Khassan Baiev

Khassan Baiev grew up in a small town southwest of Grozny, Chechnya. His family was typically traditional, and they spent every summer up in the mountains with their father's tiep or clan, working the land and listening to the stories of the elders. Sports, especially wrestling and hand to hand sports like judo, are extremely popular in Chechnya and Khassan, who had been born rather small and sickly, trained relentlessly until he was winning national competitions. Although he enjoyed competing, he did not want to be a coach, and decided to study medicine in Russia. He specialized in maxillofacial surgery and became a plastic surgeon. He was earning good money in Russia when the war broke out, but he returned home determined to help his people.

Fiercely independent, Chechnya has been governed by Russia in an uneasy relationship for centuries. In 1944 Stalin deported the majority of the Chechen people, including Baiev's parents, to remote regions of Kazakhstan and Siberia. They were only rehabilitated and allowed home fifteen years later, after Stalin's death. When the Berlin wall came down in 1990 and the Soviet Republics began declaring independence, Chechnya did too, seeing the possibility of an independent state in President Yeltsin's initial hands off approach. Unfortunately, Chechen President Dudayev was a poor leader and a terrible politician. In 1994, Russia entered Chechnya to establish order and preserve the integrity of the Russian nation. For two years guerrilla warfare ground away at Russian forces, and the Federal soldiers relentlessly bombed Grozny and other areas, killing up to a 100,000 civilians and displacing a half million. Due to a lack of Russian public support for the war and the stalemate on the ground, a ceasefire was declared in 1996 and a peace treaty was signed a year later. Two years later, a force calling itself the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade and comprised of both Chechens and Islamic radicals from outside invaded Dagestan, purportedly to help liberate the area from Russian control. Russia invaded Chechnya in retalitation, and set siege to Grozny. By the following May, the war was over and Chechnya was firmly back in the Russian orbit.

Throughout these wars, Khassan continuously risked his life in order to provide emergency medical care. Often he was the only surgeon in a very large area, and he ran a trauma hospital with a skeleton crew of nurses until it was bombed out and then operated in the basement of his house, which was bombed, rebuilt, and bombed again. Despite threats, Khassan steadfastly operated on Chechens and Russians alike, citing the Hippocratic Oath. At one point he was arrested by the Russians and held in a pit, but he refused to stop working, treating anyone who needed his help. Finally, during the second war, a price was put on his head by the Russians while one of the Chechen factions wanted him dead for operating on Russians. Human rights workers helped Khassan get asylum in the United States, where he was subsequently joined by his family.

Khassan's story is amazing on several fronts. Obviously his actions during the war were heroic, and his work then and now (he spends six months of the year working in Chechnya, operating on children hurt in the wars) is incredible. Yet equally interesting was the story of his childhood, a childhood straight from the pages of a Tolstoy novel of the Caucasus. For example, when his sister is abducted by bride snatchers, Khassan, as oldest son, is sent to steal her back. Yet, despite this traditional upbringing, Khassan is forthright about his struggles with debilitating depression and post traumatic stress. He acknowledges that talking about mental illness, as well as about his wife and family, is not considered acceptable in Chechen society, but he feels it is important to break down these barriers in the hope that others will seek the help they need to recover.

One of my favorite reads of the year so far, I would highly recommend this memoir to anyone even remotely interested in Chechnya or emergency medicine.… (más)