Chechnya: Life in a War-Torn Society (review)

Abstract

Valery Tishkov, Chechnya: Life in a War-Torn Society (California Series in Public Anthropology). Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2004, 284pp. Ethnic conflicts in the countries of the former Soviet Union have triggered a massive wave of emotional writing by politicians, journalists, and human rights activists. The number of publications and conferences discussing events in the breakaway republic of Chechnya has probably outnumbered those devoted to other hot spots in the territory of the former Soviet Union. Just browsing through the web one will find thousands of websites dealing with the war in Chechnya and related issues. Indeed, the duration and intensity of the conflict, as well as the scope of devastation inflicted on the area, can hardly leave any observer indifferent. But feelings triggered by the conflict served as fertile ground for elaborate myth-making and political manipulation. In addition, ethnic grievances may be difficult to disentangle from political struggle between the center and periphery, competition for control over resources and attempts of the emerging elites to destroy existing sociopolitical and cultural hierarchies. The literature on internal conflicts, especially those that involve violence, is growing rapidly. Some studies focus on the conceptual and theoretical problems related to such conflicts (see, for example, Horowitz 1985; Popov 1992; Stone and Rutledge 2003; Vayrynen 1994), others are concerned with the causes and consequences of violent conflict and strategies enabling their prevention and resolution (see Evans 1993, Montville 1989; Vazquez 1995; Internet Resources on Conflict Management, Prevention and Resolution, www.dec.org/pdf_docs/PNACH194pdf, etc). Still others present case studies focusing on specific areas (see, e.g., Clemens 1991; Spencer 1989; Yamskov 1991). Since the early 1990s, several successor states of the USSR have been on the list of countries haunted by war and violence. Readers of the Anthopological Quarterly are familiar with the works of Western researchers analyzing conflicts in the Caucasus, Trans-Denistria, and Central Asia, but little such writing focuses on Russia, mostly because it is written in the Russian language (see http://wwics.si.edU/subsites/ccpdc/pubs/aklaev/1.htm for a survey of the existing literature by Aklaev). The translation of Russian sources into English is beneficial for the research community as they tend to offer a perspective from within that presents interest whether it is accepted or rejected by the reader. A case in point is Valery Tishkov's book on Chechnya. When emotions are fueled by conflict it is difficult not to take sides and avoid embellishing one party while demonizing the other. Valery Tishkov has made an effort not to fall into this trap and has presented a balanced view of the drama. His book is a result of a long-term and meticulous study of the historical, social and ethnographic antecedents of the conflict and the dynamics of its development. A leading researcher into the problems of ethnicity and ethnic conflicts in the USSR and successor states, Federal Minister of Nationalities in 1992, and a member of the Russian governmental committee trying to work out a peace plan for Chechnya in 1995, Tishkov knows the subject of his study well. The author's primary goal is to present the voices of the participants in the events, whose visions are least of all heard in the course of a conflict, who are least of all responsible for it, but who suffer the most from it. Tishkov follows up on the opinions of these people with his own understandings and facts drawn from a multitude of scientific, historical, statistical, and media sources. This approach, which he defines as ethnography of direct voices, requires systematic fieldwork, an immensely difficult and sometimes impossible task in conflict situations. Tishkov's solution was to conduct interviews with fourteen Chechen intellectuals and public figures in Moscow and elsewhere. …