Chechens and Ingushs are the difference. Culture, Traditions and History of Peoples

The initial commonality of these two peoples was somewhat divided by the course of the Caucasian war of the nineteenth century and by the policy of the tsarist authorities. Now that part of the population, called the common people, is more committed to unity, believing that this is a single nation - Chechens and Ingush. The difference is underlined only by the creative intelligentsia, which does not see a single ethnic group here.

Language

The Chechens have the language of the Nakh-Dagestani part, and it is the closest to the Ingush. At the same time there is a dialectic division, which is much more complicated. For example, some Chechen mountain dialects are much closer to the Ingush than to their native Chechen. Moreover, in the language relations involving Chechens and Ingushs, the difference is much smaller than between Russians and Ukrainians. Everyone will talk in their native dialect, but they will understand each other without the slightest difficulty.

And other manifestations of culture show the same generality. Bearers of Ingush and Chechen language from the intellectual layer are sure that understanding is achieved no more than 80%, and everyday speech is even less clear. Nevertheless, expert ethnographers see these two nations so close that in many sources there is a single name - Vainakhs (Veynakhs) - both Chechens and Ingushs. The difference is, therefore, almost invisible.

The literary language of the Vainakhs was not formed immediately. Previously, he was obnovanmirovannym and went from the storytellers - Illance. Family chronicles were also conducted - Tetris - on Chechen, but Arabic graphics. They are preserved, although in very small numbers. The Chechen people found the basis of the language among the plain dialects - Urus-Marchan and Shalin. They owned the majority. Also very close to them are the Gudermes and podterechny dialects, which were also widely distributed. The basis of the Ingush was the dialect of the Nazran, native to almost eighty percent of the population, that is, the entire republic of Ingushetia spoke exactly on it.

Customs

Ethnographers assure that Chechen culture has significantly lost the meaning of ethnic rituals than Ingush. Chechens no longer shy away from their mother-in-law, as in the good old days, they can feed the guest with soup, which violates the primordial nature of the custom. Ingush as an old man, guests are fed a special meat dish - they are supposed to eat lamb, chicken or turkey, and try not to interfere with their mother-in-law in everyday life in general. Weddings are also much more freely held by Chechens, while in Ingushes the bride, according to ancient custom, ritually stands in a corner all the time.

However, Chechens and Ingushs, the difference between which eventually formed, clearly understand their ethnic kinship, and the ethnonym "Vainakh" is not an empty phrase for them. Many of them seem strange to the information that this term was introduced recently and created by one person, in no way referring to either the people or to the other. They in the mass consider that this ethnonym has a thousand-year history.

Small peoples

In the east, Chechens are neighbors of Dagestanis - Avars, Kumyks and many peoples of even smaller numbers. Kumyk culture is highly arabized, it was for nineteenth-century Chechens that ethics were dictated, and almost all preachers came from their number. Avars were able to rise only in the Soviet era, when their numbers increased rapidly. Earlier they were landless and hired Chechens for shepherds.

This history of the Chechens and their neighbors is confirmed by the fact that almost all the villages of Chechnya have entire neighborhoods where the Avars settled. Wage labor is almost slavish, therefore for proud Chechens it was considered extremely unprestigious, and they still do not sufficiently respect the Avars for their unseemly past. But it is also not forgotten that there were times when Chechnya for centuries obeyed the Avar feudal lords. Only by the eighteenth century the Chechen traditions began to acquire independence, and that only because the country was able to throw off this yoke.

Vaynakhi: resettlement

Political antagonism quickly overlapped religious factor. Neighboring Dagestan constantly and strongly sent to the west its impulse of Islam, through which the Chechens and Ingush were increasingly ethnically identified. The composition of the Chechens as an ethnic component includes a fairly large number of Dagestanis, even Dagestani teips have been formed.

And in the plain Khasavyurt district of Dagestan, in turn, the Chechen residents of Akhkan, about one hundred thousand people, who were the homeland of the Republic of Ingushetia and Chechnya, settled. They are mountaineers, almost the oldest of the Vainakh units who migrated from the border between the two republics. After the invasion of Tamerlane, the Akkins came down from the mountains and went east, taking in various Chechen teips. In any case, they position themselves as a Chechen community.

The ancestors of the Vainakhs also inhabited the North Caucasian steppes, which adjoin the present territory of Chechnya. In the first millennium, the Khazar khanate dominated here, with a state religion far from Islam, Judaism. Chechen ethnography still has some connection with this neighborhood, which left tangible traces in the history of the Vainakh formation, as their participation in the political life of the Khazar Khaganate was very active. Some teips directly erect their kind to one of the Jewish ancestors, that is, the Khazar past history of Chechens and Ingush keeps more than clearly.

Shifting

Quite recently, Chechens and Ingush, the difference between them even less than between Russian and Byelorussians, argued against administrative boundaries. These fraternal peoples, or rather the one Vainakh people, divided into two subjects, decided to disengage. Naturally, the decision of the Chechen authorities did not receive any legal consequences. But the situation is explosive. Changing the borders between the republics - open a Pandora's box, conflicts will begin necessarily, not only Chechen-Ingush, but Ossetian-Ingush, whose roots are even deeper.

The history of the Ingush and Ossetians of the foothill and flat parts of Ingushetia and North Ossetia has lasted since the end of the seventeenth century, because here they lived together and mixed to such an extent that they themselves can not figure out who they are: the Ossetian community or the Vainakhs. In any case, for centuries, these lands were inhabited by one or the other, periodically mixing and serving as a kind of border buffer between the main nationalities living within the territories. The lands that are considered Ossetian, adjoined at different times to Ingushetia, then to Ossetia, and these people gradually replaced the Kabardinians who lived here. And it happened in the seventeenth century.

Now, if everything is done "correctly" in Chechen, then several respected nationalities will be offended at once. There are many options for justice, everyone has his own. Disengagement will give rise to completely unnecessary disputes and, possibly, help conflict maturation. Territorial claims, and even with the terms of such prescription, are now more than inappropriate. When this appeal to wisdom was voiced, there was an answer to the question of why the Chechens do not like the Ingush. This is unpleasant and insulting, especially when it is recalled that it was Ingushetia who received refugees during both Chechen wars - hundreds of thousands of people found shelter there.

Why did this happen

Of course, the demarcation of the early 1990s was de facto. Chechnya fought, and Ingushetia remained in the legal field of the Russian Federation, participating in referendums and numerous elections. With the outbreak of the first war, the border between Ingushetia and Chechnya ceased to be conditional, it was guarded by federal troops and other security forces. All this has cemented the division - both economic and administrative.

Of course, these two peoples, the Chechens and Ingush, the difference between which is more than ephemeral, are very close to each other. They are associated with centuries-old relationships, customs, language. But the Ingush, whose religion also does not allow them to be spineless, will not allow them to impose their will on others. Even not someone else's will not be allowed. The sluggish conflict and its armed underground, considerably extinguished, will flare up again. And if you take into account the number of all kinds of weapons that are now in this region, it becomes truly frightening.

Prehistory

When Russia came to the Caucasus, the Ingush lost many of their lands, where the Cossacks were resettled for the frontier calm. That's why the Civil War scenario turned out this way: the Ossetians were neutral, the Cossacks stood up for the Whites, and the Ingushs for the Reds, because they were promised the return of the territories populated by the Cossacks.

After the victory, the Terek Cossacks had to leave their rustic places, since the Soviet government kept its word always. The ASSR was one - Gorskaya - until 1924, then there was a division into the North Ossetian and Ingush autonomies plus the Sunzhensky district. The capital was a common city - Vladikavkaz. And in the early 30's, the Chechen-Ingush autonomous region appeared, in order to become the Chi of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1937.

War

The deportation of Chechens and Ingush in 1944 led to the abolition of the ASSR. The Grozny region appeared, and the remaining territories were given to the Georgian, Dagestan and North Ossetian ASSR. The reasons were more than weighty: disruption of mobilization and desertion of the overwhelming majority of Vainakhs, the creation of bandit formations, betrayal, harboring German paratroopers, service to the Nazis - the list is great. The main words here are the overwhelming majority.

In order not to receive blows in the back (which happened many times), the Vainakhs were evicted to Central Asia. And in this case it is not at all clear how the Chechens differ from the Ingush. In 1956 the Vainakhs began a mass return to their native places. The ASSR was rebuilt, but the territory for the most part (except for the Georgians) was already densely populated. The same Ossetians. Despite this, almost all the land taken away from the Chechens and Ingushs was returned. However, for localized territories, local wars began .

Eighties

The very beginning of the eighties was marked by a sharp increase in tensions in good-neighborly relations: a struggle was launched for Prigorodny district (Chermen, Kambileevskoe, Oktyabrskoye), during which Ossetians demanded the eviction of all Ingush from the republic. Mass riots began, accompanied by the introduction of army units to establish the world order. The Ingushs restricted the residence permit, which they justly considered discrimination. The clashes with murders and beatings continued.

All this continued in the 90's, and the Ingush were constantly reminded of their activities during the Second World War, of the connections of numerous bands with the Wehrmacht, of atrocious reprisals against Red Army men. In 1991, the Ingush riddled with the Ossetian militia to such an extent that a state of emergency was imposed , and the Supreme Council decided to even make concessions to the people who were offended by deportation. But fate decreed otherwise.

The Soviet Union ceased to exist, Chechnya declared independence, and Ingushetia decided to stay in the Russian Federation. In 1992, Ingushetia again became a republic within Russia. At the same time, a whole series of murders of the Ingush occurred in the Prigorodny district, after which the borders between Ingushetia and North Ossetia were drawn, and the latter was deprived of the ill-fated district. Ossetians are also a hot people: the traffic police officers started shooting at Ingush, after which the latter was allowed not only to carry, but also to use firearms. The war did not want to stop. The Ingush blocked the post of internal troops and demanded the withdrawal of the Russian armed forces from its territory. The fighting continued.

If the Russians leave the Caucasus

What then? There will be bloody chaos, according to local residents, taught by bitter experience. They remember what happened in Chechnya after the complete extrusion of the entire Russian population: there was criminal lawlessness, people were abducted not only in Chechnya, but throughout the country, after which Wahhabis appeared with their unifying ideology, and civil war almost immediately began.

Order and silence in the Caucasus was never, it generally can not be there, since there is no traditionally strong statehood and it does not take it from nowhere. Neighbors here are always more, then less actively killed each other. And besides, they stole cattle, robbed, stole women, and then all this cruelly took revenge. That's when there was a strong external manager - a certain, albeit not complete, order was still observed. For example, under the rule of the Russian Empire or the USSR.

Without a strong hand, the Ingush and Chechens will again start territorial disputes with each other and with all their neighbors. Unification is hardly possible. Sharia and adat (custom) usually help to reconcile warring parties. But only the very close "ones" - fellow villagers, relatives or, in extreme cases, representatives of one nationality can decide in the Caucasus on sharia or adat. As there are a lot of people in this region of the people, the decision is unlikely to come.

The chief arbiter in the Caucasus is the benefit. And strength. Chechens can simply buy Ingush: help in the pogrom of Ossetians, for example. Or to promise participation in the affairs of the "Chechen empire." Only in this case the Ingush recognize the power of the Chechens and maybe even worship. Without bonuses, all these disputes are resolved only by force. This has always been the case, and it is unlikely that anything has changed in recent decades.