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Paper abstract:

Established at the beginning of the Second Russo-Chechen war in 1999, Russia’s-backed Chechen government is actively engaged in a reinterpretation of the nation’s history. The Chechen political elite that ruled the republic during its independence (1991-1999) opposes these efforts and promotes a version of history that dominated Chechen public discourse in the 1990s. The focus of these opposing political forces is the most sensitive historic periods that form Chechen collective memory, which both parties refer to in their interpretations and memory politics. This paper explores Chechen memory politics of the last three decades through these two dominant clashing interpretations. The article answers the question: What Chechen collective memories are the most contested and why? Relying upon qualitative methodology the article uses four primary sources of data: Chechen state TV, the interviews with Chechens from Chechnya, the opposition’s addresses on YouTube, and the interviews with Chechens residing in Europe. The analysis regards collective memory as a powerful political tool that enables the dominance of a political elite.

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The war in Ukraine shocked not only because of the scale of violence and barbarism but also because, at least, of silent acceptance, at worst, of applauding of a significant part of the Russian-speaking citizens in Russia and other countries. This paper tries to look for some reasons and factors that may explain this appalling phenomenon beyond the direct effects of official Russian propaganda. The main contention of this paper is that lack or absence of empathy caused by either “hardening of personality” and group/ cultural narcissism may explain the support of the war among the Russian-speaking people. Kazakhstan shares many similarities with Ukraine in terms of pre-Soviet, Soviet, and post-Soviet history (struggle for national identity, land, language, sovereignty); hence the view from Kazakhstan may offer some insights into explaining the justification and support for the war which Russian-speaking people may have.

I argue that the effects of “hardening of personality” (caused by many factors such as harsh parenting, the cult of violence, bullying, hazing, criminal subculture) and group/cultural narcissism (which can be embodied as racism, imperialism, and colonialism even in the 21’th century) should be counted in any thorough analysis of the war and violence in Ukraine. Overall, neither imperial Russian chauvinism and orientalism nor Soviet racism and supremacism (all premised on the unconditional dominance of the Russian language and Russian-centric world view) received a whole-hearted critique, re-appraisal, and condemnation in the Russian-speaking environment, except for in small circles of humanistic thinkers and writers like D.Bykov, S.Alekseyevich. Also, the factors leading to the “hardening of personality” at the family and mainstream education system level have been largely overlooked in the Russian Federation. The situation even worsened in the last decade after the geo-politicization of the concept of human rights in the Russian-speaking environment.

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This paper traces the development of different outcomes in the federal relations between Volga Tatars and Chechens, on the one hand, and Moscow, on the other. Providing both the historical background and the very fresh developments for both ethnonational groups, this study traces the process of territorial autonomy formation and its relative success among the Volga Tatars and more tumultuous sequence of events for Chechens. In Tatarstan, the first pacted autonomy was formed in 1994 and its much-abridged version was renegotiated in 2007. This can be seen both as a part of the greater anti-federalist trend but also as an exception to it as Tatarstan stood as the only region to enjoy such pacted autonomy for the next decade in Russia. The reduced powers granted to Tatarstan is in line with the Putin (and the late 1990s Yeltsin) regime’s steady and ongoing chipping away of the federal relations of their content and meaning. But the very fact that an autonomy treaty was granted at the height of Putin’s rule is important, even though understudied in academic literature. In contrast, Chechnya’s drive for unequivocal independence coupled with Moscow’s intransigence and weakness resulted in a de facto state formation throughout the 1990s. Through a combination of nonviolence and violence Chechnya was able to survive into the early 2000s even winning some international recognition. It imploded in the wake of Russia’s 2nd modern Chechen campaign in early 2000s due to a number of internal and external factors examined in this paper.