Chechen women in war and exile: changing gender roles in the context of violence

Abstract

The article analyzes Chechen women's everyday experiences of war and violence and outlines their multiple effects on women's roles and identities. Particular attention is paid to how these effects are shaped by generational differences. The study is based on 35 oral history interviews with Chechen women in Austria, Germany, and Poland. The experience of two Russo–Chechen wars reinforced domesticated forms of femininity. It also exposed women to intensified nonmilitary forms of gendered violence. At the same time, some of the traditional roles were transformed, for example, when women became the main breadwinners for their families. Women's heightened realization of their importance in securing the well-being of their families and communities empowered them and created a sense of solidarity and responsibility reaching beyond their households. This has generated a level of insecurity among some sections of Chechen society and the Moscow-backed Chechen administration of Ramzan Kadyrov puts considerable effort in instructing women about their “proper place.” In exile, women's ability to continue fulfilling their gendered responsibilities in a new environment serves as an important coping mechanism. Different generations of women adopt distinct adaptation strategies that relate to their roles during the war as well as to the conditions of their socialization.

Keywords:

• Chechnya
• gender
• violence
• generation
• refugee women

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Jan C. Behrends for initiating the idea of this special issue and for his support and insightful comments throughout the writing and revising. Kateřina Vráblíková provided invaluable suggestions for improvement in the final stages of the writing. Others who contributed their thoughts and comments on the text include Helma Lutz and the members of her Ph.D. colloquium at Goethe University as well as participants of the Fellow Meeting at the University of Belgrade in the framework of the project “Physical Violence and State Legitimacy in Late Socialism” in June 2012.

Notes

1. The number indicates the age of an interview partner at the time of the first interview. Pseudonyms have been used throughout the text except for when explicitly stated otherwise.

2. Austria, Poland, and Germany have been among the main host countries of Chechen refugees in Europe since the 2000s (Szczepanikova 2014). The women in this study were recruited by a snowball method. Many Chechen refugees have extensive family networks that span a number of European countries. Once introduced by a relative or a person respected in the community, it was usually not difficult to find further willing interview partners. Other points of access were NGOs assisting Chechens in the three countries. The selection of informants was guided by the aim of achieving diversity in terms of age, education, family status, region of origin in Chechnya, and length of stay in Europe. The interviews were conducted in Russian. At the beginning of each interview, the women were given the same instruction: to talk about their lives as long as they wanted starting from whatever period they chose. Further questions were asked only after the flow of their narrative stopped or when they prompted me to ask them questions. Wary of making them relive past suffering, I did not explicitly ask about their experiences of war and other kinds of violence. It was up to them to bring up these topics.

3. For an analysis of how gender roles and identities of different generations of Chechen women have been transformed in European exile and for an account of the younger generation of women born shortly before the war, see Szczepanikova (2012, 2014).

4. Together with other nationalities, Chechens were deported en masse to Central Asia (primarily Kazakhstan) in 1944. Stalin had accused them of collaboration during the German occupation of the Caucasus. It is estimated that around one-third of the population died during the deportation and as a result of the harsh living conditions in exile (Pohl 2002).

5. According to Soviet estimates of 1970, about 90% of the Chechens married according to Muslim rituals, 99% of the dead were given religious funerals, and 98% circumcised their sons (Ro'i 2000, 81–82 cited in; Gammer 2006, 192).

6. In this way, the Soviet antireligious policies contributed to Islam becoming a privileged marker of ethno-national affiliation (Kandiyoti 2008, 610; Swirszcz 2009).

7. Liuba insisted on having her real name published. While not entirely common, some Chechen women have Russian-sounding names like hers. Another unusual thing about Liuba is that she has a non-Chechen husband, which is very rare for Chechen women. Hence her non-Chechen-sounding surname.

8. The ongoing violence in Chechnya has been described as a situation of lawlessness, chaos, or a state of de-modernization (Tishkov 2004; Rigi 2007). In their studies based on extensive fieldwork in Chechnya in the second half of the 2000s, Kvedaravicius (2008) and Raubisko (2011a) insist that the problem is not the absence of law, but the fact that violence in Chechnya can effectively be carried out within the framework of the law and even be facilitated by the use of the existing legal framework.

9. The last Soviet census indicates that the Slavic community in Checheno-Ingushetia (Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians) was over 300,000 in 1989. Most resided in Grozny. Some of those who sold their property were forced to do so at gunpoint (Gall and De Waal 1998, 115).

10. For example, in 2013, Madina Magomadova, the Head of the NGO “Mothers of Chechnya,” was physically attacked in Moscow after meeting the press regarding the preparation of the international photo exhibition dedicated to abducted civilians in Chechnya (Civil Rights Defenders 2014).

11. As noted earlier, patriarchal family norms prevalent in Chechen families make the father and his family primarily responsible for a child in case of marital separation. Women may sometimes be allowed to bring up their children after the divorce. However, when the husband's family insists on keeping or taking back the child, the mothers usually have to give in to the pressure.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and by the Junior Scientists in Focus program of Goethe University.