Review: Chechnya
| Author | Derek Fraser |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200506000417 |
| Date | 01 December 2005 |
| Published date | 01 December 2005 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
| Reviews |
| 1156 | International Journal | Autumn 2005 |
CHECHNYA
Life in a War-Torn Society
Valery Tishkov
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. 302pp, US$50.00 cloth
(ISBN 0-520-23887-7), US$19.95 paper (0-520-23888-5)
This is a useful but limited book. It is useful because of its painstaking analy-
sis of the history of Chechnya both befor e and since fighting erupted in
1994, the reasons for the conflict, and the effect of the war on Chechen soci-
ety. The study effectively demolishes various legends about the Chechens
and their history, describes the brutality on both sides, and portrays the dev-
astating effects of the war on Chechen society. The work has, however, little
to suggest on how to end the war or how to avoid the emergence of similar
conflicts elsewhere in the Russian Federation. The author takes compara-
tively little account of the experience of other multinational societies,
whether established democracies or ex-communist states, in dealing with
minorities, except repeatedly to suggest that the west is applying a double
standard in its criticism of Russian behaviour in Chechnya. As a result of
these omissions, the book unconsciously illustrates the lack of understand-
ing in the dominant Russian political culture of how to handle minorities in
a pluralist society.
For Mikhail Gorbachev,in his foreword, the reasonable desire of the
Chechens to enjoy democratization and correct past injustices has been
misused to fuel nationalist hysteria and anti-Russian feeling. He sup-
ports Tishkov’s criticism of “special rights for so-called native nationali-
ties in relation to the rest of the population of the republic” (xi). He
believes that this principle led to the war in Chechnya. He recognizes the
mistakes made by the Russian government and armed forces, but he
finds that, without foreign interference, events might have taken a dif-
ferent turn.
The author, Valery Tishkov,is not only an ethnographer of note but was
also the Russian minister of nationalities in the early nineties. As such, he
took part in talks with the Chechens in December 1994 and worked on the
Russia n governmen t’s proposed peace plan in 199 5-96. In his bo ok, he
accepts the description made of him by a Chechen nationalist that his
interest is in keeping Chechnya within Russia.
Tishkov notes that the Chechens emerged from the break-up of the
Soviet Union as both one of the largest minority groups in Russia and one
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