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Abstract
Dagestan is inhabited by numerous ethnic communities with their own languages, cultures and histories. However, despite its ethnic and cultural diversity, the republic’s authorities have consistently sought to promote a unified concept of Dagestani identity. This policy has been challenged by local ethnic nationalists concerned about the future of their ethnic communities, which they saw as being endangered by assimilation and marginalisation. This struggle to secure political and social benefits began in the Soviet period and reached its height in the early 1990s. Resentment was particularly widespread among the Kumyks and Lezgins. Their dissatisfaction with the status quo resulted in a competition between inclusive (national) and exclusive (ethnic) approaches, which in turn manifested themselves in debates over historiography. This essay analyses the development and outcomes of this struggle from the 1950s through to the early 2000s, with an emphasis on the early 1990s.
Notes
1 On the popularity of ethnogenetic studies in the USSR, see Shnirelman (Citation1995).
2 All figures taken from the national censuses of 1989 and 2010.
3 For a more detailed description, see Shnirelman (Citation1995, Citation1996, Citation2001, Citation2005, Citation2006).
4 For the ‘repressed peoples’, see Conquest (Citation1970).
5 ‘Deklaratsiya o samoopredelenii kumykskogo naroda (9 noyabria 1990)’, Tenglik, 26 January 1991.
6 Also see, Tokarev (Citation1958, p. 229), Agaev and Magomedov (Citation1995, p. 22).
7 For a critical discussion, see Magomedov (Citation1995).
8 ‘Rezolyutsiya 4 s’ezda Lezginskogo narodnogo dvizheniya “Sadval”’, Sadval, 9–10, 1992.
9 This took its name from the town that constitutes the main centre of Lezgin settlement in southern Dagestan.
10 ‘Problemy lezgin v Azerbaidzhane … Bezrabotitsa, migratsiya, vovlechennost’ v voiny za rubezhom, radikalizatsiya molodezhi’, FLNKA, 27 June 2013, available at: http://flnka.ru/digest-analytics/2892-problemy-Lezghin-v-azerbaydzhane-bezrabotica-migraciya-vovlechennost-v-voyny-za-rubezhom-radikalizaciya-molodezhi.html, accessed 9 July 2016.
11 According to Nagiev, Abduragimov’s book was partly a compilation and partly a plagiarism (Nagiev Citation1996).
12 This was the view expressed by Dagestani ethnographer Saria Agashirinova (an expert on the Lezgins) during an interview with the present author, 17–18 June 1997.
13 See also Abduragimov and Abduragimov (Citation1998, p. 6).
14 ‘The North Caucasus: The Challenges of Integration (I), Ethnicity and Conflict’, International Crisis Group, Europe Report no. 220, 19 October 2012, pp. 25–31, available at: http://www.ecoi.net/file_upload/1226_1350913897_220-the-north-caucasus-the-challenges-of-integration-i-ethnicity-and-conflict.pdf, accessed 20 August 2017.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Victor Shnirelman
Victor Shnirelman, Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky prospect 32A. 119991 Moscow, Russian Federation. Email: [email protected]