To Be or Not to Be a Chechen? The Second Generation of Chechens in Europe and Their Choices of Identity

Abstract

Approximately a quarter of Chechnya's population left the republic due to the Russo-Chechen wars and the brutality of the regime established after them. Many of the Chechen migrants settled in Europe where cultural, religious, and social differences compelled them to go through the daunting process of identity negotiation. Although most of the first-generation Chechen migrants managed to preserve their original identity, this was not always the case for their children. This article aims to identify the factors that determine the identity preferences of second-generation Chechens in Europe. The paper presents three cases which illustrate very different outcomes of the identity formation and negotiation processes. This ethnographic study concludes that home education impacted the identity choices of the migrants' children the most.

Dealing with a violent past and its remnants in the present: the challenges of remembering the wars in Chechnya in the Chechen Diaspora in the EU

“…Focusing on the Chechen case, a handful of studies have examined the potential for political mobilization within the diaspora during the 2000s war (Vinatier 2013), as well as issues surrounding integration into host countries (Ilyasov 2021;Szczepanikova 2014). A recent investigation into legal pluralism among Chechens in Norway (Sugaipova and Wilhelmsen 2021) has introduced nuance to the typical view of conflict-generated diasporas as either "peace-makers" or "peace-wreckers".…”