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1. The multinational character of the inhabitants of Daghestan has not allowed us to determine the titular nation.
2. The territorial principle of federal subordination of Daghestan contributes to the maintenance of peaceful relations between its peoples.
3. The historically established priority of the moral principle over national identity of a person contributes to the maintenance of peace in Daghestan.
"Vlast", Moscow, 2013, No 10, pp. 146-147.
V. Gadaev,
political analyst, Academy of Sciences of the Chechen Republic, Grozny INSTITUTE OF THE CAUCASIAN FAMILY: SOME PECULIAR FEATURES OF ITS TRANSFORMATION
Family problems have always been an important aspect in the life of society. Recently the interest in them has increased from representatives of various social sciences and humanities, as a result of the complex and contradictory processes in the modern family and family relations. These processes have been caused by global contemporary problems, facing humanity today.
The family undergoes dynamic changes in accordance with the new political-economic and socio-cultural realities, just like any other social formation as a whole does. In this country, large, or extended familiesin many regions, have begun to disintegrate. A number of lone-parent families is increasing, as well as a number of the so-called parent families where the woman is the sole breadwinner. In some families, many spouses, and sometimes, their children, are subjected to
alcoholism and drug addiction, which lead to reduction in births. There is a growing number of families with one child, and there is also a tendency of children born out of wedlock.
Investigations show that more and more women prefer to have children out of wedlock, confirming a familiar truth: "Where there is marriage without love, there is love without marriage."
Crisis in family relationships has influenced the "Caucasian family." This means families of people living between the Black, Azov and Caspian seas in an area of about 440 thousand square kilometers. These families can be identified as "Western family," "Asian family," "African family" etc., based on the territorial criteria. As for the "Caucasian families," nationality is implied in the first place, with the peculiar features of their culture, traditions, customs and religious beliefs. "Caucasian families" have been scattered all over the planet because of migration processes, dynamically developing in the modern world. Now it is difficult to answer the question as to what can be considered a "Caucasian family":
1) "Caucasian family" in Europe.
2) "Caucasian family" in the East (Jordan, Syria, Turkey, new migrants from the Caucasus in the Middle East).
3) "Caucasian family" in Russian regions.
4) "Caucasian family" in the CIS countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Belarus, etc.).
5) "Caucasian family" in the Caucasus.
Factors of cultural and spiritual influence
on the Chechen family in Europe
1. Western culture.
2. Muslim culture of migrants from the East.
3. Chechen national culture.
Factors of cultural and spiritual influence on the Chechen family in the East
1. Arab-Muslim culture.
2. Culture of Eastern nations.
3. Chechen national culture.
Factors of cultural and spiritual influence on the Chechen family in the Russian Federation
1. Russian culture and the culture of the peoples of Russia.
2. Culture of Russian Muslims.
3. Chechen national culture.
Factors of cultural and spiritual influence on the Chechen family in the CIS countries
1. Secular culture of the local people.
2. The religious culture of local denominations.
3. Chechen national culture.
Factors of cultural and spiritual influence on the Chechen family in the Chechen Republic
1. Russian and other peoples' cultures.
2. Chechen traditional Islam.
3. Non-traditional Muslim beliefs.
4. Chechen national culture.
All families are influenced by many complex processes due to socio-economic, political, legal, spiritual, cultural, and religious factors that lead to significant changes in them. Here are some of them on the example of the Chechen family.
1. The division of the extended families has taken place, especially outside the traditional residence of this ethnic group (Europe, Middle East, Russian Federation, etc.).
2. Cultural and spiritual factors that influence the Chechen family have changed significantly. It is caused by the place of residence of Chechen families, cultural environment, etc.
Universal human values are inherent in the "Caucasian family": industriousness, respect for the elders, parents and relatives, hospitality, mutual support, patriotism, and tolerance, and they are manifested stably and clearly. At the same time, the Caucasian family gradually loses its value under the influence of globalization. These processes are more intense outside the Caucasus - in the diasporas of Europe, Eastern countries and Russia. National traditions have faded under the strong influence of European culture. In such families, the father is out of the family in search of a livelihood. The mother becomes the carrier of national culture, at the best. Children spend much time in preschool institutions, schools, colleges, etc., outside the influence of national culture and the language. They feel more comfortably speaking the language of the country of residence. Parents, especially mothers, come under the influence of their children, gradually giving up their ethno-cultural roots. In the Caucasus there are significant changes in the traditional household, in spiritual and moral order, which undermine the family foundations.
This occurs under the influence of new economic, moral, political, social and cultural factors. Capitalism has come to the Caucasus, destroying its unique national culture.
The new historical epoch has caused significant changes in all spheres of life of the Caucasian highlanders, including the family. Here are some of them.
1. Replacement of traditional family values and priorities. The Caucasian highlanders' family has always been characterized by the priority of the spiritual over the material, aspiration to the highest values, sensitive attitude to public opinion, loyalty to the Fatherland, tendency to bring up decent members of society. The patriarchal family of the Caucasian highlanders has cultivated in their children openness, generosity, hospitality, and compassion. The new historical epoch requires discipline, order and punctuality, so the modern Caucasian family should develop these qualities in their children. Theologians call for remembering the moral values, but, unfortunately, it is only good wishes for today's morally deaf people.
2. For centuries, the Caucasian highlanders' family has sought to create new generations with such moral qualities as feelings of equality and brotherhood, modesty, and respect for the individual. A sudden welfare has changed the consciousness and behavior of many Caucasians. Today the worldview of the nouveau riche is formed in many wealthy families, that inevitably engenders the caste of elite and hostile attitude towards the destitute. In turn, "the lower classes" do not feel much respect for "the upper classes." The current situation leads to a permanent social conflict in the future.
4. In the past, the Caucasian family consisted of several generations (parents, children, grandchildren, close relatives) living together, or in the neighborhood. Parents, grandparents, older relatives, older siblings were the first teachers of children. They studied traditional culture, spiritual and moral values, unique family rules, habits and customs. Every young highlander was a carrier of not only human virtues, but the unique moral and ethical views of their family-clan. Nowadays, extended families continue to disintegrate. This process leads to a sharp change in the entire system of the Caucasian highlanders' values, weakening blood-related feelings. The destruction
of traditional families has negatively influenced the mechanism of transfer of national culture to the younger generations. The new generation cannot be mentally stable and spiritually strong, and harmoniously developed, because it has not grown in the system of national and spiritual values. Previously, children's spiritual world was formed individually in extended families. In the past, talented authors put their hearts into their work, creating masterpieces of painting, literature, music, thereby influencing and educating the younger generation. Today, in our technological-information age, the spiritual world of young people is formed by the mass media: the Internet, TV, etc. In our century, the process of "stamping" spiritual production is too intensive, which leads to the destruction of real culture.
5. Speaking about the Caucasian family, we should mention polygamous marriage, which can often be met among mountain Muslim nations in he North Caucasus, especially in the post-Soviet period. Polygamy exists in two forms - polygyny, when a man has more than one wife (in Islam - four) and polyandry, when a woman has several husbands (India, Tibet, Nepal, Hawaii). Polyandrous families are: fraternal (one woman marries several brothers) and unrelated (husbands are not relatives). Polygamy was the result of a periodic gender disproportions in society due to various social and biological factors.
In the contemporary world, polygamy exists in two forms: formal (legal) and informal (illegal). Polygamy exists due to the following factors: gender disproportion (in Russia there are 11 million less men than women, and in China for every 100 girls born there are 130 boys), sexual frustration, social disadvantage, or vice versa: the socio-property glut. There are also biological interpretations of the genesis of polygamy, according to which the nature created a man as a polygamous creature, but a man himself has created the institution of
monogamous marriage, violating the fundamental laws of nature. This attempt has not been fully successful, and, as a result, monogamy and polygamy coexist, sometimes passing into each other.
What is the outlook of the family evolution as a social institution? The following picture emerges if you compile views of the most authoritative researchers. The patriarchal family (consisting of three generations) was dominant in the era of agrarian civilization, and the economic function had priority in the family. The power of the older family members was unlimited, and so were the parents' rights to children, while the latter were indebted to their parents. Spouses' feelings (love, tenderness, etc.) were not of primary importance. Survivals of the patriarchal family exist in the Caucasian families up to this day. The emergence of capitalist relations with a concentration of a huge number of workers in the same workplace at the beginning of the industrial era (17th century) has undermined the foundations of the patriarchal family, contributing to the emergence of new form of the family (husband, wife, children), which dominates up to this day. New economic relations have destroyed the need to live in the "traditional" extended families. In new families marriages began to be concluded not only for pragmatic reasons (physically strong, healthy body and spirit), but also on the basis of the psychological factor (love, first of all, friendly communication, intimate relations, warmth, support, etc.).
We are witness to the arrival of a new post-industrial society, new information civilization, which has made significant adjustments to the institution of the family and family relationships. Economic independence of women has increased rapidly, and their dependence on men has decreased, which led to women's social emancipation, including sexual one. In our time, the institution of marriage (at least in
western civilization) gradually loses its second important function -that of regulating the monopoly of intimate relationships.
The industrial family has emancipated the feelings (made them a personal matter, without control of relatives or public), and the postindustrial family does the same in the intimate sphere (sexual life is a personal matter of any free citizen). Economic independence of women has led to the loss of strictly defined roles of both women and men, destroying the classical concept of marriage and encouraging the development of the single-parent families. Nowadays people try to legitimize homosexual marriage (sometimes they succeed in it). The complete abandonment of the strictly limited roles in marriage according to one's gender (male-father, female-mother) is prevented by the fact that only a woman can give birth. However, progress in biotechnology will solve this problem in the foreseeable future, directly influencing the evolution of the family and family relations. Any family, regardless of the sex of its members, will be able to have a child (including the use of a surrogate egg).
There is one last traditional function of the family - raising children after the loss of the second traditional function - a monopoly on "legitimate sex" within the legal marriage (the first loss was "family -economic unit"). It could be surmised that the family of the future will consist of people with common views, interests, mutual attraction, and wishes to raise children together. Perhaps, people in a future society will overcome the view that only one type of the family is normal and moral, and others - moral pathology. A wide variety of family types in addition to the traditional can be seen today in the technologically advanced countries: homosexual marriages, communes, groups of older people living together to combine costs (sometimes having intimate relations), tribal ethnic minority groups, and other types of relationships that have not existed previously. There are arranged marriages,
contractual marriages, serial marriages, family groups and close ties, in which intimate relations may or may not be.
All the above applies to the European family based on liberal values. As for the eastern family (including the Caucasian family, especially the Muslim one), the principle of the strength of the family is a priority as regards the principle of gender equality or the liberal values of Western culture. Many young Muslims who grew up in the West, do not marry European girls with liberal values, but invite Muslim brides from their historical homeland. Muslim girls are not familiar with ideas of "gender equality" and "free love", but ready to fulfill the basic female function, required by Islam: give birth to as many children as possible and raise them well.
Nowadays the modern world, both natural and social, tends to diversity, as well as in all times. This led to a crisis in the dominant model of the family, to more frequent divorces, to increased number of civil marriages. Obviously, the old system of family relations is in crisis now. The new paradigm is defined clearer and clearer, denying dialectically obsolete forms of the family, offering variety of its forms, keeping the most important ones, i.e. mutual love, common views and interests, and concern for the upbringing of children.
What will happen to the Caucasian family, taking into account both the traditions of the patriarchal tribal customs of agricultural civilization and the family of industrial civilization, avoiding diversity of families of post-industrial civilization? If we examine the problem more closely, it is the collision point between Eastern traditions and Western innovations.
Experience shows that the West is unable to withstand the onslaught of post-industrial civilization and modifies its institutions (including the Family) in accordance with its requirements.
Will the East resist this power to preserve the age-old religious, ethno-social, spiritual and moral values, customs and traditions in order to save the spiritual culture and social institutions, including the traditional Caucasian family?
It should be emphasized that the new era of post-industrial civilization has not destroyed the past and present of mankind, but only approved democratic and progressive forms of human relations, effective ways to solve problems in the life of modern humanity, including in the sphere of the Family. The Family's diversity seems to be established in synthesis of traditions and innovations, bringing positive and viable traditions, rules and regulations of the past into a new era. Even now the objective social reality demands the experience of the ancient patriarchal family, in which the economic function was the priority.
People worked in their own homes and the on surrounding land in the distant era of agrarian civilization for more than 10,000 years, and economic, administrative, cultural, spiritual, educational processes have always been associated with their hearth and home. These strong ties had been severed because of the capitalist system of production, when people had moved into the city and concentrated around industrial enterprises. Postindustrial civilization can return working people to the family hearth. This trend is evident in the West and the East in the sphere of high-tech manufacturing. Several generations of one family (parents, children, grandchildren) can now work together at home, as it was in the patriarchal family in the past, if there are computers and other necessary equipment.
In the context of the Caucasus, this new mode of production can breathe life into the social institutions of old civilizations. Consequently, post-industrial civilization does not destroy the
patriarchal and ordinary new families, but revives them on a qualitatively new basis.
"Vestnik Akademii Nayk Chechenskoi Respubliki", Grozny, 2013, № 1 (18), pp. 165-171.
Oleg Chervinsky,
Editor-in-chief of the journal "Petroleum" (Kazakhstan) KAZAKHSTAN BETWEEN MOSCOW AND BEIJING
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan has found itself in an extremely difficult situation. Our country possessing very rich deposits of natural resources, especially hydrocarbons, has been left without access to world markets. Situated in the center of the Eurasian continent between Russia and China, Kazakhstan was unable to export its oil and gas even in small volumes, which it extracted in the conditions of the economic ruin of the early 1990s.
The Chinese direction did not exist at all because there were no pipelines going to the South. The only export arteries were oil and gas pipelines leading to Russia, which it naturally used in order to reach its geopolitical and economic aims.
A vivid example of "pipe pressure" on the neighbor was the history of the development of the unique Karachaganak deposit. It was discovered in 1979 and is one of the biggest oil-and-gas condensate deposits in the world. In the north-western part of Kazakhstan, near the border with Russia, the deposit occupies a territory of over 280 square kilometers. Its hydrocarbon reserves are estimated at nine billion barrels of condensate and 48 trillion cubic feet of gas. The industrial development of the deposit began in 1984 by the Ministry of gas industry of the U.S.S.R. The technological scheme of the deposit development envisaged that the mined raw materials would be
