Imagined Community? Rethinking the Nationalist Origins of the Contemporary Chechen Crisis

Over a decade of turmoil in the breakaway republic of Chechnya has given rise to an extensive new body of literature on the subject. Much of this material focuses on the Russian Federation's campaign against the self-proclaimed Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and the poorly funded Russian forces' almost daily clashes with Chechen modzhakhedy(mujaheddin) and their mercenary allies. Other books and articles explore the implications of the conflict in terms of North Caucasian geopolitics, Islamic fundamentalism, international terrorism, regional oil interests, civilian casualties, displaced refugees, and the repeated violation of basic human rights and press freedoms. Although this literature is chiefly concerned with contemporary issues, much of it refers to the present conflict as the result of an age-old ethnic struggle between the Russian and Chechen peoples.¹ This review essay examines these efforts to historicize the contemporary crisis by investigating whether present-day Chechen militancy should be seen as the result of a long-standing tradition of nationalist insurgency in the region.

Most recent commentary on the North Caucasus situates the First Chechen War (1994-96) and the ongoing Second Chechen War (which began in 1999) within a broad historical narrative. Beginning with the revolts under Sheikh Mansur (1785-91) and the Imam Shamil (1834-59), this literature argues that a continuity of struggle for national liberation links 18th- and 19th-century Chechen unrest with upheaval in the 20th century, whether during the Russian Civil War, the New Economic Policy (NEP) of 1921-27, or collectivization. Allegations of Nazi-fomented uprisings during World War II bring this saga to its climax in 1944 with the wholesale deportation of the Chechen people to Central Asia. Although a generation of relative peace followed the Chechens' return from exile in 1956-57, most work on the subject segues rather quickly from the Khrushchev Thaw to the perestroika years, when regional tensions again flared in response to the erosion of Soviet power and the concomitant revival of Chechen ambitions for self-rule. For those subscribing to this longue durée view of North Caucasian history, the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria's declaration of independence under Dzhokhar Dudaev in 1991 signaled little more than the resumption of what is colloquially referred to as a 200-year war.²

In a certain sense, it is remarkable that enough has been written about this remote, inaccessible conflict since 1991 to contribute to the formation of such a grand historical narrative. After all, the literature's tight focus on the contemporary crisis has tended to preclude more than cursory reference to the history of the region at a time when instability, travel restrictions, and the destruction of local archives have stymied more thorough historical investigations.³ Even the most resourceful researchers have been forced to base their work on surprisingly meager and problematic sources. Indeed, it is probably this state of affairs that is responsible for the static nature of the Chechen historical narrative itself, which runs more or less linearly from the Imam Shamil to Shamil Basaev over the course of some two centuries.

Such circumstances ultimately make it imperative to approach the literature on Chechnya with considerable caution, differentiating between coverage of the contemporary crisis (which is often quite courageous and sophisticated) and the historical framework within which it is frequently situated. Many of the most problematic accounts require little refutation, as in the case of allegations of two centuries of uninterrupted ethnic strife or facile comparisons of the present campaign with tsarist-era colonial rule. But this essay questions less obvious assumptions concerning the nature of Chechen resistance by investigating the wisdom of contextualizing the Chechens' present struggle for national liberation within...