Ingush people
Ingush, historically known as Durdzuks, Gligvi and Kists, are a Northeast Caucasian ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Republic of Ingushetia in central Caucasus, but also inhabitanting Prigorodny District and town of Vladikavkaz of modern-day North-Ossetia. The Ingush are predominantly Sunni Muslims and speak the Ingush language.
Ethnonym
Ingush
The ethnonym of the "Ingush" came from the name of the medieval Ghalghai village of Angusht, which by the end of the 17th century was a large village in the Tarskoye Valley. The toponym "Angusht" itself is a composition of three words: "an", "gush" and the suffix of place "tĕ", literally translating as a "place where the horizon is seen".Ghalghai
The endonym of Ingush people is Ghalghai, which most often is associated with the word "ghāla", meaning "tower" or "fortress" and the plural form of the suffix of person, "gha", thus, translates as "people/inhabitants of towers", though according to some researchers the ethnonym has a more ancient origin. Some scholars associate it with the ancient Gargareans and Gelae mentioned in the 1st century in the work of the ancient historian and geographer Strabo. In Georgian sources, in the form of Gligvi, it is mentioned as an ethnonym that existed during the reign of Mirian I, as well as the ruler of Kakheti Kvirike III. In Russian sources, "Ghalghaï" first becomes known in the second half of the 16th century, in the form of "Kalkans/Kolkans", "Kalkan people".History
Ancient history
In the 4th-3rd millennium BC in the North Caucasus, archaeological cultures of the early Bronze Age are spreading: Maykop and Kuro-Araxes. The territory of Ingushetia is located in the zone of their intersection and part of the early Bronze Age monuments found here has a characteristic syncretic appearance. With these cultures, several cultures are genetically linked, which were formed in the subsequent Middle Bronze Age and received in science the general name "". In turn, on the basis of the cultures of the North Caucasian cultural and historical community, an ancient culture of the North Caucasian autochthonous peoples developed – the Koban culture, the chronological framework of which is usually determined by the 12th-4th centuries BC. It is with the tribes of the Koban culture that it is customary to link the ethnogenesis of the Proto-Ingush ethnic groups. In the written Georgian sources describing the events of this period, the ancestors of the Ingush are known under the ethnonym "Caucasians" and "Dzurdzuks", in ancient ones – under the name "Makhli". In the second half of the 1st millennium BC, Koban tribes created a large political union of tribes, known from ancient sources under the name Malkh, according to Georgian sources – Dzurdzuketi. The Dzurdzuks controlled the main Caucasian passage, the Darial Gorge, and had close political ties with the ancient Georgian state. According to Leonti Mroveli, the first king of Georgia, Pharnavaz, was married to a woman "from the tribe of Dzurdzuks, descendants of the Caucasus" and they had a son, Saurmag. He ascended the Georgian throne after the death of his father Pharnavaz I of, and upon learning that the Georgian eristavis wanted to kill him, he and his mother took refuge with his maternal uncles in Dzurdzuketi. According to the ancient writer Lucian, the name of one of the rulers of the political association of the ancient Kobans is Adirmakh, whose name the Abkhaz researcher Gumba G. D. etymologizes with the help of the Ingush language as "the owner of the power of the sun". At the beginning of the 2nd century BC as a result of the military invasion of the North Caucasus by the Seleucid king Antiochus III, the political union of the Koban tribes was defeated. As a result of its collapse, common Koban names cease to be used in the sources, and later, in the 1st century BC – 1st century AD, the descendants of the Kobans are known in the sources under the names of individual tribal groups: "Khamekits", "Serbs", "Dvals", "Sanars/Tsanars", "Masakhs/Mashakhs", "Isadiks", and others.The ethnonym "Gargareans" is associated with the tribes of the Koban culture, which is mentioned by the ancient Greek geographer Strabo in his work Geographica in the 1st century AD as a North Caucasian people living next to the Amazons. They are connected with the Ingush by several scholars. Strabo also mentioned Gelae which are like wise Gargareans, also connected with Ingush by several scholars.
In the 7th century, in the well-known chronicle, Ashkharhatsuyts, the Ingush were mentioned under the ethnonym Kusts.
In Georgian sources, the Ingush are mentioned in the form of Gligvi during the reign of Mirian I, and also during the reign of the ruler of Kakheti, Kvirike III, in the 11th century.
Middle Ages
In the late 9th – early 13th centuries, the history of the Ingush was closely connected with the Alans their kingdom, Alania, to which the Ingush belonged. It's known that the population of Alania was diverse and included Ingush. According to Ingush researchers, the capital of Alania – the city of Magas was located on the territory of Ingushetia in the area covering part of the modern cities of Magas, Nazran and the villages of Yandare, Gazi-Yurt, Ekazhevo, Ali-Yurt and Surkhakhi, that is, in the area where numerous monuments of the Alanian time are located. On the designated territory there are a number of Alanian settlements. The researchers noted that many settlements here are located in groups or "nests" within sight. In some of these groups, as a rule, one of the central settlements stands out for its large size, fortification and complexity of planning, to which less significant ones gravitate. The "nested" location of the settlements is associated with strong tribal remnants in the respective society. According to, this area of the group of monuments is one of the largest in the North Caucasus.In 1238–1240 the plain of the North Caucasus was conquered by the Mongol-Tatars and included in the Ulus of Jochi. In 1395, the association of the Alans was finally destroyed during the campaign against the North Caucasus by Tamerlane, and the remaining population retreated to the mountains. The collapse of Alania and the outflow to the mountains of its population, which was entrenched to the east and west of the Darial by building fortresses, served as the basis for the formation of new ethnoterritorial communities, which in turn led to the formation of modern North Caucasian peoples.
Villages located in the mountainous zone were grouped mainly along local gorges, which contributed to their ethnopolitical consolidation into separate territorial groups/districts – communities. By the end of the 16th century, the main territorial societies of the Ingush had already formed. Based on the data of Russian sources of the 16th–17th centuries, naming several territorial societies of the Ingush, it is concluded that in Ingushetia and in the 15th century there were approximately the same number of political formations, each of which united several villages.
From the west, starting from the Darial Gorge, to the east, existes several Ingush societies, such as: Dzherakh, Kistins, Fyappins, or Metskhalins, Chulkhoy, Khamkhins, Tsorins, Akkins, Orstkhoy, and to the south of them, the societies of Merzhoy, Tsechoy, Galai. To the southeast of the Tsorins was the society of Malkhins.
Over time, the number and boundaries of societies changed, this happened as a result of migration processes of the Ingush-speaking population, including those associated with the return of the Ingush to the plane. They began quite early, soon after Timur left the North Caucasus. At a very early stage, they were in the nature of individual military-political actions undertaken by the Ingush on the plain lands in order to counteract the consolidation of alien nomadic peoples on them. Separate episodes associated with this time are reflected in one of the Ingush legends, recorded in the 19th century by ethnographer Albast Tutaev, where representatives of the Galgaï Society of Mountainous Ingushetia appear. Also, the people's memory has preserved the most important episodes from the events associated with the development of plain lands. In particular, the legend recorded in the mountain village of Pkhamat by I.A. Dakhkilgov, tells how eminent men of several territorial communities of mountainous Ingushetia gathered to unite the country. The participants decided that from now on they will all be referred to by a single name – "Ghalghaï", stop strife and begin to move out in an organized manner. Probably, these events were associated with the development of land in the upper reaches of the Sunzha and Kambileevka, where the oldest settlements of the Ingush Akhki-Yurt and Angusht arose. The colonization of this zone, likely, was carried out during the 16th-17th centuries, and received activation with further advancement to the north, after the departure of the Kabardians from Sunzha and Kambileevka, around from the 1730s.
Contacts with Russian Empire
In the 18th century, the process of returning the Ingush to their fertile lands in the Sunzha and Terek basins was completed. On March 4–6, 1770, with a large gathering of people near the foothill village of Angusht in a clearing with the symbolic name "Barta-Bos", 24 Ingush elders swore an oath of allegiance to the Russian Empire. This event was attended by German academician J. A. Güldenstädt, who described it in his work "Journey through Russia and the Caucasus Mountains." However it is worth saying that even after the oath of individual Ingush society or clans, the former Russian-Ingush relations remained the same. In fact, both sides took these types of oaths as a conclusion union treaties.The interfluve of the Terek and Sunzha, through which the road to Georgia passed, acquires strategic importance for Russia during this period. This territory was mastered by the Ingush no later than the end of the 17th – beginning of the 18th century. According to J. A. Güldenstädt, there were many Ingush villages on the banks of the Sunzha and Kambileyevka rivers. Angusht was the center of the district, known as the "Great Ingush". Settlers from the "Great Ingush" formed a new colony "Small Ingush", the center of which was the village of Sholkhi. In the future, the Ingush advance to the Nazran Valley.
In 1781, at the confluence of the river Nazranka with the Sunzha, people from the Angusht region founded the village of Nazran. In the same year, the quartermaster of the Russian army, L. L. Städer, noted an Ingush outpost on this territory. Thus, in 1781 the Nazran Valley was already controlled by the Ingush.
In May 1784, in connection with the need to establish reliable communication routes with the territory of Georgia, either near, or, on the territory of the Ingush village of Zaur, the Vladikavkaz fortress was founded. Vladikavkaz became the economic, political and cultural center of the Ingush and one of the most important cities in the North Caucasus.