The first Chechen states appeared in the Middle Ages. In the 19th century, after a long Caucasian war, the country became part of the Russian Empire. But even in the future, the history of Chechnya was full of contradictory and tragic pages.
Ethnogenesis
The Chechen people have been forming for a long time. The Caucasus has always been distinguished by ethnic diversity, therefore, even in the scientific community, there has not yet been a unified theory about the origin of this nation. The Chechen language belongs to the Nakh branch of the Nakh-Dagestan language family. It is also called East Caucasian, according to the settlement of the ancient tribes that became the first carriers of these dialects.
The history of Chechnya began with the appearance of the Vainakhs (today this term refers to the ancestors of the Ingush and Chechens). A variety of nomadic peoples took part in its ethnogenesis: Scythians, Indo-Iranians, Sarmatians, etc. Archaeologists attribute the carriers of the Colchis and Koban cultures to the ancestors of the Chechens. Their traces are scattered throughout the Caucasus.
Ancient history
Due to the fact that the history of ancient Chechnya passed in the absence of a centralized state, it is extremely difficult to judge the events until the Middle Ages. It is only known for certain that in the 9th century the Vainakhs were subject to theirneighbors who created the Alanian kingdom, as well as mountain Avars. The latter in the 6th-11th centuries lived in the state of Sarire with its capital in Tanusi. It is noteworthy that both Islam and Christianity were widespread there. However, the history of Chechnya developed in such a way that the Chechens became Muslims (unlike, for example, their Georgian neighbors).
In the XIII century, the Mongol invasions began. Since then, the Chechens have not left the mountains, fearing numerous hordes. According to one of the hypotheses (it also has opponents), the first early feudal state of the Vainakhs was created at the same time. This formation did not last long and was destroyed during the invasion of Tamerlane at the end of the XIV century.
Tapes
For a long time, the plains at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains were controlled by Turkic-speaking tribes. Therefore, the history of Chechnya has always been associated with mountains. The way of life of its inhabitants was also formed in accordance with the conditions of the landscape. In isolated villages, where sometimes only one pass led, teips arose. These were territorial entities created according to tribal affiliation.
Emerged in the Middle Ages, teips still exist and remain an important phenomenon for the entire Chechen society. These alliances were created to protect against aggressive neighbors. The history of Chechnya is replete with wars and conflicts. In teips, the custom of blood feud was born. This tradition brought its own peculiarities to the relations between teips. If a conflict flared up between several people, it necessarily developed into a tribal war up to the complete destruction of the enemy. Such washistory of Chechnya since ancient times. Blood feud existed for a very long time, since the teip system largely replaced the state in the usual sense of the word.
Religion
Information about the ancient history of Chechnya has practically not been preserved to this day. Some archaeological finds suggest that the Vainakhs were pagans until the 11th century. They worshiped the local pantheon of deities. The Chechens had a cult of nature with all its characteristic features: sacred groves, mountains, trees, etc. Witchcraft, magic and other esoteric practices were widespread.
In the XI-XII centuries. in this region of the Caucasus began the spread of Christianity, which came from Georgia and Byzantium. However, the empire of Constantinople soon collapsed. Sunni Islam replaced Christianity. The Chechens adopted it from their Kumyk neighbors and the Golden Horde. The Ingush became Muslims in the 16th century, and the inhabitants of remote mountain villages - in the 17th century. But for a long time, Islam could not influence social customs, which were much more based on national traditions. And only at the end of the 18th century, Sunnism in Chechnya took approximately the same positions as in the Arab countries. This was due to the fact that religion has become an important tool in the fight against Russian Orthodox intervention. Hatred of strangers was kindled not only on national, but also on confessional grounds.
XVI century
In the 16th century, the Chechens began to occupy the deserted plains in the valley of the Terek River. At thatAt the same time, most of these people remained to live in the mountains, adapting to their natural conditions. Those who went to the north were looking for a better life there. The population grew naturally, and scarce resources became scarce. Crowding and hunger forced many teips to settle in new lands. The colonists built small villages, which they called by the name of their kind. Part of this toponymy has survived to this day.
The history of Chechnya from ancient times was associated with the danger from the nomads. But in the sixteenth century they became much less powerful. The Golden Horde collapsed. Numerous uluses were constantly at war with each other, which is why they could not establish control over their neighbors. In addition, it was then that the expansion of the Russian kingdom began. In 1560 Kazan and Astrakhan khanates were conquered. Ivan the Terrible began to control the entire course of the Volga, thus gaining access to the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus. Russia in the mountains had faithful allies in the person of the Kabardian princes (Ivan the Terrible even married Maria Temryukovna, the daughter of the Kabardian ruler Temryuk).
First contacts with Russia
In 1567, the Russians founded the Tersky prison. Ivan the Terrible was asked about this by Temryuk, who hoped for the help of the tsar in the conflict with the Crimean Khan, a vassal of the Ottoman Sultan. The place where the fortress was built was the mouth of the Sunzha River, a tributary of the Terek. It was the first Russian settlement that arose in the immediate vicinity of the Chechen lands. For a long time, it was the Tersky prison that was the foothold of the Moscowexpansion in the Caucasus.
The colonists were the Grebensky Cossacks, who were not afraid of life in a distant foreign land and defended the interests of the sovereign with their service. It was they who established direct contact with local natives. Grozny was interested in the history of the people of Chechnya, and he received the first Chechen embassy, which was sent by the influential prince Shikh-Murza Okotsky. He asked for patronage from Moscow. Consent to this was already given by the son of Ivan the Terrible, Fyodor Ioannovich. However, this union did not last long. In 1610, Shikh-Murza was killed, his heir was overthrown, and the principality was captured by the neighboring Kumyk tribe.
Chechens and Terek Cossacks
Even in 1577, the Terek Cossacks were formed, the basis of which was the Cossacks who moved from the Don, Khopra and Volga, as well as Orthodox Circassians, Ossetians, Georgians and Armenians. The latter fled from Persian and Turkish expansion. Many of them became Russified. The growth of the Cossack mass was significant. Chechnya could not fail to notice this. The history of the origin of the first conflicts between the highlanders and the Cossacks is not recorded, but over time, skirmishes became more and more frequent and commonplace.
Chechens and other indigenous people of the Caucasus staged raids to capture livestock and other useful prey. Quite often, civilians were taken into captivity and later returned for ransom or made into slaves. In response to this, the Cossacks also raided the mountains and robbed villages. Nevertheless, such cases were the exception rather than the rule. Often there were long periods of peace, when neighbors traded among themselves and acquired family ties. With timeChechens even adopted some features of housekeeping from the Cossacks, and the Cossacks, in turn, began to wear clothes very similar to mountain clothes.
XVIII century
The second half of the 18th century in the North Caucasus was marked by the construction of a new Russian fortified line. It consisted of several fortresses, where all the new colonists came. Mozdok was founded in 1763, then Ekaterinograd, Pavlovskaya, Maryinskaya, Georgievskaya.
These forts replaced the Tersky prison, which the Chechens once even managed to plunder. Meanwhile, in the 1980s, the Sharia movement began to spread in Chechnya. Slogans about ghazawat - the war for the Islamic faith - became popular.
Caucasian War
In 1829, the North Caucasian Imamate was created - an Islamic theocratic state on the territory of Chechnya. At the same time, the country had its own national hero, Shamil. In 1834 he became an imam. Dagestan and Chechnya obeyed him. The history of the emergence and spread of his power is connected with the struggle against Russian expansion in the North Caucasus.
The fight against the Chechens lasted for several decades. At a certain stage, the Caucasian War intertwined with the war against Persia, as well as the Crimean War, when the Western countries of Europe came out against Russia. Whose help could Chechnya count on? The history of the Nokhchi state in the 19th century would not have been so long if it were not for the support of the Ottoman Empire. And yet, despite the fact that the Sultan helpedmountaineers, Chechnya was finally conquered in 1859. Shamil was first captured and then lived in honorary exile in Kaluga.
Establishment of Soviet power
After the February Revolution, Chechen gangs began to attack the neighborhood of Grozny and the Vladikavkaz railway. In the autumn of 1917, the so-called "native division" returned home from the front of the First World War. It consisted of Chechens. The division staged a real battle with the Terek Cossacks.
Soon the Bolsheviks came to power in Petrograd. Their Red Guard entered Grozny already in January 1918. Some of the Chechens supported the Soviet government, others went to the mountains, others helped the whites. From February 1919, Grozny was under the control of the troops of Pyotr Wrangel and his British allies. And only in March 1920 the Red Army finally established itself in the capital of Chechnya.
Deportation
In 1936, a new Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was formed. Meanwhile, partisans remained in the mountains, who opposed the Bolsheviks. The last such gangs were destroyed in 1938. However, some residents of the republic remained separative.
The Great Patriotic War soon began, from which both Chechnya and Russia suffered. The history of the fight against the German offensive in the Caucasus, as well as on all other fronts, was difficult for the Soviet troops. Heavy losses were aggravated by the appearance of Chechen formations that acted against the Red Army or even colluded withNazis.
This gave the Soviet leadership an excuse to start repressions against the whole people. On February 23, 1944, all Chechens and neighboring Ingush, regardless of their attitude towards the USSR, were deported to Central Asia.
Ichkeria
Chechens were able to return to their homeland only in 1957. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, separate sentiments reawakened in the republic. In 1991, the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria was proclaimed in Grozny. For some time, its conflict with the federal center was in a frozen state. In 1994, Russian President Boris Yeltsin decided to send troops into Chechnya to restore Moscow's power there. Officially, the operation was called "measures to maintain constitutional order."
The first Chechen war ended on August 31, 1996, when the Khasavyurt agreements were signed. In fact, this agreement meant the withdrawal of federal troops from Ichkeria. The parties agreed to determine the status of Chechnya by December 31, 2001. With the advent of peace, Ichkeria became independent, although this was not legally recognized by Moscow.
Modernity
Even after the signing of the Khasavyurt agreements, the situation on the border with Chechnya remained extremely turbulent. The republic has become a hiding place for extremists, Islamists, mercenaries and just criminals. On August 7, a brigade of militants Shamil Basayev and Khattab invaded neighboring Dagestan. The extremists wanted to create an independent Islamist state on its territory.
The history of Chechnya and Dagestan is very similar, andnot only because of the geographical proximity, but also due to the similarity of the ethnic and confessional composition of the population. Federal troops launched a counter-terrorist operation. First, the militants were ejected from the territory of Dagestan. Then the Russian army re-entered Chechnya. The active combat phase of the campaign ended in the summer of 2000, when Grozny was cleared. After that, the regime of the counter-terrorist operation was officially maintained for another 9 years. Today Chechnya is one of the full subjects of the Russian Federation.
