Chechnya. Kyrgyzstan. The Caucasus.
A primer on the complicated region the Tsarnaev brothers come from.
By Matthew Yglesias|Posted Friday, April 19, 2013, at 12:17 PM
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Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing is
reintroducing the American public to the confused ethnic, linguistic,
religious, and political history of the Caucasus region
Photo provided by FBI via Getty Images
The hunt for Boston Marathon terrorist suspects Dzhokhar and Tamerlan
Tsarnaev is reintroducing the American public to the confused ethnic,
linguistic, religious, and political history of the Caucasus region. A few
questions and some answers.
What Is the Caucasus?
Roughly speaking, the region is the land mass between the Black Sea and the
Caspian Sea. The isthmus between these bodies of water is bisected by an
east-west mountain range. The generally arduous terrain, as well as its
location at the intersection of Turkic, Persian, and Slavic cultures, gives
it a very fractured and diverse ethnic landscape. On the south side of the
mountains are three independent states-Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan-that
were politically organized as constituent republics of the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics. Entities on the north side of the mountains-among them
Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia-were organized as subordinate political
elements of the Russian SSR and thus became part of the post-Soviet Russian
Federation. This northern area contains many non-Russian ethnic groups and
several associated independence movements.
Where's Chechnya? What's a Chechen?
Chechnya is in the North Caucasus and is a province ("republic") of Russia
with a population of about 1.3 million people. Its primary inhabitants are
Chechens, a predominantly Muslim population with their own language.
Chechnya was the site of two brutal wars in the 1990s, the first of which
established de facto Chechen independence from Russia and the second of
which essentially crushed it. The conclusion of the second Chechen war was
followed by a prolonged insurgency that saw a nationalistic battle take on
increasingly Islamist overtones. As a result of the conflict, many Chechens
were displaced and now live in nearby regions.
How About Ingushetia? Is that the same thing?
The Republic of Ingushetia is directly to the west of Chechnya. It was never
a center of regular warfare the way Chechnya proper was, but there was
significant spillover fighting. The Ingush ethnic group is considered
distinct from, but closely related to, the Chechens. In recent years there's
been substantial insurgent violence in Ingushetia.
And Dagestan?
Dagestan is directly east of Chechnya and like Ingushetia was a site of
spillover violence during the Chechen Wars. There is no Dagestani ethnic
group. Instead, the plurality of Dagestan's residents belong to a
predominantly Muslim ethnic group known as the Avars. Over the past year,
Dagestan has been the most violent place in the region with assassinations
of moderate religious leaders playing a prominent role in Islamist efforts
to polarize the area.
What's the Connection to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan?
The Tsarnaev family seems to have lived for some years in Kazakhstan before
coming to the United States and Dzhokhar appears to have been born in
Kyrgyzstan. That's not an unusual trajectory for Chechens displaced by the
war. Many Caucasian Muslims joined an anti-Soviet insurgency during World
War II, and following its defeat in 1944, Stalin forcibly deported hundreds
of thousands of people-mostly Chechen-often to Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan.
Most returned once given permission to do so in 1957, but the experience
left Chechens with family and personal connections in Central Asia, so many
fled there during the wars of the '90s. Chechen refugees were not
well-treated in Kazakhstan and often border-hopped back and forth between
there and Kyrgyzstan on temporary permits while seeking the ability to
settle elsewhere. Chechen refugee have tended to relocate much more often to
Western Europe than to the United States.
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