Chechen people
The Chechens are a population group in the North Caucasus. They call themselves yet Chi ( Sg Nochtschuo - human). With their linguistically and culturally closely related neighbors, the Ingush, they are classified in the ethnological group of Vainakh. Their language, the Chechen language, belongs together with the Ingush language for wainachischen branch within the nachischen branch of nacho - Dagestani ( Northeast Caucasian ) language family. The Chechens are in their great majority of Sunni Islam.
Settlement area
In the early 1990s lived 76.7 % of the Chechens in the Soviet Checheno - Ingush Republic, which was divided in 1991 in Chechnya and Ingushetia. This separation was maintained during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In the census of 2010, the Chechens were 95.3 % ( 1,206,551 ) is the largest ethnic group in the Russian republic of Chechnya. In total Russia population census identified 2010 1.431.360 Chechens. Furthermore, there is in Turkey with about 70,000 people a Chechen diaspora community.
Previous history
The origins of the Chechens and Ingush are largely in the dark. After archaeologically not to be occupied theories both peoples emerged from the Hurrians. Then Hurrian tribes were migrated to the destruction of Mittanireiches in the rough Caucasus, and had stayed there mixed with the members of the so-called Koban culture, from the Vainakh had arisen. Statues of gods and kurgans in impassable valleys testify today to the early period of wainachischen culture.
In antiquity and the early Middle Ages the settlement area of the Vainakh became the point of contact of different expanding empires: In the heights of the Kingdom Serir existed in the northern plain ruled by the Alans, who succeeded temporarily, to subdue the Vainakh. The Alans were settled for several centuries and took over elements of wainachischen culture. In addition, the Romans were active in the region, and later the Sassanid Persia, the Arab Caliphate, the Khazars and various nomadic tribes. Over the centuries, the wainachische settlement area in accordance with the changed threat situation: In peaceful times the Vainakh expanded into the plain to the north of the Caucasus, when the war was over, the people retreated into fortified settlements in the mountains. So you occupied an important strategic position, since several trade routes led through the Caucasus.
Starting from the 10th century, the Vainakh were Christianized of Georgia from. In this time next to churches, numerous residential and defensive towers. The Christianization culminated in the 13th century. Shortly thereafter, the Mongols overran the Caucasus, which the Vainakh forcing them to retreat back into the mountains. After the collapse of the Timuridenreiches Vainakh expanded again into the plains. Around this time they were split up in probably Chechens and Ingush. The Chechens developed a tribal society with strong tendencies towards fragmentation. The formation of a common state never succeeded. Only in the 16th century, the Islamization was complete ( see also Islam in Russia).
Later history
- See Chechen History