ETHNICITY AND CONFLICT IN THE CAUCASUS Sergei Arutiunov 1. Introduction The notion of ethnos and ethnicity became an object of serious attention for scholars early in this century. Needless to say, ethnography as a term, a notion, and as the discipline for the study of peoples has already existed for at least two hundred years, but initially its main focus was ethnic culture, not ethnic identity. Only with the rise of nationalism in the late 19-th and especially in this century has it become evident that even peoples, who are closely related in origin, cultural traits and basic values, may nevertheless have different ethnic identities, and fiercely compete with each other for resources, for territory, for political domination. Wars, previously staged under banners of dynasties and religions, now are waged most often under ethnic banners. Striking examples of this can be seen in many places of the world, in Africa, in Southern Europe, and on the territory of the former Soviet Union, particularly in the Caucasus. The phenomenon of ethnicity has been studied by many scholars; among the first was S. M. Shirokogorov, followed in Russia by Yu. V. Bromley, E. S. Markarian, L. N. Gumilev, and in the West the works of F. Barth and N. Fried deserve special attention. Despite many differences in approaches, ethnos is generally regarded as a certain form of adaptation by human beings to conditions of their existence. This is somewhat analogous to a species as a means of adaptation in nature. Can the present situation of ethnic conflicts be equated to some renovated version of social Darwinism, where ethnos are doomed to struggle for their survival and extended reproduction, or are there no fatal obstacles to their peaceful coexistence? To answer this question, first of all the basic types of ethnic organisms must be examined. In Russian (Soviet) anthropology for a long time there was practically an unchallenged statement that these types are tribes, nationalities (narodnosti in the Russian terminology) and nations. In recent years, this view, together with the rest of the legacy of the so-called Marxist historic approach, was subject to severe criticism (e.g. by M. V. Kriukov), but I still think that this typology is a reflection of an objective reality. This reality consists in the most important role, played in the formation and maintenance of ethnicity, by flows of information, by communication ties, and the intensivity of these ties differs at different stages of historical development. When the transmission of information is limited almost exclusively to oral speech, to face-to-face communication, it is typical for tribes. The use of written text, of a script determines the shift to a level of nationality (narodnost'), and the use of mass media, press, all-national school system with the norms of national standard language makes a nation. Once having emerged, the ethnic identity tends to maintain and reproduce itself, as a means for a group competition for niches and their resources, and extended self-reproduction becomes the ultimate motivation of activity of such groups. All these types of ethnicity can be observed in modern Russia, especially in such areas of concentration of national minorities, as Siberia and the Caucasus. In the current transitional state of the social order in Russia, the extremely unstable political and economic situation is the cause of increased activity of such national/ethnic groups in their search for a more clearly defined identity, confirmation of their aboriginal status and in their mutual competition for various kinds of local natural and economic resources. This competition sometimes attains the level of violent and even blood-shedding conflicts. This increased activity, as well as its basic forms and objectives, differ, depending on the type to which the given ethnic entity belongs. This typology and its manifestations are reflected in the political demands and aspirations of corresponding ethnic groups. What should we mention first of all as the basic objectives and aims of a nation? Undoubtedly, it is the formation of an independent nation-state, the inevitable requirement of any nation as soon as it has been formed and consolidated. Then follow attempts to strengthen the basis of such state, i.e. to enlarge the sources of its national existence, (to use an analogy to natural processes, its ecological niche), either by territorial expansion, or by exploration of new resources, or at the expense of competing groups (their assimilation, subordination or expulsion), or by some other means. All such forms of national behavior can be observed, for example, in the current policy of the nation- states of Transcaucasia. We can clearly see such competitive objectives in the Armenian- Azeri conflict around Karabagh, in Georgia's military intervention in Abkhazia, in Azerbaidjan's claims to the oil resources of the Caspian shelf, in squeezing out or restriction of ethnic and cultural minorities practically in all these nations and in a number of other cases. The Northern Caucasus is constitutionally a part of the Russian Federation and technically we do not find here any independent nation-states, although the Chechenian Republic of Ichkeria is still insisting on its independent status. But several ethnic entities in the Northern Caucasus among the so-called titulary nationalities, i.e. nationalities who give their name to a federated republic which is practically a substitute of a nation state for such ethnic groups, are already approaching the level of their social development and political behavior, which are characteristic for true nations. These peoples are already quite homogeneous and consolidated, they are sufficiently numerous and economically developed to possess all such features. The Chechenian Republic is the only one among them who is trying to get recognition of national independence on the international stage, by political statements, simultaneously pursuing other aims, such as squeezing out, under various pretexts and by various forms of pressure, all heterogeneous competing minorities- first of all, of course, Russians, but also Jews, Armenians, and even closely ethnically related Ingushes. At the same time Chechenia makes attempts at enlarging its territory, by demanding to confirm its "rights" to the territories of Northern districts which prior to 1957 never had been populated by Chechenians and were given to the then dual Republic of Checheno-Ingushetia by a voluntaristic action of N. Khrushchev. Chechenia is also looking for additional resources, one of which may become the exploitation of the pipeline on its territory, potentially vitally important for the transportation of oil from the Caspian shelf to Europe. Other nations, comparable in size and level of social and economic development to Chechens, such as Ingushes, Ossetins, Kabardins, so far do not claim the status of independent nation-states, but in fact the policy of their government and their demands and aspirations stop very short of a complete practical independence. A formal independence from Russia would probably today not even be accepted by them, even in a hypothetical case that it would be proposed and granted. The reason is that membership in the Russian Federation temporarily suits their national requirements. However, other forms of self-assertion and a tendency towards an extended self-reproduction are manifested and can be observed in their current policy. There are a number of proposed and pursued steps which reflect this tendency. Among the steps that republics can undertake one can mention the signing of a bilateral agreement between one of the republics and the federal center. Such agreements have so far been concluded between the Federal Government and a number of republics, among them Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Yakutia (Sakha Republic), and in the Caucasus area, Ossetia-Alania (North Ossetia) and Kabardin- Balkaria. An agreement of such a type is not a standard document and its details are thoroughly negotiated in each case, but basically it always contains chapters giving to the republic many more rights than are explicitly specified by the Federal Treaty and the Russian Constitution. It must be emphasized that normally (perhaps with the exception of the Treaty with Tatarstan) such a document does not contradict the Constitution but interprets it in a broadened sense. Another alternative for a republic which tries to ameliorate its position and to gain some privileges and benefits is to negotiate with the Federal Center for a declaration of the republic as a free economic zone. The idea is to attract investments to a republic, providing tax-exemption privileges for the companies registered in it. Though in most cases the business companies continue to reside and operate not in the Republic (in this case we speak about the Republic of Ingushetia) but in some other place, most often in Moscow, and only technically are registered in the republic, still they give to the republic some kind of additional income, and this can be clearly seen in Ingushetia. A similar status is planned for Chechenia, probably with the single aim to persuade it to join the Federation. So far Chechens have invariably been insisting on their independent status but in the future some amendment to their adamant position is quite possible. Finally, a similar status of a free economic zone is claimed repeatedly by Daghestan, but in this case with no success and it is improbable that Daghestan will ever achieve this aim. There are several reasons that prevent Daghestan from becoming a free economic zone, among them its very large size, both in territory and population, its situation on the Azerbaidjan boarder, but perhaps the main reason, perhaps not even explicitly formulated by any authority, is just the fact that Daghestan is not a nation, but a conglomerate of more than thirty nationalities and tribes, and as such, is not able to utilize the benefits of a free economic zone for any purpose of normal national development. These political measures indicate rather clearly, that all the ethnic groups in question can be regarded as practically almost accomplished nations. They strive to create better conditions for their national existence, which would include the highest degree of autonomy and freedom of administration of their financial and natural resources, stopping short of complete independence. Complete independence, such as that demanded by Chechenia, with formation of an independent nation-state, as it has been mentioned earlier, is in fact not really desirable for all these nations. To tell the truth, I would not insist that an exception should be made even for Chechenia, since all of these republics, like many nominally completely independent nations of the third world, are not yet fully self-supporting, and it would be difficult for them to exist without economic aid from outside, that is, from the Federal Center. The question arises, whether there is not a contradiction between the ripeness of an ethnic group as a nation and its alleged inability to support itself economically. I would agree that many so-called nations in Africa are not yet nations in the anthropological sense, but one hardly can deny that Israel, for example, is an absolutely accomplished nation. However, it is also more or less clear, that under given circumstances Israel hardly will continue to exist safely even economically, let alone militarily, if it is cut off from foreign aid. The current situation of nearly global mutual dependence in the modern world probably gives us a right to speak of nations as nations, even when they are not completely self-supporting economically, provided that they nevertheless find the means to support and develop their basic national informational institutions - their national language, their system of national education, their mass-media and other information services, responsible for the maintenance of a nation's informational integrity. However, not too many ethnic groups, who possess their 'sovereign' statehood in Russia, can be regarded as accomplished nations. Rather they must be viewed as the highest form of the preceding stage of development, i.e. as highly developed 'nationalities', which came very near to a transformation into real nations, are feeling an inherent collective desire to pass to this higher stage, but have not yet done it, and mainly because they lack material means to do so, i.e. material means to develop full scale national educational and communicational systems. Examples of this situation can be seen in a number of cases, among which the cases of Abkhazia and Balkaria are among the most representative. They are also very different from each other, because in Abkhazia a premature attempt at secession and Georgia's irresponsible attempt to quell it by force resulted in horrible devastation, while in Balkaria so far a more reasonable approach prevailed among all conflicting partners. 2. The lessons of Abkhazia Before the eruption, in August 1992, of the Georgian-Abkhazian terribly blood- shedding and devastating war, the total population of Abkhazia was about half a million, of which about 45% were Georgians, only some 18% native Abkhazians, about 15 % were Russians, almost the same number of Armenians, and the remaining 9-10 % were Greeks, Jews, Estonians and others. Over the course of the war nearly all Georgians had to flee as refugees for Georgia, Greeks for Greece, Russians and Armenians mainly for Russia, particularly to the adjacent Krasnodar Territory. As a result, now Abkhazians constitute more than 50% of the more than twice reduced total population. Abkhazia is de-facto independent. Life is hard, especially concerning the environment (sewage systems have been damaged by war), medicine (a lack of medicines is acutely felt because the tiny country is nearly suffocated by the joint Russian-Georgian blockade), but agriculturally is more or less self-supporting. Previously the most important cash crop, citruses, were rotting on the ground because the blockade prevented their exportation, but still the republic has managed to re-open the schools and to provide some other basic social services. Balkarians constitute about 10% of the population of Kabardin-Balkaria, being concentrated in the southern, more mountainous part of the country. There were some extremist attempts to secede from the joint republic but they were not supported by the majority of Balkars. The extremists and their demands reflect a real desire among the Balkarian population to have their own, separate from the Kabardinian, school system, cultural institutions, mass media etc. On the other hand, most of these institutions do exist already, but rather as attachments or branches inside more developed and better financed respective Kabardinian institutions, and the majority of Balkarians believe that an attempt at realizing separation from Kabarda may lead to a blood-shedding conflict in which would not be worth the effort. It is important to note that in the pre-industrial societies 'narodnosts' can and do exist as separate political organisms (states). But when they join the industrial level but do not immediately become nations, they can exist only in association with a larger and more developed nation: not possessing their own school system or mass media, they have to use those of such a nation. A deep desire of Abkhazians for a long time has been to have mass media and schools with their own language as a medium, and several alphabets have been created for this purpose (on Latin, Georgian, synthetic and recently on the Cyrillic base with a number of additional letters for specific Abkhasian sounds). However, having been forcefully integrated into Georgia in 1930, the most supported schools used the Georgian medium. For its entire history, Abkhazes were associated with Georgia and did not mind this, but in the USSR, under Bolshevik (in fact exclusively Georgian) oppression, they began to be more and more oriented towards developing much closer ties with the Russian people, their language and the Russian culture, which were less suppressive and more promising. This was, of course, done at the expense of diminishing ties with Georgians, in a number of cases with a deliberate refusal to learn and speak Georgian. Correspondingly, in the early 1990's they were against the dissolution of the USSR, against the proclamation of the Georgian independence, and they initially demanded incorporation into the Russian Federation instead of being a part of Georgia. A similar preference can be observed in the South Ossetia. The essence of the conflict was a desire to change the association, or, rather, to formalize politically the shift in the cultural association which had already de-facto occurred. Before the revolution both South Ossetians and Abkhazians were obviously associated with Georgians, and their bilingualism was Native-Georgian. But in the USSR it shifted to a Russian-Native bilingualism, where the Russian occupied the leading position, and Georgian, if in a trilingualism, would stand in third place. There are other areas in Georgia, where the situation was similar: in some districts of S. W. Georgia Armenians and in S. E. Georgia Azeris constitute nearly 70 % of population, and, apart from their native language, speak Russian better than Georgian, but, since they do not demand any change in their political association in favor of Armenia or Azerbaidjan, and are far away from the boarders of Russia, there are no conflicts. We may assume therefore, that the essence of these conflicts lies not in an inherent and historically predetermined enmity between these ethnic groups, but mostly in political manipulations of a certain part of the ethnic elite, which tries to exploit the normal interests of mass bearers of a respective ethnicity in order to monopolize for themselves the benefits of privatization and economic-political transformation, not stopping even at ethnic cleansing. Are these conflicts inevitable? Is there a fatal predestination for every ethnic group to compete with its neighbors in a Darwinian struggle for existence? There are some examples which demonstrate that a peaceful coexistence of various ethnic groups, like in Switzerland or Great Britain (with the notable exception of North Ireland) is possible. But such cases in the modern world are rare. A coexistence may be realized only when the modern state of law provides firm constitutional guarantees for all ethnic minorities, and more than that, is willing to grant certain additional privileges and extended opportunities to the undersized ethnic groups. The smaller and less developed the ethnic group in question, the bigger such benefits must be, and they must find their reflection not only in more generous financing of respective cultural measures and affirmative action, but in voluntary recognition by the dominant nation, by Russians in Russia and Georgians in Georgia, of the rightfulness of such a policy. Should the Georgian government take some steps for a reconciliation with the demands of the Abkhazians, accept their proposal for a confederation, provide constitutional guarantees for their special cultural and economic rights in Abkhazia, 200,000 ethnic Georgians would today peacefully live among their citrus orchards in Abkhazia, instead of becoming refugees. All this, however, remains little more than just wishful thinking. Certainly, none of these prerequisites have ever existed in Georgia, where the predominant mood of the society and the politicians was just the contrary, and where aggression against Abkhazia was being planned already in May 1992. And even although there have been some attempts to legally guarantee the rights of undersized minorities in Russia, generally the tendency towards centralization at the expense of minority rights tends to become more and more prevailing. The current tendency to eliminate from the republican constitutions 'discrepancies' with the Federal Constitution is a reflection of this trend and may turn as dangerous as the neglect of Abkhazian expectations in Georgia. 3. Local differences in Caucasus Although Caucasus is not very large territorially (a little smaller than France) it is very heterogeneous, not only as concerns its population but also from the point of view of its physical geography. The whole of the Caucasus can be divided in two ways. One distinction can be made between the Northern Caucasus, which is politically a part of the Russian federation, and the Southern Caucasus, or Transcaucasia, which consists of the three newly independent states of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaidjan. The native population of the North Caucasus, though divided into more than forty ethnic groups of several linguistic families, has many common ethnographic features and, with the exception of the majority of Ossetians and some other very small groups, belongs to Sunni Islam. The Southern Caucasus is much more heterogeneous in cultural and religious profile, though the number of ethnic groups here is smaller, and the three leading nations are highly consolidated in their own realms. Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia in Georgia and the northern montainous areas of Azerbaidjan, immediately adjacent to the Mountain Range of the Great Caucasus, and populated by emigrants from neighboring Daghestan, or by small nationalities and tribes of Daghestanic linguistic sub-family, (Hinalugs, Udins, small peoples of the so-called Shah-Dag group etc.), are, however, ethnically and culturally closer to the Northern Caucasus. As concerns the differences between East and West of Caucasus, both in the North and in the South, they are of considerable importance for both parts of the Caucasus, but one cannot divide the area into the Eastern and Western parts. Rather there is, while we move from the shores of the Black Sea to the shores of the Caspian Sea, a gradual decline in the "western" features both in the nature and in the culture, and a similarly gradual increase in "eastern" features which replace "western" ones. Generally speaking, the 'western' features include dense and beautiful forests and an obvious richness of the natural vegetation, including pastures; the fertility of soil and availability of arable lands, which contain the world's most fertile black soils in most of the north-western plains in Krasnodar and Stavropol' territories and in the adjacent lowland parts of all republics west of Daghestan. There are also very fertile red soils in subtropical Western Georgia, turned now into plantations of tea, citruses and other commercial warm-climate crops. Humidity is rather high in the North-West and extremely high in the South-West, on the Black Sea shore and generally the mildness of climate is remarkable, which makes many areas in the Western and Central Caucasus excellent climatological health resorts. One may add to this the long strips of quite good beach resorts of the Black Sea shores, though mostly made of pebbles and not of sand; in the mountains surrounding the highest peak of the Caucasus, Mt. Elbrus and in other places there are hill slopes suitable for mountain skiing and other recreational activities. Nature in the eastern parts of the Caucasus is less attractive for ordinary tourism, due to its higher aridity, but it has a number of advantages and attractions, too. Concerning the culture, the traits characteristic for the 'West' include first of all the high percentage of immigrant of the so-called "Russian-speaking" population. It is absolutely predominant in Krasnodar and Stavropol territories; Russians and other non-Natives make nearly 6o% in the Republic of Adygeia; they number about 40 % in Karachai-Cherkessia, more than 30 % in Kabardin-Balkaria and Ossetia- Alania. The percentage of Russians and other immigrant groups drops sharply in Ingushetia and Chechenia, where it used to be about 20 % but now is much lower due to a mass exodus of Russians caused by the Chechenian War, and finally this percentage is less than 10 % in Daghestan. In Transcaucasia, Russians made about 15 % of the total in Abkhazia, though the Georgian-Abkhazian War has undoubtedly reduced their numbers; Russians are less numerous but still obviously present in Adjaria; their numbers can be evaluated today as 4-5 % in Georgia proper, negligible in Armenia and very low in Azerbaidjan. Tbilisi and Baku, as large industrial cosmopolitan centers in the past, possessed a considerable Russian population, but today practically everybody who can afford it has emigrated. Together with the percentage of the Russian and generally immigrant population, the degree of urbanization, education and westernization is diminishing from the west to the east and the level of industrialization is lower in the east. The petrochemical region of Baku, together with many industrial towns in its vicinity, is, of course, an important exception, but in Northern Azerbaidjan and in Southern Daghestan very near to this region, we find a rather underdeveloped rural area. The percentage of the rural population increases in most districts in the east of the Caucasus, and also increasing is the more recent phenomenon of the area, the relative and absolute unemployment, although the exact numbers are not available. The 'eastern' features are: an increasing aridity, a more and more continental climate, ever-increasing deforestation, much more evident traditional features in all spheres of everyday life, including the much less favorable position of women, the greater role of cattle-breeding in the rural economy, and the increasing importance of Islamic faith. Altogether the population in the East is much more tradition-oriented, highly alienated from modern forms of political activity, but this does not mean that in a sense it is less entrepreneurial than in the West . With agrarian overpopulation and scarcity of arable lands, (which is not a recent phenomenon, but was evident still two hundred years ago), the local people have developed habits of going to far away regions of the central and even North-Western Caucasus, in search of jobs as masons, smiths, tinkers, goldsmiths and other artisans and craftsmen. Today they are engaged in commerce, small scale production and farming in many adjacent areas, including the Republic of Kalmykia and other areas of Southern Russia. In particular,the Laks of Daghestan are famous for their orientation to education, and many of them live today in Moscow, St.Petersburg and other large cities of Russia as lawyers, doctors, scholars etc. However the entrepreneurial activity of people of the Eastern Caucasus has a distinct 'eastern' tune, with more reliance on clan and family ties, than in the West. Traditional values are better preserved in the East than in the West, and respect for elders, which is generally rather high in the Caucasus, is especially high here. Many features of the traditional culture in customs, festivals, relics of pre-Islamic cults and beliefs, even the use of some elements of traditional costume and head-dress, the prevalence of traditional food and other traits in the material culture are also much stronger the East, than in the West, where people have for a long time mostly substituted by borrowing, Russian and generally European habits, costumes, food items and other cultural elements, especially in larger cities. 4. The Eastern part of the North Caucasus - the Republic of Daghestan. The Republic of Daghestan, with its more than 2 mln population, is the largest republic in the North Caucasus. There are at least thirty quite distinct ethnic groups which are endemic for Daghestan, i.e. their languages belong to the Daghestanic sub-family, they live here since times immemorial and only recently some of their members began to settle outside from Daghestan. There are also several Turkic-speaking groups - Kumyk, Nogai, Terekemeh, Derbend Turks (usually considered Azeris) and some other groups, originating from other areas but residing here for centuries, None of these groups can be regarded as having attained the level of development, sufficient to call it a nation. Avars are the largest and one of the most economically and culturally developed entities among them, but there is no Avaristan in the proper sense of the word, there are only several districts, not even forming a completely continuous territory, with relatively or, more rarely, absolutely predominant Avar population. There are newspapers and broadcasting in Avar, as well as in Dargin, Lezghin, and a dozen of other languages, but there is no Avar school network (though there are schools with teaching Avar), there are no Avar cultural institutions, only all-Daghestani cultural institutions, where in many cases Avars may predominate, but in other cases they do not. The same can be said about any of some thirty-odd wholly aboriginal and endemic ethnic groups of Daghestan ranging from 1 thousand (Archins) to nearly 700 thousands (Avars), to which one may also add many thousands of people belonging to non-aboriginal entities, like Russians, Azeris etc., who live there however, already for centuries and consider Daghestan their home. The Highlander Jews, who speak the Tat language (a kind of archaic Persian), for example, consider themselves completely aboriginal and view the Southern Daghestan (as well as Northern Azebaidjan) as their ethnic homeland. Prior to Sovietization the overwhelming majority of these people lived as compact groups on their own ethnic territories, in one secluded mountain valley or a number of adjacent valleys, sometimes, like the Avars of Unkratl', separated from the rest of their ethnic mass by the territories of other tribes, but nevertheless maintaining their general integrity. It was a mosaic, but basically an orderly mosaic, with its definite pattern and structure. At least everybody knew where his homeland was, even if he currently lived in a different place, and nobody would think to claim a territory of another tribe as his own ethnic territory. Nevertheless even then the mosaic was so complicated, and the relations between tribes and nationalities, clans and lineages, feudal ruling dynasties and self-governed democratic communities were so peculiarly intertwined, that many Caucasologists were inclined to consider Daghestan as the third separate constituent part of the whole Caucasus area, alongside the Northern Caucasus extending from Krasnodar (former Ekaterinodar) to Chechenia, and Transcaucasia, ranging from Abkhazia to Baku. The Soviet regime disturbed this relative balance and harmony and transformed it into the worst state of ethnic chaos more, than in any other part of Russia. Voluntaristically minded Communist authorities exiled some groups (like Akkin-Chechens) and later allowed to them to return to Daghestan, not, however, to their former territories, but to territories, already occupied for centuries by other tribes. They resettled from the hills many other groups of people, allegedly suffering from a lack of arable lands, like most of the Laks from the Kazi-Kumukh district, as well as a considerable part of Dargins, Tsezy and many others, and placed them in the lowlands, to provide manpower for newly developed plantations of commercial technical crops. Not only did these resettled groups suffer from mass epidemic diseases, possessing no immunity against them in an alien environment, but they also suffered from alienation and a hostile attitude to newcomers among an ethnically alien population. The new Communist rulers had designed the place for the capital city of Daghestan (Makhach-Kala) in the heart of the ethnic territory of Turkic speaking lowland Kumyks and invited thousands of Avars, Dargins and others to come here and get administrative and industrial jobs. Initially, and still in the 1920's, Kumyks were the most advanced national group in Daghestan, and their language served as the 'lingua franca' for all highlanders, so that to be fluent in Kumyk meant to be sophisticated, advantaged and prepared for social mobility. In the 1920's, of all newspapers, Kumyk newspapers formed about 70 %. However, later the Russian language took the position of 'lingua franca,' and Avars and partly Dargins had more representation at the decision-making levels and in key positions. As a result, now Kumyks feel like a deprived minority in their own homeland. Similar shifts, displacements, change of hands in power happened in other places throughout Daghestan. The results were overall tensions and claims by everybody on everybody. If a blood-shedding conflict ever starts in Daghestan it will expand like a prairie fire and will not stop for decades. But so far it has not started and there is some hope that it never will start, because people seem to understand this danger. The Gordian knot of Daghestan mutual claims, grievances, memories and pretensions is so big and so complex, that nobody dares to start to pull out its threads, let alone to try to cut it with a sword. Besides, again, within one ethnic group, discrepancies in interests may often be stronger than between groups. People may be angry with municipal housing provided to members of another ethnic group, newcomers in town, or against an unfair distribution of subsidies for a certain purpose (oddly enough, recently there was a distribution of subsidized voyages for a Hadjj to the Saudi Arabia) or against the appointment of a person of undesirable ethnicity to some key position (a judge, or a chief of local police). They may rally, shout, demonstrate, write petitions, but very rarely will there be some minor kind of violence, like a beating, and almost never, a killing. In all republics of North Caucasus (except Chechenia and Ingushetia) the power is in the hands of former communist functionaries, but this is especially typical and ubiquitous in Daghestan. People support their leaders (mayors, magistrates etc.) not because they are communists, but because they are known as leaders, because they have some experience in leadership, and mainly because the leaders are their relatives, kinsmen, clansmen, tribesmen, former teachers and just traditionally respected people. The privatization of arable land in Daghestan is among the things that the current pro-Communist authorities would like to avoid at any cost, and this is guite understandable. Apart from the fact that privatization of land would undermine the very basis of their power, it would be a really very dangerous undertaking. Given the terrible scarcity of arable lands, and an enormous agrarian overpopulation, it would be impossible to provide even a microscopic parcel of land to everybody entitled to get it. There would be innumerable protests against giving land to 'newcomers,' even when they are settled in a particular village since the 1930's, and there would be innumerable claims to property that belonged to a particular family hundreds of years ago. In many areas, tiny parcels of land, plots with three or four apple trees standing on them, were efficiently incorporated into the collective property of large state controlled farms. But even when they were technically and practically considered, managed, cultivated and harvested as a collective or state property, they still were remembered as initially belonging to a certain family, and as such, used to be symbolically declared as a token part of a dowry or a bride price, and there have been invariably some witnesses to these declarations. However, opinions of witnesses may differ, and there are no written documents, so as the result, every parcel of privatized land would have today scores of claimants. It seems that the only viable social, political and economic system, able to operate in the urban, industrial part of Daghestan, can be only the current quasi-Soviet system, just as the sole lingua franca for people speaking 30 different languages can be only Russian. But local dialects and local cultural traditions will long persist in the countryside, especially in the remote mountain valleys. The economic situation currently in Daghestan is rather grave. It is true, that in no region of the Russian Federation it is particularly good today, but Daghestan is among the poorest, most overpopulated, unemployment-stricken republics of the Caucasus. The major part of industry in the urban areas is connected with the military-industrial complex, and there is not much hope that it may soon recover. So in Daghestan, just as in the territories immediately West of it, it may be expected that the cleavage between the multi-ethnic, detribalized, partly de-ethnicized urban areas and the tradition-oriented, largely self-supporting, agricultural and pastoral communities in the isolated highlands will be aggrevated in the future. Formerly, under the Communist regime, small-numbered tribes and nationalities were forced at least technically to merge with larger groups. Andi, Tsezi, Botlikhs, Godoberis, Bagwalals, Chamalals, and many other tribes, with distinct languages of their own, numbering 5-8 thousands each, were declared to be local groups of Avars, a one-village nationality of Kubachis (Urbugans), a 'nation' of goldsmiths and artisans, were considered to be a sub-group of Dargins, etc. Today there is no such pressure and it can be expected that local craftsmen or agricultural specialization, combined with a revival of local festivals, customs, popular beliefs, will continue to produce in the highland areas a more and more diversified cultural pattern. On the other hand, in many lowland and urban areas, where an extreme ethnic mosaicity had been created artificially by the Soviet regime, it will hardly be reduced. There are reasons to believe, that, with the agrarian overpopulation in the highlands and the growing desire among young people to find employment in the cities, it is going to increase even more. It would be premature to expect that in a not too distant future there is going to be a merging of all national groups and a formation of something like a Russian-speaking 'Lowland Daghestani nation,' but a certain levelling of national specificities in the urban context will probably be inevitable. The various peoples of the Caucasus, even the largest of them, stand at various levels of ethnic consolidation and assertion of their identity. While Chechenians are a practically accomplished nation, and some other groups, like Kabardins, Ossetes, Ingushes, are very close to this level, others, like Balkars, obviously are in a transitionary stage and cannot so far act as self-sufficient nations, even if the right to do this would be granted to them. The less a certain nationality has developed the emerging prerequisites for nationhood, the less developed is the literary standard of the local vernacular, or the smaller the number and circulation of books and newspapers published in this language, the less the ethnic group in question tends to display a tendency towards separatism and formation of an independent or semi-independent state. Rather, they would prefer, under certain conditions, in many cases, as the above-mentioned cases of Abkhazia or South Ossetia, a change of patronage, i.e. with which larger nation they prefer to associated. Even the Karabaghtsi Armenians in the seceded autonomous province of Azerbaidjan, later declared as a self-styled Republic of Karabagh, initially only demanded not to be in subordination to Azerbaidjan. The Karabaghtsis did not insist initially either on independence, or even on merging with Armenia, and would be happy to be accepted as one of the constituent parts of the Russian Federation. Although Daghestan is much bigger than any other North-Caucasian republic, and does possess some cultural institutions, which are absent in other republics, (i.e. a Daghestan Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences), the level of national development and the feeling of identity here is considerably less strong than among Chechenians, Ossetians, Kabardins or even Karachais. The feeling of identity as an Avar, or Dargin, or Tabassaran etc. is always diluted and combined with a certain feeling of general Daghestani identity, and at the same time with the identity of a local group or even village. No ethnic group in Daghestan today can be considered as a real candidate for nationhood; even the largest of them, Avars, or the second largest group, Dargins, are no exception. Two other large ethnic groups, Kumyks and Lezgins, can be placed into the category of nationalities which are developing certain features of nations, like Abkhazians or Balkars. They probably could in a rather short time make a transition to the level of nations, if their basic current demands could be satisfied. But these demands, as is natural for an ethnic group which is on the verge of becoming a nation, consist of the proposed creation of not independent, but separate, republics of Kumykistan and Lezgistan, separated from the rest of Daghestan. This, however, is hardly possible and anyway would be extremely dangerous for many reasons. Avars, on the other hand, would have all the opportunities for becoming a full-scale nation, should they not be sticking to the idea of their dominant position in Daghestan, and drawing to them a dozen different ethnic entities, mostly of the so-called Ando-Didoic group. In other words they would be a perfectly well-defined nation in a separate and ethnically homogeneous Avaristan, but today, due to the perverted national policy of the Bolshevik era, the majority of their national intelligentsia is concentrated in the capital of Daghestan, Makhach-Kala, in the heart of the Kumyk ethnic territory. Many Avars are scattered in the rest of Daghestan, as a result of getting appointments to some administrative position. Apart from the bulk of their ethnic territory, they are also settled in some pockets which are ethnically homogeneous by themselves, but territorially separated from the core of Avar lands. Though Avars implicitely claim the position of undisputed leader of Daghestan, all other nationalities in Daghestan are not associated with them either culturally or linguistically, i.e. their bilingualism is in most cases not Native-Avar, but rather Native -Russian, their children go to Russian schools, not Avar schools, and so on. All this means that smaller ethnic groups of Daghestan, like Tsezy or Bezhti, are in fact more associated not with Avars, but with Russians - over the head of Avars. The same situation exists with Cherkess in Karachai-Cherkessia, with Balkars in Kabardin-Balkaria, and it was so in the joint republic of Chechen-Ingushetia. Only with the formation of an ethnically homogeneous Ingushetia, separated from Chechenia, was the beginning of formation of the Ingush nation possible. And it is not accidental, that while Chechens are rather stubbornly demanding complete independence, Ingushes, who are as closely related to Chechens, as for example, as Belarussians to Russians, or Catalans to Spaniards, in spite of some sympathies to Chechens, still preferred to sign the Federal Treaty, to abstain from openly helping the fighting in Chechenia and to remain basically loyal to the Federal Government. The question remains, whether one can speak today about tribes as an ethnic reality of modern Russia. Of course, there are no tribes in Russia which retain tribal organization, like tribal chiefs, counsils, and so on. In the majority of cases, they have never been such tribes, either. I think that at least ethnic entities without a script of their own, or only with a mostly nominal script, like Entsy, Kets, Mansi or Koriaks in Siberia, or like Archins, Bezhtins, Tsezy, Khvarshins in Daghestan, can be regarded as tribes. They are tribal in the sense that ethnic identity effectively remains with their members only while they live on their 'tribal' territory and continue to pursue their traditional occupations. As soon as they enter any industrial activity, they become rapidly de-ethnicized. A person in Highland Daghestan would call himself Inkhoqwari in his own or neighborly village, a Khvarshin in a more remoted village, would probably prefer to pretend to be an Avar in Makhach-Kala (the capital of Daghestan), and just say 'I am a Daghestani' when he comes to Moscow. If there are some poets, composers, scholars from among these people, they do not form a stratum of a national intelligentsia, but are rather regarded as tribal heroes. Of course, there are also a number of transitional cases between tribes and nationalities, like Tsakhurs or Rutuls in Daghestan, or Dolgans in Siberia, but transitional cases are practically everywhere and in everything, especially when we are dealing with so diffuse and fluid a subject as ethnicity. It is easy to observe that the political demands of tribes differ from those of nationalities. Usually they are limited to cultural issues such as providing a script, revival of native language, freedom and resuscitation of traditional religion etc. Important too, are demands of an ecological nature (against oil prospectors, wood cutters etc.) and claims to communal territories and the sovereignty of communes over them. So far tribal voices have not been very audible in Daghestan. But there are more and more indications that tribes which were earlier considered as parts of the Avar 'nation,' are insisting on a complete and official recognition of their separate identity, that elementary school text books are compiled and published in their languages, and there hardly may be any doubt, that an already very complicated mosaic of ethnic relations in Daghestan may in the future become even more complicated. 5. The knot of the Central Caucasus - Ossetia, Ingushetia, Chechenia. So far, in all ethnic conflicts which took place on the territory of Caucasus, both Northern and Southern (in Chechenia, in Abkhazia, in South Ossetia, in Nagorno-Karabagh) there has been one striking regularity. These conflicts began as a movement of an oppressed minority against the oppressing majority- Chechens against Russians, Abkhaz against Georgians, Ossetes against Georgians, Karabaghtsi Armenians against Azeris. They began rather peacefully, by a declaration about intentions to secede and to exist independently. Of course, the degree of real oppression, the size of the gap between reality and a propagandistically created victimized image of a minority might differ in each case, but in each case there were some reasons for the decision to secede. What followed was an attempt by the oppressor's side to crush these intentions by military force, and after months or years of bloodshed, inevitably the little secessionist David would turn victorious, at least, temporarily, over the oppressing Goliath, in spite of the tremendous inequality in numbers and resources. The only exception to this general pattern so far has been the situation in the Republic of Ossetia-Alania (North Ossetia), and the conflict that took place between Ingushes of its Prigorodnyi Raion ('Suburbian District') and the authorities of the Republic, unequivocally supported by all factions of the non-Ingush population. Here, in Ossetia, we can see a striking contrast to the relatively non-violent attitude, inclined to a peaceful solution to rising tensions which is, luckily, more typical for the territories west of Ossetia. In the fall of 1991 Ossetia was the scene of the worst conflict in the North Caucasus, surpassed later only by the horrors of the Chechenian War of 1994-1996. The confrontation between Ingushes, oriented towards tribal and patriarchal values re-enforced by the adoption of Islam, and predominantly Orthodox Christian loyalty- oriented Ossetes and Russian Cossacks goes far back in the history of their relations, maybe back to the 18-th century. It was significantly aggravated by a very unwise decision by Khrushchev, when in 1957, his government, having reasonably granted the Chechenians and Ingushes a repatriation to their homeland and a restoration of the dual Republic of Checheno-Ingushetia, nevertheless failed to return to this republic the territory of the so-called Prigorodnyi Raion, allotted in 1944 after the expulsion of Ingushes to Ossetia, and gave instead to the restored dual republic two Cossack-settled districts carved out against the will of the population from the Stavropol territory. In spite of all these obstacles, many thousands of Ingushes resettled in what was formerly the center of their ethnic territory. By 1991 Ingushes constituted here about 60 % of the population, the rest being composed of Ossetians and Russian Cossacks. Ingushes tried by all means, very often violent means, to establish in the area an Ingush power base, based on their customary law (adat), the moral justification of these attempts being the presence in this area of the tomb-stones of many generations of their ancestors. Illegal actions were frequent on both sides and led to the further growth of mutual distrust and antipathy between Ingushes, on one side, Ossetians and Pussians on the other. Ingushes blackmailed and molested Ossetians, forcing them to sell their houses (in practice together with agricultural land-plots) to arriving Ingushes, while the local authorities tried to persuade the Ossetian owners not to sell them anything and set up all kinds of obstacles even to perfectly legal transactions. Thus, they tried to enforce Soviet power based not only on the law but on an undisguised policy of ethnic discrimination. There have been many clashes since the early 1960's, and in 1981 in the capital of North Ossetia, there were ethnic riots on such a scale that army troops had to be sent in, but due to lack of any freedom of press at that period this remained little known to the outside world. In 1992, when conflict erupted again, it resulted in the complete eviction of 60 thousand Ingushes not only from the area disputed between Ingushes and Ossetes, but also from the rest of Ossetia-Alania and from its capital city of Vladikavkaz. Their houses were burnt and demolished, their property plundered. With some 60 thousands more refugees from Chechenia, the current population of Ingushetia numbers more than 250 thousand of whom approximately 50 % are refugees. Consequently, social- economic challenges and economic adjustments proceed in quite different ways in Ossetia and Ingushetia. This difference again reflects the prevailing orientation of Ingushes to a more or less traditional economy, based on the exploitation of natural agricultural and pastoral resources, while the population of North Ossetia, both aboriginal and 'Russian-speaking,' is much more oriented towards more sophisticated, urban, industrial and technological modes of production. Ossetia-Alania (North Ossetia), which is located North of the Caucasus Mountain Range and is a constituent part of the Russian Federation, is only a part (true, a larg one) of the whole ethnic territory of Ossetes. The other part is Southern Ossetia which is de-jure a part of Georgia but practically, for some eight years, since 1989, has turned into a little de-facto independent republic with Russian peace keepers guarding its provisional armistice with Georgia. Very recently (January 1997) there have been reports, that intensive negotiations have started between the Government of South Ossetia and the Central Government of Georgia, and that they may result in a reunification of South Ossetia with Georgia, but we have still to wait for the results of these negotiations. Southern Ossetia is a place where there was no Russification (and little Georgianization), where the traditional Ossetian ways of life, their spoken language, their ancient customs are preserved in a more complete and unspoiled form than in the North. Now, when there is no more violence and the traditional agricultural and cattle-breeding economy has revived after the disasters of a separatist war with Georgia, it is poor but self-supporting. It also benefits to some extent from small-scale transit transportation of some goods, particularly early and high quality vegetables and fruits from the Central Georgia to the markets of the Southern Russia, which became possible with the stabilization of the armistice. North Ossetia (Alania) is, on the contrary, highly industrialized, urbanized, very significantly Russified, and largely maintains the Soviet-time methods of organization in the rural economy. True, in the North, too, there are some rural pockets where the traditional pastoral economy and many traits and features of the pre-Christian, "pagan" cults and rituals are thoroughly preserved, but they are relatively few. Theoretically Ossetians dream of a reunification, but culturally Northerners and Southerners are very different, are not free from many mutual prejudices and generally are not getting along well. Northerners, particularly, often complain about the presence in the North of many thousands of Southern Ossetian refugees from Georgia. Ingushes and Chechenians of all other nations and ethnic groups of the Caucasus, probably have the most victimized image of themselves, since they have suffered so many times, beginning from the 18-th century and ending with the expulsion in the Stalin era and the atrocities of war in post-Soviet Russia. They have a common self-denomination as Wainakh (our people) and though there are some unresolved territorial claims between them, generally they feel sympathetic towards each other. The high prestige enjoyed by local village elders helped to prevent mass participation of young Ingushes in the fighting in the Chechenian war to support Chechenians, as well as attempts at retaliation on Ossetians. Indirect support was always rendered by Ingushes to Chechenians; the commanders of Russian troops in Chechenia complained that when they were passing Ingush villages they had to expect shooting at their backs, and some Ingush villages have been bombed alongside with the adjacent Chechen villages. Nevertheless Ruslan Aushev, the highly respected president of Ingushetia, a retired general, managed to maintain rather loyal relations with the Federal government of Russia, and Ingushetia has been declared a free economic zone. This helps it economically to some extent, but generally the Republic is in a difficult situation: its population has recently doubled because of so many refugees both from Ossetia-Alania and from Chechenia, the local economy can provide very few jobs apart from agriculture, and it not very urbanized. Although some Ingush villages had been converted to Islam only in the early 19-th century, the influence of Islam is strongly felt, partly due to a confrontation with predominantly Christian Ossetes, partly as a repercussion of Islamic Fundamentalism gaining momentum in Chechenia. It is still difficult today to predict what the future development of the Chechenian society and economy will look like when Russain-Chechenian relations are normalized and the process of restoration after the damage caused by the war begins. Consequently one may only guess at the basic pattern of future economic development in Ingushetia and Chechenia and its impact on the cultural tradition of these peoples. But there is great reason to believe that this future will be dual. On one hand, cities will be built and restored, and in Chechenia pipeline and road maintenance, the restoration and reconstruction of oil drills, refineries, factories and other industrial objects will require a lot of manpower, both Chechenian and Russian. On the other hand, a good deal of the rural population, especially in the highland areas, will be oriented towards a traditional style of economy, i. e. towards agriculture, cattle breeding, production of honey, and other similar occupations, completely based on individual farming, with no relics of the Soviet collective system. Combined with the increasing influence of Islam, this will create a serious split between the urban-oriented, modern industrial way of life in large cities and the northern lowlands, and the tradition -oriented rural life in the southern highlands. This split will largely coincide with the 'teip' (clan) differences and confrontations which so far have never ceased to play an important role in the structuring of relations between different segments of Wainakh society. Traditionally the Southern (highland) clans are considered to be more aristocratic and prestigeous compared to those which are younger and less distinguished in their origins, although the Nothern (lowland) clans are more urbanized and sophisticated. This dichotomy, which is already clear in the struggle for power, and has already started among various factions of the Chechenian ruling establishment, may in the future become even more aggravated. There can hardly be any doubt, that the overwhelming majority of younger people, (and these societies with their high birth rate become demographically young indeed), would prefer, in spite of the rise of traditionalism and Islamism, to reside in the lowlands and in the larger cities, with all their comforts and advantages. But it would be very difficult, even under much better conditions, than those in the modern Russia, to provide jobs for all of them. This, combined with the demoralizing effects of the recent war, may lead to a further increase in criminal activity in Chechenia and partly also in Ingushetia. On the other hand, the resources in the mountainous part of these republics have not yet been exploited to their full extent, and until recently, many valleys, which used to be densely populated, lay quite abandoned. It is possible that, with the reclamation of these highland pastures and woods, new pockets of relatively tradition-oriented economy and social life may emerge, as an asylum for people who are discontent with the life styles of modern cities. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that in practically all areas of the Northern Caucasus, and in many places in the Southern Caucasus as well, in spite of the mosaic and complexity of the ethno-social picture, a certain dual pattern can almost aways be observed in the difference of values of two Key and confrontational ethnic groups. Between these groups there is always a similar pattern of cultural differences, i.e. one is invariably more highly socially developed, more urbanized, more educated, than the other. Such is the correlation between Georgians and Abkhazes, between Armenians and Azetis, between Cherkessians and Karachais, between Kabardins and Balkars, between Ossetes and Ingushes. In Chechenia this is the relationship between Lowlander and Highlander clans. The same can also be said about the relationship between Russians and non-Russians. In a situation where ethnic conflicts were not allowed to develop openly, the more sophisticated group would normally dominate over the 'backward' one. However, its birth rate being lower and its urban-oriented mobility being higher, this group would inevitably tend to constitute a smaller and smaller percentage in the rural areas and in the agricultural section of economy, and would gradually replaced there by the less sophisticated group. Thus, the second group tended to become a majority in the areas where it used to be only a minority. When the political situation changed, and ethnic conflicts and tensions could be expressed in the demands of political organizations, this pattern resulted in fears among 'first' groups about losing their influence and their lands to 'second' groups, and in attempts to stop their expansion, to continue to keep them subordinated. The leaders and organizations of 'second' groups, on the contrary, nurtured plans to squeeze out or to evict the 'first' group and to establish their own ethnic power on the lands to which they moved. In some cased dual confrontation was very grave, as in Georgian-Abkhaz and Armenian-Azeri in Karabagh, Ossetian-Ingush. In others, like Cherkess-Karachai, or Kabardin-Balkar, there has so far not been such acute tension, and there are hopes for the prevalence of good will. However, it seems indispensable, that in each case a certain body or supreme power, be it an international peace-making mechanism, or the Federal Center of Russia, or even somebody else, implement a more or less unbiased and principal policy of peaceful coexistence and defense of the rights of all groups in question. Otherwise the danger of ethnic cleansings, of artificial ethnic homogenization at the expense of evictions of minorities, will always remain. 6. The Western Caucasus - Kabardin-Balkaria, Karachai-Cherkessia, Adygeia. The Republic of Kabardin-Balkaria has an approximate population of one million. Of this million, about 50 % are Kabardins, 30% Russians, less than 10% Balkars, and there are also many others - Koreans, Jews, Georgians, Turks etc.. Small in numbers as they are, they nevertheless are inclined to occupy distinct niches, e.g., Jews in commerce and some crafts, Georgians in restaurant service, Koreans in vegetable gardening. Kabardins are the same detribalized Adyghe as Cherkessians, from which they practically indistinguishable. However, being the largest group among Adyghes, they think more about the consolidation of their power and cultural vitality within the Republic, than about the reconsruction of Greater Adygheia. On the whole, their relations with Russians are friendly, in spite of memories of Russian atrocities during the Caucasian War of 1817-1864. There are some mixed marriages, though not too many, and the influence of Islam on everyday life is not very great. Together with Adygheians and Chechenians, Kabardins have been most active in the Caucasian Nations' Confederation (KNK) and in volunteering to fight on the Abkhazian side against Georgians in the Abkhazian-Georgian conflict. There is no pronounced enmity between Kabardins and Russians, and on the surface, the mutual relations may look quite friendly. However, there is competition between the two, since they share the same occupational niche. Sharing the same occupation does not lead to competition in agriculture, the more so because Kabardin villages and Russian villages are in most cases separated territorially. But in the cities, highly educated and sophisticated Kabardins, many doctors, lawyers, engineers, artists etc., particularly in conditions of growing unemployment of salary-men, find themselves a competing with Russians. Many Russians complain that the better jobs are offered to Kabardins, in spite of their alleged lower professional skill. I cannot say whether these allegations are justified but they certainly predetermine a very slow and gradual but still continuing diminishing of the share of Russians, Jews and other non-natives, in the urban population of Kabardin-Balkaria, and, even more importantly, in the jobs requiring high skills or providing certain advantages in payment, in social prestige etc.. The same tendencies can be observed in the declining recreational (tourist) business. For an outside observer the relations between Russians on one side and Kabardinians and Balkars on the other side, may look like problems on the individual, personal or local level, but they are not openly pronounced either socially or politically. If there are more profound problems, they are latent and avoided. This cannot be said, however, about the relations between Kabardinians and Balkars. Balkars, many of whom were exiled and spent 1944-1957 in Central Asia, returned and were provided with additional territories for settlement, (apart from the mountain gorges that were been their traditional home), in the relatively lowland territories which belonged to the richest Kabardin princely families before the October Revolution. These territories were, naturally, nationalized after the Revolution, but, since they were initially used mostly as pastures for large herds of horses on the property of the former princes and had not been intensively ploughed and cultivated by Kabardins prior to the war, they could be fairly easily allocated to the Balkars,when they returned from the exile, although in some cases the resulting settlements were ethnically mixed, being populated mostly by Balkars, but to a certain extent by Kabardins as well. At first glance the relationship between Balkars and Kabardins is rather friendly. There are many mixed marriages, in the cities people of two nationalities generally find no problems in coordinating their efforts at their working place, there are some villages with a mixed Kabardinian-Balkar population. However, Balkars often complain about the political and social domination of Kabardins, about lack of Balkar representation in key administrative positions, and about certain handicaps in social career etc.. Kabardins, on the other hand, have some stereotypes about Balkars whom they see as narrow-minded, not smart enough, and generally inferior. Of course, one can hardly deny that many years spent in exile might be responsible for a certain educational retardation among Balkars, and the difference is still noticeable. On the other hand, Balkars, who have access to the alpine pastures, too remote to be exploited by Kabardins, practice very profitable sheep and goat herding and wool processing. They sell the processed wool or even more often ready-knit sweaters, hats, jackets and so on at a good profit. This makes their average income some 10-20 % higher than that of Kabardins. The same applies to Karachais. One of the accusations made about Balkars by Kabardins (who have always been very proud about their social position and general respect of women), is that Balkars overwork their women, and force them to process the wool and knit sweaters all the time. There is a Balkar nationalist movement, odious for its provocational and violent actions, which insists on the creation of a separate Balkarian republic. Many people in Kabardin-Balkaria, including many Balkars, believe that the aims of the leaders of this movement (an ex-general of the Russian Army, S. Beppaev among them) are rather selfish and that these leaders just want important and prestigeous positions for themselves. Nevertheless they did manage, in the first half of 1990's, to organize a number of actions, and this provoked some anxiety among Kabardins. In response, the latter insisted, that if Balkaria were to secede, it could claim only genuine original Balkar territories, restricted to narrow and infertile mountain valleys, and not the former domains of the exiled and exterminated Kabardin princes, on whose territory the majority of Balkars live. A number of Kabardinian distinguished historians began a feverish search for archival materials and other proof, that would justify an expulsion of Balkars from the lands they currently occupied. At one point it seemed that the society was on the verge of a break-out of mass violence. However, the government of the Republic acted very wisely; they organized a referendum in which only Balkars were invited to participate, and by the end of 1994 it revealed that less than 5% of the total Balkar population really supported Beppaev' ideas. Recently, in the fall of 1996, there was a new attempt to create an 'ad hoc' shadow government of the 'Balkar Republic,' and again the outcome of a renewed attempt by extreme nationalists to aggravate the situation confirmed that not the total number of active supporters of extremists would hardly exceed one thousand but that even their passive sympathizers are very few in number. The general pattern of factors that determine the relations between Kabardins and Balkars is basically the same as the pattern of relations between Ossetian and Ingushes in North Ossetia before the expulsion of the Ingushes. It is true that Ingushes, after the beginning of perestroika, started to demand re-unification with Ingushes of Ingushetia, while Balkars for only a short time in 1950's and 1960's, rised the question of unification with Karachais, and later abandoned this idea. But there are many similarities. Both Balkars and Ingushes returned after a 13 long years of exile. Both lag culturally behind their more numerous neighbors in social and educational development and both are considered by their neighbors as somewhat inferior. In both cases there is a dispute about the ownership of property on lands they now occupy. Why, then, have the relations between Balkars and Kabardins have remained mainly loyal and peaceful, in spite of active and violent extremist propaganda, while among Ingushes of North Ossetia this kind of propaganda has had complete success and led to armed conflicts and the subsequent eviction of the Ingushes? Why do Kabardins not mind living with Balkars in a polyethnic society, while it seems that a majority of Ossetians feel a strong intolerance and often a burning hatred towards the Ingushes? There may be many reasons for these differences, some of them coming from the past. One of the answers, in my opinion, may be that even when groups live as Kabardins and Balkars do, there is still some danger at a blood-shedding conflict. A careful and balanced administration of the crisis, unequivocal recognition by the authorities of the equal rights of a minority, the provision of some decent perspectives for minority economic and social advancement,a policy which allows the minority to express their preferences democratically, may be able to prevent a conflict. This was the case in Kabardin-Balkaria. But when the administration, supported by public opinion, does not recognize any other way of solving the problem besides brutal suppression and does not try to demonstrate any good will, the minority does not have hope for an amelioration of its situation by peaceful means and may revert to a spontaneous violence. Under these conditions any extremist propaganda may have considerable impact. Even when it is only temporary, it may trigger mass violence and bloodshed and bring the tensions of ethnic confrontation to a point of no return, i.e. to sow the seeds of mutual mistrust and hatred which will pass to younger generations and may become extremely difficult to eradicate. The Republic of Adygeia occupies a rather unusual position among other republics of the North Caucasus. It is the westernmost of all republics and forms an enclave, which is sides surrounded on all sides by the lands of Krasnodar territory. Previously it was not a republic but an autonomous province within the Krasnodar territory, just as the Karachai-Cherkessian Republic belonged as an autonomous province to the Stavropol territory. Adyggeians, Cherkessians and Kabardins are all branches of the larger ethnic group, which calls itself, in its own language, 'Adyghe'; the difference between 'Adygeian' and 'Adyghe' is of the same order, as, for example, between Slavic and Slovenic, or between Turkic and Turkish. There are no real open ethnic conflict in Adygeia, and one can say that the Russians, who constitute more than the half of the total population, are generally on quite friendly relations with Adygeians. Even if sometimes one can hear remarks about a certain overrepresentation of Adygeians in key administrative positions, this does not provoke serious discontent among ethnic Russians. The overwhelming majority of Adygeians do not express any anti-Russian attitudes either. Their high degree of urbanization and Westernization allows them to get along well with Russians, and all of them are quite fluent in the local Russian vernacular. Some Russians may also mention that Adygeians are often dominant in some areas of retail commerce, but not so much in the republic, as in parts of the Krasnodar Territory which encircles the Republic. Adygeians, who are today a numerical minority in their native land, constitute the largest numbers of mahadjirs (religious refugees) who emigrated to Turkey after the end of the Caucasian War in 1860's. More than two thirds of them emigrated at that time. The kinship ties between local people and their relatives living in Turkey are vibrant, and now many Turkish, as well as Jordanian Syrian and other foreign ethnic Adygeians, come to visit their relatives; sometimes they acquire some property or participate in joint ventures, but very few decide to repatriate. However, these contacts with the mahadjirs' descendants result in a certain growth of influence of Islam. There were some hopes and slogans among a certain portion of the nationalistically-minded Adygeians for a restoration of 'Greater Adygeia' which would include both Cherkessia and Kabardinia. All these three parts of the larger 'Adyghe' ethnic entity maintain close ties and have a feeling of common identity. However, the dialectal difference is considerable, and the Adygeian writing standard slightly differs from the Kabardinian-Cherkessian one. Of all Adyghes the Adygeians certainly have the strongest feeling of all-Adyghe common destiny, but they are also the only ones who have preserved some tribal divisions. Generally tribal affiliation matters very little and sometimes even is not clearly remembered, but there are two tribes who occupy a rather special position. One are Shapsugs, mostly living outside the Republic, in a number of rural settlement in the urban district of Sochi. Their main demand is to restore the Shapsug National District which was abolished in late 1920's. However, even if the authorities of Sochi should want to satisfy these demands, it is impossible to carve out a district where Shapsugs would constitute more than 10 % of the population. They also demand the renaming of a few towns, named after Russian soldiers and sailors, considered heroes by Russians but conquerors by Adyghes, alongside with some other cultural demands. The other tribe with a special reputation are Bzhedugs, living mostly in the area not very far from the city of Krasnodar. They are considered the most urbanized and westernized of all Adyghes, but at the same time as poor observants of national standards and values, rather spoiled by civilization. To the envy of other tribes, in Soviet and post-Soviet times, practically all key administrative positions were occupied almost exclusively by Bzhedugs. A certain 'Armenophobia' is widespread among some Adygeians, as well as among many Cossacks and other Russians of Krasnodar. Historically relations between Armenians on one hand, and Adyghes and Russians on the other hand, despite some enmity, were quite friendly for at least 500 years. The anti-Armenian feelings developed recently due to a huge flow of ethnic Armenian refugees from Azerbaidjan, Abkhazia, Chechenia and other territories. We may hope that these rather recent prejudices and confrontations might disappear if the social and economic situation changes, and when the state of law and a normal market economy is finally secured. But so far modern Russia is a land of robber capitalism, of criminal black market economy, and of government-level racketeering led by totally corrupt bureaucrats. Since the law is not a law, a violation of law and violence becomes the law, and a natural search for some mechanism of self-defence leads people of common ethnicity to align along ethnic lines. In a situation in which, a criminal offender is shot or a driver is stopped by a policeman, if the two belong to different nationalities, this enough to ignite an inter-ethnic conflict or at least to produce deep ethnically prejudiced feelings. And if this situation persists for a long time, and there is reason to believe that it will continue to persist, then the mutual prejudices will be deeply internalized and fossilized, and many decades of better times will not amiliorate the situation. I could literally feel this fossilization of mutual hatred in Armenia a few months before the mass exodus of the Azeri population from villages; these villagers had, prior to that, for several decades, lived in perfect friendship with their Armenian neighbors. The level of confrontation is generally higher in the East of the Caucasus than in the West, Abkhazia being a notable exception. While there is comparatively little ethnic tension in Adygeia, there is much more in Karachai-Cherkessia. Among some roughly 500 thousand people approximately 40% are Russians (mostly Cossacks), nearly 35% are Turkic-speaking Karachais, less than 10 % are Cherkessians, and there are also a small percent who are Abkhazo-Adyghic speaking Abazins and turkic-speaking Nogais, some are Ossetians who recently have somehow decided to emigrate to Ossetia, and others. Nogais are linguistically very close but culturally quite different from Karachais, who are highlander agriculturists and cattle-breeders, while Nogais were steppe nomads not so long ago. The basically dual republic was established after the return of the Karachais from their 13-year long Central Asian exile (1944-1957), and initially culturally more developed and politically more trusted Cherkessians held most key positions. Until the late 1980's the nationalist Karachai movement, the Djamaghat, propagated a policy to secede from the dual republic and to form a republic of their own, with a predominantly Karachai population. However, recently 'Djamaghat' has lost much of its support. More and more Karachais have begun to believe that in a unified republic. Due to differences in birth-rates, they soon will constitute more than 50% of the population and will be able to form a decision-making majority. Cherkessians and Russians, naturally, do not look forward to such a future. Russian Cossacks have already made some attempts to carve out of Karachai a couple of dwarf separate Cossack 'republics' (Belorechen and Urup-Zelenchuk). Only a few years ago, in 1992, (i.e. before the frightening examples of attempts to change an ethno-social status-quo by force in Abkhazia and North Ossetia), or in 1991, when Soviet power was paralysed, and Russian Federal power had not yet emerged, there was a possibility of attempts to re-structure the Karachai-Cherkessian Republic, to divide it into Karachai and Cherkessian parts, to carve out Cossack regions, to create some territorial formations for Abazin and Nogais and so on. These questions were discussed at certain levels, within the framework of Yeltsin's administration, with representatives of various ethnic factions and organizations, but the de-facto president of the Republic, Khubiev, (his official position is rather that of speaker), boycotted all these talks and now it is clear that he had good reasons to do so. Should any attempts to implement these projects be made, bloodshed might really begin between Karacais and Cossacks, and maybe among other ethnic sections. Luckily, nothing of the sort has happened, although some attempts, sometimes successful, to squeeze a part of an 'undesirable minority' from the area of predominance of a local 'majority' (depending on the locality, the object of squeezing out might be Russians, Karachais, Ossetes etc.) have taked and are still taking place. However, the overall tendency now consists of a gradual strengthening of the prevailing Karachai power in the republic, while in the areas with a predominant non-Karachai population, local power is in the hands of the local dominant group. Prior to the Socialist Revolution and Collectivization, there were three estates or classes in the Karachai society: Bii, or feudal lords, Uzden, or free knights-peasants, and Kul, or serfs, who were descended from Biis and partly Uzdens. Over the course of the Revolution, practically all Biis were exterminated or forced into emigration, and power was usurped by Kuls. Even today, most power is concentrated in the hands of the descendants of the Kuls, to the considerable consternation of the Uzdens, who number twice as many. Similar distinctions cannot be ignored in other parts of the Northern Caucasus, but they have there their own specific characteristics. These distinctions, though hidden, were very important in Soviet society, where they could greatly influence somebody's career on the ladder of the party nomenclatura hierarchy. However, today, when a party position is irrelevant compared to property and monetary capital, they are less and less important. We may summarize our discussion with a statement that ethnic conflicts in the Caucasus region are more numerous and acute than in any other region of the former Soviet Union, and may be among the most intense in the world. But in most cases these conflicts are not due to any long standing negative stereotypes of other nationalities or a fatal cultural incompatibility, religious fanaticism or racial prejudice: More often than not, they can be defined as quasi-ethnic conflicts or rather as ethnically disguised economic conflicts, caused largely by a lack of legal mechanism of redistribution of property, and directed by a struggle of local elites for key positions. In the Soviet past, they were contained within the framework of competition for positions in the Communist party hierarchy and were channeled by that hierarchy. There were in the Northern Caucasus two really frightening and blood-shedding conflicts - the eviction of Ingushes from the Prigorodnyi Raion of North Ossetia and the Chechenian War. They were more numerous in Transcaucasia (in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and in Nagorno-Karabagh), but this was because the local governments of the newly independent states (sometimes labeled as mini-empires) of Georgia and Azerbaidjan were extremely week and irresponsible and gave temporary freedom of action to political adventurers (although in the case of the Chechenian war a similar accusation can be made regarding Yeltsin's administration as well). On the other hand we have seen that there were many more places, where there was a danger of acute conflict, but luckily it did not occur. Undoubtedly it was not just mere luck, but very probably there were some mechanisms which preventied activie ethnic conflicts, and did not allow many of them to develop to the point of no return. It may be a cynical statement but still it must be pronounced, that a continuity of power, when it remains in the hands of reconverted old party bosses helps to maintain the social order. Conflicts arise when the former leaders are too weak to regain power - like in Transcaucasia or Chechenia. Some voluntary organizations may play an important role but it is limited. Despite the general criminal chaos that reigned in many parts of Chechenia in 1992-1993, a Council of Inter-Ethnic Reconciliation, a non-Government volunteer organization, was instrumental in minimizing many local conflicts, but it could not, of course, prevent the big conflict, when Russian secret services decided to intervene in such a clumsy way. An extraordinarily important, though often invisible, peace making role was played in Chechenia and especially in Daghestan by Islamic Sufi orders, which acted across ethnic boundaries and reconciled the conflicting ethnic groups through their members within these groups. Generally the efforts for ethnic reconciliation made by the Islamic clergy and by traditional village elders are also very important. Sometimes these people are accused of the contrary, of igniting the conflicts, and this is absolutely unfair. These mechanisms helped to prevent an intensification of the Balkar-Kabardin conflict, and they helped to prevent young Ingushes from massive participation on behalf of Chechenians against federal troops in the recent war. However almost all enumerated mechanisms are efficient only in a more or less conservative and traditional society, which respects traditions, leaders and elders. The more traditional a society is, the better these mechanisms work. But today, in many societies in the North Caucasus and elsewhere in previously traditional regions, a number of young men have grown up with no respect for traditional values. And in this case, the further to the West the territory is located, the higher the percentage of such people. Therefore the danger of new conflicts is growing in just those areas where ethnic tensions have always been traditionally weaker, rather than in the Eastern parts of the Northern Caucasus. But if we may risk a few predictions, they can be reduced to a statement, that future conflicts are going to be more and more of a social and not of an ethnic nature. The possibility can not be denied that there may be large scale criminal violence, and that it will be channeled by some dishonest politicians into mass riots of a political character, but we should hardly expect many ethnic clashes in the near future. The people in the Caucasus seem to be fed up with them, and the voices of nationalist extremists seem to find today a less and less receptive audience. It does not mean that the national cause is totally discredited as an idea; on the contrary, the search for identity, the search for ways to a further affirmation of identity, continues and will continue, but hopefully not in the direction of increasing ethnic violence and hatred, not by invention of jingoist mythologies and unreasonable claims. It is still the task of the future for the nations of the Caucasus to find such national leaders, who could formulate decent democratic perspectives of their national development, not at the price of suppression or eviction of other groups, but through an increase in national constructive activity.