RUSSIA'S TINDERBOX - Belfer Center for Science and International ...

The last two issues were put before a referendum in the republic in 1992, with the majority
of the electorate rejecting both concepts by a wide margin. 95
By virtue of the role of ethnicity in North Caucasus politics, the institution of a presidency
and the election of a president from one of the ethnic groups was perceived in Dagestan as a step
toward the concentration of power in the hands of one group which would destabilize the delicate
ethnic balance in the republic. Likewise, the privatization of communal or state-owned land was
seen as a prelude to conflict if too much land in a group’s traditional area of settlement was
considered to have become the property of individuals from other groups. In rejecting the
privatization of land in the 1992 referendum, the Dagestani people resolved that land would belong
to the multi-ethnic citizens of the republic, not to the representatives of individual ethnic groups. In
acknowledgement of the need to reform land ownership, however, provisions were made after the
referendum by the parliament for the potential lease of land by individuals on a long-term basis.
Kabardino-Balkaria:
The primary dispute in Kabardino-Balkaria is a product of the 1943-1944 deportations of
North Caucasian peoples and of the expectations raised among deportees by the Law on the
Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples. The main issue in the republic is the rehabilitation of the
Balkars who perceive that their interests are neglected in the current unitary republic which is
dominated by the Kabardinian elite. 96 The Balkars have consequently demanded the division or
federalization of the republic.
Beginning in 1989, the Balkar national organization, Tere, demanded that the former Balkar
districts within the republic be restored to the pre-1944 borders. In March 1991, the first Congress of
the Balkar People passed a resolution on the restoration of a separate Balkar republic which would
be accorded equal political status with a Kabardinian republic in a federal Kabardino-Balkaria. They
also demanded the creation of a two-chamber parliament with equal parity in representation for both
peoples.
These Balkar demands for the federalization of the republic were opposed by the
Kabardinian national movement, Adyge-Khase, which viewed the proposal as a step towards the
dissolution of Kabardino-Balkaria. In April 1991, a conference of Kabardinian representatives
rejected the Balkar demands that their districts be restored and that the republic be divided into two
units. The Kabardinian’s rejection of their demands radicalized the Balkar national movement. In
fall 1991, the movement demanded a referendum on statehood for the Balkar people and secession
from Kabardino-Balkaria. A National Council of the Balkar people was created, and in December
95 See Robert Chenciner and Magomedkhan Magomedkhanov, “Dagestan Avoids Violence,” Report for
conference on The Contemporary North Caucasus, London University, April 23, 1993 (unpublished).
96 The Kabardinians comprise 48% of the population of the republic with the Balkars in a minority of only 9%.
Ethnic Russians account for an additional 32% of the population. The Kabardinians are a branch of the
Circassian people (see section on Adygeia), while the Balkars are a Turkic people with strong linguistic and
cultural ties to the neighboring Karachai. Both peoples are, however, predominantly Sunni Muslim.
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