Paul
Goble
Staunton, July 9 – One of the most
cynical methods the Soviet government employed to divide and rule non-Russian
nations was the establishment of republics with two titular nationalities
because such arrangements guaranteed that the two were more likely to view the other
as a problem and threat than to see Moscow as responsible.
At the end of Soviet times, there
were three such republics, Chechen-Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, and
Karachayevo-Cherkessia. The first broke up at that time, but the other two have
survived because they are part of a larger concern that still animates Moscow’s
policies in the region: keeping Circassian nations from coming together and
forming a single republic.
Were either of those republics to
fall apart, it would almost certainly trigger a broader reordering of the
borders in the region as Circassians – including the Adygey, the Kabardins, and
the Cherkess – would certainly view a separate Kabardin or Cherkess republic as
the nucleus of a future state.
And because of that likelihood, at
least some in Moscow are quite willing to play up fears of that happening to keep
the Turkic Balkars and Karachays in line and to continue its campaign to divide
the Circassian national movement, a campaign that shows no sign of ending
especially because the Circassians are gaining more support abroad.
But if Moscow found it relatively
easy to maintain bi-national republics in Soviet times – it could appoint
officials to reflect the ethnic “balance” it wanted to ensure by using quotas –
the task of the enter now is complicated by the fact that in winner-take-all
elections, the local majority will win more than its share of seats and
positions, freezing out the other.
That appears to be happening in
Karachayevo-Cherkessia now, to judge from an article entitled “The Cherkess are
Upset by the Election Policies of the Authorities” in today’s “Nezavisimaya
gazeta” (ng.ru/regions/2015-07-09/2_cherkesy.html).
Its author, Aleksandr Shapovalov,
the Rostov correspondent of the Moscow paper, reports that yesterday, Mukhamed
Cherkesov, the head of the Adyge Khase-Chekess Parliament, declared that “over
the course of recent times, the situation of the Cherkess in the republic has
significantly worsened.”
“Cherkess are practically not represented
in the organs of power; their rights are violated in the formation of the
government of Karachayevo-Cherkessia and of other organs of power,” Cherkesov
said. As evidence of this, he pointed to the fact that only one Cherkess has
been hired by the republic procuracy over the last five years.
Given this, the activist said, the
Cherkess plan to convene an
extraordinary congress of Adyge-Khase this fall. That meeting, according to the
“Nezavisimaya gazeta” journalist, “in all probability” will raise the issue of
restoring a separate Cherkess Autonomous Olbast as it had existed until 1957.
At present, the Cherkess are the
third largest nationality in the republic, after the Karachays and the
Russians. They number some 60,000 people with “the majority of them living
compactly on the territories of Khabez and Adyge-Khabl districts, a settlement
pattern that makes their situation both worse and better.
On the one hand, as activists
complain, the Karachay-dominated government can and does direct funding to
other districts where the Karachays or Russians are the more numerous,
something that angers the Cherkess but about which they have been able to do
little to change in recent times.
But on the other, this settlement
pattern means that there is a territorial basis for the Cherkess challenge to
Karachayevo-Cherkessia; and the very fact that it has now been mentioned in a
central Russian newspaper is certain to set off alarm bells in Moscow, which
will now have to come up with a new strategy to try to block the resurgent
Circassians.
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