The Silent Mountains. A Novella and stories

There had been deportations of the so-called «punished peoples» before – Germans and Finns, Kalmyks and Karachays. And there were others after – Balkars, Crimean Tatars, Greeks, Bulgarians, Armenians living in Crimea, and Meskhetian Turks from Georgia. But Operation Lentil (Chechevitsa) – the eviction of nearly half a million Vainakhs, Chechens and Ingush – was the largest of them all.4

Then, on January 9, 1957, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree: «On the Restoration of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR.»

The restrictions were lifted, and the Chechens, Ingush, and many other repressed peoples were allowed to return home.

Almost immediately, tens of thousands of Chechens and Ingush in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan left their jobs, sold their few belongings, and began the long journey back to their ancestral lands.5

The day we were allowed to return became one of the most sacred and significant in our people’s history. Word spread like wildfire: «We’re going home.» And even the men wept with joy.

I remember the exact day we received the news. Our neighbour Zinaida came running and urged my mother to attend a meeting urgently. Mommy left us at home and went with her. We didn’t know why. And we were filled with worry.

Hours had passed before Mommy returned. Tears streaming down her face, but she was smiling, glowing, as she cried from the doorway:

– We’re going home! To the Caucasus! They’re letting us return! Finally! We’re going back to our homeland! Praise the Almighty I lived to see this day! Alhamdulillah!

– Mommy, is it really true? – Arbi, now grown, asked with wide eyes.

– Yes! We’re going home! – Mommy replied, her eyes still full of tears.

– Thank You, Almighty! At last, I’ll see our native land again! – Arbi fell to the floor in prostration, giving thanks to the Creator.

Sometimes, in my dreams, we sit beside our mother and recite Yasin.6 But it’s not like before. Now, we are in a place of breathtaking beauty on a green meadow, bathed in peace. And we are endlessly happy.

Not far from us, Kharon is playing with butterflies. His cheeks are still rosy. He looks just as beautiful and calm as ever. Then our father walks toward us. He sits down beside Mommy, smiles gently, and says:

– Asma, you did everything you could for our children. You kept your promise to me. May the Almighty be as pleased with you as I am.

I often see that dream. And when I do, the pain softens – if only a little.

Now, at the sunset of my life, there is one word I want to say:

Alhamdulillah.

For the heavy trials, and the quiet patience.

For the tears of sorrow, and the moments of joy.

For the losses… and the gifts.

For the return to our homeland.

For life and for faith.

                       THE RETURN HOME

(As recalled by S.-M. Khasiev —

a well-known Chechen ethnographer

and candidate of historical sciences —

this piece paints a vivid portrait

of the emotional journey back

to the homeland after years of exile.)

Said-Magomed Khasiev was born on June 20, 1942, in the Kurachaloy district of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR, to a family of modest but dedicated roots.

His father, Adam Khasiev, was a veterinary paramedic; his mother, Luda Apayeva, a homemaker.

The family returned from exile to their native land in June 1957 without proper documents. Before that, they wandered from district to district, village to village, having given up on their few belongings and clinging only to the dream of returning to the Caucasus.

As a result of their disrupted journey, Khasiev never completed the seventh grade. They travelled in freight trains, and at every station, more returning Chechens joined them.

At Kyzylorda, there was no room for him inside the car, so the younger travellers moved onto the open platform between two wagons. Even there, space was tight. They had to take turns sitting and sleeping.

They asked again and again:

– When will we see the Caucasus? – And each time, someone would answer: Soon.

And then… they were home. The news swept through the train in a rush of emotion – it was afternoon when the announcement rang out loud and clear.

The native landscape had not changed. Young people, shielding their eyes from the sun, scanned the horizon eagerly, straining to catch the first glimpse of the Caucasus. But what they saw was not what they expected.

«To the Caucasus, our home» 7

It was something far simpler yet strangely, deeply moving. Along both sides of the railway track, a weed had grown elderberry.

It wasn’t the mountains or the valleys that made the first impression. It was this modest plant: wild, unassuming elderberry, that brought tears to the eyes of the older passengers.

That elderberry spoke volumes. It symbolized home. And in its silent presence, it captured everything they had missed.

Said-Magomed Khasiev recalled that he had never seen so many grown men cry openly, unashamedly shedding tears of relief, of joy, at the sight of something so simple, yet so deeply familiar.

That moment, he said, carried the full weight of belonging and the unspeakable emotions of those who had returned after years of exile.8

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THE SILENT MOUNTAINSTo rise above the clouds,Yet never leave the ground.To hear the mountains’ silent shrouds,Where war’s old echo still resounds.As if all time stood still and stark,Fear’s everlasting silence deep.Within the sage’s weary eyes, a sparkOf days unlived he strives to keep.He hides his pain, a guarded part,Conceals the scars that never fade.Life feels a sentence on the heart,Where happiness seems but a charade.And over forest peaks, the skyBurns orange, like a fiery sign,Forever asking «Who will die?»And «Who was saved?»Beneath the pine.

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Sabina Dadaeva
                           * * *In February, the bitter freeze descends,When the wind howls and there’s no heat                                                            to find.And when they’re crammed in cattle-car                                                          confines,Then truly, there is no salvation left behind.I wasn’t there myself, not for one day,Remembered nothing – station, bayonet,                                                              or track.But my mother remembered, and she would sayAll that happened, and she brought it back:How they were herded down the mountain slope                                                                     at dawnTo Khimoy, a ragged column, slow…How at the station, my sister’s tiny formWas dragged from the wagon by a guard below.And then, while running, he dropped her – who                                                                      can tellIf from haste or malice, hard and grim —He left the infant lying where she fell,In a nameless Soviet snowdrift burying her                                                                        limb.Three sisters now in foreign soil repose,Frozen deep in that ancient, steppe-bound                                                                       zone…My mother’s fingers tremble as she goes,Moving the beads of her rosary, alone.Thank God, the old woman’s still alive,Forged from the hardest rock, it seems.Without a tear, choosing words to survive,She summed up those dark, black years                                                       in themes:«Don’t pity us,» she says, her voice so stark,«We came back, and they never broke our spine.We stood as firm and solid as the granite’s                                                                         mark,And brave… only, they lied. They gave no sign.They said they’d come just for a stay,For drills… walked softly, coaxing, sly…And she just shakes her head, gone grey,Smiling that sad, reproachful sigh…⠀⠀Aslambek Tuguzov

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Not every hero is adorned with medals.

Some heroes simply fade from sight, etching their mark upon their people’s history,

having surrendered their lives for the homeland.

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Maryam Nashkhoeva

Dedicated to my mother’s uncle, Alvi Akhmadovich Denisultanov, from the village of Aldy, who went to the front at the age of sixteen, defended the Brest Fortress, and went missing in action in Brest in 1941.

(The photo shows the family of Alvi Akhmadovich Denisultanov, born in 1924. On the left, wearing a headscarf, sits Alvi’s mother, Dasha Denisultanova. On the right are his older brother, Usam Denisultanov, and his sisters.)

Turpalkho

Not every hero wears a medal. Some heroes simply vanish, leaving a trace in the history of their people, having given their lives for the motherland.

June. The morning in Grozny smelled of hot cornbread. The air was thick and fresh, and everything was ringed by a silence that was about to be shattered by the rumble of the first trams. The dawn that day was different. It was cast not of light, but of an anxiety that poured from the loudspeakers in a voice thick and black as oil – the voice of war. The year was 1941. The Great Patriotic War had begun. The wind roaming the city streets carried the scent of a distant calamity. People spoke in whispers, listening to the radio, straining their ears to the ominous silence.

On that restless morning, Alvi stood barefoot on the threshold of his ancestral home: a tall, stately sixteen-year-old youth who had lived within these walls for sixteen springs, sixteen years filled with joy, hope, and dreams of a bright future… on the threshold of the home that always smelled of a mother’s love, hot cornbread, and the leather of his father’s sabre, which hung proudly by the door, the home’s first guardian.

Alvi was freedom-loving and handsome, as if raised by the very mountains of the Caucasus on their grey-peaked summits: an aquiline nose, cheekbones honed by the wind, and large brown eyes in which one could see the glimmers of past Caucasian battles and the proud faces of the worthy sons of Chechnya who had left this mortal world defending their homeland.

The youth carefully took his father’s sabre, gently clasping its hilt as if he were holding not a weapon, but a thread connecting the centuries. His gaze slid along the curved blade as if over the pages of a forgotten chronicle – he seemed to peer into a reflection of the past, striving to capture the breath of those days when steel spoke louder than words. There was an inscription engraved on the sabre: «Borz sanna gerz» – «Like a wolf, your weapon.» The sabre lay in his hands as if come to life – cold, but not without a soul.

The dawn’s light played upon its surface, and to Alvi, it seemed not the morning sun, but the flicker of campfires where his ancestors once sat, speaking of honor, dignity, and a sense of duty and patriotism.

He ran his finger along the engraving – fine, almost faded – and felt something ancestral stir in his chest, as if the voice of his forefathers had whispered to him: «Remember, Alvi, whose son you are. Be worthy of your ancestors. Do not fail us!»

The sabre was not merely metal. It was a silent witness to the destinies of the Chechen people, a keeper of memory, and now – Alvi’s guide on a path he did not yet know, but somehow foresaw.

Then he began to reason aloud:

«What does it mean to be worthy?» – Alvi wondered, gazing at his father’s sabre. «Is a man’s strength not in carrying memory without distorting it? In defending the Motherland with honor and truth! I am not the first to walk this path. And I may not be the last. But if I stumble now, the path will vanish. So, I must walk firmly, like a mountain, and gently, like the grass beneath an elder’s feet.»

He remembered how, as a child, he would touch this sabre in secret, with trembling awe, as if touching a legend. Back when his father was still alive. Then he said quietly:

«Let my path be difficult, even fatal, but if it lights but a single step for those who come after me, for the future generation – then I do not hold this sabre in vain!»

And a smile appeared on his face.

At that moment, Alvi’s mother, Aisha, entered the room. Seeing the sabre in his hands and the faint smile on his face, she asked with anxiety:

«Alvi, you see… this is your father’s sabre. He has been gone for a long time. Your father was a true warrior, a Chechen, and he always defended his homeland and the honor of our people! And you are like him. In every way. But you are not even eighteen, my son… you are my only one!»

His mother’s voice trembled, yet it was quiet and soft. There was no prohibition in it, only a bottomless sorrow, achingly familiar to generations of Chechen women who had sent their sons off to defend the homeland.

– Nana… my honor counts otherwise, – replied Alvi, striving to calm his mother’s troubled heart.

– If the enemy has set foot on our land, I cannot be less than eighteen. I will be eighteen tomorrow, and I will go to the front as a volunteer… you must understand me.

– Come, let us sit at the table. I have made you breakfast, – Aisha whispered softly, quietly wiping tears from her wrinkled face.

They went into the kitchen and sat down at the table. Alvi sat opposite her, laying the sabre beside him. His mother cast a glance at the blade – looking with pain and sadness at an old friend being called to journey once more.

– You will not change your decision, – she said, not accusing her son, nor begging him not to go.

Simply accepting the fate written by the Almighty in the Preserved Tablet fifty thousand years before the creation of the Earth and the heavens. Alvi nodded silently in response and added:

– I want my father to be proud of me! I want the land he defended all his life to not become foreign. And I want to ensure the enemy does not set foot upon our soil.

Aisha silently broke the hot cornbread and gave half to him.

– Eat, Alvi. May this bread be stronger than steel, and our victory brighter than the night stars over our mountains!

He accepted the bread as one accepts a blessing, and felt not fear, but an unshakable resolve growing within him.

– Nana, I will return. I will definitely return to you, with victory! We still have so much wonderful life ahead of us! Our summer is just beginning! – he said, smiling, and gently embraced his aged mother.

Aisha smiled and replied:

– Wherever you are, never forget whose son you are and where you are from! Khonah hilalakh, Turpalkho hilalakh!9

That same day, Alvi went to the military enlistment office to join the volunteers. Upon reaching his destination, he said simply:

– I am eighteen. I want to defend the Motherland.

And no one argued with him. There was such certainty in his voice that even the senior officers nodded in agreement without asking further questions. On that day, Alvi grew two years older, though he was still so young. Now he was eighteen. He was accepted. A handsome, tall young man with burning eyes and an aquiline nose, whose youth had begun with a boundless sense of duty.

The day of parting arrived. Aisha was silent. She knew: if a son goes to war, he can no longer be stopped. The sabre hung at his side like a silent companion who knew more about war than Alvi himself. The morning was grey, like ash over a burned village. The city was still asleep, but Aisha already stood at the threshold. On the table was a simple, yet the most delicious Chechen breakfast: cornbread, a piece of cheese, and hot, fragrant tea with thyme. The food was like a talisman for the future.

Alvi ate in silence. He tried not to look at his mother – not because he didn’t want to, but because he knew: if he met her gaze, his legs would refuse to carry him. Then Aisha approached her son, placed a hand on his shoulder, and said:

– You are still just a child, Alvi! – she whispered, and in her voice was not doubt, but the pain of a mother’s heart parting with the most precious thing on this earth.

– A child who cannot cowardly stand aside, – he replied. – If I stay home, who will go in my place?

Aisha did not cry. Tears were a luxury the women of the mountains could not always afford. She simply placed her palm against his cheek, to remember him like this… brave, courageous, and worthy of his ancestors.

– Just come back soon. With victory!

Alvi nodded silently, his eyes welling with tears. But he sprang up from the table, embraced Aisha tenderly, and ran out into the yard so she would not see his weakness. On the city streets stood other young soldiers just like him. Some held a rifle, others a father’s dagger, some a knife or a sabre. Alvi took his place among them. He did not feel like a hero. He felt part of a people, a memory, a multinational country ready to defend the homeland at the cost of their own lives.

Then they left. Far away. For a long time. Forever.

And as the train carried them toward the front, these boys, so young yet already so old, looked with sorrow through the windows where the mountains slowly disappeared, just like their childhood.

Some time later, a letter from Alvi reached Aisha. He was in Brest. Defending the Brest Fortress. He wrote that her prayers guarded him every day. When the longing for his mother and his homeland grew too strong, he would climb the tallest tree and try to gaze toward his home, toward Chechnya.

«When I climb a tree, right to its very top, I try to see the Motherland, I try to see our house, you on the porch… but we are, it seems, so far from each other… Nana… despite this, you are always in my heart. Chechnya is always with me. I will become a hero! I promise!»

Alvi wrote in his letter.This was his last letter.

Aisha waited. The years passed. No more letters came. She went to the mosque and prayed to the Almighty for all the soldiers defending the homeland. «He is alive,» Aisha would say. «Or he died a hero. And that means he lives on.»

In Brest, amidst the ruined walls, an inscription was found, scratched with a knife: «Alvi. Grozny. 1941. We defended our motherland. Remember us.»

Then a telegram arrived from the military commissariat: «Your son is missing in action near Brest. He fought like a true hero!»

Perhaps he lies in one of the nameless mass graves where the defenders of the fortress were buried. No one knows. No one could keep a count of the fallen heroes then.

He had returned to the Creator, leaving behind the story of a hero, a handsome highlander from Grozny, who became a man at sixteen and a legend of his people at eighteen. And somewhere in the earth, beneath the grass, beneath the weight of time – lies the one who was never found.

But his name lives on.

In memory.

In the history of his people.

In a mother’s heart.

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Life is a brief breath between our arrival onto the Earth and return to the Creator.

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Maryam Nashkhoeva

The Magical Tasnim

Based on my childhood memories, this story has lived in my heart since 1994. It is the story of a little girl named Petimat – and the story of the Chechen people.

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Примечания

1

Keymat-de – Rel. The Day of Judgment, Doomsday.

2

https://arzamas.academy/special/lullabies/8/about

3

“Aganan Illi” by Maryam Nashkhoeva.

4

On November 14, 1989, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted the Declaration «On the Recognition as Illegal and Criminal of the Repressive Acts Against Peoples Subjected to Forced Resettlement and the Guarantee of Their Rights. According to this declaration: All repressed peoples were rehabilitated/ Repressive measures against them were recognized as illegal and criminal at the state level/ These acts included policies of slander, genocide, forced resettlement, abolition of national-state formations, and the imposition of a regime of terror and violence in special settlement areas. Law on the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples (1991) & European Parliament Resolution (2004) 1. Law of the RSFSR «On the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples» (April 26, 1991) On April 26, 1991, the RSFSR adopted the «Law on the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples,» which: – Recognized the deportation of these peoples as «a policy of slander and genocide». – Guaranteed their right to: Restore territorial integrity as it existed before the unconstitutional redrawing of borders/ Reestablish national-state formations that were abolished during repression/ Receive state compensation for damages caused by repression. 2. European Parliament Resolution (February 26, 2004) On February 26, 2004, the European Parliament recognized the 1944 deportation of the Chechen and Ingush peoples as an act of genocide under international law. //https://znanierussia.ru/articles/Восстановление_Чечено-Ингушской_АССР#cite_note-38

5

https://ria.ru/20080222/99840311.html

6

Surah Yasin – The 36th Chapter of the Holy Quran. Surah Yasin is the 36th chapter of the Quran, revered as the «Heart of the Quran» due to its profound spiritual themes.

7

«To the Caucasus, our home» by Maryam Nashkhoeva.

8

https://vesti095.ru/2012/07/438769/

9

Be a man! Be a hero, Alvi!