TERRORISM IN CHECHNIA: DEFINITION OF THE PHENOMENON AND ITS EXPLANATION

Sergei MARKEDONOV

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Sergey Markedonov, Ph.D. (Hist.), head, Department of Ethnic Relations, Institute of Political and Military Analysis (Moscow, Russian Federation)

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“Much has been written about terrorism; albeit a phenomenon that seems to have been studied in detail, it remains sinister, enigmatic, irrational, and defying complete understanding.” It is hard to deny this opinion of prominent Russian Orientalist Georgy Mirskiy: it can be applied both to the theoretical-methodological side of the phenomenon and to a case study of terrorism in Chechnia. In the past ten years the concept of terrorism has been closely associated with Chechnia; this definition, as well as the much more recent coinage, counter-terrorist operation, have been accepted by the Russian expert community to the extent that they require no further explanation. Both of these phrases have even become journalist clichés, incantations devoid of any scholarly meaning. Paradoxically, terrorism and the counter-terrorist operation in Chechnia as two specific problems remain outside the limelight of attention. Normally, they are discussed together with other, wider, problems: the relations between the federal Center and the separatists, between the Kremlin and the pro-Russian administration of Chechnia, the military-political aspects, and the problems of Islamic revival in the Caucasus. Meanwhile, any attempt at a meaningful investigation of the phenomena of “Chechen terrorism” and the “counter-terrorist operation” runs across difficulties of a scholarly and applied nature that call for profound investigation rather than superficial descriptions.

Here I shall attempt to discuss terrorism in Chechnia as an independent political phenomenon, investigate, in particular, its specific problems, identify its place among other separatist political practices, deflate the concept of terrorism as applied to Chechnia, distinguish between the……………………

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