Conquest of Ingushetia
Colonization of the Caucasus by Russia began actively during the time of Ivan the Terrible and continued during the Russo-Turkish wars. The Ingush, who were not accustomed to dependence on outsiders, repeatedly revolted against the Russian Empire, and were suppressed by the Russian authorities with particular cruelty. [1]
With the advent of Russia, part of the territories where the Ingush lived was handed over to the Terek Cossacks. On the lands that previously belonged to the Ingush, a line of Cossack settlements was created, dividing the plain and mountainous Ingushetia. [2]
Two large Russian fortresses, Vladikavkaz [3] and Nazran, were built in the west of Ingushetia, where military garrisons with a significant number of soldiers were stationed. The presence of an extensive military contingent restrained the local population from openly opposing the Russian Empire.
Nevertheless, in the 19th century the Ingush protest movement gained considerable momentum. The highlanders began to actively resist colonizers who were encroaching on their centuries-old traditions and way of life, as well as on strategically important territories for Russia. [4]
In this regard, the tsarist authorities organized a series of armed campaigns to the rebellious auls. To participate in punitive expeditions, the Russian command specially attracted other Caucasian nationalities, not hiding its desire to quarrel the highlanders among themselves. Thus, the chief administrator of border affairs in the Caucasus region, Baron Rosen wrote: " In accordance with the highest order to use mountain dwellers against each other in order to strengthen their mutual hatred, there are Ossetians and militia from the highlanders belonging to Georgia with my detachment". Thus, in 1825 expeditions of Russian troops were made along the Fortanga and Assa rivers to Orstkhoi auls. In the same year the rebellion of Ingush of Yandare village was suppressed.
In July 1830 Russian troops under the command of General Abkhazov moved into Mountainous Ingushetia. As a result of this expedition many Ingush auls were devastated, especially the village of Eban, whose inhabitants put up considerable resistance to the troops. The towers of Eban were blown up.
The colonial policy of the Russian Empire in the Caucasus tightened in the second half of the 19th century. Unable to cope with the unceasing guerrilla and rebel movement of the highlanders, the Russian government planned to abolish small villages and forcibly relocate Ingush to large settlements (at least 300 households). It also decided to forbid the highlanders to carry bladed weapons, which went against local traditions. All this led to a major Narzan rebellion in the region in 1858. After the rebellion was suppressed, the Russian military command severely punished the participants: some of the rebels were hanged, some were subjected to corporal punishment, and some were exiled to hard labor or mines. [5]
To implement the plan to abolish small villages, Ingush families and entire auls were driven off the land where they had lived for centuries. Two goals were pursued: to repopulate the fertile territories with ethnic Russians and to prevent future uprisings. As a result, the Ingush found themselves virtually isolated in the rocky mountains, unsuitable as pastures and crops. Famine and poverty began in the region. In addition, many Ingush were forcibly relocated to other counties, specifically organizing the resettlement so that there were no more than 2-3 Ingush families in any one settlement. Some Ingush were also resettled in Turkey together with Adygs (Circassians) during the infamous Circassian genocide. [6] [7]
In 1865, even according to underestimated official figures, 22,000 Chechens and about 3–5,000 Ingush (mostly Orstkhoi) moved to Turkey. The Muhajir settlers found themselves in a difficult situation in Turkey; many died on the way, drowned at sea, and others died of epidemics and starvation. [8]
Period of Soviet power
After the October Revolution of 1917, many Ingush believed and actively supported the promises of the Bolsheviks regarding a just solution to the national question and a way out of oppression by the tsarist authorities. This was facilitated by the fact that the White Guard Cossack troops under the leadership of Denikin with the slogan "For a united, indivisible Russia" brutally exterminated the Ingush population accused of "national Bolshevism". [9] About 15 thousand Ingush died in the struggle for Soviet power, fighting on the side of the Red Army.
At the same time, some Ingush supported a completely different course. For example, the creation of an independent state of highlanders of the North Caucasus. In November 1917, it was announced that an independent Highland Republic had been established, uniting many peoples of the North Caucasus, including the Ingush. The post of chairman of the parliament was held by the famous Ingush public figure Vasan-Girey Dzhabagiev. [10] [11] However, the troops of the Red Army expelled the government of the Mountain Republic, and in 1924 the Ingush Autonomous Oblast with its administrative center in Vladikavkaz was formed as part of the union of Soviet republics.
The Soviets abolished Sharia, contrary to earlier promises to preserve it for peoples practicing Islam. They also banned Adat, the law of the highlanders, and replaced Arabic script with Latin and later Cyrillic. Representatives of the Soviet authorities prevented the preservation of national traditions and customs, forbade the wearing of daggers, and instead of the promised land began to agitate the local population to join kolkhozes. Prominent Ingush religious figures were shot, and many were also arrested and exiled to camps. All this led to the growth of protest sentiments in the region, and periodic conflicts erupted that turned into armed resistance. [12]
On January 15, 1934, the Chechen and Ingush Autonomous Regions were united into the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Region, which was transformed into the Chechen-Ingush ASSR (ChIASSR) in 1937. On the night of July 31-August 1, 1937, the so-called "general operation to seize anti-Soviet elements" was carried out in all auls and districts according to the lists drawn up earlier by the NKVD. A single prosecutor's arrest warrant was signed for all the accused, which included either execution by firing squad or sending them to camps. It is impossible to establish the exact number of those shot. In the basement on the north side of the Grozny NKVD building, a special execution room was set up for large groups of convicts. The so-called "Etapnaya Chamber" was hermetically sealed, with firing spots leading into it from the roof and walls, from which mass shootings with automatic weapons were carried out. The corpses of the executed were taken at night in trucks covered with tarpaulins to Goryachevodskaya Mountain, where mass burials were carried out, later disguised as a " nature reserve". [13] [14] [15]
Ten years after the creation of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Oblast, Lavrentiy Beria, head of the NKVD, approved the "Instruction on the procedure for the eviction of Chechens and Ingush". On trumped-up charges of collaboration with the Nazis, anti-Soviet activities and banditry, entire peoples were forcibly evicted from the region in the shortest possible time. From February 23 to March 9, 1944, the so-called Operation Lentil, the forcible deportation of Chechen and Ingush citizens from the territory of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR and its surrounding areas to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan (and partially to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan), continued. Almost half a million people were loaded into cattle carriages and within a few days were taken to uninhabitable territories. About 100,000 Chechens and 23,000 Ingush (approximately one in four of both peoples) perished during the eviction and the first years afterward. [16] [17]
After the deportation of the indigenous population, efforts were made to destroy traces of their presence in this territory: settlements were given Russian names, mosques and cemeteries were desecrated and looted, tombstones were used for construction and road works, books in Chechen and Ingush were burned, references to the Vainakhs were removed from the surviving ones, "non-politically correct" exhibits were removed from museum collections, handwritten books and libraries, gold and silver jewelry, weapons, carpets, utensils, furniture, etc. were destroyed and looted. д. Neither the deportation of peoples, nor the liquidation of their statehood, nor the change of borders were legal and were absolute lawlessness of the Soviet authorities. Any accusations of mass collaboration with the Nazis were deliberately false, since the territories of Chechnya and Ingushetia were never massively under German occupation. [18] [19]
On November 24, 1956, the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee adopted a resolution on the restoration of national autonomy of the Chechen and Ingush peoples. The Prigorodny district remained within North Ossetia. As compensation, three districts of Stavropol Krai - Naursky, Shelkovsky and Kargalinsky - which today are administratively part of the Chechen Republic, were included in the ChIASSR. [20]
Ideas of returning land and restoring historical justice have been popular among the Ingush since their return from deportation. Thus, in January 1957, an Ingush delegation (37 people) traveled to Moscow to petition for the transfer of Prigorodny district to the Chechen-Ingush ASSR.
In 1963 the leadership of North Ossetia partially changed the borders of the district, excluding some settlements with Ingush population and adding territories on the left bank of the Terek (now most of the district is west of Vladikavkaz). At the same time, the Ingush first raised the question of the return of the territory, but were refused.
In December 1972, a group of activists of the Ingush national movement sent a letter "On the fate of the Ingush people" to the Central Committee of the CPSU, in which they raised the question of the return of the Prigorodny district and the restoration of Ingush autonomy. [21]
On January 16–18, 1973 there was a rally in the central square of Grozny. It was initiated by Ingush living in the Prigorodny district of the North Ossetian ASSR, demanding an end to discrimination against the people. As the rally progressed, it was joined by Chechens and representatives of other peoples living in Chechnya-Ingushetia. The number of participants reached up to 15,000 people. After three days, most of the participants were tricked into leaving the square. The remainder were dispersed with batons and water cannons. Subsequently, about a thousand people from among the organizers and active participants were arrested. Many of them were convicted under various articles. The remaining participants were expelled from the party, fired from their jobs, and discredited in the local press. After the January events, the situation of the Ingush improved somewhat, but the very problem of the Prigorodny district, which was the reason for the speech, has still not been resolved. [22] [23]
Period of the Russian Federation
The Ingush scattered throughout the USSR left no hope of creating their own state. With the advent of perestroika, various movements emerged in Ingushetia with the aim of returning the territories that had been expropriated and the deported Ingush.
On November 30, 1991, a national Ingush referendum was held on the restoration of Ingush statehood through the formation of the Ingush Republic within the RSFSR.
On June 4, 1992, the Supreme Soviet of Russia adopted a law on the formation of the Ingush Republic without defining its borders, which led to the aggravation of territorial disputes in the region: between Chechnya and Ingushetia over the Sunzhensky district and between Ingushetia and North Ossetia over the Prigorodny district. In the ensuing armed clashes, the Russian Interior Ministry and army took the side of the Ossetians, which resulted in many Ingush being killed or wounded (the Russian army used artillery). As a result, up to 60,000 Ingush were forced to move from Vladikavkaz and Prigorodny district, where they were the indigenous population, to the territory of the newly formed administrative unit of Ingushetia. [24]
On October 24, 1992, in Nazran, the capital of Ingushetia, the joint session of three district councils of Ingushetia and the deputy group of the Prigorodny district of North Ossetia "expressing the will of the Ingush people and in order to protect their relatives living in North Ossetia" made an independent decision contrary to Russian law: "to unite volunteers into self-defense units and organize their duty in all settlements of the Prigorodny district of North Ossetia where Ingush live. The detachments are to remain on duty until all the lands expropriated by the Stalinist regime are transferred to the jurisdiction of the Ingush Republic". [25]
In February 1994 the Ingush Republic passed a new constitution that did not envisage independence but membership in the Russian Federation. [26]
Present day
In 2018, the protests in Ingushetia began - rallies of many thousands in Magas against the Agreement on fixing the border between the regions, signed by the head of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, as well as its ratification by deputies of the People's Assembly of the Republic of Ingushetia. After the protests began, Rosgvardiya detachments were sent to the city and mobile Internet was shut down. [27] [28] [29]
On March 26–27, 2019, the largest protests demanding the resignation of the republic's leadership took place in Magas, Russia. The actions ended in clashes with the police. According to the Memorial Human Rights Center, as of October 11, 2021, 52 people had been prosecuted for participation in the protests. Not only protesters but also police officers who attempted to protect them were prosecuted. In August 2022, the court sentenced 12 of them to suspended sentences because they stood in a line between the protesters and the Rosgvardiya units. [30] [31] [32]
In the spring of 2021, Maryana Kalmykova's documentary Border, which tells the story of Ingush protests against the transfer of Ingush lands to Chechnya, was withdrawn from screening in Russia for allegedly calling for terrorism and extremist activity. [33]
After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, Russian authorities mobilized in Ingushetia, forcing Ingush men to participate in the occupation and war crimes, and suppressing all attempts to obstruct the mobilization. [34]
In early 2023, activists established the Ingush Independence Committee and adopted a Declaration. They also decided to create a liberation army as a tool to protect their interests and rights, particularly in the event of the collapse of the Russian Federation. [35] [36] [37]
On January 7, a congress of supporters of Ingushetia's independence was held in Istanbul, where the Declaration was proclaimed. Its text was read out by a representative of the committee, Ansar Garkho. The Declaration states that the Ingush are not involved in "all crimes committed by the Russian Empire, the USSR and the Russian Federation". The KIN also stated that it does not recognize the annexation of Crimea and the invasion of Ukraine by Russian invaders. [38] [39]
