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A gripping account of the Chechen struggle for independence

The war in Chechnya left us with some of the most harrowing images in recent times: a modern European city bombed to ruins while its citizens cowered in bunkers; mass graves; mothers combing the hills for their missing sons.

The product of investigative and on-the-scene reporting by two established journalists, Carlotta Gall and Thomas de Waal's captivating book recounts the story of the Chechens' violent struggle for independence, and the Kremlin politics that precipitated it. Exploring Chechnya's complex and bloody history, the work is also a portrait of Russia's failed attempt to make the transition to a democratic society.

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Library Journal Review

Written by two Moscow Times correspondents, this book describes the conflict, in context, between Russia and these Islamic lands of the Caucasus. With a fierce tradition of resistance to Russian imperialism and possessing critical oil reserves, the Chechens made a bid for independence in 1991 as the USSR was disintegrating. The authors argue that Russian President Boris Yeltsin failed to capitalize on the moderate position and willingness to settle of their leader, former Soviet general Dudayev, relying instead on Soviet attitudes favoring force and growing nationalist pressures within Russia. Thus, the 1994-97 war ensued in which the reluctant, ill-prepared Russian military captured and lost the capital, Grozny, failed to control the countryside, and had to counter terrorist attacks outside Chechnya. Following Dudayev's death, a settlement gave the Chechens overall freedom pending further decisions by 2001. An excellent journalistic account, the broadest to date, this work belongs in regional and general collections.‘Rena Fowler, Humboldt State Univ., Arcata, Cal. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

The authors reported on the 1994^-96 war in Russia's southern Muslim Chechnya region, which tolled at least 60,000 deaths. This work offers one of the first available book-length perspectives on the background and course of the vicious affair. It explains the long-standing Chechen grievance against Russian domination, which dates from imperial expansions in the 1830s, exacerbated by Stalin's decision to expel the entire Chechen people, as alleged Nazi collaborators, from their homeland. (Khrushchev later let them back.) All was quiet until the USSR cracked along ethnic lines; nationalistic Russians feared the fissures might spread to their federation, which a rigid Chechen leader proposed to start by declaring his people's independence; and the war came. The text, based on interviews, chronicles the outbreak of the war, the fighting, hostage raids by Chechens, and the drawn-out road to an armistice. A unique source on this subject. --Gilbert Taylor

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Carlotta Gall is a reporter with the Moscow Times. Thomas de Waal has reported on Russia and the Caucasus since 1993 for the Moscow Times, The Times of London, The Economist, and the BBC World Service. He is currently Senior Associate, Caucasus at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His publications include, most recently, The Caucasus: An Introduction.