159th Anniversary of The Circassian Genocide : Circassian day of mourning for the end of 101 years long Russo-Circassian War, mass expulsion of indigenous Circassians & the destruction of Circassia
159th Anniversary of The Circassian Genocide : Circassian day of mourning for the end of 101 years long Russo-Circassian War, mass expulsion of indigenous Circassians & the destruction of Circassia
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Copy-paste from /u/haveyougoogle with some minor additions:
159 years ago, on 2 June 1864 (21 May 1864 by then Russian calendar), Russian Tsar Aleksandr II declared that the Russo-Circassian War, a series of wars that started in 1763 – and lasted approximately 101 years and which was part of the Russian Empire’s Caucasus conquest, had ended, and of course the occupation of Circassian land by Russian Empire. By quoting Walter Richmonds, in his description of the final conquest and expulsion of the Circassians in the 1860s, Russian officer Ivan Drozdov says this about the death and destruction that his army brought upon Circassians: “Mankind has rarely experienced such disasters and such extremes, but only horror could have an effect on the hostile mountaineers and drive them from the impenetrable mountain thickets.”
You highly probably haven’t even heard of Circassia or a nation called Circassians, aside from them living in Europe or where they were and are living, and that’s mostly because of the war and the consequences of the war for the once largest nation of North Caucasus, and one of the oldest national groups of Europe. The nation itself was pretty famous, from being the subject of famous travellers and adventure books to being on the front pages of the American newspapers, or being pointed to by Karl Marx, or from the fantasies of some Western painters about the pale white sex slaves to some pseudo-racist early anthropological classifications where the term Caucasian is still a reminder of: but just in a glimpse of a century, it turned into some unknown word excluding maybe at some paintings about the Ottoman harems and a type of wood, just as the country was destroyed and the population was decimated and turned into some small isles in the very ancestral homeland or some national groups of other countries.
At the end of the war, victorious Russia approved Dmitry Milyutin’s plan which was about “not to simply move them so that their land could be settled by productive farmers, but rather that ‘eliminating the Circassians was to be an end in itself – to cleanse the land of hostile elements'”. Milyutin became the War Minister then and saw his plan being implemented. The practice was also about what the general field marshal Aleksandr Bariatinskii was saying, especially after the 1830-1840 period: “We must assume that we will need to exterminate the mountaineers before they agree to our demands”.
The whole Circassian population in the historical Circassia was lowered to %5 of what it was by the early 1860s (also it should be noted that even before the adaption of the Milyutin’s plans in Kabarda/Eastern Circassia the population in 1790 which was around 300000 was dropped to 30000 just in 40 years), while during the 101 years long war which Circassians fought against the odds, many were murdered, whole villages were burned and destroyed, corps were destroyed and livestock was killed to starve the natives, and regions were surrounded to diseases like the plague to kill them all until to point that Russian forces can go in and finish the job (especially in the Kabarda/Eastern Circassia). Only between 1860-1865 did at least 625 000 Circassians end up dead, according to both Epifantsev who is with a pro-Russian stance and describes the events as a great crime and inhumane but another chapter of imperial expansionism only, and Richmond who describes events as a genocide. The brutality of the Tsarist commanders was well-known, especially General Aleksei Ermolov’s, while aside from tactics including starving people or annihilating settlements, some figures like General Grigorii Zass furthered things to the point of harvesting Circassian heads and “the heads of Circassians were constantly stuck on lances on a specially made hill at Prochny Okop, and their beards blew in the wind.” In the end, Circassians were given the choice between resettling to the other side of the river under the Cossack control where they would highly probably die off from the diseases, and left for the Ottoman Empire, while in practice only given option was to leave North Caucasus for the Ottoman Empire (and Iran) and all were driven to the shores of the Black Sea. While hundreds of thousands were forcibly deported, many died before making it to the shores and while waiting for the ships where they were forced to shores without food or water by the Imperial Russian forces, and some were even left to the open land without clothing. With the ships arrived, overcrowded ships became tombs for the Circassians who were able to make it to them, and a huge portion perished in the Black Sea. Things weren’t good for the ones who made it to the shores either, where a sizable amount of the survivors died in the places they landed. For example, a diplomat in Trabzon during the period writes “so far 19000 of the 24700 people who landed in Trabzon has died. 200 of the 110000 refugees around the Samsun region are dying on a daily basis”. While numbers depend on the source, according to many, between 2 to 2.5 million Caucasian Mountaineers were expelled, while only around 1.5 million of them made it to the shores, and only less than a million of them managed to survive. In 1879, the New York Times called the Circassians “a Murdered Nation”.
Although the Circassians (and Ubykhs who were included in Circassians) and also Abkhazians and Abazas were the main victims, the expulsions also deeply affected other peoples in the Caucasus region. It was estimated that 80% of the Ingush left Ingushetia for the Middle East in 1865. Lowland Chechens as well were evicted in large numbers. The Arshtins were completely wiped out and became a little clan within the neighbouring Chechen nation. Also, small numbers of Muslim Ossetians and Lezgins were expelled as well. For that reason, there exists Chechen and Abkhaz diasporas in Jordan and Turkey, as well as a Dagestani diaspora and an Ossetian diaspora in Turkey.
Today 90% of people of Circassian descent now live in other countries rather than their homeland. The depopulated Circassian lands were resettled by various ethnic groups, including Russians, Ukrainians and especially in Abkhazia, (non-hostile) Georgians.
In 1990, the Circassians designated the 21st of May as the National Day of Mourning, as the anniversary of the Circassian genocide and exile committed as a part of the colonialist policies of Tsarist Russia. Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s May 1994 statement admitted that North Caucasian resistance to the tsarist forces was legitimate, but the current appeal notes that he did not recognize “the guilt of the tsarist government for the genocide committed against the peoples of the North Caucasus”. Personally, like the vast majority of my nation, while I do count the events as a genocide, and while many Russians do say it was only a war crime, ethnic cleansing, imperial expansion or “Americans did the same to the Native Americans and they say it isn’t a genocide either”, I don’t think the terminology is going to differ what has happened at the end. And let me remind you that, current Russians are unrelated to these events, Russian Federation is also not responsible nor the legal successor of the Russian Empire. While of course there are some demands, which are about recognition of the crime, restoration of Circassia instead of the ongoing policy of dividing Circassians into some even non-existing subgroups and the shared-republic policies, and the right to repatriate to our ancestral and historical homeland (especially for the ones in the warzones, like Syrian Circassians), there isn’t anybody holding current Russia responsible for anything.
For many times, heads of current Circassian Republics under the Russian Federation requested Duma to reconsider the situation and request an apology. But to date, there have been further moves from Russian Federation other than Sochi Olympics year, also the 150th anniversary of genocide and exile, in the very city, where Circassians had surrendered in 1864. I don’t know why, Russia has also chosen to hold skiing and related events and build the core of the Olympic infrastructure in Krasnaya Polyana, which was “once known as Qbaada” and “settled by Russian immigrants and renamed Krasnaya Polyana (Red Meadow), a reference to all the blood spilt on the field during the final battle”. Sure that this wasn’t “cool” at least, especially while there wasn’t any mention of Circassians in the opening or the ending ceremony but more importantly, Syrian Circassians were not able to repatriate to their historical homeland from the brutal warzones.
Note: For the ones who are into the maps, this was Circassia in 1750: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Circassia_in_1750.png
And this is the current demographic map of the North Caucasus: https://eurasiangeopolitics.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/cau-ethnic-groups-4.png
Or a better map in hand: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/13n3or1/_/
As a side note, all Adyghe Cherkess and Kabardin are Circassians (Adygean being the term for Western Circassians sometimes excluding Shapsugs and Adyge means Circassian in Circassian, and Kabardin being the largest eastern tribe of Circassians, while Cherkess is also some weird made-up thing and Cherkess means Circassian in Russian). You can also see the remaining population of Abkhazians in once nearly all Abkhazian-dominated Abkhazia, which was the other nation who were exiled alongside Circassians.
Let me leave this lament that is pretty well-known among Circassians, but sung by Emanne Beasha, who won the ‘America got talent’ thingy and who herself is a descent of exiled Circassians: https://youtu.be/mneNfpbK4Fw
Also, here, are two videos by popular YouTube channels about the Circassian Genocide and what happened to them:
https://youtu.be/WFSDbHppDKg
https://youtu.be/xegJL5aWoGk
For anyone who is into more songs, here is another lament: https://youtu.be/DYBt-5khpoQ
And yet another one: https://youtu.be/GAmMKdfQbgM
As someone who studied the region for long, I cannot express my admiration for Circassians and sad but resilient history of theirs.
“” Oh, never heard of it. Was it bad?””
“Ever heard of the country of Circassia? ”
“”No””
“No?”
“”Oww…… “”