TAKING A NEW LOOK AT THE HOSTAGE-TAKING INCIDENT:

In this final 2002 issue of the Chechnya Weekly, I would like to focus on a major recent event: the Moscow hostagetaking crisis of October 23-26. Like other key crises of the past decade–the August putsch of 1991, the “October events” of 1993 and the “Moscow terror bombings” of 1999–the complex and dramatic events occurring in and around the House of Culture at Dubrovka in Moscow in middle and late October of this year will likely be the object of keen interest and intensive study for years to come. At present, “Dubrovka studies” are still in their infancy. I do not intend to provide an exhaustive recitation of what transpired during the period October 23-26. Rather, I pose certain key questions about what took place at the theater complex that could aid future researchers better to fathom the “Dubrovka events.”