Chechens (self-assumed name  nokhchi ) are the world s most ancient people with unique anthropological type and culture. They are the largest ethnic group in the North Caucasus (more than 1 million people). The neighbouring Ingush people are very similar in genotype, culture and religion. Together they form the Vainakh people related by blood, common history, territorial, economic and cultural links and language.

Vainakhs (Chechens, Ingushes) are aborigines of the Caucasus and speak Nakh, a language that belongs to the Iberian-Caucasian language family. The Vainakh (Chechen) ethnic and cultural complex was formed on the basis of various aboriginal people. Historically the Chechen community was formed as multi-ethnic and it kept absorbing  ethnic elements of nomadic people and neighbouring high-landers, the evidence of which being the non-Vainakh origin of many Chechen clans.

The history of Chechnya can be described as a continuing struggle for freedom and independence against outside enemies, in which periods of prosperity alternated with defeats and new attempts to revive the statehood. In the early Middle Ages (4^th-12^th centuries) Chechens had to take up arms to defend themselves against invaders from Rome, Sasanid Iran, Arab Caliphate and Khazar Kaganate. The centuries-long struggle forged a military union of highlanders and laid the foundation for their statehood.

Early class states on the territory of Chechnya and Daghestan

 A state structure of early class type known as  Serir kingdom existed in the mountains of Chechnya and Daghestan in the 4^th-12^th centuries; and the Alan multi-ethnic early feudal state was formed on the plains and foothills of the North Caucasus.The steppes of present-day Chechnya were part of the Khazar Kaganate.

 So, in the early Middle Ages Vainakh tribes together with kindred peoples of the Caucasus attempted to create their own statehood.The ancestors of Chechen people took an active part in the political life of medieval Georgia, Serir, Alania, Khazaria.

 The difficult process of the formation of the Chechen nation

 In the 13^th  14^th centuries Chechens were forced to retreat to the mountains by the Tatar-Mongols. In the late 14^th century Tamerlane s troops defeated Semsim state that existed on the territory of Chechnya, after which Chechens suffered a long period of decline. The physical, material and cultural losses of the Vainakh people after the invasion of Tamerlane were so great that the historical link of times and cultures was once again broken. After the fall of the Golden Horde Chechens gradually descended from the mountains and colonized the Chechen plain anew.

 By that time Chechens knew only too well what the yoke of foreign conquerors and their own feudal lords was like and rejected serfdom as incompatible with the whole of their previous history. In most of Chechnya they revived their traditional lifestyle on a qualitatively  new level setting up free communities, where personal freedom became a value in itself but was limited by democratic and strict common law known as Adat. Since then belonging to tribal or feudal aristocracy was not enough for  power to become hereditary. Individualism, cult of freedom and democracy were developed so strongly among the Vainakhs that at a certain stage they turned against the people themselves and began to hamper the process of the formation of the Chechen people. It was not accidental , that Chechen communities were at war with one another, and for fear of the elevation of people in their own midst that would create a precedent of power being hereditary, they chose rulers from representatives of either Kumyk or Kabardin dynasties, which, if need be, were easy to get rid of (which they did). Tribal Chechnya was afraid of elevating representatives of any of the Chechen clans. Hence they invited an  impartial foreign prince (and the consequences of the baneful tradition are still making themselves felt).

 Tribes and communities of highlanders all over the world live in big isolation  and are notable for their independence and bellicosity. Slavery and serfdom are alien to mountain communities, where every man is a warrior. Feudal lords were able to spread their power on separate areas only and holding it was possible only when there was  voluntary support from free and belligerent people. In the mountains family and tribal interests often prevailed over the  national interests, so it was difficult to build a stable state structure there.

The Chechen community has always been a sort of  non-state ethocratic one (in Greek etos means customs). Chechens had a tradition of holding people s meetings, at which temporary warlords and community chiefs were elected but Vainakhs never had a tsar. For them the problem of consolidation was always a pressing one. Officer of the Russian Imperial Army Umalat Laudaev, a Chechen by origin, wrote in 1872 that  a Chechen tribe consisting of numerous families that had quarreled with one another from time immemorial unanimity was  alien. Hence residents of Nazran were irreconcilable enemies of Chechens living on the lowlands and on the Terek River; they robbed and killed one another; residents of Shatoi attacked those of the right bank of the Terek River, who responded by kidnapping Shatoi people and selling them into slavery to  west Caucasus. Aukhs are closer to Kumyks and Nazranites to Ossetians and Kabardins rather than to their Chechen fellow tribesmen. This absence of unanimity on the part of Chechen communities reduced to minimum the political importance of the country they live in .

 The structure of the Chechen society

 However, a constant threat coming from foreign enemies made the Chechen society relatively homogeneous and consolidated. Vainakhs institutes of tribal and military democracy and democratic principles of ruling the country lasted longer and developed in conditions different from those of other Caucasian peoples . Due to peculiarities of historical development (fighting against outside enemies) the level of social stratification among Chechens was not high and accordingly, social and class distinctions were underdeveloped. Whatever social conflicts flared up, they were effectively settled within the bounds of a tribe on the basis of common (Adat) and Islamic (Sharia) law. As a result, Chechens, who had a comparatively high level of spiritual, material and household culture, never knew feudalism in its classical form and lived in self-ruling communities. Every clan lived on its historical territory, which was in tribal ownership. All problems of fellow tribesmen on that territory were resolved by the council of elders. Government power and settlement of international, inter-tribal and inter-clan relations fell on elected members of the country s council, known as mekhka kkhel, which dealt with issues that concerned all Chechen people. If it was necessary the council elected a temporary military chief of the country or byachcha. A characteristic feature of the  Chechen society is maximum concentration of power on the local level and delegating power upward if need be. Traditional for the loosely-structured Chechen society was collective-decision making , formed on the basis of consensus. Independent Chechen communities never tolerated autocratic rule and tyranny and never bowed to superiours let alone elevated them. Most developed among the Vainakhs was the sense of honour, justice, equality and collectivism. This is a peculiar feature of Chechen mentality.

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