Clans and tariqahs in Chechnya -1

Traditional Chechen society is going through a difficult process of integration into existing in the 20th-21st centuries, the ethnic and social processes. Transformation, often with heavy outside influence, inevitably destroys and leaves in the past the historic forms of existence of the Chechen people, their most interesting internal communications. "Vestnik Kavkaza" tells about some features of the organization of Chechen (more widely – Vainakh) societies, which will be inevitably lost in the coming century.

The main thing is that the Vainakh people (Chechens, Ingush and Batsbiyets) are distinguished from other North Caucasians and preserved in the 20th century tribal (teip) structure of the organization of the people. The Vainakh genus (teip) was a couple of son's groups called gars (branches of the family, like teip, consisted of only father's-line relatives except their wives - the other members of the teip), who could name his real ancestor and in turn were divided into smaller groups: the family (dozal) and others. Teips were merged into tukhums - military and economic alliances, unrelated by blood but united in a higher association for joint solutions to common problems of protection against enemy attacks and economic exchange.

Despite the domination of men, women had the same laws of succession. Thus, a daughter inherited an equal share with her brother, and their mother - on a par with the children. Only later, with the establishment of Sharia (civil law of Muslims), was the traditional adatny right of Vainakhs transformed into a system, in which the division of the estate heads of the husehiold son was full share of the daughter had a half-share, and his wife - one eighth.

Since the mid-19th century, in connection with the modernization process in Chechnya, the migration of Chechens to the capital and neighboring regions of Russia also attained serious proportions, and the teip Vainakh traditional structure of society began to collapse, leaving a legend and old memories.

Modern scholars, in particular LS-E.Baskhanova, note that teip decomposition and its disappearance as a real social category contributed to:

1)      The growth of internal contradictions and inconsistency as a social institution of the teip in the new socio-economic realities;

2)      The lack of need for the social organizing functions of the teip in connection with emergence of public institutions;

3)      Violation of the principle of the uniform territory of the teip;

4)      Lack of common economic and political interests in various patronymic groups of the teip in connection with the violation of the principle of territorial unity;

5)      The taking on by the patriarchy to itself of the functions determined by features of the national mentality, first of all blood feuds.

The Chechen teip turned from a social organization into a mythological category, into a category of moral order. And as a mythological category, the teip becomes a representation to Chechens of the ideal organization of general equality and justice."

What is the main cause of breaking up such a strong system based on strong moral grounds and blood ties? M.M.Yusupov writes that over the past decade, "the psychology of the ordinary Chechen has radically changed, he isn’t a peasant any more, bound to the land and traditional values," and the impoverished individual who has been already torn from the country and traditional roots, but not yet found a place in the industrial urban environment. In this regard "sociologists note the simplification of the hierarchy of social communications in Chechen society and an archaication of various parties in public relations that poses a serious threat to the development of the Chechen people as a nation."

Meanwhile, recently the process of the post-war restoration of Chechnya is taking place at Stakhanovite rates. The Chechen republic unconditionally is in the lead among the subjects of the North Caucasus Federal District in rates of social and economic development, though this doesn't cancel out the serious problems which have faced the Chechen (as well as previously other North Caucasian) people. And traditional values aren't as doomed as it can seem, looking at the majority of western societies during the industrial and post-industrial era.

The community organizing principle of social life is not only preserved, but the imperative of our time is the recognition of the Jamaat-Canton associations (that is the realities of a rural territorial community). In these associations adatno-sharia courts have to work (courts for common and Muslim law), in which maintaining it is necessary to carry a wide range of the questions concerning the internal life of a community: violation of the rights of women, the family and marriage relations, settling procedures of various disputes, in some cases even connected with murder (procedure of reconciliation of blood revenge)." Today there is more and more talk about the need to maintain standards of conduct dictated by traditional installations.

We should also recall the recent cases of reconciliation of "blood feuds" and warring births in Chechnya and Ingushetia, with the help of the oldest moral authority and the initiative of the heads of the republics.