Dargins Avars conflicts. Dargins and Kumyks

During the discussion of political solitaire in Dagestan - who will take the chair of the head of Makhachkala, the head of Dagestan will resign, or will not resign, who will come to his place, no one noticed an amazing thing.

Just how familiar it has become for us that power in Dagestan is divided only between representatives of several nations. Namely between the Avars, Dargins and Kumyks.

The unwritten law of the elite

The situation is that in the post-Soviet period in Dagestan, unwritten rules were introduced to distribute the first 3 political seats - the head of the republic, the head of the government and the head of parliament between representatives of the three largest peoples - Avars, Dargins and Kumyks.

But, given that it is the first 2 posts that have real power, then in the last 5 years they have been distributed only between representatives of the Avar and Dargin peoples.

Although, we can say that this tradition began to take shape in the last 60 years, starting from the second half of the 20th century. And this despite the fact that there are about 14 titular peoples and about 50 small peoples in the republic.

Dargin patrimony

A clear indication of this is how the rotation of representatives of the Avar and Dargin peoples took place in the first posts of the republic in the post-Soviet period.

However, an even more clear picture is emerging in the ongoing struggle for the seat of head of the Dagestan capital.

Let us recall that until 2013, Makhachkala was permanently headed by Said Amirov (Dargin). With the coming to power of Ramazan Abdulatipov (Avar) and the pushing of the Dargins from key positions, the authorities realized that in order to maintain the Avar-Dargin balance in the elite, the capital must be left to the Dargins.

That is why the two acting heads of Makhachkala after the arrest of Said Amirov were Dargins - Murtazali Rabadanov and Magomed Suleymanov.

Today, as the election of the head of Makhachkala approaches, Ramazan Abdulatipov made it clear to Magomed Suleymanov that he was dissatisfied with his work. In fact, Magomed Suleymanov was withdrawn from the election race for the mayor's seat.

Ramazan Abdulatipov’s close circle, according to the newspaper “Novoe Delo,” wants to see Yusup Umavov, Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, in this post. Umavov, we remind you, is also a Dargin.

Reasonable questions

However, in multinational Dagestan, indignation and discontent are brewing over such clan arrangements. Especially after the clumsy attempt of former Deputy Prime Minister Abusupyan Kharkharov to justify why representatives of only a few families have been in power for several generations.

Let us recall that he stated that the children of high-ranking officials “have good genes and heredity, and accordingly, they are more inclined to public service.”

“Why is power trusted only to these two peoples? Are representatives of other nations unworthy or incapable of leading the republic?” asked journalist Alina Manafova.

Moreover, in today’s Dagestan it was somehow not customary to ask these questions. The clans in power convinced the Dagestanis that raising the question in this way was indecent. Because such a question allegedly undermines interethnic stability and harmony in the republic.

Meanwhile, according to the journalist, such a practice of distributing positions of power between representatives of two or three peoples of the republic has already become such an unbreakable axiom that even the Kremlin has become convinced of it.

Of course, it cannot be said that Moscow does not see the root of Dagestan’s problems. “The Dagestan national-clan system of power is today the main factor of destabilization in the republic,” this conclusion was made in the Kremlin a long time ago.

However, a lot of problems are still there. The reason is that throughout the entire post-Soviet period Moscow has been afraid to interfere with clan arrangements in Dagestan, fearing an ethnopolitical explosion. Teasing yourself with imaginary stability.

However, this imaginary stability turned into arbitrariness of clan corruption, a huge gap between the government and the people, an explosion of sabotage and terrorist struggle, and a new round of ethnopolitical tension.

A poor Dagestani, no matter what his nationality, in such a situation begins to blame the ethno-national clans that have usurped power in Dagestan for all his troubles.

Questions from other peoples

The depravity of the situation is extremely obvious when decisions about who will lead the republic or key cities are made based on the results of behind-the-scenes bargaining between clans representing two nationalities.

In this situation, the bet is not on the managerial and professional qualities of the potential candidate, but on the strength of the clan behind him.

Political scientist Ruslan Kurbanov noted that in fact this is a legal segregation of the remaining peoples of Dagestan, who are thus scrubbed away, pushed aside and not allowed to even have the opportunity to serve for the good of the republic.

This vicious system a priori excludes the opportunity for professionals from among the Lezgins, Laks, Nogais, Tabasarans and Russians of Dagestan to realize their experience and potential only for the reason that he was born of the wrong nationality.

It turns out that, for example, such a small people as the Aguls, who gave Dagestan such a bright and gifted politician as the Minister of Nationalities Magomed-Salikh Gusaev, are no longer capable of producing statesmen.

“This practice is inconsistent with the realities, principles and ideals of a modern free society. Dagestan has produced a huge number of talented managers and gifted specialists. But they will never be able to get closer to governing the republic precisely because of their nationality,” the expert notes.

Ramazan Shakhbanov

Among the latest materials on the 2010 census, Goskomstat presented a report on the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the population of the largest (over 400 thousand) nationalities of the Russian Federation.

This report allows you to obtain more detailed information on individual nationalities and identify interesting changes that occurred with them during the intercensal period. Among the Dagestan peoples, the “cherished” list included Avars, Dargins, Kumyks and Lezgins.

The gender and age distribution of the Dagestani peoples looks much more encouraging against the background of all-Russian indicators, although even for them it has worsened compared to 2002. The increase in the share of the female population can to a certain extent be associated with the fact that some Dagestanis were not counted in large cities: since men predominate among them, they suffered heavy losses. Thus, per 1000 men there are 1062 women among the Kumyks, 1027 among the Avars and 1027 among the Dargins, against 1163 in terms of the entire population of Russia. There are still more Lezgin men than women - 1000 and 989, respectively. This feature has a migration nature: the majority of Lezgin foreigners are men who came to work from Azerbaijan. True, this feature is gradually being smoothed out - many Lezgins, having settled in a new place, take their families with them.

The Dagestan peoples are “young”. Their median age, which divides the population older and younger exactly in half, is much lower for Russia as a whole, amounting to 38 years. Moreover, among Avars, Kumyks and Dargins it does not reach 27 years, among Lezgins it is higher, including due to migrants who have a higher median age.

A similar situation is observed in the ratio of three age groups: the working population, older and younger than the working population. The Avars, compared to the other three peoples, have a high proportion of the elderly population - 9.8%. The Dargins have 9.3%, the Kumyks 9.2%, and the Lezgins 9.0%. Among the Avars and Dargins, the proportion of the older generation decreased, while among the Lezgins and Kumyks it increased slightly. However, the increased proportion of elderly Avars is difficult to explain.

Avars also have the highest proportion of people under working age - 28.2%. Among the Dargins and Kumyks - a little more than 27%, among the Lezgins - about 25%. Over eight years, it fell by 4-5% for everyone. Considering the unreliability of statistical data for the Republic of Dagestan, which most likely caused this figure to be overestimated among the Kumyks, which in turn affected their median age, it is difficult to give them any interpretation. Very suspicious is the increase in the population younger than the working age population among the Kumyks (by 3.3%), which was not observed among any of the other 22 peoples (including the Chechens and Ingush). A decrease in the share of this indicator indicates large additions in the working-age population group. Such contradictions do not allow us to see a reliable socio-demographic portrait of the Kumyks

It is possible that the Lezgins currently (and in 2002) have a lower birth rate than the Avars and Dargins, but this has also been influenced by migration. In general, the increased proportion of the able-bodied population and the reduced proportion of the disabled among Lezgins also have a migration reason, since among migrants, especially labor ones, people of middle and young (over 16 years of age) predominate.

More precisely, the birth rate is the distribution of women over 15 years of age by the number of children born. Over the course of eight years, among the Dagestani peoples, the proportion of childless women increased by approximately 1% (among the Dargins by 1.5%), amounting to 31-33%. The proportion of women with one or two children also increased, especially among Lezgins (by 3.2%). And women with many children who gave birth to 3 or more children became less common: their share decreased from 1.7% (among Kumyks) to 4.4% (among Lezgins). Avars and Dargins have the highest number of mothers with many children - 35.5% each, Kumyks - 32.9%, Lezgins - 30.5%. The Dagestan peoples are significantly inferior in terms of the latter indicator to the Chechens and Ingush, for whom it reaches 41-41.5% and has even increased by 1-2.5% over eight years. But statistical data on the Caucasian peoples should be treated with skepticism, since they are distorted, especially for individual peoples. In general, it can be noted that there is a decrease in the birth rate and the postponement of births to a later age.

The indicators for marital status are noteworthy. Among men and women of Dagestan nationalities, there is a slight increase or stagnation (for Dargin women) in the proportion of married persons. Against this background, the growth of married Lezgin men from 60.4% to 66.0% stands out from the general series, turning them from outsiders into leaders. However, there is no such increase among Lezgin women (by only 0.8% versus 5.4%), from which we can conclude that Lezgin men took representatives of other nations as wives. Men who create interethnic marriages are mostly migrants in large cities and oil and gas regions.

Lezginki also have the highest proportion of married women - 62.2%. And among the Avarkas it is lower than among the rest - 57.3%, but the share of widows is increased - 11.9% (among the Lezginkas - 9.6%).

Another deviation is the high proportion of divorced women among the Kumyks compared to other Dagestan peoples. This feature does not manifest itself very clearly, but quite clearly: among the Lezgins and Dargins - 6%, among the Avars - 7%, and among the Kumyks - almost 9%. Apparently, in the Kumyk environment, divorce is perceived less harshly, and a divorced woman feels more confident among them.

The number of monoethnic households has increased among all Dagestan peoples by approximately 20-25%. The Avars have 185 thousand, the Dargins have 121, the Kumyks and Lezgins have 90 each. At the same time, their average size has decreased, which ranges from 4.2 people among the Dargins to 4.7 among the Kumyks (they have the fewest households consisting of one person - 1.5%). If we compare these indicators, they correlate among all peoples, only the Kumyks do not quite fit into them, since with the largest increase in households, they experienced a minimal decrease in their size. It is possible that the large families of the Kumyks are still strong, but the role of postscripts in this case is more noticeable. With the growth of interethnic unions among Lezgins, the strong increase in monoethnic families also raises doubts, unless we observe the disintegration of large households into smaller ones.

The Dagestan peoples have approximately the same proficiency in their native language: 82.4-82.9% (Lezgins, Dargins and Avars) and 79.2% (Kumyks). The opposite ratio is observed with the Russian language: among the Kumyks - 95%, among the Avars - 92%. The majority of those who do not know the Russian language were found not among the Caucasian peoples, but among the Yakuts - 9.4%.

We see slightly different numbers in the distribution by native language. Among all nations, the proportion of people who indicated their national language as their native language has not increased significantly. Among the Dargins, Kumyks and Avars it reached 98.0-98.2%, and among the Lezgins - 94.9% (although it increased by almost 1%). In this case, the native language often serves as a way to show belonging to one’s nationality, and a person may not speak it at all. Among the Lezgins, the proportion of people who called Russian their native language was almost 3 times higher. Approximately the same picture was observed in 1989. However, if the Dagestani peoples continue to lose knowledge of their native language, then first the proportion of people with the language of their nationality as their native language will sharply fall, and then a change in ethnic identity will occur. Among the more mobile Lezgins, this process began a little earlier than among other large Dagestan peoples.

Only in 8 of the 22 largest peoples of Russia, the proportion of people with education (basic general and higher education) exceeds the all-Russian figure - 94%, including Lezgins - 95.2%. The Kumyks came close to the average figure - 93.8%. Among the Avars and especially the Dargins, the level of education is still quite low - 91.5% and 89.2%, respectively. But they are gradually closing the existing gap.

Of interest is the share of people with higher and postgraduate education among Dagestanis. Here the Lezgins are also in the lead with 21.6%, although they do not reach the Russian average - 23.4%. But if we add to them persons with incomplete higher education, then they correspond to it (28%). Among the Kumyks, these figures reach 19 and 25%, respectively. Avars (15.8% and 21%) and Dargins (15.6% and 20.5%) lag significantly behind them, and over the past eight years this gap has increased. As an example, we can cite the maximum and minimum level of persons with higher education noted among the largest nations: among the Ossetians it reached 30%, while among the Chechens it was only 11.8%.

The main source of livelihood for the Dagestan peoples is... dependency. If in 2002 the share of dependents among them (except for Lezgins) exceeded 50%, now it has decreased significantly, but is still high (up to 43.3% among Dargins). One of the main reasons for this feature is the high proportion of children in the age structure of the Dagestan peoples.

In second place (except for the Avars) is labor activity. Among the Kumyks this figure reaches 33%, among the Lezgins - 32.3%, among the Dargins - 29.1% and Avars - 26.7%. In the country as a whole, labor activity is the main source of funds, covering 48% of the population. The third (previously second) source of importance is benefits, including unemployment benefits: from 25.5% for the Kumyks, to 30% for the Avars. Then come personal farming and pensions, especially among the Avars - 20.4% and 15.2%, respectively. Other sources of livelihood are not so significant.

The adult population, represented by households aged 15-72 years, demonstrates less economic activity than in Russia as a whole. In particular, among Russians the economically active population is almost 70%, among Lezgins - 68.2%, among Kumyks - 64.3%, among Avars - 61.7%, and among Dargins - only 59%. The share of unemployed among Dagestanis is extremely high: from 15.6% among Kumyks to 22.8% among Lezgins. The reason for this is the labor surplus of Dagestan and high unemployment, especially in Yuzhdag.

The employed population consists mainly of wage earners. Their share among Dagestanis is 85-88%, but among Dargins it is only 76.9% (second only to Azerbaijanis). This can be associated with the high entrepreneurial activity of the Dargin population.

We can say that this article appeared on the topic of the day. This is really so, because if there had not been the August and September events in Dagestan, I would never have sat down to write it. There are many events and they are all quite harsh and dangerous, but for some reason the press and analysts do not see a satisfactory analysis of what is happening - everything is said about the mafia, about inter-clan fights and the penetration of militant Islam, etc., but Dagestan itself is not visible. I want to present my own view of what is happening in Dagestan and, of course, evaluate the prospects for its evolution. The tight deadlines resulted in a rather clumsy style, as well as possible repetitions in the text, for which I apologize to the Reader. This is also why I explain the small number of links and descriptions of specific events. Perhaps, if possible, in the future this work will be finalized and take on a more solid appearance.

Dagestan has difficulty: it is in a node geopolitical interests of Russia and the entire region as a whole and, accordingly, is influenced by many external forces.

When explaining the reasons for what is happening in it, these forces are often assigned a key role. This is natural, but wrong, since in this case Dagestan seems to be a kind of object devoid of internal structure and its own forms, which have developed naturally and have stability and resistance. The formation of such a view was facilitated by ethnic policy of the Soviet regime. For example, the same struggle of clan groups for power - in mono-ethnic republics it is an expression of intra-ethnic squabbles, and in In Dagestan, it was part of interethnic relations. The regime that ruled Russia since 1917 stubbornly considered such activities illegal, which means the lion's share of the ethnic history of Dagestan ended up under criminal charges, and not in history textbooks. The same can be said about Islam in Dagestan.

It is precisely these forms and processes taking place in modern Dagestan that I want to see. In my work, I will rely on the previous article so as not to repeat myself, although this cannot be avoided. As additional material on the Avar ethnic group and some aspects of the development of Islam in Dagestan, you can see Krymin’s articles. Actually, specific figures on the structure of Dagestan and its history can be viewed on the websites. I did not find separate studies on the Dargins and Kumyks, but this very important ethnic groups for Dagestan.

Without understanding the historical ethnic processes in Dagestan, one cannot understand the present and cannot make a correct forecast, so for convenience I will divide the work into two parts:

1. first you need to do historical overview and consider the main ethnic processes,
2. and then about events in modern Dagestan and their possible consequences.

I am beyond my ability to answer the question about the actual causes of this or that event, but it is indeed possible to assess how this event will affect the evolution of Dagestan. This is the task I will set.

The very concept of Dagestan has changed over the past two centuries. At first it was part of the territory of the Eastern Caucasus, mountainous and foothills; over time, this concept began to include the plain between the Terek and Sulak and the Caspian coast. In the article, this concept changes over time and has meaning in relation to each time corresponding. I will consider modern Dagestan as delineated by its administrative borders. Historical continuity with this approach is preserved and avoids unnecessary clarifications in the text.

I would especially like to note moment related to interethnic relations, without considering which it is pointless to analyze modern Dagestan. But this topic itself is very subtle and delicate, and therefore I want to immediately clarify the meaning of some provisions.

Each ethnic group creates public social or political structures, the activities of which are generally considered as displaying the evolution of the ethnic group itself and expression of his interests.

During interethnic contacts, which are the norm for Dagestan, these structures enter into interactions with each other and, generally speaking, both alliances and confrontations can arise between them. And since, within their ethnic groups, these structures are in relatively consistent states, we can also talk about trends in the relationships between all the structures of any two ethnic groups. It is in this sense that it is necessary to understand expressions like: two ethnic groups have different interests in something, are in an alliance or are in conflict, here it comes first and foremost about political interactions. In general, ethnic interactions in Dagestan did not lead to civil wars, Complementarity among ethnic groups is positive, and all the ethnic problems here are aligned with different visions of the further evolution of Dagestan.

Part one

Clergy until the 1920s

The years 1740 were special for Dagestan: Nadir Shah tried to conquer it. This was a huge disaster for the country: when great conquerors fail to win, they begin to commit atrocities, be it Alexander the Great, Napoleon or Nadir Shah. The form of the war suggests that mountainous Dagestan at that time was not a single whole, but was divided into separate ethnocultural associations, consisting of many relict tribes-ethnic groups: the so-called

• Lezginstan,
• Avaristan,
• Lakz,
• Darginstan.

The Muslim clergy in Dagestan then unequivocally supported the struggle of the Dagestanis against the conqueror, but at the same time they did not constitute a supranational force and was unable to coordinate the efforts of the mountaineers. Nadir Shah was driven out, but Dagestan itself lay in ruins and life had to be restored, or even something new had to be built. The southern part of Dagestan was hit the hardest, where it came to genocide, and those living there as a result lagged behind in their development from the rest of Dagestan, which gave its own characteristics in the future.

Ninety years later in Mountainous Dagestan one can see an ethno-political union with a religious dominant that claims to unite the entire country: Imamate of Shamil. It was the result of several processes at once:

• formation of the Avar ethnic group,
• the formation of a supranational religious doctrine common to all of Dagestan,
• the formation of a new ethnic force with a religious dominant (not Avars, but with a religious dominant).

The destabilization and paramilitary state in the country after the invasion of Nadir Shah persisted for quite a long time, which was also prolonged by a small war with everyone around. Due to this de-ethnicized population, i.e. All sorts of “dashing” people made up a fairly large proportion of the population. On the other hand, the tribes that defeated Nadir Shah were mainly from Avaristan and their military system in Dagestan was stronger than the others, which means that these same “dashing” people mainly saw it as a place to use their forces. They united around her, over time pushed back the Avars themselves, and Islam became dominant, in the form of organized Sufi orders. They became the core of the emerging new ethnic community. I will call it “Islamic”. Since they acted throughout Dagestan, they formed rather slowly, and therefore were, as it were, dissolved in more local processes. They never managed to form.

For some time, all three of these processes went together without being separated and were essentially three sides of one process, but from a certain point quite sharply isolated from each other. The reason was the logic of events.

In Dagestan, there were processes of formation of other ethnic groups with their own ambitions, but with a delay from the leaders and over time, the need arose to correlate the relationships between them. On the other hand, Shamil’s desire make the imamate supranational led to the fact that he had to rely on one specific ethnic force, while the closest thing to him was precisely this “Islamic” integrity. This was natural and generally accepted in Dagestan in the 1830s, but a generation later he was refused submission even by his own Avars. It’s just that everything became more complicated and they began to perceive him not as a general Dagestan force, but as one of the forces in Dagestan.

The evolution of the Imamat suggests that powerful integration processes were underway in Dagestan in the 19th century. The Imamate itself was only one of the methods and stages of their implementation, and its ideology shows that it the desire was fully realized and was also thought of as a religious association. Hence, religious leaders and the clergy should be recognized first of all as one of the main builders of a united Dagestan.

After the defeat of the Imamate, the number of free atoms only increased; there were more than enough of them to ensure local integration processes in the region and there were still many left. So, from time to time they united around some leaders (often these were representatives of Sufi orders, which facilitated coordination) and began to act as a single whole, subjugating those around them. These were attempts to implement development options similar to the Imamate. The result was the destruction of the structure of neighbors, the appearance of a large number of free atoms and start of the war, because there was nowhere to fuse them. Such options were quickly destroyed by Russia, often with the help of local residents. However, the process of subordinating the mountaineers to Islamic principles continued.

Sufi orders must be considered as independent religious doctrines, which can be localized not only in Islam, but also in the Christian world and in other communities, and at the same time not lose their content.

These orders successfully operated and settled in territories with mixed religious systems, where they became a serious force due to their thoughtful and effective organization, while the clergy of any of the religions was weakened in their influence. Therefore, Shamil seized the initiative from the Muslim clergy, which affected the processes in Dagestan. After the Imamate, the trend did not change, but “events flowed in a different direction.” The mountaineers were deprived of the opportunity to build an independent state, and therefore the main process became total Islamization.

The religiosity of the mountaineers only grew, and by the twenties the density of clergy in Dagestan was much higher than in Russia or Turkey. At the same time, Islamic consortia were perceived as having a triple identity:

• specific Sunni school or Sufi order,
• throughout Dagestan as a single whole and
• specifically to your ethnic group.

The passionaries were not allowed to fight: they either emigrated (there were several waves of emigration from Dagestan), went to serve the tsar, become abreks, or join the clergy. And the clergy, in turn, took a generally loyal position in relation to the royal power. Here is the figure: for 800 thousand inhabitants in the 1910s, there were 1,700 mosques in Dagestan (one for 470 people, including children under 13, who made up about a third of the population).

In essence, the Dagestan clergy by the beginning of the 1920s should be considered as independent subethnic group, which performed ordering functions for a fairly large number of people, which must first of all include the de-ethnicized part of the population, very small nations and simply “free atoms”. Here it turned out to be the heir to the Imamate. This subethnic group did not have any specific rigid unified hierarchy and, as an estate, it was ordered on the basis of agreements, which, in general, led to high flexibility in resolving emerging problems. On the other hand, it carefully treated the strong ethnic mosaic of Dagestan, playing the role of organizer of relationships between various ethnic components. Such activities led to the actual non-military unification of Dagestan.

The formation of this form of community life, led by the Islamic clergy, was completed by the 1920s and was the result of the evolution of Dagestan over a total of 150-170 years. Now in Dagestan two Sunni schools predominate. Moreover, each ethnic group usually belongs entirely to one of them.

Ethnic groups of Dagestan

At this time, another group of ethnic processes can be distinguished in Dagestan - the development of ethnic groups. The largest among them:

• Avars,
• Lezgins,
• Dargins,
• Laks and
• Kumyks

(the latter are a lowland ethnic group, the rest are mountainous). It appeared here at the beginning of the century problem of mountain overpopulation, and therefore settlement, and settlement of both ethnic groups and individuals.

Although mountainous Dagestan occupies a relatively small territory, driving through it from end to end is a very difficult task, especially in the last century. Neighboring areas were often connected by only one road, or even just paths. It is clear that contacts between similar areas were very limited. This led to the preservation ethnic division. On the other hand, within Dagestan it is possible to identify areas with a fairly developed internal infrastructure. These are usually river valleys and plateaus or foothills. In the past, such areas were often united into independent state associations and, in general, there was the possibility of mixing representatives of different ethnic groups. The mentioned Lakz, Avaristan, Lezginstan and others. in fact, there are such areas. Contacts between such areas among the population were much rarer than within them, and this was, apparently, due to the relief.

Mixing of the population and the actual appearance of a de-ethnicized population, which did not obey clan and clan orders, occurred in river valleys and especially at the confluence of tributaries. Immigrants settled here. The relief conditions in Dagestan, and indeed in the Caucasus in general, are such that usually several tributaries flow into one river very close to each other, such as the tributaries of the Sulak, Samur or Terek. Similar places were epicenters of de-ethnicization. But it was these places that became the epicenters of the formation of the ethnic groups of the Eastern Caucasus. A small territory, actually the slopes of the mountains, around the confluence of the tributaries of the Sulak is the place of formation of the Avar ethnic group, the Lezgins formed around Samur, and the Chechens on the tributaries of the Terek.

Trade roads served as the same place for de-ethnicization. At the junction of trade roads leading to inland Dagestan, Dargins formed. They are the most tradesmen and craftsmen among the Dagestanis, the famous Kubachi and so on. And on the trade, former caravan, road running along the line of the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea - Kumyks.

This fact is so remarkable that it is necessary to examine it in more detail and see what is meant by the term people in Dagestan. Second after the clergy the main absorbent of passionary elements Among the various ethnic groups in Dagestan were the Avars. In parallel with them, the formation of other ethnic systems took place, of which the most important for our topic are the Dargins and Kumyks.

The relationship between these three ethnic groups constituted a whole knot of problems in central Dagestan.

Avars(Muslim superethnos). The population of Avaristan (also called Avaria, Avarstan) two hundred years ago was a set of tribes-peoples, each of which had its own internal order. They all sought to maintain and reproduce this order, regardless of the environment. Those villages and auls that were located at the confluence of the tributaries of the Sulak constantly experienced the introduction of alien elements (families, or even just free atoms) that had broken away from their clans, and as a result were quite unstable and fluid.

In Shamil’s imamate there were many people fighting for the interests of all Dagestan peoples in general and Avar peoples in particular. This means that in general there were people acting in the interests of this entire set of peoples-tribes. The appearance of such people- a natural process that went on regardless of the existence of the Imamate itself, but the existence of the Imamate still shows that they seized the initiative from the clans.

On the other hand, with increased activity clans come into closer contact among themselves, and in this case there is a need to regulate the relationship between them. One of the forces performing this function was the population of the specified epicentral node at the confluence of the Sulak tributaries, and the process of ordering the surrounding tribes by them, which often occurred with partial destruction of the internal structure of these tribes, became the process of forming the unity of the population of this region. The people participating in this process, some voluntarily and some not, began to be called Avars. As you can see, it was primarily political and economic process, the expansion of which was limited by poor cross-country ability in the neighboring regions of Dagestan.

Over time, it became ethnopolitical and actually ethnic.

The ordering activity of the epicenter led to a simplification of the ethnic structure of the region, and therefore to the release of free atoms, which found a way out in increased activity. Partially, they replenished the epicenter itself, but as their numbers increased, they began to act within the framework of the formed ethnopolitical integrity and, organizing consortia, themselves began to organize the totality of relationships in Avaristan. Such activities required a unified ordering ideology, and among the Avars there was a rather strong attraction to the Sufi orders, first the Naqshbandi, then the Qadiri.

By the beginning of our century, the epicenter lost its leading role, and Avaristan turned into a kind of integrity generating pan-Avar consortia, which also organized it. This was accompanied by overpopulation in the mountains, which was relieved by emigration to the Middle East and resettlement in neighboring mountainous regions, in the plains and in cities.

Here came a new round of evolution of the Avar process, which continues to this day. Those who settled and resettled lost touch with the landscape and mastered new forms of activity, and thereby complicated and destroyed their own integrity. At the same time they refused to be called non-Avars, i.e. everyone still sought to participate in the Avar process. This means that they recognized the pan-Avar consortia as their own and participated in them, i.e. they sought to establish the same way of life that they had in their homeland, the same processes, etc. Each such resettled piece turned into a center of “Avarization” of the environment and built a life around itself as a continuation of the Avar process going on in full swing in the mountains.

As already stated, this process began as forceful coercion, in general, this is how it should continue.

Accordingly, outwardly he expressed himself and expressed in the seizure of leadership by the Avars and expansion into all layers of life. However, they do not have enough strength to destroy large (for Dagestan) ethnic formations and turn them into building material for the development of their ethnopolitical process, but they successfully assimilate small peoples. Such expansion leads to the fluidity of the forms of the Avar ethnos, and here it becomes important, first of all, ethnopolitical evolution.

The Avars are distinguished more strongly than the other peoples of Dagestan by the developed principle of collective responsibility and mutual assistance. In the most general form, their expansion in an environment alien to them or de-ethnicized can be described like this.

In the place of collective residence of the Avars, a consortium is formed and begins to take tribute from the environment. Values ​​or work. Do what you want and how you want, but put in the amount or do something useful or we will punish you. If you don’t want to become a tributary, prove it and gather your team.

At the same time, the consortiums themselves consider themselves obliged to act in this way. This principle organizes the population very well. For legitimacy, a state is created (if a new one cannot be created, then an existing one is used, in which key positions are captured).

In the absence of influences from other ethnopolitical processes, Avar leads to ordering the population according to power, the introduction of a transformed Avar mentality and the formation of a unified ethnopolitical system in the territory they were developing, which generally differs from the mountain version of Avarstan. Both are called Avars, but they represent different movements in the same ethnic group.

The desire for centralization that is characteristic of them has led to the fact that the Avars do not have vacillations along religious lines and a division into separate movements associated with it cannot be expected. The adherents of fashionable Muslim teachings who appear among them fall out of the actual Avar process.

Kumyks(a fragment of the Steppe superethnos drawn into the Muslim one). In general, the evolution of the Kumyks is the same as that of the Avars, but the Kumyks formed on the plain and in the foothills. The terrain here is much more monotonous, life is easier. On the other hand, this territory lies on the trade route along the Caspian Sea and there is a constant influx of immigrants here. Due to these factors no serious paramilitary formations arose here, A merchants formed the basis of life. They also determined its development. The mixing of the population was much stronger than in the mountains, therefore the process of forming unity itself was much weaker and more diffuse than its mountain counterparts, which means that in general there was less experience, weaker potential and simpler forms.

All this led to a great blurring of the Kumyk process. Among them, Dagestan has the largest number of mixed marriages with other peoples of Dagestan.

Dargins(Muslim superethnos). If the Avar process is associated with the formation of a largely horde, That The Dargins are characterized by a confederal principle they did not have an organization or a centralized state. The main routes connecting Nagorno-Dagestan with the outside world pass through the territories where the Dargins now live, but the terrain does not provide the possibility of creating a bright center, like the Avars, so there was no administrative unification. But there was the possibility of settling and accumulating a variety of crafts in a relatively small area. This has been going on for a very long time - almost since the settlement of these places by humans. As a result, the craft center of Nagorno-Dagestan was formed here.

Any boy who felt the joy of creating a beautiful or useful thing with his own hands wanted to go and learn craftsmanship in these places.

And when many such boys appeared in Dagestan in the 19th century, Darginstan began to change. The primary consortia here were not military units, but workshops. All these workshops together in this territory were considered as a single whole and belonging to this particular territory and this set of tribes living here. At some point, they became an ordering principle and subordinated the surrounding population to their interests. In general, they were distinguished by high professionalism in crafts and a developed aesthetic sense, and these qualities were and are valued in Dagestan both then and now. Darginstan became for Dagestan in the 19th century what Novgorod was for Rus' in the 14th century.

Differences in beliefs, which were quite significant in these parts, were also resolved by the Dargins in a unique way. This territory has long been inhabited main outpost of Islam in Dagestan. Moreover, it seems that the population considered it as one of the arts. Here the most varied interpretations of Islam and the most varied forms of its manifestation coexisted and developed. And the most interesting thing is that all this diversity was perceived as something single. It was here that Islam in Dagestan gained the first experience of correlating the activities of different directions and schools and different tribes, preserving their structure and autonomy, but nevertheless organizing them into integrity.

These two processes:

1. the formation of crafts as an ordering force and
2. the formation of a Muslim community formed into a single Dargin process of ordering Dagestan.

It was both honorable and beneficial for the surrounding peoples to participate in it. This process, like the Avar one, takes quite a long time was limited by the terrain, thanks to which it managed to take shape without mixing with its neighbors and without losing to them in confrontation.

Since there was no single ideological dominant embodying the unity of the community due to natural conditions, the distinctive feature of this process became a violent declaration of this unity: they say, we are Dargins and we are one and that’s it. However, they are much more open to external Islamic influences that dismantle and destroy their process than their neighbors Avars, Laks or Kumyks. To actually maintain unity, the Dargins had to genetically limit the absorption of free atoms, which, in general, put restrictions on both their numbers and the force of expansion. But Dargins were the first to formulate the idea of ​​the unity of Dagestan in the form in which it now exists.

At the beginning of the century, the Dargins, like the Avars, began their resettlement. Just like the Avars, pieces of the “Dargin” integrity were resettled, they also began to build the Dargin process in a new place, began to assimilate the environment, and so on. But the form of its implementation was not coercion, and the formation of industries, from mills to fountain pens.

The basis of life for those migrating became crafts and private enterprise: mills, blacksmithing, etc., to a large extent merchants. Most of the surrounding population did what they wanted, but organizing any production without participation in the Dargin process was becoming impossible.

The Dargin process does not completely control all aspects of life, but builds neighbors in such a way that economic and ideological reproduction in the region remain strictly unified, and remain a priority, compared, say, with the military.

The personal freedom and openness allowed in the Dargin process to develop different directions of Islam (there are both Sunnis and Shiites among the Dargins) allows and even leads to the identification of ethnic currents within it along them. In Darginstan itself, this does not lead to serious changes, but in a sufficiently large environment, dispersed over an extended territory, this will lead to the separation of ethnic components isolated from each other, which will nevertheless call themselves Dargins. Each of these components can even become an independent people, but at the same time they will all be called Dargins. Will bind them unity of origin.

The Dargin process is an amazing phenomenon. If the Avar is quite simple and easily distinguished, let’s say it can be likened to the blade of a saber, then the Dargin will correspond to the richly decorated hilt of this saber of fine jewelry work.

The interpenetration of the three forms of processes considered, called peoples, does not occur, i.e. people called Dargins will no longer be called Avars or Kumyks. Firstly, each of them has a historical memory and it plays a very significant role. Memory leads to inertia in every process. Participation in the Dargin consortium is, of course, participation in the Dargin process, but in order to enter it in such a way as to be able to be called a Dargin, you need to do this for a long time, by human standards a very long time and over more than one generation. And, secondly, each of these processes is a way of ordering the environment in all aspects of life, and for each process they are simply different and incompatible. The main keepers of both historical memory and the completeness of the processes themselves are the places of their origin, i.e. the same Darginstan, Avaristan, Kumykstan, etc.

However, all these processes correlate with each other, and the forms of this correlation need to be considered.

Ethnic processes in lowland Dagestan in the 20th century.

Problem. For Mountainous Dagestan, the beginning of the 20th century. - the beginning of settlement, which means all ethnic processes came into close contact with each other. So tight that there was competition between them. In its main features, the modern appearance of Dagestan took shape precisely then. It seems important to consider it due to the fact that at that time there was no Bolshevik influence and the picture can be seen in its pure form.

As a result of the evolution of Dagestan in the second half of the 19th century. walked process of extra people appearing, i.e. those who weakly participated in local processes in the mountains. They were the support of Islamization, but when the mountaineers settled across the plains of Dagestan, their numbers increased greatly. Those who resettled do not immediately establish a normal life, which means that many of the old connections are lost, and there are no new ones yet, which led to the separation of part of the population from their roots, the establishment of contacts with the same migrants from other regions and actual de-ethnicization. Here, de-ethnicization must be considered as a process of destruction of connections between the components of ethnic systems and loss from any ethnic processes at all. Cities became centers of de-ethnicization and in general the territory of flat Dagestan.

In turn, the de-ethnicized part of the population over time again became the object of ordering on the part of their relatives.

This layer of people wonderful fate. The correct solution to the issue about them will create a correct idea of ​​​​the evolution of Dagestan and here's why. Overpopulation in the mountains puts natural restrictions on the local processes of ordering life, and here all the opportunities for development, except Islamic, were exhausted at the beginning of the century, and resettlement to other places is in any case a repetition of the situation that first took shape on the plain at the beginning of the century. Here, all ethnic processes inevitably transform as if in a distorting mirror and acquire a new meaning, which means that here one could expect the emergence of new and at the same time organic forms of community life for Dagestan. In turn, the situation that developed on the plain at the beginning of the 19th century must be considered as the beginning of the process of building ethnic forms characteristic of it, as an independent region. And that means it is necessary to trace the evolution of the ethnic development of the plain and identify the main processes that took place on it.

Islam. During this period, the Islamic factor assumed particular importance on the plain, the influence of which was expressed in two forms.

1. The subordination of the population to the clergy as an organizing force, and then those who participated in this became an integral part Muslim subethnic group in Dagestan. Considering the isolation of the population of the plain from participation in the actual Avar, Dargin, etc. processes, they inevitably began to be built as the main base and the main place of deployment and application of the efforts of the clergy, the main spokesman for their interests, etc. So, over time, the mountain clergy would inevitably become an emissary of the lowland (as a result, this is the case in modern Dagestan), which in turn means a restructuring of the clergy itself. The appearance of its core and periphery, etc. This subethnos-process became one of the forces in Dagestan, complicating it and nevertheless pulling it together.

To implement this option, it is necessary that the population of the plain remain mixed and consisting of many ethnic dilapidated components, which would allow many Islamic movements to coexist. An increase in its activity, with the absorption of passionaries, would lead to the formation of a common Dagestan ethnic group, in which the leading subethnic group would be the clergy. And in the future, there may be a claim to the creation of a super-ethnos, in which the basis will be the experience of organic combination of many religious movements and in which the North Caucasian republics would be primarily included. This is Iran's version. As in the case of Iran, it would have entered a new phase by the 1980s.

2. Organization of the population here by some Muslim movement or order, say the Qadiri Sufi, and then we can talk about the formation of an independent new islamic ethnic force, actively destructive influence of the Avar, Kumyk and so on, since she would do the same thing as them, i.e. actively organized life. Once formed, this force would enter the ethnic composition of Dagestan on an equal basis with the rest. But having been formed due to fragments from local processes, it would have considered them as an object for expansion. Which means she would inevitably have claim to the military unification of Dagestan. This would come true Imamate option, and it may very well be that this new community itself would have been able to be formed, but it would not have been able to conquer all of Dagestan at all. Such a claim would lead to war with the mountain peoples.

These two forms are interconnected. Formed clergy-subethnos at a certain degree of saturation, it begins to get rid of the excessive zeal of unnecessary passionaries, allowing them to form new ethnic or social associations based on their religious ideas, but at the same time requiring them to solve the problems of all of Dagestan as a whole, for example, creating a state, or looking for a field for their own activities somewhere on the side, for which the Sufi orders, in turn, are unusually convenient. Both correspond to the beginning of expansion beyond Dagestan.

Ethnicities. The Islamic process was dominant in the plains, but in general at the beginning of the 20th century it was not yet separable from the process of development of Islam in the mountains. In turn, the specific development of events also depended on the activities of various ethnic groups on the plain.

In general, the ethnic state of the plain at that time was determined by three ethnic groups: Avars, Kumyks and Dargins, the relationships between which determined its changes. Because the the plain is the birthplace of the Kumyks, they had it in 1910-20. priority, but local interactions are also a process that has a direction and can be traced.

Avars and Kumyks. Avars are interested in the presence of structure in the territory they are developing, just as a thrush is interested in a cow. The Kumyks in the biocenosis reduce everything to it and are themselves interested in establishing their own centralized management system in their territories. The result is confrontation. For the Kumyks, all mountaineers are still aliens.

Avars and Dargins. The Dargins need order, they are rich and loyal to the Avar identity and religiosity, perceiving them as one of the permitted eccentricities. The Avars, for their part, will not be able to crush the Dargins, but the sphere of Dargin influence is noticeably narrowing. With such interaction, the tendency towards avarization remains, but it becomes so slow that a new form of community life can be formed: a connection on a religious basis into a single whole or symbiosis.

Dargins and Kumyks. For the Dargins, this combination is similar to contacts with the Avars, but the Dargins already have the leadership here.

The combination of these processes led to their transformation. The Avars were unable to turn northern Dagestan into a second Avaristan, but they also could not stop the process of their expansion, and they are ordering as much as they can according to a scheme that they understand, the environment in which they are located. Having become accustomed to this role, they acquired relatively stable forms and became one of the independent ethnopolitical forces in the region with their own goals and functions. Plain Avars through these functions they began to understand themselves, and at the same time formed certain relationships to mountain Avars. At the same time, interaction with other processes became an organic part of the Avar process, with each of them individually, developing attitudes and basic forms of interaction. Therefore, the Avar ordering of life became not an ethnic process, but primarily a political one. In the future, it could become the beginning of an ethnic process, but then it would be the beginning of a new ethnic process. The Dargins have the same evolution.

The Kumyks, who were the leaders on the plain during this period, began to consider among their fundamental functions also the ordering of the lives of immigrants, and in general did not allow them to develop. During this period, they were a stable center for maintaining balance on the plain and acted on a par with the clergy.

Lowland Dagestan experienced an ordering influence from Russia, which built it up administratively, and from the Russian and Ukrainian population, which actively moved to lowland Dagestan at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. Mostly resettled money people and started production, i.e. built an economic area.

Due to the current ethnopolitical situation on the plain, in the future one could expect a constantly changing situation and a labile state, unstable to external shocks. In these conditions, as already indicated, the Islamic factor became decisive, also playing the role of streamlining the activities of different ethnic groups in Dagestan.

Soviet period. When the stone bends in pain. At the turn of the 20s and 30s there was a defeat. The order of life in Dagestan created by the hands of the Muslim clergy was destroyed, and it itself was almost destroyed and, accordingly, deprived of its role and influence. By the eighties, there were 27 mosques per 2 million Dagestanis. De-Islamization in Dagestan was carried out no less abruptly than de-Christianization in Russia.

The clergy played a large ordering role, and one of the results of the defeat was a sharp increase in the number of people who did not belong to anything at all and found themselves without ordering beginning. They began to be streamlined by the Soviet regime and the state. This was also an ethnic process, moreover, intensive and reinforced by the regime: the settlement of lowland Dagestan, the development of urbanized industrial centers and their settlement, etc., only the leader was not the clergy, but the nomenklatura. As a result, a mass of virtually de-ethnicized population grew, in which the influence of Islamic norms was reduced to a minimum. The clergy itself became one of the components within this mass of people and there were few of them.

During the revolution, the Kumyks became the most active supporters of the new government. There was even a special Kumyk-Chechen revolutionary military council.

The victory of Soviet power was accompanied by the establishment of Kumyk hegemony in lowland Dagestan, who suppressed other ethnic processes on the plain. And later, unlike the Chechens, they did not move away from the Bolsheviks. At first, until the 60s, their tandem with the regime was enough to maintain their leadership and keep Dagestan in such a, it must be said, stable state.

The highlanders at this time did not particularly strive for the plain, because they experienced pressure from the state and the supremacy of the Kumyks. Only Dargins had relatively smooth relations with them, and moved quite willingly, mainly to cities. There they became intelligentsia.

Makhachkala became a special center. It became a center in which the capitals of all ethnic components of Dagestan were gathered. Interactions of ethnic groups first of all, they were built as interactions between these capitals and were quite easily controlled.

At this time, Dagestan was clearly split into several ethnic pieces, loosely connected with each other and de facto was a confederacy. The integration processes going on since the beginning of the 20th century were intensively destroyed, but each of its elements swelled with energy and at a certain moment everything had to change.

Building modern Dagestan. By the 60s, it had come to the mountains severe overpopulation, so that there was a threat of ordinary hunger and an uncontrolled outflow of some of the highlanders to the plain.

The regime undertook to streamline everything and... it would have been better if it had not done this. A development program for lowland Dagestan was developed. During its implementation the enclosing landscape of the Kumyks was destroyed, which undermined the basis of their power and stability, and they were forced to become a predominantly urban ethnic group. In the mountains, resettlement was organized by force and with such destruction that not every war would cause; as a result, the traditional way of life in many areas was disrupted, and this, in turn, only increased the uncontrollability of the migrations themselves. On the other hand, places were allocated on the plain for the settlement of individual ethnic groups, but there were few of them, and the pressure of the ideological doctrine about the “new historical community - the Soviet people” did not allow us to approach the issue of resettlement and preventing possible inter-ethnic clashes in the future with complete seriousness.

Another factor: economic priorities were the main ones, and they gave quick results do not pay attention to ethnic differences and only contribute to the mixing of different ethnic groups. As a result, it turned out that the population of lowland Dagestan was mixed in all possible ways, and here the situation at the beginning of the century was repeated, only intensified many times over.

By the 1960s, due to the situation in Russia, the power of the repressive apparatus of the Soviet regime was seriously weakened.

The state regime, although it controlled key positions for itself, was generally unable to streamline all aspects of life. And then it only lost ground and completely disappeared by the early nineties. As a result, Avar influence and the ordering associated with it, Dargin and others, as well as Islamic, began to build up and grow on the plain.

The destruction of the host landscape of the Kumyks was useful for the regime, because the Kumyks did not, and by and large could not, reject the resettled population. Instead, they were asked to play a leading role in lowland Dagestan, and this during this period began to lead to rapid enrichment. Here they are clan and ethnic adhesions made it possible to maintain centralized control over the situation and maintain stability. But overall, step by step, they lost their leading positions.

Since that time, there has been a restoration of Islam in Dagestan. Despite the external defeat, the principles of Muslim community life in Dagestan were preserved much better than in Russia. What played a big role here was that part of the Muslim influence came from the Sufi orders. And it is much easier for them to hide, maintaining their structure and completeness, than for the clergy as a class. In the mountains, living 70-90 years is not such a rarity, so there was no break in traditions. Restoring the role of Islam in its “traditional” pre-revolutionary form is one of the most powerful ethnic-forming processes in modern Dagestan. The Dagestani “soil workers” are, first of all, such “reducers”.

And we must admit that this process has made the greatest progress compared to all the others. (The expression “restoration” of pre-revolutionary forms is quite conditional; we are talking about what Gumilyov understood by straightening the “zigzag of history,” i.e., about restoring the internal logic and completeness of ethnic processes that were disrupted in their time.)

It should be noted here that in Dagestan the population of the plain is large, and the collapse of the state’s influence was too fast, so a large share of it turned out to be unregulated by anyone. The underworld has received quite a large opportunity to strengthen itself. And on the other hand, the possibility arose of the penetration and development of Muslim extremist movements, such as Wahhabism.

In general, the first part gave a description of historical trends in part of the territory of Dagestan. Of course, this was done in the most general terms, but, I hope, it will allow us to present the processes in modern Dagestan in a coherent and understandable way.

Part two

What's happening? Dagestan

The situation as a whole. The appearance of modern Dagestan consists of several processes. Some of them are localized in part of its territory, but there are also general ones. First about the second. Over the past 8 years, Dagestan has decided ethnic leader. These are Avars. So modern Dagestan is jokingly called Avarstan. The Avar expansion, as I already said in Dagestan, is spontaneous. This includes resettlement and taking leading positions in various fields of activity, from government structures to crime. Now Avars are already laying claim to hegemony in Dagestan, and they achieve it in their usual ways.

When this hegemony is implemented in its ideal version in modern Dagestan, key positions will be occupied by Avars and, over time, they will replace the existing state apparatus with an Avar state apparatus with strict centralized control, in which the managers themselves structures will carry ethnic-forming for Avars functions. By the standards of Dagestan, this is a powerful power process. But it is still far from completion. The leader here is Abdulatipov. The second in importance is actually the leader of one of the leading Avar consortia - the Avar Popular Front named after Imam Shamil - Gadzhi Makhachev.

The Avars have many rivals. These are primarily weaker ethnic processes. Disagreement in Dagestan always gives rise to confrontation, which means a force is needed that will carry out functions of a breeder. In this sense Dargins are very much needed by all warring parties. A they do this very cleverly and essentially oppose the Avar pressure with all other ethnic processes, including even the Cossacks and Lezgins, imposing meaning on them against their will in Dagestan. But by playing on such contradictions, the Dargins themselves become a leading force.

Currently, Islam is evolving extremely quickly. It is already necessary to talk about the emergence of primary ethnic consortia, for which one of the religious movements becomes the main dominant. Wahhabism, for example. We'll talk about them later; they have a complex meaning in Dagestan. In general, they are part of the process of Islamization that has swept through all layers of Dagestan society and is already building its own priorities. The building of this process since the beginning of the 90s was carried out in agreement and with the support of the state, it provided money and people, etc., therefore, the main component and leader of this process stood out and so far remains the clergy as an organized force. This force acts among Muslims precisely as a single whole and considers them as material for ordering, in which ethnic differences do not play a significant role.

The result will be transformation of the clergy into a subethnic group, but until this happens, it understands perfectly well that it is dependent on the rapidly changing situation in the republic and is unstable, therefore it is jealous of new Islamic influences and how it can suppress them or try to take control. Relationships within the clergy are built on a contractual basis, it itself is divided into rumors and, in general, rightly does not allow any of them to take a dominant position. The clergy is now working for the unification of Dagestan and will continue to work for a long time.

Dagestan is trading. Through the hands of the Dagestan diaspora in Russia and within Dagestan itself, funds are being circulated that are incomparable to its numbers. Because of this, one of the main forces within Dagestan are those who were previously called merchants, and in Soviet times, speculators.

Trade is becoming one of the main regulating activities in Dagestan; it is also necessary to include smuggling and the caviar and oil businesses. Trade in Dagestan Dargins and Laks are better than the rest, but the latter are few. Figures are published that Dagestan is the poorest republic, and yet, once you get to Dagestan, even if you want to, you will not find a single beggar or homeless person. Because they are not there, although there are simply very poor people sitting on bread and water. Therefore, we can consider that this type of activity, at the very least, feeds Dagestan. For the Dargins, this process is one of the ways to maintain their leadership.

This process has a reverse side according to the proverb: " the merchant and thief are closer than siblings"The growth of crime and its merging with national or religious movements is a normal phenomenon. So, it cannot even be called crime. Crime is also accompanied by the spread of drug addiction. The situation is similar to the all-Russian one. In general, all crime can be viewed as a separate influential force.

In the north. Terek Cossacks historically lived on the middle and lower reaches of the Terek. During the revolution they all fully supported the white movement, and then it was just decossackization. In general, they had a good time. And then, in order to avoid anti-Soviet excesses on their part, the authorities divided their places of compact residence between the three republics. They were forced out of Chechnya, in the Stavropol region their lands were reclaimed and, in general, their way of farming was destroyed, but in Dagestan they were preserved relatively well.

Now the Avars are putting pressure on the Terek Cossacks, but they are receiving such a rebuff from them as anywhere else in Dagestan: there are no armed clashes there only because The Avars have weapons, but the Cossacks don’t have them at all. This is understandable: the destruction of the Cossacks on the Terek is tantamount to the death of the Terek Cossacks in general, so the Cossacks will hold out there until the last. In this regard, they are turning into the main ethnic-forming base of the entire Cossacks in the North Caucasus (the Stavropol Cossack Army joined the Terek Registered Cossacks in 1999). Cossacks from all over the region often visit these places. They feel that they are needed here, that they themselves like it, they see prospects for the development of the Cossacks, and at the same time, shock troops are being formed that will fight if something happens.

The Cossacks have an almost inexhaustible potential (by the standards of Dagestan) in volunteers from all over the northern Caucasus. And when hostilities begin, it will definitely be used. In general, the Cossacks would gladly jump out of Dagestan and join Stavropol.

The Avars understand all this and it irritates them, but they cannot put pressure on them, because increasing pressure is tantamount to accelerating the pace of organization of the Cossacks. Therefore, there is a kind of quiet war going on here between the Cossacks and the Avars.

On South. Samur River - border of Dagestan with Azerbaijan divides the Lezgins in half, which they are not at all happy about. This is a big problem in the south of Dagestan. The Lezgins themselves would gladly become the leading ethnic group among their neighbors, but their influence is sharply limited by their separation. Here national movements have enormous strength and are not tempered by any urban centers. Because of this, the south of Dagestan is gathering its own hub of interethnic relations. It exists parallel to the central and northern ones and is weakly connected with them. In essence, it is independent and may well become the basis for the formation of a separate ethnopolitical structure, which neither the Dagestani nor the Azerbaijani leadership are trying to allow. However, with a slight loss of Makhachkala’s influence in this region, it can become completely independent, including politically.

In the center. Basically, the territories “developed” by the Avars somehow correlate with each other, forming a single whole. This de facto single whole, as an independent force, is included in the balance of power in the republic. Now it connects the territory of the western part of lowland Dagestan and includes the cities:

• Kizlyar,
• Kizilyurt,
• Khasavyurt and partly
• Buynaksk

These territories are shown by shading on the map. Here is the epicenter of Avarian activity. Since the process of establishing their leadership has not been completed, they are more interested than other ethnic groups in preserving the unity of the plain and mountains, and even agree to the military unification of the entire region. In mountainous Dagestan, the Avar lands are the westernmost, adjacent to Chechnya, see map.

It turns out, territories controlled by the Avars run in a strip along the entire border of Chechnya and Dagestan, dividing them. This fact is important when considering the relationship between Dagestan and Chechnya.

Unlike the mountaineers, the Kumyks live entirely on the plain. They have lost power. How can they try and are trying to regain their influence, but they're not good at it. Their main confrontation is with the Avars. In addition, there is another area of ​​activity among them. For all influences, the Kumyks are only an object for expansion and the establishment of any non-Kumyk domination on the plain will lead to a loss of identity for them and they understand this very well.

Trying to preserve this originality, they begin to limit anyone’s influence on themselves. And this automatically leads to the emergence of a separate entity within Dagestan, distancing itself from all its other components. In general, the desire is understandable: to allocate places of compact residence of Kumyks as a metropolis, and in the remaining disputed territories they can fight. The territory between Buinaksk, Kizilyurt, Makhachkala and Izberbash is primarily considered as a metropolis.

What is new for Dagestan here is the very formulation of the question, since such activity becomes the beginning of a new process, which means leads to a sharp disruption of the existing balance of power. To implement it, they need allies, but rather weak allies who would help them limit the influence of the Avars and Dargins on the plain, but would not encroach on them. If such a force appears, they will either help or in any case will not interfere. In western Dagestan, the Kumyks are friends with the Chechens. The success of such activities will lead to a repetition of the situation in Dagestan before the 60s.

On the plain there is the epicenter of the activity of the Laks, but there are few of them and they are lost before the pressure of the leaders, so the most useful thing for them will be the weakening of all ethnic leaders in general. The Lak leaders are the Khachilayevs.

The unity of the Republic of Dagestan implies the unity of the management system and a single order throughout the republic. If it becomes let's say the Avars prevail, then such an order will be perceived by everyone as Avar. Moreover, connections within such an ethnic group will be built along the control system and at the same time transform it. Therefore, the expansion of several ethnic groups at the same time led to ugly distortions in the inflexible control system and constant confrontation between them, and this consequently led to the actual paralysis of power.

Several parallel ethnic political movements arose, which themselves began to build their own power. They were considered unofficial, but that did not make them any less powerful. This process, in turn, artificially blocked by Moscow, which demanded from Dagestan precisely the unity of the state structure, considering it precisely as the main condition for its dialogue with the republic. This fragile balance has been cracking at all the seams for some time, but its destruction would threaten to leave the entire region out of control.

Freezing the rapid development of confrontation with force in Dagestan Dargins became. The field of their activity is the whole of Dagestan. They created a special center in modern Dagestan, which can conditionally be called the central government, and this center is an equal participant in all confrontations. The main direction of his activity is building a single everyday space in Dagestan. These are law enforcement agencies, government agencies, surviving industries, etc.

In essence, the fragments of the ordering functions of the former regime are collected into a single whole and used as an ethnic force. He is first and foremost collects into itself and gives the opportunity to act any good specialists, and finds the main field for its activities in the anthropogenic landscape, which in the republic is mainly a plain. Therefore, this center is included in the balance of forces primarily on the plain, and is included as an integral part, being an additional factor that gathers it into a single whole.

This center for all of Dagestan is a reflection of power and now the only force in it that has the right to speak on behalf of all of Dagestan, and in the republic itself is a priority. He deliberately limits external influences(and Moscow too) on Dagestan, giving the opportunity for the spontaneous evolution of ethnic formations in it and even allowing elements of struggle among themselves to manifest, but not allowing cooperation with forces external to the republic. This center in the eyes of Moscow is considered a legitimate all-Dagestan force, so it is the thread connecting Dagestan with Russia.

This center is based in Makhachkala.

The current regime in Dagestan is a reflection of two interpenetrating spheres of ethnic relations. This is, first of all, the balance of power on the plain, of which the Makhachkala center is included as an integral part. And the second is the general Dagestan situation, where the very balance on the plain is maintained at the expense of the Southern and Northern ethnic nodes, and there at the expense of the economic and political power of the plain. The destruction of the balance on the plain will lead to a change in the role of the Makhachkala center, which means a redistribution of the entire regime will occur. This is where small events can have big consequences.

Accordingly, in central Dagestan, the situation is determined by the relationship of forces: Avars - Dargins - Kumyks - Makhachkala center - clergy - small peoples together. Between these forces, several lines of community began to form.

1. the formation of a clear power leader and, accordingly, a power version of the community; in modern conditions this is military power.
2. confederation, distancing these forces from each other and forming an obvious confrontation between them.
3. building an alliance between some of them (or all), political formalization of the stable leadership of the allies and, because of this, the emergence of the possibility of forming new forms of arrangement of individual ethnic groups. But this option could lead to the political transformation of Dagestan.

In general, all three lines of organization of the hostel in Dagestan have received their expression and development, and each of them has its own allies and opponents. Over time, incompatibility appeared between them and they began to interfere with each other, so that the implementation of one option led to the elimination of the others. As a result, an unstable balance developed between them, and if so, then external influences and processes aimed at the general destabilization of the situation in the republic acquired special significance.

Khasavyurt. There is probably no city in Dagestan with such a complex balance of power as in Khasavyurt, but it is necessary to consider it because it has a special role in our history.

Over twenty years (1970-1990), the city’s infrastructure and population grew two to three times (I don’t have exact figures). All this time the ruling ethnic group were Kumyks.

Chechens consider this city to be theirs and undeservedly taken away from them. Before the Chechen war, 20-30 thousand Chechens lived here per 100 thousand population, which doubled as a result of that war. Local Chechens are called Akin Chechens. They distinguish themselves from the Chechens in Chechnya, calling them incorrect or corrupted Chechens and claiming that only they have preserved the real Chechen order.

In addition to Khasavyurt and the Khasavyurt district, Chechens also lived in the Novolaksky district. After their deportation, Laks were settled on these lands, and after the rehabilitation of the Chechens, conflicts began here. Apart from these two areas, the residence and settlement of Chechens was not allowed anywhere else and is not allowed to this day. This is government policy. In general, about 100 thousand Chechens live in Dagestan.

In Khasavyurt they live compactly in two urban areas, which are called: “beyond the river” in the west, because they are separated from the city center by the Yaryk-Su River, and “behind the railway” in the north, in this case they are separated from the center by the railway.

Khasavyurt is the only fairly large city (by the standards of the North Caucasus) outside of Chechnya in which Chechens from Chechnya were allowed entry on fairly preferential terms.

Russia put something like a blockade around Chechnya and the supply of food and basic necessities to Chechnya was blocked. It was true that this was done poorly, but still there was not and could not be a unified supply system for Chechnya. But in Chechnya itself there were no production facilities. Meanwhile, Chechens, like all normal people, eat, dress, get sick, brush their teeth in the morning, and so on. And since free entry was open for them only to Khasavyurt, the result was that the city of Khasavyurt became one of the main supply centers for Chechnya. About two dozen markets have been organized in the city, half of which are wholesale. Chechens came here in entire villages and exported goods by car. As a result, funds disproportionate to its numbers began to circulate in Khasavyurt, and control over it itself acquired special importance.

One can only guess about the volumes of weapons and drugs that passed through it.

Khasavyurt used to be such a diverse city that it was possible to maintain stability and order in it only by relying on some kind of ethnic force. In the 90s, the constant struggle for power and control of cash flows ended with the establishment of Avars' leadership. The proximity of Chechnya and the associated development of criminality and the actual presence of a large Chechen diaspora, in the presence of shaky power, would lead to a swaying of the balance and unrest. To avoid this it became necessary concentrate all power in the hands of representatives of the leading ethnic group, i.e. in our case, the Avars and the leadership of the republic agreed to this and allowed such a transformation to occur. There had never been such a precedent in Dagestan before; Khasavyurt became a city in which the Avars began to dominate undividedly. And for them it became a good school, a whole consortium was formed, which concentrated good experience in organizing a community of many peoples with the unconditional leadership of the Avars. And this consortium declared its rights to its place in the Avar movement in general.

The residents themselves note that during the Avar leadership the city has become much cleaner, armed clashes have stopped and crime has generally been significantly reduced, water, electricity, gas, municipal enterprises are operating without interruptions. There are even several universities in the city that are filled to capacity with students (!) and that have competitions for entry, but in the early nineties the city was dying.

The general situation led, among other things, to the strong militarization of power in the city, and its authorities themselves, that is, Avar consortium was forced to act in close connection with units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the army, and in this way it was also very different from the rest of the subjects of Dagestan. Moreover, she herself had to organize herself along military lines. This generally led to the fact that at the outbreak of war, it does not need to radically restructure its activities, which means the reaction will be quick and adequate, which it demonstrated. On the other hand, the need for Avar unity manifested itself more strongly than other places right here, where, if necessary, Avars from other regions of Dagestan could be called upon to help in order to maintain their position, therefore Khasavyurt was distinguished by the general Avar movements and their leaders with their attention. In general, Khasavyurt turned into an outpost of Avars’ influence in Dagestan. And they are not going to lose it.

What's happening? Chechnya

In Chechnya in mid-1999, three bright centers can be distinguished.

1. Presidential power of Maskhadov, around which pieces of the former Chechen society gather that have preserved the internal structure, be it teips or villages that have preserved agricultural production. This center is interested in establishing a normal life, strives to preserve the integrity of Chechnya and the unity of its structure, and in general, it similar to the Makhachkala center in Dagestan, with the difference that Chechnya is mononational. Oddly enough, his ideal is pre-war Chechnya. He is trying to establish correct relations with his neighbors, which he wants to build as a counterbalance to Moscow and at the expense of whom he will try to get out of isolation. I think that over time they may accept the principle of Russian Federation priority.

2. Field commanders, gathered the disorganized part of the Chechens and through their activities gave them some kind of structure. All kinds of rabble from all over the region are still gathering to them, so that they essentially cease or have already ceased to be Chechen. It is clear that the preservation of such a center is possible only under the condition of constant war. The second organizing factor here is Islam, with the help of which they are still trying to raise their authority among their neighbors, saying that we are fighters for Islam. Here, the main object of attention is Dagestan, which is facilitated by the situation that has developed as a result of the spread of militant Islamic consortia, criminality and petty trade. And here is the Khasavyurt node.

3. As a result of the war Dagestan Chechens acquired special weight in Chechnya itself. They did not end up in the war and retained their composition, structure and forms of activity. Having collected a lot of capital, they became another core around which the poorer Chechen elements in Chechnya itself gather, i.e. become an ordering principle, of course mainly through trade. For example, border Chechens transport butter and cheese to the market in Khasavyurt, private tailoring workshops (for some reason Chechens love to sew jeans), find a market in Khasavyurt or through it, and so on.

They did not know war and are now truly considered a fragment of “that Chechnya that the Chechens lost.” They connect Chechnya and Dagestan and, in general, have become an independent and powerful force in the Chechen world with their own interests and influence. This is a viable Chechen center. These Chechens are basically blockaded with the first Chechen center, and therefore have difficult relations with the second. Although, of course, they do not have unity on this. They are divided according to the principle of who supplies whom and with what.

This center is not able to communicate with all of Chechnya, but with pleasure it can communicate with people the same size as itself. If Chechens as a whole adopt the experience of this center, this will correspond to the division of Chechnya into several, about a dozen, autonomous entities each of which will have its own characteristics and the establishment of contractual relations between them. This structure will be supported through trade, and will be aimed at acquiring funds. They will talk to their military and authorities in the language of money and with the help of money they will limit the autocracy of both. A hungry Chechen militant in modern Chechnya attracts few people.

The interaction of these three forms will determine the evolution of Chechnya in the future. But turning off at least one center from the alignment will lead to unpredictable consequences, a collapse of the balance and the beginning of a military confrontation in Chechnya.

What's happening? Islamic organizations

About the phenomenon. Now is the time to return to Islamic organizations as primary consortia. As a result of the evolution of the Eastern Caucasus over the past 30 years, conditions have developed in some segments of the population of Chechnya and Dagestan for the spread of Muslim aggressive movements as a whole. This is primarily the population of cities; in Chechnya it has grown further due to the war, and in Dagestan it includes the mixed population of the plain.

Although the clergy developed very quickly and became the focus of the general process of the revival of Islam, it was nevertheless unable to bring all forms of Islamic society under its control.

Then, to some extent, the situation of the beginning of the 19th century was repeated in Dagestan and mystical religious movements and orders received quite a lot of freedom for activity and, accordingly, the formation of their own interests. There are orders traditional for the region, these are of course Sufi orders of various kinds, but they have long been monoethnic orientation and cannot claim to be the role of uniting the interests of representatives of several ethnic groups, and if so, then a special role began to be played by religious movements and forms that were exotic for Dagestan, unprecedented before, which could absorb representatives of different ethnic groups, giving them equal rights in the realization of religious fervor.

The consortia organized by these movements in the de-ethnicized layers of the population in the region very soon became possible to consider as a tendency towards the formation of a new ethnic force, the dominant force for which is one or another Islamic teaching. These layers are also characterized by strong development of the gangster world, which in turn has priority arms and drug trafficking, another connecting link is small-scale trade, which in the current conditions in the region has acquired a special role. When a sufficiently powerful religious consortium is formed within this stratum of the population (common to Chechnya and Dagestan), it begins to act in it all together and as a single whole.

And what’s more, current conditions in the region as a whole are such that this consortium, having ousted its competitors, will become quite a serious force in it. But, on the other hand, the selection of such a consortium is primarily the result of the beginning of the formation religious ethnic force. The presence of Basayev and Khattab as comrades suggests that such a consortium already exists. This means that we must recognize the existence of an emerging ethnic system with a religious dominant (let’s call it an “Islamic” ethnic force), with its own tasks that can be traced regardless of what its leaders are, because this does not depend on them, but depends on the structure of the dominant doctrine and the situation in the region.

First of all, since this consortium consists of people from different ethnic groups with different stereotypes and is itself forced to act in a multinational environment, it will face the need tearing people away from the remnants of their traditions, and this is always painful and always semi-successful and takes quite a long time, which means it always requires strength. Therefore, if successful, its expansion will be accompanied by a desire to introduce strict norms of community life, say Sharia, and in parallel with the destruction of all other ethnic processes.

Not a single ethnic group in the eastern Caucasus remembers that something like this ever happened and does not perceive them as an equal ethnic force, and without perceiving them, they do not see their goals and do not understand why they can still demand special things from themselves. relationship?

Therefore, their behavior is at least strange for the surrounding ethnic groups. Because of this, political and social activity becomes the main form that organizes and distinguishes them, and this activity should have forms that are different from those that already exist, and, if possible, clearly different. And this means that between them and already existing forms of social and political structure inevitably, confrontation and struggle will immediately begin. Accordingly, the end result of this process, in the event of their victory, should be expected to be the establishment of a violent system of control, which will be considered the social frame of the new ethnic system. But this, in turn, allows us to trace the activity of this force in different situations.

In general, the whole process looks like this. First this ideological penetration, the creation of primary consortia with the ideological dominance of one (or maybe several) of the religious doctrines, and the creation within them of a separate justice system. Over time, the formation of shock troops that will do the most difficult work and the emergence of leaders among these troops.

At a certain degree of concentration, it destroys existing authorities and establishes its own. This is a transition to the next phase of expansion, namely the formation of military units and the military system in general. The places where this happened become the basis for further spread, and the spread itself is divided into two types -

1. military, here begins the subjugation of the environment to military force, and
2. missionary, what is described under the first stage.

In other words, the form of proliferation becomes a conventional war, supported by a fifth column in “enemy territory.”

But war, in turn, has its own rhythms and logic. It implies a certain organization of opposing parties, mobilization, etc. And if one of them does not have coordinated control, this is tantamount to losing. The beginning of this stage means that this current has reached its saturation and can already call itself integrity and have its own priorities and will. Because the destruction of traditional structures It doesn’t happen everywhere all at once, but in certain local places, civil war is inevitable, and traditional power structures begin to be perceived unambiguously as enemies.

An explosion in the spread of fashionable Muslim teachings occurred between 1989 and 1994. and merged with the restoration of Islam in general in the Caucasus. There was no de facto border between Dagestan and Chechnya then and these foreign religious consortia acted in these republics as one whole, for which the environment was suitable. After the start of the war in Chechnya, they actively began to fight Russia and here they were merged with the Chechen resistance itself, but this did not stop them having their own interests and autonomy.

The other half of their followers were located in Dagestan and generally participated in the fight against Russia. In Chechnya, the second stage of building "Islamic" ethnic force began during the war of 94-96, when the Chechens had an openly sabotage center, but then they had an aura of heroes and they were useful, and in Dagestan this stage began with the separation of the Chabanmakhs and Karamakhs from the republic and the proclamation of an Islamic state in them. Another node of this force in Dagestan was located in Khasavyurt.

They will consider a satisfactory result of the second stage and the associated war against traditional power structures to be a state when they are formed as an ethnic system, and this in their case is tantamount to the establishment of a separate state. The state may not be legitimate, but nevertheless exist. On the other hand, this state may not include Chechnya and Dagestan entirely, but occupy a relatively small territory, and this option is even preferable for them, since as an ethnic force they are small and will not be able to effectively control a large territory, at least until some fairly distant point in time. But, occupying a small area, they will definitely be create their supporters in territory not under their control. This is also a process that should have standard forms of development and which, as already said, is already in its second stage.

Anti-system? Questions. In general, it is clear what exactly Wahhabism has become the leading movement in the organization of this "Islamic" ethnic system. This is apparently due to greater financial support compared to other movements. Undoubtedly, a strong mutual responsibility and cohesion within the Wahhabi communities plays a big role. For those who enter here, the only way out is often death. In this regard, there is a need to look at Wahhabism in general in the most general terms.

The structure of Wahhabi communities and their closeness even from each other leads to the inevitable emergence of different interpretations of this religious movement, which can be in very complex relationships with each other. The correlation between these movements is difficult in any case, therefore, when spreading in different conditions and over a large territory, they can easily lose their actual unity, which is probably what is happening. And if so, then they cannot effectively prevent the introduction into their flow of elements that distort or destroy it.

Apparently, it is impossible to unequivocally condemn or support this movement, and first of all, because it is unclear whether it represents a single whole throughout the world or not. Most likely no. Most likely, it makes sense to talk about the autonomy of its individual movements localized in different regions, but then the mechanism for the formation of individual traits that distinguish them from each other is unclear. They are, of course, influenced by the activities of its distributors and even the characteristics of their worldviews, but also by the environment in which they operate and the type of specific problems that they solve.

Wahhabism in Arabia became an ethnic-forming force, formed its own subethnic group and at the same time formed its own appearance with its own characteristics, and from the subethnic group it received the power to maintain this appearance unchanged. This is apparently a property of Wahhabism: to form ethnic systems and at the same time create a new interpretation of this Wahhabism and a force that preserves this interpretation.

But in this case, the new sense becomes dependent on specific events and elements from which it builds its movement in a particular region. And the question immediately arises: how variable is this ability of his, because there are no identical conditions anywhere. There is a difference:

• form an ethnic system within one superethnos and
• do this in a super-ethnic contact zone.

In the first case it is much easier than in the second.

The founders of this movement themselves knew this difference and limited the contacts of their followers with representatives of other super-ethnic groups. They called it as best they could - a war with the infidels, but they achieved their goal.

The formation of a new sense and the corresponding ethnic system, although interconnected, are not identical. Tolk is a doctrine - the creation of human hands; processes accompanying the formation of an ethnic system are used to form it, and they may or may not be successful. The ethnic system may not be formed, but nevertheless a certain insistence of the Wahhabists, still appear. But in this case, won’t this interpretation become a unifying ideology for people who are actively destroying systemic connections in the region (there are always such, but they are often not organized) and living off this, i.e. the parent of the anti-system? At one time, Shiism served as the basis for the formation of both ethnic systems, the medieval Persians, and anti-systems, the Qarmatians.

In the contact zone of super-ethnic systems, and these are now both Dagestan and Chechnya, the formation of a new sense and the emerging ethnic system associated with it will be influenced by representatives of other superethnic groups, which means that the flow itself corresponding to this meaning will become a product of contact and then one cannot expect good things from it.

It is in this vein that I would consider Chechen-Dagestan Wahhabism. While the possibility of forming an “Islamic” ethnic community remains, there is also the possibility of its destruction and the degeneration of some of its components into an anti-system.

Relationships. Since the “Islamic” ethnic force as an object already exists, it is necessary to see how it will correlate with other ethnic processes in the eastern Caucasus.

First of all, the attitude of the Dagestan and Chechen ethnic groups to the very fact of the formation of ethnic components on a religious basis is different. In fact Dagestan is several Chechnyas concentrated in one small area. What is an event of the first rank for the Chechens, is already a second-rank event for the Dagestanis. This creates a strong difference between the republics.

Islamic governing bodies in Chechnya are governing bodies within one ethnic group and, no matter who they proclaim themselves to be, now they must be considered as Chechen governing bodies proper: Chechen Islamic consortia and so on. And only over time can we expect them to become an independent force, as I already said, only with the establishment of a separate state. Accordingly, Chechens quite easily accept the substitution of Chechenness for Islamism and there is no shortage of volunteers in such consortia, especially since there are actually Chechen mystical directions of Islam.

The formation of a new state system will lead to the destruction of Chechen unity, but at the same time to the cleansing of Chechnya from troublemakers and the strengthening of the power of the presidential center. Therefore, Maskhadov has an ambivalent attitude towards “Islamists”. He waits and does the right thing: he always breaks where it is thin. This “Wahhabi” movement has a much more complex relationship with the Akins: here the Chechens do not like the destruction of their generally thin and fragile community of society and they separate from the Wahhabists.

In Dagestan, Islam plays to a much greater extent the role of organizer of interethnic contacts, regulating them, demarcating them, etc., and the clergy here have accumulated vast experience, which was not wasted during the period of Bolshevik repressions. Therefore, the formed integrity will be perceived by everyone as one of many forces, it will be given the opportunity to act and will even be welcomed, but will be given its place on an equal basis with the others. However, when a claim to a dominant role appears she'll get hit quickly. Therefore, in Dagestan one cannot expect a large number of volunteers for such integrity and it will never play a serious role, as it happened in Chechnya, but, on the other hand, in Dagestan it has a greater chance of forming.

Dagestan is a complex republic and the situation in it is changing quickly, and therefore the relationships between its components are changing too. For the Dagestan ethnic groups this is unimportant, but for the emerging ethnic elements, including the “Islamic”, it is very important. Here the main factors are its relationships with other ethnic groups, and they, in turn, look not at the ethnic force itself, but at the leading religious doctrine within it. If these ethnic groups do not get along with one doctrine, they can support some other one and make it the leading one, which in general will not change the trend toward the formation of “Islamic” integrity in Dagestan.

For now, the leading trend is Wahhabism and the relationship with it that determines the attitude of the Dagestan ethnic groups to the “Islamic” integrity in general and to the process of its formation. If this current is deprived of its influence, under the leadership of some other doctrine, different processes will take shape, but this will be a new alignment of forces.

Myself Wahhabism in Dagestan cannot rely on any one ethnic group, because in this case it becomes, in the eyes of all other Dagestan ethnic groups, an internal matter of this ethnic group and is perceived as such. And in inter-ethnic disputes it will be perceived as such - as an integral part of one of the ethnic groups; moreover, this will create a great repulsive force in other ethnic groups towards this trend, because Dagestani ethnic groups are not going to merge, it disgusts them. Consequently, its influence will be strictly limited. Actually, attempts by Chechens to spread this Wahhabism in Dagestan are perceived as an attempt by Chechen interference in the internal affairs of Dagestan. This may sometimes be tolerable, but more often it is not, because it is too tight for us ourselves, and when it comes to interference in the internal affairs of peoples, this is always unacceptable.

Since the activities of the Wahhabists always lead to the establishment of their authorities, and they do this primarily on the plain and this leads to a shake-up of the entire balance on it, then first of all it is necessary to trace its relationship with the main forces in central Dagestan. The leaders here are Avars, while their activities are fused and carried out through existing authorities. This leads to a sharp confrontation with the Wahhabists, and since for the Wahhabists power is a matter of their very existence, the confrontation becomes deadly.

Relations with the Dargins were, up to a certain point, more loyal and more complex.

Some of the most active spreaders of Wahhabism in Dagestan are the Dargins.

Karamakhi, Chabanmakhi - Dargin villages. Dargins, as leaders and organizers of ethnic and social balance in the republic, need to check it for compatibility with Dagestan forms of religious community and in essence we are talking about the incorporation of this movement. At the same time, first of all, the possibility of the legal existence of this movement in Dagestan was explored ideologically. Success in such work would lead to the separation of the Dagestani Wahhabis from their militant counterparts in Chechnya. As usual: this split the Dargins themselves and some of them began to fight against their own Dargin leadership in Dagestan. Apparently, contact did not take place, and if so, then the Dargins as a whole become enemies of this movement and this force itself and will destroy it.

The establishment of power of such “integrity” in part of the territory of Dagestan will lead to a violation of the integrity of the republic, a general weakening of power in general and simply a weakening of the influence of leaders on the plain. Kumyks will breathe easier. But they are a completely secular people and the idea of ​​​​creating an Islamic state is most alien to them in Dagestan. Therefore, they do not actively oppose this process, but distance themselves from it.

Was there a choice? One may get the impression, mainly due to the work of the media, that “Basayev wanted to and raided Dagestan.” Is it so? Then he would have been better off striking in August 1998, but he didn't. Basayev himself has no weight, he is only a general of the Chechen army, which does not have a unified command, and the commander of a detachment of armed people, devoted to him personally. But he becomes an independent serious force when he begins to participate in the process of formation of the "Islamic" ethnic system. However, at the same time, he is subject to its evolution and its rhythms of existence, and this, in turn, does not depend on the will of individual persons. The reasons for the actions of the detachments of Basayev and Khattab and other leaders must first of all be sought in the evolution of social forms associated with the formation of “Islamic” integrity.

The introduction of Wahhabists into Karamakhi in 1997 was the beginning of the formation of the military system of the “Islamic” community in Dagestan and the beginning of a military confrontation between the embryo of the Islamic State and the Republic of Dagestan.

War is war and it involves combat. But the republic’s leadership failed to mobilize, but it managed to block the Wahhabis in a limited territory, although perhaps they did not seek to extend their orders to their neighbors. But they succeeded very well in making a well-fortified base out of the captured territory, which could be a stronghold for small detachments spreading throughout the surrounding territories.

The Kadar zone is located at the junction of the ethnic settlement of Avars, Kumyks and Dargins and occupies a very convenient location. More on this below.

Maskhadov stopped the war with Russia, but the Chechen Islamists did not stop it. The war resumed explicitly at this very moment, but the leadership of Russia and Dagestan pretended that this was normal, i.e. there was a repetition of the Chechen situation, when a real war is called establishing constitutional order. This means that there is no war on the Russian side according to all the established rules, the introduction of martial law, mobilization, etc. The result of such a position should be even worse than in Chechnya.

Unlike the Russian and Dagestani leadership, the militant leaders understood perfectly well that they were beginning to war against Russia, and they made the decision to participate in it right then. All strategic plans were reviewed and adopted at that time. From the point of view of the warring people, they acted very wisely, having thought through and prepared their actions. On the other hand, the efforts of many people are invested in war, so having decided to go back, he had no choice. As soon as the training of the militants was completed, the fighting began.

This process came to an end by August 1999, and its final stage began in the spring. Then, little by little, the Chechens began to get out of Chechnya; they were not yet refugees, but already leaving the war. As always, their places of settlement were in Khasavyurt and Ingushetia.

Part three

War

Goals. In August and September 1999, Dagestan experienced two invasions of armed men from the territory of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, who overthrew the official government in part of the territory of the Republic of Dagestan. It is impossible to say that they were going to establish some other system of power there, since they immediately began to fight. Both invasions were ultimately unsuccessful. But we can highlight the main directions of attacks:

1. Botlikhsky district and
2. Khasavyurt.

In general, the operations themselves were small by modern standards, but they caused unusually rapid and serious changes both in Russia and in the Caucasus. This first of all says that they are simply became the trigger to make long-overdue changes in the region, and also that a new balance of power is now being established.

The invasion was a surprise for the Dagestani authorities, but for the militants, as already mentioned, these were military operations that they conducted as part of general war against Russia and the existing regime in Dagestan. Accordingly, these operations had both strategic and tactical combat missions and should have simultaneously had political goals, to reveal which it is advisable to pose two questions.

1. First: what should be the goals of the militants in Dagestan and what should they do to make the war successful?
2. Second: if their summer operations were successful, what consequences would this lead to?

The main goal of the militants in Dagestan, first of all, should be the creation of an Islamic state on part of its territory. On the other hand, the conquest of all of Dagestan is disadvantageous, first of all, for the “Islamists” themselves, and they will not set such goals for themselves. Springboard of the Islamist army located in eastern and southern Chechnya and in the Kadar zone. There is a ready-made “fifth column” that can announce the establishment of an Islamic state in several places in Dagestan. First of all in cities.

But this will lead to the activation of the existing regime in Dagestan and the destruction of such points. Until such points have the opportunity to actively act, it is impossible in principle to talk about the success of the entire business. Again, the bridgehead they created in the Kadar zone was eventually also destroyed. This means that the creation of such a bridgehead must be accompanied by such a transformation in Dagestan that Russia will not be able to destroy it for an indefinitely long time.

First of all, the presence of such a state will be accompanied by military operations on the territory of the republic, and this alone will lead to serious consequences in the balance of power in Dagestan. They need to be considered.

Conducting hostilities always leads to the destruction of civilian power structures.

And the current civil structures and the regime associated with their presence are the result of the ethnopolitical balance in the republic, which in general can be considered unstable. Some of the administrative functions in Dagestan will definitely be taken over by the military, which means that a good share of influence will leave the civilian vertical, which, in turn, was also built as a body correlating the actions of different ethnic groups. Those. It turns out that the very meaning of maintaining correlation in this form will disappear. This means that this correlation will inevitably disappear, and this will lead to the collapse of civil power and the collapse of the unity of the republic. To recreate a new body performing these functions always takes some time, this always happens with showdowns, etc., and at this time there is a war on the territory of the republic. And during it, each ethnic component will have to solve the most urgent problems, in the shortest possible time, and this in the context of the destruction of coordination with other forces in Dagestan, i.e. independently or almost independently.

The collapse of power is a collapse throughout the entire republic. Makhachkala itself, the railway and the coast will remain under control. In ethnic metropolises, i.e. in places where ethnic groups live compactly, the only force maintaining order will be national movements, or rather, civil power will not be able to stay in them without the support of national movements, and this will lead to a manifold strengthening of these movements and, in turn, to their formation as bodies of power. Dagestan will turn into a political confederation, where the decisions of the Center in some area are considered as a good wish that can be fulfilled or not fulfilled. Several parties will form within the government itself and paralyze its work, while the ethnic fronts will do whatever they want. Here the normal practice will be to settle scores. The Kumyks will neutralize the influence of the Avars and Dargins; if peace does not work out, they will do this under the threat of an armed uprising, etc.

In case of a sufficiently protracted war, in order to survive and be successful, any ethnic group will have to identify the epicenter of its activities, i.e. where and under whose protection you can sit, where to keep your families, and what are the main priorities in the war itself, etc. The natural place for such a militarized bridgehead will be the territory of the metropolises themselves.. Avars will condense in mountainous Avaristan, Dargins - in Darginstan, and so on. In each of them it will be necessary to create a system of defense and general security. The picture seems unreal, but it is already happening. The simple threat of a Chechen attack has led to the fact that these systems are already being created, and in the event of war, it is necessary to expect the creation of semi-autonomous or fully autonomous ethnic armies.

Dagestan will fall into this state very quickly - within a few months, and will not be able to get out of it even for several decades.

The ethnic destruction of the unity of Dagestan during the long war will eventually turn into a political one.

Why should Kumyks fight for the Avars? should not. Some fight, some don't. Military people are practical, they will establish interaction with some, but not others. The Russian side will lose common Dagestan meaning and will become only one of the forces in the region, which, in alliance with some other forces, is doing something. This will happen within the framework of the naturally formed arrangements in Dagestan, and here freedom appears for other ethnic groups to enter into contacts with someone else, for the purposes of self-defense, and begin to consider the Russians as an opposing side, etc. Further, a simple escalation of conflicts and the beginning of the same mess in Dagestan as in Chechnya is inevitable, given that Dagestan is much more difficult militarily.

As you can see, simply waging war on the territory of Dagestan will lead to serious changes within it, which cannot be ignored.

Ways. From the point of view of the emerging Islamic subethnic group, if it implements its program and creates its own state on the territory of Dagestan, it will have to deal with monoethnic militarized ethnopolitical formations, which it will consider as an object for expansion. First of all, of course, he will build a different position in relation to each of them: with whom will there be an irreconcilable war, and with whom can there be alliances?. This will be an additional factor destroying the integrity of Dagestan, but in general this limits the location of the Wahhabist bridgehead in Dagestan by military considerations, i.e. it must be a territory that is convenient, first of all, militarily. It should not be easily exposed to attacks from any metropolis, but, in turn, should be able to strike at any of them itself.

It is also impossible to establish a main base on part of the territory of some metropolis - this will lead them to an all-out war with their neighbors with blood feud for destruction, i.e. They will no longer be able to do other things. It is possible between metropolises, but the influx of volunteers will be limited, and you will have to live on starvation rations, so it is best to create bases in the nodes between metropolises. In general, when main base location in the mountains, irreversible destabilization of the situation throughout Dagestan will not occur, the scope of its activities will be localized in the mountains, and it itself, although with difficulty, is still subject to liquidation over time. There is only one place left - on the plain, and preferably such places on the plain that would block the roads to mountainous Dagestan. This is primarily a strip along the mountains between the cities of Gudermes (in Chechnya), Khasavyurt, Kizilyurt and Buynaksk. Having settled there, they will first of all cut off the supply to the mountainous regions and cut off communications and, accordingly, the influence of Makhachkala on them. Here it will be possible to recruit a sufficient number of volunteers. Here they will fill the power vacuum that is created as a result of the war.

Militarily, the situation will be like this. The southernmost point of this site, Kadar zone, turned into a powerful fortress - a base for small detachments that can disturb the three metropolises of Avaristan, Kumykstan and Darginstan with equal effectiveness. Avaristan is also open to attack from the north from the Novolaksky region, and the west from Chechnya. The largest force in Dagestan will be localized in its metropolis and will be engaged only in defense. The Kumyks and Dargins will do the same, which means they will sharply limit their activities on the plain. Which is exactly what the Wahhabists need.

In my opinion, the strip of foothills is the most convenient place to form a bridgehead. But its creation is the result of war in general, and they can achieve it in different ways.

Destruction balance on the plain also not an easy task. The militants did not have much strength and they needed to find a node of interests on the plain, destroying which would disrupt the balance on it for a long time. Plain Dagestan is divided into two halves: the northwest - the territory between the cities of Khasavyurt, Kizlyar and Kizilyurt, and the southeast - along the Kizilyurt-Makhachkala highway, they even have different climates. From Kizilyurt there is a railway line to the north, coming from Makhachkala and connecting Dagestan with Russia. It is clear that now it has strategic importance and, in general, the established state order is ensured along its route.

But the territory from Kizilyurt to Khasavyurt is considered to border with Chechnya and therefore has an increased risk compared to other areas. The closer to Chechnya, the more chaos there is, so the government of the republic tried to ensure that the situation in this part does not greatly affect the whole of Dagestan, so the destruction of the balance here as a whole will not immediately have a strong impact on the rest of the republic. The transport hub and generally the center of this part of the plain is Khasavyurt. The infrastructure of the surrounding areas cannot be destroyed without knocking out these functions of the center from it.

Khasavyurt began to play a role incommensurate with its location: it outpost of Avar influence, and the Wahhabis need to hit them first of all, this is an unjustifiably expanded trade hub throughout the plain, its destruction will cause a disruption of life in several neighboring areas, this is the center for Chechnya itself, its isolation will cause destabilization in Chechnya itself, there will simply be famine. And at the same time, many Chechens live in it and next to it, it can be easily taken and held, it stands apart from the main transport flows of the republic connecting it with Russia. Taking it will cause maximum destruction on local territory and general destabilization in the west of the plain, while the rest of Dagestan will not really feel this.

And if so, then tension and martial law here can persist for quite a long time, which, given the urge of the federal government to release everything on the brakes and transfer events to a sluggish character, becomes an important factor. As a result, in part of the territory of Dagestan " establishing constitutional order"with great destruction, the introduction of martial law, the arming of residents, etc., and in Dagestan an area will be allocated in which the war will take place, i.e. little Chechnya. With the right approach, this war can then be inflated to general Dagestan proportions, and this territory can be used as bridgehead.

Events. Prelude. Now you can think about how the militants were going to implement this situation. First of all, they needed to act very quickly. Dagestan prohibited the deployment of Russian army units on its territory, i.e. in this regard, acted not as a subject of the federation, but as vassal ally, Russia did this because there was no choice. Even the border with Chechnya was guarded by policemen here. Only a limited contingent was stationed in Dagestan, which would clearly succumb to the militants in the event of a massive attack. Therefore, a full-scale war must be unleashed until reinforcements arrive from Russia.

The first blow was dealt to the Avars: Botlikh and Tsumada are Avar regions.

This was a big test in battle, and at the same time a diversionary maneuver; the Avars were shown the place for which they should be afraid, in Avaristan the outflow of Avars began from other regions of Dagestan and the creation of self-defense units there. And in other areas, there are correspondingly fewer of them. The troops drove the militants out of these areas for two weeks. In the end, the militants left(!) for Chechnya. The population of these areas remained very dissatisfied with this fact and very fearful and therefore began to rapidly arm themselves and organize. They sold cars and houses and bought weapons wherever they could. There now military power of self-defense units. The Avar Front named after Imam Shamil began to create essentially an Avar army of volunteers and they took part in the battles.

During the battles, the militants’ tactics emerged, first of all, the creation of a powerful coordination strike center, and small detachments around it, while they build something similar to a front line, this is to organize an influx of reinforcements, so this war can no longer be considered a guerrilla war. The units are well organized and equipped. In a shooting battle they completely suppress Russian units(thus, the militants were armed with a dozen new-generation sniper rifles, of which the Russian troops had only one at that moment), and they, in turn, in order to avoid such a battle, try to shoot the militants from a distance with heavier weapons.

Fleeing from such a battle, the militants, in turn, try to use the terrain, fortifications and civilians. Small detachments gather around the center until a certain stage of saturation. When the coordination center is destroyed, these units, without attempting to interact with each other, leave in predetermined directions. The centers themselves control small detachments only to a certain extent and individual tasks are given only in the main areas. However, the main routes of communication between different centers are tightly controlled. Routes of penetration into enemy territory are chosen so that the final destination is some natural dominant position that allows them to cover the supply of reinforcements. This was the case in Botlikh and Tsumada and Khasavyurt. It is clear that they must seize such a position immediately, without allowing anyone to come to their senses. On the other hand, if there is no possibility of establishing a front line, they will not capture anything.

At the beginning of hostilities in the mountains, the main problem of the plain became practically complete defenselessness of Khasavyurt. Units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the army were stationed tens of kilometers away from him and in the event of an attack they simply would not be physically able to resist the militants. The city administration developed its main activities here. Mobilization was announced in the city, two dozen headquarters were created to recruit volunteers and organize self-defense units. The delivery of medicines was organized, a stock of essential goods was created, patrolling, a curfew, etc. A plan for the defense of the city was developed. The main strong points, train station, bridges, etc. are highlighted. and fortifications began to be created at such objects.

A rare phenomenon has emerged in modern Russia: the authorities were ahead of the population in the initiative and, in general, led them along. The hunt for Wahhabists began.

Decrees were issued confiscating the property of those leaving during this period and prohibiting officials from leaving the city. A city defense committee was created, to which the powers to carry out emergency measures were transferred. Combat exercises for volunteer detachments were organized. And all this outside sanction from Makhachkala. Residents did not know who to fear more: the militants or their own (Khasavyurt) administration. With all this, the administration clearly divided the entire city into two halves:

1. Chechen and
2. non-Chechen,

the first was abandoned to the mercy of fate, and all activities were carried out only in the second, just as the defense was built only in non-Chechen neighborhoods. Then the refrain throughout the region became one thing: give us weapons! And he was missing. The military core of the defense organization was the Avar front of Imam Shamil, and the administrative core was the city administration, which, as I already said, was dominated by Avars.

These events, and the created system of defense and mobilization played a key role in subsequent events.

Events. Epicenter. After "restoring order" in Botlikh a wary wait ensued, which ended on September 5th.

The Novolaksky district, on one side, borders Chechnya, and on the other, it directly adjoins Khasavyurt from the southwest, the border between them is the city limits. The region is half made up of Chechens. The other half are the Laks, whose leaders, the Khachilayevs, are in Chechnya and are fighting against the official authorities in Dagestan. It was possible to create bases and warehouses with weapons in advance. Also in Khasavyurt. This is the only route along which it was possible to very quickly approach Khasavyurt and at the same time form a stable front line. If we reconstruct the militant command plan, then in my opinion it looks like this.

Stage 1. The capture of a number of villages in the Novolaksky region and the creation of a bridgehead for the advance to Khasavyurt. The militants entered Dagestan along the bed of the Yaman-Su (Dirty River). Chechen-Lak villages stretched out along this river in a chain. The Yaman-Su does not flow through Khasavyurt, and the closest of these villages to the city is Gamiakh, located 6 kilometers from it. The success at this stage was greater than the militants themselves expected; on the very first day they entered Gamiakh and were separated from Khasavyurt by just a large field.

Stage 2. Transfer of second echelon militants and weapons to the occupied territory. The infiltration of some militants into Khasavyurt, and some extremists were there from the very beginning of the conflict. Capture of Khasavyurt from outside and inside. On the second night after the start of the operation, the Chechen quarters of Khasavyurt were already controlled by militants, and on the third night, panic began in the city. You can imagine the degree of advance if only on the third day the troops were brought up and began to actually fight, and by the same time Yeltsin had assembled a security council.

Stage 3. Destruction of outposts on the border of Chechnya and Dagestan in the Novolaksky, Khasavyurt and Babayurt regions. Creating a humanitarian disaster on the plain. Formation of a united front in which Khasavyurt becomes the center of defense against Russian troops. It would be very difficult for the feds to get them out of there. At the same time, a blow is struck to other regions of the republic and, first of all, the railway line in Kizlyar is cut, which limits the speed of supply of army reinforcements to Dagestan, and an invasion of mountainous areas is carried out. The war becomes full-scale and drags on.

The militants acted very quickly, but they still did not have time. They were several days ahead of the federal forces, but could not get ahead of the Khasavyurt authorities. The program previously developed in the city and the defense authorities created within one day completely restored their activities and took control of the situation, i.e. very fast. A ditch was dug around the city.

It is clear that the first days were the most difficult. The city was practically unprotected by troops and the militants did not take it only because they themselves were not ready for this. The militias would not have surrendered the city without a fight., which means the militants had to rely on something, and creating a stronghold from the Novolaksky region, even with solid preparation, is in any case a matter of several days. However, small groups of militants expected to enter the city on the second day of the operation and commit sabotage in it. This possibility was completely suppressed by the city authorities by imposing a special security regime in the city and blocking the routes of travel and passage from the territory taken by the militants to the city.

Basayev's army cannot afford to attack on a wide front, and it is also deprived of the ability to bypass the enemy if this does not lead to his immediate destruction. Therefore, if a fortified camp is placed on the way of the militants, they will fight against it until it is demolished, and for them this means a loss of momentum. And so it was done. Large numbers of armed militias were assembled on the road between Gamiakh and Khasavyurt and took up defensive positions. For the first two days, this took place practically without the participation of troops and the militia alone controlled the situation. There were several times more militias than weapons, and the unarmed were constantly near the positions, and then in case of injuries, a fresh person took the weapon. The police were the first to go into battle. On the second night, some of the militants launched an attack on the city and the militia held out through the night, and in the morning a helicopter strike was carried out on the advanced militants and this was the only thing that stopped them. Subsequently, aviation carried out strikes almost without interruption.

The troops rushing into this zone at this time did not really know what to do, they dug in and started shooting anywhere and there was no sense in them. Only on the third day did the main forces begin to approach and process Gamiakh. They stood next to the militias and only from this time can we consider the beginning of the military operation. It turned out good tandem: troops-militia. The militia ensured the personal safety of the soldiers and eliminated the possibility of the activities of small sabotage groups, and the soldiers kept the militants’ striking forces at a distance with fire from heavy weapons.

The second line of defense was created along the Yaryk-Su River. The river flows through the city and divides it into two halves, which meant that the Chechen neighborhoods remained unprotected. When the militants entered the city, even if they did not enter these neighborhoods, the fire of the Russian troops would inevitably destroy them, and the militia simply viewed them as enemy territory. Everyone in the city understood this.

The war was perceived as an attempt to invade the Chechen world into the Dagestan one.

The militias were not going to cede the city, which means that if Khasavyurt was captured by militants, in this situation, fighting would have been carried out in it itself, and people would have died, which means that the events would have been perceived unambiguously as aggression of Chechnya against Dagestan, and all the talk about the Islamic order is like empty chatter. But in this case, it would make sense to talk about the organization of an all-Dagestan resistance, the structures of which would be considered as a reflection of the current intra-Dagestan situation, but with the fact that they would resolve military issues. This means that this time the Chechen Islamists lost in any case: whether their Khasavyurt epic was a success or not.

Avars and Dargins gathered to fight and fight seriously, this became clear within a few days, which means that everyone else understood that the price of a sustainable militant presence in Dagestan was unacceptable to everyone. After all, Avars and Dargins are native to Dagestan, but Chechens are not. Therefore, when the troops began to destroy the militants, the population perceived them as a force that would do the necessary work, while preserving the lives that Dagestan needed in the future, and they only helped in this. As a result, the troops threw the foreign body out of the republic without much difficulty.

New Dagestan?

The ethnopolitical balance that existed in Dagestan was unstable and difficult for everyone. The emerging forms of ethnic coexistence interfered and fought with each other, and any change in the situation was accompanied by painful excesses. With the emergence of destabilizing external forces, their actions began to be used by existing forces in Dagestan as an opportunity for further development. In this regard, it is necessary to trace the logic of the further evolution of the republic based on the results of what happened.

Changes occurred primarily in the Avar national movement. Khasavyurt, the epicenter and outpost of Avar influence on the plain, largely determined the forms of activity of the Avars. If the militants had driven them out of there, the Avars would have had to seriously rebuild here. What the Wahhabis would not have done, the Akins, Laks and Kumyks would have completed. The mayor of Khasavyurt, Sagidpasha Umakhanov, did not surrender the city and became the third most important figure in the Avar movement.

The Avars took the main blow, which means that at that time they became the main stabilizing force in Dagestan. This happened in military conditions, when there is no point in expecting any kind of order from the civilian authorities. And then intra-Avar inter-clan relations filled the existing power vacuum. Now this situation still persists in part of Dagestan, since Khasavyurt has become a front-line city. It turns out that part of the Avar system naturally fit into the order in Dagestan and at the same time became a legitimate form of activity of the Avars themselves in the republic, and it was designed according to a military model. From one of the forces vying for leadership, they have turned into a force without whose work the regime itself will not survive, i.e. into a leader.

This circumstance changes the power vertical in Dagestan so seriously that we can talk about the beginning of the formation of a new form of political community in Dagestan. Whole the ethnic group received the opportunity to legitimately form its own structures, which at the same time begin to be considered as legitimate authorities. And this is recognized by Makhachkala. A similar situation existed in Dagestan before, but only within Khasavyurt, now we are talking about the people.

The features of this transformation of the Avars need to be considered. How ethnopolitical force Now, in the event of a sudden external blow from the outside, they will not fundamentally restructure their activities, unlike other ethnic groups. High stability even in military conditions in the presence of a desire to preserve the unity of Dagestan becomes an additional factor in their own stability and the stability of the region as a whole. Of course, the sphere of their activity is not the whole of Dagestan, but where they dominate, they themselves will one way or another establish exactly this form of political structure and attempts to destroy it will lead to sharp opposition from the Avars and a general swing of the balance, which means they will be disadvantageous to anyone.

During the fighting in Khasavyurt, the militia consisted almost entirely of Avars and Dargins.

Since these events were also the building of a military-political form of existence of the Avar ethnic group on the plain, such interaction was also built as a form of coexistence and activity of two ethnic groups. In the military sphere, the Avars have superiority, and in the civilian sphere in Dagestan as a whole, the Dargins have superiority. The Avars have a base in the west of the plain and become the main force maintaining order in Dagestan, despite the fact that the west of the plain does not have a serious economic impact on the republic. The Dargins are in Makhachkala and are responsible for ensuring the interests of ethnic groups in Dagestan, which is extremely necessary for maintaining peace and are now loyal to the Avar movement. An ethnopolitical bloc was formed that was equally successful for a peaceful Dagestan and a military situation. Both now know how they will act in different situations.

The creation of this bloc and its adoption of political forms was one of the main components that reinforced the beginning of the political transformation of all of Dagestan. In order to allow the Avars to exist in the form they created, first of all, the meaning of power itself in Dagestan must change, it must inevitably become more flexible and decide what functions it agrees to delegate to this national movement. But this, in turn, creates a precedent and other peoples can and will certainly begin to change according to the same pattern, which means that the authorities must be determined and accordingly change the powers of all ethnic groups in Dagestan.

The creation of a powerful Dargin-Avar ethnopolitical core automatically ensured the stability of Dagestan, which gives freedom to other national movements to implement new forms for themselves. These processes will be accompanied by the merging of the administration with specific ethnic movements and, accordingly, will lead to a complication of its structure. However, all transformations will take place within the framework of the existing unity of Dagestan, the understanding of which will change, since the complication of the political structure will inevitably lead to the complication of the administrative structure.

Dagestan will de facto simply become a federation and the people like it. Any attempt to destroy it will cause war. And even with Russia. The ability of ethnic groups to create the forms of community life they like is now inextricably linked with the existence of Dagestan itself as a phenomenon. It's easier to do this by supporting each other. Dagestan can now experience any political transformation, but not lose its unity.

The political structure of Dagestan formed in this way is, in any case, a reflection of its physical evolution. Dagestan is turning into a special world generating a special form of existence and coexistence of different peoples, which can and should be studied and taken into account. If desired, he can accept those who wish, but as incorporators. Political unity becomes only part of cultural, religious and ethnic unity. And in this case, it also becomes a collecting and ordering center in the entire region, and as an independent phenomenon. In the event, for example, that Russia leaves the region, Dagestan will certainly take on the functions of a center for the formation of an independent state in the North Caucasus with its own fundamental priorities.

The strengthening of a new type of community life in Dagestan must be accompanied by the construction of an ideological (and more than one) doctrine corresponding to it. There was an urgent need for the presence of forces creating these doctrines. In the administrative sense, this role was taken on by Makhachkala and the intelligentsia associated with it, and in the religious sense, by the clergy.

For the first time, the clergy was faced with a situation where they were asked for something not informally and their decisions were perceived as a good wish.

And when its collegial decision becomes an independent political event with great resonance in Dagestan, and when the result of essentially an entire war depends on this decision. I would generally consider this fact as the birth of the Muslim clergy in Dagestan as a subethnic group. The collective decision of the clergy was to gas the attackers, but this made sense not so much politically as ideologically. The clergy made a claim on the uniqueness and sacredness of the events taking place in Dagestan, originality and independence, and therefore on the inadmissibility of their destruction. Which is basically what the militants were going to do. The clergy declared the unity of Dagestan not as a subject of the federation, but as in itself, a special world. As a result, the idea of ​​destroying Dagestan became simply seditious. This, of course, is one of the opinions in the republic, but it attracts many in Dagestan and is one of the dominant factors determining its development.

As can be seen, events stimulated changing ethnic picture in Dagestan in a very specific direction, the prospects of which are only just opening up and are not completely clear, so it is still far from saturation and building a new stable state in Dagestan, and its evolution will be influenced by the situation in Russia and in the region too.

Modern Dagestan is an element of the ethnic picture in the North Caucasus and will exist and develop based on internal capabilities, regardless of whether anyone wants it or not, so the most reasonable thing to do is to build your priorities necessarily taking into account the presence of such a center in the region.

Touches to the portrait

Analysis of the new balance of power in the North Caucasus as a whole is a separate large topic that goes beyond the scope outlined in the work, and requires consideration of the processes occurring in all countries in the region. I'll limit myself to the strokes.

Undoubtedly, the interests of many geopolitical forces converge in the Caucasus and each of them finds allies and subjects here who lobby for its interests. Of course, there is financial support for these entities. This state of affairs introduces its own shifts in the development of the region. However, it is pointless to support a force that does not have a serious influence, and such forces can be counted on one hand. If there is a stable balance between these forces, external influences do not play a role in their relationships and do not affect events, but this is not at all true in the absence of this balance.

After the Chechen war, a similar situation developed in the Caucasus, difficult for everyone. Such a huge destabilizing center as Chechnya, uncontrolled by anyone, created constant tension in its neighbors. All forces in the region perceived the militants’ performance in Dagestan as an opportunity for a qualitative breakthrough in realizing their interests, and since the weakest force in the region (albeit aggressive) was the “Islamic” army itself, they did it at its expense. As usual, it tore where it was thin and money didn’t help.

Faced with a real threat of the spread of Chechen militants beyond the borders of Chechnya and destabilization of the situation throughout the region, the Russian leadership chose the option of transferring tension to the territory of Chechnya itself. While the Chechens will fight at home, a defense system will be created in the neighboring republics, maybe echeloned, as well as a security system will be created. Here Basayev's raid on Dagestan became a remarkable anti-Chechen propaganda factor.

Khasavyurt (and Dagestan in general) was closed to the Chechens and the influence of one of its ordering centers in Chechnya collapsed, resulting in an imbalance and the transfer of Chechnya into a state of civil war. This would have happened regardless of whether the militants succeeded in this raid or not, and this was clear to everyone. The militants deliberately did this, which would have worked as one of the destabilizing factors in the region in general. Chechens are now united against the threat of Russian invasion. And if it weren’t for him, there would have been a full-blown confrontation with fighting between religious militants and civilians. No nation can survive without friends, and now the question is that the Chechens may be left without them and they themselves understand this. Chechnya is facing internal changes.

Whether Russia wants it or not, its main interaction with Chechnya now occurs primarily on an economic basis. It's not clear why this is not used. After all, you can ban the work of Chechen and in general any companies in Russia engaged in supplying goods to Chechnya, organize several companies from loyal Chechens to sell these supplies, give them benefits and at the same time powers to mediate between the Chechen population and the Russian leadership. Within a year, this will give very beneficial results for Russia.

One of the significant consequences of the war directly for Russia is the beginning spontaneous weapons of the Cossacks. And not only in Dagestan, but throughout the North Caucasus in general. This will affect itself in five years, when a new heap of problems arises for the leadership of the Russian Federation in the North Caucasus, in which the Cossacks will definitely participate and will do this as an aggressive party.

Georgia began to build its influence in the North Caucasus. Why she needs this - I don’t know, maybe it’s a matter of internal Georgian processes, she’s also far from a monolith. She mainly does this through the Chechens.

Everyone sees that the Avars have become the main stabilizing factor in northern Dagestan and now, first of all, anti-extremist and anti-war forces will focus on them.

For all the latest hype in the media regarding whether the head of Dagestan will resign or not, whether Ramazan Abdulatipov will take his place or not, no one noticed one amazing thing. Just how familiar it has become for us that power in Dagestan is shared only between Avars and Dargins.

This became such an unbreakable axiom that even the Kremlin believed it. Therefore, the question of why power is trusted only to these two peoples plunges officials and analysts into a stupor. But really, why? Are representatives of other nations unworthy or incapable of leading a republic?

Naive questions

It’s somehow not customary to ask these questions in Dagestan. The Dargin and Avar clans in power convinced the Dagestanis that raising the question in this way was indecent. Because such a question allegedly undermines interethnic stability and harmony in the republic.

But there has been no stability in the republic for 15 years now. The situation is getting worse every year. And the distribution of power between the Avars and Dargins does not contribute to either maintaining or strengthening stability. So it’s time to start asking such questions.

It cannot be said that Moscow does not see the root of Dagestan’s problems. “The Dagestan national-clan system of power is today the main factor of destabilization in the republic,” this conclusion was made in the Kremlin a long time ago.

Even when Dmitry Kozak was plenipotentiary envoy to the Southern Federal District, he prepared a detailed report on this topic. “The accumulation of unresolved socio-economic and political problems is approaching a critical level,” he wrote then.

“Further ignoring them (as well as an attempt to “drive them deeper” by force) in the short term can lead to a sharp increase in protest behavior and civil disobedience, to an uncontrollable development of events, the logical conclusion of which will be open conflicts.”

It's hard to say harsher. I think that after such a report, the Kremlin began to seriously think about the situation in the republic. But as we see, a lot of problems are still there. So what's the problem? Why can’t this vicious circle, when power in the republic is divided between clans of two or three nations, be broken?

Justification for clanism

When naive Moscow journalists raise such questions with Dagestan officials, they immediately put on a wise face and begin to speak the truth. That “even the most cursory glance at the national composition of Dagestan is enough to understand the uniqueness of the power system in the republic.”

But in Dagestan there are not three peoples, but at least 14 titular peoples: Avars, Dargins, Kumyks, Lezgins, Russians, Tabasarans, Laks, Azerbaijanis, Chechens, Tsakhurs, Rutuls, Aguls, Tats, Nogais.

Why call them titular if power is still shared among the three first peoples? Or rather, not even three, but the first two - Avars and Dargins. The Kumyks only serve as a screen for this division.

Interestingly, this system of dominance of the two largest nationalities - Avars and Dargins, whose representatives replaced each other in key positions - developed precisely in Soviet times.

Avar dominance

The police and police chiefs were recruited from the Avar clans. The Dargins played secondary roles. And the main bargaining for positions always took place between them. Even in Soviet times there was blood. But that’s why Moscow was there, to sort things out.

Although the Kremlin, represented by the Central Committee, acted as the supreme arbiter, without accepting the position of either side. After the collapse of the USSR, the Kremlin did not recreate the previous system of checks and balances. Moscow supported the Dargins who unexpectedly found themselves at the helm, in particular the Magomedali Magomedov clan.

This arrangement came about almost by accident. Until August 1991, the master's post of 1st Secretary of the Republican Committee of the CPSU belonged, by definition, to Avars. The second secretary, also by definition, was Russian.

How the Dargins bypassed the Avars

Under Gorbachev, the regional committee of the CPSU was headed by the Avar Magomed Yusupov, who began a soft regrouping of power in favor of the Avars and sent the then chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Republic, Dargin Magomedali Magomedov, to an honorable pension, appointing him to the meaningless position of chairman of the Supreme Council of the republic.

Who knew that after August 1991, the real levers of power would be in the hands of the heads of local councils and it would be they who would take the treasury, personnel and real estate into their own hands. So Magomedali Magomedov and his team found themselves at the top of the power pyramid. And this meant redistribution.

However, Magomedov then acted not so much as a representative of the Dargins, but as a representative of the Soviet party and economic elite, which provided him with the support of the main representatives of the Avar clan and Lezgins.

Formation of a unique system

As a result, a unique power system was formed in Dagestan, unlike those that existed and exist in other regions of Russia, and which had very little correlation with federal laws.

Firstly, the head of the executive branch of the republic at that time was not elected by the population. Actually, nominally it did not exist at all - instead there was a collegial body, the State Council, consisting of 14 representatives of the main ethnic groups.

Secondly, since then a strict system of national quotas for key positions in the republican leadership has developed: for example, if a Dargin became the head of the republic, then an Avar became the chairman of the parliament, and a Kumyk became the head of the government.

Thirdly, the legislative body, the People's Assembly, also began to be elected by quotas. Until recently, this system was indeed very effective in solving complex interethnic problems and maintaining national peace in Dagestan, and therefore completely suited the federal center.

Self-deception of stability

In addition, it greatly contributed to the consolidation of elites from different ethnic groups.

However, the consolidation of elites, which is extremely important for stability in the republic, has become one of the prerequisites for the current crisis.

Since during this time the system of main clan groupings in the Dagestan elite was finally formed, between which a redistribution of all key assets and positions of power took place.

Despite all the conflicts of this clan system, a very stable and consolidated system has emerged within the elite. Firstly, all the key players turned out to be interested in maintaining the current power structure.

However, as experts wrote, in practice such stability turned out to be a curse. The elite, busy maintaining control over state assets and collecting power rents, failed to pay due attention to the development of the economy, which was in a very poor situation.

Corrosion of power and society

Federal aid is being stolen, and all businesses not directly associated with clan groups are rapidly losing profitability. The consequences of strengthening the security forces turned out to be even more sad.

For loyalty and fidelity to power, the republic was handed over to the security forces. The police turned out to be an uncontrolled force, endowed with all powers in relation to small businesses and the private lives of citizens.

As a result of this “stability”, all the hitherto dormant conflicts detonated. Mass unemployment, especially among young people, low living standards, contradictions between city and countryside and, finally, interethnic relations.

Looking from a poor village, an Avar (Lak, Lezgin, Kumyk, etc.) transforms all claims to power into claims to the ethno-national clans that have seized power in Dagestan. As is known, distrust of authorities often develops into hatred.

Questions from other peoples

And against this background in Dagestan, for the umpteenth time in a row, the decision about who will lead the republic is made based on the results of behind-the-scenes bargaining between clans - representatives of two nationalities.

All of Russia made fun of Dagestan when, after Mukhu Aliyev’s move, Moscow could not decide who to entrust the republic to. The same thing is happening now. The federal center, which is being attacked by representatives of the Avar and Dargin clans, is simply unable to soberly assess the situation and make the right choice.

In this situation, Moscow does not look at the managerial and professional qualities of a potential candidate, but at the strength of the clan behind him. And this factor, in the eyes of Moscow officials, becomes a guarantee that this clan will be able to maintain the notorious stability in Dagestan.

This is why the Lezgins have been pushed away from power to the periphery over the past 15 years. Since the Lezgins cannot compete in clans with the Avars and Dargins, the Lezgin elites are fragmented and weakened.

That is why, in the eyes of Moscow officials, the representative of the Lezgin people is not able to cope with maintaining stability. To destroy this vicious system of self-deception, it is necessary to convince Moscow that clans are not the guarantor of stability in Dagestan.

That the guarantor of stability is, first of all, a departure from this vicious system of distribution of power between the clans of the two peoples. Stability will then come to Dagestan when a real opportunity arises for a Lezgin, Lak, Russian or Nogai, being professionals, to apply for the first posts in the republic.

There will be stability in Dagestan when the Kremlin realizes this fact.

Once you find yourself in the Caucasus, or more precisely in Dagestan, over time you begin to understand that at first the inhabitants of this hospitable country seem to be the same, but in fact they are all completely different. On the same land there are dissimilar traditions, customs, dialects and even languages. Why is this happening? Ethnographers say with confidence: 33 people live on the territory of the Republic of Dagestan. Let's find out a little more about them.

Nationalities of Dagestan

In another way, the country is called a unique constellation of peoples. Speaking about their number, it is difficult to count. However, it is known that all nationalities are divided into three main language families. The first is the Dagestan-Nakh branch, which belongs to the Iberian-Caucasian language family. The second is the Turkic group. Third - Indo-European

There is no concept of “titular nationality” in the republic, but its political attributes still apply to representatives of 14 nationalities. Dagestan is one of the most multinational regions of Russia, and today more than 3 million citizens live on its territory.

A little more about language families

As we have already said, the nationalities of the Republic of Dagestan are divided into three language groups. The first - Dagestan-Nakh branch - includes Avars, Chechens, Tsakhurs, Akhvakhtsi, Karatins, Lezgins, Laks, Rutuls, Aguls, Tabasarans. This community also includes Andians, Botlikhs, Godoberins, representatives of the Tindals, Chamalyals, Bagulals, Khvarshins, Didois, Bezhta, Gunzibs, Ginukhs, Archins. This group is also represented by the Dargins, Kubachi and Kaitag people. The second family - Turkic - is represented by the following nationalities: Kumyks, Azerbaijanis, Nogais.

The third group - Indo-European - is made up of Russians, Tats. This is what the nationalities in Dagestan look like today. The list may be replenished with lesser-known nationalities.

Avars

Despite the fact that there is no titular nationality in the republic, among Dagestanis there is still some division into more and less widely represented nationalities of Dagestan (by number). Avars are the most numerous of the region (912 thousand people, or 29% of the total population). Their main area of ​​residence is considered to be the regions of the western. The rural population of Avars makes up the majority of the total number, and their settlement occurs in an average of 22 regions. They also include the Ando-Tsez peoples, who are related to them, and the Archins. Since ancient times, the Avars were called Avars; they were also often called Tavlinians or Lezgins. This nation received the name “Avars” from the name of the medieval king Avar, who ruled the kingdom of Sair.

Dargins

What nationalities live in Dagestan? The second largest ethnic group is considered to be the Dargins (16.9% of the population, which means 490.3 thousand people). Representatives of this people live mainly in the mountainous and foothill regions of central Dagestan. Before the revolution, the Dargins were called a little differently - Akushins and Lezgins. In total it occupies 16 regions of the republic. The Dargins belong to the Sunni Muslim religious group.

Recently, the number of Dargins near the capital of Dagestan - Makhachkala - has begun to increase significantly. The same thing happens with the Caspian coast. Dargins are considered the most commercial and skilled among the entire population of the republic. Their ethnic group was formed for many years at the junction of passing trade roads, which left its mark on the way of life of the nationality.

Kumyks

Let's find out further what nationalities live in Dagestan. Who are the Kumyks? This is the largest Turkic people in the North Caucasus, which is ranked third in number among the nationalities of Dagestan (431.7 thousand people - 14.8%).

Kumyks inhabit the foothill and plain regions of the republic, occupying a total of 7 regions. They are classified as peoples of agricultural culture who firmly settled in the place chosen for this. This nation has well-developed agriculture and fishing. More than 70% of the entire country's economy is also concentrated here. The national culture of the Kumyks is very rich and original in its own way - it includes literature, folklore, and art. Among them there are a lot of famous wrestlers. However, the trouble of the people is that the Kumyks represent those nationalities of Dagestan, among which there are a lot of uneducated residents.

Lezgins

So, we learned the nationalities of Dagestan by number. We touched a little on the three leading nationalities. But it would be unfair not to touch on some of the country's nationalities. For example, Lezgins (385.2 thousand people, or 13.2% of the population). They inhabit the lowland, mountainous and foothill regions of Dagestan. Their historical territory is considered to be the adjacent regions of today's republic and neighboring Azerbaijan. Lezgins can rightfully be proud of their rich history, stretching back to ancient times. Their territory was one of the very first lands of the Caucasus.

Today the Lezgins are divided into two parts. Also, this nation is considered the most warlike, and therefore the most “hot.” So how many nationalities are there in Dagestan? The list can be continued for a very long time.

Russians and Laks

A few words should be said about the Russian-speaking representatives of the country. They also represent the nationalities of Dagestan, inhabiting mainly the Caspian Sea and the surrounding area of ​​Makhachkala. Most Russians (104 thousand, 3.6%) can be found in Kizlyar, where more than half of the total population live. One cannot help but recall the Laks (161.2 thousand, 5.5% of the population), who have inhabited the central parts of mountainous Dagestan since historical times.

It was thanks to the Laks that the very first devout Muslim state arose on the territory of the country. They are recognized as jacks of all trades - the first Caucasian artisans came from this ethnic group. To this day, lacquer products participate in various international competitions, taking the most honorable places.

Small peoples of Dagestan

It would be unfair to talk only about the numerous representatives of this country. The smallest people of the republic are the Tsakhurs (9.7 thousand, 0.3%). These are mainly residents of villages located in the Rutul district. There are practically no Tsakhur residents in the cities. The next small nation is the Aguls (2.8 thousand, 0.9%). They live mainly in the Agul region, most of them also live in settlements.

Aguls can be found in Makhachkala, Dagestan Lights and Derbent. Another small people of Dagestan are the Rutuls (27.8 thousand, 0.9%). They inhabit the southern territories. Their number is not much larger than the Aguls - the difference is in the range of 1-1.5 thousand inhabitants. Rutulians try to stick to their relatives, so they always form into small groups. Chechens (92.6 thousand, 3.2%) are the most hot-tempered and aggressive people. The number of this nation was much larger. However, military actions in Chechnya significantly influenced the demographic situation. Today, Chechens can also be classified as a small nationality of the Republic of Dagestan.

Bottom line

So, which nationalities of Dagestan are the most important? There can be only one answer - everything. As they say about the republic, Dagestan is a kind of synthesis of many ethnic groups. It is noteworthy that almost every nationality has its own language, which is strikingly different from its neighbors. How many nationalities live in Dagestan - so many customs, traditions and peculiarities of life exist in this sunny country.

The list of languages ​​of the Dagestan people lists 36 varieties. This, of course, introduces complexity into communication between representatives of these peoples. But in the end, you need to know one thing - the Dagestan people, represented by so many nationalities, have their own historical past, which gave birth to today’s diverse, interesting and so dissimilar national ethnic group of the republic. Be sure to visit this place - you won't regret it! You will be happily welcomed in any corner of the country.