Tag: Travel

Dagestan

An autonomous republic in south-western Russia, on the western shore of the Caspian Sea; population 2,707,900 (est. 2009); capital, Makhachkala.

The Terek River is the most important river in Dagestan, flowing from Chechnya and toward the Caspian Sea. There is a small coastal plain that gives rise quickly to the eastern portion of the main Caucasus range. The most intense ethno-linguistic diversity is found in the mountains as a result of the isolation that historically separated groups of people. The northern part of Dagestan connects with the Eurasian steppe.
Many of the people of Dagestan are descendents of the residents of the ancient Caucasian Albanian Kingdom. This kingdom was known for its multiplicity of languages and was Christian for many centuries, having close relations with the Armenian people and their Christian culture.

Kubachi / Zargaran village in Dagestan, 2020 – Photo: Persian Dutch Network
National Museum of the Republic of Dagestan – A. Takho-Godi, Makhachkala, Russia 2019 | Photo: Persian Dutch Network

The word Dagestan is of Turkish and Persian origin, directly translating to “Land of the Mountains.” The Turkish word dağ means “mountain”, and the Persian suffix -stan means “land”. Some areas of Dagestan were known as Lekia, Avaria and Tarki at various times. The name Dagestan historically refers to the eastern Caucasus, taken by the Russian Empire in 1860 and renamed the Dagestan Oblast. The current, more autonomous Republic of Dagestan covers a much larger territory, established in 1921 as the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, by inclusion of the eastern part of Terek Oblast.

Sassanid fortress in Derbent, present day Dagestan, Russia Photo: Unknown

In the 6th century the Sassanid Empire after more than 100 years of war conquered the Eastern Caucasus, resulting in the entire region of Dagestan falling under the influence of Persia.

In 552, “Khazars” invaded North-Eastern Caucasus and occupied northern lowlands of Dagestan. Reigning Shah of Persia Khosrau I (531—579), to protect his possessions from the new wave of nomads, began the construction of defensive fortifications in Derbent, that closed a narrow passage between the Caspian Sea and Caucasian mountains. Khosrau I owned fortress Gumik. The modern name “Derbent” is a Persian word (دربند Darband) meaning “gateway”, which came into use in this same era, in the end of the 5th or the beginning of the 6th century CE, when the city was re-established by Kavadh I of the Sassanid dynasty of Persia.

Ancient Iranian language elements were absorbed into the everyday speech of the population of Dagestan and the city of Derbent, especially during the Sassanian era, and many remain extant. A policy of “Persianizing” Derbent and the eastern Caucasus in general can be traced over many centuries, from Khosrow I to the Safavid shahs Ismail I, and Abbās the Great. According to the account in the later “Darband-nāma,” after construction of the fortifications Khosrow I “moved much folk here from Persia,” relocating about 3,000 families from the interior of Persia to Derbent and neighboring villages. This account seems to be corroborated by the Spanish Arab Ḥamīd Moḥammad Ḡarnāṭī, who reported in 1130 that Derbent was populated by many ethnic groups, including a large Persian-speaking population.

Dagestanis were traditionally Muslims peoples.
Attempts in the post-Soviet period to incite Islambased rebellion, however, have been generally unsuccessful. These rebellions have come from the direction of the troubled Republic of Chechnya,
which is located west of Dagestan. The Islam of Dagestan was traditionally a Sufi-based Islam, one that is inimical to the sort of puritanical Sunni sectarianism that is exported from other parts of the Islamic world. Sufism in this part of the world is not without its militant expression; one of the most famous leaders, Shamil, was an Avar of Dagestan.
His power base was mainly in the Central Caucasus among the Chechens.
Unlike many of their other neighbors in the Caucasus, the Dagestanis, for the most part, did not experience the exile and deportation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This makes the narrative of their people much less filled with the anger and alienation that characterizes Chechen, Abkhazian,
and other histories. The ethnic fragmentation of

Dagestan has also prevented a unified Dagestani national identity from being formed.
The Russian Empire appeared in this area in two different forms: by the Cossacks who lived at the periphery of the empire in the semiautonomous communities; and by means of the imperial army’s movement down the Volga River and to the western shore of the Caspian. Peter the Great captured territory in this area, but Dagestan was not fully brought into the Russian Empire until the midnineteenth century.
The Soviet period saw the creation of Cyrillicbased alphabets for the various languages of Dagestan. This strengthened the existence of the larger languages, and may have forestalled the extinction of some of the smallest of the languages. It also served to forestall the creation of a united Dagestani national identity.
In the post-Soviet period, in addition to Islamic agitation from the west, there has also been a certain amount of ethnic conflict. The conflict is generally over who will control the politics and patronage of certain enclaves, while the larger groups jockey for position in the republic’s government.
Some of the conflicts result from the ethnic mixing that was encouraged and sometimes forced during the Soviet period.

Reference

Derbent Timeline https://derbentonline.com/derbent-timeline/

Timothy C. Dowling Russia at War: From the Mongol Conquest to Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Beyond pp 728 ABC-CLIO, 2 dec. 2014 ISBN 1598849484

Aksan, Virginia. (2014). Ottoman Wars, 1700-1870: An Empire Besieged page 463. Routledge. ISBN 978-1317884033

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hill, Fiona. (1995). “Russia’s Tinderbox: Conflict in the North Caucasus and Its Implication for the Future of the Russian Federation.” Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project

TATARSTAN, REPUBLIC OF

Excerpt from Historical Dictionary of the Russian federation

An ethnic republic of the Russian Federation. With the exception of Chechnya, which gained its current status through two wars, Tatarstan is recognized as the most sovereign of all of Russia’s federal subjects and the paragon of Boris Yeltsin’s asymmetrical federalism. In nearly every way, the region functions as a country within a country. Relations between Muslim Tatars and Orthodox Russians date back centuries, and though interactions have often been plagued by mutual suspicion, cooperation and cultural exchange have also been evident. Tatarstan, then known as the Khanate of Kazan, was incorporated into Russia during the reign of the first tsar of Russia, Ivan the Terrible (1547­1584). The inclusion of a large non-Christian, Turkic nation into Russia secured the multicultural nature of the Romanov Empire for centuries. During the late 19th century, Tatarstan became an important center of education in the Muslim world due to the spread of the progressive Islamist ideology of Jadidism. Tatars, in turn, became agents of both Islamicization and Russification across Russian Central Asia. During the Russian Civil War, Tatar nationalists created a short-lived federation of Turkic and FinnoUralic peoples known as the Idel-Ural State. Once the Bolsheviks consolidated power in the Volga region, Tatarstan was organized into an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) on 27 May 1920, epitomizing the Leninist slogan of “nationalist in form but socialist in content.” The republic failed to include the majority of ethnic Tatars and purposefully created political divisions between the Tatars and their fellow Turkic Muslims in neighboring Bashkortostan. However, Tatarstan was unofficially bestowed with the position of primus inter pares among Russia’s ASSRs. Modern Tatarstan is part of the Volga Federal District and Economic Region. The republic covers an area of 68,000 square kilometers, and its mostly flat topography is defined by a mixture of forests and plains. The Volga River roughly divides the country along a north-south axis. The republic has a population of 3.7 million, thus ranking it eighth among federal subjects. Tatars represent a majority at 53 percent, while ethnic Russians are the largest minority (40 percent); Chuvash are the region’s other statistically significant national minority. Only one-quarter of all Tatars reside in the republic. Kazan (pop. 1.1 million) is the capital of the republic. The city served as capital of the Khanate of Kazan and the Idel-Ural State. During World War II, a sizable portion of the Soviet militaryindustrial complex was relocated to the city. Today, it is an important scientific, cultural, and educational center in the Volga region. Vladimir Lenin studied briefly at Kazan State University, as did Leo Tolstoy. In 2005, a single-line metro was opened in the city, as was Russia’s largest mosque, Qolşärif. Other important cities in the region are Nabrezhnye Chelny, Zelenodolsk, and Nizhnekamsk. The Tatarstan economy is well developed and diversified between agriculture, industry, and the export of hydrocarbons. Tatarstan accounts for more than half of Russia’s heavy oil production and nearly 10 percent of all oil extraction; there are more than 400 oil fields in the region, with reserves of more than 2 billion tons. Despite its oil wealth, the republic must import natural gas for heating and industrial purposes.

Under the leadership of Mintimer Shaymiyev, Tatarstan emerged as an early and vocal supporter of asymmetrical federalism during the Yeltsin era. As head of the Tatar ASSR’s Supreme Soviet, Shaymiyev declared Tatarstan to be a sovereign republic on 31 August 1990. The republic was the scene of unbridled nationalism during the first year of post-Soviet independence, prompting fear amongst the sizable Slavic population. Along with Chechnya, Tatarstan rejected the new Federation Treaty in 1992, opting instead for its own constitution, which was promulgated on 6 November 1992. While federal troops amassed on the border, no invasion of the republic occurred, as the local leadership, unlike in Chechnya, stopped short of declaring outright independence. In February 1994, the republic led the way in establishing bilateral relations with Moscow, which included full ownership of natural resources and much of its industrial base, as well as retention of 50 percent of all value-added tax (VAT), twice as much as its peers. Tatarstan also gained the right to conclude economic, cultural, and scientific-technical relations with foreign powers (to date, such agreements have been signed with Cuba, Poland, Germany, India, Turkey, the United States, most countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, and others). Shaymiyev’s concessions to the Russians–though unpopular with Tatar nationalists–preserved peace within the region and allowed for better relations with the rest of the Russian Federation. During the 1990s, Tatarstan exerted sovereignty over nearly every aspect of its governance except foreign relations and external security (Tatar conscripts were even exempted from fighting in conflict zones). Controversially, the republic also introduced the institution of Tatar citizenship, separate from Russian citizenship.