The Ingush are a Caucasic-speaking people, living for the most part in the north-central Caucasus region of southwestern Russia. Their North Caucasic language is classified as part of the North-Central (Nakh) branch and related to the languages of the Chechens and the Bats of the nation of Georgia to the south in Asia. The Cyrillic alphabet is used in the written form. The name Ingush was applied to them by the Russian Slavs, based on the name of the village Angusht; their native name is Ghalghaaj, a clan confederation. Like other Caucasians, the Ingush are considered indigenous to the region, perhaps maintaining tribal identity since the second millennium B. C.E.
Traditionally organized by clans and tribes, they were originally a mountain people who herded livestock in the highlands and farmed in the lowlands. The Sunzha and its tributary the Assa are the principal rivers in the region. Christian missionaries converted many in the 11th century c. e., but Islam took hold from the 17th to the 19th century.
Northern Ingush lands were under Russian rule by 1750, and the rest in 1810. Unlike most of their neighbors, the Ingush did not resist Russian occupation in the 19th century or Soviet control in the 20th century. In 1924 the Ingush Autonomous oblast was formed as part of the Soviet Union, becoming in 1936 part of the Checheno-Ingushetiya Republic with Chechnya situated to the east.
In 1944 during World War II Joseph Stalin accused the Ingush and other Muslims in the region of collaborating with Germany and ordered their deportation to Soviet Asia, especially Kazakhstan, where many still live. It is estimated that one-quarter to one-half of the migrants died in transit. The Ingush were allowed to return to their homeland in 1956-57.
After the breakup of the Soviet Union (USSR) in 1991, the Ingush and Chechen established their own republics, and since 1992 Ingushetiya (or Ingushetia or Ingush Republic) has been a republic within the Russian Federation. Many non-Ingush also live there. The Chechen independence movement and war with the Russian government have led to the deaths of Ingush as well, and an influx of many Chechen refugees to Ingushetiya.
See also Russians: nationality.
World History
