Dudayev Johar
On the territory of the State Historical and Cultural Reserve "The Field of Poltava Battle", security zone of which is 771.5 hectares, in the Soviet Union there wsa, in particular, a military airfield. Here was stationed thirteenth Guards Air Division of heavy bombers capable of carrying bombs with nuclear warheads. In 1985, Johar Dudayev was appointed the Chief of Staff of the division. In the city above Vorskla he stayed only until 1987, but remembered to many of Poltavites, to whom led his fate. According to his former colleagues' words, he was a fiery, emotional, and at the same time very honest and decent man. Then he was still convinced Communist, was responsible for political work with the staff.
A memorial tablet in Poltava
Poltava still has a lot of his supporters. They, together with the followers of the rebel General from Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk on the 20-th of September 2007, were trying to open a memorial tablet in his honor on the house number 6 on the Nikitchenko street, where lived the fabled Major-Geneneral. But local police dispersed the action group, which met at the house, the former residence of Dudaev in Poltava, some were even arrested. Memorial tablet was installed semi-underground by representatives of the International anti-empire Front and Stepan Bandera Ukrainian organization "Trident". In addition to these on "quiet" celebration were present local activists of UNA-UNSO and the Young Rukh. There were committed several attempts to rename one of the streets in Poltava in honor of the former inhabitant. So on the 23rd of February 2010 on five houses down the Heroes of Stalingrad street unknown person made an inscription: "Johar Dudayev street". Apparently, just like most Chechens recognize the first President of independent Chechnya as national hero, and many Poltavites believe Dudayev worthy of perpetuating his memory in the city the fate for some time linked him to.
Chechen military, government and political figure, leader of the Chechen independence movement of 90-th, the first president of the independent Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Major General of Aviation, only general of the Soviet Army among Chechens Johar Musaevich Dudayev was born February 15, 1944 in the village of Pervomaiskoye (Chechen name Yalhori) Galanchozhskogo district of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (now the Achkhoi-Martan district of Chechnya). Being the seventh child among nine siblings. Being eight-year child he along with his entire family was sent in the cattle cars to the desolate Kazakh steppe during the forced deportation of the Chechen, Ingush, Balkar, Kalmyk, Tatar and other minority peoples by Stalin, held on the Feast of the Soviet Armed Forces on Feb. 23, 1944. There, in the Pavlodar region of Kazakh SSR among the many thousands of exiled Chechen and Ingush people he lived with his family for 13 years.
In 1957, due to the repatriation of Chechen and Ingush people, his family managed to return to their homeland and settled in Grozny. Johar himself saw his cherished homeland being already a teenager and how he would say later, this long-awaited meeting was a turning point in his life. In 1959, Dudayev finished secondary school № 45, trained as an electrician and started working in the construction and installation department number 5, while studying in 10-th grade of night school № 55. Having obtained a diploma in 1960, Johar entered the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of North-Ossetian State Pedagogical Institute, in the modern Vladikavkaz. Further, after hearing a one-year course in profile training, he in 1962 entered the Tambov Higher Military Aviation School, where in 1966 received a diploma in pilot-engineer. There he was an excellent student, so he was handed the diploma by Ivan Kozhedub himself, famous Soviet aircraft ace fighter, a Ukrainian by birth. And next year Johar Dudayev married the daughter of an officer Alevtina Kulikova, hereinafter known as Alla Dudayeva. The wife gave him two sons Avlur and Degi, and daughter Dana. It was believed that the eldest son Avlur died within the first month of the first Chechen war, which Russia launched at the 1-st December 1994, but there are allegations that he, wounded, was taken abroad, and later he received Lithuanian citizenship and continues to live in Lithuania. Alla Dudayeva, a painter, poetress and television presenter, known for her book of memories "Johar Dudayev. Million first" published after the death of her husband, which tells about the life of Chechnya's first president, describes the peculiarities of the Chechen people, their commitment to state autonomy.
When in 1971, Dudayev wanted to continue training in the Aviation Academy, then came upon refusal, because the Chechen in the Soviet Union had no right to become a senior commander. Then he went to Moscow and demanded the Minister of Defence to meet him. After waiting a week, Dudayev was finally invited by the General Yazov, and when latter looked at his papers, he immediately agreed.
In 1974, Dudayev graduated from the command faculty of the Yuri Gagarin Air Force Academy. Over 8 years before he began his hard career in the long-range aviation of the USSR.
Altogether in the Soviet air force Dudayev was since 1962, serving in different or even opposite points of infinite Soviet Union both in commanding and administrative positions. Since 1966, he served in the 52-th instructor Heavy Bomber Regiment (Airfield Shaykovka Kaluga region), starting as an assistant commander of the airship. Since 1970, he served in the 1225-th Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment, located in the Trans-Baikal, in the garrison of Belaya to the north-west of Irkutsk, where in subsequent years was rapidly climbing up the ladder of military career, consistently occupying the position of deputy commander of the aviaregiment (1976-1978), Chief of Staff (1978-1979), commander of Detachment (1979 -1980), commander of this regiment (1980-1982). In 1982, in the same garrison near Irkutsk was appointed as Chief of Staff of the 31-st Heavy Bombardment Division of 30-th Air Force, and in 1985, as already was mentioned, was moved into a similar position at Poltava Division of heavy bombers.
In 1987, Johar Musayevich was promoted to general and appointed to command the strategic 326-th
Ternopil heavy bomber division of the 46-th Air Force of strategic function, stationed in Tartu, Estonian SSR, where he also served as chief of the military garrison of the town. Entrusted to him unit was a part of the airbase of Soviet strategic bombers Tu-22, its task was the dumping of nuclear bombs in the European capitals, in the case of a possible armed clash with the West. It was from there carried out the carpet bombing of targets in Afghanistan. Working out of the plan of action of the Soviet strategic aviation in this country was entrusted in 1986 also to him.
In Tartu Dudayev learned Estonian and reacted with understanding to the Estonian nationalism, ignoring an order to block the Estonian Television and parliament. Instead, he sent a field kitchen there. The large room in the house, where now is located the Hotel Barclay, served in those unforgettable days of the Estonian Singing Revolution as headquarters of Dudayev, and having become a hotel room, now called "Dudayev's suite". Incidentally, it was on the wall of that Tartu hotel in July 20, 1997, first installed a memorial tablet of Johar Dudayev. The inscription on it says: "In this house, worked in 1987-1991 the first president of Chechen Republic of Ichkeria General Johar Dudayev".
In 1989, he rose to the rank of major general aviation. He was the only Chechen in the Soviet army, who reached in the military hierarchy so far and became a General. However, he could become a general only when the secret decree banning the Chechens to assign a rank above colonel was repealed.
In 1990, his division of heavy bombers was withdrown from Estonia because of the striving of the latter to the full national independence, and Dudayev himself retired from the Soviet armed forces in reserve. As repeatedly emphasized the general himself, he did this under the influence of the national liberation movements in the Baltic republics and at the request of representatives of the people. In May 1990 he returned to Grozny in order to devote himself to local politics.
November 23, 1990 at the invitation of the ideologists of the National Congress of Chechen People (NCCP) Zelimkhan Yandarbiev and Movladi Udugov Dudayev arrived in Grozny on the I Chechen National Congress (CNC). November 25th Congress elected its own governing body - the Executive Committee, composed of among others a retired Major General Johar Dudayev. Nov. 27 members of the executive committee unanimously adopt the Declaration on Education of the Chechen Republic Nokhchi-Cho.
In May 1991, retired general accepts the offer to return to Chechnya. October 27, 1991 he was elected a president of Chechnya.
November 1, 1991 with his first decree Dudayev declared the independence of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (CRI) of the Russian Federation. November 7, 1991 Russian President Boris Yeltsin issued a decree on the introduction of the Chechen-Ingushetia state of emergency. In response, Dudayev imposed on its territory martial law. The Supreme Soviet of Russia, where most of the places belonged to the opponents of Yeltsin, did not approve a presidential decree, in fact, supporting the proclamation of independence of the republic.
March 3, 1992 Dudayev declared that Chechnya will sit down for talks with Russian leaders only if Moscow recognizes its independence.
March 12, 1992 CRI Parliament adopted a constitution of the Republic, declaring it independent secular state. Chechen authorities, almost without meeting any organized resistance, seized the arms of Russian military units stationed in Chechnya. April 7, 1993 Dudayev dissolved the Chechen government, parliament, the Constitutional Court and the Grozny city council, introduced on the whole territory of Chechnya direct presidential rule and curfew. Russian security services hunted for Dudaev from the beginning of the first Chechen war. Three assassination attempts failed.
April 21, 1996 Russian security services took the bearing of signal from Dudayev's satellite phone in the village of Gekhi-Chu, 30 km from Grozny. In the air were raised two Su-25 with homing missiles. Dudayev was killed by missile strike directly while talking on the phone with Russian deputy Konstantin Borovoy.
Message that Dudayev may be alive, appeared immediately after his death. In June 1996, son-in-law of president of Ichkeria Salman Raduyev, as previously announced "dead", held a press conference in Grozny and in the Koran swore that Dudayev survived an assassination attempt and that on 5 July, three months after the "liquidation" of Johar, met with him in one of European countries. He reported that the wounded general was taken from a scene in a car by the representatives of the OSCE mission in safe place, currently the leader of the separatists hides abroad and would return when it is needed". Statements of Raduyev had a big response in the press, but at the appointed "hour X" Johar did not appear in public.
In August 2001, the puppet president of Chechnya, the Hero of the Russian Federation, Akhmad Kadyrov said that Dudayev may be alive. According to him, there are no evidences to suggest that Dudayev was killed, but there is also no reason to confidently assert the opposite, and suggested that in the 1996, during presidential campaign election headquarters of Boris Yeltsin adviced him to stop the conflict in Chechnya and to hold peace negotiations with all representatives of the separatists, with the exception of Dudayev, whom the country considered the initiator of the conflict. However, Kadyrov did not provide any details of the operation on Dudayev's leave "into the shadow".
In September 2003, the representation of the regional headquarters for the anti-terrorist operation in the
North Caucasus, with reference to Internet resources of separatists, reported that they have information about the possible emergence of a twin of the killed President of Ichkeria in the Pankisi gorge in Georgia. It was stated that it was "prepared to put him in front of TV cameras in Turkey" shortly before scheduled presidential elections in the country to destabilize the situation.
In addition to the mounting of memorial tablets, in general in the world there are at least 19 streets and squares named after Johar Dudayev. For example, they can be seen in a number of cities in Lithuania (Vilnius, Kaunas and Druskininkai) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (Goražde). In spring 1996 due to the decision of the Lviv city council ex-Lermontov street renamed after Johar Dudayev. In April of that year at the suggestion of a number of deputies of Riga City Council alley Astronautics (ltsh. Kosmonautikas gatve) in the district Purvciems changed its name to a similar version of Lviv. According to the newspaper "Kommersant", the streets named after Johar Dudayev are in other cities of Latvia and Estonia. According to "Izvestia", in Istanbul, Ankara and Bursa, there are six streets and two parks named in honor of the first president of Ichkeria. In Chechnya itself until the early 2000's Dudayev street was at least in two cities - Argun and Grozny. In Ukraine, after him is also named a street in Ivano-Frankivsk.
March 17, 2005 the Warsaw City Council decided to name one of the squares of the Polish capital after the first president of CRI. Decision adopted at the suggestion of members of the City Council of the Party "Law and Justice". "Today the square, bearing the name of Johar Dudayev, located in Vlokh area at the intersection of the Erozolimskoy Avenue and Popularna street.
Material prepared by Stanislav Perelomov
