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The Angel Of Grozny Life Inside Chechnya (2007)

by Åsne Seierstad(Favorite Author)

3.99 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1844083969 (ISBN13: 9781844083961)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Virago Press (UK)

review 1: Year 1995: When I watched Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis on DD-1 channel I was so surprised to know that such things could happen in Russia too. News from Chechnya was flowing since then but I always ignored it as conflicts happening inside former Soviet republics. Year 2014: Middle East once again in turmoil. Gulf War 3.0 was about to shape out. I have started following western media after the successive insurrection of Islamic State and their conquest of Mosul in Iraq. Initially, like Russia in Chechen War-I, US and Iraqi Central Government also taken it lightly. But when Islamic State started appearing in tanks, armoured convoys and shooting down Iraqi army helicopters using MANPADS, world realized that the conflict has already been blown out of proportion. All th... moreese time a group of IS fighters were always outstanding in combat, strategy, discipline and winning the various fronts. Those were from Chechnya. What made these men so special in battle? the question leads me to this book. 'Angel of Grozny' is about the two Chechen wars, their 350 year old disgust for Russian domination, mass deportation and exile under USSR, religious life, social life infested with honour killing and avenging, and finally,the difficult tales of abandoned homeless children of war, a residue of every war.In 1994 then Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s tanks moved into Chechen capital Grozny. Chechnya was an independent country after the USSR collapse. Russia was not so fond of this north Caucasian mountain country with tough people and black barren earth, but its enormous oil resources was the reason. The calculated one week campaign became escalated to years leading to the death of thousands of Russian soldiers and destruction of more tanks they had lost in entire WWII. This time the war was between Russia and Separatist. The bloody Budyonnovsk hospital siege initiated the Russian withdrawal.Situation in Chechnya become almost similar to Afghanistan in 1980s. Separatists become colored with religion. Arabs brought not only arms and money but Wahhabism too, which started its roots in Chechnya against its traditional Sufism. Separatists Rebels became Islamists and more precisely Wahhabists and Islamic International Brigade was trying to establish a Caucasian Emirate.Year 1999: Now Moscow in command of Vladimir Putin. Islamist’s Invasion of Dagestan lead to Chechen war –II. Both wars were brutal. Human rights violation and war crimes were committed on both sides. Once again Grozny reminded us of Stalin’s Gulag, Himmler’s Auschwitz, and Bush’s Abu Ghraib. Putin with steel muscle destroyed most of the Islamic leadership and re-established federal government. Grozny was insulted, abused and destroyed all these time. The avenging, battle hardened Chechens moved to Afghanistan, Baluchistan and Syria. Slowly they part of different Islamic radical groups. They are fearless, hot blooded and born fighters. Now they play a major role in ISIS conquests in Iraq.Russian soldiers fought in Grozny facing the same PTSD which haunting the US Marines fought in Fallujah. Beheading was common in Caucasian high mountain rebel bases, victims were captured Russian soldiers’. Russian interference and devastation of their country lead the rebels to become Jihadists. Same thing happened in Iraq. They embraced God while fighting against giants.
review 2: Reading this book as war shatters lives in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world can only teach the valuable lesson that those who pursue war are either unaware or indifferent to the suffering that common people endure. Seierstad travels twice through war-ridden Chechnya and the later region under the yoke of dictatorship to collect stories from those who've suffered most from reckless war-mongering. An array of disturbing experiences which make me question the effectiveness of the human rights organisations and tales of grief and loss on both sides of the war. All one is left with, is a sense of helplessness at so much hatred and destruction in too many corners of the planet. less

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