Lezgin movement holds congress in Southern Dagestan

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Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 08:08:26 +0200 (EET)
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Subject: Lezgin movement holds congress in Southern Dagestan

From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>

Original sender: Felix Corley <[email protected]>

Lezgin movement holds congress in Southern Dagestan


Jamestown Foundation
Wednesday, November 25, 1998
 
MONITOR -- A DAILY BRIEFING ON THE POST-SOVIET STATES
 
LEZGIN MOVEMENT HOLDS CONGRESS IN SOUTHERN DAGESTAN. A congress of the
Lezgin movement "Sadval" (Unity) took place this week in the southern
Dagestan city of Derbent. Delegates discussed the economic and social 
problems of southern Dagestan, which is the republic's least-developed
region economically. The assembled delegates did not, as they have
done in the past, demand the creation of a Lezginistan republic.
Instead, they called for national-cultural autonomy while remaining
part of Dagestan. The congress also did not repeat its previous
territorial claims on Azerbaijan, where approximately half the Lezgin
population lives.
 
Some 200,000 Lezgin live in southern Dagestan. They comprise
approximately 12 percent of Dagestan's population. Roughly the same
number of Lezgin live in the section of Azerbaijan adjacent to
Dagestan. During the Soviet period, the unity of the Lezgin people was
simply not an issue: The border between Dagestan and Azerbaijan
existed only on the map. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and
the appearance of a state border between Azerbaijan and Russia along
the Smur River, the issue of Lezgin unity began to emerge, in a rather
sharp form. In 1992, the Lezgin national movement, Sadval, organized
mass demonstrations on both sides of the border, demanding the
creation of a unified Lezginistan as part of the Russian Federation.
 
The Lezgin apparently decided at this week's congress to demonstrate
their inclination toward compromise and their faithful subordination
to Russia. During the congress, Sadval leader Ruslan Ashuraliev
declared: "We must understand that we cannot live without Russia"
(NTV, November 24).
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