Tag: Circassians

  • Adyghe people

    Adyghe people

    The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization estimates that there are as many as 3.7 million “ethnic Circassians” in the diaspora outside the Circassian republics (meaning that only one in seven “ethnic Circassians” is a speaker of the Circassian language), of whom about 2 million live in the Republic of Turkey, 700,000 in the Russian Federation, about 150,000 in the Middle East, and about 50,000 in western countries (Europe and USA).

    7-9 million est. worldwide (including Circassian diaspora) other sources state 5.5-8.9 million (90% in the diaspora)

    Regions with significant populations
     Turkey2,000,000–3,000,000
     Russia718,729
     Jordan250,000
     Syria80,000–120,000
     Egypt50,000
     Germany40,000
     Libya35,000]
     Iraq34,000
     United States25,000
     Saudi Arabia23,000
     Iran5,000–50,000
     Israel4,000–5,000
     Uzbekistan1,257
     Kosovo1,200
     Ukraine1,001
     Poland1,000
     Netherlands500
     Canada400
    Belarus116
    Turkmenistan54

    The Adyghe or Adygs (Adyghe: Адыгэ or Adǝgă, Arabic: شركس/جركس‎, Jarkas/Sharkas, Persian: چرکس‎, Charkas), also often known as Circassians or Cherkess,[11][12][13] are a North Caucasian ethnic group[14][15][16] who were displaced in the course of the Russian conquest of the Caucasus in the 19th century, especially after the Russian–Circassian War of 1862.

    Adyghe people mainly speak Circassian (called Adyghe and it has 12 dialects out of which 4 are mostly used. The Abzakh & Shapsogh dialects in the west, the Bjadogh in the South west (the Black Sea shore), and the Kabardin (Kabartai) in the Center. Predominant religions include Sunni Islam and Russian Orthodox Christianity. There remain about 700,000 speakers of Circassian in Adygea (Adygeans), Karachay–Cherkessia (just Circassians) and Kabardino-Balkaria (Kabards), as well as a number in the Russian Federation outside these republics.

    The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization estimates that there are as many as 3.7 million “ethnic Circassians” in the diaspora outside the Circassian republics (meaning that only one in seven “ethnic Circassians” is a speaker of the Circassian language), of whom about 2 million live in the Republic of Turkey, 700,000 in the Russian Federation, about 150,000 in the Middle East, and about 50,000 in western countries (Europe and USA).

    Contents

    • 1 Name
    • 2 History
      • 2.1 Origins
      • 2.2 Mamluk period
      • 2.3 Russian conquest of the Caucasus and the exile of the Adygs
      • 2.4 The Adyghes in the Middle East in modern times
    • 3 Culture
      • 3.1 Religion
      • 3.2 Language
      • 3.3 Adyghe Xabze
      • 3.4 Traditional clothing
      • 3.5 Traditional cuisine
      • 3.6 Traditional Carpets (Khilim) (woven)
    • 4 The twelve Adyghe tribes
    • 5 The Adyghe diaspora
    • 6 Controversy surrounding alleged desecration of Adyghe mass graves
    • 7 Depictions in popular culture
    • 8 Gallery
    • 9 See also
    • 10 References
    • 11 External links

    Name

    The Adyghe people call and distinguish themselves from other peoples of the Caucasus by the name Attéghéi or Adyghe.

    The usual[clarification needed] etymology presented for the name is Circassian[disambiguation needed] atté “height” to signify a mountaineer or a highlander, and ghéi “sea”, signifying “a people dwelling and inhabiting a mountainous country, a region near the sea coast, or between two seas”.[17][18][19]

    A common exonym for the Adyghe is Circassians, a term which occasionally applied to a broader group of peoples in the North Caucasus. The name Circassian is of Italian origin and came from the medieval Genoese merchants and travelers who first gave currency to the name.[20][21][22]

    The exonym Cherkess is applied to the Adyghe by the Turkic peoples (principally Kyrgyz,[20] Tatar[23][24][25][26] and Turkish[27]) and the Russians. The name Cherkess was usually explained to mean “Warrior Cutter” or “Soldier Cutter” from the Turkic words: cheri (soldier) and kesmek (to cut), so that Cherkess – a synonym for a soldier cutter. By others, the name is supposed to refer to the predatory habits among Adyghe tribes and Abazin. The Russians gave the collective name of Cherkess to all the mountaineers of Circassia who are divided into many tribes.[28]

    History

    Origins

    The Adyghe people originate in the North Caucasus region, an area they are belived to have occupied as early as the Stone Age period, with traces of them dating back as far as 8000 BC.[citation needed] In about 4000 BC the Maykop culture existed in the North Caucasus region, which influenced all subsequent cultures in the North Caucasus region as well as other parts of the region which is now southern Russia. Archaeological findings, mainly of dolmens in North-West Caucasus region, indicate the existence of a megalithic culture in the region.[29] The Adyghe kingdom was established in c. 400 BC.[29] After 460 AD news of “Utige” begins to feature in connection to a state established around Phanagoria which grew into Old Great Bulgaria. After the collapse of this state under pressure from the Khazars, it seems the Adyghe people were never politically united, a fact which reduced their influence in the area and their ability to withstand periodic invasions from groups like the Mongols, Avars, Pechenegs, Huns, and Khazars.

    Genetically, the Adyghe population has shared ancestry with European, Central as well as South Asian populations.[30]

    Mamluk period

    Most of the Mamluks were originally Adyghe and Turkish slaves who were gathered by the Arab sultans to serve their kingdoms as a military force. Others, however, say that the Mamluks were mostly Cumans and Kipchaks. During the 13th century, the Mamluks seized power in Cairo, and as a result the Mamluk kingdom became the most influential kingdom in the Muslim world. The majority of the leaders of the Mamluk kingdom were of Adyghe origin.

    Even after Egypt was conquered by the Ottoman Turks, the Adyghes continued to rule in Egypt until the 18th century.

    With the rise of Muhammad Ali Pasha, almost all the senior Mamluks were killed and the remaining Mamluks fled to Sudan.

    Today, several thousand Adyghes reside in Egypt and they are the descendants of these Mamluks. Until the rise of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, the Adyghes were an elite group in the country.

    Russian conquest of the Caucasus and the exile of the Adygs

    The Adyghe people converted to Christianity prior to the 5th century.[citation needed] In the 15th century, under the influence of the Tatars of Crimea and Ottoman clerics, the Adygs converted to Islam.[citation needed]

    Between the late 18th and early-to-mid-19th centuries the Adyghe people lost their independence as they were slowly conquered by Russia in a series of wars and campaigns. During this period, the Adyghe plight achieved a certain celebrity status in the West, but pledges of assistance were never fulfilled. After the Crimean War, Russia turned her attention to the Caucasus in earnest, starting with the peoples of Chechnya and Dagestan. In 1859, the Russians had finished defeating Imam Shamil in the eastern Caucasus, and turned their attention westward. Eventually, the long lasting Russian–Circassian War ended with the victory for the russians.

     The Adyghe forces, which was finalized with the signing of loyalty oaths by Adyghe leaders on 2 June 1864 (21 May, O.S.).

    The Conquest of the Caucasus by the Russian Empire in the 19th century during the Russian-Circassian War, led to the destruction and killing of many Adygs—towards the end of the conflict, the Russian General Yevdokimov was tasked with driving the remaining Circassian inhabitants out of the region, primarily into the Ottoman Empire. This policy was enforced by mobile columns of Russian riflemen and Cossack cavalry.[31][32][33] “In a series of sweeping military campaigns lasting from 1860 to 1864… the northwest Caucasus and the Black Sea coast were virtually emptied of Muslim villagers. Columns of the displaced were marched either to the Kuban [River] plains or toward the coast for transport to the Ottoman Empire… One after another, entire Circassian tribal groups were dispersed, resettled, or killed en masse”[33] This expulsion, along with the actions of the Russian military in acquiring Circassian land,[34] has given rise to a movement among descendants of the expelled ethnicities for international recognition that genocide was perpetrated.[35] In 1840, Karl Friedrich Neumann estimated the Circassian casualties to be around one and a half million.[36] Some sources state that hundreds of thousands of others died during the exodus.[37] Several historians use the term ‘Circassian massacres’[38] for the consequences of Russian actions in the region.[39]

    Like other ethnic minorities under Russian rule, the Adygs who remained in the Russian Empire borders were subjected to policies of mass resettlement.

    The Ottoman Empire, which ruled most of the area south of Russia considered the Adyghe warriors to be courageous and well-experienced, and as a result encouraged them to settle in various near-border settlements of the Ottoman empire in order to strengthen the empire’s borders.

    • 160px CircassianCoastBattle

      An Adyghe strike on a Russian Military Fort built over a Shapsugian village that aimed to free the Circassian Coast from the occupiers during the Russian-Circassian War, 22 March 1840

    • 180px Sobranie cherkesskikh knyazey

      Conference of Circassian princes in 1839–40

    • 142px Cotes de la Mer Noire. Adighes descendus des montagnes. %281847%29

      Adygs in Caucasus, 1847

    • 163px Pyotr Nikolayevich Gruzinsky The mountaineers leave the aul

      The mountaineers leave the aul, P. N. Gruzinsky, 1872

    The Adyghes in the Middle East in modern times

    The Adyghes who were settled by the Ottomans in various near-border settlements across the empire, ended up living across many different territories in the Middle East who belonged at the time to the Ottoman Empire and which are located nowadays in the following countries:

    • Turkey, the country which contains today the largest adyghe population in the world. The Adygs settled in three main regions in Turkey—the region of Trabzon, located along the shores of the Black Sea, the region near the city of Ankara, the region near the city of Kayseri, and in the western part of the country near the region of Istanbul, this specific region experienced a severe earthquake in 1999. Many Adygs played key roles in the Ottoman army and also participated in the Turkish War of Independence.
    • Syria. Most of the Adygs who immigrated to Syria settled in the Golan Heights. Prior to the Six Day War, the Adygs people were the majority group in the Golan Heights region – their number at that time is estimated at 30,000. The most prominent settlement in the Golan was the town of Quneitra. The total number of Circassians in Syria is estimated to be between 50,000 and 100,000.[40] The Syrian Circassians are exploring returning back to Circassia as tensions between the Bashar al-Assad regime and opposition forces escalates. Circassians from different parts of Syria like Damascus have moved back to the Golan Heights, believed to be safer. Some refugees have been reportedly killed by shelling. Circassians have been lobbying the Russian and Israeli governments to help evacuate refugees from Syria. Some visas were issued by Russia. [41]
    • Jordan. The Adygs had a major role in the history of the Kingdom of Jordan.[42][43] They make up around 1% to 2% of the total population. Over the years various Adygs have served in distinguished roles in the kingdom of Jordan. An Adyghe has served before as a prime minister (Sa`id al-Mufti), ministers (commonly at least 1 minister should represent the Circassians in each cabinet), high rank officers, etc., and due to their important role in the history of Jordan it is Adyghe who form the Hashemites Honor guard at the Royal palaces, and they represented Jordan in the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo in 2010 joining other Honor guards such as The Airborne Ceremonial Unit.[44][45]
    • Israel. The Adygs initially settled in three places—in Kfar Kama, Rehaniya and in the region of Hadera. Due to a Malaria epidemic, the Adyghe settlement near Hadera was eventually abandoned. Though Sunni Muslim, Adygs are seen as a loyal minority within Israel, who serve in the armed forces.[46][47]

    Culture

    Adyghe society prior to the Russian invasion was highly stratified. While a few tribes in the mountainous regions of Adygeya were fairly egalitarian, most were broken into strict castes. The highest was the caste of the “princes”, followed by a caste of lesser nobility, and then commoners, serfs, and slaves. In the decades before Russian rule, two tribes overthrew their traditional rulers and set up democratic processes, but this social experiment was cut short by the end of Adyghe independence.

    The main Adyghe tribes are: Abzekh, Adamey, Bzhedugh, Hakuch, Hatukuay, Kabardey, Kemirgoy, Makhosh, Natekuay, Shapsigh (Shapsugh), Yegerikuay, Besleney. Most Adyghe living in Caucasia are Bzhedugh, Kabarday and Kemirgoy, while the majority in diaspora are Abzekh and Shapsigh (Shapsugh). Standard Adyghe language is based on Kemirgoy dialect.

    Religion

    The ethnic religion of Circassians (Adyghes) was Habze—a philosophical and religious system of personal values and the relationship between an individual to others, to the world around him, and to the Higher Mind. In essence, it represents monotheism with a much-defined system of worshipping One God—the Mighty Tha (Tha, Thashxue). During the time of the settlement of Greek cities/colonies on the coast of the Black Sea there was an intermingling of cultures. Circassian mythology has noticeable aspects from Greek mythology. In return, there is evidence that Greek mythology also borrowed from Circassian legends. In the 6th century, under Byzantine influence, many Adyghes were Christianised, but under the growing influence of the Ottomans, many of them became Muslims. Throughout Circassian history the ethnic religion of Circassians has interacted with Christianity and Islam.

    Christianity reached and spread throughout the Caucasus and was first introduced between the 4th century[48] and the 6th century[49] under Greek Byzantine influence and later through the Georgians between the 10th century and the 13th century. During that period, Circassians began to accept Christianity as their national religion, but did not fully adopt Christianity as elements of their ancient indigenous pagan beliefs still survived.

    Islam penetrated the northeastern region of the Caucasus, principally Dagestan, as early as the 7th century, but was first introduced to the Circassians between the 16th century and in the middle of the 19th century under the influence of the Crimean Tatars and the Ottoman Turks. It was only after the Russian conquest of the Caucasus when Circassians as well as other peoples of the Caucasus were forced out of their ancestral homeland and settled in different regions of the Ottoman Empire did they begin to fully accept and adopt Islam as their national religion.

    The Naqshbandi tariqa of Sufi Islam was also introduced to the Circassians in the late 18th century under the influence of Sheikh Mansur who was the first to preach the Naqshbandi tariqa in the northeastern region of the Caucasus and later through Imam Shamil in the middle of the 19th century.

    Today, the majority of Circassians are predominantly Sunni Muslim and adhere to the Hanafi school of thought, or law, the largest and oldest school of Islamic law in jurisprudence within Sunni Islam.

    Language

    Today most Adyghe speak Russian, English, Turkish, Arabic, French, German, and/or the original Adyghe language.

    The majority of the Circassian people speak the Adyghe language, when the Kabarday tribe speaks the Adyghe language in the Kabardian dialect. The language has a number of dialects spoken by the different Circassian tribes and the pronunciation of words is slightly different in each place in the world. The Adyghe language belongs to the family of Northwest Caucasian languages. It is spoken among all the Circassian communities around the world, with c. 125,000 speakers who live in the Russian Federation, some of whom live in the Republic of Adygea where the Adyghe language is defined as the official language. The world’s largest Adyghe-speaking community is the Circassian community in Turkey—it has c. 150,000 Adyghe speakers.

    Adyghe Xabze

    Adyghe Xabze (Adyghe: Адыгэ Хабзэ) is the epitome of Circassian culture and tradition. It is their code of honour and is based on mutual respect and above all requires responsibility, discipline and self-control. Adyghe Xabze functions as the Circassian unwritten law yet was highly regulated and adhered to in the past. The Code requires that all Circassians are taught courage, reliability and generosity. Greed, desire for possessions, wealth and ostentation are considered disgraceful (“Yemiku”) by the Xabze code. In accordance with Xabze, hospitality was and is particularly pronounced among the Circassians. A guest is not only a guest of the host family, but equally a guest of the whole village and clan. Even enemies are regarded as guests if they enter the home and being hospitable to them as one would with any other guest is a sacred duty.

    Circassians consider the host to be like a slave to the guest in that the host is expected to tend to the guest’s every need and want. A guest must never be permitted to labour in any way, this is considered a major disgrace on the host.

    Every Circassian arises when someone enters the room, providing a place for the person entering and allowing the newcomer to speak before everyone else during the conversation. In the presence of elders and women respectful conversation and conduct is essential. Disputes are stopped in the presence of women and domestic disputes are never continued in the presence of guests. A woman can request disputing families to reconcile and they must comply with her request. A key figure in Circassian culture is the person known as the “T’hamade” (Adyghe: Тхьэмадэ- Тхьэматэ), who is often an elder but also the person who carries the responsibility for functions like weddings or circumcision parties. This person must always comply with all the rules of Xabze in all areas of his life.

    Circassian Xabze is well known amongst their neighboring communities.

    Traditional clothing

    The Adyghe traditional clothing (Adyghe: Адыгэ Щыгъыныхэр) refers to the historical clothing worn by the Adyghe people. The traditional female clothing (Adyghe: Бзылъфыгъэ Шъуашэр) was very diverse and highly decorated and mainly depends on the region, class of family, occasions, and tribes. The traditional female costume is composed of a dress (Adyghe: Джанэр), coat (Adyghe: Сае), shirt, pant (Adyghe: Джэнэк1акор ), vest (Adyghe: К1эк1), lamb leather bra (Adyghe: Шъохътан), a variety of hats (Adyghe: Пэ1охэр), shoes, and belts (Adyghe: Бгырыпхыхэр). Holiday dresses are made of expensive fabrics such as silk and velvet. The traditional colors of females clothing rarely includes blue, green or bright-colored tones, instead mostly white, red, black and brown shades wear.

    The traditional male costume (Adyghe: Адыгэ хъулъфыгъэ шъуашэр) includes a coat with wide sleeves, shirt, pants, a dagger, sword, and a variety of hats and shoes. Traditionally, young men in the warriors times wore coat with short sleeves—in order to feel more comfortable in combats. Different colors of clothing for males were strictly used to distinguish between different social classes, for example white is usually worn by princes, red by nobles, gray, brown, and black by peasants (blue, green and the other colors were rarely worn). A compulsory item in the traditional male costume is a dagger and a sword. The traditional Adyghean sword is called Shashka. It is a special kind of sabre; a very sharp, single-edged, single-handed, and guardless sword. Although the sword is used by most of Russian and Ukrainian Cossacks, the typically Adyghean form of the sabre is longer than the Cossack type, and in fact the word Shashka came from the Adyghe word “Sashkhwa” (Adyghe: Сашьхъуэ) which means “long knife”.

    Traditional cuisine

    The Adyghe Cuisine is rich with different type dishes,[50][51] in the summer, the traditional dishes consumed by the Adyghe people were mainly dairy products and vegetable dishes. In the winter and spring it was mainly flour and meat dishes. An example of the latter is known as ficcin.

    The Circassian cheese considered one of the famous type of Cheeses in the North Caucasus and world wide.

    A popular traditional dish is chicken or turkey with sauce, seasoned with crushed garlic and red pepper. Mutton and beef are served boiled, usually with a seasoning of sour milk with crushed garlic and salt.

    Variants of pasta are found. A type of ravioli may be encountered, which is filled with potato or beef.

    On holidays the Adyghe people traditionally make Haliva (Adyghe: хьэлжъо) (fried triangular pasties with mainly Circassian cheese or potato), from toasted millet or wheat flour in syrup, baked cakes and pies.

    In the Levant there is a famous Circassian dish which called Tajen Alsharkaseiah.[52]

    Traditional Carpets (Khilim) (woven)

    The Adyghes were famous in making carpets (Adyghe: П1уаблэхэр) or rugs worldwide for thousands of years, and they made most of their carpets from pampas grass Cortaderia selloana (Adyghe: 1ут1эн, Arabic: نبات الحلفا‎) like other Caucasian nations.

    Making carpets was very hard work in which collecting raw materials is restricted to a specific period of time within the year. The raw materials were dried, and based on the intended colors, different methods of drying were applied. For example, when dried in the shade, its color changed to a beautiful light gold color. If it were dried in direct sun light then it would have a silver color, and if they wanted to have a dark color for the carpets, the raw materials were put in a pool of water and covered by poplar leaves (Adyghe: Ек1эпц1э, Arabic: شجر الحور‎).

    The carpets were adorned with images of birds, beloved animals (horses), and plants, and the image of the sun was widely used.

    The carpets were used for different reasons due to their characteristic resistance to humidity and cold, and in retaining heat. Also, there was a tradition in Circassian homes to have two carpets hanging in the guest room, one used to hang over rifles (Adyghe: Шхончымрэ) and pistols (Adyghe: Къэлаеымрэ), and the other used to hang over musical instruments.

    The carpets were used to pray upon, and it was necessary for every Circassian girl to make three carpets before marriage; a big carpet, a small carpet, and the last for praying as a Prayer rug. These carpets would give the grooms an impression as to the success of their brides in their homes after marriage.[53]

    The twelve Adyghe tribes

    The main Adyghe tribes are:

    • Abdzakh (Adyghe: Абдзах)
    • Baslaney (Adyghe: Бэслэней)
    • Bzhedug (Adyghe: Бжъэдыгъу)
    • Yegeruqay (Adyghe: Еджэркъуай)
    • Zhaney (Adyghe: Жанэ)
    • Kabardai (Adyghe: Къэбэрдэй)
    • Mamkhegh (Adyghe: Мамхыгъ)
    • Natukhai (Adyghe: Нэтыхъуай, Нэтыхъуадж)
    • Temirgoy (Adyghe: Кlэмгуй)
    • Ubykh (Adyghe: Убых)-Extinct Lang.
    • Shapsogh (Adyghe: Шапсыгъ)
    • Hatukai (Adyghe: Хьатыкъуай)

    Other Adyghe tribes :

    • Adamiy (Adyghe: Адэмый)
    • Mequash (Adyghe: Мыхъош)
    • Hakuts (Adyghe: ХьакӀуцу)

    The Adyghe diaspora

    Adyghe have lived outside the Caucasus region since the Middle Ages. They were particularly well represented in the Mamluks of Turkey and Egypt. In fact, the Burji dynasty which ruled Egypt from 1382 to 1517 was founded by Adyghe Mamluks.

    Much of Adyghe culture was disrupted after their conquest by Russia in 1864. This led to a diaspora of the peoples of the northwest Caucasus, known as Muhajirism, mostly to various parts of the Ottoman Empire. And it was depicted in the Circassian Folklore (know to Circassians as Ghebzah) with the name (istambelak’kwa).

    The largest Adyghe diaspora community today is in Turkey, especially in Samsun, Kahramanmaraş, Kayseri, Bandırma and Düzce.

    Significant communities live in Jordan,[54][55] Iraq,[8][54] Syria (in Beer ajam and many other villages),[54] Lebanon,[56] Egypt, Israel (in the villages of Kfar Kama and Rehaniya—for more information see Circassians in Israel),[54] Libya,[57] and Macedonia.[58][dubious – discuss] A number of Adyghe were introduced to Bulgaria in 1864-1865 but most fled after it became separate from the Ottoman Empire in 1878. On May 20, 2011 the Georgian parliament voted in a 95 to 0 declaration that Russia had committed genocide when it engaged in massacres against Circassians in the 19th Century.[59]

    A great number of Adyghe people have also immigrated to the United States and settled in Upstate New York, California, and New Jersey.

    The small community from Kosovo expatriated to Adygea in 1998.

    Out of 1,010 Adyghe people living in Ukraine (473 Kabardins, 338 Adygeis and 199 Cherkesses – after the existing Soviet division of Adyghe people into 3 groups) only 181 (17,9 %) declared fluency in the native language. 96 (9,5 %) declared Ukrainian as native language and 697 (69 %) marked “other language” as their native and most likely the latter is Russian, though none openly declared it.[60]. The major Adyghe community in Ukraine is in Odessa.

    The total number of Adyghe people worldwide is estimated at 6 million.

    Controversy surrounding alleged desecration of Adyghe mass graves

    The Olympic facilities in Sochi (once the Circassian capital)[2] are being built in areas that are claimed to contain mass graves of Adyghe who were killed during ethnic cleansing by Russia in military campaigns lasting from 1860 to 1864.[citation needed]

    Adyghe organizations in Russia and the Adyghe diaspora around the world have requested that the construction at the site would stop and that the Olympics games would not be held at the site of the Adyghe genocide to prevent the desecration of the Adyghe graves.[citation needed] According to Iyad Youghar, who heads the lobby group International Circassian Council: “we want the athletes to know that if they compete here they will be skiing on the bones of our relatives.”[2]

    Depictions in popular culture

    Over the years, Adyghes have been featured in various popular books and films:

    • The 1962 Academy Award-winning British film Lawrence of Arabia included a scene in which the British title character (Peter O’Toole) is captured by Turkish officers at the city of Daraa. His blue eyes and fair skin are remarked upon, leading to the question “Are you Circassian?”, to which he replies “Yes, effendi”.[61]
    • In the 1840 Russian novel “A Hero of Our Time” the narrator tells the story of a beautiful Adyghe princess named ‘Bela’, whom a character abducts from her family.
    • In “Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar” the author who was the Princess of Zanzibar was half Circassian and half Arab, narrates about the many Circassian Secondary Wives of the Sultan of Zanzibar.
    • In a 2005 episode of the BBC drama Spooks lead character Adam Carter pretends to be a Circassian from Aleppo in order to infiltrate a people-smuggling route.
    • The 2010 Jordanian film Cherkess, which takes place in 1900, depicts a unique encounter between the local Bedouin tribes and the Adyghe immigrants, in the region known today as Jordan, during the period in which this region was under Ottoman rule.[62]
    • Sarema is the Circassian heroine and title character in the 1897 opera of that name by the Austrian composer Alexander Zemlinsky (1871–1942).

    Gallery

    See also

    • Nart saga
    • Circassian beauties
    • Circassian nationalism
    • Circassian music
    • Adyghe Autonomous Oblast
    • Deportation of Circassians
    • Ethnic Cleansing of Circassians

    References

    • Journal of a residence in Circassia during the years 1837, 1838, and 1839 – Bell, James Stanislaus (English)
    • Amjad Jaimoukha, The Circassians: A Handbook, New York: Palgrave, 2001; London: Routledge Curzon, 2001. ISBN 978-0-312-23994-7
    • Jaimoukha, Amjad, Circassian Culture and Folklore: Hospitality Traditions, Cuisine, Festivals & Music (Kabardian, Cherkess, Adigean, Shapsugh & Diaspora), Bennett and Bloom, 2010.
  • Mountain megalomaniacs

    Mountain megalomaniacs

    Norman Stone

    Published 06 November 2008

    Between Russia and the Middle East, the Caucasus is one of the world’s most diverse regions – and as recent fighting in South Ossetia and Abkhazia showed, still boiling with ethnic tensions. Norman Stone reviews a history which makes sense of this complexity

    The surrender of the Circassian leader Sheikh Shamil to the tsarist forces in 1859

    The Ghost of Freedom: a History of the Caucasus

    Charles King

    OUP, 219pp, £17.99

    A Georgian professor came to my (Turkish) university a few years ago and said: “People who live in mountains are stupid.” You probably hear such things often enough in the Caucasus, but it is not the sort of remark that you expect professors to pass. However, there is maybe something in it, a point made by the crazy loyalism of the Jacobite Highlanders of the Forty-Five, or for that matter of the Navarrese Carlists: brave and romantic, certainly, with their own codes of honour, but not very bright.

    A French sociologist, André Siegfried, developed this theme a century ago, because he had noticed that voting patterns depended on altitude; in the valleys, people got on with normal lives, but, the further up you went, the less this was true. The diet was very poor, the economy was sheep-stealing or smuggling, resentment simmered against the valley settlers, and religion of a wild sort reigned. The Caucasus also fits Siegfried’s pattern, with the difference that, the further uphill you went, the more weird languages you hit on. In Charles King’s words, “the north-east harbours the Nakh languages . . . as well as a mixed bag of disparate languages that includes Avar, Dargin and Lezgin”.

    He has missed out the Tats, who are mountain Jews, and he has mercifully missed out a great deal else, because the whole region is a kaleidoscope, and the ancient history is very complicated, with an Iberia and an Albania in shadowy existence; the Ossetians, of whom the world recently heard so much, are apparently what is left of the Alans, one of the barbarian tribes that swept through the later Roman Empire (and ended up in North Africa).

    Charles King’s great virtue is that he is a very proficient simplifier and misser-out; he writes well, and can read the languages that matter (for some reason, quite a number of the important sources are in German; Germans were especially interested in the Caucasus, and in 1918 even had plans to shift U-boats overland to the Caspian). All the important themes are here, with some interesting additions.

    King concentrates on the modern history of the Caucasus, roughly from 1700, when Russia began to take over the overlordship from Persia and the Ottoman Empire. In 1801, she annexed much of Georgia. This was relatively easy, since it is a very divided country (and the language – so difficult that even Robert Conquest, writing his biography of Stalin, found it impossible – itself sub-divides). It was also Christian, the nobility on the whole glad to come to terms with the tsar, and it could easily be reached from the sea, whereas other parts of the Caucasus, given the very mountainous and forested terrain, were much more difficult. The various Muslim natives of the northern Caucasus were then generally known as “Circassians” (the present-day Chechens are related) and they put up an extraordinary resistance to Russian penetration.

    Cossacks came in, as the 19th century went ahead, and a line of forts was established; but a ferocious tribal-religious resistance grew up, under a legendary figure, Sheikh Shamil. Combining mystical-religious inspiration with an extraordinary astuteness as to guerrilla tactics, Shamil kept the Russians pinned down for a whole generation. (King’s bibliography is very solid and useful, but he might have mentioned a classic book about this, Sabres of Paradise, by Lesley Blanch, who went on to write The Wilder Shores of Love about the erotic Orient.)

    In the event, the Russians “solved” the problem of the Circassians by mass-deportation. About 1,250,000 of them were forced out, and King is very good at describing their fate, as a third of the deportees died of disease or starvation or massacre, and the rest scattered over the Near and Middle East. Settling in eastern Anatolia, they encountered the Armenians, and bitter conflict resulted. A generation later much the same fate occurred to the Armenians of eastern Turkey. King quite rightly makes the parallel.

    Shamil was at long last captured, but the Russians treated him well, and part of his family faded into the tsarist aristocracy. This is incidentally a dimension of matters that King could have explored: the relations of Russia and Islam. He has a good chapter about the image of the Caucasus in Russian literature (Lermontov and Tolstoy especially) but both Pushkin and Dostoyevsky were fascinated by Islam, and the Russians, whether tsarist or communist (and even nowadays) were quite adept at dealing with Muslims. The Tatars have turned into rather a plus: Nureyev and Baryshnikov, whose names mean “light” and “peace” in Turkish, being a case in point.

    In fact, as the 19th century went ahead, the Caucasus was opened up, and many of the Muslims became loyal subjects of the tsar. Tiflis, the Georgian capital (why must we use these wretched “Tbilisis” and “Vilniuses” for places so well marked on the historic map?), was the seat of a viceroyalty that stretched from Kars in eastern Anatolia to the Caspian, and the railways, or the military roads, snaked ahead. Oil was struck on the Caspian side, and Baku, the capital of today’s Azerbaijan, grew up as a boom town, much of the architecture rather distinguished in late- Victorian style. One of the great mansions has been spectacularly restored as a historical museum.

    To this day, the solid architecture of Kars, now in eastern Turkey, is impressive, and though the town went through a very bad period, when the Cold War was going on, it is doing much better now, as the oil pipeline to Baku pumps away, and the old railway links are restored. Even now, despite the gruesome climate, the inhabitants of Kars are notably sharper and better-educated than those of Trabzon or Erzurum, which remained under Ottoman rule. According to Orhan Pamuk’s novel on the town, Snow, its theatre was very good, but if you needed Islamic female costumes you had to send off to Erzurum, which was (and is: the calls to prayer are frequent and deafening) very provincial-pious. In its way, Kars shows in miniature that pre-1914 period which is the great might-have-been of Russian history: 1914 aborted a period of growing prosperity even, if you like, a bourgeois revolution. The revolution of 1917 finished all of that.

    There was a pathetic episode, as the three nations of Transcaucasia – Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia – established a shadowy independence, even though the peoples of each were (and to some extent still are) intermingled. Baku and Tiflis had large Armenian populations, and Yerevan, the territory of today’s Armenia, was roughly half Muslim, whether Azeri or Kurdish. “Ethnic cleansing” then went ahead, the Armenians especially becoming megalomaniac, and even, as a first act on independence at Christmas 1918, invading Georgia. To this day, much of the Armenian diaspora seems never to have forgiven the west for failing to support their cause: hence these strange and persistent demands for the tragedy to be recognised as genocide. Perhaps it was, but as King shows, Armenians were not the only victims – not by any means – and it is rather to the credit of the Circassians’ (and others’) descendants that they are not demanding similar recognition of genocide from Congress or the Assemblée Nationale or Cardiff City Council or the Edinburgh City Fathers etc.

    Sovietisation of the Caucasus then happened, and it was the communists’ turn to find out just how difficult the national question was going to be: eventually, it destroyed them. Communism had a very strong appeal to begin with when it came to the national question: who, looking at the Caucasus (as with Yugoslavia) would not be desperate for anything that would stop the rise of vicious tinpot nationalism? Many stout communists, beginning with Stalin himself, came from the Caucasus, and Stalin in the end had recourse to deportation (of the Chechens and many, many other peoples) as the only solution. That created the counter-hatreds that have made post-Soviet life so difficult. The Armenians repeated their fantasy of 1918 and invaded a neighbour – Azerbaijan – in pursuit of a fantasy. They victoriously set their standards afluttering over Karabakh, with much swelling of diaspora bosoms. The effort, and the isolation it brought them, caused nothing but economic trouble to what was already a poor, land-locked little place, and the original population, three million, is now, from emigration, below two: independence, in other words, having done more damage than ever the Turks did. The Georgians had an 18th-century ruler who described himself as “The Most High King, by the Will of Our Lord King of Kings of the Abkhaz, Kartvelians, Kakhetians and Armenians and Master of All the East and the West”: more megalomania with a contemporary ring, in other words. Charles King has written a very instructive and interesting book about it all.

    Norman Stone’s most recent book is “World War One: a Short History”, now available as a Penguin paperback (£7.99)

    Source: www.newstatesman.com, 06 November 2008