ABSTRACT
This chapter continues the review and analysis of key factors identified by youth of the region in their upbringing. The previous chapter considered religion, highlighted as central in upbringing by the majority of participants. Now we turn to the second most important element, the family. Many scholars (Rogozin 2007, Drobizheva 2001, Babich 2008, Shnirelman 2006, Tishkov 2007) have argued that the identity of the young men and women of the North Caucasus, regardless of their ethnicity, is based on clan and family relations, and that this influence persists even through the transition from socialist to capitalist market economy. These clan relations, rather than external norms broadcast from Moscow, are crucial in forming the sense of citizenship of North Caucasus youth, which Rogozin argues is a ‘familnoe grazdanstvo’ (family crest citizenship) (2007: 150) or Kith and Kin citizenship. Shnirelman meanwhile claimed that family-tribal relations in the Caucasus determine the position of a person in society (Shnirelman 2006: 271). Chesnov (2009, 2009a) suggested that for Chechens what is constant is only the vital family and personal identities, which are closely related to religious beliefs, and a similar point is stressed by Steinsaltz (1991), who sees the core sense of ethnic identity in the feeling of family and tribal ties.
