Everything about Dzhokhar Dudayev totally explained
Dzhokhar Musayevich Dudayev (; ) (
February 1944 –
April 21 1996) was a
Soviet Air Force general and a
Chechen leader, the first
President of the
Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, a breakaway state in the
North Caucasus.
Early life and military career
Dudayev was born in February 1944, during the forced deportation of his family (together with the entire
Chechen,
Ingush,
Balkar,
Kalmyk,
Crimean Tatar and other smaller
nations, on the orders of
Joseph Stalin) from their native village of Yalkhoroi in the abolished
Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR). He spent the first 13 years of his life in the internal exile in the
Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic.
Following the 1957
repatriation of the Chechens and Ingush, he studied at evening school in Checheno-Ingushetia and qualified as an electrician. In 1962, after two years studying
electronics in
Vladikavkaz, he entered the
Tambov Higher Military Aviation School for Pilots from which he graduated in 1966. It is alleged he officially misrepresented his
ethnicity as
Ossetian in order to sidestep
discrimination against the Chechen people. Dudayev joined the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1968 and in 1971-1974 studied at the prestigious
Gagarin Air Force Academy. He also married Alla, a Russian
poetess with whom he'd three children.
Dudayev served in a
heavy bomber unit of the Soviet Air Force in
Siberia and
Ukraine and also took part in the
Soviet war in Afghanistan. He rose steadily in the Air Force, assuming command of the
air base of the
Soviet Strategic Air Force at
Tartu,
Estonia, in 1987 with the rank of
Major-General. Dudayev learned
Estonian and showed great tolerance for
Estonian nationalism when he ignored the orders to shut down the Estonian television and
parliament; instead he sent a mobile military kitchen. In 1990, his air
division was withdrawn from Estonia and Dudayev resigned from the
Soviet military (though he never formally left the Communist Party).
Chechen politics
In May 1990, Dudayev returned to
Grozny, the Chechen
capital, to devote himself to local politics. He was elected head of the Executive Committee of the unofficial opposition
All-National Congress of the Chechen People (NCChP), which advocated
sovereignty for Chechnya as a separate
republic of the Soviet Union (the Chechen-Ingush ASSR had status of the
autonomous republic of the
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic).
In August 1991,
Doku Zavgayev, the
communist leader of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR, publicly expressed his support for the
Soviet coup attempt of 1991 against Soviet President
Mikhail Gorbachev. Following the failure of the
putsch, the Soviet Union
began to disintegrate rapidly as the constituent republics took moves to leave the beleaguered Soviet Union. Taking advantage of the Soviet Union's implosion, Dudayev and his supporters acted against the Zavgayev's administration. On
September 6,
1991,
militants of the NCChP invaded a session of the local
Supreme Soviet, effectively dissolving the
government of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR. Grozny
television station and other key government buildings were also taken over.
President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
After a controversial
referendum in October 1991 confirmed Dudayev in his new position as president of the
Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, he unilaterally declared the republic's
sovereignty and its
independence from Soviet Union. In November 1991,
Russian President Boris Yeltsin dispatched troops to Grozny, but they were withdrawn when Dudayev's forces prevented them from leaving the
airport. Russia refused to recognize the republic's independence, but hesitated to use further force against the separatists. From this point the Chechen-Ingush Republic had become a
de facto independent state.
Initially Dudayev's government held diplomatic relations with
Georgia where he received much moral support from the first Georgian President
Zviad Gamsakhurdia. When Gamsakhurdia was overthrown in late 1991, he was given
asylum in Chechnya and attended Dudayev's inauguration as President. While he resided in Grozny he also helped to organise the first "All-Caucasian Conference" which was attended by independentist groups from across the region. Ichkeria never received diplomatic recognition from any internationally recognised state other than Georgia in 1991.
The Chechen-Ingush Republic split in two in June 1992, amidst the increasing
Ossetian-Ingush conflict. After Chechnya had announced its initial declaration of sovereignty in 1991, its former entity
Ingushetia opted to join the Russian Federation as a
federal subject (Republic of Ingushetia). The remaining rump state of
Ichkeria (Chechnya) declared full independence in 1993. That same year the Russian language stopped being taught in Chechen schools and it was also announced that the
Chechen language would start to be written using the
Latin alphabet (with some additional special Chechen characters) rather than the
Cyrillic alphabet that had been imposed on the Chechen people during the
1930s. The state also began to print its own money and stamps. One of Dudayev's first
decrees gave every man the
right to bear arms.
Dudayev's pro-independence policies soon began to undermine Chechnya's
economy and, Russian observers claimed, allegedly transformed the region into a criminal paradise. The non-Chechen population of Ichkeria left the republic due to criminal elements and faced with indifferent government. In 1993, the Chechen parliament attempted to organize a referendum on public confidence in Dudayev on the grounds that he'd failed to consolidate Chechnya's independence. He retaliated by dissolving parliament and other organs of power. Beginning in early summer of 1994, armed Chechen opposition groups with
Russian military and financial backing tried repeatedly but without success to depose Dudayev by force.
First Chechen War
On
December 1 1994, the Russians began bombing
Grozny airport and destroyed the Chechen Airforce (former Soviet
training aircraft requisitioned by the republic in 1991). In response Ichkeria declared war on Russia and mobilised its
armed forces. On
December 11 1994, five days after Dudayev and Minister of Defense
Pavel Grachev of Russia had agreed to avoid the further use of force, Russian troops invaded Chechnya. One of Dudayev's two sons have been
killed in action early in the war.
Before the fall of Grozny, Dudayev moved south with his forces and continued leading the war throughout 1995, reportedly from a
missile silo close to the historic Chechen capital of
Vedeno. He continued to insist that his forces would prevail after the
conventional warfare had finished, and the Chechen
guerrilla fighters continued to operate across the entire country picking off Russian units and demoralising their soldiers. A
Jihad was declared on Russia by the Dudayev-appointed
Mufti of Ichkeria,
Akhmad Kadyrov, and
foreign volunteers began pouring into the republic, mostly from neighbouring North Caucasian
Muslim republics such as
Dagestan.
Death and legacy
President Dudayev was killed on the
April 21 1996, by two
laser-guided missiles when he was using a
satellite phone, after his location was detected by a Russian
reconnaissance aircraft, which intercepted his phone call. Despite America's ban on
assassinations, there's a
conspiracy theory that suspects the
NSA was involved in the assassination by providing one of their
SIGINT satellites to assist in the
triangulation. At the time Dudayev was reportedly talking to a
liberal deputy of the
Duma in
Moscow, reportedly
Konstantin Borovoy. Additional aircraft were dispatched (a
Su-24MR and a
Su-25) to locate Dudayev and fire a guided missile. Exact details of this operation were never released by the Russian government. However, it's known that Russian
reconnaissance planes in the area had been monitoring
satellite communications for quite some time trying to match Dudayev's voice signature to the existing samples of his speech. It was also claimed Dudayev's was murdered by a combination of a rocket attack and a
booby trap.
The death of Dudayev was announced on the interrupted television
broadcast by
Shamil Basayev, the Chechen guerrilla commander. Dudayev was succeeded by his
Vice-President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev (as
acting President) and then, after the 1997 popular elections, by his wartime
Chief of Staff,
Aslan Maskhadov.
Dzhokhar Dudayev was survived by his wife, Alla Dudayeva, and the younger son, Tegi Dudayev.
Places named in honor of Dudayev
- Turkey - After Dudayev's death, various locations in Turkey were renamed after him, such as Cevher Dudayev Meydanı (Dzhokhar Dudayev Square) in Ankara and Şehit Cevher Dudayev Parkı (Martyr Dzhokhar Dudayev Park) in Adapazarı, Sakarya.
Latvia - From 1996, there's Dzhokhar Dudayev Avenue (Džohara Dudajeva gatve) in the Latvian capital Riga.
Ukraine - Also in 1996, a street in Lviv was named after him (вулиця Джохара Дудаєва), later followed by Ivano-Frankivsk and Kyiv.
Lithuania - Dzhokhar Dudayev Square (Dzocharo Dudajevo skveras) in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.
Poland - On March 17, 2005, a roundabout in the Polish capital Warsaw was named Rondo Dżochara Dudajewa.
Estonia - A large room in the Barclay Hotel in Tartu, once used as Dudayev's office, is now called the Dudayev Suite. In the Nursipalo urban warfare training polygon of the Estonian Defence Forces, Johhar Dudayev Street
crosses with Basayev Street.
Bosnia and Herzegovina - A street of Ulica Generala Dzohara Dudajeva in Gorazde.
Chechnya - Chechnya's war-ravaged capital has been called Dzhokhar-Ghala (later Jokhar) by separatists in 1997 during its de facto independence. After the Second Chechen War its official name became Grozny again, but is still considered Jokhar by the separatist.Further Information
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