Blood Feuds Declining in North Caucasus as Society Changes, Religion Increases, and People Fear Their Nations will Disappear, Historian Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 19 – Blood feuds in the North Caucasus, part of an almost universal human urge to take revenge for crimes against family members, were once widespread but are now declining, although there is little likelihood that they will disappear however much they may change in form, an anonymous historian tells Ingushetia’s Fortanga news agency.

            Many make the mistake, he says, of seeing North Caucasus blood feuds as something unique. That is a mistake. Almost all cultures and religions have injunctions about responding to crimes on the basis of the principle of “an eye for an eye” (fortanga.org/2024/08/krovnaya-mest-na-severnom-kavkaze-transformacziya-drevnego-obychaya-i-ego-sovremennoe-znachenie/).

            The situation in the North Caucasus often involved serious and long-standing violence, the historian says; and it was played up by outsiders who wanted to present the North Caucasians as wild peoples who had to be subjugated and civilized, even though these societies too had traditions of taking revenge of one kind or another for criminal acts.

            The number and violence of blood feuds in the North Caucasus has declined over the last century, the result of efforts by the state and by Islamic leaders to wipe it out. But an even more important factor, the historian says, is that North Caucasians are increasingly concerned about the danger that their peoples are at risk of being wiped out.

            He recounts that “during the Stalinist deportation of 1944, at different stations people got out of the car, ran along the train and announced loudly so that others could hear, they say, I forgive such and such a bloodline. Then there was an understanding that the nation was on the verge of extinction, and this was an act to keep more people alive.”

Such people “wanted to save the life of even a blood enemy whom you previously hated. This was typical not only for Ingushetia and Chechnya, but also for other deported peoples.” That fear continues to inform many in the region and explains why people who might have engaged in blood feuds in the past no longer do.

The modernization of these societies has also reduced the amount of this phenomenon, although sometimes it has only changed the form. In 2005, for example, a man took revenge against an air traffic controller who failed to prevent the crash of a plane in which the man’s family lost their lives (svoboda.org/a/106542.html).

Because the human desire for revenge isn’t going to disappear, the historian concludes, blood feuds of one kind or another aren’t going to disappear entirely, although they may take ever softer forms, including keeping the threat of revenge alive for decades even though no direct action is ever taken.