The historical competition between the peoples of the Caucasus for the Alan heritage is reaching a new level

At the beginning of this year, a long-term discussion about which peoples in the North Caucasus can lay claim to the status of direct descendants of the Alans and the Alanian kingdom received new impetus.

Tibilov Initiative

This impulse is due to the fact that the President of South Ossetia, Leonid Tibilov, signed a decree on holding a referendum on renaming the Republic of South Ossetia to the Republic of South Ossetia - the State of Alania. The referendum will take place on April 9, simultaneously with the presidential elections.

Historians of South Ossetia have repeatedly emphasized the need for such a renaming. Because in South and North Ossetia they are convinced that the unification of the two Ossetian republics is inevitable. And renaming Alania is seen in Tskhivanle and Vladikavkaz as an important step in approaching this goal.

However, we previously wrote in detail about the fact that this initiative is not clearly perceived by everyone in South Ossetia itself. Because some residents believe that in this way Leonid Tibilov is gaining political points for himself before the elections and distracting the population from the more real and serious problems of the republic.

In addition, such initiatives of the Ossetians are met with mute rejection from other peoples of the Caucasus. We have already written earlier about the course of a long-standing debate between the three nationalities of the North Caucasus about who owns the Alan heritage - Ossetians, Ingush or Karachay-Balkars.

Historical competition

Let us recall that the medieval kingdom of Alania existed in the Caucasus from the beginning of the 1st millennium to the middle of the 14th century, until it fell under the invasion of the Mongols. The history of its emergence and flourishing occupies the minds of not only scientists, but also a huge number of social activists, bloggers and activists in the Caucasus.

Because many people want to be considered the heirs of one of the most ancient and powerful states of the Caucasus. That is why three peoples of the Caucasus at once - Ossetians, Karachay-Balkars and Ingush claim to be considered the descendants of the legendary kingdom.

It so happened that the Ossetians managed to achieve more politically in this dispute. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was the Ossetians who added the word Alania to the name of their republic of North Ossetia in 1995.

Having staked out the Alan brand in other cultural and political niches, the Ossetians managed to ensure that the majority of Russians began to steadily associate the modern Ossetians, as the descendants of the ancient Iranian-speaking people, with the heritage of the ancient Alans.

Alan relay of the Caucasus

However, other peoples of the Caucasus claiming the Alan heritage have also succeeded a lot. Thus, in 1998, the Ingush authorities managed to assign the name Magas to the new capital of Ingushetia, founded four years earlier.

This decision was made with a long-term historical and political aim. Because Magas is the name of the capital of the ancient Alanian kingdom. Thus, according to the medieval author al-Masudi, “the capital of the kingdom of the Alans is called Ma’as, which means piety.”

However, the Karachay-Balkarians living in two neighboring republics of the Caucasus - Karachay-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria - were still destined to have their say in this dispute.

Due to the multinational nature of the republics of their residence, the Karachais and Balkars, like the Ossetians and Ingush living in mononational republics, could not consolidate their Alan heritage through political decisions.

However, throughout this period, the Karachais and Balkars called their native language Alan, and themselves Alans. However, this did not in any way register the Alan heritage of the Karachay-Balkars in the minds of the other peoples of the Caucasus.

Karachay protest

However, in November 2014, a very representative International Scientific Conference “Ethnogenesis, history, language and culture of the Karachay-Balkar people” was held in Moscow at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

As a result of the conference, many articles, interviews, programs and stories were published. The main goal for which this Conference was convened was to confirm the 1959 thesis of linguist Umar Aliyev about the Alan origin of the Karachay-Balkars.

In North Ossetia, the reaction to these claims of the Ingush and Karachay-Balkars to the Alan heritage is ambiguous: some believe that the neighbors of the Ossetian people are making attempts to rewrite history, others do not see anything wrong in the fact that the neighbors want to identify themselves with the ancestors of the Ossetians.

And here, against the backdrop of Tskhinvali’s preparations for a historic referendum for South Ossetia on renaming the republic to Alania, Karachay social activists came out with an official protest against such an initiative and sent a letter of warning to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The leadership of the Congress of the Karachai People insists that the very renaming of South Ossetia to Alania contradicts historical facts and threatens that this initiative will cause tension in the Caucasus in interethnic relations and even in the international sphere, as happened in the case of the Republic of Macedonia.

At the same time, it is also clear why the letter of protest was sent to Moscow and not to Tskhinvali. Since all political processes in South Ossetia are closely supervised by the Kremlin and the Russian White House. This fact was once again emphasized by the recent visit of Russian Presidential Aide Vladislav Surkov to Tskhinvali.

Boris Semenov

The authorities of South Ossetia are trying to rename it Alania, playing on pro-Russian sentiments, although the territory of the republic was not included in the historical borders of Alania, Caucasian experts told the Caucasian Knot. They believe that the direct descendants of the Alans are the Ossetians, and they called the claims to the Alan heritage by Ingush and Chechen researchers unfounded.

As the "Caucasian Knot" wrote, on December 28, 2015, the President of South Ossetia Leonid Tibilov proposed renaming it Alania. In November 2016, the Tibilov administration announced numerous appeals from local residents in support of this idea. A referendum on the issue of renaming South Ossetia to the State of Alania is scheduled for April 9 and will take place on the same day as the presidential elections.

About the borders of ancient Alanya

Caucasian experts and historians interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent agreed that the historical borders of Alania ran through the modern territories of southern Russia, without affecting South Ossetia.

The historical settlement area of ​​the Alans was in the Central Caucasus, modern Karachay-Cherkessia and North Ossetia, where “ancient temples and other evidence of the presence of the Alans have been preserved,” a senior researcher at the Center for Caucasus Problems at MGIMO told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent Akhmet Yarlykapov .

Associate Professor, Higher School of Economics Andrey Vinogradov in turn, described the borders of historical Alania as follows: “they ran through the south of the Krasnodar Territory, Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, the south of Stavropol, North Ossetia and, probably, part of Ingushetia.”

However, it is impossible to accurately depict the real borders of historical Alanya, says the head of the department of peoples of the Caucasus at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, professor at Moscow State University Sergey Arutyunov .

“In the work “Ossetians” (B. Kaloev, Nauka, 2004) there are more or less reliable maps of historical Alania. No one drew a real map that would have been created at the time when Alania existed, and the boundaries are drawn according to archaeological data. Some the northern border is drawn along the Don River, and there are reasons for this. During the periods of greatest expansion, the Alans controlled part of the territory in the Don River basin. “Don” is the word for river in the modern Ossetian language and, of course, in both Scythian and Scythian. in the Alanian languages, the river generally sounded like “don,” Arutyunov explained to the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent.

According to Akhmet Yarlykapov, the initiative to rename South Ossetia to Alania is connected with the hopes of the republic’s leaders to become part of Russia.

“I think that I would like to unify the name of the two Ossetian republics and thus once again emphasize that this is actually one republic, one people, and they should be part of Russia. I’m not sure that Russia is delighted with this idea, and I’m not sure that there are direct instructions from Moscow. Rather, these are internal hopes, and the mood is known: the majority of the population would like to be part of the Russian Federation,” the scientist stated.

Andrey Vinogradov, in turn, connected this initiative with an attempt to reformat the borders of historical Alanya.

“I don’t go deep into South Ossetian politics, but the obvious goal seems to me to be the desire to identify this territory as belonging to the Alans since ancient times, which is not confirmed by sources. Moreover, South Ossetian researchers who worked on this issue, for example, Togoshvili, directly say that Ossetians appear on the territory of modern South Ossetia no earlier than the 13th century,” Vinogradov noted.

March 5, Vladikavkaz youth went to a rally against the initiative to rename Ingushetia . This happened after and the Change.org platform published a petition from a resident of St. Petersburg, Alikhan Tsoroev, with a call to “Rename the current Republic of Ingushetia to the Republic of Alania,” which has currently collected 2,018 signatures. The authorities of Ingushetia and North Ossetia stated that there is no talk of renaming. The head of North Ossetia, Vyacheslav Bitarov, demanded to find the organizers of the rally, while he himself was present at the rally - according to the official version, in order to prevent escalation.

The main evidence that the ethnic group belongs to the Alans is the language

Historical science as a whole quite clearly classifies the Ossetians as the descendants of the Alans, Caucasian experts believe.

“Assumptions that the Ossetians are descendants of the Alans are based on the language. This is an Eastern Iranian language, and the Alans were Iranian-speaking. Therefore, the Ossetians are their direct descendants,” said Akhmet Yarlykapov.

At the same time, according to him, there remains a lot of controversy around this issue, and “there are a lot of other assumptions.”

Andrei Vinogradov classified the South Ossetians as “settlers from the North Caucasus to the territory of Georgia,” where they arrived “at the invitation of the Georgian kings in the 13th century, after the Mongol invasion.”

“As for the North Ossetians, they are getting closer to the Alans primarily in language, because they have preserved the Iranian Alan language,” he confirmed.

This can be judged, in particular, from the Zelenchukskaya Inscription (10th century) and from the notes in one manuscript, which is kept in St. Petersburg.

“As for religion, some Ossetians retained Christianity, and some converted to Islam, like other Caucasian peoples. As for anthropology and genetics, the Ossetians are the same descendants of Alans as the Balkars and Karachais,” he told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent. Vinogradov.

The issue of the language spoken by the Alans remains debatable, emphasized Sergei Arutyunov.

“Of course, it is indisputable that the largest part of the Alans spoke the language of the eastern Iranian group, although this is not the east, but rather the north-west in relation to Iran, and these languages ​​are related to the current Ossetian. They are widespread in the east of the Iranian area, in This language is spoken by the Pamir peoples, the Yagnobis in Tajikistan; it is also the ancient Scythian language. They were spoken by the Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans and modern Ossetians. It can be considered that the modern Ossetian language, the Iron and Digor dialects are closest to these languages ​​of the ancient peoples, although not. absolutely identical, because over time languages ​​changed and broke up into dialects,” explained Arutyunov.

The scientist also admits that some Alans spoke the Turkic language.

"Some argue that the Scythians mainly spoke Turkic, but this is an exaggeration, but some could speak, this is quite possible. Very often the significance of this is exaggerated. Turkic scientists who themselves speak Turkic, especially Balkar, Karachai scientists in the Caucasus, tend to attribute the Alans mainly to the Turks,” the researcher noted.

After the publication of a petition to rename Ingushetia to Alaniaanother message has appeared on the Change.org platform petition – with a demand to rename the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania to the Republic of Alania. “It’s time to throw off this alien name – “Ossetians” and find our true name – “Alans”. Attempts to rename Ossetia to Alania have been made since 1992, but we must become the generation that will complete this holy work and put an end to historical misunderstandings,” - written by the author petitions , which has currently collected 6,337 signatures.

The Ingush became one of the many heirs of the Alan culture

Culturally, the Ingush certainly inherited the customs of the Alans, says Sergei Arutyunov.

“The Ingush, to some extent, preserve the cultural heritage of the Alans today. Yes, culturally, all the peoples of the North Caucasus have, in one way or another, inherited something from the Alans,” he said.

At the same time, according to him, the peoples of Western Europe inherited no less.

“In France, 30 cities have the root “Alan” in their names, the largest is Alençon. The word “Catalonia” contains the name of the Goths and Alans. The Alan presence was also in North Africa. There are scientists who see the Alan heritage along with the Celtic one in the legend of the Knights of the Round Table and King Arthur, and this is not fantasy, this is serious scientific research. The Alans left their mark not only in the Caucasus, where their immediate descendants are Ossetians,” the researcher emphasized.

According to Arutyunov, the name “Republic of North Ossetia-Alania” is “not speculation, but a real reflection of a historical fact.” After the defeat of “Great Alania” by the Mongols, the only surviving fragment of it was preserved in North Ossetia, he explained.

“In addition, the Alans were also known under the name “Assy” or “Yassy”. In ancient Russian sources you will find only the word “Yassy, ​​Yasynya”, meaning, of course, the Alans. And “Yashag” is the region inhabited by the Alans, until is still available in Hungary, although no one remembers the language there,” he noted.

Arutyunov clarified that in the late Middle Ages, a language close to Ossetian was still heard among part of the Hungarian population.

“And I would say that the entire European, knightly tradition of weapons and customs largely go back to the Alan military traditions,” he added.

As for the peoples inhabiting the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia, for example, the Abkhazians still have such a piece of the Alan heritage as the Nart epic.

"These are more likely fairy tales than epics. But the fact that the Nart epic was one of the pillars of Alan culture is undeniable. The Circassians and Kabardins have preserved it to a lesser extent; even the Chechens have it in part. The North Caucasus is very the territory is diverse in terms of languages, but the culture in general is national variations of a very common, powerful culture, which largely continues the Alan path,” Arutyunov explained.

The claim to the Alan heritage for any region is a matter of involvement in great history, says Andrei Vinogradov.

"The Alans were one of the most powerful peoples in the North Caucasus in the Middle Ages, and their name is a sign of prestige, since they had a cultural impact on all the peoples of the North Caucasus, including thanks to the Nart epic, which was adopted not only by the Alan peoples of the North Caucasus" , noted the researcher.

During their thousand-year residence in the North Caucasus, he continued, the Alans inevitably included part of the Nakh tribes: Chechens, Ingush, Kists.

“They conquered them, and they had a Nakh component. We know that on the territory of Ingushetia there are burials attributed to the Alans, although material culture is not always associated with ethnic identity,” noted Andrei Vinogradov.

He believes that in the actions of the Ingush leadership there is a desire to claim the prestigious name of Alans, as happened “with the construction of the new city of Magas, at a time when the location of ancient Magas is unknown.”

Modern Magas built from 1996 to 1998. By decision of the first president of the republic Ruslana Ausheva the city on the site of the capital of medieval Alanya was built specifically to become instead Nazran is the new capital of Ingushetia.

The language and architecture of the Ingush have no direct connection with the Alans

The Ingush, according to Sergei Arutyunov, can hardly lay claim to the Alan heritage in the North Caucasus.

“The Ingush speak one of the Nakh-Dagestan languages, and these languages ​​are spoken by the indigenous peoples of Dagestan, in addition to the Kumyks and Nogais, Chechens and Ingush. Obviously, the Urartu-Khurik languages ​​are related to them, and cuneiform inscriptions remain on it. Again, the degree The closeness of Chechen and Urartian is often exaggerated for political purposes, but there is undoubtedly a closeness, a kinship. However, this is a completely different group of languages, with a different system, ideology, with a different system of thinking reflected in the language,” Arutyunov said.

The historian calls attempts to interpret the Alan inscriptions in one of the Nakh languages ​​“pseudo-scientific”.

“There are some Chechen scientists who are trying to interpret the few inscriptions that have come down to us from the Alan language as inscriptions in one of the Nakh languages ​​or a language close to Nakh. However, this has no scientific basis,” he emphasized.

Despite the fragmentary nature of these inscriptions, there is no doubt that they were written in a language close to modern Ossetian and thus belonging to the Eastern Iranian group of languages, Arutyunov is sure.

“Serious linguists don’t do this. And here, rather, we are talking about pseudo-scientific authors trying to substantiate political speculations with linguistic data. So, say, with which languages ​​the Sumerian language has not been linked, but these are not scientific, but pseudo-scientific speculations,” concluded Sergei Arutyunov.

Architectural evidence also speaks of a different, non-Alan origin of the temples on the territory of modern Ingushetia, says Andrei Vinogradov.

“The Alans absorbed part of the Nakh population, and on the territory of Ingushetia there are Alan burial grounds. However, if we even look at Christianity on the territory of Ingushetia, it is not at all the same as that of the Alans, who adopted it from Byzantium through Abkhazia, but of a completely different type, that is especially evident in the architecture that came from the territory of Georgia,” Vinogradov said.

Let us recall that the Georgian authorities have already opposed the renaming of South Ossetia, regarding the holding of a referendum in the republic as an attack on the state sovereignty of Georgia.

The candidates for the post of President of South Ossetia are Speaker of Parliament Anatoly Bibilov, KGB officer Alan Gagloev and the current head of the republic Leonid Tibilov. It was he who repeatedly came up with the initiative for a referendum.

Therefore, voters will also have to answer yes or no to the question whether they agree with the amendment to Part 1 of Article 1 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Ossetia as follows: “The Republic of South Ossetia - the State of Alania - is a sovereign democratic state created as a result of self-determination of the people of the Republic of South Ossetia . The names “Republic of South Ossetia” and “State of Alania” are equivalent.”

• President of South Ossetia Leonid Tibilov
• RIA News

According to Leonid Tibilov, he made the decision to hold a referendum “guided by the desire of the people of the Republic of South Ossetia to restore the ancient name of their state as an integral part of the cultural and historical heritage and their identity.”

On April 7, Georgian Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze and the US State Department condemned the fact of holding the referendum, calling it illegitimate.

Right to Alanya

Alans are Iranian-speaking nomadic tribes of Scythian-Sarmatian origin. The unification of the Alan and Caucasian tribes led to the emergence of the kingdom of Alania, which existed in the 1st-14th centuries and fell under the invasion of the Tatar-Mongols. Historically, Alania was the name given to the territory occupied today by Ingushetia, Chechnya, Kabardino-Balkaria, partly Dagestan and North Ossetia.

Thus, in the fall of 1994, the Republic of North Ossetia added the word “Alania” to its name.

In 1998, the authorities of Ingushetia assigned the name Magas to the new capital, founded in 1994, the same as the capital of historical Alania. According to the Ingush, it was in its place that a new city was built.

In 2015, on the initiative of the mayor of Magas Beslan Tsechoev, the triumphal arch “Alan Gate” was erected. At its official opening, the head of the republic, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, remarked: “The Alan Gate” should serve as a reminder of the glorious history of the people, our ancestors.”

• Arch "Alan Gate" at the entrance to the city of Magas
• RIA News

At the end of February 2017, a petition “Rename the current Republic of Ingushetia to the Republic of Alania” was published on the Change.org website.

The reaction from the Ossetian society was not long in coming. On March 5, in the capital of North Ossetia, Vladikavkaz, about 500 people staged a protest against the renaming of Ingushetia. Yunus-Bek Yevkurov responded by assuring the Ossetians that there was no talk of renaming Ingushetia to Alania.

Karachay-Cherkessia also lays claim to the Alanian inheritance. Here are the preserved monuments of the Alan period - the Zelenchuk temple complex in the area of ​​​​the village of Arkhyz. The Karachais are convinced that the capital Magas was located there, and not on the lands of modern Ingushetia. In February 2017, the Karachais even turned to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a request to prevent the renaming of South Ossetia to Alania, since this “fundamentally contradicts the real facts of history.”

History and political context

It is interesting that from a historical point of view, most likely, everyone is right: the ancestors of the Ossetians, Ingush, and Karachay-Balkars were part of the Alan tribal union, which became the basis for the formation of the influential Alan kingdom. Both the republics within Russia and the partially recognized independent state of South Ossetia want to be the true heirs of Alania.

“Historically, it was believed that the inheritance of the Alans is the only ancient state that existed in the North Caucasus, which had a certain powerful and warlike image. Of course, many peoples would like to adopt such a legacy of their ancestors,” political scientist and specialist on Caucasus issues Evgeny Krutikov emphasized in a conversation with RT.

In his opinion, for South Ossetia, a change of name could really become a turning point in its history: “The question is not only in linguistics, but in the fact that the president who will be elected could carry out a new economic restoration program, relying on his own strength. All this can be presented as the creation of a new Alan state.”

There are many examples of countries renaming themselves for ideological reasons, the expert continues.

“Of course, the people will vote for the majority out of emotion, without going into the political component. People are annoyed by the very word “Ossetia” because it is of Georgian origin. And so they can already say: “We are building a new state - Alania,” noted Evgeny Krutikov.

Political scientist, member of the expert council of the Ministry of National Affairs of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania Igor Dulaev adds that this will most likely be followed by an expansion of economic cooperation between Russia and South Ossetia and a deepening of partnership in the defense sector.

The President of South Ossetia signed a decree on holding a referendum on renaming the republic to South Ossetia-Alania. The plebiscite will take place on the presidential election day, April 9. Leonid Tibilov came up with this initiative in December 2015.

The decree of South Ossetian President Leonid Tibilov states:

“Guided by the desire of the people of the Republic of South Ossetia to restore the ancient name of their state as an integral part of the cultural and historical heritage and their identity, based on historical and spiritual continuity between generations and paying tribute to the grateful memory of those who heroically defended and preserved the lands of their ancestors for those living today, Turning to the historical origins of the revived tradition of Alan statehood, recognizing its continuity and striving to strengthen the foundations of its reliable future, in accordance with paragraph 16 of Article 50 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Ossetia, I signed a Decree calling a referendum of the Republic of South Ossetia. A referendum on restoring the historical name of our state will be held throughout the territory of the Republic of South Ossetia on Sunday, April 9, 2017.”

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The idea of ​​renaming South Ossetia to South Ossetia-Alania is supported by many both in Tskhinvali and Vladikavkaz. However, some of my interlocutors saw the combination of presidential elections with a referendum as a smart pre-election move that could bring additional votes to the current president.

In 1994, the first president of North Ossetia, Akhsarbek Galazov, in difficult socio-political conditions, made a fundamental decision and renamed the republic North Ossetia-Alania. At that time there was a crisis in Russia, the consequences of the Ossetian-Ingush conflict were acute, and the Ossetian people needed a unifying national idea.

Leader of the Ossetia Foundation for Promoting Interethnic Relations Lev Laliev believes that this step should have been taken a long time ago:

“This should have been done earlier. Not now, before the presidential elections, but after his victory in 2012, when Tibilov had just become president. This is a big step for rapprochement and unification. In order for our people not to remain divided, it is necessary to establish a common name for the republics. Every person strives to leave something good behind. Leonid Tibilov retaining his post is a plus for him, but even if he is not elected, it is still a plus for him. Under the name of Alanya, we must strive for unification.”

Leader of the Communist Party of South Ossetia Stanislav Kochiev says that the idea of ​​​​renaming the republic “was in the air” and Leonid Tibilov proposed it back in 2015, “because the processes should take place in parallel with North Ossetia.” Stanislav Kochiev says:

“Ossetians are direct descendants and heirs of Alans. Now there are many contenders for this inheritance from our neighbors. But we are the heirs of cultural, moral, and material wealth. We must return our historical name, but we must also preserve Ossetia, the whole world knows us as Ossetians now. Combining a referendum with presidential elections is a financial saving, and in material terms it is the least expensive thing. I am confident that the referendum will attract voters to the ballot box and increase turnout on April 9.”

Supporter of ex-president Eduard Kokoity Taimuraz Kokoev supports the president’s initiative, but believes that renaming alone is not enough to strengthen national identity:

“I believe that the current South Ossetian government is reacting to the attempts of our eastern neighbors, who are persistently trying to lay claim to the Alan heritage, but just renaming Alania will not change the socio-economic situation of the population of both Ossetian republics. There must be a specific program for the revival of Alanya, including spiritual, cultural and ideological. A revival must occur in the self-awareness of each of us who considers himself an Alan. Renaming alone is not enough. Politicians who undertake to rename the republic Alanya are responsible for the further development of this idea, for the revival of Alanya.”

Publicist and political scientist Leonid Kochiev believes that the decision of the South Ossetian president to hold a referendum on the day of the presidential elections serves to increase Leonid Tibilov’s rating:

“I am absolutely convinced that combining the referendum on renaming South Ossetia with the presidential elections is a PR move. I can't say whether this is good or bad. Why rename it to Alanya. Iryston originally means the country of the Aryans, our ancestors, and this has been proven by European and world science. Alania sounds, but then why not call it Scythia, Sarmatia. There is a country of the Aryans - Iryston, I can suggest options for the name Alan Republic Iryston or As-Alan Republic Iryston, I am convinced that the name “Iryston” must definitely remain in the name of our state.”

North Ossetian public figure Tamerlan Tsomaev considers it natural to rename South Ossetia:

“In the future, the reunification of the south and north of Ossetia is inevitable, so the southern part of Ossetia also needs to be renamed. And then Ossetia-Alania will be united within Russia.”

In accordance with paragraph 16 of Article 50 of the Constitution, a referendum will be held on the question: “Do you agree with the amendment to Part 1 of Article 1 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Ossetia, stating it in the following wording: 1. The Republic of South Ossetia - the State of Alania - is a sovereign democratic legal state, created as a result of self-determination of the people of the Republic of South Ossetia. The names Republic of South Ossetia and State of Alania are equivalent.”

The text contains toponyms and terminology used in the self-proclaimed republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia

South Ossetian authorities want to rename the self-proclaimed republic in response to actions by neighboring Caucasian people in a dispute over the region's history. Some in South Ossetia also hope the renaming will help speed up accession to the Russian Federation.

In November, the de facto President of South Ossetia, Leonid Tibilov, announced the formation of a political council to decide on the issue of renaming the republic to Alania in honor of the state of the same name that existed in the Caucasus in the Middle Ages.

South Ossetia, it would seem, has more pressing problems. Agriculture, traditionally the mainstay of the region's economy, has declined, and most residents work in government agencies and are paid by the budget of the region's patron, Russia. South Ossetia's population, officially estimated at 50,000, is isolated and cut off from Georgia - of which most of the world still sees South Ossetia as part of - a growing border fence.

But for now they forgot about all this, because... Public attention turned to the conflict between the Ossetians and several neighboring peoples over which of them has the right to call themselves the true descendants of Alania, a state that existed in the region in the 8th-13th centuries. At the peak of its power in the 10th century, Alania controlled most of the North Caucasus and was “the first and only indigenously organized political entity in the North Caucasus before the Mongol invasion,” wrote historian Viktor Shnirelman, “and therefore the Alan identity gives its owner the prestige of being the bearer of a higher culture and "civilizer".

Context

Moscow tightens its grip on South Ossetia

Le Figaro 04/07/2016

On the border of South Ossetia five years after the war

Le Monde 10/29/2013

5 years ago the Five-Day War occurred in South Ossetia

InoSMI 08/08/2013

Georgia is outraged by barbed wire in South Ossetia

BBC Russian Service 05/29/2013 This prestige explains the desire of many North Caucasian peoples to consider themselves successors to the Alan heritage. The most active claim to Alan origin is the Ossetians, who are now divided into two entities - North Ossetia within Russia and South Ossetia, considered by most countries of the world to be part of Georgia. North Ossetia was renamed North Ossetia-Alania in 1994. On the territory of both Ossetias, many supermarkets, hotels, dance ensembles, etc. are named after Alanya.

Other peoples of the North Caucasus, in particular the Chechens and Karachais, also made attempts to connect their history with Alania. But the most aggressive competitors of the Ossetians for the Alan heritage are the Ingush. The Republic of Ingushetia, located east of North Ossetia, founded a new capital in 1995, calling it Magas, part of the capital of ancient Alania. And last year, the authorities of Ingushetia erected a ceremonial arch “Alan Gate” at the entrance to Magas.

The reaction of both Ossetias was not long in coming. “Naturally, this event could not go unnoticed in Ossetia. Knowing full well that the action is political, but not historical, much less scientific, in nature, nevertheless, it is probably worth commenting on it, said the first president of South Ossetia, Ludwig Chibirov, in an interview with a North Ossetian newspaper. “Unfortunately, the rewriting, alteration of historical facts “to suit one’s own needs,” imperativeness and aggressive, offensive amateurism are gaining ever faster pace, as it turns out, not only in published publications, but also in this building.”

A week after the opening of the arch, the de facto President of South Ossetia, Leonid Tibilov, proposed renaming this self-proclaimed republic. “Many peoples would like to alter their own history and appropriate someone else’s history. “In South Ossetia they were surprised that the “Alan Gate” was built in Ingushetia, since the whole world knows that Ossetians are the descendants of the Scythians and Alans, and we will not allow anyone to appropriate our history,” he said.

Tibilov also hinted that the renaming would help the process of unification of the two Ossetias. “The historical moment will come when the two parts of Ossetia will be reunited, and a united Ossetia will again become part of the Russian Federation,” he said.

Russia has provided financial and military assistance to South Ossetia since the latter's separation from Georgia after the civil war in 1991-1992. As a result of the second war with Georgia in 2008, Russia recognized South Ossetia as an independent state and hinted at the possibility of its joining the Russian Federation.

In February, Tibilov announced a referendum on joining Russia in 2016, but then announced that it would be postponed indefinitely. Unlike Crimea, which was annexed by Russia with great fanfare in 2014, Moscow treats the possibility of South Ossetia joining the Russian Federation with much more caution. In April, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he had discussed this issue with Tibilov, but Moscow was not yet “considering” this possibility. Meanwhile, Georgia continues to consider South Ossetia part of its territory.

Although the integration process in the Russian Federation has stalled, the issue of renaming is still on the agenda. It is not yet clear what the new name of the republic will be. The council is considering several options, including South Ossetia-Alania, the Republic of Alania, simply Alania, etc. All of these options are expected to be put to a vote in a referendum, a government source told EurasiaNet.org on condition of anonymity. According to the same source, the date of the referendum has not yet been determined.

The public supports the idea of ​​renaming, but there is no agreement on the new name. Some residents support the option of South Alania and the removal of the word “Ossetia” from the name, believing that it comes from the Georgian name for this people. Others suggest calling the country Iryston, because This is exactly what the republic is called in the Ossetian language.

“I support renaming the republic to Alania. To be honest, I even find it difficult to answer whether there are opponents of this process. I don’t know anyone like that,” Vyacheslav Dzhabiev, an economist in the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, told EurasiaNet.org. “The main thing for me is that the word “Ossetia” is not removed from the title. That is, not the Republic of South Alania, but the Republic of South Ossetia-Alania.”

But not everyone shares this point of view. “I am against renaming because, first of all, you can’t rename an entire country in response to someone’s wrong actions,” local political scientist Dina Alborova told EurasiaNet.org. “Secondly, we have too many other problems that require financial costs. After all, renaming the republic will involve large expenses: changing official documents, reprinting textbooks, passports, etc.” But if the renaming does happen, she is in favor of another option. “There is already Alanya in the north,” Alborova noted. — If we talk about renaming, then let them change the name to Iryston, Ir. Because we always called our country Ir, Iryston, and we called ourselves Iron, not Alan!”