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Irina BABICH
A leading research associate at the Caucasian branch of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences. Her field of scholarly interest covers the history and ethnography of the North Caucasian peoples; she has participated in numerous field trips to the area and contributed to many conferences inside and outside Russia. She has several academic publications to her name, including Narodnye traditsii v obshchestvennom bytu kabardintsev (Folk Traditions in the Kabardins’ Public Life), Evolutsia pravovoy kul'tury adygov (Evolution of the Adighes’ Legal Culture), Islamskoe vozrozhdenie v sovremennoy Kabardino-Balkarii: perspektivy i posledstvia (Islamic Revival in Kabardino-Balkaria: Prospects and Repercussions), and others.
LOOKING FOR A CONTEMPORARY MOUNTAIN IDEOLOGY IN THE NORTHERN CAUCASUS
A b s
The author attempts to identify the main features of the ideological crisis of the 1990s-early 2000s in the Northern Caucasus; she looks back into the history of the ideology of the mountain peoples based on their national self-awareness, interest in national culture, and respect for historical and ethnic roots, on Islam, the traditional North Caucasian religion revived through the efforts
r a c t
of Russian and foreign Muslims who construe their ideology relying on Islamic rather than ethnic culture, and, finally, on the global mass culture, which attracts many of the local cultural figures who are in opposition to attempts to form a contemporary mountain ideology both by reanimating the rapidly disappearing national traditions and by introducing the Islamic culture.
The social, economic, and political changes that took place in Russia in the 1990s caused deep-cutting changes in the life of all its peoples, the Northern Caucasus being no exception in this respect. During the last two centuries, the North Caucasian mountain peoples have lived through several important modernization periods: the 1860s-1880s was a period of change imposed by the Russian Empire; in the 1920s-1930s they experienced Sovietization of the traditional lifestyle; and the 1950s-1980s were years of double standards when the Khrushchev thaw and its impact weakened the previ-
ously strict control over many aspects of local life and revived at least some of the national traditions. In the 1990s, Soviet ideology and the socialist way of life collapsed across the entire country. When the resultant chaos subsided, the Russian intelligentsia started the long and very slow process of creating the nation’s new identity, laying a new foundation, and forming a new ideology on which a new order and new economy could be built. The quest produced numerous discussions of a so-called national idea by the capital’s intelligentsia. In the Northern Caucasus too, the local intelligentsia (writers, artists, academics), together with local political figures, worked hard to grasp the meaning of the new reality, chart new paths for their peoples, and formulate new mountain ideologies. The process is far from complete.
National Culture
National feelings, nationalism, an interest in national culture, and respect of the local mountain peoples for their historical and ethnic roots served as the obvious and natural mechanism to be employed in creating a new mountain ideology. Early in the 1990s, local ideologists, who can provisionally be described as neo-nationalists, united into so-called national movements extremely popular at the time. There were two movements in Kabardino-Balkaria: the Kabardinian National Congress and the Adighe Khase (the National Council of the Balkar people); in North Ossetia there was first the Alan Nykhas, and later the Styr Nykhas; in Karachaevo-Cherkessia, the Jamagat, etc. On the whole, the problems of the national movements were reduced to efforts to organize state structures on the national-territorial principle. In the first half of the 1990s, so-called national-political self-identification became the call of the times and the main tool of political struggle in the Northern Caucasus. Nearly all the members of the local academic and creative intelligentsia sided with the North Caucasian national movements.
New ethnographic publications (by B. Bgazhnokov, S. Mafedzev, and others) offered mythologized and idealized views of the morals and behavior norms of the mountain-dwellers. Writers concentrated on the key periods in Caucasian history: the Caucasian War and the massive deportations of North Caucasian peoples to Central Asia in 1944 (works by A. Teppeev, Most Siyrat [The Bridge of Siyrat], and Z. Tolgurov, Goluboy tipchak [Blue Sheep’s Fescue] are good examples). Artists, too, were fascinated by their peoples’ past: well-known Balkar artist I. Jankishiev devoted the last 15 years of his creative work to deportation of the Balkars.1
No matter how fascinated they are by the past, the local intelligentsia exert great efforts to reflect the specifics of national cultures, behavior norms, and morals. In his long stories, Konokrad and Nakiakh, S. Mafedzev, a Kabardinian writer and ethnographer, described in detail the traditions of the Adighes. According to culturologist G. Bazieva, the contemporary poetry of the mountain-dwellers of Kabardino-Balkaria concentrates on “creating an integral and harmonious ethnic image able to oppose standardization and uniformity.” (The poetry of Balkar M. Mokaev and the poem Nasynguesh by Kabardin L. Gubzhokov confirm the above.) The ethnographic bias of contemporary lyrical poetry is shown in the very specific way in which folk poetry is used to describe all sorts of family, everyday, and public relations. The same applies to the numerous works by painters of Kabardino-Balkaria I. Jankishiev, R. Tsrimov, A. Margushev, A. Javadov, M. Gorlov, L. Akhmatov, M. Aksirov, Kh. Teppeev, R. Shameev, Iu. Chechenov, and others.2
In the Northern Caucasus, the national movements of the 1990s, undoubtedly being political trends trying to solve primarily political tasks, in particular, modernization of the political system,
1 Personal talk with I. Jankishiev in July 2002.
2 See: G.F. Bazieva, Razvitie natsiolnal'noy khudozhestvennoy kul’tury v Kabardino-Balkarii, Nalchik, 2000; idem, Izobrazitel’noe iskusstvo Kabardino-Balkarii: traditsii i sovremennost, Nalchik, 2004.
could not help but make cultural, mainly national, revival of the peoples an integral part of their political programs and plans after obtaining powerful support from the scientific and creative intelli-gentsia.3 During the activity carried out in the 1990s, much of what they planned was actually put into practice.
One of the important aspects in forming a contemporary ideology of North Caucasian communities based on neo-nationalism was the tradition of revering ancestors and kindred feelings among people. Initiators appeared who strove to unite people according to the kindred principle. Kindred associations began to hold assemblies, meetings, and congresses to which they invited representatives of all the small kindred structures belonging to large families. Consequently, in the Northern Caucasus, so-called associations of people with the same name began to appear prompted by a search for common ancestors. For example, in Kabardino-Balkaria, there is a large association of Kushkhovs, to which more than 800 families (4,000 people) from Kabardino-Balkaria, 700 people from Turkey, and 700 people from Syria, Jordan, and the U.S. belonged.4 In Adigey, there is an association of Shkha-lakhovs (Skhaliakho), and in Karachaevo-Cherkessia, a large Balkar kindred association of Ulba-shevs appeared. Such gatherings of relatives and people with the same name are a powerful tool for forming a new ideology in the Northern Caucasus thanks to the attention the mass media of the North Caucasian republics give these undertakings. Let us emphasize that the contemporary clan structure naturally has historical roots in the traditional kindred community, on the one hand, but this phenomenon is partially new and contains elements of new ethnic self-awareness and new ethnic identity, on the other.
In the 1990s, local historians and regional experts were actively engaged in creating scientific genealogies. Historical-genealogical communities began to form. A. Musukaev, a Kabardino-Balkar historian, noted in an article entitled “Historical Roots and the Significance of Genealogical Memory” that “the tradition of going back to common ancestors has ascertained the real value of kindred ties and succession of the generations for centuries, which is manifested in collectivism, mutual assistance, family solidarity, and the influence of these sentiments on both the economic and everyday life of communities... Since the olden days, the ethical norms of interrelationships in human society have demanded that kinship be preserved, obligations to family members and parents as well as all other close relatives be fulfilled, the younger generation be properly brought up, and universal moral principles be formed and developed.”5
Another characteristic of the neo-nationalism period was use by the local power structures of the traditional system of communal self-government. In some North Caucasian republics, for example, in Adigey, a Law on Khase (Adighe for “gathering”) was adopted. (The Khase is a traditional communal council numbering up to 10-15 people, which acted at the rural level and was comprised of prestigious villagers.) The Khase, along with the local administration, was granted significant powers in resolving most village problems. It can be seen how the public system of power and selection of people from prestigious and well-known families to posts in the bodies of this system has significantly grown and gained in momentum in present-day North Caucasian society. Whereas at the end of the 19th-beginning of the 20th century, the role of kin and age factors when forming the hierarchy of social ranks perceptibly weakened and other values took their place, in particular, personal characteristics,6 by the end of the 20th-beginning of the 21st centuries, the reverse occurred. This metamorphosis can be explained by the years of Soviet power and ideology, which to a significant extent reduced the role of outstanding personal qualities to a mass platitude. Subse-
3 See: Etnopoliticheskaia situatsiia v Kabardino-Balkarii, Compiled and edited by I.L. Babich, Vol. 2, Moscow, 1994, pp. 55, 91, 104.
4 See: M.S. Kushkhov, “Rodovoe ob’edinenie Kushkhovykh,” Elbrus, No. 1, 2000, p. 143.
5 Materialy 2-go mezhdunarodnogo genealogicheskogo kollokviuma, No. 1, 2000, pp. 20-22.
6 For more detail, see: I.L. Babich, Narodnye traditsii v obshchestvennom bytu kabardintsev, Moscow, 1995.
quently though, age and belonging to a strong family once more resumed a prevalent place in the social and public hierarchy.
Despite the fact that national movements obtained significant support from the creative intelligentsia, both the leaders and supporters of these movements were the only real political force at that time in the Northern Caucasus capable of reforming the socioeconomic and political situation in the region’s republics. Nevertheless, they were unable to cope with this task: over time, they essentially left the political arena. Along with them, the creative intelligentsia, whose interests focused on the national cultures, lost their levers of influence.
Islamic Culture
Around the mid-1990s, the local leaders of the Northern Caucasus began looking for new ways both to engage in the political struggle, and to form a new ideology. They chose Islam for this, since it is the traditional religion in this region and was being gradually revived thanks to the efforts of Russian and foreign Muslims. According to the new leaders, “political” support of the national traditions proved inconsequential, due to which many local ideologies preferred to rely not on the national, but on the Islamic culture.
The young Islamic leaders of Adigey, Kabardino-Balkaria, and other republics of the Northern Caucasus, who, in contrast to the first group of “neo-nationalists,” can provisionally be called “Islamists,” viewed the region’s cultural expanse from the viewpoint of contradiction or non-contradiction of the national Caucasian traditions to the Islamic canons and Islamic culture. They carried out a kind of revision of the national components of the Caucasian cultures. And the first thing that aroused their antagonism was the above-mentioned clan structure, since, according to Islamic canons, the kinship factor is not a priority in interrelations within the Islamic commune. The Islamists, on the other hand, focused more attention on family and burial traditions—weddings and funerals.
Bride-kidnapping as a way of entering matrimony is still popular in the Northern Caucasus. This is resorted to when parents are opposed to their children’s choice of partner. Islam rejects this, permitting matrimony only by means of matchmaking. Imams have a negative attitude toward this, and if such couples come to them asking to perform negiakh, they might refuse to carry out the Islamic ritual of matrimony.7 It is interesting that Adighe repatriates who moved back to Adigey in the 1990s from Kosovo preserved the Adighe culture and Adighe morals—adyge habze—in other forms than those practiced among the present-day Adighes of Russia. For example, they do not practice the tradition of bride-kidnapping.8 Drinking alcohol has become an inherent part of everyday life and all celebrations in the Northern Caucasus. Young Muslims try to limit the intake of alcohol. Weddings of young Muslims are celebrated either without alcohol, or a separate table is set up for non-drinking Mus-lims.9 According to the laws of Caucasian hospitality, a toastmaster (tkhamada) is appointed for celebrations. He is the master of ceremony in charge of the feasting, but Islamic regulations do not require such a person.
Young Muslims are not in favor of the Caucasian traditions relating to funerals and wakes (distributing hand-outs, multiple memorial repasts, giving out clothing, and performing namaz at the cemetery, apart from janaza namaz). According to Adighe Muslims, wakes (feasting on the day of funeral and 7-day and 40-day memorial repasts), lamentation on the day of the funeral (only the dua prayer should be read), villagers wearing “Jewish” hats at funerals, as well as transformation of ablu-
7 The author’s field data, Adigey, 2003 (hereinafter—AFD). Notebook 1, Inv. 4, F. 2.
8 AFD, Notebook 1, Inv. 2, F. 2.
9 AFD, Notebook 1, Inv. 1, F. 1.
tion of the deceased into a small business (today, certain people in the auls do this for money) should all be prohibited.10
At present, the mufti of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Republic of Adigey and the Krasnodar Territory and the imam of the cathedral mosque in Maykop visit Adighe auls where they hold meetings of Muslims, at which the villagers are asked not to hold wakes (7-day and 40-day memorial repasts). The rural effendis and imams also promulgate this, striving to set an example. Recently the father of a young deputy imam of an Adighe aul died. During the funeral, the son performed all the appropriate rituals within three days, and then told the villagers there would be no more memorial repasts. The villagers took umbrage, and the mother had to kill a bull, prepare food, and pass it out to the villagers, so that they remembered her husband on the seventh and fortieth day, without her son knowing. The villagers did not take kindly to this innovation by the deceased man’s son.
Young Muslims are trying to change the burial regulations at Adighe cemeteries established during the Soviet era. Until now, the Adighes have retained the practice of burying members of the same family in the same grave and setting up memorials and railings around grave sites. But the situation is gradually changing. For example, in the aul of Takhtamukai, the lineal practice of inhumation is no longer observed: the local effendi does not permit room to be left for burying relatives in the same grave.11 In the aul of Mamkheg, all the railings in the local cemetery have been removed, and the same thing has been done at the Maykop Muslim graveyard.
The Islamic canons are also “violated” by the norms of the mountain adat still practiced. The practice of concealing (protecting) a person who has violated the law (particularly if it is relative) is retained in mountain communities, although harboring a felon is prohibited by Islam. In all North Caucasian communities, the adat tradition of blood feuds is still partially practiced, which can be carried out by any of the victim’s close relatives. But, according to the Shari‘a, a blood feud is only allowed with the permission of the kadi or Shura.
The dance culture is still preserved in the Northern Caucasus, which comprises a wide range of dances and musical instruments. According to the Islamic canons, men and women cannot dance together. For example, young Muslims of Kabardino-Balkaria only permit those dances in which just men participate, accompanied by drums and stunts on horseback. One young man, after he began attending the mosque, was forced to leave the national ensemble he worked in until then. In Adigey, women and men can dance together, but only providing the woman is dressed according to Islamic tradition, that is, in a long dress with long sleeves and wearing a head scarf, and the man dancing with her does not take her by the hand.12 Young Muslims do not recognize national and contemporary national popular music, approving only of listening to Arabic songs (anashids).
Witchcraft and sorcery are still practiced in the Northern Caucasus. Young Muslims are against adults wearing dua amulets, only permitting children to wear them, since they are not yet able to independently perform ablution and namaz, which protect a person without dua. According to North Caucasian traditions, a widow should be in mourning for a year after her husband’s death, whereas according to Islamic rules, she should remarry as soon as possible.
In Kabarda and Balkaria, the tradition of revering elders is still partially practiced, according to which an older man should be greeted first no matter where he is standing (to the right or to the left), and only then the other people. There are other ethical standards in Kabarda and Balkaria with respect to elders. There is no revering of elders in Islamic traditions. According to the tradition of revering elders, older people should be given seats in the front of the mosque, whereas according to Islamic rules, these best places are taken by the people who come to the mosque first. For example, the imam
10 AFD, Notebook 1, Inv. 8, F. 2.
11 AFD, Notebook 1, Inv. 4, F. 2.
12 AFD, Notebook 1, Inv. 1, F. 1.
of Adygeisk, Najmutdin Abaza, points out that inside the mosque, reverence of elders should not be practiced, whereas outside it, this tradition may be preserved.13
Young Muslims are not in favor of keeping the national (Kabardinian and Balkar) dress, preferring to spread the idea of wearing Islamic clothing.
In the Northern Caucasus, the tradition of giving children Islamic names has all but disappeared. In Soviet times, names customary throughout Russia became popular. Mullahs and effendis did not interfere with this. At present, citizens of Kabardino-Balkaria do not have a clear idea of which names are Muslim and which are Kabardinian or Balkar. Young Muslims are trying to revive the tradition of children and those adults who become Muslims being given Islamic names. As soon as a child is brought home from the maternity hospital, the local imam is invited to suggest Islamic names: the name of the Prophet, Abdullah—slave of Allah, Mariam—Jesus’ mother, Asiat—phar-aoh’s wife, a Muslim woman, Fatima and Urkia—daughters of the Prophet, Ali—son-in-law of the Prophet, Hassan and Hussein—grandsons of the Prophet, Zainab—wife of the Prophet. Muslims advise young married couples to give their children Islamic names. In Soviet times, this tradition was partially lost.14
One of the main vectors of the Islamic culture was the development of theatrical art and sporting events. For example, in Kabardino-Balkaria, young Muslims have been performing plays on Islamic themes and holding zikir concerts for the parishioners of their mosques for many years now during the main Muslim holidays of Kurban-bairam and Uraza-bairam. For example, the Muslims of the village of Zolukokoazhe held an Id al-Fitr celebration (breaking the fast) at the stadium, where, in particular, traditional contests were held for schoolchildren, who played such traditional games as “Hanging Red Cheese.” Equestrian contests were organized for adults on the same day. Young Muslims are in favor of certain types of sports (football), while they reject others (figure skating). Parishioners often form football teams and organize games with teams of young non-believers. In 2001-2002, the young Muslims of the Shalushka and Volny Aul villages organized processions during the Kurban-bairam celebration: dressed in felt cloaks and sheepskin hats and carrying Islamic and republic banners, they organized an equestrian and car procession on the main streets of the villages, during which they sang zikirs through loudspeakers. Such celebrations are also held in Adigey: during the Kurban-bairam celebration, a concert was organized in the Maykop Palace of Culture, during which the Islamei ensemble performed zikirs (zichirs) in Arabic and Adighe.15
Young Muslims, taking heed of the trends in cultural globalization, believe mass culture and television to be detrimental. They only accept educational programs about animals and news broadcasts, and are quite indifferent to the national professional culture (literature, and so on).
On the whole, in the Northwestern Caucasus, the local intelligentsia has a negative attitude toward the formation of a contemporary mountain ideology based exclusively on Islam and the Islamic culture. They have organized, particularly in Adigey, numerous debates on the correlation between the Adighe and Islamic cultures, the adat and the Shari‘a. The debate between Muslims and the Adighe intelligentsia was manifested most glaringly in the mass media. It was initiated by the newspaper Adighe Mak, which published at article in September 2003 by M. Bejanov, a researcher at the Adighe Institute of Humanitarian Studies and former advisor of the Committee on Ethnic Issues of the Government of the Republic of Adigey entitled “Adighe Customs and Rituals.” M. Bejanov was categorically against replacing Adighe traditions with Islamic. He was supported by historian Asker Sokht—leader of the republic’s Adighe Khase and publisher of the regional organ Nasha Respublika (the Takhtamukaevskiy Region)—who published an article by R. Gusaruk entitled “Islamism or Adigheism, Which Comes First?” in his newspaper.16
13 AFD, Notebook 1, Inv. 8, F. 2.
14 AFD, Notebook 1, Inv. 7, F. 3.
15 AFD, Notebook 1, Inv. 2, F. 1.
16 R. Gusaruk, “Islamizm ili adygstvo, chto voz’miot verkh?” Nasha Respublika, No. 4, 2001.
There are also supporters of more well-balanced views in favor not of opposition, but of interaction between the Islamic and Adighe cultures. In particular, S. Muskhajiev, Ph.D. (Hist.), a Chechen and member of the Muslim community of Maykop, published an article in Adighe Mak called “Islam i adygstvo: vzaimodeistvie, a ne protivostoianie” (Islam and Adigheism: Interaction, Not Opposition).17 In it the author notes that at present a “chorus of anti-Islamic hysteria” is observed among the Adighe intelligentsia and manifested in the mass media. S. Muskhajiev writes the following: “It is highly erroneous to juxtapose Islam, as a religious teaching and theological precept, against Adigheism, as a traditional ethnic code. Not only are they not antagonistic, on the contrary, they have coexisted, interacted, intertwined, and proven their compatibility for many centuries in Adigey’s heroic and tragic history. The history of the Adighes does not know one instance of a clash or hostility on these grounds. A graphic example of this is the fate of the Kosovo Adighes, who wonderfully combine pure faith in Allah with excellent knowledge of their native tongue.”18
But this is not entirely true. When Islam was spreading throughout the Northwestern Caucasus, conflicts flared up repeatedly among Muslims on the grounds of certain “non-correlations” between the Adighe and Islamic cultures. Islam is constantly modernizing ethnic life. Of course, the Hanafi madhab is the most tolerant toward ethnic cultures, but throughout history there were also disputes between older Muslims, the more conservative generation, and the young reformers in Adighe society during the spread of Islam.19 In particular, the reverence of elders aroused antagonism in the latter even in the past. Krym-Girei, who visited one of the mosques in the Natukhai village of Kudako back in the 19th century, presents some interesting facts: “Believing that the Circassians do not observe reverence of rank as strictly during prayer as they do in everyday life, I stood to the left of some mountain-dweller. The mullah prayed, on his knees, and telling his rosary greeted the angels—Gabriel and Rakhmet—who protect, according to our teaching, from the encroachments of Satan. At this time, he noticed that I was not standing where I should be. The mullah turned to the person next to me with the words: “Sinner! Allah will not accept your prayer if you so brazenly betray the customs of your fathers, as you are betraying them this very minute: you are standing to the right of a person who is too condescending toward you and whom you should re-spect.”20
The revision of national traditions and development of the Islamic culture are not the only ways to form a new Islamic ideology. It is based on the following aspects: 1) organization of a system of Islamic education, 2) organization of propaganda of Islam and Islamic values in general education and sports schools, 3) formation of a contingent of intelligent preachers, and creation of
a mythical history of the practice of Islam and Islamic values in the Northern Caucasus in the 17th-19th centuries.
I would like to go into more detail about this last component of new Islamic ideology, since its role is closely linked to involvement of the local intelligentsia, mainly the humanitarian academic intelligentsia—academic historians. It is important to emphasize that the creative intelligentsia, writers, artists, etc., mainly the older and middle-aged ones, do not support the young Muslims in their striving to create and substantiate an Islamic ideology. But they found a sympathetic response among the academic intelligentsia, primarily the young people of Kabardino-Balkaria. Many young scientists became Muslims, performed hajj to Saudi Arabia, and began actively supporting the leaders of the radical Islamic center of Kabardino-Balkaria—Anzor Astemirov, Musa Mu-kozhev, and others. For example, with the support of V.Kh. Kazharov, D.Sc. (Hist.), head of the history department of the Institute of Humanitarian Studies of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic,
17 AFD, Notebook 1, Inv. 6, F. 4.
18 “Islam i adygstvo: vzaimodeistvie, a ne protivostoianie,” Golos Adyga, 20 October, 2001.
19 For more detail, see: I.L. Babich, A.A. Iarlykapov, Islamskoe vozrozhdenie v sovremennoi Kabardino-Balkarii: perspektivy i posledstviia, Moscow, 2003, pp. 10-66.
20 Krym-Girei, “Putevye zametki,” in: Izbrannye proizvedeniia adygskikh prosvetitelei, Nalchik, 1992, pp. 96-97.
his coworkers (A. Mukozhev and others) are drawing up a new history of Islam in the Northern Caucasus capable of justifying the radical views and substantiating the claims of today’s young Muslims to power.21
According to culturologist G.D. Bazieva, “religion-art-culture-spirituality” form a single chain. The close interrelation among the components of this chain is more evident today. At the beginning of the 1990s, academician D.S. Likhachev wrote: “At present, something extremely important has happened in our spiritual life. No one is juxtaposing culture against religion any more. Culture was born in the womb of religion and has been connected to it for millennia. Culture never grows old and is always fashionable, fashionable in the broad sense of this word, just as beauty is always fashionable. And the culture that lives in religions is fashionable. This is true regardless of whether it is a believing or non-believing person who thinks he is a cultural person.”22 As S.S. Averintsev emphasized, “.. .forms of culture have their logic. It is another matter that people’s convictions also have an impact on forms of culture, whereby this impact may be related to the conscious efforts of the participants in a historical movement, or may happen in hidden, unexpected ways.”23
For example, the Christian culture has no intention of stimulating the aesthetics of a West-East synthesis. “Assimilation of the Middle Eastern literary experience did not ensue from the Christian doctrine as a subjectively cognitive requirement; it ensued precisely from the fact of Christianity as an objective consequence.”24 And whereas during the 1990s, an interrelationship and interdependence did indeed arise between Orthodoxy, culture, and spirituality—all the things that form the new ideology of the Russians (the activity of D.S. Likhachev and S.S. Averintsev25 are a vivid example), it is essentially impossible to say this of Islam. To what extent did the mountain writers or artists address the topic of Islamic revival in their creative work? Based on the example of Kabardino-Balkaria, it can be seen that Islam and the Islamic theme are present in art works in isolated insignificant droplets, and in pictures in isolated symbols of Muslim mythology (the colors white and green, crescent moons, stars), for example, the paintings Muslim Woman and Mythology by I.Kh. Jankishiev, Mystics. Sufi Painting by S.S. Budaev, Prometheus by A.K. Kuliev, Mythical God and Prophets by R.N. Tsrimov, and others.26 It is interesting that among the creative works presented at a literary contest for the best work on Islam and the Muslims of Russia for 2005-2006 held by Ummah publishers, there were very few works from the North Caucasian republics.
Cultural Globalization
The main problem encountered by both national and Islamic leaders during the 1990s was the rapidly encroaching globalization era, including the era of cultural globalization, which greatly hinders the formation of any contemporary mountain (national, religious) ideology. The local creative intelligentsia—writers and artists who can provisionally be called “globalists”— are playing an important role in this process. They are more insistent than other representatives of the Caucasian intelligentsia in their opposition to attempts to form a contemporary mountain ideology both by reanimating the rapidly disappearing national traditions and by introducing the Islamic culture.
We will note that official cultural and ideological policy, which is being created in the depths of the republican Ministries of Culture, is usually aimed at retaining and using historical-cultural herit-
21 See: Istoricheskiy vestnik, No. 1, 2005.
22 F.S. Likhachev, “Narod dolzhen imet svoi sviatyni,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 11 April, 1990.
23 S.S. Averintsev, Poetika rannevizantiyskoy literatury, Moscow, 1977, p. 244.
24 Ibid., p. 245.
25 S.S. Averintsev’s television programs can be mentioned, where he reads his own poems on the Orthodox theme.
26 See: G.F. Bazieva, Razvitie...; G.F. Bazieva, Izobrazitelnoe.
age and developing both folk and professional national art. This is shown, for example, by the cultural development program of the Ministry of Culture of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic for 20022006.27 All the same, the cultural development programs drawn up by the republican Ministries of Culture do not include most of the components of the cultural expanse, since the mass media, creative unions, and so on are not subordinated to these departments.
One of the reasons for this situation is the separation in the 1990s (in particular in Kabardino-Balkaria) of creative Unions of Artists and Writers from the republican Ministry of Culture. They acquired both financial and political-ideological independence, which of course is a positive thing, on the one hand, keeping in mind the many years of Soviet ideological pressure, but the local creative intelligentsia have found themselves segregated from the formation of a contemporary mountain ideology, on the other. They have been left on the sidelines of contemporary life.28 So in reality, the cultural expanse and formation of a contemporary mountain ideology in the North Caucasian republics largely remains beyond the attention of the republican departments and is occurring spontaneously.
The mass media in the Northern Caucasus are extremely conservative and mainly engage in propaganda in the spirit of the Soviet ideology of mountain traditions and national cultures. For example, there is republican TV in Kabardino-Balkaria, which was created in 1957 and has federal financial subordination. It has four hours and 12 minutes of air time a day (1,195 hours a year). Broadcasting is carried out in three languages and so there are three departments at the television station: Kabardian, Balkar, and Russian.29 The television station has six editorial boards: for art, information, social-political, socioeconomic, interregional, and children’s programs. Among the broadcasts are many programs on national topics: “Roots and Shoots”—on common ancestors of the Kabardins and Balkars, “The Warmth of the Home Hearth”—on national-cultural centers, as well as “The Creation of the Universe and Appearance of the First Beings as Seen by the Adighes” (author of the program is historian A.A. Tsipinov).30
What is more, republican television deliberately pays very little attention to the Islamic revival processes. According to the report of the editor-in-chief of social-political programs, A. Kardanov, the first programs on Islam, which mainly told about the opening of new mosques in population settlements, started appearing on republican television at the beginning of the 1990s. Later the heads of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic initiated the creation of a series of educational programs about Islam in the Kabardian and Balkar languages, during which information about religious holidays was relayed and surahs from the Quran were read. Republican television, supporting the initiative of the SAM KBR, unsuccessfully tried to involve representatives of the local intelligentsia as well as of the Adighe and Turkic diaspora of the Middle East in this work.31 The North Caucasian mountain-dwellers, like all other Russians, generally prefer Russian national television—serials, films, thrillers. According to our information sources, this kind of television is having a serious impact on the behavior of the growing generation and canceling the role Caucasian traditions play in upbringing.32
There is a variety of cultural foundations in the republics. For example, the Cultural Foundation of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic headed by film producer Vladimir Vorokov is in active operation, which primarily focuses on reviving the traditional foundations of culture and on promulgating modern art. In this respect, a Center of Aesthetic Upbringing was formed, with the direct participation of which 95 game and theater studios functioning in different national languages were opened and
27 Author’s data (AD), 2002, Kabardino-Balkaria, Notebook 3, Inv. 1, F. 3.
28 AD, Notebook 3, Inv. 1, F. 5.
29 AD, Notebook 3, Inv. 1, F. 1.
30 AD, Notebook 3, Inv. 1, F. 1; Notebook 1, Inv. 1, F. 10.
31 AD, Notebook 3, Inv. 1, F. 8.
32 AD, Notebook 1, Inv. 1, F. 10, 17, 20.
wind orchestras and decorative-applied art and national dance studios created in the republic’s kindergartens and secondary schools. The cultural foundation organizes regional study expeditions, during which data is gathered about the art of the peoples of Kabardino-Balkaria. Based on the results of the expeditions, documental television films are made about disappearing monuments of culture, the performers of folk songs, and the masters of folk and professional art, which are successfully shown by the television and radio company of the NOTR cultural foundation. This television channel broadcasts such television programs as “Rakurs” (Special View), “Kunatskaia,” “Look at the Face,” and “Dubl-2” (Take-2), devoted to various issues of history, culture, and art of Kabardino-Balkaria.33
Against this background, representatives of the local intelligentsia—“globalists”—uphold the right of cultural globalization to exist and inevitably win. For example, during personal conversations with the author of this article, Ruslan Tsrimov,34 a prominent and major artist of the republic, emphasized that contemporary Kabardinian artists should not engage in the revival of national cultures at all, and of the Kabardinian culture, in particular. He related how he studied the Adighe Nart epos for a long time and “went through a period of interest” in the national culture, as a result of which he understood that the Adighe culture has long been in crisis and its fall is an inevitable and natural process. In his previous interviews, R. Tsrimov said: “I belong to the Kabardinian people, I am a Kabardin, and what I do is of course rooted in that culture, in those ideas of culture which exist in the Kabardinian world, but with my head I am connected to the whole world, beginning with Africa and ending with China and Japan.”35
On the other hand, R. Tsrimov pays too little attention to Islam. In his opinion, Islam and the Islamic culture can in no way have a strong enough influence on the formation of a contemporary mountain ideology, primarily due to their historical weakness in the Northwestern Caucasus.
Finally, in R. Tsrimov’s opinion, professional culture is not capable at all of forming a contemporary mountain identity and contemporary mountain ideology. He believes that ethnic chaos is currently apparent not only in Kabardino-Balkaria, but also throughout the entire Northern Caucasus, and that the era of cultural and ideological globalization is essentially unavoidable.36 The artist is also supported by Kabardinian writer Boris Kagermazov.37 During personal conversations with the present author, he admitted that there has been a significant drop in readers’ interest in professional culture (both Kabardinian, and Balkar) in general, and in literature, in particular. He also noted a weakening in the influence and role of the creative intelligentsia in forming a social ideology. The works of national writers are only read in school. Adult Kabardins and Balkars essentially do not read national fiction in their native languages; at best they read their translations in Rus-sian.38 At present, national literature really cannot compete with the mass literature that is popular throughout Russia, for example, the book Kremlyovskie zhyony (Kremlin Wives).39 So the slump in local art culture, according to B. Kagermazov, should be accepted calmly as part of a natural and inevitable process.
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An analysis of the three main components of the present cultural expanse—national, Islamic, and global—using the example of the life of the North Caucasian peoples shows that in the context given above, mountain cultures are essentially defenseless against the onslaught of cultural globaliza-
33 See: G.F. Bazieva, Razvitie...
34 See: A Kabardin, born in 1952, member of the Union of Artists of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic.
35 R.N. Tsrimov, “Popytka byt samim soboy,” Kultura, 7 October, 1995.
36 Personal conversation with Ruslan Tsrimov, July 2002.
37 See: A Kabardin, born in 1940, member of the Union of Writers of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic.
38 AD, Notebook 1, Inv. 1, F. 7, 23.
39 AD, Notebook 3, Inv. 1, F. 2.
tion and the formation of a consumer society if they do not have any sort of contemporary ideology. On the one hand, not only is it impossible to form a contemporary mountain ideology based on the national factor alone, but nor was this factor able to play a significant role in activating national movements during the first half of the 1990s. And on the other, Islamic values cannot be forcefully introduced into the mountain communities, no matter how much young people, the most radical leaders of the Northern Caucasus, would like this. The local creative and academic intelligentsia, who are mainly from the older and middle-aged generations, largely lost their high standing in society and reputation as legislators of public morals during the 1990s. And the younger generation has totally lost its reference points, some of whom have gone over to Islam. Nevertheless, we should not lose heart and be pessimistic about this process. The local creative and academic intelligentsia, despite all the con-tradictoriness of their interests, including political, are capable of becoming more actively involved in creating a present-day multi-cultural expanse in which a contemporary mountain ideology will also take shape as a tool in the successful search for national (and religious) self-preservation in the globalizing world.
