Chechen literature in the second half of the 1950s was marked by thematic and genre diversity. The literature of this period was shaped in large part by the new moral atmosphere that emerged in society after the Chechens and Ingush returned from Stalin’s exile—an exile that had forced them to spend many years in deportation in Siberia and Kazakhstan, leaving a deep imprint on their worldview and literature. The late 1950s were a time of profound change in people’s inner lives and civic consciousness. This was reflected first and foremost in poetry. Its standard-bearers were poets of the older generation: M. Mamakaev, N. Muzaev, B. Saidov, A. Mamakaev, A. Suleimanov, M. Sulaev, Kh. Edilov, and others. Some of them had helped lay the foundations of Chechen poetry in the 1920s. The theme of “the individual and society” occupied a special place in their work, which had been interrupted by war and by the 1944 deportation. In these memories and motifs, Kazakhstan often appears as a “second, forced homeland,” a place where a new life experience was formed. The years spent far from home intensified this theme. The poetry of those years is filled with reflections on the fate of the people; it gave new poems depth and sincerity. At the same time, the poetry of the 1950s raised not only national issues, but also universal human concerns.

A defining feature of the poetry of the 1960s–1980s was its lyrical and philosophical reflection on the life of the people. The lyrical hero of these works is guided by three values. The first is his native land, where his fathers lived; the second is the Caucasus. The third is the Soviet Union, Russia. For many authors, the experience of exile was also crucial: it was in Kazakhstan that they first felt a shared destiny with other repressed peoples, strengthening the motifs of solidarity and the struggle for human dignity.

The narrative theme continued in the prose of the 1950s–1980s. This period saw the appearance of Kh. Oshayev’s The Fiery Years, M. Mamakaev’s The Murid Revolution and Zelimkhan, A. Aidamirov’s Name of Freedom and The Long Nights, and Sh. Okuev’s Red Flowers in the Snow and Prologue. In these works, the authors connected major events in Chechen history with the destinies of their characters. The synthesis of documentary writing, journalism, and artistic invention became the backdrop for stories about human fate at a specific historical moment. The heroes of these novels—Russians and Chechens—fight together for a brighter future.

In the second half of the 1980s and the early 1990s, writers focused on pressing contemporary problems that demanded artistic interpretation. The novel and the novella became especially popular, including A. Aidamirov’s The Ascent, M. Akhmadov’s At Dawn, When the Stars Go Out, I. Elsanov’s The Smell of Decaying Leaves, and S.-Kh. Nunuev’s Melodies of the Homeland. Each author approached in his own way the question of how a hero’s moral position is formed in the modern world. Chechen writers explored the human being, historical roots, the inheritance of moral and ethical traditions, and the ethics of the people.

The late 1950s through the early 1980s marked a new stage in the development of Chechen literature. Alongside the older generation of writers—S.-B. Arsanov, M. Mamakaev, and Kh. Oshayev—young authors emerged whose work would later have a strong influence on the spiritual atmosphere of contemporary Chechen society. Their biographies were tied to the years of deportation in Kazakhstan, where many representatives of this generation spent their childhood and youth. In the works themselves, however, this experience was reflected not directly, but indirectly—through the themes of exile, nostalgia, and the struggle for national identity.

In his novel When Friendship Is Known, S.-B. Arsanov depicts life in Chechnya at a turning point between eras: relations within Chechen society, its ties with the tsarist administration, and the destinies of individual people. The writer shows the great events of the revolutionary period through the life of his protagonist, through his experiences and reflections. Times change, society changes, and the main character comes to understand the need for an active, constructive stance in life and the need to defend his human and national dignity.

In this novel, Arsanov appears as a mature writer, a master of language who creates vivid pictures of Chechen life and of the spiritual and socio-political atmosphere of the turbulent events at the turn of the century.

A landmark event in the cultural life of Chechen society was Khalid Oshayev’s novel The Fiery Years. Because the author had witnessed and participated in the revolutionary events, had met N. Gikalo, A. Sheripov, and other revolutionaries, and knew the background of many events in the Caucasus, he was able to create a realistic, almost documentary portrait of the fiery years of the revolution.

The novel The Murid Revolution, by another classic of Chechen literature, Magomet Mamakaev, is devoted to the same era. The writer tells the vivid and tragic story of Aslanbek Sheripov, commander of the Chechen Red Army and leader of the revolutionary movement in Chechnya. Aslanbek, an educated and courageous man, saw the revolution as the only chance for his people to become free, build a new life, and free themselves from tsarist oppression, poverty, outdated traditions, and obscurantism. He firmly believed in the ideals of the revolution and gave his life for it.

The next novel, Zelimkhan (1968), is also devoted to a historical figure: the famous abrek Zelimkhan Kharachoyevsky, a man who became a legend during his lifetime and for many years struck fear into tsarist officials and gendarmes across the North Caucasus.

Mamakaev’s Zelimkhan possesses all the qualities of a hero, yet at the same time remains an ordinary man who dreams of a quiet and peaceful life. The writer shows how, because of the arbitrariness and stupidity of tsarist officials, Zelimkhan is forced to take the path of an abrek and defend both himself and all the dispossessed. Yet every one of his victories brings brutal reprisals against his relatives, friends, and ordinary people who helped him or sympathized with him. Confronted with a vast and merciless state machine, Zelimkhan realizes that his struggle is doomed—but there is no way back.

The novel addresses such issues as the oppression of the Chechens by the tsarist authorities. In the figure of Zelimkhan, the writer presents the abrek as a people’s avenger and a fighter against social injustice.

Zelimkhan is not simply a novel glorifying the exploits of its protagonist, the abrek Zelimkhan; it is also an embodiment of the pain and helplessness of the Chechen people in the face of power.

The story begins at the spring known as Maiden’s Braid, where the beautiful Zezag, filling a copper jug with water, meets Soltamurad, Zelimkhan’s brother. Their love leads to a highly unexpected turn of events—one without which the patriotism and courage of the heroes might have vanished into oblivion.

“Was it her fault that the time had come when the desire to love and be loved by someone worthy of her awakened in her soul?” Yet this love led to the deaths of innocent people and marked the beginning of heroic deeds in Chechen history. In her deep reflections, Zezag placed the blame for the terrible events on the place where she had met Soltamurad. Maiden’s Braid is not the spring’s only name; it is also called the Braid of the Unfortunate Girl. Legend tells of a girl who planned to flee her father’s house with her beloved, but her enraged father threw a dagger at them, and it struck his daughter in the back. Her long braid scattered across the stones as she fell onto a small hill, and by morning a silvery spring had burst forth above it, resembling the braid of the unfortunate girl. That is how the people came to call it the Braid of the Unfortunate Girl.

The happy lovers were not destined to remain together, because Khushulla’s daughter was loved not only by Soltamurad, but also by the son of the headman of the Vedeno district. With the consent of the tsarist officer Chernov, they took her away from Soltamurad, accused him of forcibly abducting the girl, and placed her in the house of Adoda, an elder from Kharachoy. There was no one to rescue her from this captivity—even her old father merely muttered that such was the will of Allah. Zezag could not accept her bitter fate, but she had no choice but to submit to a will stronger than her own. “That was how her parents had raised her—obedient to the ancient customs of the mountains, taught to conceal her desires and thoughts, taught to obey the will of the strong.” This story marked the beginning of the protagonist’s struggle against power and his victories over it. His life and death became proof of the unquenchable fervor of the true sons of their people, who would continue this struggle even after his death in the name of their homeland and their people.

Before these events, Zelimkhan was a family man and had never even considered the fate of an abrek. When he set out to marry Soltamurad’s younger sister, the attempt led to a sudden conflict: Zezag’s relatives gave her in marriage to another man. A clash broke out among the young men, during which one of Zelimkhan’s relatives was killed. In response, a man from the hostile clan was punished. Later, the two sides made peace, but the authorities opened an investigation. The local chief, having accepted a bribe to make a false accusation, named Zelimkhan, his father, and two brothers. In this way, a legal pretext was found for the arrest of Zelimkhan and his relatives.

“Soltamurad was neither killed nor imprisoned, but left alone in the wilderness so that people would laugh at him... Yes, so that they would laugh at him. Could one imagine a harsher punishment for a man?” This book reveals the customs and traditions of the Chechen people. The quotation above testifies to the unusual moral code of this unusual people. Uneducated and living in poverty, they did not lose their true values and were prepared to fight for them at the cost of their own lives. For them, the words “honor” and “dignity” are not empty sounds, but the air they breathe: deprived of them, life loses its meaning. Having found like-minded men who also wished to escape from prison, Zelimkhan managed to break out. Thus began his restless life, full of hardship, wandering, and struggle.

“Zelimkhan did not become an abrek because life was kind to him. The tsarist regime’s destruction of national traditions and ways of life, along with injustice, exhausted his patience,” a newspaper wrote after the abrek’s death.

“The law of the ancestors can establish order and restore justice.” Guided by this rule, he passed judgment on oppressors and gave the poor what rightfully belonged to them. For the authorities, he was a problem to be eliminated, but the people called him “the defender of the dispossessed.” He was a hero and protector of the people, a symbol of the struggle for justice and freedom.

“All people are divided into two groups: some are rich and strong, others are weak and poor. The rich and strong rob and insult the weak and poor. I do not rob; I merely take the spoils from the rich and return this wealth to its rightful owners—the poor,” Zelimkhan tells his mother. His certainty that he was right, together with the support of the people who rose alongside him, sustained his spirit in this difficult struggle. He lost his father, brothers, and friends, but did not lay down his arms and fought even more fiercely. The abreks were widely supported by the mountaineers and expressed the people’s discontent with colonial oppression. The people saw the abreks as defenders and hid them from the tsarist authorities. The confrontation between the abreks and the authorities was widely reflected in the folklore of the Chechens and other peoples of the Caucasus. Without this support, Zelimkhan could not have fought. It was the battle of an entire people.

The proverb says, “One man alone is no warrior in the field.” Yet the abrek showed that one man in the field can be not only a warrior, but also a victor. After the revolution, the Bolsheviks declared him a national hero of the Caucasus and wrote in books and journals that Zelimkhan had been not merely an abrek, but an abrek-revolutionary. The Ossetian writer Dzhago Gatuev, to whom Magomet Mamakaev dedicated Zelimkhan as a teacher and mentor, published a biographical book about Zelimkhan.

A. Makeev’s article “The Slain Hero” appeared in the newspaper Echoes of the Caucasus on October 8, 1913, after Zelimkhan’s death. The author wrote: “I cannot believe that Zelimkhan has been killed. In him we see a hero. He refused to go to the ministers of the Persian shah, saying: ‘I do not want to fight against some people.’” “He loved freedom; he was brave and noble.” “He came to his wife and children when he was killed.” “Those who caught him are dark men. They will remain unknown. No tales will be told of them; no songs will be sung about them.” “A poem will be written about Zelimkhan, perhaps an opera. Pushkin and Lermontov admired mountaineers like him. I do not want to believe in Zelimkhan’s death!” A film has been made about Zelimkhan, poems have been composed, and a book has been written, while those other “dark men” have sunk into the oblivion of dark times. “I have raised a sign of immortality for myself”—these words of the Russian poet and scientist Lomonosov may also be applied to the abrek Zelimkhan. Zelimkhan fought for truth and died for it, as a true man and mountaineer. After his death, the Chechens lost a pillar of support and a source of mighty strength, but the struggle would continue, for this people carries within itself a free spirit that will submit to no one. “They may mutilate my body, break my bones, even kill me. Then they will have only my body, but not my submission,” Zelimkhan said in his lifetime, and he never went back on his words.

Three loves live in the hearts of the mountaineers until the final heartbeat: love for the homeland, love for one’s people, and love for freedom. Mamakaev does not consider Zelimkhan’s struggle futile or useless. Zelimkhan showed that one must fight for human dignity and freedom. He gave ordinary people hope that justice is possible in this world, and that even evil, however almighty it may seem, can be punished. The abrek inspired such fear in his enemies that they were afraid of him even after his death.

Alongside the figure of Zelimkhan, the writer creates realistic, vivid, and psychologically convincing portraits of his companions, relatives, tsarist officials, the details of Chechen everyday life, and the atmosphere of society in the early twentieth century.

Abuzar Aidamirov’s novel The Long Nights is devoted to the historical events of the second half of the nineteenth century in Chechnya. This work had a powerful influence on the spiritual and moral condition of Chechen society. The point was not simply the novel’s artistic qualities, but its philosophy of Chechen history and its new assessment of the role played by famous historical figures in Chechnya’s destiny, above all Imam Shamil. A. Aidamirov presents Shamil as an intelligent, educated man, a subtle politician, and a capable military commander. Yet the interests of the Chechen people are entirely alien to him. The imam uses the Chechens’ love of freedom, courage, and militancy to achieve his own goals: the creation of a hereditary theocratic monarchy. At the same time, convinced that these very qualities of the Chechens could prevent him from establishing unlimited personal power in the Imamate, he destroys their traditional culture, free spirit and independence, ethnic identity, and self-respect under the pretext of strengthening Islam.

In A. Aidamirov’s view, spiritual death—the loss of national dignity and ethnic distinctiveness—is many times more terrible for a people than burned homes and fields or felled forests. The Long Nights was a warning to contemporary generations of Chechens, but unfortunately, no one heard it.

Shima Okuev’s novel The Republic of Four Rulers is a broad epic canvas with a wide geographical scope and many layers of events and time. In it, the writer appears as a mature master of language, a subtle connoisseur of his native tongue and oral folk tradition. The novel was published only after the author’s death, but it became a true literary event for Chechen society.

In the 1950s–1980s, Chechen drama developed alongside prose, especially the genre of comedy. New names appeared: Abdul Khamidov, Bilal Saidov, Lecha Yakhyayev, Ruslan Khakishev, and Said-Khamzat Nunuev.

A. Khamidov’s play The Fall of Bozh-Ali became popular. It was a comedy written in a rich, aphoristic language. Although its characters were satirical and caricatured, they were alive and recognizable, as if pulled directly from real life. The realism and everyday and psychological authenticity of its characters made this comedy legendary. Many quotations from the play became sayings.

Whereas Chechen prose of this period is dominated by an interest in the past, in history, in historical events and personalities, then Chechen poetry of the same period—the late 1950s to the early 1980s—is characterized by special attention to a person’s inner life, feelings, philosophical reflection on life, and lyricism. This is a feature not only of the poetry of younger authors such as Magomed Sulaev, Khasmagomed Edilov, Bilal Saidov, Musbek Kibiev, and Sheikhi Arsanukaev, but also of poets of the older generation, including Magomet Mamakaev and Nurdin Muzaev. The turn toward personal feeling and philosophical motifs in their poetry is closely connected to the experience of deportation in Kazakhstan, where national identity was tested by survival far from the Caucasus.

In the 1980s, a new generation of Chechen writers and poets emerged whose work defines the level and condition of Chechen literature today. Among them are Musa Akhmadov, Musa Beksultanov, Said-Khamzat Nunuev, Apti Bisultanov, Umar Yarichev, Kant Ibragimov, and German Sadulaev.

Contemporary Chechen literature today is represented by a great variety of genres and authors, some of whom have already become classics, such as Musa Akhmadov, Musa Beksultanov, and Umar Yarichev, while others have won recognition from critics and readers, including Kant Ibragimov and German Sadulaev.