PERSPECTIVES: Empires - faded and fading (08/24/03)

PERSPECTIVES

by Andrew Fedynsky

Empires - faded and fading

"Osterreich war gross, damals" - Austria was great, back then. I heard that phrase a lot in 1967 at the University of Innsbruck, as older Austrian citizens, nostalgic for the Hapsburg Empire, would wistfully remind themselves of the glory that was once theirs. Indeed, the country's myriad palaces, cathedrals, opera houses, boulevards and monuments speak eloquently to Austria's greatness, back then.

Memories of these sentiments come to mind as I try to make sense of the deepening tragedy in Chechnya, where another empire desperately clings to an eroding sense of glory, sowing suffering and death, and reaping an equivalent harvest of tears. As I write this in the first week of August, clean-up crews in Mozdok in the mountainous region of North Ossetia pick through the wreckage of a Russian military hospital where 50 soldiers, nurses and other hospital workers died in a suicide bombing, the latest in a series of at least half a dozen since May.

Many of these attacks have been carried out by women, so-called "Black Widows," named both for the black hijabs that cover their faces and for their status as widows, orphans or mothers of slain Chechen guerrillas. In July at a rock concert in Moscow, for example, two Chechen women - one only 20 years old - blew themselves up 15-minutes apart at the concert entrance, killing 15 people and wounding 53. An attack on a military bus in May also involved a female suicide bomber; 17 people died.

Last October, in a spectacular assault in a Moscow theater, 41 terrorists (or if you prefer, freedom fighters) - half of them women - took almost 800 people hostage, demanding the end of the war on Chechnya. After a standoff of several days, Russian authorities flooded the building with lethal gas, killing both terrorists and hostages.

Why are such dreadful things happening? As you would expect, there are deep-seated causes. Chechens are citizens of the Russian Federation, but they're not Russian. In 1816 Gen. Alexey Ermolov invaded Chechnya, then a wild frontier region in the Caucasus. There he built Fort Grozny (Fort Terror), along with other military outposts. Resisting these incursions, the native population fought fiercely, much to Gen. Ermelov's dismay. Chechens, he observed, had "an excessive love of independence." It cost tens of thousands of soldiers' lives - many more to disease than to combat - but ultimately Russia prevailed and in 1859 Chechnya was annexed by the Empire.

Among those who sympathized with the Chechen struggle was Ukraine's Taras Shevchenko. In his 1845 poem "The Caucusus," he compared the people there to Prometheus, shackled to a cliff on Mount Elbrus where, according to myth, an eagle rips his guts each day for defying the gods and every day, he is reborn in an eternal cycle of punishment and defiance. Excerpts from the poem are chiselled into the pedestal of the Shevchenko statue in Washington, in a way making it a monument to Chechnya's independence struggle, as well as Ukraine's.

In 1919, after the demise of the Russian Empire, the Chechens declared independence, only to be pulled into the Soviet Union by force of arms. In the 1930s, still defiant and still suffering from an "excessive love of independence," Chechens endured mass arrests and executions. Less than a decade later, Stalin accused them of collaborating with the Nazis and ordered the deportation of the entire nation - nearly half a million people. A third to a half are estimated to have died within the year. Only in 1957 were Chechens allowed to return from exile. Small wonder that they again declared their independence when another Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, was dissolving in 1991.

Tragically, Moscow refused to recognize Chechnya, and late in 1994 President Boris Yeltsin launched a full-scale invasion. The capital city, Grozny, was carpet-bombed, killing tens of thousands of civilians and driving hundreds of thousands into exile. When Russian troops took the city early in 1995, it was utterly destroyed. A puppet government was installed and Russian troops were stationed in the area, where they remain to this day - demoralized and undisciplined, routinely committing atrocities and routinely subjected to suicide bombings, sniper attacks and booby traps. There's no end in sight to the horror.

Looking at the Chechens' tragic history, it's easy to understand their hatred, their desperation and, while condemning their methods, to sympathize with their cause. On the other hand, it's impossible to sympathize with Russia or to accept their brutal tactics. To be sure, a major oil pipeline runs through Chechnya, carrying oil from fields in Baku on the Caspian Sea and Chechnya toward the West with a major Chechen oil refinery along this route. But Russia with its vast oil industry could easily secure economic benefits from this conduit through normal commercial transactions that would far outweigh what she loses in this shameful, pitiless struggle. Sadly, however, it's not about money. It's worse - it's about saving face.

Russia is not a single nation. Instead, it's a pastiche of 21 republics (including Chechnya), 49 oblasts, 10 autonomous okrugs, six krays, two federal cities and one autonomous oblast - hence the designation, Russian Federation. "Way back then," Russia also included Ukraine ("Little Russia"), the Baltic states, several Central Asian Republics and half a dozen "satellite" countries like Poland, Hungary and Czecho-Slovakia. Losing all this was a heavy blow to Russia's collective ego and self-esteem. And now the Chechens want out, but Russia, with all its palaces, parade grounds and imperial memories, clings to Chechnya at all costs, fearing that whatever is left of its flimsy imperial garment will unravel if they allow the Chechens to secede. So the bloodshed, bombing and heartbreak continue to no avail.

Until recently, Ukrainians asked the world to speak out against the outrage that Moscow was perpetrating against them. Now, the Soviet Union is gone, but pockets of Russian colonialism remain. Today, what's happening with Chechnya is just as wrong as it was when Shevchenko wrote his poem 160 years ago. It's time we spoke out. I've never personally peered into Vladimir Putin's soul to see how good it might be, but from where I sit what he's doing to the Chechens is evil and the U.S. should not be afraid to say so.

"Back then," Austria truly was great, but having lived there more recently, I can tell you that now as a republic, it's a wonderful place. Russia could be too.

Andrew Fedynsky's e-mail address is: [email protected].

| Home Page |