Re: Beslan

[Chris Doss <lookoverhere1@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Waistline2@xxxxxxx wrote:
North Ossetia  . . . as I understand matters  . . .
have roughly 700,000 peoples consisting of roughly 100
(one-hundred) different nationalities on 8000 km . . .
and is highly industrial compared to other former
Republics. Unlike South Ossetia which is affiliated or
a part of Georgia . . . North Ossetia is affiliated
with and deeply tied (fused) to the economic center of
gravity that is Russia.
 --

Saakashvili is trying to get S. Ossetia back. However
it was only made part of Georgia in 1921 and the South
Ossetians want to be annexed by Russia.

100 nationalities is pushing it, but it does have a
lot. According to the 1989 Soviet census, the
population of North Ossetia was:

52.95% Ossetian
29.91% Russian
5.18% Ingush
2.15% Armenian
1.94% Georgian
1.60% Ukrainian
1.5% Kalmuk


Info dates from 1996 (I think):

The Ossetians are descended from the Alans, a
Sarmatian tribe that was pushed out of the plains and
into the foothills of the Caucasus in the 4th c. They
were pushed further back into the mountain gorges by
Tatar and Mongol invaders. Ossetians who remained on
the north slope of the Caucasus range, lived in
perpetual conflict with the Kabards, who came to
convert the Digor Ossets to Islam. Ossetians who
migrated to the south slope have retained their
language and culture in medieval and modern Georgia.
During the reign of Catherine II, Russian imperial
expansion reached the Caucasus. The Ossetians welcomed
the Russians, since they offered protection from the
Kabards and actually permitted Ossetians to resettle
on the plains. From 1774, when North Ossetia was
absorbed into Russia, Russian policy has always been
to cultivate the Ossetians, the only Christians in a
sea of hostile Muslim mountain tribes.
North Ossetia's economy was transformed by
industrialisation and urbanisation in th 19th c.,
because of its reserves of natural resources (Zinc,
lead, natural gas). The railroad from the oil boomtown
of Baku passed through Ossetia, and a branch line
reached Vladikavkaz, today the capital of North
Ossetia.
During the Civil War years after the 1917 revolution,
there was fighting in Ossetia between Bolsheviks,
Mensheviks and counter-revolutionary armies under Gen.
Anton Denikin. According to Soviet history at least,
the majority of the Ossetians helped the Bolsheviks.
In 1922, a South Ossetian Autonomus Oblast (AO), was
carved out of Georgia, whereas a North Ossetian AO was
created within Russia in 1924 as the failed
"Autonomous Mountain Soviet Socialist Republic" was
split up. In 1925, North and South Ossetia made
efforts to unite, signing a petition to Stalin.
The Bolshevik policy in Ossetia had a main goal of
eliminating clan warfare and other "feudal practices",
and were moderately successful. But still, in the
1930s, Ossetians used Stalin's purges to carry on old
vendettas.
In 1936, North Ossetia was upgraded to Autonomous
Republic, which in fact had no meaning during Stalin's
dictatorship.
The Ossetians were loyal to the Soviet Union during
World War 2, when the Germans pressed to reach the oil
fields of Baku and Groznyy. After the war they were
rewarded in that their republic was enlarged at the
expense of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR and Stavropol kray.
The Muslim Digor Ossets, however, were deported to
Central Asia, where some of them remain even today.
In 1989, in the freedom of glasnost and perestroyka
and frightened by rising Georgian nationalism, the
South Ossetians demanded unification with North
Ossetia. In December the next year, the Georgian
Supreme Soviet declared that South Ossetia was no
longer autonomous and authorised suppression of
newspapers and bans on demonstrations. One issue at
stake was the language. Georgian was declared as
official language. The Ossetians declared Osetian as
the official language of S-Ossetia. Fighting commenced
in January 1991. The conflict worsened with the
Georgian independence declaration in March and the
election of the nationalist authoritarian
poet-President Zviad Gamsakhurdia some months later. A
flood of refugees left for North Ossetia.
The Ossetians are also involved in a conflict with the
Ingush, their neighbors to the east.


http://www.nupi.no/cgi-win/Russland/etnisk_b.exe?Osetian





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