Conflicts in the Caucasus: Russia’s War in Chechnya

The current war in Chechnya represents only the latest violent episode in the long, troubled history between the Chechen people and a centralising Russian state, whether Tsarist, Communist, or Post-Soviet. ¹ Strategic interests dictated Chechnya’s modern fate: it lay astride the major route to Russia’s Caucasian colonies, and later oil was discovered under its grassy plains. Although Chechnya was a constituent part of the Tsarist empire and the Soviet Union, cohabitation was never voluntary, and Chechnya was placed by force of arms in Russia’s jigsaw continental empire. For more than two centuries, ever since Tsarist Russia began its large-scale pacification of the North Caucasus ² in the late 18th century, the Chechen people have suffered war, forced exile, internal deportation, and scorched earth tactics for their resistance to Russian rule. Peace has been the exception.