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KABARDINO-BALKARIA: THREATS TO STABILITYAlexander SKAKOV
Alexander Skakov, Ph.D. (Hist.), scientific fellow, Russian Institute of Strategic Stidies.
I. Ethnopolitical ProblemsThe main factors influencing the situation in Kabardino-Balkaria are its dual constituency and the political, economic and psychological consequences wrought by the deportation of the Balkars in 1944, which are still having repercussions today. Dual constituency is stirring up rivalry between the national elites, who are incapable of divvying up the power and financial levers between them to their mutual accord. The reverberations of deportation are still making themselves felt in the discontent of those persecuted.
The Kabardino-Balkarian Autonomous Region was created as an independent administrative structure in 1922, and transformed into an autonomous republic in 1936.
During the German occupation of Nalchik, the republic’s capital, the Representative Agency of Kabardino-Balkar Interests was created, which formed the “national legion.” Plans were drawn up to separate Balkaria from Kabarda and unite it with Karachai under the protectorate of Turkey. After liberation of the Northern Caucasus from the Nazi aggressors, the Balkars were deported in 1944 under the campaign to stamp out anti-Soviet banditry and terrorism. The republic was renamed the Kabardinian A.S.S.R., whereby the southwestern part of the Elbrus and Nagorniy regions became part of Georgia. The administrative demarcation within the autonomy was also changed; in particular, settling the Cherkessian District was on the whole recognized as inexpedient “due to the absence of conditions for developing the economy.”
In 1956-1957, a decision was adopted to repatriate the Balkars (35,274 people returned) and restore the Kabardino-Balkarian A.S.S.R. According to the data for 1989, 70,793 Balkars lived in the republic (9% of the population). In so doing, they occupied approximately 40% of its territory. According to the same data, there were 363,494 Kabardins (48.2% of the population) and 240,700 Russians (32% of the population) in the republic. The number of Russians is declining, due to their migration and low birth rate of recent years. In addition, 9,900 Ossets reside in the republic (1.3% of the population).
At the beginning of the 1990s, instead of resolving the real problems of the Balkar and Karachai peoples, a populist and, as it turned out, unpropitious process to “rehabilitate the repressed peoples” began. In 1991, a law on rehabilitation was adopted in the R.S.F.S.R., which, to put it mildly, did not reckon with all the realities of Kabardino-Balkaria. Rehabilitation problems were replaced by the land issue, which is traditionally a bone in the throat for the Caucasus. The payment of one-time compensation benefits can be considered the only real effort made to eliminate the consequences of the Balkar deportation. The Russian governmental resolution of 10 June, 1993 “On Socioeconomic Support of the Balkar People,” the federal program “Socioeconomic Development and National-Cultural Revival of the Balkar People in 1996-2000,” and the decree issued by the republic’s leader, V. Kokov, of 7 March, 1994 “On Some Measures for Rehabilitating the…………….
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