Chechnya, officially the Chechen Republic, is a republic of Russia. It is situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe, close to the Caspian Sea. The republic forms a part of the North Caucasian Federal District, and shares land borders with the country of Georgia to its south; with the Russian republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia, and North Ossetia-Alania to its east, north, and west; and with Stavropol Krai to its northwest.
The Nart sagas are a series of tales originating from the North Caucasus. They form much of the basic mythology of the ethnic groups in the area, including Abazin, Abkhaz, Circassian, Ossetian and to some extent Chechen-Ingush folklore.
The history of Chechnya may refer to the history of the Chechens, of their land Chechnya, or of the land of Ichkeria.
Ingushetia or Ingushetiya, officially the Republic of Ingushetia, is a republic of Russia located in the North Caucasus of Eurasia. The republic is part of the North Caucasian Federal District, and shares land borders with the country of Georgia to its south; and borders the Russian republics of North Ossetia–Alania to its west and north and Chechnya to its east and northeast.
Ingush, historically known as Durdzuks, Gligvi and Kists, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting Ingushetia in central Caucasus, but also inhabitanting Prigorodny District and town of Vladikavkaz of modern day North-Ossetia. The Ingush are predominantly Sunni Muslims and speak the Ingush language.
The Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus (MRNC), also referred to as the United Republics of the North Caucasus, Mountain Republic, or the Republic of the Mountaineers, was a state in Eurasia and encompassing the entirety of the North Caucasus that emerged during the Russian Civil War and existed from 1917 to 1922. It formed as a consolidation of various Caucasian ethnic groups, including the Circassians, Chechens, Karachays, Ossetians, Balkars, Ingush, and Dagestanis.
The peoples of the Caucasus, or Caucasians, are a diverse group comprising more than 50 ethnic groups throughout the Caucasus.
The East Prigorodny conflict, also referred to as the Ossetian–Ingush conflict, was an inter-ethnic conflict within Russian Federation, in the eastern part of the Prigorodny District in the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania, which started in 1989 and developed, in 1992, into a brief ethnic war between local Ingush and Ossetian paramilitary forces.
The 1940–1944 insurgency in Chechnya was an autonomous revolt against the Soviet authorities in the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Beginning in early 1940 under Hasan Israilov, it peaked in 1942 during the German invasion of North Caucasus and ended in the beginning of 1944 with the wholesale concentration and deportation of the Vainakh peoples from their native lands as well as from the locations across the USSR, resulting in the death of at least 144,000 civilians. However, scattered resistance in the mountains continued for years.
The deportation of the Chechens and Ingush, or Ardakhar Genocide, and also known as Operation Lentil, was the Soviet forced transfer of the whole of the Vainakh populations of the North Caucasus to Central Asia on 23 February 1944, during World War II. The expulsion was ordered by NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria after approval by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, as a part of a Soviet forced settlement program and population transfer that affected several million members of ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union between the 1930s and the 1950s.
Zelimkhan "Kharachoevsky" Gushmazukayev and better known simply as Zelimkhan, was a Chechen outlaw (abrek) who gained fame in the late Russian Empire due to his spectacular bank and train robberies as part of a violent struggle with the Russian authorities. Since the Russian Revolution he has been mythologized as a version of a Chechen Robin Hood, first by the Bolsheviks and later by Chechen nationalists. Today the name Zelimkhan is given to Chechen and Ingush children.
Balkar and Karachay nationalism is the national sentiment among the Balkars and Karachai. It generally manifests itself in:
During the 13th and 14th centuries, the Mongols launched two long, massive invasions of the territory of modern Chechnya and Ingushetia, which included the lands of Alania in the West, Simsir in the Northeast, and the Georgian-allied polity of Durdzuketia in the South. They caused massive destruction and human death for the Durdzuks, but also greatly shaped the people they became afterward. However, this came at great cost to them, and the states they had built were utterly destroyed, as were their previous organized systems. These invasions are among the most significant occurrences in Chechen and Ingush history, and have had long-ranging effects on Chechnya, Ingushetia and their peoples.
Chechnya was first incorporated as a whole into the Russian Empire in 1859 after the decades-long Caucasian War. Tsarist rule was marked by a transition into modern times, including the formation of a Chechen bourgeoisie, the emergence of social movements, reorientation of the Chechen economy towards oil, heavy ethnic discrimination at the expense of Chechens and others in favor of Russians and Kuban Cossacks, and a religious transition among the Chechens towards the Qadiri tariqa of Sufism.
The Chechen–Russian conflict was the centuries-long conflict, often armed, between the Russian, Soviet and Imperial Russian governments and various Chechen forces. The recent phase of the conflict started after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and lasted until 2017.
Laysat Baysarova was an Ingush communist party worker turned abrek who became a sniper against the NKVD after being asked to assist in the deportation and exile of her people. While hiding in the Caucasus Mountains from 1944 to 1957, the period of her nation's exile, she targeted and killed multiple Chekists in revenge for their attack on Vainakh people, having been previously trained in sharpshooting with the Komsomol before the decree declaring Ingush people official enemies of the state. In addition to her abrek activities she was the first woman to summit Mt. Elbrus, doing so with her husband Akhmedkhan in 1939. Upon the end of her exile period, she ceased her abrek activities and crossed into the Georgian SSR via the mountains, where she lived until returning to her native Ingushetia when she was elderly.
Sulumbek Gorovozhev (Gandaloev) or Sulumbek of Sagopshi was an Ingush outlaw (abrek) who is known for his bank and shop robberies with his colleague and comrade Zelimkhan. The robberies were part of a conflict with the Russian authorities. He was involved in high-profile incidents associated with Zelimkhan. Sulumbek is a national hero to the Ingush people, as well as one of the most famous Caucasian abreks.
Akhmed Sosievich Khuchbarov (1894–1956) was an Ingush abrek (outlaw), guerilla fighter and warlord who led an Ingush resistance against the Soviet regime for 27 years up until his death in 1956. Akhmed made numerous operations and attacks on NKVD and KGB members, avenging the deported Ingush, thus being considered a national hero to the Ingush people.
Batal Hajji Belkhoroev was an Ingush sheikh of the Qadiri Sufi order (tariqa) who founded his own independent Sufi suborder (wird).
National liberation struggle of the Ingush people - a series of military clashes and uprisings of the Ingush people against the Russian Empire that colonized Ingushetia, as well as protest rallies and actions against the policies of the Russian Federation.
