IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service, No. 61 on Shapsug minority
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Subject: IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service, No. 61 on Shapsug minority
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Original sender: Institute for War & Peace Reporting <[email protected]>
IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service, No. 61 on Shapsug minority
WELCOME TO IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, NO. 61, December 8, 2000
ARMENIAN GHOSTS HAUNT ISTANBUL Relations between Turkey and Armenia
take a turn for the worse as European leaders officially recognise the
disputed genocide of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915. By Ara Tadevosian
in Yerevan
GUNMEN RAID GANTAMIROV'S HOME Sentenced to death by the outlawed
rebel government and locked in conflict with the Russian high command,
Bislan Gantamirov has good reason to be paranoid. By Dmitri
Nepomnyaschy in Nazran
TUG OF WAR Russia and America play a tense game of political chess in
the South Caucasus. By Susanna Petrosian in Yerevan
THE LOST LAND OF SHAPSUGIA A new Russian law on "ethnic minorities"
has given the Shapsug people fresh hope of reclaiming their historical
homeland. By Zarina Kanukova in Nalchik
********** VISIT IWPR ON-LINE: www.iwpr.net **************
----------------
>From the MINELRES moderator: a new Russian law on minorities mentioned
in the following text is apparently the Government's Decree No 255 on
the List of Small Indigenous Peoples of the Russian Federation,
adopted on 24 March, 2000. The list includes, among others, also
Shapsugs of the Krasnodar Krai. Inclusion into the list makes these
peoples eligible for the rights provided for by the Law on the Rights
of Small Indigenous Peoples of the Russian Federation, adopted on 16
April, 1999. The Russian texts of the Decree and the Law mentioned
above are available online on MINELRES website at
http://www.riga.lv/minelres/NationalLegislation/Russia/Russia_IndigenousList_Russian.htm
and
http://www.riga.lv/minelres/NationalLegislation/Russia/Russia_IndigenousRights_Russian.htm
English translations of these legal texts will be hopefully available
online soon, too.
Boris
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..................
THE LOST LAND OF SHAPSUGIA
A new Russian law on "ethnic minorities" has given the Shapsug people
fresh hope of reclaiming their historical homeland
By Zarina Kanukova in Nalchik
The "Shapsugia" newspaper is the last remaining mouthpiece of the
Shapsug people - a tiny North Caucasian tribe who claim their way of
life is threatened with extinction.
"Shapsugia" may have a circulation of just 750 copies but it stands at
the forefront of a stubborn movement to reclaim an ethnic homeland
which was liquidated in 1945. And this, say the Shapsugs, is their
last hope of preserving their ancient culture and traditions.
In the beginning of the 18th century, the Shapsugs occupied a sizeable
territory stretching from the River Pshada to the Kuban. In the 1830s,
the first Russian expeditions into the Caucasus recorded a Shapsug
population of up to 300,000 people.
Today, there are just 10,000 Shapsugs living in scattered communities
along the Black Sea coast. Isolated from their ethnic kin - the
Cherkess, the Adygeans and the Balkars - they consider themselves a
nation under threat.
In many ways, they have managed to preserve their culture better than
most - with family life based around the patriarchal aul and Islamic
beliefs diluted with ancient pagan rituals. But, in the post-Soviet
wilderness, unemployment and alcoholism are taking their toll whilst
local officials have little patience for their ethnic concerns.
Consequently, the "Shapsugia" newspaper is fighting a lonely battle.
Deputy editor Anzor Nibo explains, "Only work and study can save a man
from drink. But today there are few enough young people who can find
themselves work and few enough parents who can send their children to
school."
Nibo went on to say that the Shapsug language was now only taught in
the family circle while local television devoted just one programme a
week to ethnic issues - and this was broadcast in Russian.
The newspaper had been working closely with the Adyge Khase - a
Shapsug council of elders - to set up cultural and informational links
with related ethnic groups across the North Caucasus. Approaches had
been made to the International Cherkess Association, now based in
Nalchik, but it soon became evident that their Adygean cousins had
problems of their own...
"Shapsugia's" editor, Aslanbi Khadjibramovich, is more outspoken. He
claims the Shapsug people are literally faced with extinction. Low on
cash and low on self-esteem, the younger generation are increasingly
loathe to marry within their own ethnic group. The birth rate has
never been lower.
"If this continues," says Khadjibramovich, "we will simply disappear".
The Shapsug nationalist movement was born in the early 1990s in a bid
to reinstate the Shapsug autonomous enclave - part of the Krasnodarsky
Region - which was dissolved in May 1945.
In May 1994, a Shapsug congress in the settlement of Shkhafit elected
a "social parliament", the Adyge Khase, with 35 members and defined
its long-term goals. Delegates called for national autonomy as well as
concrete initiatives to protect the cultural identity and historical
legacy of the Shapsug people.
In June 1998, the Adyge Khase received backing from the Fourth
Congress of the International Cherkess Association which pledged to
"support the demands of the Black Sea Shapsugs for a legal
strengthening of their rights as well as full representation in the
Krasnodarsky regional administration and the reinstatement of Shapsug
place names which were abandoned after the Caucasian wars of the 19th
century."
However, the Shapsug cause has progressed little in the last two
years. The new Duma law introduced in March this year "to guarantee
the rights of minority peoples in the Russian Federation" may have
brought some hope. Among other privileges, it excuses members of any
group numbering less than 50,000 people from military service and
promises a degree of self-determination.
But M Chachukh, the president of the Adyge Khase, is philosophical.
"It's pointless to demand the restoration of our ethnic homeland at
this juncture," he says. "In fact, that's not our main concern at the
moment. The main thing is that we've been granted the status of a
'minority people' and the rights that go with it."
And yet there are fears that the new law could prove to be a
double-edged sword, isolating the Shapsugs still further from their
ethnic kin in the North Caucasus and creating a "pariah enclave" on
the Black Sea coast.
Even now, the locals are working hard to cash in on the tourist
industry which is booming around Sochi. A resident of the Akhyntam
settlement, Achmiz Aisa, has even turned his home into a tiny museum,
dedicated to Shapsug culture. He tells his visitors traditional
stories over a cup of tea and honey - and his guests have included
Russian politicians, writers and emigres from Turkey, Syria and
Jordan.
One Shapsug 'migr', Utizh Mazhid, brings groups of Cherkess from
Turkey to visit the Shapsug settlements. "Maybe one day some of them
will want to return to Shapsugia and settle here," says Mazhid. At
present, it is a very distant dream.
Zarina Kanukova is a regular contributor to IWPR
********* VISIT IWPR ON-LINE: www.iwpr.net **************
IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service provides the regional and
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