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of the ideological link of the Russian statehood, a significant and natural element of traditional Eurasian civilization. The re-grouping of the elite clans in Dagestan instead of expected change of elites provoked acceleration of transformation of the anti-Russian underground, having allowed it to integrate in the system of power under more advantageous conditions. One should not forget that the open and directly alien "wahhabism" in Russia is being replaced by a new "virus" of extremism, which is ideologically more adapted to mentality of the peoples in the North Caucasus and which has mastered mimicry for some time and is able to penetrate the state system and society.
"Severny Kavkaz v sovremennoi politike Rossii", Makhachkala, 2009, p. 231-243.
V. Chernous,
candidate of political sciences, professor (Rostovskaya region) THE CIVILIZATION-CULTURAL DIALOGUE IN THE CAUCASUS - THE BASIS OF REGIONAL STABILITY
The problem of stability and security in the Caucasus and in the south of Russia is one of the most complicated and acute problems in the Russian Federation. Many authors try to comprehend and to explain it by means of methodological, precisely speaking ideological "clash of civilizations" construction, introduced in scientific discussion by S. Huntington. This is the basis of the myth, widely spread in western and partly in national literature, on incompatibility of the Caucasian peoples' traditional culture with modernization and the modern democratic system. It is justified by the alarmist picture, constructed on
absolute meaning of terrorism and extremism, which hinders to seethe dominant of the all-Russian co-citizenship, the mutual cultural germination of Russia's peoples, determining the all-Russian identity.
Meanwhile, the complex approach to history and contemporary social life in the Caucasus and in the south of Russia demonstrates dominance of constructive, peaceful mutual relations of the region's peoples over marginal separatist, extremist and terrorist phenomena (without lessening their social danger). The author defends the constructive dialogue, precisely multilingual contacts, of civilizations and cultures in the Russian Caucasus, which lets understand historic and contemporary processes without glossing over the truth, on the one side, and without calling forth demons, on the other side. In this context, the North Caucasus since ancient times, since the period of the modern man and the race formation has been the space of the dialogue of civilizations, religions, ethnic cultures, traditions and innovations, other institutions of social life.
The contemporary society in the North Caucasus is the result of many centuries social process of contacts, which goes on now and is the pledge of development of peoples and polities of the region. The local autochthon peoples (the Caucasian type of the South-European sub-race of the Great European race - the bearers of Nacho-Dagestani and Abhaz-Adyg pre-languages of the North Caucasian language group) kept constant mutual action with each other. Since the first half of the millennium B.C. the peoples of the Iranian language (Scyths, further Sarmats and Alans) were involved in this process. They became a part of ethnic and social-cultural history of actually all contemporary peoples of the region, particularly of Ossetians-direct successors of the ancient Indo-Europeans of the Caucasus. Since the middle of the first millennium A.D., the Turkic nomads (Huns, Bulgarians, Khazars, later Pechenegs and Polovts) plaid a great role in transformation of ethnic-
cultural and demographic image of the North Caucasus. Their heritage is seen in anthropology, languages and culture of contemporary peoples of the region, particularly of Turkic language peoples - Karachai-Balkarians, Kumyks. The period of the Mongol dominance in Eurasia (XII-XV centuries) also left traces in history of the region.
As a result, the North Caucasus is characterized by the racial diversity with coexistence of various anthropologic types of the South-European race: the Near Eastern type (Abkhaz, Armenians), the Caspian type (Azerbaijanis, Kyrds, Alysh and others), the Pontic type (Balkars, Ingushis, Kabardis, Karachais, Ossetians, Chechens and others). Besides, the Eastern-European type of the Great European race (the Slave peoples) and the Central Asian anthropologic type (Kumyks, Nogais) are represented in the North Caucasus.
The language picture of the North Caucasus is more complicated but organic and mutually penetrated: the North Caucasian family (Nakho-Dagestani and Abkhaz-Adyg groups) of the Sino-Caucasian Macro-Family of languages; the Indo-European languages (Russian and other Slavonic languages, Armenian, Ossetian, Tatar, Kurdish and other languages), the Turkic languages (Karachai-Balkarian, Kumyk, Nogai), the Mongolian language (Kalmyk).
The dialogue in the sacral sphere resulted in the phenomenon of religious syncretism, characteristic for most autochthon peoples of the region: since the first centuries A.D. various local beliefs were subject to influence of Judaism, further of Eastern Christianity; since the VII century the long period of influence of Islam started there. It is impossible to understand the present religious situation, the particularities of religious consciousness of the peoples in the North Caucasus without due account of complicated mutual penetration of these religious systems.
Since the times of Kiev Russia, particularly since the XVI century this multilateral dialogue of civilizations and cultures included Eastern Slavonic peoples (Russians). Till the end of the XVIII -beginning of the XIX century, this cultural exchange process was dominated by the Eastern channel, which translated to the North Caucasus the experience of two great social-cultural systems of Islam -the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Empire, having impact on all spheres of social life of the peoples in the region. The Caucasian mountains' civilization was not the object but the subject of this reciprocal action.
Following the North Caucasus' joining the Russian Empire (the end of the XVIII century-the year of 1864) the Eastern channel was ousted by the Russian channel, which started to play the role of translator of modernization processes in the region. The North Caucasus acquired via Russia all modern forms of professional culture and arts, positive law, the model of existence on the limited territory of coexistence of Orthodoxy, Islam and Buddhism. The system of distribution of spheres of Russian law, shariat and common law functioning was fixed in the legal sphere of the Empire. By the beginning of the XX century, despite inevitable contradictions and conflicts, the region as a whole organically integrated in the social-cultural system of the Empire.
The revolution of 1917 and the civil war nearly demolished integrity of Russia in its southern boundaries, while the socialist experiment resulted in both great achievements and losses of many achievements in social-cultural dialogue of the previous period. The religious culture, including constructive coexistence of confessions without proselytism on the historic territories of each other, was lost. The experience of combination of different legal systems in the statelegal relations was abandoned.
Nevertheless, preservation of the dominant role of Russian culture, in spite of Soviet ideological prevalence, via dialogue of cultures on the basis of Cyrillic alphabet and general literacy allowed establishing the contemporary structure of economy, science and education. The Russian language not simply replaced Kumyk (Turkic) as the language of inter-national intercourse but also extended considerably the space of the language dialogue in mutual action of cultures in the North Caucasus, became the channel of their involvement in world culture. By the 1990s, the North Caucasus was transformed into the highly developed social-cultural region.
In the end of 1980s-the beginning of the 1990s, the crisis of socialist ideology as a world outlook basis of systemic integrity of meta-national common character of the Soviet people and its culture resulted in fragmentation of the post-Soviet cultural space, which becomes a mosaic, multilateral entity, composed from different types of various cultural systems. Under conditions of the crisis and modernization processes, the significance of traditional forms of culture of the North Caucasus' peoples was raised. They were engaged in contradictory reciprocal action with other forms of traditional culture and modernism, Russian culture and culture of the North Caucasus' peoples; the contemporary inter-cultural communication is ambivalent, and it is characterized by various vectors and is not reduced to opposition or synthesis.
For the first decade of the XXI century, the dialogue forms of mutual actions as the basis of re-integration of social-political and cultural space were restored. As a consequence of this phenomenon, the conflict of ethnic-confessional identities was weakened, while gradual consolidation of Russian civil identity took place. Such social choice is able to restore the forming for the last two centuries systemic unity of
the North Caucasian culture and its synthesis with Russian culture, with rebirth of the Russian civilization model.
The Russian cultural tradition never set as its task the full assimilation of peoples of Russia, which keep originality of their traditions and cultures, moral standards. For two centuries, the development objectively made peoples of the North Caucasus live closer to each other, transformed the North Caucasus into an integral and advanced part of the civilization-cultural space of Russia. Just Russian culture, in reciprocal action with ethnic traditional cultures, strengthens the common character of the North Caucasian culture and peoples of the region.
The irreversibility of integration processes is determined by the spiritual and moral transformation of Russia, based on the inter-confessional and internal confessional dialogue. Its most significant subjects are Russian Orthodox Church and Islam as traditional religion in the south of Russia. The fast religious renaissance as a response to the crisis of value and moral system of the Soviet society emerged and to some extent continues to develop under conditions of the lost religious culture as a result of the prolonged administrative almost complete monopoly of atheism. As a result, the confessions in Russia confront the problem of conflicts, radically interpreting some religious dogmas without due account of a rich theological experience. Nevertheless, in all subjects of the RF in the South the Orthodox Eparchies maintain tolerant and constructive relations with Spiritual Departments of Muslims. The joint declarations and actions, which disapprove extremism, terrorism, attempts to stir up inter-national and inter-confessional tense relations, are well known. The other question is that it would be desirable to make these relations more efficient and systemic. The restoration of spirituality and morality will be impossible without it.
The imperative of the efficient dialogue between Orthodoxy and Islam in Russia is overcoming the internal Islamic contradictions, which is connected with radicalization of some religious groups and active use of pseudo-Islamic rhetoric by extremist and criminal groups. At the same time, on should not forget that dissemination of Islam in the region for the period of the 1990s was going on under the impact of a number of geopolitical, internal social-economic and ideological factors. The determining ones were the internal factors - the systemic crisis, de-modernization of economy, the lack of distinct policy of the federal center in the Caucasus, corruption of authorities, the absence of any social prospect etc. At the same time, one should not underestimate also the external factor. After disintegration of the USSR the North Caucasus turned out to become a border region. Actually, 38 states, leading international organizations and transnational companies made declarations about their interest in this significant military-strategic region with transport routs and energy communications.
A.V. Malashenko and other experts consistently deny the chance for dialogue between religions. It seems that it is true, if it concerns dogmas of mono-theistic religions. The recognition of some other religion or confession as an equal participant of the dialogue would mean for religious consciousness the start of apostasy. Therefore the ecumenical projects, construction of a united world religion are doomed only to a partial success and lack popularity in Russia. Nevertheless, in the long historic perspective some syncretic forms of religions may be shaped (Islam, professed by the peoples in the North Caucasus with elements of paganism and Christianity, is an example of it).
The subject of dialogue, more precisely of discussion among several participants, in the confessional space may be devoted to social issues. In this case, the subject of such discussion, like confessions, should be the state and institutions of civil society. These subjects may
be as follows: the social doctrines of confessions (the social doctrines of Orthodoxy and Islam are characterized by close, non-concurred positions and also the positions, which contradict liberal perception of human rights); the problem of introduction of the courses of basics of religious (Orthodox, Muslim, Buddhist and others) cultures. The problem is being acutely and differently perceived by society, but it is very important. One of the factors of dissemination of religious radicalism and extremism is the low level of religious culture. Besides, is it possible adequately to understand folklore, classic Russian culture without knowledge of basics of Orthodox culture or to bring back morality in the sphere of contemporary Russia outside without religion? Therefore not only confessions but also the state and society are interested in raising the level of religious culture, taking into account the consequences of atheist decades. The discussions may be devoted to the substance of the courses, forms of education etc., including as follows: counteraction against ethnic-religious terrorism and extremism, using the accumulated experience; ensuring the situation, when servicemen-believers may satisfy their spiritual needs. These and other problems may be interpreted and comprehended in a different way. Therefore it is significant to ensure such discussion.
The correct accusations of some religious figures in hypocrisy, displayed by them in settlement of important spiritual and social problems, in the attempts to use them in their own private interests, are often made public. But in the course of reciprocal action of the confessions, of the authorities and of society, actually officials and liberals do not play the hypocrite, rejecting also Russian traditional religions like also the adepts of the last liberals? But it may not be a justification to refuse to take part in such discussion, the more so, as this discussion will go on spontaneously with the not predicted results. But the attempt to push religions into the reservation or to make them
marginal will lead to the most probable outcome: rise of extremism on the religious basis.
At the same time, by the middle of the 1990s, when the federal center was losing the real political control over regions, in the subjects of the Federation there consolidated the bureaucratic authoritarian ethnic regimes, which came forward on behalf of title ethnic population of the republics. They concluded a kind of "social contract" with the federal center. The ethnic bureaucratic circles suppressed the extreme forms of ethnic nationalism (both of "indigenous peoples" and the Russian Cossacks), forced to go underground radical "Islamist" movements. Simultaneously, they relied on support of DUM, defended the constructive and peaceful traditional Islam, and stressed the Christian-Muslim character of the Russian state. The federal center did not interfere in affairs of ethnic bureaucratic regimes and oriented to the support of functional stability.
The ethnic bureaucratic regime plaid the positive role in freezing separatist trends but turned to be quite inefficient in the economic sphere, in its ability to modernize, being subject to corruption. The lack of social-economic perspective, the great gap in incomes promoted radicalization of the population, particularly of the youth. The federal and regional authorities, DUM turned to be unprepared to the ideological counteraction against pseudo-Islamic radicals, laying main emphasis on administrative prohibition of "wahhabies" activities in the republics, which actually resulted in police methods of suppression of their legal forms of activities. At the same time, actually in all republics there appeared underground societies ("jamaats") of extremists, using Islamic rhetoric and radical criticism of existing crisis, inefficiency and corruption of the authorities.
On the eve of the XXI century, two expert appraisals prevailed in public opinion: certain idealization of traditional Islam and demoniac
estimation of "wahhabism" as a pseudo-Islamic extremism. The recurrences of such approach take place usually in connection with big terrorist acts (Beslan, Nalchik), but a more balanced and differentiated approach has been fixed, which does not ignore a chance of extremist acts under the influence of politicization in the circumstances of crisis processes both among Salafits and traditionalists and even modernists in Islam.
Summing up, it should be admitted that the Islamic factor is not the dominant one either in aggravation of inter-ethnic relations or in the peace making process, although in the last case the capacity of Islamic umma is used insignificantly. The Islamic umma in the North Caucasus is fragmented not only within the borders of the subjects of the Federation but also according to various trends, tarikats, virds (in the North-Eastern Caucasus), which tells on inclusion of Islam in ethnic identity of local peoples and ethnic groups. The Coordinating Council of DUM of the North Caucasus is unable to overcome this differentiation. As less perspective in this respect are considered to be the unified efforts exerted for the sake of "Arabization" of local Islam or its modernization directed to de-construction of traditional Islamic institutions, while the latter approach started to gain influence recently.
Thus, the multilateral discussion of confessions, to the author's mind, in the South of Russia is needed and is possible. The social sphere is subject to this discussion, but there are many other complicated issues, which correspond to the interests and values of the subjects of the RF. The conditions of the constructive (and not conflicting) discussion should be the repudiation from discussion of dogmas, since each religion and confession has its logic, the space with different symbol, sign and language. The democratic state and civil society in order to avoid conflicts may by means of discussion with confessions render assistance to find their place in the social space.
Unlike the West, which tries now to put away the external attributes of religiousness (hijab, cross etc.) with the hope to lessen pretexts for inter-religious animosity, the Russian Empire possessed experience in education of the population in the spirit of natural tolerant perception of religious symbols of different peoples. In the XX century Russia lost these traditions, but they seem to be most perspective traditions from the point of view of maintenance of the inter-religious peace under conditions of religious renaissance.
Side by side with solving economic problems, raising efficiency of state governance, the actualization of the civilization-cultural multinational discussion is the condition for successful re-integration of the South of Russia, for liquidation of social evils and normalization of inter-state relations in the Southern Caucasus.
"Kavkazskaya tsivilizatsiya: istoricheskoe i kulturnoe nasledie narodov Yuga Rossii", Magas, 2009, p. 140-150.
P. Karabushenko,
political scientist (the city of Astrakhan) THE ELITES AND ETHNIC CONFLICTS IN THE GEOPOLITICAL SPACE OF "THE GREAT CASPIAN REGION"
The region, situated in the center of Eurasia, is axial not only in geo-geographical but also cultural-historic and political terms. The Eurasian geopolitical ax goes on in the direction of the territory between the rivers Volga-Ural, the Caspian Sea and further the Persian Gulf. Consequently, the three zones exist in there: the north (Volga), the center (the Caspian region) and the south (the Persian Gulf). The countries, which are situated there, were always in the center of geopolitical attention, since history determined for them the role of
