Ingushetia or Ingushetiya, officially the Republic of Ingushetia, is a republic of Russia located in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe. The republic is part of the North Caucasian Federal District, and shares land borders with the country of Georgia to its south; and borders the Russian republics of North Ossetia–Alania to its west and north and Chechnya to its east and northeast.
Its capital is the town of Magas, while the largest city is Nazran. At 3,600 square km in terms of area, the republic is the smallest of Russia's non-city federal subjects. It was established on 4 June 1992, after the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was split in two.Law of 4 June 1992Official website of the Republic of Ingushetia. Social-Economic Characteristics The republic is home to the indigenous Ingush, a people of Nakh ancestry. As of the 2021 Census, its population was estimated to be 527,220.
Largely due to the insurgency in the North Caucasus, Ingushetia remains one of the poorest and most unstable regions of Russia. Although the violence has died down in recent years, the insurgency in neighboring Chechnya had occasionally spilled into Ingushetia. According to Human Rights Watch in 2008, the republic has been destabilized by corruption, a number of high-profile crimes (including kidnapping and murder of civilians by government security forces), anti-government protests, attacks on soldiers and officers, Russian military excesses and a deteriorating human rights situation.sk/HRW/acb93ad76de9628c932576501538c803.htm Urgent Need for Vigorous Monitoring in the North Caucasus. Human Rights Watch/Reuters, 15 April 2008. (archive link)Al Jazeera English on YouTube In spite of this, Ingushetia has the highest life expectancy in all of Russia as of 2017.
Etymology The name Ingushetia () derives from the Russian name of the Ingush, which in turn is derived from the ancient Ingush village Angusht, and from the Georgian suffix -éti. The name in Ingush is Ghalghaaichie (, /ʁalʁaitʃe/).
In the 1920–1930s there was not yet a unifying name for the Ingush Autonomous Oblast. Although the oblast was officially called Ingushetia, some scientists like and insisted that its correct name is Ingushiya ().
History
6000–4000 BC
20 BC
1239 AD
1300–1400 AD
1558 AD
1562 AD
In Caucasian War and as part of Terek Cossacks Okrug
In the 18th century the Ingush were mostly pagan and Christian, with a Muslim minority. Beginning in 1588 some Chechen societies joined Russia (; ). Russian historians claim that the Ingush volunteered to become a part of Russia. This assertion is mostly based on the document signed on 13 June 1810 by General-Major Delpotso and representatives of two Ingush clans; most other clans resisted the Russian conquest. In 1811, at the Tsar's request, Moritz von Engelhardt, a Russian envoy of German origin, visited the mountainous region of Ingushetia and tried to induce the Ingush people to join Russia by promising many benefits offered by the Tsar. The representative of the Ingush people rejected the proposal with the reply: "Above my hat I see only sky". This encounter was later used by Goethe in his 1815 poem, "Freisinn" ('free spirit').
On 29 June 1832, the Russian Baron Rozen reported in letter No.42 to count Chernishev that "on the 23rd of this month I exterminated eight Ghalghaj (Ingush) villages. On the 24th I exterminated nine more villages near Targim." By 12 November 1836 (letter no.560), he claimed that highlanders of Dzheirkah, Kist, and Ghalghaj had been at least temporarily subdued. In 1829 Imam Shamil began a rebellion against Russia. He conquered Dagestan, Chechnya, and then attacked Ingushetia hoping to convert the Ingush people to Islam, thus gaining strategic allies. However, the Ingush defeated Imam Shamil's forces. They successfully repulsed two more attempts in 1858. Nevertheless, locked in warfare with two strong opponents and their allies, Ingush forces were eventually devastated. According to the Russian officer Fedor Tornau, who fought with the aid of Ossetian allies against the Ingush, the Ingush had no more than six hundred warriors. However, the Russian conquest in Ingushetia was extremely difficult and the Russian forces began to rely more upon methods of colonization: extermination of the local population and resettlement of the area with Cossack and Ossetian loyalists.
The colonization of Ingush land by Russians and Ossetians began in the mid-19th century. The Russian General Evdokimov and Ossetian colonel Kundukhov in 'Opis no. 436' "gladly reported" that "the result of colonization of Ingush land was successful".
Renamed Ingush villages and towns: Ghazhien-Yurt was renamed Stanitsa Assinovskaya in 1847. Ebarg-Yurt was renamed Stanitsa Troitskaya in 1847. Dibir-Ghala (town) was renamed Stanitsa Sleptsovskaya in 1847. Magomet-Khite was renamed Stanitsa Voznesenskaya in 1847. Akhi-Yurt was renamed Stanitsa Sunzhenskaya in 1859. Ongusht was renamed Stanitsa Tarskaya in 1859. Ildir-Ghala (town) was renamed Stanitsa Karabulakskaya in 1859. Alkhaste was renamed Stanitsa Feldmarshalskaya in 1860. Tauzen-Yurt was renamed Stanitsa Vorontsov-Dashkov in 1861. Sholkhi was renamed Khutor Tarski in 1867. Following Imam Shamil's repeated losses by the end of the Caucasian War, the Russians and Chechens unified their forces. Former Chechen rebels and their men joined the Russian ranks. On 3 November 1858, General Evdokimov ordered (order N1896) a former rebel commander, naib Saib-Dulla Gekhinski (Saadulla Ospanov) of Chechnya to attack and destroy Ingush settlements near the Assa and Fortanga rivers: Dattikh, Meredzhi, Aseri, Shagot-Koch and others. After their defeats in combat, the remaining Ingush clans resorted mostly to underground resistance.
The Russians built the fortress Vladikavkaz ("ruler of the Caucasus") on the place of Ingush village of Zaur.Multiple sources:
Russian General Aleksey Petrovich Yermolov wrote in a letter to the Tsar of Russia, "It would be a grave mistake for Russia to alienate such a militaristic nation as the Ingush." He suggested the separation of the Ingush and Chechens in order for Russia to win the war in the Caucasus. In another letter from General Ermolov to Lanski (dated 12 January 1827) on the impossibility of forceful Christianization of the Ingush, Yermolov wrote: "This nation, the most courageous and militaristic among all the highlanders, cannot be allowed to be alienated..."
The last organized rebellion (the so-called "Nazran insurrection") in Ingushetia occurred in 1858 when 5,000 Ingush launched an attack against Russian forces, but lost to the latter's superior number. The rebellion signaled the end of the First Russo-Caucasian War. In the same year, the Tsar encouraged the emigration of Ingush and Chechens to Turkey and the Middle East by claiming that "Muslims need to live under Muslim rulers". His apparent motivation was to depopulate the area for the settlement of Ossetians and Cossacks. Some Ingush became exiled to deserted territories in the Middle East where many of them died. The remainder were Culturally assimilated by Russification. It was estimated that eighty per cent of the Ingush had left Ingushetia for the Middle East by 1865.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviets promised the Ingush that the villages and towns annexed during the colonization would be returned to the Ingush. Ingushetia became a major battleground between the old archenemies: general Denikin, and Ingush resistance fighters. In his memoirs, general Denikin wrote
As part of the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus On 21 December 1917 Ingushetia, Chechnya, and Dagestan declared independence from Russia and formed a single state called the "United Mountain Dwellers of the North Caucasus" (also known as Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus), which was recognized by Central Powers (Germany, Austro-Hungary and Turkey), Georgia, and Azerbaijan (which declared their independence from Russia in 1918) as an independent state.MINORITY RIGHTS GROUP INTERNATIONAL, THE NORTH CAUCASUS:Minorities at a Crossroads For example, Anna Zelkina writes that in May 1918 the first country to recognize independence was Turkey: Abstract
Later Germany and others followed the recognition. According to P. Kosok:"Revolution and Sovietization in the North Caucasus" Caucasian Review, 1955, No. 1, pp. 47–54. No. 3, pp.45–53
According to the British War Office, Germans tried to establish the military base in Ingushetia: Searchable only. (No preview accessible.)
The capital of the new state was moved to Temir-Khan-Shura (Dagestan). The first prime minister of the state was elected Tapa Chermoyev, a Chechen prominent statesman; the second prime minister was Ingush statesman Vassan-Girey Dzhabagiev who also was the author of the Constitution of the land in 1917. In 1920 he was reelected for a third term. In 1921 Russians attacked and occupied the country and forcefully merged it with the Soviet state. The Caucasian war for independence continued and the government went into exile.
As part of Chechen-Ingush ASSR Cossack General Andrei Shkuro in his book writes:
The Soviets confiscated the remaining Ingush properties by collectivization and dekulakization and unified Chechnya and Ingushetia into Chechen-Ingush ASSR.
During World War II Ingush youth were drafted into the Red Army. In August 1942 Nazi German forces captured half of the North Caucasus within thirty-three days moving from Rostov-On-Don to Mozdok 560 km or almost 17 km per day (see Battle of the Caucasus). From Mozdok to Malgobek same thirty three days, 20 km the German forces moved roughly 600 meters per day and were stopped only at Ordzhonikidze (modern-day Vladikavkaz) and Malgobek which were mostly populated by Ingush before the genocide of 23 February 1944. The fighting for the Malgobek was so intense that the small town was captured and recaptured four times until the Germans finally retreated.
According to the Soviet military newspaper Red Star, after receiving the news about German brutality toward civilians in Kabardino-Balkaria, Ingush people declared Jihad(Gazavat) against Germans. Stalin planned the expansion of the USSR in the south through Turkey. Muslim Chechens and Ingush could become a threat to the expansion. In February 1944 near the end of World War II, NKVD units flooded the Chechen-Ingush ASSR. The maneuvers were disguised as military exercises of the southern district.
Genocide of 1944
During World War II, in 1942 German forces entered the North Caucasus. For three weeks, the Germans captured over half of the North Caucasus. They were only stopped at two cities in the Chechen-Ingush ASSR: Malgobek and Ordzhonikidze (a.k.a. 'Vladikavkaz') by the heroic resistance of the native population.
On 23 February 1944, Ingush and Chechens were falsely accused of collaborating with the Nazis, and the entire Ingush and Chechen populations were deported to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Siberia in Operation Lentil, on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, while the majority of their men were fighting on the front. The initial phase of the deportation was carried out on American-supplied Studebaker trucks specifically modified with three submachine gun-nest compartments above the deported to prevent escapes. American historian Norman Naimark writes: