Has the Russian Federation Been Chechenised?

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Notes

¹An exception is Peter Reddaway et al. (2004, pp. 1–45).

²As of July 2009, Putin's toast was displayed on a billboard near government buildings on the main square of the Dagestani city of Makhachkala.

³Despite egalitarian aspirations of Marxist ideology, the Soviet government was organised in terms of a centralised, vertically hierarchical bureaucracy. This organisation contrasted with the egalitarian and pluralistic traditions of highland societies. Putin's recentralised bureaucracy is often described as ‘the power vertical’.

⁴Although the aspiration endures and although his tactics have outlived him, all of these attacks were to one degree or another the work of Chechen leader, Shamil Basaev. Basaev never overcame the spectacular success of his raid on the town of Budenovsk on 15 June 1995. He spent the remaining 11 years of his life vainly trying to repeat it—even in his ill-fated invasions of Dagestan in 1999. During those years, much of the misery of this region, and much of the failure of the Chechen cause, may be attributed to Basaev's personal vanity. Salman Raduev's attack on Kizlyar, Dagestan in January 1996 was another catastrophic attempt to copy Budenovsk.

⁵See for example, ‘Spreading Despair’, Human Rights Watch, 21 September 2003; ‘75 Die as Chechen Rebels Stage Raid Across Border’, New York Times, 23 June 2004; ‘Conflict in Chechnya’, British House of Commons Report, 7 February 2000.

⁶Malashenko (2010); ‘Russia Ends Chechnya Operation’, BBC News, 16 April 2009, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8001495.stm, accessed 12 January 2011.

⁷‘Kabardino-Balkaria Seeks to Break out of Economic Stagnation’, RFE/RL, 1 February, available at: http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1079424.html, accessed 12 January 2011; see also Dzutsev (2009).

⁸Comments made by Medvedev on a segment of Russia's RT television, 19 January 2010, available at: http://www.encyclopedia.com/video/Ez4xJkJATXQ-russia-establishs-new-north-caucasian.aspx, accessed 12 January 2011.

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Notes on contributors

Robert Ware

The author is grateful to Cameron Ross and Sarah Lennon.