Why Georgians do not like Chechens?


This month, in spite of the addresses of Chechen officials to the Georgian leadership, the extradition of three more fighters of the Chechen Resistance to Russia has been planned on the decision of Georgia’s Office of Attorney General. Let us remind that 5 out of 13 Mujahideen, taken into custody in August allegedly for the illegal crossing of «Georgian-Russian» border, have already been extradited to Russia. Russian mass media, the Kremlin and some political analysts hurried to derive benefit for themselves from that action.

Here is what one of them, Heydar Jemal says about the mutual relations of Chechens and Georgians in his article titled «What Is Behind the Veil of Moscow-Tbilisi Conflict?»:

«In the 19th century Caucasus becomes the arena of colliding interests of Russia, Great Britain, Ottoman Empire, Iran and yet Georgia (the Georgian Kingdom) from the viewpoint of pragmatic logic of vulgar geopoliticians. It was Georgia who initiated the fire of the Great Caucasus War, which took away a huge number of lives at that time – several million in sixty years. Georgians did not like Chechens – they would come to Tiflis (Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia) and do whatever they wanted to, thereby insulting the Georgian nobles with their behavior».

Heydar Jemal’s discourse is partly true that Chechens used to come to Tbilisi… but they were coming to help the Georgian people, and not to «do whatever they wanted to». This is a historical fact. Jemal is deliberately going too far in his commentaries, which even causes suspicion that he attempts to bring hostility between Chechens and Georgians to please Russia. Jemal is not the first commentator in the issue of turning Chechen marches into the «habit to intrude into neighboring lands», which in reality was happening at the call of one Georgian king or another to help repulse foreign incursions.

These are Jemal’s «habits» that served as the main argument for Russian expansion in Caucasus, which was explained with the necessity to protect the two Christian nations (Georgians and Armenians) that were «surviving» surrounded by Muslims. There is another point – what was the use from Russian patronage to Georgia, which was touchingly called by a Russian poet «prosperity in the shadow of Russian bayonets»?

There is no way you can agree with Jemal’s assertion that Georgia was the one who initiated the Caucasus war, while it is a commonly known fact that «Muscovy» has always been the catalyst of the war in Caucasus.

You shouldn’t blame it on somebody else and diminish Russia’s imperial evildoings, attaching Georgia to it. Further Jemal writes in his article: «Patriots may be pleased to hear it, but Stalin did not show himself to be a wise leader of the Great Russian Empire when he was sending Chechens to exile as if taking revenge for the cooperation between Vainakhs and Nazi German invaders, but in reality he was only implementing his inborn Georgian complexes of great-power Tbilisi chauvinist, which he used to be before he turned into a great-power Kremlin chauvinist. The proof is simple. Who were the empty Chechen lands given to after the original population was deported? To Russia, you think? You are wrong, - to Georgia».

The fact that Stalin was satisfying his «inborn Georgian complexes» by deporting Chechens also contradicts the reality. He just did not have those complexes period. What’s more, Stalin was sorry about his Caucasus origin and about the fact that he was born somewhere on the outskirts of the empire. Being ashamed of belonging to ethnic minority, he was trying to become more Russian than Russians themselves in his passionate impulse! This is exactly what prominent Chechen political analyst (who already passed away) Abdulrahman Avtorkhanov wrote in his book titled «The Empire of Kremlin» regarding Stalin’s «Georgian complexes» (Mr. Avtorkhanov was thoroughly studying the entire technique of the Soviet power and he knew about the prime causes of the deportation of his people).

So, there is no reason to talk about Stalin’s «Georgian complexes». And after all, why would Jemal want to all of a sudden cram «the son of a mountain Jew the shoemaker», or «the son of an Ossetinian», or «the illegitimate son of explorer Przevalski» (i.e. Stalin) into the Georgian commonality? Moreover, why would he present Stalin as a do-gooder for Georgians, if his power swept across the Georgian nation like a deadly sickle?

The next question is whether Georgians like Chechens or not. There is a reason why Jemal claims that they do not. But from the history we know that Georgians had compassion and cried, they were sharing their bread with the settlers, when in the late 19th century a considerable part of Chechens had to leave their lands and move to Turkey. Quoting Jemal, we are discovering the manifestation of worries and anxiety caused by the consolidation of Chechen Resistance due to strengthening of Georgia. I would like to be wrong. But judge for yourself.

Jemal writes: «So, after raising his voice and yelling at Tbilisi, and without any slightest chance to turn it into the real powerful pressure, Putin has put Russia into a disadvantageous position in regards to Georgia, who only got stronger from that yelling, and in regards to the Chechen Resistance, which only won from that yelling, and the main thing – in regards to the United States of America who ordered that yelling, and who will derive a political benefit from it in full».

What can you say here? As a loyal subject of the Russian Empire, it has never occurred to Jemal that the Chechens are continuing to resist and are consolidating not from some yelling coming out of somewhere. Some other reasons are behind all that, the reasons that the great son of the Chechen Nation Dzhokhar Dudayev was talking about on many occasions, and which will be pretty hard to understand for a non-Chechen.

Ahmad of Ichkeria,
exclusively for Kavkaz-Center