Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus

The Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus was a short-lived state that emerged during the Russian Civil War, bringing together the Muslim and other peoples of the eastern North Caucasus. It grew out of the Union of the Peoples of the North Caucasus, formed in 1917, and declared itself a republic as the Russian Empire collapsed. Its government was dominated by secular nationalists rather than clerics. Its territory covered the former Terek and Dagestan oblasts, roughly corresponding to modern Chechnya, Ingushetia, North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Dagestan and part of Stavropol Krai. The republic claimed a federal structure and sought recognition from the Russian Provisional Government and later from the White movement. Its capital moved from Vladikavkaz to Nazran and then to Temir-Khan-Shura as Bolshevik and White forces advanced. The Volunteer Army captured the state in May 1919, ending its brief existence. A North Caucasian Emirate briefly succeeded it, and in 1921 the Bolsheviks created the Mountain Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.