Circassian Genocide
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The Circassian Genocide refers to the genocide that occurred against the Circassian people by Russia in the 1800s.
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[edit] Background
Beginning in 1862, and continuing through the first decade of the twentieth century, more than 3 million people of Caucasian stock, often referred collectively as Cerkes (Circassians), were forced by the Russians to leave their ancestral lands. [1]
In the tsarist campaign against the Circassians, a campaign that lasted five years after Imam Shamil surrendered in 1859, official tsarist statistics show that more than 400,000 Circassians were killed, 497,000 were forced to flee abroad to Turkey, and only 80,000 were left alive in their native area, the appeal points out. This unprecedented (up to that time) "ethnic purge," the appeal continues, means that the Russian Federation as the claimed successor to the tsarist empire and the Soviet Union has a moral and legal obligation to acknowledge what happened and to issue an apology, the Cherkess Congress appeal argues. [2]
| “ | Neumann’s estimate of 1.5 million Circassians corresponds to 1/30 ethnic Russians, or 1/3 Czechs, or 3/4 Slovaks. (p. 66) According to Neumann, there were over two million Armenians in the world. (p. 69) Now, according to the Soviet census of 1989, the number of Russians has increased to 145 millions, whereof 1/30 would be almost five millions. There are 10 million Czechs and 5 million Slovaks, which would lead us to assume that there should be over 3 million Circassians. Armenia alone has a population of over 3 million Armenians, despite of the past ordeals; 2 million Armenians live elsewhere. The number of Czechs, Slovaks, and Armenians has more than doubled in 150 years, while the number of Russians has tripled; but where are the missing millions of Circassians? [3] | ” |
[edit] Massacre and Deportation
In 1860, failing to subdue the Circassians in ninety-seven years of warfare, the Russian government went to enforce their mass migration to other regions of the empire or to Turkey.[4]
Trakho, another Circassian historian, continues the story:
| “ | There remained only the small coastal tribes: the Pskhu, the Akhtsipsou, the Aibgo and the Jigit. In the course of May 1864 these tribes were annihilated almost to the last man, woman and child. Seeing this, Circassians gathered from all corners of the country in a frenzy of despair threw themselves into the valley of the Aibgo. For four days (7-11 May) the Russians were repulsed with great losses. Heavy artillery was then brought up and began to belch fire and smoke into the little valley. Not one of the defenders survived. The capture of this little valley, lost in the mountains, was the last act in the long tragedy of the Circassian people. On 21 May the Great Prince Mikhail Nikolaevich gathered his troops in a clearing for a thanksgiving service. [5] | ” |
Around 120-150,000 Circassians were resettled in places elsewhere in the Empire set aside by the Russian government. (By the time of the 1897 census, there were 217,000 Circassians in Russia). According to Brooks, about 500,000 were deported to Turkey. [6]
The deportation of the Circassians can certainly be regarded as an example of ‘ethnic cleansing’, in which massacres and the burning of villages served to force the Circassians into emigration. ‘This great exodus’, concludes Henze, ‘was the first of the violent mass transfers of population which this part of the world has suffered in modern times.’ He goes on, however, to suggest that it set a precedent for the Armenian genocide, implying that what happened was at least comparable to genocide. [7]
[edit] References
- ^ Kemal H. Karpat, "Ottoman population 1830-1914" (Madison 1985) p. 27
- ^ Circassians demand Russian apology for 19TH century genocide By Paul Goble [1]
- ^ The Circassian Genocide By Antero Leitzinger
- ^ THE CIRCASSIANS - A FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE? by Stephen D. SHENFIELD
- ^ Trakho, Cherkesy, 50-51.
- ^ See Brooks, ‘Russia’s conquest’, 681
- ^ Henze, ‘Circassian Resistance’, 111.
