The Nogai Mongols against the Russian Empire

They are distributed in the northern Caucasus. Independents support the revival of the Mongol Horde. They are mainly active abroad. In the past they were victims of Tsarist and Stalinist deportations. The war in Ukraine has reawakened ethnic nationalism.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - Among the speakers at the recent meeting of the "Forum of Free Peoples of Post-Russia", held in the hemicycle of the European Parliament in Brussels, was the representative of the Nogai National Movement, Anvar Kurmanakaev (see photo).

He appealed to the West to support the revival of the state independence of the Mongol Horde of the North Caucasus, destroyed by the Moscow Empire in the mid-16th century, under Ivan the Terrible.

According to official data, around 100,000 Nogai live in Russia today, scattered from the Altai Mountains as far as Dagestan and Karacaevo-Cerkesija, without a territory of their own, which they also partly dispute with Kalmykia, an area of Mongols that more recently migrated to European territory.

According to Kurmanakaev, there is a risk of the disappearance of the Nogai identity, its traditions and its language, a Turkish-speaking variant close to the Tatar language.

The Nogai living in the Russian Federation have lashed out at Kurmanakaev, calling him a 'traitor and provocateur', but he replies that 'these people represent nothing to me'. Over the past year, the activist has made several appeals to his Nogai compatriots not to send their sons to wage war in Ukraine, but they 'turn a blind eye to protect their own interests and do not care about the problems of our people'.

He believes they are not worthy 'to be called Nogai, nor to marry the women of the Cumaucchi', alluding to the historical practice of intermarrying with another Turkic tribe in the Caucasus area.

The case for Nogai independence hinges on the identification of the historical territories of the ancient Horde, derived from the subdivisions following the 13th century invasions. On these, the Nogai independence seek to 'build a prosperous and strong modern state, which will stand on a par with the European peoples'.

The Nogai were also connected to the Crimean Tatars, 'famous for their ability to organise themselves, and the creative principle has remained in the memory of our ethnic group, we can reactivate it at any time,' Kurmanakaev guarantees.

The reconquest of the territories should take place without conflict, but with a constructive dialogue together with all other populations now living in the Russian regions of Dagestan, Kalmykia and various other republics and districts. It is proposed to jointly prepare a series of referendums on issues that meet the needs of all and to "determine the state subject to which the various ethnic strains intend to join".

The autonomist politician recalls that 'elements of the Nogaean epos can be found in the songs of the Terek Cossacks [the Caucasian river on whose islets the nomadic fighters took refuge], the Bashkars, the Kazan Tatars, the Karakalpakstan Tatars, and the peoples of the North Caucasus, with whom we fought, but also collaborated to form areas of civilisation'. He says the Russian imperialists, in both Tsarist and Soviet times, feared the more active populations, and only allowed limited forms of autonomy to the more submissive ones.

Often the Russians resorted to the weapon of deportation to keep the more lively ethnic groups at bay, the last and massive ones in Stalin's time, but the Nogai dramatically recall the extermination carried out by Generalissimo Suvorov in the late 1700s.

Portraits of the commander of Catherine II were recently torn down, in protests by Nogai activists in Astrakhan and Cerkesija. On the first of October, the Nogai remember the victims of the genocides carried out against their own people, but the Russian state bans all demonstrations on the occasion.

Today the small Nogai people are divided into six and more regions, especially in the North Caucasus, an area certainly not free of inter-ethnic conflicts, being a patchwork of dozens of different nationalities. The war in Ukraine is awakening all of them, with effects that will only become apparent in the years to come.

• russia
• moscow
• nogai
• ethnicity
• nationalism
• mongols
• war
• ukraine
• separatism
• independence