Chechens

The Chechens (/ˈtʃɛtʃɛnz, tʃəˈtʃɛnz/ CHETCH-enz, chə-CHENZ; Chechen: Нохчий, Noxçiy, Old Chechen: Нахчой, Naxçoy), historically also known as Kisti and Durdzuks, are a Northeast Caucasian ethnic group of the Nakh peoples native to the North Caucasus. They are the largest ethnic group in the region and refer to themselves as Nokhchiy (pronounced [no̞xtʃʼiː]; singular Nokhchi, Nokhcho, Nakhchuo or Nakhche). The vast majority of Chechens are Muslims and live in Chechnya, an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation.

The North Caucasus has been invaded numerous times throughout history. Its isolated terrain and the strategic value outsiders have placed on the areas settled by Chechens has contributed much to the Chechen community ethos and helped shape its national character.

Chechen society is largely egalitarian and organized around tribal autonomous local clans, called teips, informally organized into loose confederations called tukkhums.

According to popular tradition, the Russian term Chechency (Чеченцы) comes from central Chechnya, which had several important villages and towns named after the word Chechen. These places include Chechan, Nana-Checha ("Mother Checha") and Yokkh Chechen ("Greater Chechena"). The name Chechen occurs in Russian sources in the late 16th century as "Chachana", which is mentioned as a land owned by the Chechen prince Shikh Murza. The etymology is of Nakh origin and derives from the word Che ("inside") attached to the suffix -cha/chan, which can be translated as "inside territory". The villages and towns named Chechan were always situated in the Chechan-are ("Chechen flatlands or plains") located in contemporary central Chechnya.

The name "Chechens" is an exoethnonym that entered the Georgian and Western European ethnonymic tradition through the Russian language in the 18th century.

From the middle of the 19th century to the first years of the Soviet state, some researchers grouped all Chechens and Ingush under the name "Chechens". In modern scholarship, another term is used for this community — "the Vainakh people".

Although Chechan (Chechen) was a term used by Chechens to denote a certain geographic area (central Chechnya), Chechens called themselves Nakhchiy (highland dialects) or Nokhchiy (lowland dialects). The oldest mention of Nakhchiy occurred in 1310 by the Georgian Patriarch Cyril Donauri, who mentions the 'People of Nakhche' among Tushetians, Avars and many other Northeast Caucasian nations. The term Nakhchiy has also been connected to the city Nakhchivan and the nation of Nakhchamatyan (mentioned as one of the peoples of Sarmatia in the 7th-century Armenian work Ashkharhatsuyts) by many Soviet and modern historians, although the historian N. Volkova considers the latter connection unlikely and states that the term Nakhchmatyan could have been mistaken for the Iaxamatae, a tribe of Sarmatia mentioned in Ptolemy's Geography, who have no connection to the Chechen people. Chechen manuscripts in Arabic from the early 1820s do mention a certain Nakhchuvan (near modern-day Kağızman, Turkey) as the homeland of all Nakhchiy. The etymology of the term Nakhchiy can also be understood as a compound formed with Nakh ('people') attached to Chuo ('territory').

The Chechens are mainly inhabitants of Chechnya. There are also significant Chechen populations in other subdivisions of Russia, especially in Aukh (part of modern-day Dagestan), Ingushetia and Moscow.