Values and identities in the North Caucasus: meanings and discourses

The present study considers the systems of norm and values, as well as the system of identities in the North Caucasus. The priority of the systems of norm and values that affect the system of identities of an individual and social groups in many respects depends on social discourses that dominate in the region. The ability to take into account the diversity and variability of interethnic, interfaith and intercultural interactions in the North Caucasus, as well as the specifics of political and social and economic processes in the region is not only a task and a requirement for state structures dealing with regional governance, but it is also one of the priority tasks of various research structures engaged in the analysis of the North Caucasus development. Despite a rather complex and sometimes even contradictory structure of identities existing in the North Caucasus, the dominant identity is a civic identity (“I am a Russian citizen”). The empirical data obtained during the research allow to record that the respondents have of a system of multilayered identities, among which the civic identity is the dominant one. All this testifies to the fact that against the background of the growth of ethnic self-awareness, at the same time, there is a complication of understanding of the notion ethnic in the Caucasian worldview.