Highlanders : A Journey to the Caucasus in Quest of Memory [Hardcover]

Yo'av Karny (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2000

Many dire predictions followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, but nowhere have they materialized as dramatically as in the Caucasus:insurrection, civil wars, ethnic conflicts, economic disintegration, and up to two million refugees. Moreover, in the 1990s Russia twice went to war in the Caucasus, and suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of a population small enough to constitute a single district of Moscow. What is it about the Caucasus that makes the region so restless, so unpredictable, so imbued with heroism but also with fanaticism and pain? In Highlanders, Yo'av Karny offers a better understanding of a place described as a "museum of civilizations," where breathtaking landscapes join with an astounding cultural diversity. Karny spent many months among members of some of the smallest ethnic groups on earth, all of them living in the grim shadow of an unhappy empire. But his book is a journey not only to a geographic region but also to darker sides of the human soul, where courage vies with senseless vindictiveness; where honor and duty require people to share the present with long-dead ancestors, some real, some imaginary; and where an ancient way of life is drawing to an end under the combined weight of modernity and intolerance.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Yo'av Karny's remarkable memoir and historical study Highlanders opens with two telling, and subtle, epigrams. The first, by Lord Byron, states simply, "High Mountains are a feeling." The second, by the French historian Ernest Renan, rejoins, "It is good for everyone to know how to forget."

But in the high mountains of the Caucasus, where ethnic and religious divisions continue to atomize already tiny nations, forgetfulness is a rare thing. Instead, writes Israeli journalist Karny, the "highlanders" nurse memories of long-ago injuries and insults even as their cultures, sometimes numbering only a village's worth of inhabitants, are disappearing, swallowed up by time and the advance of more powerful ethnic and linguistic groups. Such powerful memories fuel conflicts that may at first glance seem nearly incomprehensible to outsiders--notably the long war in Chechnya, which has been raging for hundreds of years, even if it has only recently become a fixture of the news worldwide. Karny's explication of that war is essential for anyone with an interest in current events.

Some of the Caucasus's countries (notably Azerbaijan), Karny writes, show every promise of becoming rich and regionally influential; but most of the region seems condemned to endless bloodshed. It does not have to be so, he suggests, for "extraordinary diversity ... does not necessarily suggest hopeless division." Still, the "law of the mountains" seems to hold little room for clemency--or amnesia. Karny's revealing book tells why. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly

The remote mountain region of the Caucasus has little in common with the contemporary West. Yet this history draws a compelling link between the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev and a selection of national heroes ranging from William Wallace to William Tell and from Prometheus to Geronimo. They share, suggests Karny, "an astounding perseverance a dogged sense of pride irrational pursuits of liberty." These, he writes, are the characteristics of mountain-dwellers, whose attitude is shaped by altitude and whose chivalrous folklore has been co-opted by imperial plain-dwellers from Boston to London to Moscow. It is through this topographical lens that Karny presents the complex microcosm of the Caucasus. Here, in a region half the size of Kentucky, are registered 46 distinct nations, speaking an even greater number of languages. Among them are the Circassians, whose military prowess make them world-famous mercenaries; the Kumyk, whose nascent nationalist movement is the first in the former Soviet Union to be spearheaded by women; the Laks, whose banishment to the lowlands by the Bolsheviks in 1920 nearly destroyed them as a nation; and of course the Chechens, whose armed resistance to Russian rule has reduced their cities to rubble and yanked the Caucasus from international obscurity. Karny muddies his portrait with a self-conscious attempt to connect with his subjects, calling his book a "quest of memory" (as the descendant of Polish Jews, Karny feels he was subjected to memory desensitization by Israeli propaganda). But, fortunately, his philosophical ponderings are overshadowed by his scrupulous journalism and passionate plea that these endangered nations be helped to survive the 21st century's globalization. B&W photos, maps.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux; 1st edition (October 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374226024
• ISBN-13: 978-0374226022
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,759,565 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Caucasus: A Fascinating Mosaic of Nations, Memory, November 20, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Highlanders : A Journey to the Caucasus in Quest of Memory (Hardcover)

From New York Times Book Review, November 19, 2000, reviewed by Colin Thubron:

The mountains and valleys of the Caucasus, spreading 750 miles between the Black and Caspian seas, may contain greater ethnic and linguistic diversity than any comparable region on earth. Throughout history, the area has attracted beleaguered minorities and insulated them in precipitous terrain. Long after the Russians completed their arduous conquest in 1864, the people of the Caucasus remained grimly self-sufficient.

To unravel this web of small republics into a coherent narrative is a formidable challenge, and the Israeli foreign correspondent Yoav Karny has approached it head-on. During the early 1990's, following the collapse of Soviet power, his travels brought him into contact with many of the region's most influential figures: the wise, the rash, the moving and the ridiculous. He conducted his interviews with intelligence and modesty, astute in his interpretations but sensitive to possible misjudgments. If his new book, ''Highlanders,'' seems to zigzag through a maze of political factions and to deliver contrary messages, it is only reflecting the region's complexity. Karny at once negotiates crosscurrents of near tribalism and steamrolling modernity, bitter memory and contrived history, and emerges with a cry of foreboding.

The net he casts misses some areas (no Georgia, no Ossetia), yet its reach is adventurously wide. There are the Cossacks, of course: a Russian resurgence seething with barely repressed militarism. And the once-renowned Circassians, clinging to their terrain in the long aftermath of a catastrophic 19th-century expulsion. And the remnants of small nations removed by Stalin and now returned: the Ingush, fewer than 250,000 strong; the Balkars, who lost over a third of their people in the deportation; and the Chechens, inexplicably intrepid.

But Karny reserves the heart of his book for another ''autonomous republic'' within the Russian Federation: Dagestan. ''It is unlike any other part of Russia,'' he writes; ''indeed, few parallels could be produced anywhere. Thirty-odd nations, speaking some of the world's most exotic languages and heirs to some of the planet's oldest surviving traditions, are all bundled together in one province about half the size of Virginia.'' These tiny groups of people, united under a collective presidency, defy the lessons of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and the old Soviet Union by surviving together in precarious statehood. The once-powerful Kumyks; the 90,000-strong warrior Laks; the Lezgins, split fatally between Russia and Azerbaijan -- all cohabit with communities as small as the Mountain Jews and the one-village nation of Khynalug, a near-illiterate Lezgin subgroup with its own language.

Nationalism is shallow-rooted in the Caucasus, where loyalties have traditionally been regional and religious. But in the void left by the death of a supranational socialism, local patriotism rushed in. Within half a generation after the Soviet collapse, however, the intellectuals who took the stage for nationalism were ousted by a younger, tougher breed: businessmen and administrators, some of whom make up the ill-defined ''mafia'' lamented throughout today's Russia. Karny traces this decline graphically in two successive representatives of the little Lak nation. In the heyday of Gorbachev's liberation, its spokesman was the fiery and cultivated Ali Aliyev. But now, in harsher times, he has been replaced by Magomed Khachilayev, a shaven-headed karate champion amassing wealth and political power in tandem.

<...>

This book full of heartfelt uncertainties has its defects. Sometimes it loses focus (as in a longueur on Chechens living in Jordan). Playfully, it employs the chapter summaries common to 19th-century travelogues, as if to place in another genre what is essentially a journalist's reportage. Yet I doubt if any Westerner understands the political scenery of the post-Soviet Caucasus better than Karny, or has gathered and deployed his knowledge with such courage and sympathy.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Circassian's opinion on this book, February 18, 2001

By 

Yaz Barsbay (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Highlanders : A Journey to the Caucasus in Quest of Memory (Hardcover)

Thanks to Yo'av Karny for such an informative book. I was pleasantly surprised to find such a detailed account of my Circassian History. This book really hit home with me, and I found myself weeping. Weeping because it brought back memories and stories that my grandfather used to tell me as a child. This book even covers the story of the Circassians living not only in the Caucasus, but also in the Golan Heights. Yo'av reveals both the good and bad side of Circassians, and Circassian history. Circassians suffered our own Genocide at the hands of various Russian tyrants. On the other hand, Circassian warriors were known for their ruthless actions during all of our battles. That is why Circassians were chosen by countless of kings and presidents alike to act as body guards. That is also why we were given the name "CHERKESS" (Neck Cutters) by our enemies. When European and Middle Eastern mothers wanted to frighten their childeren, they would warn them that if they weren't good, THE CHERKESS would come for them. Those are the sad facts. This book was a pleasure to read. Thank You Yo'av......Yaz Barsbay

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Material on the Northern Caucuses, September 20, 2001

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Highlanders : A Journey to the Caucasus in Quest of Memory (Hardcover)

Israeli journalist Karny has assembled a massive and somewhat rambling book attempting to capture the history and spirit of the "Highlanders" who dwell in the Caucuses. Part history, part memoir, part travelogue, part contemporary reportage, the book would have benefited from slightly more focus. What we get is 70 pages on the Circassians, who are three tribes spread across several provinces and regions to the north of Georgia (and much of the Middle East and Western world). Then come 125 pages on Daghetsan, which borders the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, and Chechnya. Part three is 150 pages on Chechnya, which would have brought things to a nice climax. However, Karny leaves the Northern (currently Russian) Caucuses and presses on for a further-comparatively skimpy-55 pages on Armenia and Azerbaijan. This last section is troublesome in that by including it, Karny's book discusses all the major players in the region except Georgia! (Perhaps he felt that country had already been well-covered in Peter Nasmyth's recent book, Georgia: In the Mountains of Poetry) One is left with the impression that he has included it because the Azeri-Armenian conflict is such a vivid illustration of his thesis concerning the use and manipulation of history and memory in the region that he couldn't resist putting it in.

The subjectivity of history and memory in the Caucuses is one of Karny's main themes, as is the fact that many of the unique cultures and languages are dying out, victims of modernization and Russian schools. Karny exhibits a marked ambivalence about the highlander desire to never forget the past. While he admires this trait for its role in maintaining culture, and resisting invaders, he also sees it as a force of division in contemporary times-sometimes leading to self-destruction (in the case of Chechnya). Of course the history he shares gives plenty of justification for continued anger against the Russians, who invaded first in the 1830s, occupied the area, and under Stalin engaged in mass relocation and killings against many Caucasian nationalities.

The book emerged from a number of trips Karny took to the region from 1993-1999, and he writes with a steady knowledge of history and contemporary events. He is perhaps a little too fond of reproducing conversations with various officials he meets with, but his flair for describing the everyday people he meets makes up for it. The book is peppered throughout with photos taken on his travels which aren't always the best, but are invaluable for putting a face on the people and places he talk about. If nothing else, one should read the section on Chechnya for a better understanding on why they continue to resist rule from Moscow. Particularly enlightening is his discussions of the various strains of Sufism most Chechens follow, and how they influence the resistance.