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One of the greatest difficulties in teaching courses on such esoteric topics as ethnic conflict, comparative genocide, indigenous groups’ rights, Soviet nationality policies, Russian colonial history, Sufi Islam, terrorism or global human rights is the inability of students to imagine or identify with foreign places and peoples that are so removed from their own experiences. It is, for example, difficult for the average student to truly grasp the seismic importance of the ethnic cleansing of Bosnians or Sudanese in Darfur if he or she cannot imagine Bosnia/Sudan or their peoples. It is equally difficult for a student to grasp such complex issues as Stalin’s nationality policies or the role of Communism in transforming indigenous belief systems in Eurasia if students cannot access the culture of such terra incognitas as the Balkans, Central Asia, China or the Caucasus.
            All too often students are overwhelmed with abstract theories or case studies which take place in a contextless void. They therefore fail to truly appreciate the topics at hand due to a cultural disconnect from the places being studied. I have found that American students in particular often lack the ability to humanize those living in foreign lands. Thus they find it hard to empathize with their history, politics, culture etc. and this prevents learning.
            I believe that any tool that can help educators who are interested in overcoming this inability of students to imagine other lands and peoples (especially those involved in the sort of contexts listed above) is worth its weight in gold. I am happy to report that I have discovered just such a teaching aid in Khassan Baiev’s The Oath. A Surgeon Under Fire.
            The Oath is a truly remarkable anthropological, political, and historical work with tremendous applications for a variety of courses dealing with ethnicity, communal violence, Communism, race policies, Islam, ethnic terrorism, and colonialism to name just a few. In a nutshell this work is a case study in how Russian imperialism, Soviet nationality policies (including ethnic cleansing), and post-Soviet conflict have impacted the indigenous people of the Caucasus, the Chechens, and driven them to violent resistance.
            It is a tale of historic grievances, racial discrimination, imperial collapse, and ethno-communal warfare that can at times be overwhelming. Students who have read this book for my courses on Russian history and ethnic conflict have not only come to identify with the case study at hand, the Chechens, they have been profoundly moved by the account. Some students even reported having nightmares after reading this harrowing account.
            Baiev’s account is that of a Chechen surgeon who earned his medical degree in the Soviet Union then attempted to apply the Hippocratic Oath by treating both Russians and Chechens during the subsequent wars that consumed his homeland. And as Baiev lovingly brings to life the patriarchal Sufi-Islamic folk traditions of the Caucasian highlanders and critiques the role of Chechen and Russian politicians in causing the wars which destroy his country, one cannot help but identify with this foreign land and her people. My only complaint with Baiev’s work was that students became so engrossed in his account that they tended to read the book ahead of the syllabus, a ‘problem’ I wish I encountered with all my assigned readings.
            As should be obvious, what is unique about Baiev’s work is its ability to provide a human face for the people involved and, in the process, enable students to identify with many previously-inaccessible subject matters. For unlike most scholarly works written by academics who have professional interest in the topic at hand, Baiev is himself a Chechen. As such, Baiev’s work analyzes such topics as the genocidal cleansing of his race by Stalin, the impact of Marxist-Communism on Sufi Islamic traditions, the devastation of two Russo-Chechen wars, and Putin’s attempts to link the Chechen conflict to the war on terror from the perspective of an involved participant. While this work is hyper-objective, it cannot help but be filled with the human ingredient missing in the dry academic tomes I have read on the history of ethnic cleansing, Soviet nationality policies, conflict resolution, terrorism and so forth.
            One of my students compared Baiev’s The Oath with the Kite Runner a best-selling novel that has increasingly been used in the classroom setting by educators focusing on race relations in Afghanistan and Central Asia. “Only everything in The Oath is real!” my inspired student explained to me.          
            And herein lies the secret to the Oath’s value as a teaching tool. While it is full of historic, political and anthropological detail it is written with the fast-paced flair of a novel. As the very real characters who live in Baiev’s home village are tragically killed off one after another in the Russo-Chechen Wars, the ‘boring’ issues that I have tried unsuccessfully to excite my students with (from race politics to the ethnic roots of terrorism) are brought to life as never before. For in The Oath they take place in real setting and the tragedies described in it are experienced by real people who are no longer seen as abstracts by the students.
            I cannot offer praise enough for Baiev’s unique work and can only thank him for providing me with the means for electrifying my students with a case study on topics that were once unimaginable to most. While this work will, I believe, come to be essential to those teaching classes on topics directly related to Russia and Chechnya (such as post-Soviet Russian politics, Soviet nationality policies, ethnic conflict in Eurasia), I believe it also has tremendous applications for those dealing with a host of wider issues. I have no doubt that teachers dealing with topics over time and space from the genocide in Rwanda to conflict resolution in Sri Lanka will find in this work a resource of unparalleled importance. And in using Baiev’s work, scholars and teachers might also learn a lot about a small, misunderstood race known as the Chechens whose story has much in common with that of many other victimized ethno-religious groups than realized.