Dagestan: Russian Hegemony and Islamic Resistance in the North Caucasus

Like other majority Muslim regions of the former Soviet Union, the republic of Dagestan, on Russia's southern frontier, has become contested territory in a hegemonic competition between Moscow and resurgent Islam. In this authoritative book the leading experts on Dagestan provide a path breaking study of this volatile state far from the world's gaze. The largest and most populous of the North Caucasian republics, bordered on the west by Chechnya and on the east by the Caspian Sea, Dagastan is almost completely mountainous. With no majority nationality, the republic developed a distinctive system of calibrated power relations among ethnic groups and with Moscow, a system that has been undermined by the spillover of the wars in Chechnya, Wahhabi and Islamist recruiting efforts targeting youth, and Moscow's reassertion of the 'power vertical'. Underdevelopment, high birthrates, transiting pipelines, and the rising incidence of terrorist violence and assassinations add to the explosive potential of the region. Authors Ware and Kisriev combine analysis of the dynamics of domination and resistance, and the distinctive forms of social organization characteristic of mountain societies that may be applicable to other areas such as Afghanistan. They draw on decades of field research, interviews, and data to offer unique perspective on the civilizational collision course under way in the Caucasus today.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 Murids and Tsars; Chapter 3 Soviet Rule in the North Caucasus; Chapter 4 Democratic Dagestan; Chapter 5 The Islamic Factor; Chapter 6 Conflict and Catharsis; Chapter 7 Russian Recentralization and Islamic Resistance; Chapter 8 Conclusion;

About the Author :
Robert Bruce Ware Since completing his doctorate at Oxford University, Robert Bruce Ware has conducted field research in the North Caucasus, and has authored numerous articles on the region in scholarly and popular publications. He is a professor of philosophy at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville., Enver Kisriev Enver Kisriev, a Dagestani sociologist, is studying the impact made by traditional institutions of Caucasian communities on the nature of modern political processes. With roots in the Lezgin town of Akhty, he was born in 1947 in Makhachkala, where he graduated from the Dagestan State University majoring in history. In 1972–75 he was a postgraduate in sociology at the Russian Academy of Sciences. After graduation he continued his research work in the Department of Sociology of the Dagestan branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1979 he defended his thesis titled “National and International in Ethnic and Cultural Processes in Dagestan.” In 1988 he became director of the department. In 1994–98, he was an adviser to the chairperson of the Dagestani Parliament while simultaneously continuing his research at the Dagestani Academy of Sciences. In 2001, he moved to Moscow to work at the Moscow branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and in 2003 he became head of the Sector for Caucasian Studies at the Center for Civilizational and Regional Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is the author of more than 200 publications.