The Caucasus is a mountainous region situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. The northern part is inhabited almost entirely by Muslim peoples, often referred to as “mountaineers” because of the imposing peaks where they live, natural fortresses that shielded them from enemies for centuries.

Throughout the 19th century, Tsarist Russia gradually succeeded in conquering this area despite fierce resistance from the indigenous mountaineer communities. Yet conquest did not extinguish their desire for independence. With the outbreak of World War I and the subsequent Bolshevik Revolution, these peoples attempted to form their own state, unified by their shared Muslim faith.

This effort did nothing to stop the advance of the Red Army, which eventually seized the entire Caucasus. In the northern area, Moscow established several autonomous republics and regions within the newly formed Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. These administrative units were deliberately drawn to be ethnically and linguistically mixed, an ultimately futile attempt to prevent future uprisings.

For years, the peoples of the North Caucasus continued to resist the Kremlin, driven not only by their quest for self-rule but also by the Soviet regime’s anti-religious policies, forced collectivization, and harsh repression.

During World War II, some Caucasian mountaineers chose to support the German invasion of the USSR, believing it might bring freedom to their homeland. Although the majority remained loyal to Moscow, Stalin seized the opportunity to finally “solve the North Caucasus question”. In February 1944, he launched a massive deportation of the region’s indigenous populations, including the Chechens, Ingush, Karachay, and Balkars, sending them into exile in Central Asia or Siberia.

Many perished during the journey or shortly after, and countless others were killed in indiscriminate massacres carried out by Soviet authorities, who simultaneously abolished the autonomous republics and regions where these peoples had lived. Fewer than half survived the deportation.

It was only in 1957, under Khrushchev, that they were allowed to return to their homeland, only to find their houses almost entirely occupied by Slavic settlers. The strict control of the Soviet state was the only factor that prevented open ethnic conflict between the settlers and the returning mountaineers. For the peoples affected, especially the Ingush and the Chechens, Stalin’s deportation left a deep and enduring wound in their national consciousness. Many of them regard it as an act of genocide.