Biography Biography

Today, few have an idea of ​​what the former courageous opponents of the Georgian highlanders were. But the Pankisian crisis made the Cystintsy lost in the distant Kakheti gorge-the “half-agrazov-Pond”, living in the Akhmetsky district over the past two centuries-known to the whole world. It was there that I conducted my study in the year. The purpose of my study was to clarify what happened to the Kistinsk identity under the influence of radical public changes over the past two decades.

In the Pankisian gorge, I conducted my observations, talked with local residents, and I took a biographical interview. For analysis, ten interviews were used - five female and five male. The question of ethnic identity in the Pankisi gorge is jointly living by Dys, Ossetians, Georgian regional groups Pshava, Tsov-Tushinsky, Kakhetians. Serious changes have occurred from the beginning of the war in Chechnya, when Chechens refugees penetrated the Pankis gorge.

Ethnicity is constructed on elements that strengthen community: culture, historical experience, idea of ​​general origin. All these concepts are ambiguous from a scientific point of view, however, in the minds of people are present as objective and therefore have real consequences. Based on the work of Max Weber, [1] representatives of the constructivist approach indicate the significance of the faith divided by members of the Society in the General origin.

Researchers, starting with Frederick Bart, emphasize the importance of function and meaning, and not the fact of the existence of cultural features. It is important that there are “in reality” certain properties, but that the actors themselves consider them significant. The collective identity developed in institutional nuclei is based on the so -called “ethnic code”. In the text, I tried to highlight the main topics that arose in conversations with informants and which turned out to be related to the transformation of the Cyristry identity.

The study showed to be a cystic that the preservation of the Castine identity is called into question today. For two centuries, the Dys lived in the Pankisian gorge in a small territory. Being a fairly closed community, they strictly supported traditional customs and lived in adat. In Soviet passports, the “brick” was listed in the corresponding column, although the names were typically Georgian endings.

True, before the beginning of the 10th, the process of labor migration was quite sluggish. Migrants-vicinates easily integrated into a related Vainakh society, and in the Pankisian gorge began to spread, so far only in the form of rumors, information about common roots and language. In years, labor migration in Chechnya intensified. Despite the surnames sounding in Georgian, the similarity with the Vainakh society became more and more significant.

Most of my informants also went to work in Chechnya and Ingushetia. They brought new information to the gorge: “I learned from my father [about Chechen roots]. My father worked in the store and often went to Chechnya. After these trips, he told me about them, about the Chechens - who they are and how they live. I heard, but I have not seen with my own eyes. ”Tariel, 25 years old.

During this period, information about the “unified origin” has not yet been influenced by the Castin identity. It was hardly a person who visited there, and it was like a hearing ”Nana, 37 years old. However, after increasing migration from the gorge, the situation has radically changed. As Nana notes: “Today everyone knows that they are Chechens, that their homeland is Chechnya. Then it was not.

After the transition [there], having lived there, people were convinced that they were really Chechens. This fact of years as they realized in the mass, for example, I did not know this [before]. " In addition to the migration, which caused great changes in the self -perception of the Directs, the arrival in the gorge of Chechen refugees played a huge role. The appearance of Chechens in the Pankisian gorge caused a crisis of the Cyristry identity.

I will give typical statements.

I know that I am Chechen, [but] I do not distinguish, sometimes I consider myself a Georgian ”Nana, 37 years old. I was a little disappointed, because I considered myself a Georgian and when I found out that I was the son of another nation, it was annoying ... Then I gradually convinced [in this] ”Tariel, 25 years old. However, the new Chechen identity of Tariel acquired a positive content: “Now [when I know that I am a Chechen] this is primarily pride.

It should be noted that the Kistinsk identity, which the local population has not questioned the last two centuries, is actually not recognized by either Chechens or Georgians. When we are there in Chechnya, we are called Georgians, and here Georgians call us Chechens. We are not accepted, as expected, neither there nor here. And we are the Dya "Jamlet, 54 years old.

Then if we are Georgians, then you, - I say, Russians ”George, 58 years old. It can be said that the Dilemma faced: on the one hand, pushing to the Chechen identity from Georgians and their own craving for idealized Chechens, and on the other, the non -recognition of the Directs by their own Chechens themselves. This has been superimposed in ethnic self -identification among different generations of the Cyrics.The older generation is trying to preserve the Castin's autonomy, turning a blind eye to the emergence of new circumstances.

The new generation, which has grown already in the “Chechen atmosphere” of Pankisi, feels like Chechens. Against the backdrop of these contradictions, the Castine society creates its own image of a “pure, archaic Chechen”, which will be discussed later. For example, there was no talk about origin in the Tariel family. Another situation was in another family: “I always knew that I was a Chechen, in my family they knew it” Leila, 40 years old.

Unlike Leila's family, most residents of Pankisi had a vague idea of ​​their origin. According to Nana, “before, many Cystins did not know that they were Chechens, did not know where Chechnya was. Faith then was not strong, as it is now. Now they are more rooted, this happened after the people began to go there to Chechnya and everyone saw what they speak the same language.

” Nana, after she found out about the Chechen origin of the Dya, began to collect information about her ancestors and found that “three brothers, our ancestors, came here, because we had blood feud. This story happened a long time ago. We ourselves from H. This area, it turns out, in Chechnya, in the mountains "Nana, 37 years old. Another informant, Nazi, tells the following about the history of the family: “My father is a Chechen by origin.

My grandfather once came here, to his wife’s family, and when the Chechens were resettled, he accidentally escaped, since his wife’s relatives gave him the local, Kistinskaya, surname ”Nazi, 28 years old. The informant was familiar with the Chechens and, unlike other Pankisians, the Chechens did not represent exotic for her, but, despite this, or maybe, and thanks to this, she clearly shares Chechens and Directors.

In other words, in her family, Dys and Chechens are represented in the form of two different identified groups. And even earlier we were called Dzurdzuki. After that, the Chechens separated, and the Ingush, and we, that way ago and even more, left there. After all, some went to Chechnya, because I also left in the years, many Chechens did not even know about the existence of Diamlet, 54 years old.

This version is interesting in that it coincides with the opinion of most historians. At the time when the Dyanese settled on the territory of Pankisi, there really did not exist in the Vainakh tribes a strict separation of especially administrative. And the Georgians called all the Vainakhs "cystians". They often say “I was convinced that I am a Chechen -ka”, although almost no one can justify his Chechen origin in the details.

This is all the more interesting that the population of the Pankisian gorge goes to earn money and to the Ingush, with whom they also have a lot in common. However, the Dys of their ancestors emphasized the Chechens. They believe that by origin they are Chechens, the Motherland are Georgia. Even despite the fact that many of the brushes from the Pankisian gorge moved to Chechnya, most of them retained their housing in Georgia.

The brushes explain their departure to Chechnya exclusively by economic motives. I graduated from the Georgian school. Everything connects me with Georgia. I went to Chechnya later, in the year. Before the start of the war, I was there. After the war, I am here again. Everyone wants to be near the house, with their family "Tariel, 25 years old. Tariel considers Georgia to be the most comfortable for living, since its education is the Georgian and Pankisian environment for him naturally.

Therefore, in the future, he would like to live in Georgia: “I would want to live here. Even if it is very difficult, I want to live here. ” All my informants, without exception, talk about leaving Pankisi, as it were, making excuses. Like the Tariel, another informant claims: “Wherever I go, even if there is everything in the throat - money, housing, I still prefer to live here where I was born and raised.

I only left for the sake of children in Grozny ”George, 58 years old. Another of my interlocutor says: “I wouldn’t leave here, what drives me? I was born here, raised, got used to everything, this is my homeland. Maybe I would go there, but I would not live there if they lived well here. You can be there for many years, buy 10 houses, but I won’t wish anyone to leave the local places: where our fathers and grandfathers grew up and where we spent a good childhood ”Elijah, 58 years old.

Living in homeland, their own land is very important for the Dya. And this distinguishes them from the Chechens, for whom in the near future return to their homeland is excluded. My interlocutors emphasize that the homeland, Georgia, is not just a place of residence for them. Relations with the Georgian population, self -affirmation in Georgian society is a significant topic for them.

In fact, the Chechen [character, spirit] I do not know, I have been brought up more in Georgian, and I love Georgia very much. She graduated from the Georgian school.