United, independent Muslim north caucasus?

Could it be possible for a country consisting of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia to gain independence from Russia post 1900 and stay united to 2019?

Now, a lot of you might say it would fall apart beause of linguistic differences and mountainous geography. To which I say, look at Switzerland. Many languages, very mountainous. Yet it had a strong sense of united national identity, and it is a very well functioning country over all. Granted, Dagestan alone has more languages than Switzerland, but I still think something can be worked out.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
Could it be possible for a country consisting of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia to gain independence from Russia post 1900 and stay united to 2019?

Now, a lot of you might say it would fall apart beause of linguistic differences and mountainous geography. To which I say, look at Switzerland. Many languages, very mountainous. Yet it had a strong sense of united national identity, and it is a very well functioning country over all. Granted, Dagestan alone has more languages than Switzerland, but I still think something can be worked out.
The formation of the Swiss national identity took hundreds of years and involved multiple civil wars. After a single civil war the North Caucasus would either be re-annexed by Russia or fall apart for good.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
Could it be possible for a country consisting of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia to gain independence from Russia post 1900 and stay united to 2019?

Now, a lot of you might say it would fall apart beause of linguistic differences and mountainous geography. To which I say, look at Switzerland. Many languages, very mountainous. Yet it had a strong sense of united national identity, and it is a very well functioning country over all. Granted, Dagestan alone has more languages than Switzerland, but I still think something can be worked out.
Too many internal divisions and probably too much interference from Turkey and iran
 
Could it be possible for a country consisting of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia to gain independence from Russia post 1900 and stay united to 2019?

Now, a lot of you might say it would fall apart beause of linguistic differences and mountainous geography. To which I say, look at Switzerland. Many languages, very mountainous. Yet it had a strong sense of united national identity, and it is a very well functioning country over all. Granted, Dagestan alone has more languages than Switzerland, but I still think something can be worked out.
Maybe an alternative timeline were the ethnic cleansing and deportations of Caucasus people doesn't happen and the North Caucasus Soviet Republics isn't dissolved. Could as a whole gain independence in an alternative timeline.
 
Maybe an alternative timeline were the ethnic cleansing and deportations of Caucasus people doesn't happen and the North Caucasus Soviet Republics isn't dissolved. Could as a whole gain independence in an alternative timeline.

Even assuming this happens, how do you keep the various groups from infighting? As was mentioned above, Switzerland was the result of centuries of conflict and compromises.

I suppose fear of Russia could keep them together, provided they can find a suitable ally.
 
The formation of the Swiss national identity took hundreds of years and involved multiple civil wars. After a single civil war the North Caucasus would either be re-annexed by Russia or fall apart for good.
True, but in the end, the country didn't fall apart and it succeeded in the end.

I do not doubt that the formation of the north caucasus state would be difficult and rife with tension. But if it did end up working, what would it look like?

And as for regional allies, I think Iran might promote it as bulwark against Russia.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
True, but in the end, the country didn't fall apart and it succeeded in the end.

I do not doubt that the formation of the north caucasus state would be difficult and rife with tension. But if it did end up working, what would it look like?

And as for regional allies, I think Iran might promote it as bulwark against Russia.
By the time Iran is powerful enough to provide meaningful support Russia would have been powerful enough to re-annex the Caucasus. A surviving Ottoman Empire that remained neutral in WW1 or CP-victory scenario would make more sense. But even the Ottomans have a very limited ability to provide support against Russia, even if Russia is weakened by Brest-Litovsk.

The best option for survival is becoming a Russian client state.
 
By the time Iran is powerful enough to provide meaningful support Russia would have been powerful enough to re-annex the Caucasus. A surviving Ottoman Empire that remained neutral in WW1 or CP-victory scenario would make more sense. But even the Ottomans have a very limited ability to provide support against Russia, even if Russia is weakened by Brest-Litovsk.

The best option for survival is becoming a Russian client state.
Maybe it something can be worked out during the Russian civil war?

Also, can this new country do a sort of "armed to the teeth neutrality"? To make it so that Russia trying to annex the area would be like Germany trying to annex Switzerland. Technically possible, but extremely costly with no tangible benifit and over all not worth it.
 
Even assuming this happens, how do you keep the various groups from infighting? As was mentioned above, Switzerland was the result of centuries of conflict and compromises.

I suppose fear of Russia could keep them together, provided they can find a suitable ally.
If a Sunni religious ideology find's its way Like OTL than the various peoples would have a common cause.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
Maybe it something can be worked out during the Russian civil war?

Also, can this new country do a sort of "armed to the teeth neutrality"? To make it so that Russia trying to annex the area would be like Germany trying to annex Switzerland. Technically possible, but extremely costly with no tangible benifit and over all not worth it.
Germany has never had a good opportunity to annex Switzerland. Doing so after 1945 is obviously out of the question, and during World War II they were too busy with the Balkans, and later the Soviet Union. Doing so in the Interbellum would have resulted in war against France and Britain on highly unfavorable terms, as neither side could appease such a blatant act of aggression without even the fig leaf of self-determination. During WWI Germany was obviously too busy to invade, and during 1871-1914 doing so would have created an international crisis that likely would have resulted in war. Russia by contrast, could re-annex the North Caucasus without fear of causing a general European war.
 
Germany has never had a good opportunity to annex Switzerland. Doing so after 1945 is obviously out of the question, and during World War II they were too busy with the Balkans, and later the Soviet Union. Doing so in the Interbellum would have resulted in war against France and Britain on highly unfavorable terms, as neither side could appease such a blatant act of aggression without even the fig leaf of self-determination. During WWI Germany was obviously too busy to invade, and during 1871-1914 doing so would have created an international crisis that likely would have resulted in war. Russia by contrast, could re-annex the North Caucasus without fear of causing a general European war.
Could the Caucasus state prevent this by allying with another great power, or would none of them really care enough?
 
The northern Caucasus and Switzerland are, aside from theoretical similarities in terrain, completely different in terms of their situation for the formation of such an entity.

Switzerland, as a region, has existed in a roughly confederal form for a good seven centuries, and has a remarkably special series of circumstances surrounding the formation of a singular national identity. It originated as a trade league between some alpine Swiss mountain communities and over time coalesced and expanded, developing as a loose assemblage of polities operating as one unit within a loose assemblage of polities and in the process acquiring a well-established character while retaining a level of granularity and regional autonomy preventing forces such as pan-nationalism from ingraining themselves. Additionally, given that the Swiss Confederacy developed over the centuries with mutual benefit of its member cantons in mind, factors such as economy and cashflow have not been especially prominent either. Religion has been somewhat of a dividing factor (see the Sonderbund War), but this declined with the spread of secularism and active government restructuring to prevent such conflicts.

Contrast this hypothetical Caucasian union, which based on your description is identical or nearly so to the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus. Independence is easy enough given that this occurred OTL, but survival is entirely different. There aren't really any powers nearby which are capable of defending such a state from theoretical Russian reconquest in the pre-nuclear era, so one would need for the ASSR to survive somehow and then gain independence in a different (perhaps earlier?) Soviet collapse/disintegration. Even then, national identity remains a very prominent issue as there is little commonality between the myriad communities of this country except fear of Russian reconquest and theoretically Islam, and unlike in Switzerland you don't have nearly 700 years of cooperative traditions to draw stability off of. Developing united economy and infrastructure may help settle ethnic and religious quabbles, but considering that the Caucasus was a relative backwater among the regions of the Russian Empire, itself among the least developed of its (European) neighbors, there is quite a long ways to go.

Overall I'd say you would need the Mountainous ASSR to remain intact and see a lot of development of infrastructure using Soviet resources (theoretically not under Stalin or a similarly genocidal character), then for the USSR to fall before it is liquidated or subdivided. How this would occur is not something I can comment well upon.
 
I think a major problem in uniting the North Caucasus are not just that these people don’t deal well with each other or have a lot in common, but also that the Ossetians are mostly Orthodox Christians, which break up the Muslims of Western and Eastern North Caucasus. So we’re talking about the Soviet a official atheist state, to create a state founded on all the people in it being Muslims, and then include a Orthodox people, who was pretty much the only people loyal to Moscow in the northern Caucasus.

USSR created Soviet Republics if either a people was so numberous, that Moscow found such a SSR viable or if there was some good foreign policy reasons. Neither existed for the Northern Caucasus.
 
I think a major problem in uniting the North Caucasus are not just that these people don’t deal well with each other or have a lot in common, but also that the Ossetians are mostly Orthodox Christians, which break up the Muslims of Western and Eastern North Caucasus. So we’re talking about the Soviet a official atheist state, to create a state founded on all the people in it being Muslims, and then include a Orthodox people, who was pretty much the only people loyal to Moscow in the northern Caucasus.

USSR created Soviet Republics if either a people was so numberous, that Moscow found such a SSR viable or if there was some good foreign policy reasons. Neither existed for the Northern Caucasus.
Yeah, Ossetians are Christian. In case you didn't see, I said Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan. Only the Muslim areas east of Ossetia. I didn't include Karachay Cherkessia or Karabardo Balkaria because they are cut off by Ossetia and have much larger ethnic Russian minorities.
 
Yeah, Ossetians are Christian. In case you didn't see, I said Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan. Only the Muslim areas east of Ossetia. I didn't include Karachay Cherkessia or Karabardo Balkaria because they are cut off by Ossetia and have much larger ethnic Russian minorities.

In that case you still have the problem that USSR are not going to create a SSR based on religion, which leave the alternative that the Chechen succeed in conquering Dagestan after the fall of USSR.
 
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