Abrek

Abreks were irregular soldiers who abandoned all material life, including their family and friends, in order to fight for a just cause, to worship, and to meditate.

The word abrek was used in propaganda[citation needed] to label the anti-Russian guerrillas of the North Caucasus after the Caucasian War of 1817-1864, as well as for all illegals.

[citation needed] Before and even after the establishment of Soviet power in the Caucasus in the 1920s, abreks continued to resist, for the most part in Ingushetia and Chechnya.

The primary targets of abreks usually were Cossacks who occupied their lowlands, Russian trade, banking, and mail services, because of the proximity of the Georgian Military Road, a major artery connecting Russia and Georgia.

Russian caucasologist N. Yakovlev, described how the occupation of the native lands by Cossack colonisers and oppression of the Ingush, "turned kind and gentle people into the first abreks of the Caucasus, fighting for their place in the Sun".

As Moshe Gammer points out in his book Lone Wolf and Bear, Soviet ideology fell somewhere in between the two views―and notably, one such abrek, Zelimkhan, was made a Chechen hero.