February 23, 1944, is a date indelibly etched into the consciousness of every Chechen, marking their mass deportation from the North Caucasus into exile in Central Asia and Siberia. On the 80thanniversary of this national calamity, there are few alive today who lived through the ordeal. Even so, the deportation’s legacy remains a touchstone of discontent for many Chechens. For the past two decades, Chechnya under the authoritarian leadership of Ramzan Kadyrov has remained subservient to Russian leader Vladimir Putin. But there are signs that the Kremlin-Chechen dynamic is changing slightly, cr…