1 Karolina Łukasiewicz Institute of Sociology Jagiellonian University Chechen-ness reconstructed – family life questioned. 1 The times before and after the war differ significantly, as if the world had fallen down, even people changed a lot. Indifference entered their hearts. Before war, people were noble, tried to help each other, now it is all gone, it has vanished. During my four years in Poland, a lot has changed… Of course I miss my home. Some people say that since I left Chechnya, it means that I don’t love my fatherland. I usually reply: I love my fatherland, it’s my fatherland who doesn’t love me anymore. Chechnya will always be my fatherland. It’s just that a lot has changed there. After all, we had to survive… Nowadays I feel joy only within my family. Outside my family there are few reasons to feel joy, to laugh. I rarely smile, my heart never brims over with joy. When it happens to me that I laugh with something, I feel surprised that I still know how to do it. I haven’t been laughing for such a long time, such a long time… [Mohamed, 48 years old] 2 First war and next, migration transform people’s everyday life. Family relations, work, home they had, all need to be reconstructed. Habitual, often unreflective activities and emotions (Sztompka and Bogunia-Borowska 2008) are questioned. Everyday life practices are determined by culture people share. Therefore a sense of Chechen national identity, i.e. Chechen-ness expressed in everyday life activities is questioned. Stateless nations with fight for independence inscribed in their collective memory are particularly determined to frame their life in exile following the patterns rooted in their fatherland. Nations, who had to leave their country in order to survive, usually do not forget, where did they come from, and why. The aim of this paper is to describe and explain how Chechen-ness has been reconstructed through the Soviet era, the war and finally in exile in Poland. I will analyze the strategies of reconstruction of Chechen-ness from the perspective of main actors, i.e. Chechens themselves. Such analysis covers number of topics. Since I intend to present an in-depth study, my analysis will cover only on one dimension of Chechen- ness, i.e. Chechen family life. The later focuses all the elements of Chechen sense of identity expressed in everyday life practices. My analysis aims at explaining how the patterns of Chechen everyday life are renegotiated in the changing structural contexts. The analysis includes dynamics between human agency and structural pressures. A study of Chechen identity is important for several reasons. First of all, it cannot be expected, that Chechens within Russian Federation or in exile in Poland will assimilate and blurred into dominant culture. The nation has two hundred years history of persisting it’s 1 I acknowledge the financial support for this study from the Institute of Sociology, Jagiellonian University and the assistance in conducting the research of Chechen informants. 2 Names in quotations as well as some biographical facts enabling recognition of my informants are changed due to privacy and safety reasons.