Highlanders: A Journey to the Caucasus in Quest of Memory

The remote mountain region of the Caucasus has little in common with the contemporary West. Yet this history draws a compelling link between the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev and a selection of national heroes ranging from William Wallace to William Tell and from Prometheus to Geronimo. They share, suggests Karny, ""an astounding perseverance a dogged sense of pride irrational pursuits of liberty."" These, he writes, are the characteristics of mountain-dwellers, whose attitude is shaped by altitude and whose chivalrous folklore has been co-opted by imperial plain-dwellers from Boston to London to Moscow. It is through this topographical lens that Karny presents the complex microcosm of the Caucasus. Here, in a region half the size of Kentucky, are registered 46 distinct nations, speaking an even greater number of languages. Among them are the Circassians, whose military prowess make them world-famous mercenaries; the Kumyk, whose nascent nationalist movement is the first in the former Soviet Union to be spearheaded by women; the Laks, whose banishment to the lowlands by the Bolsheviks in 1920 nearly destroyed them as a nation; and of course the Chechens, whose armed resistance to Russian rule has reduced their cities to rubble and yanked the Caucasus from international obscurity. Karny muddies his portrait with a self-conscious attempt to connect with his subjects, calling his book a ""quest of memory"" (as the descendant of Polish Jews, Karny feels he was subjected to memory desensitization by Israeli propaganda). But, fortunately, his philosophical ponderings are overshadowed by his scrupulous journalism and passionate plea that these endangered nations be helped to survive the 21st century's globalization. B&W photos, maps. (Oct.)