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Kabardian national movements. In this context, an ‘initiative group’ consisting of 
Abkhaz Gennadi Alamiya, Oleg Domeniya, the rector of the Abkhaz State 
University, and Chechen Muhradzin Kottayev, a lawyer, managed to make contact 
with the representatives of the national front movements of Abkhaz, Chechen, 
Kabardian, Abaza, Ingush, Circassian and Adyge peoples. As a result, a 
Coordination Committee chaired by a Kabardian lawyer, Yuri Musa Shanibov, and 
a Consultative Committee, headed by Muhradzin Kottayev, were formed and they 
were given the task of organizing a Congress for all Mountaineers of the North 
Caucasus.
468
 
It is important to note that, despite the differences in motivation and the 
milieu, from the outset there was a striking similarity between the courses of events 
in 1917 and 1989. In both cases, the leaders of the movements were aware that in 
order to solve the problems and to defend the rights of the Mountaineers a unified 
front was essential. 
These committees managed to organize the First Congress of the Mountain 
Peoples of the Caucasus, which met in Sukhum, the capital of Abkhazia, on 25-26 
August 1989. Representatives of the Abkhaz, Abaza, Adyge, Ingush, Kabardian, 
Cherkess and Chechens took part. 
The improvement of the cultural rights of the Caucasian Mountaineers; the 
establishment of a political platform of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 
(CPSU); determining how the organization could best function, in compliance with 
                                                                                                                                        
the SU on the basis of Lenin’s principle of the right of nations to self-determination. The Russian 
Shadow. 57. 
468
 Musa Y. Şenıbe (Shanibov), 1997. Kafkasya’da Birliğin Zaferi, İstanbul: Nart, 33-4. 

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184 
 
the basic policies of perestroika and democratization; and shaping regulations to 
govern this new organization, were the main topics on the agenda.
469
 
Aleksy Gogua, the Chairman of the Association of Abkhaz Writers and 
Soviet Union parliamentary deputy, made the opening speech of the Congress: ‘A 
study on the situation of Abkhaz society’.
470
 The Congress, after bitter discussions 
especially between the Ingush and the Chechens took these decisions: 
“ 1-The prestige and all legal rights of the punished peoples of the North 
Caucasus have to be restored. 
2-Opponents of Perestroika have kept the Stalinist policies alive. The 
nationality policy of the CPSU does not serve the interests and legal rights 
of small nationalities, which were living in the autonomous oblasts and 
okrugs. 
3-In order to defend the rights and interests of the scarcely populated 
‘small’ peoples of the North Caucasus, political institutions will be founded. 
4-In order to obtain the return of the kinsmen who left the North Caucasus 
as a result of the Tsarist policy petitions will be submitted to the Supreme 
Soviet of the USSR.”
471
 
 
Beyond that, the Congress adopted an ımportant decision on the 
establishment of the Assembly of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus (AMPC) 
(Assembley Gorskikh Narodov Kavkaza). This new Assembly was defined as a 
socio-political organization of all the Mountaineers of the Caucasus and its 
proclaimed aim was the regeneration of the community of the Mountain peoples of 
the Caucasus, which Shanibov called ‘the Caucasian ethnos’. Moreover, the 
Assembly ultimately aimed to create a separate Caucasian Federal Republic with 
Sukhum as its capital. 
                                                 
469
 For the Agenda of the Congress: “Kafkas Dağlı Halkları Kongresi (25-26 Ağustos 1989) ve 
Kafkas Dağlı Halkları Birliği,” January-June 1990. Kuzey Kafkasya, (İstanbul), 76/78: 10-14. 
470
 In addition several number of intellectuals, mainly from Abkhazia made speeches during the 
Congress. 
471
 “Kafkas Dağlı Halkları Kongresi,” 10 and also see www.kafkas.org.tr/TARIH/ 
daglihalklarkonkar. html. 

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185 
 
As its first elected chairman, Yuri (‘Musa’) Mukhammedovich Shanibov
472
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pointed out the Assembly was born from the idea of the need for an independent 
national-democratic organization for the Mountaineers of the North Caucasus. 
Participants of the Congress, who were also the leading figures of the front 
movements of the North Caucasus, perceived the policy of glasnost’ as a chance to 
establish a more organized structure outside the existing administrative set up in 
the region. According to Shanibov, the future of the Mountaineers depended on the 
unification of powers against the forces that have been pursuing policies of 
invasion and destruction for centuries. Only the unification of these smaller peoples 
of the North Caucasus could serve to protect the interests of the Mountaineers.
473
 
 
The Assembly, or the union, defined itself a socialist, anti-nationalist and 
anti-racist organization and, according to the decisions and the regulations of the 
Congress, it would function in compliance with the basic policies of the CPSU. 
Nevertheless, despite its assertion to unite all the peoples of the North 
Caucasus, there was no place for the Russians and Cossacks and most of the other 
peoples of the North Caucasus did not take part in the Congress and the Assembly. 
Moreover, neither the representatives of the Turkic groups or the Osetians, nor 
most of the Dagestani groups took part. Even the Ingush had to be convinced by 
                                                 
472
 He was born in the village of Staraya Krepest in Kabardino-Balkaria on 29 December 1936. He 
studied law at Rostov University. He worked for the Ministry of Justice and served as a regional 
prosecutor of the Terek Region and currently, is a senior lecturer at Kabardino-Balkar State 
University.  
473
 From the personal interview with Shanibov that took place in Ankara in June 2001 and also see 
Musa  Şanıbe (Shanibov), January 1991. “Yeniden Doğuşa Hizmet Etmek,” Kafkasya Gerçeği, 
(Samsun), 3: 14. 

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