The Translator.

Volume 18, Number 2 (2012), 339-61 ISBN 978-1-1905763-35-1�

Making a Difference?
Independent Online Media Translations of the 2004
Beslan Hostage Disaster

SUE-ANN HARDING
University of Manchester, UK

Abstract. With increasingly fewer independent media outlets

operating in the Russia Federation over the past decade, the Internet
is one of the rare remaining sites where alternatives to mainstream
news and opinion can be voiced. In spite of repeated government
interference and, in some cases, prosecution, fringe media websites
connected to non-governmental organizations, grassroots civic
movements and separatist factions have developed into persistent,
if marginalized, media alternatives. This paper examines the
online reportage and translations generated in response to the
2004 hostage-taking in Beslan published by ‘non-professionals’ on
two websites, using a case study approach and drawing on socio-
narrative theory. It discusses the elements and characteristics
of these fringe narratives that distinguish them as significant
alternatives to the mainstream, contrasting the Beslan narratives
constructed by the two independent sites with those elaborated by
a large, mainstream Russian news agency. It then considers the
translations of this material into English to determine the extent
to which the specific features that characterize the alternative
narratives are also present in translation. The study finds that the
restricted use of translation on these websites led to the reinforcement
of simplistic, reductionist narratives and weakened or eliminated
the more complex and multivalent alternative ones that had been
present in the Russian originals. It concludes by considering how
‘non-professional’ translators might avoid a similar outcome.

Keywords. Online media, News translation, Narrative, Russia, North

Caucasus, Violent conflict.

This paper examines the reportage and translations published by two non-
professional independent online media sites, Kavkazcenter and Caucasian
Knot, in immediate response to the events of the Beslan school hostage-taking

ISSN 1355-6509 © St Jerome Publishing Manchester

340 Making a Difference?

in 2004. The term ‘non-professional’ is used to identify these websites as

marginal organizations working outside, and in resistance to, the Russian
mainstream mediascape. The paper identifies the characteristics of the narratives
that appeared online during the hostage situation and that distinguished these
websites as alternatives to the mainstream. It also examines the translations of
this material into English to determine the extent to which these characteristics,
and hence the alternative narratives, were present in translation. The paper
concludes by reflecting on the use of translation in the promotion of the causes
of these activist, oppositional organizations, with implications that might also
be relevant for similar groups elsewhere.
This case study does not attempt to ascertain ‘what happened’ at Beslan;
it investigates how different news agencies constructed different reports in
both Russian and English in response to what was happening at Beslan as
events were still taking place. The analysis of the production, circulation
and translation of these reports is informed by a social narrative theoretical
framework that grounds rigorous narratological textual analysis in socio-
political reflection (Somers and Gibson 1994, Baker 2006, Harding, in press).
Like O’Tuathail’s work on Beslan (2009a, 2009b), the assumption here is that
narrative is a robust means of understanding why things happen, how people
make sense of what happens, how they act in response to what happens, justify
those actions, and “specify enemies and attribute blame in consequential ways”
(O’Tuathail 2009a:5).

1. Russian online media in the context of ongoing violent conflict in

the North Caucasus

The steady reduction in press freedoms and independence since the beginning
of the Putin presidency in 2000, which continued unabated during and since
Dmitri Medvedev’s term as president from May 2008 to May 2012, has meant
that, with the exception of the Moscow-based newspaper Novaya Gazeta
and radio station Ekho Moskvy, there are virtually no independent media
operating in Russia. Recent publications (Strukov 2009) provide evidence

1
See Dunlop (2006, 2009) for the most thorough analyses in English of the event to date.
See also Phillips (2007) whose book – part history, part travelogue – builds up a narrative
of the attack and the siege using the stories of eyewitnesses and survivors.

This paper is part of a larger contrastive study of Kavkazcenter and Caucasian Knot with
a third mainstream new agency, the Moscow-based Russian News and Information Agency
RIA-Novosti (Harding, in press). The present study focuses more specifically on the narra-
tives of Beslan constructed by the two fringe or ‘non-professional’ organizations.

For a succinct, recent overview of media freedoms in Russia, see Brenton (2011); for a
more in-depth account, see Arutunyan (2009), Beumers et al. (2009a, 2009b) and Burrett
(2011). For discussion of post-Soviet media before the Putin presidency, see, for example,
Ellis (1999), Zassoursky (2004) and Koltsova (2006).
Sue-Ann Harding 341

that state interference extends to online media, with the Russian government
showing an interest in monitoring and increasing state control over Internet
publications. In January 2005, for example, a criminal investigation was
launched against Stanislav Dimitrievsky, co-editor with Oksana Chelysheva
of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society website, on charges of ‘inciting
hatred’ for publishing statements from Chechen-Ichkerian (separatist) leaders,
including President Aslan Maskhadov. Dimitrievsky was given a four-year
probation and two-year suspended sentence in 2006, and the organization was
closed down in 2007 (Chelysheva 2007). Ingushetia.ru, the only remaining
independent media outlet in the Republic of Ingushetia, is another interesting
example. There were repeated attempts in 2008 to have the site shut down,
and on 31 August 2008 its chief editor, Magomed Evloev, was shot dead while
in police custody. Similarly, although Kavkazcenter, the major internet site of
the Chechen separatist fighters, survived several attempts by the Russian state
security organization FSB to shut it down (Simons 2010, Tlisova 2010), it was
added to the Russian Federation’s List of Extremist Material and effectively
banned on 9 September 2011.
Nevertheless, Russian cyberspace remains an open site for the expression
of civil dissent and alternative political views. Since the Second Chechen War
began in 1999, numerous independent websites of various repute have been set
up to circumvent the restrictions in Russia’s mainstream press – introduced at
the beginning of Putin’s presidency to counter the negative press coverage so
critical of the Russian government during the First Chechen War (1994-1996)
– and to present Chechen, humanitarian and Islamist perspectives of the conflict.
While some of these have come and gone, several sites continue to report on the
ongoing violent conflict in Chechnya and the North Caucasus. Sites publishing
in Russian include the Daymohk Information Agency, Chechenews, Ichkeria.
info and Kavkaz Online, as well as more recently established websites of
Islamist fighters in Dagestan (Jamaat Shariat)10 and Ingushetia (Hunafa)11.
The Chechen Press State News Agency,12 linked to the Chechen-Ichkerian


Kavkazcenter is item 985 in the List of Extremist Material, which also includes several
articles published on the site: http://www.minjust.ru/nko/fedspisok (last accessed 13 March
2012).

While the Russian government has more than once declared the end of the Second Chechen
War, ‘counter-terrorism’ operations and guerrilla warfare in societies plagued by corruption,
police intimidation, imprisonment, torture, extrajudicial assassinations and ‘disappearances’
continue today in a culture of impunity.

http://www.daymohk.org/rus/index_ie.shtml (last accessed 13 March 2012).

http://chechenews.com (last accessed 13 March 2012).

http://ichkeria.info (last accessed 21 July 2011).

http://kavkasia.net (last accessed 13 March 2012).
10
http://www.jamaatshariat.com (last accessed 21 July 2011).
11
http://hunafa.com (last accessed 13 March 2012).
12
http://www.chechenpress.org (last accessed 13 March 2012).
342 Making a Difference?

government-in-exile, publishes in Russian and English, as do the Chechen

Committee for National Salvation13 and Chechnya Free.ru14 – a cultural site that
looks like an independent outlet but is, in fact, run by the Russian government’s
Voice of Russia radio project. Several of the now defunct sites also published
in Russian and English, including the Caucasus Times, the Chechen Times,
Ichkeria.de and the excellent Prague Watchdog that ran for ten years and also
published in Czech. Waynakh15 publishes in English and Turkish and posts news
and information on Chechen cultural activities, the lives of Chechen refugees in
Europe and the rulings of cases brought (and won) by civilians against Russia
in the European Court of Human Rights.
Kavkazcenter and Caucasian Knot are two such alternative sites still
in operation. Kavkazcenter News Agency describes itself as a “Chechen,
independent, international and Islamic internet agency”.16 It was founded in
March 1999 “in Dzhokhar (Grozny) by the ChRI [Chechen Republic Ichkeria]
National Centre for Strategic Research and Political Technology, which was
registered with the ChRI Ministry of Justice in October 1998”. Though the
site calls itself a “private, independent agency” that does not “represent the
viewpoint of any state structures or the ChRI government”, it openly claims
to present the position of “the Chechen mujahedeen”. Until the unilateral
declaration of the Caucasus Emirate in the autumn of 2007 that effectively
split the Chechen resistance into two camps, Kavkazcenter – which continues
to support the Islamist Caucasus Emirate – had strong links to, and was a key
communication channel for, the Chechen-Ichkerian government (in exile).
Publishing in Russian, English, Turkish, Ukrainian and Arabic, the agency’s
main focus is the reporting of “events … connected to the Russian military
aggression against the ChRI”, with the particular mission

to report the actual events in Ichkeria under the conditions of a total

information embargo, and to disseminate to the global community true
information about the war, war crimes, and the facts of genocide by the
state aggressor against the entire people and those defending themselves
from this aggression. (‘O Nas’ [‘About Us’], Kavkazcenter website)

As well as posting news (focusing on events in the “Islamic world, the

Caucasus, and Russia”), analyses, interviews, photographs, video clips, radio
podcasts, and lengthy documents on various aspects of Islam, the agency also
ы�й) international
aims to “widen its activity by creating a valuable (полноценн��
and alternative information corporation”.

13
http://www.savechechny.narod.ru (last accessed 13 March 2012).
14
http://www.chechnyafree.ru/index.php (last accessed 21 July 2011).
15
http://www.waynakh.com/eng (last accessed 13 March 2012).
16
All quotations are from ‘��
� �����
N����
��
s’ ��������
[‘About ������
Us’], ���������������������������������
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/russ/
about, (last accessed 13 March 2012). All translations are my own.
Sue-Ann Harding 343

Caucasian Knot (Кавка������

зский� ����
Узел), on the other hand, describes itself as
“an independent electronic medium … founded by the International Society
“Memorial” in 2001”.17 Memorial is the renowned Russian human rights or-
ganization that grew out of the perestroika years and continues to document
human rights abuses in Russia and the former Soviet Union, particularly in
regions of armed conflict, such as Chechnya and the North Caucasus. Funded
“by various charitable foundations”, Caucasian Knot works in partnership with
the Human Rights Institute, founded in 1996 by Soviet dissident and Russian
human rights commissioner Sergei Kovalyov, the Panorama Information and
Research Centre, a watchdog group established in 1989 that monitors Russian
politics and the rise of nationalist extremist groups, the BBC Russian Service,
and the online news site Gazeta.ru. Caucasian Knot’s stated goals are

to ensure free access to truthful (правдивый) and unbiased (не

ангажированный) information about events in the Caucasus; informing
the Russian and global community about cases of human rights viola-
tions, the situation in the zone of armed conflict, ethnic (национальный)
or political discrimination, and refugee problems, and providing infor-
mation support for the development of civil initiatives and independent
mass media. (‘O Nas’ [‘About Us’], Caucasian Knot website)

Caucasian Knot distinguishes itself by its focus on the Caucasus, its

“encyclopaedic” depth (энциклопедичность), “presentation of different
viewpoints” and the “exclusive material and interviews” provided by its
team of twenty-six regional correspondents. As well as news, the Russian
and English versions of the site publish analyses, official documents and
legislation, regional administrative and statistical information, contacts for
regional government departments, local media and non-government organ-
izations, region-specific encyclopaedic articles, and links to relevant books
and reports. In 2006, Press Now – a Dutch association of journalists formed
in 1993 to support the development of independent media in the former Yu-
goslavia, and merged in 2011 into Unlimited Free Press – began a training
and professionalization project with Caucasian Knot, which they regard as
“one of the most prominent internet sources on the region, … with a focus
on human rights issues, war, corruption, crime and authoritarianism”.18 At the
same time, Press Now acknowledges that while Caucasian Knot is “highly
popular amongst specialists [e.g. journalists, editors, academics, NGO and
state officials] for its objective information”, the impact of the site on public

17
‘O nas’ [‘About Us’], http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/AboutCaucasianKnot (last
accessed 22 July 2011).
18
‘Press Now professionalizes website “Caucasian Knot” and management of independent
news agency through trainings and consultation’, Press Now, 28 September 2006, http://
www.pressnow.nl/asp/countries_news_details.asp?NewsID=69&CountryID=53&offset
(last accessed 31 October 2008).
344 Making a Difference?

opinion “remains limited”. This collaborative project between Caucasian

Knot and Press Now seeks to develop new strategies for targeting mainstream
media, evidence of which can be seen in the updated, redesigned website
available since 2009 and the site’s growing public profile as an increasingly
cited news source on the Russian internet.19

2. Russian online media and translation

Translation is central to the agenda of sites publishing in more than one lan-
guage, such as the mainstream outlets and fringe sites discussed in the previous
section, as it facilitates the circulation of their narratives to an international
readership. RIA-Novosti, Kavkazcenter and Caucasian Knot all declare in their
mission statements that, in addition to their Russophone readers, they publish
for, and strive to reach, non-Russian audiences – goals which indubitably
necessitate translation.
RIA-Novosti’s client list of Russian presidential departments and government
ministries also extends to “foreign business communities, diplomatic missions
and public organizations” as, according to the agency, foreign language sites20 are
высокие��������
���������������
leading sources (занимают����������������позиции)
������� 21 of news reporting on Russia.
RIA-Novosti includes designated departments of foreign-language news produc-
tion and translation, an international media press centre, the English-language
Moscow News and the Arabic-language Anbaa Mosku, and boasts of its abil-
ity “to deliver news and information in all possible formats, including video,
animated infographics and cartoons to professional clients and the end user in
14 languages”.22 Like RIA-Novosti, both Kavkazcenter and Caucasian Knot
publish in more than one language and aim to reach beyond a domestic audi-
ence. Kavkazcenter, which publishes in Russian, English, Ukrainian, Arabic and
Turkish, not only claims to target “the world community” with “the truth about
the war”, but also to provide “international news agencies with news-letters,
background information and assistance in making independent journalistic work
in Caucasus”.23 Although it publishes in just Russian and English, Caucasian
Knot also aims to reach “the global community”.24

19
‘Caucasian Knot enters TOP-10 of Russian Internet for 2011’, Caucasian Knot, 13 January
2012, http://www.eng.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/19689 (last accessed 13 March 2012).
20
RIA-Novosti publishes in Russian, English, German, French, Arabic, Persian, Spanish,
Japanese and Chinese.
21
‘Об агенство’, http://rian.ru/docs/about/index.html (last accessed 13 March 2012).
22
‘The Russian News & Information Agency RIA Novosti’, http://en.rian.ru/docs/about/
novosti.html (last accessed 13 March 2012). Interestingly, an earlier accessed version of
this page (5 November 2008) refers to “over 90 highly qualified translators”, but these are
now missing from the description.
23
‘About Kavkazcenter’, http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/about (last accessed 13
March 2012).
24
‘О Нас’ [‘About Us’], http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/AboutCaucasianKnot (last
accessed 13 March 2012).
Sue-Ann Harding 345

What is interesting about Kavkazcenter and Caucasian Knot is that,

although operating on a far smaller scale than RIA-Novosti and with vastly
reduced resources, power and connections by comparison, both sites appear
to model themselves on this mainstream structure.25 These are not ‘citizen
journalism’ or ‘indymedia’ websites that rely on, and actively encourage, a
horizontal structure of plurality and democratic participation (Gillmor 2004,
Deuze 2006). Most of Kavkazcenter’s published articles are anonymous
(attributed to the site’s ‘Department of Monitoring’) or penned by several
individuals who write specifically for the site and rely on anonymous volun-
teers for translations. For instance, the English, Arabic and Turkish homepages
are all headed with a red banner appealing for assistance, as in: “Attention!
Kavkaz Center agency needs a translator from Russian to English language
from among of [sic] volunteers. Please send your proposals using the feedback
form”. Caucasian Knot’s ‘About us’ page, with its background information and
substantial list of editorial staff and regional correspondents, closely resembles
that of RIA-Novosti. Yet rather than a ‘translation department’, there is only
a Content Editor of the English Version; and while articles are regularly at-
tributed to individual correspondents working for the agency, no mention of
translation or translators is ever made on any of the English-language posts.
It is therefore difficult to establish whether they are volunteers, or whether
some correspondents work also as translators.
The definition of these invisible translators as amateur or unprofessional is
based on the premise that, while these websites model and seek in some way
to replicate (at least some of) the structures of professional mainstream media
sites such as RIA-Novosti, they do so from marginalized, activist, oppositional
stances situated outside the mainstream field (in a Bourdieusian sense). With
limited resources at their disposal, translation appears not to be a priority – a
paradox, perhaps, given that an international platform for one’s cause can be
key to fostering a sympathetic audience for alternative, resistant narratives and
increasing both access to resources and the effectiveness of one’s protest.

3. Material and method

The three websites – RIA-Novosti, Kavkazcenter and Caucasian Knot – were

selected as sources of data for the larger study for two main reasons. Firstly,
they each published material in Russian and English on the hostage-taking in

25
Information about the actual day-to-day functioning of these sites has so far proved difficult
to obtain. Caucasian Knot failed to reply to several written requests for information. Similarly,
the people behind Kavkazcenter, such as the (in)famous Movladi Udugov, prefer, for obvious
reasons, to remain fairly elusive. A social-ethnographic examination of these organizations
is yet to be carried out and remains outside the scope of this study, which draws exclusively
on the information made available by these organizations on their websites.
346 Making a Difference?

Beslan while the crisis was unfolding.26 Secondly, they all have readily search-
able archives which enabled the retrieval of material from September 2004.
The data (a total of some 130,000 words) was collected by selecting all of the
material published in Russian and in English from the three websites that refers
directly to the hostage-taking and was published from the Wednesday morning
up until midnight on Saturday 4 September 2004, the day after the siege came
to an end. Taking as a starting point the premise that the narrative is the unit of
analysis, the data set is viewed as consisting of six “primary narrative texts”
(Bal 2009:57), two (one Russian and one English) from each website.
To describe and analyze this material, I devised an ‘intra-textual’ model
whereby the different texts embedded within each primary narrative text are
separated out into narrative and non-narrative material; narrative material is
further differentiated according to time and then place, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. An intratextual model for the analysis of each primary narrative text

26
The construction of narratives from events after they have occurred is arguably what much
of history is about; this idea has been discussed extensively by historians elsewhere, as for
example, in the work of Hayden White (1973, 1978, 1987). Studying the elaboration of narra-
tives as they are being constructed, however, offers a different vantage point that can contribute
more directly to enhancing our understanding of how narratives are constructed.
Sue-Ann Harding 347

According to the model, in the same way that single, integral narrative texts
(e.g. novels) can include “non-narrative comments” such as opinion, descrip-
tion or argument (Bal 2009:31-35), each primary narrative text incorporates
non-narrative material such as official statements and condemnations, letters
of appeal, commentaries and opinion pieces. On the websites, this material,
often conveying explicit expressions of various allegations and political posi-
tions, is embodied to differing degrees in the narrative texts and can be either
synchronal (occurring within the same time frame as the primary narrative text)
or anachronic (occurring outside of the time frame of the primary narrative
text). While all three news agencies consistently reported events in Beslan as
they were unfolding, they also included narrative texts relating events that
happened before the attack. The synchronal narrative material within each
primary narrative text is further differentiated in Figure 1 according to spatial
position. A distinction is made between narratives that relate events occurring
beyond Beslan’s School No. 1 and narratives that relate events occurring near
or in Beslan’s School No.1.
As the narratives are being constructed, the school in Beslan quickly be-
comes the site of events that constitute what might be thought of as the ‘core
narrative’. Although, at the time, access to the school was severely restricted,
it was surrounded by hundreds of people and the boundaries of the site in
which events were located became porous. As the event unfolds, hostages
escape, are released, are sent to the boundary with messages to be delivered
across the line, telephone connections are made, and Ruslan Aushev (former
president of Ingushetia) walks in and out again. Towards the end of the siege
these boundaries collapse, with Russian special forces moving into the school,
hostages fleeing into nearby apartment blocks or sped off in cars to various
hospitals, and hostage-takers escaping into nearby buildings and across the
railway lines into other parts of the town.
One of the most surprising findings of this case study was that, despite the
presence of so many eyewitnesses, so much movement, and the uncertainty about
what was happening and why, only a very small proportion of text (in all six
primary narratives) is devoted to relating this core narrative. Another significant
feature of the narrative texts examined pertains to the concepts of narrator and
temporary narrators (Bal 2009, Harding, in press). The narrator of each primary
narrative text is the news agency. The temporary narrators, on the other hand,
are those to whom the agencies temporarily transfer the function of narrating
– either through the attribution of direct speech or by embedding texts written
by commentators and/or lifted from (and attributed to) other media within the
primary narrative text. All three narrators (news agencies) enlist several different
temporary narrators – government officials, other media, experts, commentators,
translators, correspondents and eyewitnesses – to contribute to the construction
of their primary narrative texts. The distinct narratives that are constructed can
partly be accounted for by identifying to whom each narrator temporarily passes
the function of narrating and the manner in which this is done.
348 Making a Difference?

In the analysis of the websites, the three Russian-language primary

narrative texts were compared and contrasted, using the intratextual model
and investigating the role of the temporary narrators enlisted by each news
agency. The aim of this exercise was to determine whether Kavkazcenter and
Caucasian Knot actually present alternatives to the RIA-Novosti’s mainstream
(and government supported) reporting on Beslan. In general terms, both
Kavkazcenter and Caucasian Knot construct very different narratives, both
from RIA-Novosti’s and from one another. While this study focuses specifically
on the ways in which ‘framing narratives’ are constructed by each website,
the intratextual model could potentially be applied to the reporting of political
violence by fringe media in other settings, offering one way for similar media
organizations with minimal resources to critically assess their own narrative
constructions and make more informed decisions with regard to how to build
effective counter-narratives both as originals and in translation.

4. Three framing narratives

Each agency constructed a framing narrative, that is, a larger, more abstract nar-
rative, into which the local narrative of the Beslan hostage-taking is embedded.
Through the selection, deselection and weighting (Baker 2006) of text-types,
temporary narrators, events and actors, and by variously characterizing actors,
narrators and temporary narrators, each narrated a very different ‘story’ (Bal
2009) of Beslan. Embedding a particular narrative into a generic story is a
common means of making sense of that narrative (Bennett and Edelman 1985,
Bruner 1991). However, narrative embedding is also a strategy that narrators
actively use in order to influence the way any given narrative and its specific
events and actors are interpreted and understood (Baker 2006). In this case,
the Beslan narrative is embedded in three framing narratives: the war on terror,
genocide, and hostage-taking.

4.1 War on terror

On their website, RIA-Novosti very clearly frames the hostage-taking in Beslan

as an episode in the international war on terror waged on Russian territory.
Much of this occurs in the non-narrative statements which make up a large
proportion of the primary narrative text. Condemnations of the attack voiced by
an array of international leaders, government representatives, religious organ-
izations and Russian officials frequently include not just specific references
to the hostage-taking in Beslan, but to any or all forms of terrorism, wherever
and whenever they occur. The use of abstract terms, binary oppositions of
good and evil and the depoliticization and dehumanization of the hostage-
takers all serve to obscure the particular details of the events in Beslan. By
the end of the primary narrative text, RIA-Novosti can say little about who
Sue-Ann Harding 349

the hostage-takers are, or how and why they were able to do what they did.
The ‘destruction’ (уничтожение) of the terrorists is all that matters. Cast by
default as the force for good in this framing narrative, the Russian government
claims and expects unequivocal support for its actions.27

4.2 Genocide

These same international statements of condemnation are missing from

Kavkazcenter’s primary narrative text, whose non-narrative material contains
quite a different collection of embedded texts. These include: two official
statements from Umar Khanbiev and Akhmed Zakaev, members of the
Chechen-Ichkerian government in exile; five lengthy opinion pieces written by
Kavkazcenter’s own commentators (marginalized – two are even criminalized
– by the Russian government); and a selection of foreign commentaries
originally published in European and US media and lifted from translation
sites such as Inopressa and InoSMI – in an effort, perhaps, to lend credibility
and international kudos to the site. Kavkazcenter’s framing narrative of Beslan
is most strongly elaborated in this material. The hostage-taking is framed as a
terrible, yet not wholly unexpected, consequence of Russia’s ongoing military
aggression and genocide against the Chechen people, rather than an episode in
the ‘international war on terrorism’. This narrative is itself framed by a wider
narrative of consistent brutality perpetuated by the Soviet/Russian regime
against its own people; one that, like the war on terrorism, is characterized
by binary, oppositional divisions of good and evil.
Cast in the role of good in Kavkazcenter’s framing narrative are the innocent
Chechen people, with the fate of the children in Beslan repeatedly compared to
the suffering of thousands of Chechen children and innocent Chechen civilians.
The role of evil is categorically reserved for President Putin, the Russian Federal
government and its security and military forces. Disparaging of them and their
authority, Kavkazcenter depersonalizes and homogenizes individual spokesper-
sons, constantly challenging official versions of events by pointedly including
elements absent from official narratives and drawing attention to discrepancies
in official information, hence characterizing officials as incompetent, deluded,
obtuse, and deceitful. The focus is not on the actions of the hostage-takers,
but on the actions of a government which is not only inept and deceitful, but
brutally violent and showing no regard for the lives of its citizens.
A principal means of Kavkazcenter’s characterization of the Russian gov-
ernment are the agency’s highly critical editorial comments and wry headlines,
providing a strong sense of the narrator’s presence. Many of the agency’s

27
RIA-Novosti’s framing narrative is discussed only briefly here because the primary focus
is on Kavkazcenter and Caucasian Knot. For more information on this website, see Hard-
ing (in press). For discussions of the war on terror as a constructed narrative, see Baker
(2006) and Jackson (2005).
350 Making a Difference?

editorial comments are preceded by the word напомним (‘we remind you’)
and commonly include elements that are either missing from official versions
of events and RIA-Novosti’s Russian narrative text, or are only briefly referred
to (and hence characterized as insignificant). “We remind you”, writes the
agency, “that the demands of the group became known earlier: the cessation
of military action and the withdrawal of occupation forces from Chechnya”.28
“We remind you”, it writes with reference to the Dubrovka theatre siege in
Moscow, “that after Putin’s assertions (заверения) to save the lives and health
of the hostages ... a storm followed which ended with hundreds of casualties”.29
“We remind you that literally five minutes before the beginning of the storm
[in Beslan] President Dzasokhov of North Ossetia promised that there would
be no storm”.30 By specifically including and drawing readers’ attention to
these elements, Kavkazcenter sets out to deliberately challenge and construct
an alternative to official narratives articulated by the authorities.
This is also achieved by Kavkazcenter’s use of headlines that often high-
light what officials are not saying and not doing, in contrast to RIA-Novosti’s
focus on the statements and actions of officials. Putin’s return to Moscow
and orders for the head of the FSB and other high-ranking officials to fly to
Beslan is titled: “Putin says nothing. Putin is broken (сломлен)”.31 Similar
headlines include “Negotiator Aushev frees hostages but Ziazikov hides
himself”;32 “Russian forces (силовики) conceal information about the group’s
demands”;33 and “Russian authorities are not reporting the casualties of the
storm”.34 Kavkazcenter also interprets, or re-narrates, the actions of officials.
The responses of the FSB and Ministry of Internal Affairs, who persistently
appear to avoid any political negotiations with the hostage-takers and concen-
trate instead on negotiating the provision of food to the hostages and a safe
passage to Chechnya for the hostage-takers, are headlined “FSB busy saving
28
‘Родственники заложников опасаются начала штурма школы’, Kavkazcenter, 1
September 2004 http://www.kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2004/09/01/25428.shtml (last
accessed 13 March 2012).
29
‘Заверения Путина напоминают известный сигнал к штурму’ Kavkazcenter, 2
September 2004 http://www.kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2004/09/02/25465.shtml
(last accessed 13 March 2012).
30
‘Российские власти не сообщают о жертвах штурма’, Kavkazcenter, 3 September
2004 http://www.kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2004/09/03/25495.shtml (last accessed
13 March 2012).
31
‘Путину нечего сказать. Путин сломлен’, Kavkazcenter, 2 September 2004, http://
www.kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2004/09/02/25461.shtml (last accessed 13 March
2012).
32
‘Переговорщик Аушев освобождает заложников, а Зязиков прячется’, Kavkaz-
center, 2 September 2004, http://www.kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2004/09/02/25469.
shtml (last accessed 13 March 2012).
33
‘Российские силовики скрывают информацию о требованиях группы’, Kavkaz-
center, 2 September 2004, http://www.kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2004/09/02/25479.
shtml (last accessed 13 March 2012).
34
See footnote 37.
Sue-Ann Harding 351

Putin from negotiations with [Chechen-Ichkerian president] Maskhadov”.35

The blocking of telephone communications in Beslan, the sealing off of the
town by Russian security forces, the arrival of special units and the official
claims that the school will not be stormed are viewed not as the actions of a
reliable and responsive government but as evidence that “[t]he storming of the
school in Beslan is being prepared”.36 The effect is to highlight discrepancies
in official statements and behaviour in a way that deliberately challenges and
contests official narratives articulated by the authorities.

4.3 A Hostage-taking

In contrast to both RIA-Novosti and Kavkazcenter, Caucasian Knot frames the

events of Beslan as a hostage-taking. Again, this is elaborated most clearly
in the non-narrative material of the primary text. This consists of well-, often
elegantly articulated arguments from human rights organizations (including
Memorial, Human Rights Watch and the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society),
which condemn both the violence of the hostage-takers and the Russian
government in its wars against Chechnya. These texts espouse a narrative of
non-violent, political resolution to conflict, making the safety of the children
the utmost priority to which all other political differences, grievances,
principles and power-struggles must be subordinated. Negotiations, a cessation
of hostilities and international assistance to ensure that the cycle of violence
is broken and peace is brokered are all essential elements of this framing
narrative, which places civilians and their right to be safeguarded from violence
at its very core. Caucasian Knot calls for all politics to be laid aside in order
to simply get the children out of danger and the hostages released.
A marked feature of this framing narrative is the avoidance of caricature or
simplification of the Beslan narrative into a struggle of good versus evil, both
so prevalent in the framing narratives of RIA-Novosti and Kavkazcenter. One
way Caucasian Knot does this is through its selection of temporary narrators.
Of the three websites, Caucasian Knot includes by far the greatest number of
eyewitnesses, several of whom are named and quoted directly and included
in the narrative from the first day of the siege. Soslan Fraev, for example,
relates how his brother, Ruslan, drove his children to school that morning and
when he realized the school was being attacked, jumped out of the car and ran
up to the school, where he was killed.37 Although both the RIA-Novosti and

35
‘ФСБ занята спасением Путина от переговоров с Масхадовым’, Kavkazcenter, 2 Sep-
tember 2004, http://www.kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2004/09/02/25476.shtml (last accessed
13 March 2012).
36
‘Готовится штурм школы в Беслане’, Kavkazcenter, 3 September 2004, http://www.
kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2004/09/03/25482.shtml (last accessed 13 March 2012).
37
‘Противоречивая информация о погибших в ходе захвата школы’, Caucasian Knot, 1
September 2004, http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/60996 (last accessed 13 March 2012).
352 Making a Difference?

Kavkazcenter narratives relate that his body lies in the school yard, unable to
be reached because of the firing, only Caucasian Knot reports the local narra-
tive of how Ruslan, father, brother as well as policeman – “a life that qualifies
for recognition” (Butler 2004:34) – was killed.
Another personal narrative selected is that of a local policeman who is
captured and sees his vehicle commandeered by the hostage-takers on their
way to Beslan. His story adds details to the local narrative (pertaining to the
number of hostage-takers, the presence of two dogs, and the direction they
came from) which are missing from RIA-Novosti and Kavkazcenter. Although
these details may seem insignificant at first glance, they become more impor-
tant when questions are later asked about how the hostage-takers and their
weapons could have moved so freely into Beslan and its School No.1 (Dunlop
2006:28). If the dogs, for example, were brought to act as ‘gas-detectors’, then
their presence might reveal something about the thinking of the hostage-takers
as they planned the attack and anticipated the response from the authorities.
These eyewitness accounts add original, often chilling, sometimes contra-
dictory details of the initial attack and the siege of the school. Collectively,
they build up a narrative of Beslan that is more complex and thereby more
complete than any single, reductionist narrative of the events, particularly in
a narrative that is constructed as events are still unfolding and before any firm
conclusions can be made as to what is going on, who is doing what, and why.
In addition, Caucasian Knot publishes the names and ages of wounded and
released hostages. Names give form and identity to what is otherwise form-
less and unknowable. A name makes an actor present. Caucasian Knot names
more hostages and local residents than any of the other websites, peopling its
narrative with ordinary civilians caught up in the violence of the siege and its
aftermath. Their presence in the narrative text shapes it so that it becomes a
narrative about them, rather than a narrative about the war on terror, the griev-
ances of one group against another, or the evils of the Russian government.
Another significant set of temporary narrators for Caucasian Knot are
representatives of the Chechen-Ichkerian government in exile. The Russian
government dismisses all of them as ‘terrorists’, which explains why they do
not narrate for RIA-Novosti. Caucasian Knot includes the statements from
Umar Khanbiev and Akmed Zakaev (also published by Kavkazcenter) as
well as a statement from President Aslan Maskhadov and interviews with
both Zakaev and Ilias Akhmadov, Chechen-Ichkerian minister of Foreign
Affairs. Akhmadov’s interview adds several details that reinforce Caucasian
Knot’s framing narrative of non-violence and political settlement, including
a reflection on the brutalizing and radicalizing effects of the Chechen Wars,
and political possibilities for bringing peace to the region. In Akhmadov’s
opinion, this further emphasizes the stupidity of the Beslan attack which can
so easily be co-opted into a wider, irrelevant narrative of ‘the international war
on terror’, as is evident in RIA-Novosti’s reporting of the event.
Sue-Ann Harding 353

Aslan Maskhadov condemns the hostage-taking, making it clear that it took

place “without my agreement as Chief Commander of the military forces of
the Republic of Ichkeria”,38 thus rejecting any connection of his name with
the attack. He endorses international demands for the “immediate and uncon-
ditional release of all hostages”, but goes on to reserve for himself “the right
to qualify the actions of Ichkerian freedom fighters (борцы� ���за� �������
свободу) not
as a “heinous terrorist act” but as “exceeding their authorities with regard to
-����������������
разведывательный) operation””.
a saboteur-reconnaissance (диверсионно�����������������
Thus, Maskhadov rejects the label of ‘terrorism’ and attempts to reassert the
narrative of the Chechen struggle for freedom and independence from Rus-
sian tyranny and occupation. This struggle is narrated as a legitimate violent
conflict governed by rules and conventions that have been contravened in the
case of Beslan, thus tainting the struggle and its narrative. The significance of
the inclusion of Maskhadov’s statement is worth considering. Though he has
since been assassinated by Russian forces (in March 2006), at the time of the
Beslan siege Maskhadov was a wanted man in hiding, and hence the fact that
he was able to narrate at all is notable. The inclusion of Maskhadov’s statement
adds a narrative layer to Caucasian Knot’s framing narrative of non-violence
– that of legitimate violent resistance bound by the rule of law. Maskhadov
rejects the violence of the hostage-takers and the hostage-takers themselves,
not because they are inhuman terrorists, but because they are rogue elements
of the resistance who, having exceeded Maskhadov’s authority as Chief Com-
mander, have tainted the ‘sacred struggle’ of [Chechen] freedom fighters.

5. Translated Narratives

RIA-Novosti, Kavkazcenter and Caucasian Knot all explicitly aim to reach an

international audience and all use translation to pursue this aim. Yet a compari-
son of the three Russian primary narrative texts with the three English primary
narrative texts, based on the intratextual model described above, shows that not
everything is translated, nor are the English-language texts always translations
of (parts of) the Russian text. These distinctions are obscured not only by the
unseen, unacknowledged activity of translation, they are also blurred by the
hyperlink which makes it easy for readers to choose homepages in different
languages (Russian, English, Arabic, etc.) – with the assumption (for there
are no obvious or immediately compelling reasons to assume otherwise) that
they are all the same. However, the analysis of the data sample suggests that
they are not; it also reveals that very little of each Russian-language text was
translated into English. Kavkazcenter translated less than a quarter, the text

38
All quotations from ‘Аслан Масхадов: мы боремся против властей России, но не
против российских детей’, Caucasian Knot, 3 September 2004, http://www.kavkaz-uzel.
ru/articles/61061 (last accessed 13 March 2012).
354 Making a Difference?

translated from Russian into the Caucasian Knot’s English narrative amounted
to just three percent, and even RIA-Novosti, with its designated department,
translated less than a third of its primary text into English.39

5.1 Kavkazcenter’s English narrative text

Kavkazcenter’s English narrative text consists of one report lifted from other
media sources and translations of the five commentaries, or opinion pieces.
The report appears first in the early hours of 2 September 2004; at 653 words,
it provides but a tiny proportion of the information published by Kavkazcenter
in Russian on 1 September. The report is not a translation of any part of the
Kavkazcenter Russian text, but is a single piece attributed to IslamOnline.net
and ‘News Agencies’ that briefly relates the initial attack40 and is largely made
up of statements from officials and other media sources. The report is put to-
gether in the same way that Kavkazcenter’s Russian narrative is constructed.
Neither are based on reports by agency correspondents on the ground; they
are based on “bricolage” and “shovelware” practices (Deuze 2006:70) – i.e.
“cutting and pasting” from other media that tend to draw on official statements.
Moreover, the English post has none of the scepticism and criticism so preva-
lent in the Russian narrative text. The critical, sometimes bitter, sometimes
droll, tone of the Kavkazcenter Russian narrative that characterizes this website
so distinctly as an alternative narrator is completely missing.
In fact, none of the Kavkazcenter reportage is translated, and the remainder
of the English primary narrative text is made up solely of translations of the
site’s five opinion pieces, in which the site’s framing narrative of genocide is
most forcefully elaborated. However, the most conspicuous impact of trans-
lation on these commentaries is their rendering into awkward, sometimes
clumsy, even incorrect English. One effect of this is that the overall tone of
the commentaries sounds abrasive, as if the ire of the authors is expressed in
language that seems almost broken by their outrage:

39
RIA-Novosti’s English narrative text is just over a third of the length of its Russian
counterpart and includes nine articles with no apparent direct (interlingual) connection to
any parts of the Russian texts, including five articles sourced from other mainstream media,
a departure from the way the Russian text is constructed.
40
‘Gunmen Take 400 People Hostage at Russian School’, http://www.islamonline.net/Eng-
lish/News/2004-09/01/article01.shtml (accessed 27 March 2008). The site also published
a brief Arabic version of this article,                
..‫ رهينة في مدرسة بأوسيتيا‬044 ‫ احتجاز‬http://www.
islamonline.net/Arabic/alhdth/2004/09/01/article14.shtml (accessed 27 March 2008), with
interlingual correlations to only two sentences in its English counterpart. Unlike the English,
the Arabic version mentions the hostage-takers’ demand for the release of those fighters
captured after the June 21-22 attack and notes that the authorities usually blame Chechens
for such attacks – even in this case, where Aslan Maskhadov had denied any responsibility
or involvement. IslamOnline.net describes itself as an Islamic news, religious, and cultural
website based in Qatar and Egypt.
Sue-Ann Harding 355

So, how is the hostage-taking of the school with children in Beslan

supposed to be understood, which was presumably conducted by mili-
tants of one of the national liberation movements of the Caucasus? The
way it must be understood is that by its bloody crimes, by its aggressor
policies and its sadistic brutalities Russia is putting its children, and
not just adults, under attacks.41

This awkward English also tends to remove the persuasive rhetoric of the
original Russian. This can be seen, for example, in Said Irbakhaev’s declara-
tion, originally written in Russian. Addressing the hypocrites who condemn
the hostage-taking while ignoring the plight of Chechen children, Irbakhaev
uses a proud, bitter and defiant tone. ‘��������������������������������
Это�����������������������������
����������������������������
мы��������������������������
�������������������������
осуждаем�����������������
����������������
��������������
��������������
обвиняем������
�����
вас��’
(‘It is we who judge and accuse you’), he writes. Similarly, ‘Никогда
�����������������
больше,
во веки веков, ни вы, ни ваши выкормыши не будут указывать чечен-
скому народу как жить’ ���������������
(‘Never again, �����������
nevermore, ������������������������
will either you or your
fosterlings tell the Chechen people how to live’).42 Translated into English,
his statement is truncated and becomes the graceless “[n]evermore, forever
and ever, are you or your fosterlings will be pointing to the Chechen people
how to be living their lives”.43 Similarly, the short, rhythmic sentences of
Pavel Liuzakov’s opening paragraph describing the chaos of the storming of
the school are lengthened into clunky English:

Back-translation of original Russian text44

Storm. Stupid, head-on, at the most inappropriate time. Uncommonly

idiotic tactics … Clearly, at that moment they were ready for anything.
Clearly, they expected a dirty trick… Then explosions, a long two-hour
battle, hundreds of children-hostages killed…
This was more than at Dubrovka.
This was more than at Budennovsk.
This was children.

41
Boris Stomakhin, ‘What measure ye mete, it shall be measure to you’, Kavkazcenter,
3 September 2004, http://old.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2004/09/03/3156.shtml ������ (last
accessed 13 March 2012).
42
����������������
‘��������������� 42 тысячи детей по закону?’��, Kavkazcenter, 2 ����������������
Можно ли убить ����������������������������� September�������
2004,
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2004/09/02/25437.shtml (last ������������������
accessed 13
March 2012)�.
43
‘How can 42 thousand children be killed legally?’ Kavkazcenter, 3 September 2004 http://
old.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2004/09/03/3158.shtml ������������������������������
(last accessed 13 March 2012)�.
44
My back translation: ‘Штурм. Бездарный, лобовой, в самое неподходящее время.
Тактика на редкость идиотская…Ясно, что в этот момент они были готовы на
все. ������
Ясно, ������������������������������������
что ожидали подвоха...Потом взрывы, ��������
долгий, �����������������
двухчасовой бой, ������
сотни
погибших детей-заложников…/Это больше, чем на Дубровке./Это больше, чем в
Буденновске./Это были дети.’ ‘������������
�������������
Дядя��������
Путин��
�������, ���
ты� �� ’, Kavkazcenter, 4 September
— ��������
палач���
2004, http://www.kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2004/09/04/25510.shtml (�����������������
last accessed 13
March 2012�� ).
356 Making a Difference?

Published English translation of original Russian text45

Russian special forces storm the school. Untalented head-on assault at

the wrong time. The tactics was extremely idiotic: … It is clear that at
that moment they were ready to do anything. Sure, they were waiting
for some dirty trick to be pulled off… Then explosions occur and a
long, two-hour long gun battle and hundreds of children (hostages)
get killed.
It’s more than the number of victims during the Moscow theater siege
in October 2002.
It’s more than the number of victims in Budennovsk.
And they were children.

Arguably, the English version attempts, to some extent, to provide international

readers with relevant contextual information. For example, the reference to
Dubrovka in the Russian text is replaced by a full explanation of what that
hostage crisis involved (“number of victims during the Moscow theater siege
in October 2002”). Similarly, Budennovsk refers to another hostage-taking
crisis – although the date and number of victims are not provided in this case.
However, these commentaries are translated into awkward English that both
increases their abrasive tone and removes the persuasive rhetoric of the Russian
texts, while potentially undermining the credibility of the authors and hence the
validity of their narratives. These effects, along with the loss of Kavkazcenter’s
caustic running critique of events, collectively reinforce the framing narrative as
crude or a caricature and hence seriously erode the viability of Kavkazcenter’s
narrative as an alternative to mainstream and official accounts.

5.2 Caucasian Knot’s English narrative text

Caucasian Knot’s English narrative text is comprised of just four posts which
amount to six percent of the length in words of the site’s Russian narrative
text: three (anonymous) translations (either an amalgamation of excerpts
from the site’s Russian texts or a single Russian post) and a statement issued
by the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights and the Moscow
Helsinki Group.46 When this statement is excluded from the word count – after
all, it is not a translation of any part of the Russian, but is a text copied from
the International Helsinki Federation’s website47 – the result is that just three
percent of the Russian narrative text is translated.

45
‘Putin, you are a murderer’, Kavkazcenter, 5 September 2004, http://old.kavkazcenter.
com/eng/content/2004/09/05/3155.shtml (�����������������������������
last accessed 13 March 2012��
).
46
‘No justification for targeting civilians’, Caucasian Knot, 2 September 2004 http://www.
eng.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/3586 (�����������������������������
last accessed 13 March 2012��).
47
On the International Helsinki Federation website, it was published in English and Rus-
sian: http://www.ihf-hr.org/documents/doc_summary.php?sec_id=58&d_id=3959, (last
accessed 6 December 2008).
Sue-Ann Harding 357

In terms of temporary narrators, the three translations draw exclusively on

Russian and North Ossetian officials. The Chechen-Ichkerian statements from
Umar Khanbiev of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, President Aslan Maskhadov
who explicitly requests that his statement be disseminated “through diplomatic
channels and the mass media”, and the interviews with Akhmed Zakaev and Ilias
Akhmadov are all missing. The distinct voices of the agency’s correspondent
on the ground and the personal narratives of the eyewitnesses are also missing,
as none of them are translated. The statements and condemnations of the attack
from human rights and non-governmental organizations who most articulately
elaborate Caucasian Knot’s distinctive framing narrative of non-violence in the
Russian narrative text are also missing. The only statement of this kind in the
English narrative text is the International Helsinki Federation statement. Typic-
ally for these kinds of statements, the piece denounces “the recent outbreak of
attacks against civilians in Russia” and calls for the hostages’ immediate release.
In consonance with the calls for an end to violence articulated in the Caucasian
Knot Russian narrative, the statement also urges “the Russian authorities to ad-
dress the climate of impunity in Chechnya”, which the authors consider to be
directly “linked to the rise in violence in the North Caucasus” and “nurtured by
the gross inaction of the Russian investigative and judicial authorities”.
The International Helsinki Federation statement contradicts Russian official
narratives that connect violence in the region with ‘international terrorism’, as
articulated in RIA-Novosti’s framing narrative, but the argument that violence in
the region is the result of chronic political violence and the climate of impunity
in Chechnya is made only in the last two paragraphs of the statement. While
this argument is well elaborated in the Russian narrative text, here it is brief
and, consequently, weak. The remainder of the statement is made up of narrative
accounts of the initial attack in Beslan, the explosion at the Rizhskaia metro
station in Moscow the evening before48 and the explosions of two passenger
airplanes the previous week,49 events also incorporated into government
narratives that characterize the attack in Beslan as yet another in a series of
(international) terrorist attacks against Russia. What is interesting about these
accounts in the Helsinki statement is the subtle, yet repeated, identification of
the perpetrators of these attacks as Chechen. They are referred to collectively
as “individuals suspected of being linked to Chechen fighters”, the suspects
for the destruction of the airplanes are two “ethnic Chechen women”, and the
Beslan hostage-takers are “believed to be Chechen fighters”, a modifier not
found in the Russian version of the International Helsinki Federation statement.
Having established the collocation between ‘Chechen’ and ‘fighters’, the

48
An explosion on the evening of Tuesday 31 August 2004 killed ten people and injured
another fifty.
49
On 24 August 2004, two almost simultaneous detonations on two separate passenger
flights (Volga-Avia Express Flight 1303 flying from Moscow to Volgograd and Siberia
Airlines flight 1047 en route to Sochi) killed a total of eighty-nine people.
358 Making a Difference?

narrative account of the Beslan attack consistently refers to the hostage-takers

as ‘fighters’, even when the Russian version uses захватчики (hostage-takers),
or террористы (terrorists) in reference to the Nord-Ost hostage-taking.50
Thus, the counter-narrative of the International Helsinki Federation statement
linking violence in the North Caucasus and Russia to “the climate of impunity
enjoyed by Russian security forces in Chechnya” is not only limited to a small
proportion of the whole statement. It is also undermined by the consistent yet
unfounded connection between Chechens and terrorist attacks so commonly
found in Russian official narratives.
Not a single one of the distinguishing features of the Caucasian Knot’s
Russian narrative – neither the eloquent arguments for non-violence and
political negotiation, the lists of names of victims, the eyewitness accounts,
the extra details of the hostage-takers’ attack and escape, nor the statements
from Chechen officials, including President Maskhadov – are included in the
site’s English narrative text. These features all marked the site as a genuine
alternative to the other two and their dualistic framing narratives, yet they are
effaced completely in English, leaving a narrative that is greatly weakened
and very easily co-opted into official narratives of the attack.

6. Concluding remarks

As these examples illustrate, very little of the Russian narrative texts published
by the three websites is translated. Even with the addition of English language
material sourced from elsewhere (and reasonably assumed by readers to be
translations), the English texts fall far short of the word length of the Russian
texts. Translation on these sites, it seems, is a very ‘narrow gate’ that allows
very little to pass through. Even in a large, well-resourced corporation like RIA-
Novosti, with its translation department and team of translators, not everything
is translated. This suggests that for fringe groups like Kavkazcenter that rely
on volunteers and NGOs like Caucasian Knot where resources are limited,
the ‘narrow gate’ of translation may be even more constricted. The analysis
of these sites reveals that where the Russian narrative texts were reductionist
in kind, as in RIA-Novosti’s simplistic framing narrative of the ‘war on terror’
or Kavkazcenter’s framing narrative of Russian genocide and military aggres-
sion against the Chechen people, these simplistic, reductionist narratives were
reproduced in the English texts. Thus it could be said that the restricted use of
translation on these sites emphasized and reinforced simplistic, reductionist

50
It is most likely that the Russian version of the International Helsinki Federation state-
ment is a translation of the English, and that these adjustments are made in an effort to
counter the pervasive characterization of the hostage-takers as Chechen (and Chechens as
terrorists). Similar modifications are found in Kavkazcenter’s Russian text, sometimes at
the point of translation (as posted by Inopressa or InoSMI) and sometimes through editorial
cuts when Kavkazcenter posts the translation.
Sue-Ann Harding 359

narratives and weakened or eliminated more complex and multivalent ones.

Although Kavkazcenter and Caucasian Knot are very different sites that
represent opposing positions – one is for war and the other is for peace – they
both nevertheless offer specialist, local insights into the persistent armed
conflict in the North Caucasus. Accordingly, each of their narratives of the
Beslan hostage-taking includes elements and narrators marginalized by, and
excluded from, official versions. These additions might be regarded as what
are known in complexity and chaos theory as “infinitesimal perturbations”
(Lorenz 1963:431). Popularly known as the ‘butterfly effect’ (Hilborn 2004),
infinitesimal perturbations are very small changes in non-linear systems that
nevertheless effect very great, even completely transformative, changes in
the system as a whole. ‘Infinitesimal perturbations’ on both these websites
served to interrupt powerful, official narratives during the hostage-taking in
Beslan: Kavkazcenter’s sharp criticisms of government responses to the crisis;
its reiterations of the demands of the hostage-takers and rhetorical pleas for
justice; Caucasian Knot’s publication of Aslan Maskhadov’s argument for just
and lawful armed resistance; the articulate advocacy of political, rather than
violent, solutions to armed conflict; the multiplicity of eyewitness accounts; the
seemingly insignificant details of how the attackers arrived in Beslan and how
they escaped; and the details that contest official narratives of law enforcement
transparency and the ‘success’ of the operation that ‘destroyed’ all but one of
the hostage-takers. However, in the translations provided, these narrators and
elements were either distorted and rendered ineffectual or eliminated.
This raises the question of whether translation can be changed from a ‘narrow
gate’ to a ‘sharper tool’ in ‘non-professional’ independent online media sites.
Without the personnel and financial resources that mainstream media sites have
at their disposal, alternative narrators such as Kavkazcenter and Caucasian Knot
may always struggle to compete against mainstream models of narrative con-
struction. However, by recognizing and selecting for translation those particular
elements and temporary narrators that present genuine alternatives to powerful
mainstream narratives and simplistic reductionist narratives, these alternative
websites could serve to effect greater change. Instead of aiming to translate ‘as
much as possible’, which can result in failing to translate everything or lead
to poor and/or uncritically selected translations, this study suggests that more
carefully targeted translation by fringe media may well pose more effective
resistance to power and serve as a better impetus for social change.

SUE-ANN HARDING
Russian and East European Studies, School of Languages, Linguistics and
Culture, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK,
SueAnn.Harding@manchester.ac.uk
360 Making a Difference?

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