Dagestan
(2002 est. pop. 2.2 million). A southern Russian republic, Dagestan is bordered by Azerbaijan to the south, Georgia to the west, and the Caspian Sea to the east. Although Dagestan translates as "land of the mountains," the republic actually consists of three general geographic zones. First, there is an elevated southern region situated in the northeastern Caucasus that descends to foothills and mixed forests in the north. Second, there is an arid and sparsely vegetated northern region located in the Nogai Steppe. Third, there are narrow coastal lowlands in the east that run along the Caspian Sea, which include saline wetlands in their northernmost extreme. Although increasingly endangered, Dagestan is one of the leading hearths of biodiversity within the Russian realm.
Renamed after the revolutionary Dagestani leader Makhach, Makhachkala is the capital of Dagestan; the port city, on the site of a nineteenth-century Russian fortress, is located roughly in the middle of the republic's coastal zone. The city's chief industries are related to oil and gas refineries and pipelines, chemical factories, and manufacturing. Although there are considerable oil and gas resources in the republic, they remain relatively unexploited due to inaccessibility. Derbent, the other major city, dating to a fifth-century fortress, lies in the south at a narrow point on the coast between the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus Mountains; Derbent translates as "gateway." However, the majority of Dagestanis (about 60 percent) live in rural areas.
The Dagestani population is characterized by extreme ethnic diversity. Although in the late 1990s the republic's population was estimated at fewer than 2.2 million, it includes many different national groups— between twenty and forty (although some sources put it as high as eighty). The largest of these, the Avars, constitute roughly 30 percent of the total population. Although Russian is employed as a common language, Avar is the most common local language, and is also the common medium for communication between those indigenous to the republic. The majority of the population is Islamic, and the Dagestanis are world-renowned for their carpet weaving and colorful, geometric designs.
Long before becoming a Russian republic Dagestan was legendary for its resistance to external powers (e.g., Arab/Islamic, Seljuk Turk, Mongol-Turkic, Ottoman Turk, and Persian armies). This image is personified in the histories and legends of Shamil, the nineteenth-century Imam of Dagestan. Reportedly an Avar, he established a Dagestani state and led Dagestanis and Chechens against the czarist empire, preventing pacification of the region by the Russians for over twenty-five years. Dagestan was designated an autonomous republic of the Soviet Union in 1921; it became a Russian republic in 1991. The stability of the republic is tenuous due to extreme instability in neighboring Chechnya, with Chechen rebels entering the republic in an attempt to unite with Dagestanis in a larger separatist movement, and Russian troops entering Dagestan to prevent such an escalation. There is also increasing activism among Islamists (both homegrown variations of Sufism and Wahhabism as fostered in the Middle East), Chechen rebels, cleavages between ethnic groups, and separatist movements, especially among the Lezgin peoples living on both sides of the Azeri-Dagestani border.
Further Reading
Chenciner, Robert. (1997) Daghestan: Tradition and Survival. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Gammer, Moshe. (1994) Muslim Resistance to the Tsar: Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and Daghestan. London: Frank Cass.
Ware, Robert Bruce, and Enver Kisriev. (2000) "The Islamic Factor in Dagestan." Central Asian Survey 19, 2: 235— 252.
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