Abrek

The word "abrek" , a term of Caucasian origin, designates a lone Caucasian warrior living in partisan style outside power and law and fighting for a just cause. An abrek would renounce any contact with friends and relatives, and then dedicate his life to praying and to fighting for justice. Before and even after the establishment of Soviet power in the North Caucasus in the 1920s, abreks continued to resist, for the most part in Ingushetia, Chechnya and Dagestan, many of them also in Georgia after the Soviet conquest of that country in 1921. During the deportation of the Chechens and Ingush in 1944 several local guerilla groups formed to fight against Stalinist repression. The most prominent abrek during this period was the Ingush guerilla fighter Akhmed Khuchbarov (1894-1956). The last a...