by photographer Heidi Bradner
1998 FiftyCrows PhotoFund Winner

The story of the war in Chechnya is both tragic and uplifting, and far from over. The clash of the two cultures, one imperial and modern and the other tribal and traditional, has wider implications for other small cultures throughout the world. In my documentary photo project, I hope to accomplish a humane, complete portrayal of both peoples, Russian and Chechen, because both are misunderstood in the West, and because their shared story is universal to many zones of conflict around the world.

I think this poject is relevant because understanding their experience provides insight into how these conflicts begin and how they can be avoided or understood in an unprejudiced, real way. I have documented the poignancy of this war, both on the Russian and the Chechen side, for over two years and feel it is important to continue the project now when these two neighbors are grappling with a new reality, harder than just hurdling down the frenzied path to war: they must build a road to peace.

The small patch of territory called Chechnya was virtually unheard of in the West before the Russian Aarmy brutally invaded it in the winter of 1994-5. the friction exploded into a brutal war reaching scales of destruction the world has not seen since WWII.

Over the course of the two-year war, the rugged landscape of the North Caucuses was transformed into a physical and spiritual battleground. The area became a crucible for a violent mixture of Muslim versus Western ideals, ancient mountain customs versus modern beliefs, a warior people’s pride versus a conqueror’s abandon. Also, it became a high-stakes game for control over future oil pipeline royalties, which will gush forth from the Caspian Sea basin in a few years.

I photographed all of this as part of a multi-year project because I found that the story of the Chechen people, who number just over one million (less than one percent of Russia’s population), mirrored the predicament of many small cultures around the world, who face the same treatment by their own governments or by modern pressures. Their dilemma is how to preserve autonomy and identity in the face of the increasing globalization of weaponry, communications, technology, assimilation, capitalism and crime.

I also intend in my project to document the post-war effects on these soldiers and on the Russian people who, as a nation long shrouded in propaganda, are also misrepresented in the Western media. I feel the war has unalterably  shaped the way russians look at themselves. I intend to explore this by following those men who I photographed as 18 year-old soldiers and the prisoners of war through their experiences as veterans. I also photographed their mothers, who came searching for them among the battlefields and over the mountains of Russians military bureaucracy. They rovide a voice and human face to the real effects of Russian involvement in a conflict often singed with civil war-like proportions and emotions. Not without great pain, russians are now looking differently at themselves, their country, and the world. I woud like to keep documenting this transformation.