Thread by @kamilkazani

Federalism in Russia (thread)

Here you see a map of ethnic autonomies - republics and okrugs - within the Russian Federation. They can be grouped by several major clusters

The best known the Northern Caucasus. Why? Well, obviously because of armed insurgency and its bloody suppression, which has been happening since the 1990s, especially during the two Chechen Wars

To a foreigner these republics may seem undistinguishable. Nothing however, can be further from reality. Two biggest and most important of them - Dagestan and Chechnya are opposite in literally everything. To start with, Chechnya is monotonic - only Chechens live there

Meanwhile Dagestan is the most diverse region of Russia. It has dozens of ethnicities that speak mutually unintelligible languages, belonging to completely different families - Indo-European, Turkic, Nakh-Dagestani and so on. This makes ethno-political situation very complicated

Dagestan is somewhat anarchic. Chechnya - is the opposite of that. In Dagestan there are tons of big bosses, nobody of whom really controls the situation. In Chechnya - there is an absolutist regime of Kadyrov

Chechnya certainly feels more 'orderly'. The locals complain - we used to be the most unruly, independent people in the Caucasus. Now nobody breaks the speed limit, nobody crosses on the red light. Regime managed to impose extreme compliance among the population

In Dagestan every mayor, every MP, every minister ofc is a rich man. They have villas, cortèges of armoured cars, sometimes palaces. In Chechnya - there is only one rich man - Ramzan Kadyrov. He has a palace in Grozny and in every county seat in his region

Palaces are massive. If you climb the 'Grozny City' tower you can see the one in Grozny. It has palace, a few cottages, a park, a football field, a mosque with the replica of Kaaba, replicas of traditional Chechen stone towers, etc. It is a real royal residence

Meanwhile Chechen officials are prohibited to display wealth. Near the ministries you can see cheap Russian-produced cars. Not because officials are poor, but because they're not allowed to demonstrate wealth. The most luxurious car allowed to his closest aides is Toyota Camry

So Dagestan is a somewhat anarchocapitalist oligarchy, while Chechnya is an absolute monarchy with the extreme concentration of power in a hands of one man. One could assume - 'in the hands of one clan'. Not true at all

That's an important point. One could assume that in such a tribalist society we will have a dominance of a certain clan with the kinship outweighing all other factors. But that's not the case. Ruling group in Chechnya consists of ppl who abandoned all their kinship allegiances

To join the ruling group in Chechnya you must put the personal loyalty to Ramzan Kadyrov above the loyalty to your family and clan. And - preferably - break certain taboos to prove your loyalty. That's how you enter the inner circle and will be placed above Kadyrov's own kindred

But let's discuss culture. One obvious thing you notice crossing from Chechnya to Dagestan - far more scarfs. There are far more women in headscarfs and especially in hijabs in Dagestan than in Chechnya. Dagestan is significantly more religiously observant than Chechnya

Especially women. Chechen women are stereotypically not that observant. Perhaps they are just overworked. In Chechnya it is considered beneath the honour of man to do the household work, while in Dagestan it is ok. So Dagestan women don't like the idea of marrying out to Chechnya

Now let's look deeper. While I said Chechnya is monoethnic it means pretty much everyone who lives there now identifies as a Chechen. But their roots can be heterogenous. Let's look at the names of 'teips' - Chechen clans

There is a Nogai teip - it traces its roots to the Nogais. There is an Andi - they think they descend from the Andi people. There is even a Ukrainian teip, who descend from Ukrainians escaping the Holodomor in 1930s. Notice who's missing? The Russian teip

Not because Chechens don't have Russian blood in them. Of course they do. In the 19th c, tons of Russian soldiers deserted to the mountaineers they fought with - and were assimilated. Furthermore, many Cossacks sent to guard the border with Chechens were assimilated too

There is no Russian teip because no Chechen will admit he has Russian blood in his veins. There is no Russian teip because Chechens simply don't like the idea of descending from Russians. In fact a very standard line of attack in Chechnya is accusing someone of Russian ancestry

I remember I told to a Chechen acquaintance - 'I heard X. has Russian roots'. 'You see, when Chechens feud with other Chechens they always accuse their enemies of having Russian blood'

Paradoxically, in such monoethnic society where only Chechens live the idea of ethnic purity and true Chechen identity is highly politicised. Typically every village believes it is the last one that lives according to a true Chechen way. Why do we have social problems though?

Because our true Chechen way is spoiled by the neighbouring villages, whose traditions are not that pure. The biggest danger is - women. When men from our (pure) village marry women from other (corrupted) villages, they bring they corrupted ways with themselves

While in Chechnya cultural heterogeneity is not that obvious, in Dagestan it's impossible to ignore. Broadly speaking, Dagestan is divided to two completely culturally opposite regions divided by the Iron Gates of Derbent

Iron Gates were a major dividing point. Why? Just have a look. That's how narrow is the space between the impassable mountains where the citadel stands and the sea. That meant that caravans travelling in north-south direction simply could not avoid it

A crucial point. Derbent was conquered by the Arab Caliphate in 643, on the very dawn of Islam. Which means - South Dagestan (with the capital in Derbent) is a *very* old and core Islamic territory. The heart of Islamdom

While the North didn't really became Muslim till 17-18th cc. Which means that in Dagestan we have a major cultural opposition. The South where the Islamic civilisation flourished for like forever, and the North where it well, never really flourished

The Islamic South with complicated urban civilisation and which has been historically ruled by the organised states, and the pagan North which has been tribal and had no real cities

This opposition is reflected even in modern languages of South Dagestan. In Lezgin language the name for the 'North' (geographic direction) is 'kefer' - 'infidels'. In Rutul language even better 'jahannam' - 'the hell'

That sort of reflects how did the urbanite and very Muslim southerners viewed the tribal and pagan northerners living behind the Iron Gates

To finish, let me outline one important factor to understand the history of the region. My Chechen friend belonged to a X. teip. 'Does it mean you were born in X. village?' asked I. 'No. X village lied high in the mountains and was abandoned sometimes around the 16th c'

From there we descended down to Y village. Finally, in the 19th c. we went even lower to Z village, which is the center of our clan now and where I was born. So, the vector of Chechen migration for the last 500 years is clear. Down, down, down - from the mountain to the valley

Why Chechens were descending? Well, that's obvious. The lower you go, the warmer it is, the more fertile soil, the easier life. The question is - why would you climb up the mountain in the first place? Why would they even settle in cold infertile highland?

Well, because the lowland is open to the Great Steppe - without any barriers or defense. And the Steppe is populated by...

... steppe people. Western audience knows about Huns, Avars, Mongols. But until the modern age nomadic raiding was constant. It simply never stopped. Every year you had raids and from time to time - a big invasion. So, those who lived in the lowlands would be killed or enslaved

The main reason to climb up the mountain is to avoid nomads. Nomads are not gonna climb very high up with their horses. So - just climb few hundred meters up and you are sage

The great descending of Caucasians including Chechens down could only start happening in the modern age. And it had two main factors behind it. First of all guns. After 1500 Caucasus was importing guns, which were becoming better and cheaper with every generation

Furthermore, with the time Caucasian gunsmiths learnt how to do their own guns. Ofc imported ones were considered better. That's why Caucasians museums have so many guns with the engraved gibberish with Latin letter. Local counterfeit stylised after European guns

So with every generation highlanders had better chance against nomads in battle. That culminated in 1741 when coalition of Dagestan mountaineers for the first time in history managed to beat off a great nomadic invasion by Nader Shah

Where was this invasion coming from? Actually - from the south. When we think of Great Steppe we usually think of what is to the north of Black and Caspian Seas. But that was just the northern route of migration. The southern one went through Iran to Anatolia and Middle East

That's also important. We view Iran as a Persian culture and that's not wrong. The thing is - Iran just happened to lie on the Southern route of Turkic migration from Turkestan westward. And thus for the last millennium it was mostly ruled by nomads. First Seljuks

then Mongols. Then Timurids (who were also sort of the Mongol descendants)

Then Safavids. Safavids were a coalition of Qizilbashi Turkmen tribes who consolidated control over Iran in the 16th c.

Do the like Safavids in Dagestan? They don't like them at all. The common slurs against Azeri people are 'Qizilbashi' and 'horse shit'. That's important. Why not cow, not donkey, not goat, but specifically horse shit?

Imagine you are Dagestani farmers. And you get invaded by a very equestrian culture. You hide in mountains and when you descend you see you burnt houses, pillaged riches and piles of horse shit everywhere. As a cope, you start calling the raiders 'horse shit' as well

The thing is - polities that ruled Iran until very recently - they were very non-Persian. Anti-Persian in a sense. In fact, the creation of Safavid Empire that triggered the great Sunni vs Shia split in the 16th c was largely a reaction to the absolutist policies of the Ottomans

Early Ottoman sultans were first among equals, consulting with tribes, aristocracy. But by 1500 traditions of nomadic tribal democracy died. The Fall of Constantinople is a major turn. In 1453 it falls and in 1475 sultans started recruiting viziers only through devshirme

Paradoxical it may seem, one of the consequences of the Fall of Constantinople was that Turks lost power over the Ottoman Empire. Now Sultans ruled relying exclusively on originally Christian slaves recruited through devshirme

That's a very Haldunian story. Remember what he wrote of assabiyah? Once assabiyah (e.g. nomadic coalition) achieves victory, its leader will usurp all the glory of the victory for himself and get rid of his old companions. So the empire will belong not to the ones who built it

... and the riches will belong not to the ones who conquered it. The leader of assabiyah will rely on outsiders and will elevate them from nothing. Because they will not question his power, while his old companions will

The question is - how will the old companions - the ones who actually built the empire react to this? They probably gonna be unhappy. And this unhappiness of the Turcoman tribes who (rightfully) felt betrayed by the House of Osman was a major factor behind the Safavi revolution

But I'll leave it for later. Tomorrow I'm gonna talk of the next cluster of ethnic republics in Russia - Idel-Ural