The Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus (MRNC), also referred to as the United Republics of the North Caucasus, Mountain Republic, or the Republic of the Mountaineers, was a short-lived state in Eastern Europe. It encompassed the eastern portion of the North Caucasus and emerged during the Russian Civil War and existed from 1918 to 1919. It formed as a consolidation of various North Caucasian ethnic groups, including the Abazins, Balkars, Chechens, Circassians, Dagestanis, Ingush, Karachays and Ossetians.
The MRNC encompassed the former territories of Terek Oblast and Dagestan Oblast within the Russian Empire. These territories now constitute the present-day republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia, North Ossetia–Alania, Kabardino-Balkaria, Dagestan, and a portion of Stavropol Krai in the Russian Federation. Spanning approximately , the MRNC had a population of approximately 11.2 million. Throughout its existence, the capital of the MRNC relocated from Vladikavkaz to Nazran and ultimately settled in Temir-Khan-Shura.
The MRNC broke away from Russia after the October Revolution. The Russian Volunteer Army captured the state in May 1919, and it ceased to exist., "The government of Kotsev was not able to defend its territory, and in May 1919 the White Army of Denikin conquered the territory of the Mountain Republic in Chechnya and Daghestan, and the Mountain Republic ceased to exist." However, in September 1919, the North Caucasian Emirate was proclaimed as the successor of the Mountain Republic., "In 1919 Sheikh Uzun Haji, Pshemakho Kotsev and Sheikh Akushinskii called for a fight against the White or Volunteer Army of Denikin and in September 1919 the Emirate of the North Caucasus was proclaimed, comprising the North of Daghestan, Chechnya and part of Ingushetia. To secularist nationalists the Emirate was seen as the successor of the Mountain Republic." It was captured by Soviet Russia in August 1920, which led to an uprising., "In August 1920 however, the Bolshevik army attacked Chechnya from the north, and the leaders of the emirate called for a jihad, asking the grandson of Imam Shamil, Sait Shamil, to lead the fight. He was one of the two survivors of this fight and later fled to Turkey." In April 1921, the Mountain Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was established by the Bolsheviks within the RSFSR, but the uprising lasted until 1925., "It took the Russians until 1925 to arrest and kill Gotsinskii. The uprising was inter alia successful because the Caucasians obeyed the requests of the Sufi clerics who organized the revolt. In April 1921 a Mountain ASSR, of which Chechen territory was part, was established within the RSFSR. On 20 January 1921 the Daghestan ASSR was declared. On 30 November 1922 a Chechen Autonomous Oblast was created."
History Background The February Revolution brought significant changes to the political structure of the North Caucasus. The military-civil administration of the viceroyalty was abolished and replaced by a purely civilian bodies, such as the Terek Regional Civilian Executive Committee in the Terek region. However, the new authorities soon became largely irrelevant in the face of competition from various bodies of popular representation. These included autonomous local councils established by the region's various ethnic groups, as well as soviets of workers, peasants, and soldiers, which were concentrated mainly in Russian-populated urban areas. Approximately forty stable national-territorial units emerged, demanding extensive autonomy but not yet seeking secession from Russia. Union of the Peoples of the North Caucasus Weeks after the revolution, in March 1917, representatives of the region's emerging national intelligentsias met to prepare for the establishment of a federation of the peoples of the North Caucasus, known as the Union of the Peoples of the North Caucasus.
In May 1917, approximately 300 delegates and guests representing the region's various ethnic groups, including the Cossack communities, among them Terek Cossack ataman Mikhail Aleksandrovich Karaulov, met in Vladikavkaz to establish the Union of the Mountaineers of the North Caucasus and Dagestan. The assembly elected Abdulmajid Tapa Tchermoev, a Chechen former tsarist officer and oil magnate, as chairman of its seventeen-member Central Committee, which became the Union's principal executive body. The congress also established a separate muftiate for the North Caucasus for the first time and elected Nazhmuddin Gotsinskii, an Avar Muslim scholar and leader of the Union's religious faction, as mufti and supreme spiritual authority of the North Caucasus. A religious section was established within the Union, consisting of a group of religious scholars tasked with determining the role of Islam in the new political organization. It declared, as a matter of principle, that relations among Muslims would be regulated by Sharia, although it did not define what this would entail. The section also departed from classical Islamic teachings by declaring that women could participate in political life and hold public office. It further called on Russia to appoint its own Shaykh al-Islam to oversee the spiritual affairs of all Russian Muslims, with the mufti of the North Caucasus serving under him.
During the congress, delegates emphasized the similarities among the peoples of the North Caucasus, explicitly including non-Muslim groups such as the Christian Ossetians. The assembly also established a special education committee headed by the Dagestani scholar Said Ibragimovich Gabiev and adopted measures aimed at promoting the culture of the non-Russian peoples of the Caucasus. These included introducing education in the North Caucasian languages from the first year of primary school, followed by instruction in Russian, Arabic, and Turkish in later years. Russian was designated as the official language of the Union.
The congress held in May 1917 expressed its intention to participate in a new democratic, federal Russian state with autonomous rights and sent telegrams to the Russian Provisional Government affirming its commitment to a federal structure for Russia. The Union of the Peoples of the Northern Caucasus adopted a political platform and program declaring itself an "inseparable integral part of the Great Russian State." Its speakers professed loyalty to Russia and sought to "defend the democracy and liberty won by the February Revolution." The Union declared its fundamental aim to be participation in the work of the Russian Constituent Assembly and the construction of a new federative and democratic Russia on an equal footing with its other constituent parts. The Mountaineers pledged allegiance to the Provisional Government in Petrograd and supported the continuation of the war against the Central Powers.
The Union's second congress, held in the Dagestani mountain village of Andi in September 1917, revealed the first significant tensions between its secularist and Islamist factions. Gotsinskii persuaded the Union to select the remote village as the site of the congress, arguing that the Dagestani highlands were particularly appropriate for the mountaineers to deliberate. In practice, however, Andi was also a stronghold of his influence, allowing him to exert considerable control over the proceedings. Representatives of the Chechen and Dagestani clergy advocated the establishment of a theocracy, but most members of the Central Committee opposed the idea. Several days before the congress, a large gathering took place in Vedeno, Chechnya, where Gotsinskii was proclaimed imam of the North Caucasus and envisioned as the spiritual and political head of a future theocratic North Caucasian state, or imamate. He was supported in this move by Sheikh Usun-Khadzhi, an Avar religious scholar. Secular-minded delegates of the Union, however, opposed granting Gotsinskii the title of "imam" and insisted that he instead be styled "mufti." They argued that the establishment of an imamate would alienate the Orthodox and ethnically Slavic populations of the North Caucasus. Ultimately, Gotsinskii backed down and agreed to use the title "mufti," although he continued to advocate the application of Sharia law. Many of his followers, as well as Usun-Khadzhi, nevertheless continued to refer to him as imam.
Another congress of the Union was held on 3 October 1917, bringing together up to 1,500 delegates. The congress adopted a constitution providing for a bicameral legislature and a constitutional court. It also established a system of "military-Sharia" courts in response to the Provisional Government's inability to maintain order, authorized the Central Committee to establish an army, and prohibited the export of essential goods. Alliance with the Cossacks and Growing Disorder After the Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd, the Union's Central Committee declared autonomy in response and elevated the Union's status to that of a republic, while the committee began referring to itself as a "government." Nevertheless, later that month, it reaffirmed its commitment to "preserve federative Russia as united, indivisible, and great" and to the convocation of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly.
Lacking significant armed forces of its own, the Union relied primarily on former Imperial Russian officers of North Caucasian origin, including Prince Nukh Bek Shamkhal Tarkovskii and the ethnic Dagestani Rusul Bek Koitbekov. Although these officers placed their forces in Dagestan under the authority of the Union's government from the outset, they never formally transferred command to it. The Union also lacked armed forces in the Terek region. Consequently, its leadership sought to consolidate its position in October 1917 by joining the . Members of the Union's government participated in the founding session of the South-Eastern Union, a loose anti-Bolshevik alliance. In December 1917, the Union of Mountaineers established a joint government with the Terek Cossacks in Vladikavkaz, . They formed the Interim Military Committee of the Terek Region. Cossack units and veterans of the former Caucasian Native Cavalry Division were designated to provide local security.