Ancient Chechnya Chechens from the creation of Nokhcho. Chechens are a brave and hardy nation

History of the Chechens

This page of the Caucasus website contains information on the origin of the Chechen people and from the history of the Chechens. These data, not distinguished by their completeness and wide breadth of coverage, nevertheless give a fairly holistic view of one of the most ancient peoples of the planet, who has brought to our days the traditions developed over the centuries and the accumulated wisdom.

Of course, the history of the Chechen people and everything related to the origin of the Chechens cannot be described on one page, but we hope that the reader himself will find sources that supplement this topic.

About the Caucasus Forum

We constantly have to answer the same question: why is there so much politics in the Caucasian forum? We answer it in different ways, but perhaps the best answer is the words of the leader of the Russian Bolsheviks, Vladimir Lenin: “If you are not involved in politics, then politics will be engaged in you.” Very short and wise.

This is not an apologetics for the communists. We believe that the communists led Russia to a dead end, and we are disentangling the results of their activities today. But they did not do everything wrong: in the time of the USSR, everything Caucasian, including Chechen, was not subjected to such fierce rejection as it is today. Now, perhaps, only Caucasian cuisine, Caucasian shepherd dogs and Caucasian artists are treated as well as before.

The inhabitants and natives of the Caucasus had their own - and an honorable place among other peoples of the country, and they played a significant, and sometimes very noticeable (we are talking here not only about Stalin, Mikoyan, Beria, Tevosyan and generally major figures) role in her life.

The Caucasian peoples were given the opportunity to have their own, albeit subordinate to the Center, state and autonomous entities. For example, Georgia, being itself a state semi-independent entity, had on its territory the autonomy of Abkhazians, Ossetians and Adjarians - Georgian Muslims. Questions like history of the Chechen people, the origin of the Chechens and other peoples of the Caucasus, at that time, except for ethnographers and the Chechens themselves, few people were interested.

Today's Russian government is trying to encroach on this, albeit non-radical, but progressive establishment of the communists, to eliminate the national republics. The sycophants from among the Caucasian pseudo-elite proclaim their unchanging “I approve” of these attempts. This is dangerous and fraught with a sharp increase in centrifugal tendencies in the North Caucasus! Can we allow another hotbed of separatism to arise, similar to the Chechen one, or even several at once? Of course not!

Where to discuss this and other issues, such as the origin of the Chechen people, the history of the Chechens, if not in the Caucasian forum and chat? Can we limit ourselves to communication on the topics of culture and sports, acquaintances and joyful verbosity in the Caucasus guest site, when very ambiguous and, as a rule, very dangerous economic, social and political processes are taking place around us, in our countries? No and no again!

That is why there is a lot of politics on our resources. This is not our choice, this is a situation generated by life itself and the processes in Russia and the Caucasus.

Origin of the Chechens

From the history

Chechen people Topic start

Comparing the current conflicts with the previous ones, it is necessary to separately consider the expansion of the Russian Empire to the South and the annexation of the peoples of the Caucasus, which did not take place peacefully in all cases.

Of all the conflicts that have happened in the past and in our time, the Chechen conflict is distinguished by its prehistory, causes and development. It still stands out for its unparalleled duration, bitterness, losses, and for all its duration, having become centuries-old, for 225 years it did not actually stop, but only faded, and then flared up again with armed uprisings, revolts, repressions and hostilities that grew into large-scale war.

The never-ending armed confrontation with the participation of the regular army, "pacifying" raids, raids and partisan strikes was accompanied by military-administrative "measures" on the population to weaken the spirit and rear of the resisters.

The conflict in Chechnya brings enormous damage, and the huge expenditures on armed uprisings and military operations turn out to be of little effect and only increase the already great number of dead and maimed - both among the warring and among the population.

The pain of loss and suffering of the Chechen people, together with all the horror of the monstrous abnormality of what is happening, emerges as an incurable wound and adversely affects the entire Russian society. The authorities not only cannot resolve the conflict, but, on the contrary, repeatedly stepping on the same rake, only exacerbate this age-old problem. Only under Alexander II did the settlement of the conflict in Chechnya begin, bringing at least some temporary relief to the Chechen people. However, the forces interested in the conflict once again inflamed it to bloody limits with the destruction of the larger and better part of the entire Chechen people.

Is different Chechen conflict a particularly distorted perception of him both in Russian society and among the Chechens themselves. The external and internal destructive forces interested in the continuation of the conflict exert their proteges to influence its development in the direction they need. They do not want a settlement and peace, and they are not satisfied with its completion, but with a renewed confrontation with the shedding of blood of many generations, for which they sometimes add fuel to the fire and manipulate their agents in order to misinform society and mask their involvement in the conflict. Being part of the elites that lead the parties involved in the conflict, and feeding on them, the intelligentsia avoids research that can reveal the causes of the emergence and development of the conflict and reveal the real essence of what is happening.

Fulfilling the will of their foreign and local masters, and serving their clan-group interests, the participants in the conflict deliberately present it in a distorted form and block the way out of the deadlock situations they create. Having understood the causes of the conflict in Chechnya and the development of an acceptable program for its settlement, only by bringing together many researchers from various areas of social science.

Such a program should be acceptable to both the Chechen people and Russian society. It is needed to influence the participants so that they submit to the choice and will of the people.

The study of the social structure and way of life of the Chechens and their ancestors shows that they successfully resisted invasions on their lands for many centuries, repelling superior opponents and not only thanks to the mountains. Many peoples disappeared, while others became small. Mountains can serve as protection only for those who are skilled and have strength and resources.

Since ancient times, a well-developed system of regulation of social relations has been established on the Chechen lands, and the Chechen communities possessed advanced (at that time) technologies, producing everything necessary for life and for protection. Chechens have always had very good weapons and were especially skilled warriors.

The constant military threat required the maintenance of constant combat readiness with a large number of well-trained soldiers and considerable expenses. The Chechens were distinguished by special training from generation to generation of excellent warriors from the entire male population.

Having formed in the era of the Great Aryan civilization more than three thousand years ago (then the entire Armenian Highland, including the present Caucasus, was considered Ararat, or rather Hajrarat) by the military-economic communities of the guards of the mountain passes of the Aryan country, the secrets of the great-ancestors of the Chechens differed maintaining public order on the basis of moral norms, which are sacred laws and strictly observed invariably for millennia.

Living in upland communities in conditions of greater isolation makes their inhabitants more warlike and constantly armed and more consolidated with the paramount interests of family and clan.

In the Chechen communities, power did not belong to the nobility, as in most peoples, but was concentrated at the grassroots levels. The Chechens respected the nobility, but they did not worship her, did not pay tribute, taxes, taxes to the feudal lords, but each owner himself allocated a tenth of the income to orphans and the poor, and also, by decision of the Elders, for public needs. Being a grassroots ethnic unit, the Chechen taipas were ruled by councils of elders with the freedom and mutual responsibility of every Chechen. To know was an accumulator of resources and served to maintain the purity of morality. In Chechnya, precedents of succession to power have always been avoided.

The attitude of the Chechens towards the nobility and taxes has few analogues. It developed even among their great-ancestors, who lived apart from the main population of the Aryans and carried out the most important security function. With small forces, they were the first to meet enemy raids, for which they were highly respected and, accordingly, did not bow to anyone and were free, including from taxes, taxes and duties.

From childhood, they were instilled with the skills of not only warriors, but also a number of other professions that are needed both in war and in civilian life. Young Vainakhs were taught to live the way their ancestors lived - to be able to heal wounds and solve social problems, use the gifts of the land and protect it, and the ability to build both towers and good neighborly relations. They were forbidden to break even a branch of a wild pear.

Having received a guest, the Vainakh bears responsibility for him. As free communities, Chechen taipas accepted those fleeing persecution and enslavement. A slave or serf who reached the Chechen lands was already free, settled down, started a family and was under the protection of the society that accepted him.

The bloodlines who fled to Chechnya were also saved and found shelter. In Chechnya, no one was ever extradited, because this would be an indelible shame for the entire taip.

So in Chechnya, new families were formed with origins from other ethnic groups, and from them later Gars (clan) were formed, expanding with generations into taipas. Although the Chechen community with a military-democratic structure was not ideal, the Chechens did not have slavery and feudalism in the form in which they were stages in the development of most peoples. But they also had a noticeable estate-social and class stratification.

Chechen nation formed as a multi-ethnic Most of the Chechens are of Vainakh origin, and some taips trace their ancestry from other nationalities, but they are also Chechens, since the Chechen language became their native language, and they adopted the Chechen way of life. The origin of the Chechens is therefore quite special.

The individualism and freedom-loving Chechens, and the independence of Chechen societies with the preservation of the orders of their ancestors did not allow the formation of a vertical and inherited hierarchy of power; free communities did not need to create a unitary state.

Chechen communities were self-sufficient both in solving their problems and regulating relations between them, and in protecting their lands. The Chechens have always been dynamic and possessed a mobile military force. They successfully repelled raids on their lands and were leaders among the mountain peoples in the fight against enemies.

Chechens entered into alliances with neighboring peoples and participated with them in state formations, but, while maintaining self-government, they did not create an independent separate state on their lands.

Chechens make up the bulk of the Vainakh ethnic group, which is the largest in the region. They are the most indigenous inhabitants of the Caucasus, attributed by anthropologists to the Caucasian subrace of the Indo-European race.

The Vainakhs stood out among the Nakh peoples as early as the first millennium BC. although in our time Chechens and Ingush were charged with understanding the name “Vainakhi” as “Our people”, and it seems to be “correct”, but fundamentally wrong and “covers up” the real meaning of this name. In fact, Vainakhs were called those Nakhs who carried out guard service, i.e. military Nakhs, Nakh warriors.

Most of the Nakhs were engaged in ordinary activities: cattle breeding, agriculture and crafts. Vainakhi but, leading a military-economic lifestyle, they were engaged in the same as the rest, and also everything that was needed for military affairs and the cultivation of horses suitable for soldiers, and weapons, and supplies, as well as training not only soldiers, but also gunsmiths and surgeons.

It should be remembered that in the time of the ancestors of the Chechens there were no regular armies, just as there were no borders in their current understanding. During the invasion of a large enemy army, a militia gathered, but even with the assembled army, the Vainakhs were in a special account, as well as provided with weapons, and skilled warriors.

The Nakhs occupied the lands on both sides of the Main Caucasian Range for more than 3 millennia. They called themselves Nakh people, so different from other tribes that stood at much lower levels of development. The Nakhs are close to the Matians, Urartians and Hurrians, and had common roots with them in the ancient Aryan civilization.

It is no coincidence that they suggest that the Chechen people got their name from the name of the village of Chechen-aul, and the Chechens are a people who came from Urartu or the cities of the Hurrians. Such "researchers" carry out the order of those who need Chechens (like "Ivans who do not remember kinship") not to know who they are and where they come from.

(Continued in center column)

The history of the Chechen people, the origin of the Chechens.

From the history of formation

Chechen nation

And occurrence

Chechen issue Continuation

The reference to the possibility of deciphering ancient cuneiforms from the Vainakh language only emphasizes that they are the closest of the surviving ancient languages ​​to cuneiform makers and confirms that the Chechen people preserved the language of their ancestors with minimal changes.

The proximity of the Chechen language to the languages ​​of the Urartians, Hurrians and Sumerians does not mean that it comes from them. If the Chechens would come from Urartu, then they would inherit the cuneiform from them.

There are traces of the ancestors of the Chechens both before the time of Urartu and beyond. By the way, the state of Urartu was also small by ancient standards, only 22 thousand square meters. km., although strong and warlike.

It is possible that part of the Vainakhs carried out military service for hire among the Urartians. However, the way of life and social structure of the Vainakhs and Urartians differ sharply. Urartu was already slave-owning and it existed after the collapse of the Great Aryan state. The Chechens did not have their own written language, and they retained a lot from their ancestors, passing from generation to generation, orally, without the changes that take place when rewriting history to please the ruling elites.

Japhedites, whose descendants were the Nakhs (the descendants of other sons of Noah joined them already in the Caucasus in view of the similarity of beliefs, customs and way of life), spread to the Caucasus from south to north and further, mainly from west to east, along the Main Caucasian ridge.

The ancestors of the majority of Chechens of Nokhchi are Nakhmatians, mentioned in the north-east of the Caucasus in Armenian Geography at the beginning of the first millennium AD.

The homeland of the Chechens is those lands that they inherited from their ancestors and there is no evidence that other people lived there before or that the Chechens or their ancestors seized foreign lands. More than two thousand years of living in the region is enough time to be considered the indigenous inhabitants of the Caucasus. Just a little more ancient, and then they live to the south.

In addition, it must be admitted that, despite their militancy, the Chechen people in their history did not wage an aggressive war with anyone and did not subjugate other nationalities.

It was thanks to the Chechen people that many small neighboring peoples survived, and one invasion after another went to the North-East of the Caucasus. So the Turkic tribes finally settled in the Caucasus as a result of the Tatar-Mongol invasion and the capture of the region by the hordes of Leng-Timur several centuries ago.

The name of the people, their language and land cannot be given by the name of one village. It can appear if only there is a need in it to distinctively name a given people both to itself and to its neighbors.

For the name of the people and its lands, it is not the name of one point that is taken, but the most comprehensive and characteristic of the named people and lands from the historically established concepts often used by the people and neighbors.

Chechen-Aul is named so because Chechens lived in it. Near this village, in the old days, Mekhk-Khel gathered at the common Vainakh sanctuary, general festivals and competitions were held, and a lot of trade was carried on. This area was of general Chechen importance, and the neighbors knew about it.

Returning from the mountains after the Mongol-Tatar invasion, the Chechens rebuilt the village. The place was also remembered by the old Vainakh name. Chechen-Aul appeared after the Chechens and, having appeared later, I can’t give a name to the people who already had a Name and gave it to this village. By the way, the name of the settlement in the highlands - aul, is a Turkic word.

Chechens were called by the neighboring peoples Tsatsane, Shashen, Chachan - each in his own way, as it is convenient for them according to their pronunciation.

The Muscovite state established relations at the beginning with the Okotsky Chechens (the plain Akin people of the Terek-Sulak interfluve, which is the gate of the Great Chechen Republic) and therefore all Chechens were initially called Okochane. Then, following the example of the Turks, a more convenient and more accurate and most used by neighboring peoples was fixed, but in Russian transcription the name “Chechens”, which then became fixed not only in Russia, but also among the Chechens themselves (already changed with Islamization) and among those who were part of the Empire neighboring peoples.

However, word Chechens there was a forerunner - SASENY. Changing the name actually changes the renamed subject. It is very important for us to remember this in order to understand the Chechen Question in a new way.

The Chechens themselves often call themselves and other Chechens mainly by the name of the community - Nokhchi, Akki, Melkhsy… (Vainakh origin) or taips Tarkoy, Zumsoy… (non-ethnic origin).

The need to distinguish themselves from the Ingush, Batsbi and Khevsurs, who are of Nakh origin, and the need for a common name for Nokhchi, Akki, Orstkhoi, Melkhs, as Chechen communities with a common language, lifestyle and territory, gave birth to a name that unites all branches of the Chechens - the descendants of the people, called Sassensky in ancient times.

Other Vainakh societies (Ingush and Batsbi) were few in number and were formed with a slight dilution by foreigners, and pshavs and khevruses, having adopted Christianity, "Georgianized". There were no Vainakhs left on the southern side of the Caucasus Range, where, with the adoption of Christianity and Muslims back in the first millennium, except for the Kists in the Pankii Gorge, who were the last to convert to Islam in the 19th century.

Chechens, consisting of a dozen communities, were the most numerous of the peoples of the North Caucasus and, due to their special social structure, developed steadily and were not lost in history, as they were self-sufficient even during the time of the Tatar-Mongols and Leng-Timur.

The consolidation of the new name Chechens was also facilitated by a very sharp increase in the second half of our millennium in the number of taips of Chechens who are not Vainakhs, who, already being part of the people, could not be called the name of this or that community.

The multi-ethnic nature of the formation of the Chechen nation required a new name. The Chechen people, having included taipas of non-Vainakh origin, were already different than during the time of their legendary great-ancestor Turpal Nokhcho. Having changed, with the inclusion of a large number of a foreign ethnic element, the Chechen people received a new name modified from the old. It exactly corresponded to his new state, but the new name turned out to be a significant influence on his future fate.

Perhaps the Chechens themselves do not notice, but from the outside, a sharp change in the fate of the Chechen people is striking with the appearance of non-Vainakh taips in it, the beginning of Islamization and the consolidation of the name “Chechens”.

It was also convenient for neighboring peoples to call the “new” Nevainakh Chechens from different “new” taips one common name with the people who accepted them. This coincided in time with Islamization and the inclusion of Chechnya within the Russian Empire.

The name Chechens includes a double denial of the antiquity of the Chechens, and it was adopted by both the promoters of Islam and the tsarist authorities, who sought to change the Vainakhs. It was relatively new and consolidated the planned transformation of the Vainakhs. The name of Chechens was fixed by the Arabic script that appeared with Islam, and the arrival in Chechnya of many Arabic literate-experts of the Koran, and the increase in the number of non-Chechen Muslims in it.

Why was the ancient name of the ancestors of the Chechens not established? Yes, simply because the word SASENY, so great by the deeds of their ancestors for thousands of years, that the "new Chechens" could not become Vainakhs even for centuries. Only their descendants, the Vainakhs, could be called Sasen. In addition, history was constantly being rewritten with alterations, and everything related to the Aryan civilization was mercilessly and deliberately destroyed so that there would be no mention of another - popular - form of power.

Those who planned to change the Vainakhs for their subjugation could not allow the name SASENA to be fixed - THE NAME OF THE ANCESTORS, AS A SAFETY LETTER, WOULD REJECT EVERYTHING IMPOSED AND FOREIGN.

Chechens, as the last mahikans who managed to save at least something from the heritage of the Aryans, not only in agriculture, crafts, horse breeding, construction (in fact, the entire foundation of our civilization from fire to the wheel), but also in the social structure, they were thousands of kilometers across the throat of all rulers, because they were a tempting example of free self-government for peoples.

It was the destruction of the remnants of the Aryan heritage that was the main goal of the genocide and ethnocide unleashed against the Chechen people.

However, the origin of the Chechens continues to cause debate, although we point out that they have been the indigenous inhabitants of the Caucasus for two thousand years. But this question arises by itself even according to the Batsbi, who say that they are fyappi from Vabua, and where is Vabua ... The oral traditions of all the Vainakhs say that their ancestors came from somewhere beyond the mountains and then settled from Galanchozh district. Such is the history of the Chechen people in the oral tradition of the Chechens.

It is necessary to pay attention to how quite different stories are in different Chechen communities, and this is despite the fact that legends in Chechnya are usually transmitted without the slightest change. Apparently, individual communities really had different ancestral paths, i.e. they went from different places, but all to gather in the Galanchozh region. Being the descendants of the Aryans, the Chechens are really the descendants of the newcomers, like the Aryans themselves, whose branches came to the region of the Armenian Highlands and brought the natives a higher culture of their civilization. In the dialects of the Armenian language, the word arii means to come, and hajr as a father and Hajrarat as the country of fathers.

Much water has flowed under the bridge after the Great Flood, and Roman (inverted) law and rulers have established themselves in this world, who all with a chok destroyed any mention of the civilization of the Aryans and their special people's government, instead of which the domination of new aliens with an aggressive mentality, with a lower culture was established and an ugly form of power with a whole arsenal of suppression and submission.

Only the Vainakhs, apparently due to the military way of life and strict adherence to the laws of their ancestors, were able to preserve until the 19th century moral norms and beliefs of the Aryans and the form of social structure inherited from their ancestors with popular rule.

In his previous works, the author was the first to point out that the essence of the Chechen conflict lies in the clash of two different ideologies of public administration and in the special flintiness of the Chechens, who do not completely submit to any losses.

In this unequal and cruel battle that the Chechen people got, the Chechens themselves have changed and have lost a lot over the past three centuries from what their ancestors had been protecting for thousands of years.

Sasen left their mark not only in the North Caucasus. The Sasinid dynasty in Iran, removing the "new aliens" from power, restored the Aryan norms of morality and the religion of Zoroastrianism (Zero - zero, the starting point, aster - a star, i.e. the stellar beginning). In Greater Armenia, the descendants of David of Sasun bravely fought against the troops of the Caliphate in the 8th-9th centuries, and the regular Turkish army and bands of Kurds in the 19th-20th centuries. As part of the Russian corps, the Chechen detachments of Taimiev (1829) and Chermoevs (1877 and 1914) stormed the Armenian city of Erzrum three times, freeing it from the Turks.

One of the modified names of the Chechens - Shashen, in the Karabakh dialect of the Armenian language sounds like "special to the point of madness and brave to the point of madness." And the name Tsatsane already clearly indicates the peculiarity of the Chechens.

Nokhchi Chechens consider (apparently, by the call of blood) Nakhchevan to be named by their ancestors as a Nokhchi settlement, although the Armenians understand this name as a beautiful village. Slender, white, blue-eyed warriors on horseback among swarthy and undersized peasants were really beautiful.

There are traces of Nokhchi in southeastern Armenia in the region of Khoy (in Iran) and Akka in western Armenia in the interfluve of the Greater and Lesser Zab south of Erzrum. It should be noted that the Chechen people and the Vainakh communities that make it up are heterogeneous and include a dozen separate branches, with different dialects.

When studying Chechen society, it seems that you are dealing with the descendants of the last defenders of the fortress, gathered in the citadel from different places. Moving for various reasons, the great-ancestors of the Chechens did not go further than a thousand kilometers from Mount Ararat, i.e. they practically remained within the region.

And the great-ancestors of the Vainakhs came from different places - some quickly and with heavy losses, while others gradually and more safely, for example, like the Nokhchi from Mitanni. Let those times (more than three thousand years ago) have been long and stretched out for tens and hundreds of years. Along the way, they left the settlements they founded, and some of them went further, moving north for a reason that is now inexplicable to us, and the rest merged with the local population.

Finding traces of the ancestors of the Chechens is difficult because they really did not come from one place. There were no searches in the past, the Chechens themselves were content with an oral retelling of the path of their ancestors, but with Islamization, there were no Vainakh storytellers left either.

Today, the search for traces of the great-ancestors of the Vainakhs and archaeological excavations must be carried out on the territory of as many as 8 states during the period of the end of the second millennium BC.

The arrival of the former Aryan guards in separate detachments with families and households in the Galanchozh region marked the beginning Chechen tukhums and taips(tai - share). The main taipas still distinguish their plots (share) on the land of Galanchozh, since it was then first divided by the great-ancestors thousands of years ago.

Gala among many peoples means to come, i.e. Galanchozh can mean the place of arrival or settlement from it, which is true either way.

Both the name of the great-ancestors of the Chechens (Sasen) and the current name of their descendants (Chechens), and their whole history are special. The development of Chechen society was distinguished by many features and in many respects has no analogues.

The Chechens turned out to be very refractory and difficult to change from their ancestors, and for many centuries they retained their language and way of life, and the social structure of their free communities ruled by councils, without the admission of hereditary power. The legendary Turpal Nokhcho, who mastered the bull, harnessed it and taught the Nokhchi how to plow, overcame evil and bequeathed to keep the lake, from which the Nokhchi settled, clean, i.e. keep clean the foundations, language, laws and beliefs received from the ancestors (without polluting them with alien customs). As long as Turpal's commandments were respected, the Chechens were lucky in history.

About Chechen communities in the Middle Ages

The Chechens and their ancestors successfully resisted the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Huns, Iran, the Arab Caliphate, Byzantium and the Khazar Kaganate in the struggle for their existence. Fighting with superior opponents, the Vainakhs were the main support of the neighboring mountain peoples in the fight against common enemies, who therefore did not succeed in seizing their lands.

In the fight against enemies, the Chechens relied on their self-sufficiency and the availability of resources obtained by free producers, and on the presence of trained, well-armed and mobile soldiers.

The main advantage of the Chechens was the balance of social relations in free communities, consolidating them into a single people under threat.

Self-sufficiency in the Chechen communities was achieved by regulating relations according to the laws of the ancestors with the decentralization of power and its concentration horizontally at the grassroots levels in the non-inherited elected administration of the Councils of Elders and with the delegation of powers to Khelam communities and Mekhk-Khelam to resolve inter-clan and all-Chechen issues.

Public peace, with general armament, individualism and love of freedom, was maintained by mutual responsibility with conscious self-restraints on the basis of sacred prohibitions developed and protected by hundreds of generations that regulate behavior in communities and habitats and by the Decisions of the Councils of Elders, Khel and Mehk-Khel, perceived by everyone as mandatory .

Chechen communities lived on their strictly demarcated lands, and the Chechens did not cede their lands and their freedom to anyone, but they themselves did not encroach on strangers.

When dying, the Chechens inflicted such heavy damage on the enemy that the enemy retreated, suffering heavy losses. If it was necessary to preserve their people, the Chechens left the flat lands for the mountains. If the enemy forces were too large, then he was kept in the foothills, where the war was already different, and the Chechens were in a better position. The enemy did not manage to take advantage of the numerical advantage, and, having not achieved the subjugation of the Vainakhs, he retreated with increasing losses. The Chechens reconquered their flat lands for agriculture and restoration. They managed to preserve their people precisely because they preserved their way of life, beliefs, way of life and language and strictly observed the laws of their ancestors.

In the first part of our millennium, the geopolitical processes around the Caucasus, where the interests of the surrounding great powers and sub-ethnic groups clash, have changed.

The Tatar-Mongol invasion destroyed everything created by settled peoples on the plains up to the foothills. The remnants of the peoples who fled in the mountains survived with insufficient resources. A long stay in the mountains without the agricultural lands of the plain greatly undermined the self-sufficiency of the Chechen communities, but the Tatar-Mongols did not manage to subdue the Chechens.

With the weakening of the Tatar-Mongolian Golden Horde, the Chechens began to descend from the mountains to their plains. However, hordes of new conquerors poured into the lands of the North-Eastern Caucasus - the Turkic nomadic tribes of Leng-Timur.

Previously, they themselves fled from Central Asia through Iran before the Mongols, they were already settled in the mountains in the southeast of the Caucasus, united and converted to Islam.

But with this new invasion, the Chechen communities were no longer able to act as a united front. Plain Chechens-Akins, neighbors of the Khazar Khaganate and converted to Islam, in the fight against the Golden Horde allied with the people of Leng-Timur. Having bypassed Derbent along the mountain roads, Leng-Timur did not immediately go to Tokhtamysh, but first brutally cracked down on the mountain peoples, capturing almost the entire North Caucasus.

The Terek-Sulak Akinians found themselves in a privileged position with Leng-Timur as Muslims and as his former allies in the fight against the Golden Horde Khan Tokhtamysh. The Akinians recognized his supremacy and the Murza appointed by him.

Having replenished his military reserves at the expense of the resources of the captured lands of the mountain peoples, Leng-Timur defeated the Golden Horde and settled in the Caucasus, settling in present-day Dagestan.

Leng-Timur quickly and brutally subjugated the peoples in the north of the Caucasus and forced them to convert to Islam. Accustomed to the hierarchy of power, the nobility of the people accepted the rule of the Turks of Leng-Timur, and the Chechens fought fiercely, but for a while lost their independence in three regions bordering the Dagestan lands. The lands subordinated to Leng-Timur began to be called Ichkeria(“Uch” in Turkic means three) and were forcibly Islamized, and Turkic princes and beks were placed over the Chechen communities, who later, not without a struggle, were expelled.

The Turks spread among the highlanders, mastered pasture cattle breeding and occupied not only flat lands, but also mountain pastures. They adopted the economic structure of the mountain peoples and mixed with them with the imposition of the power of their feudal lords.

Only the Vainakhs and Ossetians were not digested in this Turkic cauldron and retained their identity, their beliefs and way of life. The Chechens found themselves in a Turkic environment without the mutual support of neighboring peoples.

Due to the limited land and resources in the mountains, the Chechens sought their places on the plains and coastal areas. The Turks recognized their strength and yielded in order to achieve the inclination of the Chechens in other ways.

The destruction by Leng-Timur of the regions in the eastern part of Greater Chechnya severely undermined the self-sufficiency of the Chechen communities and delayed their return to the flat and coastal lands.

So, for the first time in their history, the Chechens found themselves on their lands divided into Vainakhs, plain Akins and Ichkerians with different religions and way of life, and therefore lost their independence for a while in the Ichkerian part of the territory of Greater Chechnya.

Having broken up into Timurid khanates, the Turks retained a common language and religion. They failed to completely subjugate all the mountain peoples, but already dominated the North Caucasus, where the main part of the Vainakh communities and the Ossetians and Khevsurs who converted to Christianity remained independent.

The fall of the Golden Horde and the disintegration of the Turks into a number of relatively small feudal khanates took advantage of the sub-ethnic feudal formations surrounding the Caucasus, which were much stronger due to the centralization of state power.

The Caucasus became an arena for a clash of interests between Iran, Turkey, the Crimean Khanate and the Muscovite kingdom, which was gathering together the Russian lands and expanding east to the Urals and the Volga region and south to the Caucasus.

Protecting their lands from the raids of the Tatar-Turkic khans, the Muscovite kingdom began to settle the Cossacks in the outlying lands. With the capture of Astrakhan, it began to build a defensive line in the North Caucasus from the Caspian Sea to Azov and expanded with the acceptance of peoples who voluntarily joined. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the tsarist authorities sought to establish allied vassal relations with the feudal lords of border lands and trade and economic cooperation with other peoples.

Plans for the complete Turkization and Islamization of their entire Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Black Sea region, Western Asia and the Balkans with the creation of the Great Turan were unacceptable to the indigenous peoples, and they turned to the growing Russia (Ossetians, Georgians and Armenians) and Iran (Tajiks) for help. In addition to the aspirations of the great powers, in the Caucasus there was a constant struggle of local feudal lords among themselves.

The radical changes that took place in the Caucasus in the 13th-17th centuries created a completely different socio-political and economic situation in the area where the Chechens lived.

The Vainakh communities turned out to be a serious obstacle on the path of the forces that led civilization along the path of enslaving the peoples of the world by rulers worshiping the golden calf.

The Vainakh communities were free and, having no vertical hierarchy of power, could not unite into a single state. They perceived quite a lot of foreigners of non-Vainakh origin and found themselves in a Turkic-Muslim environment, remaining without their flat lands for quite a long time. Changes began to take place in the Chechen community. The insufficiency of land for agriculture and the increase in the number of the population caused changes in the way of life and way of life on the Chechen lands.

Chechen manufacturers could no longer provide the country with everything they needed of their own production, and therefore trade and economic relations became a special necessity.

In pre-Mongol-Tatar times, peoples with a similar way of life and close beliefs lived around the Chechens, the incoming foreign elements gradually adopted the Chechen language and way of life and became Chechens, almost without influencing the Vainakhs.

However, under the new conditions, the number of the incoming element was already much larger. They, becoming "new" Chechens, retained more signs of their non-Vainakh origin, and they themselves began to significantly influence, together with the Turkic-Muslim environment, Chechen society and its change.

Shifts imperceptibly began in Chechen society, leading to a gradual change in the order and way of life in its individual constituent taipas.

The forces that were interested in presenting the Chechens as savage and backward needed to deprive them of their own history by pursuing a policy of ethnocide.

So that the Chechens did not know who they were and where they came from, the image of a bandit-thug was imposed on them. It was hidden that the Chechen people long before Europe had democratic rule on an elective basis and brought up a careful, minimizing possible damage, attitude towards the environment, which was supported for many centuries by a system of sacred prohibitions.

The new time demanded from the free communities a great consolidation among themselves and the concentration of common forces and resources to strengthen external borders and to suppress subversive activities carried out from outside. To do this, it was necessary to organize a centralized administration of the country throughout the territory.

Retaining their independence, the Chechen communities were not ready for unification. Mutual Aid and Solutions general issues in Khela and Mehk Khela was insufficient to mobilize and manage general resources.

Border communities did not have enough strength to strengthen the external borders. The plain and foothill regions of Chechnya remained open at a time when the construction of towers and fortifications in each settlement began in the Highlands (especially from the 14th century).

Being tightly twisted, independent branches of one people, free communities they divided it into separate territorial and tribal communities according to the number of dialects of the common language, and some taipas were not included in tukhums along with others and remained the same free, but small communities.

The commitment of Vainakh Chechens to freedom, their individualism and the independence of individual communities under democratic self-government (without the hereditary power of the nobility) with the concentration of power at the grassroots levels in the Councils of Elders and the collegial resolution of common issues in Khela and Mekhk-Kheli were sufficient to maintain balanced relations in society and their regulation throughout the territory.

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Topic: From the history of the Chechen people, the origin of the Chechens. Discussion on the Forum

Origin of the Chechens
From the history

Chechen people
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However, in the new conditions, the experience of the ancestors and the existing system of governance was no longer enough to reflect the massive ideological expansion aimed at changing the Chechens in order to subjugate them and which began with the plain Akinians, and then the Ichkerians, who had already become Muslims and therefore largely departed from the orders established by their ancestors. .

Chechen communities lost their self-sufficiency due to lack of cultivated land, limited resources and overpopulation in the Highlands, and resettlement to their flat former lands, now occupied by foreign-speaking pastoralists. Chechen agriculture has not been restored to its previous level due to the destruction of all irrigation systems during the invasions of nomads.

The loss of self-sufficiency, changes in the economic structure and dependence on the state of external trade and economic relations led to shifts in the way of life of the Chechens and the beginning of class and social stratification in Chechen society.

The inclusion - in the conditions of the loss of self-sufficiency and the beginning of class-social stratification and in a short time - in the Chechen society of a large number of a foreign ethnic element (with a pedigree from peoples with hereditary power of the nobility) led not so much to the adoption by the "new" Chechens of a common language and way of life, but rather to preserve their desire to return to their former way of life (without the Vainakh prohibitions), but with the seizure of power at the right time with one-man command and subordination of the rest, because they did not accept deeply Vainakh moral norms and in the majority were already Islamized.

A slave who got to Chechnya and became free, nevertheless remained with the psychology of a slave, which was reflected even after several generations. But gradually the former, slavish, was squeezed out in the Chechen environment. By the tenth generation, it was no longer necessary to remember the slave ancestor.

But in modern times, there were much more former slaves in Chechnya. Communicating with each other and finding the former (slave) community and more than once recently betrayed the language and faith of their ancestors and being ready to do the same again in the new fatherland, they became the basis for the formation of “fifth columns” in the Chechen environment by external destructive forces, moreover, such "new Chechens" raised their offspring in the same spirit.

Moving from the mountains and finding themselves in the Tatar-Turkic environment, the Chechen communities, who did not know other forms of power and control, were not immune from external ideological expansion and the introduction of alien customs.

Rejecting Islam and other monotheistic religions as early as the 1st millennium AD, the Vainakh communities already in the middle of the 2nd millennium AD. turned out to be open to the penetration of Islam through elements of non-Vainakh origin and border communities that were not bound by both faiths and adopted the Islamic ideology of subordination and unlimited power of religious leaders.

The Russians (before Peter I) did not seek to change the Chechens and did not interfere in their internal affairs. Having a continuous border area in the north, the Chechen communities and Russia aspired to normal relations between the Cossacks and Chechens. The Cossacks learned the Chechen language, and the Chechens learned the Russian language.

The Russians reckoned with the power of the Chechens (even if they are few) and the Chechens reckoned with the power of their northern neighbor. The Moscow Tsar was the first to establish official relations with the Chechen communities, thus recognizing their autonomy and independence.

The new Romanov dynasty was able to begin the restoration of the country with a centralized government. Under Peter I, a military-industrial base, a regular army and a navy were created, the Turkish fortress of Azov was taken and a Persian campaign was undertaken.

Being a graduate of the German Lefort, Peter I brutally introduced the Western order, modernizing Russia and transforming it into an Empire. Under Peter I, the Russian Empire expanded in the east with the development of the Urals and in the west with access to the Baltic.

Peter I (remembering his captivity with the Turkish pasha) abandoned the fight against Turkey, dividing zones of influence with her under the Constantinople Agreement of 1724, and gave Chechnya (without the knowledge of the Chechens themselves) to Turkey and its vassal, the Crimean Khan.

External expansionist forces did not abandon their intentions and attempts to resolve the Chechen issue in their own way, without asking the Chechens and sometimes agreeing on this among themselves and coordinating actions on Chechnya.

Khan Kaplan-Girey, at the direction of the Sultan, moved with an 80,000-strong army to Iran through Chechnya, where he demanded tribute. Khan was met with an ambush in the gorge by five thousand Chechens and, having lost thousands of dead, left Chechnya. Now this passage is called Khan-Kyelu (Ambush Khan). Unable to subjugate Chechnya by force and political means, the expansionist forces adopted ideological and, in particular, its Islamization in order to eradicate everything Vainakh, because they needed Chechnya, but without Vainakh moral norms, self-government and freedom.

At the beginning of the 18th century, Chechnya still could not, if necessary, unite the forces of individual communities and fight back, defending their freedom and rejecting interference in their internal affairs. The Chechen communities did not yield their liberties to Russia, Iran, Turkey or the Crimean Khan, and rejected their pressure.

Chechens, like other mountain peoples, wanted good neighborly and mutually beneficial relations. They made political concessions in the borderlands to maintain peace, but resisted intervention. The new time objectively demanded greater rallying of the Chechen communities into a single people, and not only in the face of an immediate threat, but on a permanent basis.

Chechnya, which did not unite into a strong independent state, became the object of massive political and ideological expansion. It was subjected to the strongest influence in order to destroy the precedent of freedom and democratic self-government.

With a general interest in weakening, suppressing and subjugating Chechnya and in its Islamization, the interests of the great powers, Islamic centers and regional feudal leaders of the Caucasus clashed.

The Chechen leaders, taking advantage of these contradictions, skillfully maintained balanced relations with all of them and with each of them individually.

In matters with Chechnya, a unique, unparalleled situation that lasted for centuries was created. Regardless of whoever was in power in this or that country, and regardless of the state of their relations with each other, the vector of their policy in Chechnya was aimed at changing the Chechens, at expanding their comprador layers, weakening and subjugating Chechnya by all means, including the power ones.

Chechens are special with their freedom. Their freedom and independence were attractive to the peoples. They fled to Chechnya from persecution and oppression. The origin of the Chechens is therefore initially heterogeneous.

For the Caucasian feudal rulers who were in vassal dependence on the big states, the Chechen freemen got up across the throat! Unsubdued Chechnya was a thorn in the eye of the great powers. There were no authorities in Chechnya whose subordination would have subjugated the entire population of the country.

Those leaders with whom external forces dealt were limited in influence by the territory of their community and the decisive word by the Council of Elders, Khel and Mekhk-Khels, which were the most important, effective instrument for regulating all aspects of Vainakh life. They established the procedure for farming and land use, norms of behavior and punishment for their violations, resolved issues of trade, defense, war and peace, and fundraising for common needs.

For election to the Council of Elders, Khel and Mehk-Khel were of great importance knowledge of customs, personal abilities, origin, authority, wealth, age and the ability to speak convincingly. The meaning of Mehk-Khelov is evidenced by the saying: “The actions of the country were not avenged, actions against the country were not forgiven.” If individual communities or families did not obey, then by decision of the Council of Elders, Khel or Mehk-Khel they could be expelled.

In everyday life, the Chechens adhered to the saying about Mekhk-Khele and did not discuss actions against the elders and their actions and actions against those who were respected, they did not forgive anyone. In Chechnya, there was always no one to finally negotiate with. The Chechens could take any steps, except for those for which there could be an impartial demand from them for the Council of Elders, Khel or Mekhk-Khele.

Separate Chechen communities could independently negotiate with anyone and anything, but if it came to the interests of another community or concerned the whole of Chechnya, they also rejected everything that was considered an encroachment on their freedom and internal order.

Until the middle of the 18th century, few external forces could oppose each other in Chechnya, because. in matters of freedom and non-interference in internal affairs, the Chechens were united and individual precedents were suppressed.

For the same long time, Chechnya remained a self-governing territory of free communities, striving to preserve their former order and prevent outside interference in their internal affairs. The Chechens long remained "the last Mohicans" when the rest of the peoples had already accepted monotheistic religions, the power of the nobility and entry into a centralized state. Other peoples converted to Islam and entered the Russian Empire less painfully. Religious Islamic servants became the mainstay of feudal power in the subordination of their people. Citizenship to the "White Tsar" strengthened the power of the feudal khans and princes on their lands and protected them from the expansion of other local feudal rulers.

Chechnya could not, like Circassia, voluntarily join it. And going for allied relations, Chechnya did not seek protection from the Empire. The Chechen communities wished to maintain normal old and mutually beneficial relations. Such they would be if the borders of Russia in the Caucasus would remain the same.

However, changes were also taking place in the Caucasus and in Chechen society. Russia was also changing, which, having already become an Empire, was not going to stop its imperial run started by Peter I because of Chechnya. The changes taking place in the Caucasus and in the Chechen environment gradually intensified and by the middle of the 18th century were accelerating, becoming further irreversible.

Free communities, due to their characteristics, could not unite with an effective centralized government. The former system of regulation of relations was increasingly violated, and the social and class stratification in Chechen society was increasingly intensifying.

Interested in conquering and subjugating Chechnya and changing the Vainakhs, external and internal forces, using a comprador element (mainly from Chechens in Chechnya), sought to oppose Chechen communities, individual communities, families and leaders to each other and create their own “fifths” in the Chechen environment. columns." The history of the Chechen people has not known such serious challenges before.

In the North Caucasus, Russia began to build a cordon strip of fortresses, fortifications and villages along the Terek and Kuban, and from Mozdok to Vladikavkaz, covering Chechnya in the north. The tsarist military administration was instructed to take an oath to formalize the voluntary subordination of local settlements bordering with serfs, including Chechen communities.

In an effort to tie Chechnya to Turkey, Islamic circles actively opposed the establishment of normal relations in Chechnya with Russia. Turkey, on the other hand, sought to use Chechnya as a springboard in the fight against Russia and to close its access to the Transcaucasus.

The Islamic Sharia did not conflict with the mentality of the Turkic peoples, and was a device for the feudal nobility, and Tsarist Russia provided freedom of religion when giving Caesar to Caesar, and in Chechnya, the process of Islamization has been going on for centuries, and far from being peaceful, and very painful. Only at the end of the 18th century Islam took root in part of the Chechen lands and finally established itself, replacing the Vainakh beliefs in the middle of the 19th century. Islam, at the initial stage, played the role of a factor uniting all the highlanders. But the Chechens at first accepted it formally and with reservations about maintaining the supremacy of the Vainakh adat (ancestral laws) over Sharia. With the intensification of the Islamization of Chechnya, Russian-Chechen relations also changed, which was what his guides needed.

The change by the people of their faith to a religion born on a different culture, with a different mentality and system of social structure, destroys and destroys not only the old faith, but almost the entire previous culture, and radically changes the essence of this people. So the Pshavs and Khevsurs who converted to Christianity were named N.Ya. Marr at the beginning of the 20th century "Georgianized tribes of the Chechen people".

End of article

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The Chechens themselves call themselves Nokhchi. Some translate it as Noah's people. Representatives of this people live not only in Chechnya, but also in some regions of Dagestan, Ingushetia and Georgia. In total, there are more than one and a half million Chechens in the world.

The name "Chechen" appeared long before the revolution. But in the pre-revolutionary era and in the first decades of Soviet power, some other small Caucasian peoples were also often called Chechens - for example, the Ingush, Batsbi, Georgian Kists. There is an opinion that this is essentially one and the same people, separate groups of which, due to historical circumstances, were isolated from each other.

How was the word "Chechen" born?

There are several versions of the origin of the word "Chechen". According to one of them, it is a Russian transliteration of the word "shashan", which was used to designate this people by the Kabardian neighbors. For the first time, it is mentioned as the “Sasan people” in the Persian chronicle of the XIII-XIV centuries, authored by Rashid ad-Din, which refers to the war with the Tatar-Mongols.

According to another version, this designation comes from the name of the village of Big Chechen, where at the end of the 17th century Russians first encountered Chechens. As for the name of the village, it dates back to the 13th century, when the headquarters of the Mongol Khan Sechen was located here.

Starting from the 18th century, the ethnonym "Chechens" appeared in official sources in Russian and Georgian, and later other peoples borrowed it. Chechnya became part of Russia on January 21, 1781.

Meanwhile, a number of researchers, in particular, A. Vagapov, believe that this ethnonym was used by the neighbors of the Chechens long before the appearance of Russians in the Caucasus.

Where did the Chechen people come from?

The early stage in the history of the formation of the Chechen people remains hidden from us by the darkness of history. It is possible that the ancestors of the Vainakhs (this is how native speakers of Nakh languages, for example, Chechens and Ingush are called) migrated from Transcaucasia to the north of the Caucasus, but this is only a hypothesis.

Here is the version put forward by Georgy Anchabadze, Doctor of Historical Sciences:
“Chechens are the most ancient indigenous people of the Caucasus, their ruler bore the name “Kavkaz”, from which the name of the area originated. In the Georgian historiographic tradition, it is also believed that the Caucasus and his brother Lek, the ancestor of the Dagestanis, settled the uninhabited territories of the North Caucasus at that time from the mountains to the mouth of the Volga River.

There are also alternative versions. One of them says that the Vainakhs are the descendants of the Hurrian tribes who went north and settled in Georgia and the North Caucasus. This is confirmed by the similarity of languages ​​and culture.

It is also possible that the ancestors of the Vainakhs were tigrids - a people who lived in Mesopotamia (in the region of the Tigris River). If you believe the old Chechen chronicles - Teptars, the point of departure of the Vainakh tribes was in Shemaar (Shemar), from where they settled in the North and North-East of Georgia and the North Caucasus. But, most likely, this applies only to a part of the tukhkums (Chechen communities), since there is evidence of resettlement along other routes.

Most modern Caucasian scholars are inclined to believe that the Chechen nation was formed in the 16th-18th centuries as a result of the unification of the Vainakh peoples, mastering the foothills of the Caucasus. The most important unifying factor for them was Islamization, which took place in parallel with the settlement of the Caucasian lands. One way or another, it cannot be denied that the core of the Chechen ethnic group is the eastern Vainakh ethnic groups.

From the Caspian to Western Europe

Chechens did not always live in one place. Thus, their earliest tribes lived in the area that stretched from the mountains near Enderi to the Caspian Sea itself. But, since they often stole cattle and horses from the Grebensky and Don Cossacks, in 1718 they attacked them, chopped many, and drove the rest away.

After the end of the Caucasian War in 1865, about 5,000 Chechen families moved to the territory of the Ottoman Empire. They began to be called Muhajirs. Today their descendants represent the bulk of the Chechen diasporas in Turkey, Syria and Jordan.
In February 1944, more than half a million Chechens were deported by order of Stalin to the regions of Central Asia. On January 9, 1957, they received permission to return to their former place of residence, but a certain number of immigrants remained in their new homeland - in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

The first and second Chechen wars led to the fact that a significant number of Chechens moved to the countries of Western Europe, Turkey and the Arab countries. The Chechen diaspora has increased in Russia as well.

Chechens are the most ancient people of the Caucasus. They appeared on the territory of the North Caucasus in the 13th century as a result of the division of several ancient cities and are the largest ethnic group living in this territory. These people made their way along the Main Caucasian Range through the Argun Gorge and eventually settled in the mountainous part of the Republic of Chechnya. This people has its own centuries-old traditions and original ancient culture. In addition to the name Chechens, the people are called Chechens, Nakhche and Nokhchi.

Where live

Today, most Chechens live on the territory of the Russian Federation in the Chechen Republic and Ingushetia, there are Chechens in Dagestan, Stavropol Territory, Kalmykia, Volgograd, Astrakhan, Tyumen, Saratov regions, Moscow, North Ossetia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

population

As a result of the 2016 census, the number of Chechens living in the Chechen Republic amounted to 1,394,833 people. About 1,550,000 Chechens live in the world.

History

In the history of this people, several settlements took place. About 5,000 Chechen families after the Caucasian War in 1865 moved to the territory of the Ottoman Empire. This movement is called Muhajirism. Today, the main part of the Chechen diasporas in Turkey, Jordan and Syria is represented by the descendants of those settlers.

In 1944, half a million Chechens were deported to Central Asia, in 1957 they were allowed to return to their former homes, but some Chechens remained in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

After two Chechen wars, many Chechens left their homeland and went to Arab countries, Turkey and Western Europe, regions of the Russian Federation and countries former USSR especially to Georgia.

Language

The Chechen language belongs to the Nakh branch of the Nakh-Dagestan language family, which is included in the hypothetical North Caucasian superfamily. It is distributed mainly on the territory of the Chechen Republic, in Ingushetia, Georgia, some regions of Dagestan: Khasavyurt, Kazbek, Novolak, Babayurt, Kizilyurt and other regions of Russia. Partial distribution of the language falls on Turkey, Syria and Jordan. Before the 1994 war, the number of Chechen speakers was 1 million people.

Since the Nakh group of languages ​​includes the Ingush, Chechen and Batsbi languages, the Ignush and Chechens understand each other without an interpreter. These two nations are united by the concept of "Vainakh" which translates as "our people." But these peoples do not understand Batsbi, as it was strongly influenced by the Georgian language due to the Batsbi living in the gorges of Georgia.

The Chechen language has a number of subdialects and the following dialects:

• Shatoi
• Cheberloevsky
• planar
• Akkinsky (Aukhovsky)
• Sharoi
• Itum-Kalinsky
• Melkhinsky
• Kistian
• Galanchozhian

With the use of a flat dialect, the Chechen language is spoken by residents of the environs of Grozny, literature is created in it, including fiction, newspapers, magazines, Scientific research and textbooks. The works of classical world literature have been translated into Chechen. Chechen words are difficult, but they sound very beautiful.

Writing until 1925 was based on Arabic. Then, until 1938, it developed on the basis of the Latin script, and from this year to the present, Chechen writing is based on the Cyrillic alphabet. There are many borrowings in the Chechen language, up to 700 words from Turkic languages ​​and up to 500 from Georgian. There are many borrowings from Russian, Arabic, Ossetian, Persian and Dagestan. Gradually, foreign words appeared in the Chechen language, for example: rally, export, parliament, kitchen, dance, mouthpiece, avant-garde, taxi and broth.

Religion

Most of the Chechens profess the Shafi madhhab of Sunnism. Among the Chechens, Sufi Islam is represented by the tarikats: Nakshbandiya and Qadiriya, which are divided into religious groups called vird brotherhoods. Their total number among the Chechens is 32. The most numerous Sufi brotherhood in Chechnya is the zikrists - followers of the Chechen Kadiri sheikh Kunta-Khadji Kishiev, and small species that descended from him: Mani-sheikh, Bammat-Girey Khadzhi and Chimmirza.

Names

Chechen names include three components:

1. Names borrowed from other languages, mainly through Russian.
2. Originally Chechen names.
3. Names borrowed from Arabic and Persian.

A large number of old names are derived from the names of birds and animals. For example, Borz is a wolf, Lecha is a falcon. There are names containing the structure of the verb form, names in the form of independent participles formed from adjectives and qualitative adjectives. For example, Dika translates as "good". There are also compound names in the Chechen language, which are made up of two words: soltan and bek. For the most part, female names are borrowed from the Russian language: Raisa, Larisa, Louise, Rose.

It is important to remember the dialect and its differences when pronouncing and writing names, since a name pronounced differently can have different meanings, for example, Abuyazid and Abuyazit, Yusup and Yusap. In Chechen names, the stress always falls on the first syllable.

Food

Previously, the basis of the diet of the Chechen people was mainly corn porridge, shish kebab, wheat stew and homemade bread. The cuisine of this people is one of the simplest and most ancient. Lamb and poultry remain the main products for cooking, the main components of many dishes are hot spices, garlic, onions, thyme, and peppers. An important component of dishes is greens. Chechen dishes are very satisfying, nutritious and healthy. A lot of food is prepared from cheese, wild garlic, cottage cheese, corn, pumpkin and dried meat. Chechens love meat broths, beef, boiled meat, they don’t eat pork at all.

Meat is served with dumplings made from corn or wheat flour, and with garlic seasoning. One of the main positions in the Chechen cuisine is occupied by flour products with various fillings from potatoes, cottage cheese, pumpkin, nettles and wild garlic. Chechens bake several types of bread:

• barley
• wheat
• corn

Siskal cakes are baked from cornmeal, which used to be carried along with dried meat and taken on the road. Such food always satisfies hunger well and saturates the body.

A life

The main occupation of the Chechens has long been cattle breeding, hunting, beekeeping and arable farming. Women were always responsible for household chores, weaving cloth, making carpets, cloaks, felt, sewing shoes and dresses.

dwelling

Chechens live in auls - villages. Due to the natural conditions of the area, the dwellings differ. Chechens living in the mountains have houses built of stone and are called sakli. Such sakli were also built from adobe, they can be erected in a week. Unfortunately, many had to do this when the villages were often attacked by enemies. On the plains they built mainly turluch houses, neat and bright inside. Wood, clay and straw were used for construction. The windows in the houses are unframed, but fitted with shutters to keep out the wind and cold. At the entrance there is a canopy that protects from heat and rain. The houses were heated by fireplaces. Each house has a kunatskaya, which consists of several rooms. In them, the owner spends the whole day and in the evening returns to the family. The house has a fenced yard. A special oven is being built in the yard, in which bread is baked.

During construction, it was important to take into account safety and reliability, the ability to defend if the enemy attacks. In addition, hayfields, water, arable land and pastures were to be located nearby. The Chechens took care of the land and chose places for housing construction even on the rocks.

The most common in the mountain villages were one-story houses from flat roofs. Chechens also built houses with 2 floors, towers with 3 or 5 floors. The dwelling house, tower and outbuildings were collectively called estates. Depending on the relief of the mountains, the building of estates was horizontal or vertical.

Appearance

In anthropology, Chechens are a mixed type. Eye color can be from black to dark brown and from blue to light green. Hair color - from black to dark blond. The nose of Chechens is often concave and upturned. Chechens are tall and well built, women are very beautiful.

Everyday clothes of a Chechen man consist of the following elements:

• chekmen, sewn from gray or dark fabric;
• archaluks, or beshmets, different colors, in the summer they wore white;
• harem pants narrowed down;
• cloth leggings and chiriki (shoes without soles).

Elegant dresses are sheathed with lace, special attention is paid to the decoration of weapons. In bad weather, they wore a hood or cloak, which Chechen women sewed very skillfully. Shoes were mainly made from rawhide. Many wore Caucasian soft boots. The rich wore chuvyaks and black morocco leggings, to which buffalo leather soles were sometimes sewn.

The main headdress of a Chechen is a cone-shaped hat, which ordinary people made from sheepskin, and the rich from the skins of a Bukhara lamb. In the summer, they wore a hat made of felt.

In the form of decorations, bone gaztris were sewn onto men's suits, and a belt with silver plaques was put on. The image was completed with a dagger made by local craftsmen.

Women wore:

• long shirts to the knees, blue or red;
• wide trousers, which were tied at the ankles;
• on top of the shirt they put on a long dress with wide and long sleeves;
• young women and girls wore dresses gathered at the waist with a belt made of cloth. Dresses in older women without folds and belts, wide;
• the head was covered with a scarf made of silk or wool. Elderly women wore bandages under a scarf that tightly fitted their heads and descended on their backs in the form of a bag. It was covered with braided hair. Such a headdress was also very common in Dagestan;
• women wore chuvyaks as shoes. Wealthy families wore galoshes, shoes and boots of local or urban production.

Women's clothing from a wealthy family was distinguished by sophistication and luxury. They sewed it from expensive fabrics, sheathed it with silver or gold galloons. Rich women were very fond of wearing jewelry: silver belts, bracelets and earrings.

In winter, Chechens wore a beshmet on wadding with clasps made of metal or silver. The sleeves of the clothes below the elbow were split and fastened with buttons made of simple or silver threads. Beshmet was sometimes worn in the summer.

In Soviet times, Chechens switched to urban clothes, but many men retained the traditional headdress, which they rarely parted with. Today, many men and old people wear hats, Circassians and beshmets. In Chechnya, Caucasian shirts with a standing collar are found on men.

Women's national costume has survived to this day much more. And now older women wear chokhta, dresses with bloomers and homemade dudes. Young women and girls prefer city-cut dresses, but they are sewn with long sleeves and a closed collar. Shawls and shoes today are of urban production.

Character

Chechens are cheerful, impressionable and witty people, but at the same time they are distinguished by severity, deceit and suspicion. These character traits were probably developed among the people in the course of centuries of struggle. Even the enemies of the Chechens have long recognized that this nation is brave, indomitable, dexterous, hardy and calm in the fight.

Important for Chechens is the ethical code of honor of Konakhalla, which is a universal code of conduct for any man, regardless of his religion. This code reflects all the norms of morality that a believer and a worthy son of his people possess. This code is ancient and existed among the Chechens in the Alanian era.

Chechens never raise a hand against their children because they don't want them to grow up to be cowards. These people are very attached to their homeland, to which various touching songs and poems are dedicated.

Traditions

Chechens have always been known for their hospitality. Even in ancient times, they always helped travelers, gave them food and shelter. This is the way it is in every family. If a guest liked something in the house, the hosts should give it to him. With guests, the host takes a place closer to the door, thereby showing that the guest is the most important in the house. At the table, the owner must remain until the last guest. It is indecent to interrupt the meal first. If a relative, even a distant one, or a neighbor has entered the house, younger members of the family and young men should serve him. Women should not show themselves to guests.

Many people think that women's rights are violated in Chechnya, but in reality this is far from the case. A woman who was able to raise a worthy son, along with other family members, has the right to vote during decision-making. When a woman enters the room, the men present must stand up. When a woman comes to visit, special ceremonies and customs are also held in her honor.

When a man and a woman walk side by side, she should be one step behind, the man is obliged to take the danger first. The young wife must first feed his parents and then himself. If there is even the most distant relationship between a girl and a guy, marriage between them is prohibited, but this is not a gross violation of traditions.

The father is always considered the head of the family, the woman looks after the household. The husband and wife do not call each other by name, but say “my wife” and “my husband”, “the one in the house”, “the mother of my children”, “the owner of this house”.

It is humiliating and insulting for a man to interfere in women's affairs. When a son brings a daughter-in-law into the house, the main obligations of the household fall on her. She should get up before everyone else, do the cleaning and go to bed last. Previously, if a woman did not want to follow the rules of the family, she could be punished or kicked out.

The daughter-in-law is brought up by the husband's mother, who is called nana. A young wife should not freely talk with her mother-in-law, show herself in front of her with her head uncovered and in an untidy appearance. Nana can shift some of her responsibilities to her older daughter-in-law. In addition to the household, the husband's mother must observe all traditions and family rituals. The oldest woman in the family has always been considered the keeper of the hearth.

It is very uncivilized to interrupt the elder and start a conversation without his request and permission. The younger ones should always let the elder pass, politely and respectfully greet him. It is a great insult for a man if someone touches his hat. This is tantamount to a public slap in the face. If the children got into a fight, the parents will first scold their child and only then begin to find out who is to blame and who is right. If a son has begun to smoke, the father, through his mother, must inspire him that it is very harmful and unacceptable, and he himself should give up this habit.

This people has a custom of avoidance, which forbids showing feelings in public. It is extended to all family members. Everyone should behave with restraint in public. The Chechens still have the cult of fire and hearth, the tradition of swearing and cursing with fire.

Many rites and rituals are associated with weapons and war. It was considered a shame and cowardice to get a sword out of the scabbard in front of an enemy or offender and not use it. At 63, men reached the age of untying their belts, they could go out into the street without weapons. And to this day, the Chechens have preserved such a custom as blood feud.

A Chechen wedding consists of many rituals and traditions. The groom was forbidden to see the bride before the wedding and for some time after the celebration. Wedding Dress is both a festive outfit for girls and young women. It is sewn from bright or white silk, there is a continuous slit in front of the dress. On both sides, an ornament in the form of silver buttons of Kubachi production is sewn in the chest area. The dress is complemented by a silver belt of the Caucasian type. A white scarf is put on the head, which completely covers the head and hair of the bride. Sometimes they wear a veil over a scarf.

culture

Chechen folklore is diverse and includes genres that are characteristic of the oral folk art of many peoples:

• everyday fairy tales, fairy tales, about animals;
• mythology;
• heroic epic;
• lyrical, labor, ritual, heroic-epic, lullaby songs;
• legends;
• puzzles;
• sayings and proverbs;
• children's folklore (riddles, tongue twisters, counting rhymes, songs);
• religious folklore (tales, songs, nazms, hadiths);
• creativity of tyulliks and zhukhurgs;

Chechen mythology, the names of deities who personified the elements of nature, have been preserved quite fragmentarily. The musical folklore of the Chechens is bright and original, they amazingly dance the national Chechen dance Nokhchi and Lezginka (Lovzar). Music is of great importance to this people. With its help, they express hatred, look to the future and remember the past. Many of the national musical instruments are still common today:

• dechig-pondar
• adhyokhu-pondar
• zurna
• dudka shiedag
• bagpipes
• vota drum
• tambourine

The instruments were used for ensemble and solo performance. On holidays, a joint game is played on different instruments.

Famous people

Among the Chechen people there are many outstanding personalities in politics, sports, creativity, science and journalism:

Buvaysar Saitiev, 3-time Olympic champion in freestyle wrestling

• Movsar Mintsaev, opera singer;
• Mahmud Esambaev, People's Artist of the USSR, dance master;
• Umar Beksultanov, composer;
• Abuzar Aidamirov, poet and writer, classic of Chechen literature;
• Abdul-Khamid Khamidov, playwright, bright talent of Chechen literature;
• Katy Chokaev, linguist, professor, doctor of philological sciences;
• Raisa Akhmatova, people's poetess;
• Sherip Inal, screenwriter and film director;
• Kharcho Shukri, calligrapher;
• Salman Yandarov, surgeon, orthopedist, candidate of medical sciences;
• Buvaysar Saitiev, 3-time Olympic champion in freestyle wrestling;
• Salman Khasimikov, 4-time freestyle wrestling champion;
• Zaurbek Baysangurov, boxer, twice European champion, world champion in light and welterweight;
• Lechi Kurbanov, European champion in Kyokushin karate.

According to numerous studies, the Chechens are one of the most ancient peoples of the Caucasus with an expressive anthropological type, a characteristic ethnic face, an original culture and a rich language. Already at the end of the 3rd - the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. the original culture of the local population is developing on the territory of the Chechen Republic. Chechens were directly related to the formation in the Caucasus of such cultures as early agricultural, Kuro-Arak, Maikop, Kayakent-Kharachoev, Mugergan, Koban. The combination of modern indicators of archeology, anthropology, linguistics and ethnography established the deeply local origin of the Chechen (Nakh) people. Mentions about the Chechens (under various names), as the indigenous inhabitants of the Caucasus, are found in many ancient and medieval sources. We find the first reliable written information about the ancestors of the Chechens from Greco-Roman historians of the 1st century. BC. and the beginning of the 1st c. AD Archaeological research proves the existence of close economic and cultural ties of Chechens not only with neighboring territories, but also with the peoples of Western Asia and Eastern Europe. Together with other peoples of the Caucasus, the Chechens participated in the fight against the invasions of the Romans, Iranians, and Arabs. From the ninth century the flat part of the Chechen Republic was part of the Alanian kingdom. The mountainous regions became part of the kingdom of Serir. The progressive development of the medieval Chechen Republic was stopped by the invasion in the thirteenth century. Mongol-Tatars, who destroyed the first state formations on its territory. Under the onslaught of the nomads, the ancestors of the Chechens were forced to leave the plains and go to the mountains, which undoubtedly delayed the socio-economic development of the Chechen society. In the fourteenth century Chechens who recovered from the Mongol invasion formed the state of Simsir, which was later destroyed by the troops of Timur. After the collapse of the Golden Horde, the plain regions of Chechnya fell under the control of Kabardian and Dagestan feudal lords. The Chechens forced out by the Mongols-Tatars from the flat lands until the 16th century. lived mainly in the mountains, divided into territorial groups that received names from mountains, rivers, etc. (Michikovtsy, Kachkalykovtsy), near which they lived. From the sixteenth century Chechens begin to return to the plain. From about the same time, Russian Cossack settlers appeared on the Terek and Sunzha, who would soon become an integral part of the North Caucasian community. The Terek-Grebensk Cossacks, which became an important factor in the economic and political history of the region, consisted not only of fugitive Russians, but also of representatives of the mountain peoples themselves, primarily Chechens. In the historical literature, there was a consensus that in the initial period of the formation of the Terek-Grebensk Cossacks (in the 16th-17th centuries), peaceful, friendly relations developed between them and the Chechens. They continued until the end of the 18th century, until tsarism began to use the Cossacks for its colonial purposes. Centuries-old peaceful relations between the Cossacks and the highlanders contributed to the mutual influence of the highlander and Russian culture. From the end of the sixteenth century the formation of the Russian-Chechen military-political alliance begins. Both sides were interested in its creation. Russia needed the help of the North Caucasian highlanders to successfully fight Turkey and Iran, who had long tried to take over the North Caucasus. Convenient routes of communication with Transcaucasia went through Chechnya. For political and economic reasons, the Chechens were also vitally interested in an alliance with Russia. In 1588, the first Chechen embassy arrived in Moscow, petitioning for the acceptance of Chechens under Russian protection. The Moscow Tsar issued a corresponding charter. The mutual interest of the Chechen owners and the tsarist authorities in peaceful political and economic relations led to the establishment of a military-political alliance between them. On orders from Moscow, the Chechens constantly went on campaigns together with the Kabardians and the Terek Cossacks, including against the Crimea and the Iranian-Turkish troops. With all certainty it can be argued that in the XVI-XVII centuries. Russia had no more loyal and consistent allies in the North Caucasus than the Chechens. About the emerging close rapprochement between Chechens and Russia in the middle of the XVI-beginning of the XVII centuries. says the fact that part of the Terek Cossacks served under the command of the "Okotsky Murzas" - Chechen owners. All of the above is confirmed by a large number of archival documents. In the second half of the 18th century, and especially in its last two decades, a number of Chechen auls and societies took Russian citizenship. The largest number of oaths of allegiance falls on 1781, which gave some historians reason to write that this meant the annexation of the Chechen Republic to Russia. However, in the last third of the eighteenth century. new, negative aspects have also appeared in Russian-Chechen relations. As Russia strengthens in the North Caucasus and weakens its rivals (Turkey and Iran) in the struggle for the region, tsarism is increasingly beginning to move from allied relations with the highlanders (including the Chechens) to their direct subordination. At the same time, mountain lands are captured, on which military fortifications and Cossack villages are built. All this met with armed resistance from the highlanders. From the beginning of the nineteenth century there is an even sharper activation of the Caucasian policy of Russia. In 1818, with the construction of the Grozny fortress, a massive offensive of tsarism against Chechnya began. Viceroy of the Caucasus A.P. Yermolov (1816-1827), having discarded the previous, centuries-old experience of predominantly peaceful relations between Russia and the highlanders, begins by force to quickly establish Russian power in the region. In response, the liberation struggle of the highlanders rises. The tragic Caucasian war begins. In 1840, in the Chechen Republic, in response to the repressive policy of the tsarist administration, a general armed uprising took place. Shamil is proclaimed Imam of the Chechen Republic. The Chechen Republic becomes an integral part of the theocratic state of Shamil - the imamate. The process of joining the Chechen Republic to Russia ends in 1859, after the final defeat of Shamil. Chechens suffered greatly during the Caucasian War. Dozens of Chechen villages were completely destroyed. Almost a third of the population died from military operations, hunger and disease. It should be noted that even during the years of the Caucasian War, trade, political, diplomatic and cultural ties between the Chechens and Russian settlers along the Terek, which arose in the previous period, were not interrupted. Even during the years of this war, the border between the Russian state and Chechen societies was not only a line of armed contact, but also a kind of contact-civilization zone, where economic and personal (Kunach) ties developed. The process of mutual knowledge and mutual influence of Russians and Chechens, which weakened enmity and distrust, has not been interrupted since the end of the 16th century. During the years of the Caucasian War, the Chechens repeatedly tried to peacefully, politically solve the emerging problems in Russian-Chechen relations. In the 60-70s of the nineteenth century. in the Chechen Republic, administrative and land tax reforms were carried out, the first secular schools for Chechen children were created. In 1868 the first primer in the Chechen language was published. In 1896 the Grozny city school was opened. From the end of the nineteenth century commercial oil production began. In 1893 the railway connected Grozny with the center of Russia. Already at the beginning of the twentieth century. Grozny began to turn into one of the industrial centers of the North Caucasus. Despite the fact that these transformations were carried out in the spirit of the establishment of colonial orders (it was this circumstance that caused the uprising in the Chechen Republic in 1877. , as well as the resettlement of part of the population within the Ottoman Empire), they contributed to the involvement of the Chechen Republic into a single Russian administrative, economic, cultural and educational system. During the years of revolution and civil war, anarchy and anarchy dominated in Chechnya. During this period, the Chechens survived the revolution and counter-revolution, the ethnic war with the Cossacks, the genocide of the White and Red Armies. Attempts to create an independent state, both religious (the emirate of Sheikh Uzun-Khadzhi) and secular (Mountainous Republic), were not crowned with success. Ultimately, the poor part of the Chechens made a choice in favor of the Soviet government, which promised them freedom, equality, land and statehood. Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in 1922 proclaimed the creation of the Chechen Autonomous Region within the framework of the RSFSR. In 1934, the Chechen and Ingush autonomies were united into the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Region. In 1936 it was transformed into the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. During the years of the Great Patriotic War (1941 - 1945) Nazi troops invaded the territory of the autonomy (in autumn 1942). In January 1943, the Chechen-Ingush ASSR was liberated. Chechens bravely fought in the ranks of the Soviet Army. Several thousand soldiers were awarded orders and medals of the USSR. 18 Chechens were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In 1944, the autonomous republic was liquidated. Two hundred thousand soldiers and officers of the NKVD and the Red Army conducted a military operation to deport over half a million Chechens and Ingush to Kazakhstan and Central Asia. A significant part of the deportees died during the resettlement and in the first year of exile. In 1957, the Chechen-Ingush ASSR was restored. At the same time, some mountainous regions of the Chechen Republic remained closed to Chechens. In November 1990, the session of the Supreme Council of the Chechen-Ingush Republic adopted the Declaration of Sovereignty. On November 1, 1991, the creation of the Chechen Republic was proclaimed. The new Chechen authorities refused to sign the Federative Treaty. In June 1993, under the leadership of the Soviet General D. Dudayev, a military coup was carried out in the Chechen Republic. At the request of D. Dudayev, Russian troops were withdrawn from the Chechen Republic. Uncertainty and a struggle for power reigned in the republic, resulting in open confrontation. So, in August 1994, the opposition Provisional Council of the Chechen Republic announced the removal of D. Dudayev from power. The hostilities that unfolded in the Chechen Republic in November 1994 ended in the defeat of the opposition. On December 11, 1994, on the basis of the decree of the President of the Russian Federation Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin "On measures to suppress the activities of illegal armed groups on the territory of the Chechen Republic", the entry of Russian troops into the Chechen Republic began. Despite the capture of Grozny by the federal forces and the creation of the Government of the National Revival, the hostilities were not stopped. During the hostilities, a large number of civilians died, a significant part of the population was forced to leave the republic and live in refugee camps in the regions neighboring Chechnya. The first Chechen campaign ended with the signing on August 30, 1996 in the city of Khasavyurt of an agreement on the cessation of hostilities and the complete withdrawal of federal troops from the territory of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. After the withdrawal of Russian troops, Aslan Maskhadov became the head of Ichkeria. Soon the Sharia system of government was proclaimed in the republic. Instead of an independent state, Ichkeria became a place of concentration of bandit formations, chaos and complete anarchy reigned in the republic itself. The Khasavyurt agreements were violated by high-profile terrorist attacks, and after the invasion of Basayev gangs in August 1999 into the territory of neighboring Dagestan, the second stage of hostilities began in the Chechen Republic. By February 2000, the main phase of the combined-arms operation to destroy bandit formations was completed. In the summer of 2000, Akhmat-Khadji Kadyrov was appointed head of the Provisional Administration of the Chechen Republic. The difficult process of the revival of the Chechen Republic began. On March 23, 2003, a referendum was held in the Chechen Republic, in which the population overwhelmingly voted in favor of the Chechen Republic being part of the Russian Federation. A new Constitution of the Chechen Republic was adopted, laws on the election of the President and the Government of the Chechen Republic were approved. In autumn 2003, Akhmat-Khadzhi Kadyrov was elected the first President of the Chechen Republic. On May 9, 2004, A.A. Kadyrov died as a result of a terrorist act. On April 5, 2007, Ramzan Akhmatovich Kadyrov was approved as the President of the Chechen Republic. Under his direct leadership, dramatic changes took place in the Chechen Republic in a very short time. Political stability and security have been restored in the region, cities and villages of the republic, health care and education systems have been completely restored. Today the Chechen Republic is one of the most stable and dynamically developing regions of Russia.

The question of the origin of the Chechen people is still debatable. According to one version, the Chechens are the autochthonous people of the Caucasus, a more exotic version connects the appearance of the Chechen ethnic group with the Khazars.

Difficulties in etymology

The emergence of the ethnonym "Chechens" has many explanations. Some scholars suggest that this word is a transliteration of the name of the Chechen people among the Kabardians - "shashan", which may have come from the name of the village of Big Chechen. Presumably, it was there in the 17th century that the Russians first met with the Chechens. According to another hypothesis, the word "Chechen" has Nogai roots and is translated as "robber, dashing, thieving person."

The Chechens themselves call themselves "Nokhchi". This word has no less complex etymological nature. The Caucasian scholar of the late XIX - early XX century Bashir Dalgat wrote that the name "Nokhchi" can be used as a common tribal name for both the Ingush and the Chechens. However, in modern Caucasian studies, it is customary to use the term “Vainakhs” (“our people”) in the designation of the Ingush and Chechens.

Recently, scientists have been paying attention to another variant of the ethnonym "Nokhchi" - "Nakhchmatians". The term is first encountered in the “Armenian Geography” of the 7th century. According to the Armenian orientalist Kerope Patkanov, the ethnonym "Nakhchmatians" is compared with the medieval ancestors of the Chechens.

ethnic diversity

Vainakh oral tradition tells that their ancestors came from beyond the mountains. Many scientists agree that the ancestors of the Caucasian peoples formed in Western Asia about 5 thousand years BC and over the next several thousand years actively migrated towards the Caucasian Isthmus, settling on the shores of the Black and Caspian Seas. Part of the settlers penetrated beyond the limits of the Caucasian Range along the Argun Gorge and settled in the mountainous part of modern Chechnya.

According to most modern Caucasian scholars, all subsequent time there was a complex process of ethnic consolidation of the Vainakh ethnos, in which neighboring peoples periodically intervened. Doctor of Philology Katy Chokaev notes that the arguments about the ethnic "purity" of the Chechens and Ingush are erroneous. According to the scientist, in their development, both peoples have come a long way, as a result of which they both absorbed the features of other ethnic groups and lost some of their features.

In the composition of modern Chechens and Ingush, ethnographers find a significant proportion of representatives of the Turkic, Dagestan, Ossetian, Georgian, Mongolian, and Russian peoples. This, in particular, is evidenced by the Chechen and Ingush languages, in which there is a noticeable percentage of borrowed words and grammatical forms. But we can also safely talk about the influence of the Vainakh ethnic group on neighboring peoples. For example, the orientalist Nikolai Marr wrote: "I will not hide the fact that in the highlanders of Georgia, together with them in the Khevsurs, Pshavs, I see Chechen tribes that have become Georgianized."

Ancient Caucasians

Doctor of Historical Sciences Professor Georgy Anchabadze is sure that the Chechens are the oldest of the indigenous peoples of the Caucasus. He adheres to the Georgian historiographic tradition, according to which the brothers Kavkaz and Lek laid the foundation for two peoples: the first is Chechen-Ingush, the second is Dagestan. The descendants of the brothers subsequently settled the deserted territories of the North Caucasus from the mountains to the mouth of the Volga. This opinion is largely consistent with the statement of the German scientist Friedrich Blubenbach, who wrote that the Chechens have a Caucasian anthropological type, reflecting the appearance of the very first Caucasoid Kra-Magnons. Archaeological data also indicate that ancient tribes lived in the mountains of the North Caucasus as early as the Bronze Age.

The British historian Charles Rekherton, in one of his works, departs from the autochthonous nature of the Chechens and makes a bold statement that the origins of Chechen culture are the Hurrian and Urartian civilizations. The related, albeit distant, connections between the Hurrian and modern Vainakh languages ​​are indicated, in particular, by the Russian linguist Sergei Starostin.

Ethnographer Konstantin Tumanov in his book "On the prehistoric language of Transcaucasia" suggested that the famous "Van inscriptions" - Urartian cuneiform texts - were made by the ancestors of the Vainakhs. To prove the antiquity of the Chechen people, Tumanov cited a huge number of toponyms. In particular, the ethnographer noted that in the Urartu language, a protected fortified area or fortress was called "khoi". In the same sense, this word is found in the Chechen-Ingush toponymy: khoy is a village in Cheberloi, which really had a strategic significance, blocking the way to the Cheberloev basin from Dagestan.

Noah's people

Let's return to the self-name of the Chechens "Nokhchi". Some researchers see in it a direct indication of the name of the Old Testament patriarch Noah (in the Koran - Nuh, in the Bible - Noah). They divide the word "nokhchi" into two parts: if the first - "nokh" - means Noah, then the second - "chi" - should be translated as "people" or "people". This, in particular, was pointed out by the German linguist Adolf Dirr, who said that the element "chi" in any word means "man". You don't have to look far for examples. In order to designate the inhabitants of a city in Russian, in many cases it is enough for us to add the ending “chi” - Muscovites, Omsk.

Are Chechens descendants of the Khazars?

The version that the Chechens are the descendants of the biblical Noah has a continuation. A number of researchers claim that the Jews of the Khazar Khaganate, whom many call the 13th tribe of Israel, did not disappear without a trace. Defeated by the Kiev prince Svyatoslav Igorevich in 964, they went to the mountains of the Caucasus and there laid the foundations of the Chechen ethnos. In particular, some of the refugees after the victorious campaign of Svyatoslav were met in Georgia by the Arab traveler Ibn Khaukal.

A copy of a curious NKVD instruction from 1936 has been preserved in the Soviet archives. The document explained that up to 30% of Chechens secretly profess the religion of their ancestors Judaism and consider the rest of the Chechens to be low-born strangers.

It is noteworthy that Khazaria has a translation in the Chechen language - “Beautiful Country”. Magomed Muzaev, head of the Archives Department under the President and Government of the Chechen Republic, notes on this occasion: “It is quite possible that the capital of Khazaria was on our territory. We must know that Khazaria, which existed on the map for 600 years, was the most powerful state in the east of Europe.”

“Many ancient sources indicate that the Terek valley was inhabited by the Khazars. In the V-VI centuries. this country was called Barsilia, and, according to the Byzantine chroniclers Theophanes and Nicephorus, the homeland of the Khazars was located here, ”wrote the famous orientalist Lev Gumilyov.

Some Chechens are still convinced that they are descendants of the Khazar Jews. So, eyewitnesses say that during the Chechen war, one of the leaders of the militants, Shamil Basayev, said: "This war is revenge for the defeat of the Khazars."

A modern Russian writer - a Chechen by nationality - German Sadulaev also believes that some Chechen teips are descendants of the Khazars.

Another curious fact: on the most ancient image of a Chechen warrior, which has survived to this day, two six-pointed stars of the Israeli King David are clearly visible.