Export of Jihadism to the North Caucasus: to the History of the Question

Abstract. The subject of the study is the phenomenon of jihadism, which is reviewed as a conceptual model, on the one hand, and as a real process occurring in the territory of the North Caucasus, on the other hand. The main idea of this article lies in the fact that only from 1990s the North Caucasus can be considered as a polygon for spreading the jihadist ideology, which is based on the idea of building an «Islamic state» with the help of military struggle on the worldwide scale. At this particular time the regional Islamist project was gradually replaced by a global project, which was supported by foreign ideologists and emissaries.

Keywords: Islamism, jihadism, jihad, the North Caucasus, The Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, The Caucasus Emirate, Al-Qaeda.