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swallow up in the 18th century as it expanded towards the borders of the Ottoman Empire. The people of the mountains resisted invasion even more
40 fiercely than their plains brethren: their greatest leader, Imam Shamil, waged guerrilla war for a quarter of a century. The Chechens always remained the least tamed of Russia's new subjects - perhaps because they had no traditional vertical hierarchy, but rather a network of communities and teips, land-based clans. Strong teip loyalty still exists, and is one reason
45 why no truly all-Chechen leader has emerged - in itself, one of the biggest obstacles to peace.
Joseph Stalin made the Chechen-Ingush region an autonomous republic within Russia in 1936. But at the height of the second world war he deported the entire population, half a million people, to Central Asia,
5() ostensibly as a punishment for mass collaboration with [he Nazis. Most probably, as Carlotta Gall and Thomas de Waal argue in "Chechnya: A small victorious war" (Pan Books, 1997), it was because they had resisted Stalinist collectivisation, and would be the natural leaders of the mountain peoples in any future insurgency. Within five years, a quarter of them had died. Not
55 until 1957 was the republic reinstated.
It declared independence from Russia in 1991, after the Soviet Union broke up. Russia, itself a new slate, tolerated the rebellion at first. But under the Chechen president, Jokhar Dudaev, the economy collapsed and organised crime became rife. In 1994, Moscow supported an opposition
60 coup against Dudaev; when that failed, Russian forces invaded.
They left 18 months later, humiliatingly defeated. The Chechen chief of staff, Asian Maskhadov, had united rag-tag bands of rebel troops into a victorious army, like Shamil before him. And yet he was the most moderate and pragmatic Chechen leader around: he signed the eventual peace
65 agreement with Moscow, and those Chechens who had not fled during the war elected him president in 1997.
But trying to rebuild a shattered republic - only one building in Grozny, the capital, was deemed safe enough to hold his inauguration - and unite competing interest groups proved too much for him. Chechnya became a
70 bandit state, with the rebel commanders and teip leaders fighting for control of lucrative shady businesses.
Moreover, the peace deal left one question open: Chechnya's independence. Talks about it were repeatedly called off, often on the pretext of fresh terrorist attacks. Charles Blandy of the Conflict Studies Research
75 Centre, part of the British defence ministry, argues that Moscow may have deliberately prevaricated, "Whilst Maskhadov was a person with whom (he Russian authorities could work", Mr Blandy writes, "they perhaps recognised, too, that he was possibly the greatest threat to Russian ambitions of keeping Chechnya within the Russian Federation."
80 If that was the tactic, it worked. Disillusioned with a fruitless peace, Mr Maskhadov's field commanders joined the opposition. One of them, Shamil
gasaev, together with a Saudi Arabian mercenary known as Khaltab, led rebel force into neighbouring Dagestan in August 1999. A month later then ^as a series of bombings in Moscow and elsewhere - blamed on Chechens
ji5 though there was never any proof. Those events gave Russia the support i needed fora second invasion.
The campaign was masterminded by the new prime minister, Mr Putin Its initial success helped him win the March 2000 presidential election. Bui once again, the mountain region proved much harder to capture than the
0 plains, and soon the army got bogged down. Although Mr Putin declared the military operation over earlier this year, rebels still control much of the southern pan, and kill 20 to 30 Russian soldiers each week. Often, they also attack the pro-Moscow Chechen officials who are nominally in charge of most of Chechnya.
Find the English equivalents for the following words and expressions:
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onno3nu,new, hpothb; noflnncaib oKOHHaTe/ibH ; Bbi6npaTb Koro-/in6o npe3HfleHTOM; floxoflHbi 6n3Hec; nofl npefl/ioroM yrposbi B03HHKHOBeHMfl HOBbix lepaKTOB; satb or npnMoro oTeera; no/ieBbie KOMaHflUpbi; HaeMHUK; cepua
BQ3;iO>KHTb BHHy H3.
Scan through the article and contextualize the following vocabulary:
the breakaway republic, weU-nigh impossible, hostage, render sth impossible, Muscovite, Azeri descent, Dagestanis, Circassians, Ossetians, Chechen militants, rescue operation, to knock out, hostage-taker, to spark local and international protest, to check identity papers and residence permits, to intensify scrutiny, refugees, implacable, all-out assault, full military withdrawal, peace talks, imperialist tyrant, to wage guerrilla war, Russia's subject, a teip, at the height of WWII, insurgency, to tolerate a rebellion, organised crime, opposition coup against, to sign the eventful peace agreement, to elect sb president, lucrative shady business, on the pretext of fresh terrorist attacks, to prevaricate, field commander, mercenary, a series of bombings, blamed on sb, to be masterminded by, to be nominally in charge of sth.
Answer the following questions:
1. What does the average Russian think about Chechens after the hostage affair?
M.Myxopmoe. Making the Point