The Post-Soviet Wars: Rebellion, Ethnic Conflict, and Nationhood in the Caucasus

2. Setting the Stage: The Past, the Nation, and the State

Setting the Stage The Past, the Nation, and the State “Forget the Nation!”1 This chapter describes the stage on which the drama of the Caucasian wars took place.2 The focus is on two concepts that are crucial for an understanding of events: the “nation” and the “state.” Most of the collective action described in this book, and almost all the discourse accompanying it, centers on these concepts, both of which are still the subject of heated debates in the literature. First, I describe the process by which state and nation became institutionalized in the Caucasus, as a result of the interplay between the commanding geography of the Caucasus region and history. I argue that the Soviet Union, the latest and most powerful of all the empires that have tried to incorporate the Caucasus, promoted an institutionalization of nation and state, which, after the Soviet Union collapsed, determined where and how violence emerged in the name of these concepts. By focusing on the process of “institutionalization,” I give a clear position in the debate on the substance of nation and ethnicity. The nation is understood as coming to life only as a result of political institutions. When it comes to life, nation does so as a powerful symbol around which collective action is organized , not as an actor in its own right. Second, I briefly discuss nation and state as concepts and how they are used in this book. The Past The geographical position and structure of the Caucasus explains two of the most notable peculiarities of the region: the late and weak formation of statehood, and the ethnocultural complexity of the region. In the 2 11 Caucasus, history starts with geography. The double range of the Caucasus Mountains acts as one of the geographical boundaries between Europe and Asia. It stretches over 1,100 km from the Taman Peninsula on the Black Sea around to the Aspheron Peninsula on the Caspian Sea. The mountain ranges run parallel to each other, separated by between 10 and 15 km. The northern range is higher, on average 3,600 m, and its highest peak, Elbrus, soars to 5,593 m. The Caucasus forms a mountain barrier which is, on average, 160 km across. In the north, the mountains run out into a plain, bordered by the Terek and Kuban Rivers. Beyond them, the Russian steppe begins . The North Caucasus is usually subdivided into three parts. The western part stretches from Elbrus to the Black Sea. The eastern part is bordered by the Caspian Sea in the east and the Terek River in the west. Dagestan, Chechnya, and Ingushetia are in this part of the North Caucasus , and this was the core of the mountain dwellers’ resistance to Tsarist Russia, the Soviet Union, and, currently, the Russian Federation (RF). The central part of the North Caucasus is the highest part of the 12 | Setting the Stage mountain range. The Ossets, Kabardins, and Balkars, among others, live here. The Caucasus is located at the margins of three expanses—the Russian steppe to the north, the Persian hill country to the southeast, and the Anatolian uplands to the southwest—all of which were incorporated into the empires of various dynasties in different historical periods . The history of the Caucasus has always been the history of empires competing for both influence and territorial rule. Situated at the peripheries of empires, statehood in the Caucasus was established in most historical periods only as a shadow of these empires, either as a governed province or ruled indirectly though local elites. Thus the Caucasus owes its multifaceted cultural landscape to its geographical position, but the underdevelopment of the sociocultural and socioeconomic structures on which statehood is constructed have also been geographically and historically conditioned. The North Caucasus was better protected than the South Caucasus from the gravitational pull of empires by its mountain range. However, while this geological constellation hindered conquest by external powers and long impeded colonization—that is, the establishment of foreign statehood—it also impeded the indigenous formation of statehood. Before the 19th century, the mountainous, inaccessible, and impoverished North Caucasus avoided the rule of external powers. The difficult terrain impeded the establishment of direct control, and the harsh natural conditions made for easier defense against an invading army. This made any potential conquest very costly, with very little reward for conquerors , since the mountainous region had no riches to...