The Caucasus in Russia is perhaps the most distinctive ethno-demographic region. Here is linguistic diversity, and the neighborhood of different religions and peoples, as well as economic structures.
Population of the North Caucasus
According to current demographic data, about seventeen million people live in the North Caucasus. The composition of the population of the Caucasus is also very diverse. The people living in this territory represent a wide variety of peoples, cultures and languages, as well as religions. In Dagestan alone, there are more than forty peoples who speak different languages.
The most common language group represented in Dagestan is considered to be Lezgi, whose languages are spoken by about eight hundred thousand people. However, within the group, a strong difference in the status of languages is noticeable. For example, about 600,000 people speak the Lezgi language, while residents of only one mountain village speak Achinsk.
It is worth noting that many peoples living on the territory of Dagestan have a history of many thousands of years, for example, the Udis, who were one of the state-forming peoples of the CaucasianAlbania. But such a fantastic diversity creates significant difficulties in studying the classification of languages and nationalities, and opens up scope for all sorts of speculations.
Population of the Caucasus: peoples and languages
Avars, Dargins, Chechens, Circassians, Digoys and Lezgins have been living side by side for more than one century and have developed a complex system of relationships that allowed for a long time to maintain relative calm in the region, although conflicts caused by the violation of folk customs still happened.
However, a complex system of checks and balances began to move in the middle of the XlX century, when the Russian Empire began to actively invade the territories of the indigenous peoples of the North Caucasus. The expansion was caused by the desire of the empire to enter the Transcaucasus and fight against Persia and the Ottoman Empire.
Of course, in the Christian empire, Muslims, who were the absolute majority in the newly conquered lands, had a hard time. As a result of the war, the population of the North Caucasus only on the shores of the Black and Azov Seas decreased by almost five hundred thousand.
Soviet period
After the establishment of Soviet power in the Caucasus, a period of active construction of national autonomies began. It was during the times of the USSR that the following republics were separated from the territory of the RSFSR: Adygea, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, Ingushetia, Chechnya, Dagestan, North Ossetia-Alania. Sometimes to the North Caucasian regionalso refer to Kalmykia.
However, the international peace did not last long and after the Great Patriotic War the population of the Caucasus underwent new tests, the main of which was the deportation of the population living in the territories occupied by the Nazis.
As a result of the deportations, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Karachays, Nogais and Balkars were resettled. The inhabitants of the republics were told that they must immediately leave their homes and go to another place of residence. The peoples will be resettled in Central Asia, Siberia, Altai. National autonomies will be liquidated for many years and restored only after the debunking of the personality cult.
After Tips
In 1991, a special decree was adopted that rehabilitated peoples subjected to repression and deportation only on the basis of origin.
The young Russian state recognized as unconstitutional the resettlement of peoples and the deprivation of their statehood. Under the new law, peoples could restore the integrity of the borders at the time preceding their eviction.
Thus, historical justice was restored, but the tests did not end there.
Interethnic conflicts in the Russian Federation
However, the matter, of course, was not limited to a simple restoration of borders. The Ingush who returned from deportation declared territorial claims to neighboring North Ossetia, demanding the return of the Prigorodny district.
In the autumn of 1992 on the territory of the Prigorodny district of North Ossetiathere was a series of murders on ethnic grounds, the victims of which were several Ingush. The killings provoked a series of clashes with the use of large machine guns, followed by the invasion of the Ingush into the Prigorodny district.
On November 1, Russian troops were brought into the republic in order to prevent further bloodshed, and a committee was created to save the Ingush population of North Ossetia.
Another important factor that significantly influenced the culture and demography of the region was the first Chechen war, which is officially called the Restoration of the constitutional order. More than five thousand people became victims of hostilities and many tens of thousands lost their homes. At the end of the active phase of the conflict, a protracted crisis of statehood began in the republic, which led to another armed conflict in 1999 and, consequently, to a reduction in the population of the Caucasus.
