Andarbek Dudayevich Yandarov, The First Chechen Philosopher: Research Path Milestones

Abstract

The logic of the dialectical connection between the natural and the accidental can be traced in the work of the famous Chechen philosopher Andarbek Dudayevich Yandarov. The philosophical formation of Andarbek Dudayevich established the regular in the Yandarov family since Andarbek was a descendant of the famous Chechen sheikh Sols-Khadzhi Yandarov. His accidental resettlement to Kazakhstan, a new environment and living conditions determined the professional choice of the Chechen philosopher. A.D. Yandarov was a highly intellectual personality, whose creativity was formed on the basis of hard work, manifestation of will, determination, solving complex intellectual and cultural problems. The formation and development of the philosopher’s personality was closely associated with the fateful events experienced by his people. The main hypothesis put forward by the author is that any historical personality is the result of the formation, development and solution of a certain ontological problem that appears in the sphere of social life as one of the possible resultants of social consciousness evolution. The boundaries of culture are determined by human’s active exploration of space and time around him. A person is a being utterly manifested by culture; he/she experiences their being within the limits of culture. The purpose of the present work is to study the importance of personality in the history of the people as exemplified by the first Chechen philosopher A.D. Yandarova. The choice can be made on different grounds. However, a human-personality is characterized by the intensity of worldview searches, which determine their spiritual growth or physical collapse.

Keywords: Andarbek Dudayevich Yandarov, educator, personality, philosopher

Introduction

Each appeal to the history of mankind raises the question of the role of the individual in history. The life of a person is made up of events supposedly random in their life. However, based on the author’s worldview, it is necessary to point out a predetermination having the natural character of a transcendent reality of the becoming being. Although, the transcendental image of things and phenomena is immanent in our consciousness and is perceived as a random sequence in a chain of events in its inaccessibility. Therefore, just as the random in an endless chain of existential transformations acquires the signs of the regular, so the subjective consciousness functioning in a specific space and time and adapting to interaction in certain relations reveals its potential in the dialectical connection between the regular and the accidental (Betilmerzaeva, 2016).

The logic of the dialectical connection between the regular and the accidental is traced in the work of the famous Chechen philosopher Andarbek Dudayevich Yandarov. The philosophical formation of Andarbek Dudayevich established the regular in the Yandarov family since Andarbek was a descendant of the famous Chechen sheikh Sols-Khadzhi Yandarov et al. (2010). His accidental resettlement to Kazakhstan, a new environment and living conditions determined the professional choice of the Chechen philosopher.

As Akaev and Magamadov (2017), famous scientists and researchers of the Yandarova work state, the philosopher was a highly intellectual person, whose oeuvre was formed on the basis of hard work, manifestation of will, determination, solving complex intellectual and cultural problems. The formation and development of the philosopher’s personality was closely associated with the fateful events experienced by his people. Andarbek Dudayevich was born in 1937 in the village Urus-Martan and, like all his fellow country folk, witnessed the tragic cataclysms that befell his contemporaries.

Problem Statement

Consequent on the reflections on certain historical processes and phenomena associated with the fate of famous personalities, peoples and states, the issue of the individual’s role in cultural transformation in the spheres of social life is obvious. The first consistent concepts about the role of the individual in history framed up in the 19^th century. At the same time, opposite positions, whose representatives denied or insisted on the role of the individual in the historical process, were formed. Until now, traditions, whose representatives either believe that the personality is rigidly determined by external material or ideal factors, or insist on the freedom of human will, driven by the inner intention of the individual have survived. However, the problem of personality in history is of current interest for a researcher from the historical, philosophical and cultural viewpoints.

Research Questions

The main hypothesis put forward by the author is that any historical personality is the result of the formation, development and solution of a certain ontological problem that appears in the sphere of social life as one of the possible resultant phenomena of the evolving social consciousness.

Analysis of the ontological and socio-cultural foundations of culture results in explicating culture as a certain supra-biological (supra-natural) stage of the evolving being, which is a logical link in the chain of the evolving being. The human is an instrument for implementing the existential plan. In this context, the human acts as an instrument adapted by the being to realize its intention. The processes of genetic specialization and cultural socialization, influencing the development of a human as a person, are determined by the goal to survive that drives everything. Accordingly, the cultural space of a particular subject (or subjects) is determined by their experience of survival (Betilmerzaeva, 2014).

The boundaries of culture are determined by human’s active exploration of space and time around him. A human is a being utterly manifested by culture, experiences this being within the limits of culture. The human is a child of culture. Culture, understood as a natural stage in the development of the becoming being, belongs equally to its absolute prerequisites.

In the history of mankind, in the frame of mythology, religion, philosophy or science, we are faced with various plots united by one theme. Let us recall the birth of humanity. Knowing nothing about the world in the sense of modern knowledge, humanity knew everything about it due to the fact that the only way to interact with the outside world for the first human was the trust in this world. Thus, the human followed the signs of this world. Imitation perceived as an adaptation of man to this planet is not only prerogative of the human but is a mechanism of an evolving existential plan, when nature generated its diversity in close contact of species. A human turned out to be the most socially encoded being. Both demonstration and an example became the only opportunity for him to adapt and, therefore, survive on this planet.

Purpose of the Study

Purpose of the work is to study the foundations of the personality importance in the history of the people exemplified by the first Chechen philosopher Yandarov et al. (2011).

Research Methods

The study was carried out based on a theoretical analysis of the personality role in the development of the people and the biographical method, which enabled to describe the major milestones in the life and work of the Chechen thinker of the past century.

Findings

In 1964 Yandarov graduated from the post-graduate studies in philosophy. His topic of scientific research was the problems related to the religious and philosophical views of the peoples of Dagestan and Chechnya, Chechen and Ingush enlighteners of the 19^th – early 20^th centuries. In an article dedicated to the 75^th anniversary of Andarbek Dudayevich, Akayev writes that choosing such a topic, the young scientist morally compensates for his deep nostalgia for his historical homeland (Akayev, 2011, p. 132). It is noteworthy that the first postgraduate publication of Yandarov was called “Aslanbek Sheripov – the first Chechen-Ingush Marxist (1897–1919)”. In 1965, he defended his Ph.D. thesis on the topic “Social thought of Checheno-Ingushetia in the last third of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries”, where the worldviews and creative heritage of Chakh Akhriev, Umalat Laudaev, Tashtemir Eldarkhanov, Ibragim Sarakaev were thoroughly analyzed. Yandarov based his research on the principles of historicism and dialectics, which contributed to the finding of internal connections between Islam, Sufism and the Enlightenment.

Yandarov’s scientific activity peaked in the 70s of the 20^th century, when he worked in the city of Alma-Ata. From 1974 to 1978 he published 4 monographs: “Golden age of the Kazakh people culture in the Soviet period” (1974), “Sufism and the ideology of the national liberation movement” (1975), “Timelines of Kazakhstan socialist culture formation” (1977), “Culture and personality” (1978). According to Akaev and Magamadov (2020), the content of Yandarov’s scientific research brings to the conclusion that he;

Made a significant contribution to understanding the cultural formation and development of Kazakhs during the Soviet era, analyzed the process of overcoming their socio-economic and cultural backwardness. His subject of close theoretical comprehension was an important philosophical problem being the personality formation based on the development of universal and ethno-national cultural values (p. 133).

In his works Yandarov presents himself as a person interested in studying the culture of various peoples. Mamardashvili (2002) once noted that personality is something transcendental in relation to culture, in relation to society, thereby it is universal in the sense of human structure because we differ in nations, cultures, states, and coincide to the extent of personality. The social life dialectic is expressed in the fact that, on the one hand, there are cultures, traditions, customs, and languages differentiating people in the continuum of existence, on the other hand, there are individuals whose identity with themselves, non-stereotype and independence take them beyond everyday life and tradition and raises them to a new level of universal representatives. Therefore, there is a qualitative difference between the Ivanovs, Sidorovs, Petrovs and Gogol, Dostoevsky, Bulgakov. Some play the role of a mass burdened by the “storm of everyday life”, others critically interpret this life in search of the ultimate foundations of the unity or diversity of the mankind. Let us recall Dostoevsky’s words, which became the keynote of one of his novels, “the most browbeaten and the worst person is also a person and is called your brother”. This is the conclusion of a person who rises above the social disjunction between people. However, the same words are applicable to any person who is aware of his nature creation.

At the same time, the status of the individual in the history of society is not as straightforward. The supranational nature of a person enables it to objectively assess both the advantages and disadvantages of its people and state, makes it sensitive to cultural and historical peculiarities. The national consciousness of such a person is higher than that of an ordinary person. If the basis of patriotism and nationalism of the inhabitant is pride or vanity with regards to their belonging to a particular culture, then a person experiences the existential nature of belonging to the unity of their individual and collective principles. Courage, honor, dignity, conscience, faith, love, friendship, respect, hospitality, as well as cowardice, betrayal, deceit, hatred, shamelessness, hostility do not have genuine tying to one or another national culture. The bearer of one or another trait is always a specific person, whose character has been formed under the influence of various factors. To the utmost the person is a product of society. However, a pumpkin seed can generate only a pumpkin, not a cherry or an oak tree. Accordingly, the social nature of a person awakens under the influence of both internal and external factors. As well, the human, unlike everything created, has the right to choose between good and evil, right and wrong, knowledge and ignorance. Unlike the pumpkin seed, whose formation is within the limits of its own species, a person as an individual endowed with the right to choose can be a “pumpkin”, and an “oak”, or a person by itself. That is just the luck of the draw.

An appeal to the life of Andarbek Dudayevich Yandarov is an opportunity to think about the philosophy as one of the forms of spiritual culture within the boundaries of Chechen society. The very formulation of the problem makes one consider for a moment whether philosophy exists within the boundaries of the Chechen national consciousness and self-consciousness? If such a question arises, it is obvious that philosophy does not occupy its due place (neither young nor mature) in the life of our society. According to Mamardashvili (2018), young people are rather concentrated on pragmatic teachings, attitudes or spiritual quests, often in the field of faith and mysticism. Youth, according to the philosopher’s paradoxical statement, is the only period when we can mature, that is, turn to the age and world of enlightenment. According to Kant (1966), enlightenment is a person’s break free of the state of minority, by which the German classic understands the inability to use reason without guidance from someone else. Thus, Yandarov is the first professional philosopher and one of such pioneers of the Chechen people who succeeded in classical philosophy.

Conclusion

The study of the life and work of Yandarov as a philosopher and Chechen enlightener and of the processes of formation and development of his national self-awareness requires reflection on his creative path, covering both the years of personal formation at school and university in Kazakhstan, his active participation in scientific and educational processes in the Chechen Republic in 80^th -90^th and his fruitful time spent in Moscow. In his mature years Yandarov returns to the spiritual origins of the peoples of the North Caucasus, including the Chechens and Ingush.

Special mention should be made of Yandarov’s two-volume edition co-authored with Zaurbekova and Byzov (Mutushev), “Myths and Legends of the Chechen People” (2010, 2011), which is an important contribution of authors to Chechen culture (Yandarov et al., 2010; Yandarov et al., 2011).

As the authors of “Myths and Legends of the Chechen People” write, this work is the first attempt to create a consolidated collection of Chechen oral prose literature (Myths and Traditions, 2010). The structure of the two-volume book is as follows: the 1^st volume combines two large folklore and ethnographic genres being non-historical presented by a series of myths related to the pre-Islamic period of the Nakh people; and a historical one, setting out a number of legends. In order to take advantage from reading, the latter genre is divided into several thematic sections (Geographical objects; Man-made monuments of Chechnya; History of Chechen villages; Genealogical and ancestral legends; Struggle against princes; Russians and Cossacks in Chechnya; He and she; Faith, customs and morals of the people; Kistin legends). The 2^nd volume of the edition practically duplicates the themes of the first volume. Meanwhile, in addition to the traditional Chechen folklore plot, this volume includes the Chechens neighbors’ legends. The volume is of great interest to those researchers who study the ethnogenesis of the Chechen people ancestors. Of equal interest is the part devoted to Islamic legends existing in Chechnya at the level of syncretism (Myths & Legends, 2011).

In general, according to Cheshko, the Deputy Director of the Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, such a work has been published to such an extent for the first time in the history of the Chechen people (Akaev & Magamadov, 2017). The publication of the collection “Myths and Legends of the Chechen People” is a logical consequence of the cultural and social activities of Yandarov, who organized the Chechen Cultural and Educational Center in Moscow together with his wife Zaurbekova at the beginning of the 2000s. The foundation of this center and the Yandarov’s participation in the work and publication of the collection “Myths and Legends of the Chechen People” denote a qualitative change in the national consciousness of the philosopher. He took up the most important mission of his life, which has not only culturological but also ontological, epistemological and axiological significance; when, together with his co-authors, he revives oral texts in order to preserve the cultural heritage of the Chechen people.

Yandarov’s life and career is a clear example of devotion to the ideals of the Enlightenment, ethno-national and state interests (Akaev & Magamadov, 2020). As can be seen from history, the joint human activity and a common spiritual atmosphere, find translators of the problems afflicting humanity; individuals most ready to take on the burden of responsibility for their solution are born. The choice can be made on different grounds. However, a human-personality is characterized by the intensity of worldview searches, which determines their spiritual growth or physical collapse.

References

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