to a new trend in the thinking of some Russians about the utlity of close ties with Islam.
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