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Avars
The Avars are subdivided into 17 sub-groups,
each speaking their own dialect. They form the
largest ethnic group in Dagestan. Their
traditional territories in the mountainous
districts of south-west Dagestan are almost
exclusively populated by Avars. The Avar elite,
together with Darghins, are firmly entrenched
in the Dagestan state structures.
The Avar national movement is the People's
Front Imam Shamil, led by Gadzi Makhachev. The
front never gained much significance. In 1992,
it announced a moratorium on any activity
unless other national movements were to
challenge them.
There are 45,000 Avars in the Belakan and
adjoining districts in Northern Azerbaijan. On
several occasions since 1991, local Avar
leaders have expressed their hope that the
Avar villages in the north-west of the
district could be joined with Dagestan. The
Avars' wish is supported by dubious Russian
historians who claim that Belakan belongs to
Russia. In June 1995, the press in Azerbaijan
accused unspecified Russian circles of
encouraging separatism among the Avars.
On 11 July 1994, troops of Azerbaijan clashed
with armed locals in the village of Gabakchel
in the Belokanskii rayon of northwest
Azerbaijan after the seizure of arms. The
armed groups were reportedly linked with
separatist Avars active in the regions
bordering Dagestan.
Dargins
The Dargins are subdivided into three groups,
Dargins, Kubachins and Kaitags. They live
mostly in Central Dagestan. Like the Avars and
the Laks, they are relatively well represented
in the Dagestan state structures. The
establishment of the Dargin national movement
Tsadesh (Unity) in 1991 was not aimed at
undoing perceived injustices, but at
countering the ambitions of other ethnic
groups. Tsadesh has never shown much activity.
According to one observer Dargins "follow
everything that the Laks do".
Kumyks
The origin of the Kumyks is not clear, but it
seems probable that they are rooted in an
intermingling of indigenous Caucasian elements
with Turkic-speaking tribes who migrated to
Dagestan in the 10th century. Once dominating
the Caspian lowlands, the Kumyks have become a
minority of only 22 per cent in their
homelands by the early 1990s, owing to massive
migration of mountain peoples, principally
Avars, Laks and Dargins. The wanton
destruction of mountain villages and farming
lands by the Soviet authorities has made this
migration irreversible.
The collectivization and the forced
resettlement of mountain peoples to Kumyk
territory destroyed the Kumyk's traditional
settlement pattern and deprived them of half
of their arable land. They have a high
proportion of city-dwellers.
In 1990, the newly formed national movement of
the Kumyk, Tenglik (Equality), led by Salav
Aliev, announced its intention to create a
Kumyk national state. Referring to their past
as the dominant group along the Dagestan coast,
the advocates of Kumyk independence argued
that only through full cultural sovereignty
could the Kumyk language and culture recover
after decades of russification and Soviet
culture influence. It remains unclear what the
culturally sovereign Kumyk national state
should look like, considering that the Kumyk
form such a tiny proportion of the population
in their traditional territories.
According to Tenglik, the Kumyk are under-represented
in the state structures and economically
underprivileged. The organization is opposed
to what it consideres Avar over-
representation in leading functions. It became
the favourite target of the Avar national
movement, Shamil.
In November 1990, the Congress of People's
Deputies of the Dagestan Autonomous Republic
voted to create a Kumyk republic within
Dagestan, but the Kumyk representatives
considered the level of autonomy envisaged
insufficient.
In October 1991, Tenglik mobilized virtually
the whole of the Kumyk population in protest
against the dominant political position of the
Avars in regions with important Kumyk
presence, as well as to express
dissatisfaction with the ongoing resettlement
of mountain people in traditional Kumyk
territories. The movement subsided when the
Government of Dagestan nominated an ethnic
Kumyk as Minister of Justice. Tenglik has not
displayed much activity since.
In 1994, the Kumyk National Congress was
formed. It is less radical than Tenglik, and
is believed to be an initiative of the
Government of Dagestan meant to counterbalance
the radicals within Tenglik.
Lezgins
The Lezgins are predominantly Sunni Muslims
living in the south-east of Dagestan and the
north-west of Azerbaijan. 376,000 ethnic
Lezgins were officially registered in 1989,
205,000 in Dagestan and 171,000 in Azerbaijan.
The disintegration of the USSR has transformed
internal administrative boundariess into
international borders, threatening the unity
of the Lezgins.
The Lezgins live mainly in rural areas. Their
national organizations estimate their actual
number in Azerbaijan between 600,000 and
700,000, instead of the official 171,000. They
explain the disparity by saying that the
majority of Lezgins had registered themselves
as Azeris during the Soviet period, due to
social and political pressure.
The Lezgin national movement Sadval (Unity)
was founded in July 1990 in the town of
Derbent in Azerbaijan. It is led by General
Kochimanov and Ruslan Ashuraliev. Sadval is
aiming at the unification of the Lezgin people.
In December 1991 the All-national Congress of
Lezgins even called for the creation of a "national-state
formation Lezgistan".
In 1991, a rival Lezgin national organization,
Samur, was established in Azerbaijan. This
organization opposes any revision of state
borders and advocates integration of Lezgins
in Azerbaijan. In July 1992, this was followed
by the establishment of the Lezgin Democratic
Party of Azerbaijan, which holds similar views.
Both organizations are sponsored by the
Government of Azerbaijan to counter the
percieved threat posed by Sadval.
In April 1995, a new political party, Alpan,
was founded in Dagestan, which has as its main
objective the unification of the Lezgin
territories in Azerbaijan with Russia. The
secretary of Alpan, Amiran Babaev, stated in
an interview that Azerbaijan continues to
suppress the rights of the Lezgins and other
minorities living there. Observers believe
that Russia is using the dissatisfaction of
the Lezgin minority to increase pressure on
Azerbaijan.
Russians
The Russians in Dagestan consist of two groups.
Cossacks, who settled on the left bank of the
Terek river from the 16th century, and 19th
and 20th century immigrants, who mainly
settled in the cities. The latter group is by
far the largest as a result of the severe
repression that the Cossacks suffered in
1919-1920 and because of the 20th century
immigration of Russians.
The traditional Cossack territories on the
left bank of the Terek river roughly coincide
with the present Kizlar region. In the 1960s,
non-Russians still formed a small minority of
less than 15 per cent in this region. Because
of their higher birth rate and the migration
of mountain peoples to the plains, non-Russians
now make up an estimated 50 per cent of the
population in the Kizlar region. Russians are
under-represented in the local administration,
e.g. constitute less than 10 per cent of the
region's police corps. At least 40,000 people
in Stavropol and Dagestan claim to be Terek
Cossacks. In 1990, the Cossacks formed the Low-Terek
Cossack Association, led by Ataman Alexandr
Elson, which strives for the unification of
all Terek Cossacks and the recovery of
traditional Cossack territories. The
Association is a member of the Vladikavkaz
based Terek-Cossack Host. Russian-speakers
were also organized in the Slav Movement of
Russia, led by Sergei Sinitsin. In July 1994,
a new organization, Russian Community (Russkaia
Obshchina), was registered in Makhachkala. It
claims to represent 200,000 Russian speakers
and its main declared task is the "protection
of the rights of the Russian-speaking
population of Dagestan". Its establishment is
seen by some observers as an attempt by the
Federal Government to increase its influence
over Dagestan internal politics.
The Cossacks and Russians are politically
under-represented in the higher echelons of
the state and believe that they therefore
profit relatively little from the economic
reforms and privatization, in which patronage
by powerful politicians is often a
prerequisite for success.
Cossack organizations are trying to revive the
tradition whereby a Cossack line of defence in
the northern Caucasus protected southern
Russia. The emigration since 1989 of hundreds
of thousands of Russian speakers from North
Caucasian republics, notably Chechnya,
Ingushetia and Dagestan, served as a catalyst
for the formation of Cossack defence units,
while the establishment of these armed forces
created unrest among the other ethnic groups.
The Cossacks do not push their claims in
Dagestan, however, and links with the more
radical Vladikavkaz based mother-organization
are often strained.
Chechens
In February 1944, within a period of two weeks,
the entire Chechen population of the Caucasus
was deported to the deserts of Kazakstan. An
estimated quarter of the deportees died during
the first five years of exile. Among the
deportees were approximately 30,000 Chechens
from Dagestan.
Subsequently, about 15,000 Laks, who lived in
a high mountain region in the centre of
Dagestan, were forced to resettle in
traditional Chechen territories, mainly in the
Auskovsky district, which was renamed
Novolaksky district.
In 1957, First Secretary of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union Nikita Kruchev
denounced a number of policies of his
predecessor, Joseph Stalin, and rehabilitated
most deported peoples, including the Chechens.
About 25,000 Chechens returned to Dagestan
during 1957-1958, only to find that they had
been dispossessed and were forced to resettle
in the Khasav Yurt district, on the border
with the newly formed Chechen-Ingushetia
Republic. As a result, most of Dagestan's
62,000-plus Chechens currently live in the
Khazbekov and Khasav Yurt districts.
In 1991 conflict arose with the Laks and Avars,
when the Chechen National Council of the
Republic of Dagestan demanded the recovery of
their former territories and the re-
establishment of the pre-1944 Auskhovsky
district. The Avars were opposed to the
Chechen demands. They did not accept that a
number of mixed Chechen-Avar villages in
Khazbekov district would join the Novolaksky/Auskovsky
district.
The Chechens in Dagestan have refrained from
active involvement in the Chechen war. After a
December 1994 appeal to all Caucasian peoples
from President Dzokhar Dudayev to start
military action against Russian federal forces
in Dagestan, the Chechen National Council of
the Republic of Dagestan adopted a decision to
suspend contacts with him. They stressed that
it would be unacceptable for the conflict to
flare up in Dagestan. The separatist Chechen
Government failed to obtain any public support
from Chechen organizations in Dagestan.
Lak
The Lak traditionally live in the mountainous
Koshu region and use lands in the northern
steppe and north of Makhachkala as winter
pastures. They are well represented in the
urban centres and there is a considerable Lak
diaspora in Moscow The Lak possess greater
cohesion than the other nationalities in
Dagestan, which partially explains their
relative importance in society. Being the most
educated and cosmopolitan of the people of
Dagestan and speaking Russian rather than Lak
at home, many of them fear the disappearance
of their ethnic identity.
The Lak national movement, Tsubars (New Star),
was established in 1990. It mainly focuses on
the development of Lak culture and national
identity. Its chairman is Hirytdin Khadziev,
at present Minister of Agriculture. Another
important leader of the Lak national movement
is Magomed Khachilaev. The Laks are well
integrated in Dagestan's political elite and
are staunch supporters of an undivided
Dagestan.
Beside Tsubars, the Novolak Popular Front was
established in August 1991 in reaction to the
activities of the Chechen organization Vainakh.
It has been dormant ever since the 1992
agreement on the resettlement of the Laks from
Novolaksky district. President of the Novolak
Popular Front is Ismailov Dalgat.
Nogai
The Nogai descend from the Golden Horde. Their
historical territory, the once huge Nogai
steppe, includes the northern part of Dagestan
and the eastern part of Stavropol Territory.
Most Nogai live in dispersed communities on
the steppes that form the Nogai, Babaurt,
Tarum, and Kizlar districts of Dagestan, the
adjoining Neftekumsky district of Stavropol
Province, and Sholkovsky district in Karachay-Cherkessia.
There are also several Nogai settlements in
the north-east of Chechnya.
Living mainly in the rural areas and forming
small minorities in all these three republics,
ethnic Nogai occupied hardly any leading
positions during the Soviet era and their
cultural development has been stunted. In
Chechnya and Kabardino-Balkaria, the Nogai
have lost much of their ethnic cohesion while
in Dagestan the Nogai live more compactly and
have greater cultural and political autonomy.
They form a 75 percent majority in the Nogai
region of Dagestan, the only place where Nogai
language education is offered in secondary
education.
Other peoples have settled on the Nogai steppe
over the past thirty years, notably Avars,
Laks and Darghins. The state supports these
settlements with cheap credit and the
distribution of land ownership rights. The
newcomers build villages and compete with the
Nogai for good pasture. Only 20 per cent of
the Nogai steppe is still in use by the Nogai
themselves. They rate this development as a
kind of annexation. Their grievances are
aggravated by the fact that the newcomers live
in permanent houses while the Nogai consider
the steppe collective property and
traditionally live in movable houses, called
cutan. It is expected that the Nogai will be a
minority on the steppe by the end of this
century, but they lack the power to counter
this process.
The Nogai national movement Birlik (Unity),
led by K. Balbek and B. Kildasov, has existed
as a cultural organization since 1957 and was
transformed into a political movement in
December 1989, when it spoke out in favour of
an autonomous Nogai republic separate from
Dagestan and which would include include parts
of Chechnya. Its main goal was to undo the
breaking up of their territories between three
different administrative entities in which
they form insignificant minorities. They
considered a concentration of the remaining
Nogai essential for the preservation of the
Nogai people and hoped that such a republic
would attract other Nogai from the North
Caucasus.
Birlik never acquired much political muscle.
Being dispersed and traditionally nomadic, the
Nogai cannot claim any region as their
historic homeland. Furthermore, the Nogai are
lagging behind in education attainment and
lack a powerful elite that would be capable of
organizing its people. It is questionable
whether a large proportion of the Nogai is
aware of the programme of Birlik. |
