Deep-rooted tribal, and in later periods feudal, fragmentation ruled out any prospect of the Circassians conducting common affairs as a single people. As a result, they never developed a unified system of record-keeping, and consequently no indigenous Adyghe script emerged. During the spread of Islam, Circassians used Arabic to read religious texts, but fluency in that language belonged almost exclusively to men of clerical standing: mullahs and teachers at Islamic schools. The vast majority of the people, commoners and nobility alike, knew Arabic script, if at all, only well enough to recite the Qur’an, without grasping the meaning of most of the words. Not until the nineteenth century did enlightened Circassians such as Umar Bersey, together with members of the Russian intelligentsia drawn to Caucasian culture, attempt to devise a proper Adyghe alphabet; even then, efforts to bring the new script into everyday use came to nothing.

Nonetheless, across centuries, even millennia, the Circassians preserved a wealth of historical events and the biographies of notable figures within their collective memory. Until well into the twentieth century, it remained customary among the Circassians that any event significant enough to lodge itself in the popular consciousness would be marked by the composition of a song. Song carried enormous weight in Circassian life, as indeed it did elsewhere. Unable to read or write, and lacking radio, television or theatre, ordinary people entertained themselves by performing songs passed from mouth to mouth. Songs were sung without fail at every celebration, in any gathered company, and during the monotony of village labour. Alongside songs recounting past events, there existed ritual songs rooted in ancient pagan practice, among them ‘healing’ songs meant to persuade the spirit of some illness to leave its victim in peace. One such healing song, known as ‘The Song of Smallpox’, was performed outside the house of a smallpox sufferer. The principal composers and custodians of these songs, who fixed significant events for posterity much as the mass media do today, were itinerant singers known as gybzau, who performed so-called lament-songs about the various tragedies and misfortunes that had befallen the people, and dzheguako, professional organisers of popular festivities. The importance of folk song as the chief source of information about the past was reflected in how such professional singers were treated: those who composed and preserved songs never went hungry. Whatever door they knocked on, they were offered the best place in the house, and travelling singers were received with equal respect by commoners and feudal nobility alike. Naturally, in the course of being retold across generations, the historical reality depicted in these songs became distorted: the virtues of admirable heroes were exaggerated beyond measure, as were the failings of villains. Even so, the folk songs that survived into the Soviet era, when professional scholars began studying Circassian culture and history in earnest, made it possible to investigate the distant past of the people, the particulars of their way of life, relations within individual Circassian tribes, relations between tribes, and relations with other peoples.

A song recounting particular events paid close attention to the people involved in them, their biography and their personal qualities. Often an entire song would be devoted to the biography of a single figure, with the events in which he was involved unfolding incidentally within it. The central figure of a song might be not only a hero but equally a villain. Ethnographers have recorded whole songs devoted to traitors who aided enemies against their own people. Such songs, naturally, do nothing to honour their subjects or hold them up as models; on the contrary, they condemn them, underscoring the baseness of their conduct by noting that they had been raised by their own people before betraying them. These songs of censure abound in insulting epithets directed at those who left behind an unflattering memory, and just as positive heroes were endowed with extraordinary beauty, strength and courage, negative characters were often described as ugly, physically deformed, or contemptibly cowardly. Here one can trace an attentiveness to physical perfection and beauty of the human form that was characteristic of the old Caucasus, much as it was of the ancient Greeks, apparently a legacy of some still older culture that once spread across the broad expanse surrounding the Mediterranean and Black Seas. In earlier times, public opinion carried immense weight for every Circassian. No one wished to appear as a villain in a folk song, bringing shame upon himself and his lineage, for songs travelled fast across vast distances. It was largely through folk songs that the names of certain individuals who collaborated with the Russian military administration during the Caucasian War of 1818 to 1864 found their way into modern histories of Circassia. In other words, the stain that a song’s composer cast upon someone’s lineage might remain indelible for centuries afterwards.

The theme of social-class struggle features prominently in Circassian folk song. The shift from the traditional tribal order and military democracy towards feudal relations most likely began among the Circassians in the late mediaeval period. Military leaders and the warriors of their personal retinues accumulated ever greater quantities of war booty. This growing wealth made it possible to bind impoverished kinsmen into debt bondage, turning them into serfs of the tribal nobility. Because serfs and captives taken in war worked the estates of the nobility, the nobles had more time to perfect their military skills, essential to fulfilling their principal function of defending the tribe from external enemies. Gradually, the common people, occupied chiefly with agricultural labour, ceded ever more authority to their nobility. Noble tribal leaders, known as pshi and referred to in the Russian literature as princes, granted land and weapons to their permanent retainers, the uorks, referred to in the Russian literature as nobles. Among the uorks themselves, several ranks emerged in turn: some nobles answered directly to the princes, but relied in their service on a lesser class of minor nobles, among whom the land received from the prince was further distributed. In this way a typical feudal hierarchy took shape. Wealth, together with the people’s need for military protectors, encouraged the noble stratum to distance itself from the mass of the population. The feudal nobility developed its own system of governance and its own way of life.

Conflict between nobility and commoners was, of course, unavoidable. The frequent wars that swept across Caucasian lands throughout the mediaeval period and into the nineteenth century claimed many lives among the Circassian feudal class, yet at the same time reinforced its influence. It was the feudal cavalry that formed the principal striking force of the Circassian army, so working people were obliged to maintain their princes and nobles in order to guard against devastating enemy raids. The nobility, meanwhile, continued to enrich itself through the seizure of war booty and captives. Wealthy feudal lords sought to strengthen their position by exerting economic pressure on the common people. In particular, they would billet themselves at length upon village households, ruining their hosts, who were obliged by ancient custom to maintain the lord and his servants at their own expense. Lords also abused the custom of perfecting their military skill by rustling livestock from commoners (custom held that a thief, even a prince, if caught in the act, had to return everything he had taken, but village herdsmen found it difficult to catch feudal rustlers, who were, after all, professionals at their trade). Common people ruined by such practices were then forced to borrow provisions and fodder from the very nobles who had impoverished them, and if they could not repay in time, they became serfs of the nobility. This process, by which the feudal-tribal nobility rose and the common people were subjugated, continued among most Circassian tribes until the mid-nineteenth century and ceased only with the incorporation of the North Caucasus into the Russian Empire, when real power passed into the hands of tsarist officials.

The rise of the feudal stratum was, naturally, a gradual process, and by no means every prince or noble was unprincipled or grasping. Even so, uprisings among the common people periodically broke out against especially harsh lords, all the more so because the common people had not yet entirely lost their military significance: in major wars, every free Circassian man capable of bearing arms took the field. These episodes, too, were inevitably commemorated in song, preserved from generation to generation across the centuries. It is chiefly through such songs that the names of Circassian popular leaders who resisted feudal despotism, and who rallied the common people through their own authority to resist attempts by the nobility to exceed the bounds set by unwritten custom, have come down to modern historians and ethnologists, along with information about wars waged by tribes that had not undergone a sharp division into nobility and commoners (the majority of the Circassian tribes inhabiting the mountains of the Western Caucasus and the Black Sea coast fell into this category) against the feudal lords of neighbouring tribes. Among the songs recounting the latter is the song of the battle in the Oshneu gorge, composed by the Abadzekh highlanders. It tells of an attempt by Kabardian princes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to subject the Abadzekhs, who lived under tribal democracy, to their rule. What is notable about the song is that it is sung, as it were, from the perspective of the Kabardians themselves, surrounded by Abadzekhs in a narrow gorge and lamenting their desperate position and the harshness of the mountain terrain: ‘Their [the Abadzekhs’] sun beats down cruelly, their gadflies bite like dogs, their swords leave no bones behind.’

Perhaps the most celebrated of the Circassian fighters against feudal oppression is Aydemirkan, the hero of Kabardian song, literally ‘the ward of Aydemir’. More songs survive about him than about any other hero. They describe not only his exploits but also his birth: the strikingly romantic episode of his abduction as an infant by an eagle, his upbringing by a shepherd named Aydemir, and his eventual return to his family home. His true parents are often said to be princes of the Mudarov line, yet, having been raised by a commoner, the hero retains a lifelong love and loyalty towards the common people. Aydemirkan is credited with extraordinary strength: the very earth is said to tremble as he rides his wondrous horse, Zhamansharyk. His principal adversary is the wicked Prince Beslan the Corpulent, clad in armour that no weapon can pierce. Aydemirkan repeatedly rescues poor commoners from Beslan the Corpulent’s injustices. At the same time, Aydemirkan is friends with another prince, Kambolet (Kanbulat). Beslan the Corpulent strikes a bargain with Kambolet, who deceives Aydemirkan into leaving the village without his horse or weapons. There, Beslan’s men fall upon him and kill him in an unequal fight. As a reward, the treacherous Prince Kambolet receives an impenetrable coat of armour from Beslan the Corpulent, but it does not save him from retribution: Kambolet is killed and beheaded. The figure of Kambolet carries an unmistakable message: the aristocracy always shares common interests, and a commoner can never trust a nobleman. In songs and legends, Aydemirkan is often called a Nart, a member of the people who, in the legends of various Caucasian nations, inhabited the Caucasus in the most remote antiquity (the tales of the Narts apparently reflect events of the pre-feudal, including late-primitive, era in the Caucasus). This is, of course, an anachronism: the songs and tales of the Nart epic rarely mention any division of the nation into nobility and commoners, and most of the heroes in the songs about Aydemirkan, including Aydemirkan himself, bear names of clearly Turkic origin, which only began to penetrate Circassian society in the mediaeval period. It is possible that the legend of Aydemirkan fused the biographies of different people who lived at different times: during the era of sharp social-class division in Kabarda, bards and singers may have begun retelling the story of some ancient hero, perhaps one who had fought against an external enemy, but who, viewed through the lens of new events, was transformed in song into a fighter against an internal one.

In Kabarda, the division of the population into aristocracy and working people was, by comparison with other Circassian regions of the Caucasus, especially pronounced. Yet, as already noted, it existed among other Circassian subgroups inhabiting the lowland territories of the North-West Caucasus as well, and to a lesser extent even among the Circassian highlanders. The conflict between feudal lords and the labouring population took particularly acute forms in the nineteenth century among the Bzhedugs, who inhabited the steppe and forest-steppe districts along the left bank of the lower Kuban. This was encouraged by the Bzhedugs’ close contact with the Russians, who had established themselves on the right bank of the Kuban at the end of the eighteenth century, where the Kuban Fortified Line was built. At Russian trading posts, the Bzhedugs conducted brisk trade, supplying the Russian market with millet grain, dairy produce, wool, Caucasian clothing suited to local conditions, and ornaments. Some particularly enterprising villagers grew wealthy through trade with the Russians and began to encroach on the influence of their feudal lords, who traditionally regarded trade, apart from the sale of war booty, as unworthy of an aristocrat. On the other hand, autocratic, landowner-dominated Russia invariably sided with the feudal lords whenever conflict arose with the common people. The newly wealthy villagers of Bzhedugia, who had turned into a young farming class but had not yet lost close ties with the milieu from which they had risen, repeatedly took the lead in anti-feudal popular uprisings. The Bzhedug princes, for their part, called on Russian troops for help in their wars against the commoners. A number of folk songs recorded by ethnographers have preserved the memory of these events.

Among them is the well-known song of the Battle of Bziuk, which tells of an engagement between a Bzhedug force led by its princes and the militia of the neighbouring highland Shapsug tribe, fought on the river Bziuk on 10 June 1796. Among the Shapsugs, as among most Circassian highlanders, there were no princes as such, but a distinct noble stratum had nonetheless formed and had come to dominate most political affairs. At the end of the eighteenth century, resentful of their nobility’s growing dominance and its flagrant violations of Circassian custom, the Shapsugs rose against their aristocracy. The Shapsug nobles turned to the Bzhedug princes for assistance. At the Battle of Bziuk, the Bzhedug force, reinforced by Cossack cavalry and Russian artillery summoned by the princes, managed to inflict a defeat on the Shapsug popular militia, though this had no bearing on the wider course of the conflict, and the Shapsug aristocracy was ultimately forced to relinquish the privileges that had curtailed the rights of the common people. The song of the Battle of Bziuk was composed by the Bzhedugs and, accordingly, glorifies the courage, heroism and martial skill of the princes. Before long, however, a crisis broke out between feudal lords and commoners among the Bzhedugs themselves, and songs began to circulate in Bzhedugia that praised the leaders of popular uprisings and condemned the nobility for oppressing the common people. One such is the song of Urusbiy Mafoko, who dealt firmly and decisively with princes and nobles who tried to raise themselves too far above ordinary people. Then followed the song of the resolute Bzhedug uprising against their feudal lords in 1856, when the people, led by the prosperous tfokotls (free commoners) Kimcheriy Khanakhoko and Khusen Depchen, went so far as to demand the abolition of estate distinctions altogether and equal treatment for the entire population. Initially successful, the uprising was suppressed by Russian troops under the commander of the Kuban Line, Colonel Borzik. Afterwards, the Bzhedug princes, fearing a repeat of such popular unrest, voluntarily swore allegiance to the Russian Emperor Alexander II. The folk song known as ‘Pshy-uork Zau’ (’The War against Princes and Nobles’) tells of the cowardice and faint-heartedness of the deposed Bzhedug princes.

The Circassian highlanders, among whom social stratification never reached the extremes found among the lowland Circassians, nonetheless composed songs of their own about heroes who managed to curb overly proud nobles. The Shapsug bards, for instance, immortalised the name of the popular champion Kochas Khatkh, a hunter who stood for justice and checked any attempt by aristocrats to overstep the bounds of unwritten custom. Kochas Khatkh feuded with Dauepsh Khan, prince of the Khatukay tribe, who once tracked him down while he was alone and attacked him with his retinue. Khatkh was killed, but not before he had struck a mortal blow against the prince himself.

First published in Russian on history-tema.com. Translated into English by CircassianWorld.

New The Northwest Caucasian Languages reference page

In October 1992, in a village near Istanbul, an 88-year-old man named Tevfik Esenç died. He had spent much of his later life sitting with linguists, most famously Georges Dumézil, who worked with him across four decades and credited him as co-author on publication after publication, an almost unheard-of courtesy toward a field consultant in that era. Esenç understood exactly what he was doing. He was the last person on earth who spoke Ubykh, and he was making sure that something survived him.

Ubykh had around eighty-four consonants. No language ever documented without click sounds has had more. Against them stood three vowels.

That ratio, an enormous consonant system balanced on almost no vowels, is the signature of the whole family to which Ubykh belonged, and which nobody outside a small circle of specialists tends to have heard of. The Northwest Caucasian languages are Adyghe and Kabardian, the two Circassian standards; Abkhaz and Abaza, their northern and southern cousins; and Ubykh, which stood between them and is gone. Together they form one of the primary language families of the world, indigenous to the north-western Caucasus and the eastern Black Sea coast, with no demonstrated relationship to any other family on Earth.

They are also, by some measures, among the most structurally extraordinary languages ever described. Abkhaz distinguishes words using two vowel phonemes. Kabardian verbs have thirteen prefix positions, so a single word can carry what English needs a full sentence to say. All five are ergative, meaning they cut the relationship between subject and object along a line that speakers of European languages find genuinely difficult to see at first.

We have published a new reference page on all of this, and it is the fullest English-language treatment of the family we know of anywhere online.

It covers the phonology in detail, ejectives, labialization, the vertical vowel system, and why the consonants swallowed the vowels historically rather than the other way round. It covers each language separately: speaker numbers, dialects, official status, sample vocabulary. It traces the writing systems through the Soviet alphabet churn, when Abkhaz alone went from Uslar’s Cyrillic to Marr’s seventy-six-sign Latin experiment to a Georgian-based script imposed in 1938 and back to Cyrillic only after Stalin’s death. And it includes a linguistic map of the Western Caucasus as it stood between 1774 and 1780, before the exile — on which every dialect discussed in the text appears as a named territory, Guma and Sadz and Ahchypsy among them, in the places their speakers still held.

Which brings us to the part that is not a linguistic story.

Every question about the future of these languages runs back through 1864. The mass expulsion of the Circassian, Abkhaz–Abaza and Ubykh populations to the Ottoman Empire did not merely displace people; it severed the village-scale transmission on which these languages had always depended. Communities that had spoken them for centuries were resettled among strangers, with no schools, no press, and no standard orthography. Two or three generations was usually enough. Ubykh took slightly longer and ended completely.

UNESCO now classifies Adyghe, Kabardian and Abkhaz as vulnerable, and Abaza as definitely endangered, meaning children are no longer learning it at home.

Esenç is said to have described his language as a bird that had flown away: you can describe it, but you cannot bring it back. Whether he put it in exactly those words is uncertain; the line circulates as a paraphrase. What is certain is that four of these languages have not flown away yet.

Editor’s introduction

On 7 October 1992, in the village of Hacı Osman in Balıkesir province, a farmer named Tevfik Esenç died. He was the last man who could speak Ubykh. The language had arrived in Anatolia with the refugee columns of 1864 and it left the world 128 years later, in a village a long way from the Black Sea coast where it had been spoken for centuries. Linguists had recorded a great deal of it by then, so we know what was lost with some precision. Knowing precisely what has been lost is not the same as having it.

Ubykh belonged to the family that scholarship in the Caucasus calls Adyghe-Abkhaz, and which Western linguists more often label Northwest Caucasian. Its surviving members are Adyghe and Kabardian on one side and Abkhaz and Abaza on the other: four languages where there were five, spoken by populations that are small in the homeland and larger but far more fragile in the diaspora. Every one of them appears in the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger.

When CircassianWorld first published this compilation in 2011, the question was put in terms of Circassian alone. We have widened it, and the reason is not tidiness. These languages descend from a common ancestor and share a phonological architecture that outsiders find forbidding and speakers find ordinary. More to the point, they share a history. The expulsions of 1864 and the Abkhazian muhajir departures of 1867 and 1877 scattered both peoples across the same Ottoman provinces, where their descendants now live under the same dominant languages, in Türkiye, Jordan, Syria and Israel. In the homeland, Adyghe, Kabardian, Abaza and Abkhaz all sit beneath Russian, and the 2018 amendment to the Russian federal education law, which made the study of a republic’s own language a matter of parental choice, was felt in Maykop, Nalchik and Cherkessk alike. A remedy that fails for Kabardian is unlikely to rescue Abkhaz. It is more useful to read the problem as one problem.

David Crystal’s six postulates, set out in Chapter 5 of Language Death, were not written with us in mind, and that is their value. They come from a comparative survey of endangerment worldwide, and they carry no stake in our arguments about orthography, dialect or politics. Read against our situation, they are uncomfortable in productive ways.

Some of them describe conditions we already have in part. Abkhaz is the sole state language of the Republic of Abkhazia, which is a form of legitimate power that Crystal’s third postulate treats as decisive; yet ministries, higher education and much broadcasting still run substantially in Russian, and the implementation deadlines set under the 2007 language law have been deferred more than once. Legal status turns out to be the beginning of the work rather than its conclusion. In Türkiye, elective classes in ‘living languages and dialects’ have been available in state schools since 2012, which meets the fourth postulate on paper; whether a class opens depends on enough families in one school asking for it, and on there being a trained teacher when they do.

Others expose questions we have preferred to leave open. The fifth postulate, on writing the language down, is not for us a question of whether but of which. Cyrillic in the homeland, Latin-based systems across the diaspora, and behind both the older Arabic-script attempts. The literary standards rest on particular dialects, Temirgoy for Adyghe, Baksan for Kabardian, Abzhywa for Abkhaz, Tapanta for Abaza, and Crystal’s warning about the divisiveness of such choices will be familiar to anyone who has watched an online argument about spelling run for a week.

The sixth postulate, on electronic technology, is the one where our disadvantage inverts. Crystal wrote before the smartphone, before Unicode coverage of our consonant inventories was reliable, and long before Google Translate added Abkhaz in June 2024. Dispersal has always been the mechanism of loss for these languages. It is now also the mechanism by which a boy in Amman and a girl in Sukhum can use the same dictionary in the same afternoon. That is not a solution, but it is a genuinely new condition, and nothing in the century before it resembled it.

What Crystal insists on, and what no website can supply, sits beneath all six. A language survives when it is spoken in the house, by parents who do not switch, to children who answer back in it. Everything in the chapter below is an argument about how to make that easier.

CHAPTER 5 What can be done?

1. An endangered language will progress if its speakers increase their prestige within the dominant community.

Prestige comes when people start to notice you. An endangered community therefore needs to make its presence felt within the wider community. It needs to raise its visibility, or profile. Obtaining access to the media (traditionally, the province of the dominant culture) is critical – to begin with, a regular column in a daily newspaper, perhaps, or an occasional programme exposing the language on radio or television, such as a cultural celebration or a religious festival. But the media will only report what they perceive to be significant community activity, hence the first step is to enhance that activity in community settings, such as churches, social centres, and town halls. People have to get into the habit of using a language, and this requires that they have regular access to it. Sporadic language activities need to be replaced by activities in which the language has a predictable presence, thus enabling a process of consolidation to take place. Decisions need to be made about which social activities to concentrate on: after all, people cannot revitalize everything at once. Certain functions may need to be selected for special effort, such as story-telling or religious ritual. Traditional religious links and practices are especially important in the way they provide motivation for language revival,
as are the arts.

The longer-term aim is to increase visibility in more and more sectors of the public domain. The worlds of business, law, and public administration are particularly important targets. A token presence is often all that can initially be obtained, through letterheadings, company symbols, and the like; but if the political circumstances are auspicious, this can steadily grow, until it becomes (as in present-day Wales) co-equal with the dominant language in such areas as advertising, public-service leaflets, and minute-taking. There is an associated growth in translation and interpreting services. With political support, also, a high level of visibility can come from the use of the indigenous language in place names, on road signs, and on public signs in general. These usually provide a real indication of the acceptability of a language’s presence in the wider community, and are thus often a focus of activism. The defaced road signs in many countries, in which names in the dominant language have been painted over by their Welsh, Basque, Gaelic (etc.) equivalents, provide a contemporary illustration. They demonstrate the presence of a community dynamism which has gone further than the law permits in order to express corporate linguistic identity. But dynamism at grass-roots
level there must be.

2. An endangered language will progress if its speakers increase their wealth relative to the dominant community

I have already quoted an observation by Grenoble and Whaley that economics ‘may be the single strongest force influencing the fate of endangered languages’ (see p. 125), but the point is so salient that it deserves to be repeated. I am inclined to agree, if for no other reason than that it costs money to raise the social and political profile of a language, and that money will only be forthcoming in a prosperous environment. But a change in economic fortunes has a more fundamental and positive impact on the self-esteem of a community, as long as the increase in prosperity is gradual, and is well managed. (There are cases, such as the oil booms in some parts of the world, where the arrival of sudden wealth has proved to be destructive of an indigenous community.) The strengthened economy of Catalonia, for example, has been a major factor in encouraging the use of Catalan there, and this has enhanced the prestige of the language in other Catalan-speaking areas. Service industries and light manufacturing industries tend to be the domains in which endangered languages can most benefit from economic growth. (By contrast, as we have seen in chapter 3, the so-called ‘primary’ industries of the world, and especially the extractive industries, such as mining and quarrying, have had an overall harmful effect on indigenous languages, because of the way they attract exploitation by outside organizations.)

Tourism is a good example of a service industry which can bring considerable benefits to an endangered language, as has been seen in parts of Switzerland and northern Italy. Dolomitic Ladin, for example, spoken in a few small locations in the South Tyrol, has benefited in this way, as has the use of Romansh, since 1938 one of the four national languages of Switzerland, spoken in the canton of Graubünden (Grisons) in south-east Switzerland, and also in the valleys of the upper Rhine and Inn rivers. Other minority languages and dialects in the region have also developed a higher profile as a result of the tourist presence, such as Franco-Provençale in the Vallée d’Aoste, the German-related Walser in the Vallée de Gressoney, and Friulian in the extreme north-east of Italy. A significant attribute of tourists, of course, is that they come and go, at different times of the year, and represent a wide range of linguistic backgrounds. There is thus less likelihood of the emergence of an alien threatening presence in the indigenous community.

3. An endangered language will progress if its speakers increase their legitimate power in the eyes of the dominant community

The closing decades of the twentieth century saw indigenous languages in many parts of the world benefiting from a trend in public opinion displaying increased sympathy towards cultural and linguistic rights. The mood was particularly strong in Europe, where a series of statements emerged from within the leading political organizations; and while these were inevitably focused on the position of the lesser-used languages of Europe, they sent a strong message to those concerned with language rights in other parts of the world. In 1981, a milestone was passed when the European Parliament adopted a resolution, prepared by Gaetano Arfé (an Italian member of a parliamentary committee), proposing a Community charter to deal with regional languages and cultures and the rights of ethnic minorities. In 1992 another milestone was reached when the Council of Europe adopted the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in the form of a convention; this came into force on 1 March 1998. As a convention, it is legally binding on the ratifying countries, and offers significant levels of protection for minority languages in crucial walks of life. Other bodies, notably the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, have contributed important statements which have helped to encourage the current climate, and the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages, with its aim of conserving and promoting the regional, autochthonous languages and cultures of the European Union, has been a significant facilitating force.

It is perhaps not surprising to see European support these days for multilingualism, given that the European Union has affirmed the national-language principle in its affairs, despite the costs involved: if a country is proud of its right to have its national language used in Brussels, Luxembourg, and Strasbourg, it becomes much more difficult for that country to deny the same right to its own constituent ethnic communities. But several other parts of the world have also seen positive political developments. The USA passed two Native American Languages Acts, in 1990 and 1992, the first ‘to preserve, protect, and promote the rights of freedom of Native Americans to use, practice and develop Native American languages’, the second ‘to assist Native Americans in assuring the survival and continuing vitality of their languages’. The 1991 Law on Languages of the Russian Federation gave all languages the status of a national property under the protection of the state. The 1991 Colombian Constitution gave indigenous languages official status in their own territories, and supported a bilingual education policy. On the wider world stage, UNESCO and the UN have produced various statements, such as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, adopted in 1992. Language, however, has tended to be just one of several cultural issues covered by these statements, hence the potential significance of the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights produced at Barcelona in 1996, with its primary focus on language (see Appendix). Statements, declarations, and resolutions are of course relatively easy to make; they are much harder to interpret in real social settings and to put into practice. The various formulations have all received their share of critical comment about the comprehensiveness of their coverage or the practicability of their recommendations. But they are certainly more specific and focused than earlier expressions ofsupport for human rights, which have often not mentioned language at all, or done so in the vaguest of terms.

The need to maintain pressure on governments, at international, national, and local levels, to make sure that something is actually done, is therefore as critical as ever. Notwithstanding the above developments, there are probably still more countries in the world currently violating or ignoring language rights than supporting them. So there is no room for complacency. At the same time, the progress made in certain countries has to be acknowledged, as they provide illustrations of what can be done. Probably the most heart-warming case is in Paraguay, where Guaraní has come to be the chief sign of national identity, with official status (since 1992), enjoying widespread prestige, attracting great loyalty, and spoken by over 90% of the population. Paraguay was formerly considered to be a Spanish-speaking country in which Guaraní had a presence; today, some commentators reverse the description, talking about a Guaraní-speaking country in which Spanish has its place. There has also been progress in Greenland, where Home Rule in 1979 led to a real increase in the numbers of bilingualGreenlanders appointed to senior positions. And in Eritrea, as already noted, it is government policy to have no official language – an unusually liberal policy (especially in Africa: see p. 82) which was strongly affirmed by President Afewerki in 1995:

Our policy is clear and we cannot enter into bargaining. Everyone is free to learn in the language he or she prefers, and no one is going to be coerced into using this or that ‘official’ language.

4. An endangered language will progress if its speakers have a strong presence in the educational system

To promote a presence in the home is the priority, with any endangered language. As we have seen, it is no solution to develop a mindset which sees all the responsibility transferred to the school system. But if there is no presence in the school system at all, at primary and secondary levels, the future is likewise bleak. The role of a school in developing a child’s use of its mother-tongue is now well understood, following several decades of research and debate in educational linguistics, and while most of this work has been devoted to helping children improve their skills in unendangered languages, there is an immediate and obvious application to less fortunate linguistic situations. The school setting provides an increasingly widening range of opportunities for children to listen and speak, as they learn to cope with the demands of the curriculum and come to use the language in school-mediated social occasions (such as religious or cultural gatherings). It gives them the opportunity to engage with literacy (see further below), which will open the doors to new worlds. If their only experience of speech and writing in school is through the medium of the dominant language, it will not be surprising to find that the indigenous language fails to thrive (an example of this happening was noted by Bradley in the case of the Ugong, above). Conversely, if careful planning has managed to give the indigenous language a formal place alongside
the dominant language, the result can be a huge increase in the pupils’ self-confidence.

Education is to some extent a mixed blessing, in endangered language situations. It introduces the pupils to the very foreign influences and values which have made their language endangered in the first place. At the same time, the knowledge and awareness which comes from the process of education can generate a confidence which stands the children in good stead, as they find themselves coping with the difficulties of language maintenance. Knowing something about a language’s history, folklore, and literature can be a great source of reassurance. The school is not the only source of this knowledge, of course. A great deal of language awareness, as well as social solidarity, results from the various forms of extra-curricular activity which a community can arrange as part of its language maintenance programme – for example, language playgroups, summer immersion camps, master–apprentice programmes, or bilingual holidays. And the same point applies in educational settings when older members of the community are involved. If ‘educational system’ is interpreted in its broadest sense, it will include all kinds of adult education courses in local halls and centres, community-based programmes, informal apprenticeships, in-service courses, and a great deal of activity that goes under the heading of ‘awareness-raising’.

But no teaching programme can succeed without good materials, and good materials are of no value unless there are teachers trained to use them. Teacher-training is thus a critical need, in most endangered situations. Ideally, these teachers would come from the population of fluent speakers left within the indigenous
community, and their training would prepare them to cope with the non-speakers who will form the bulk of the next generation. The training required is complex, because the language-learning situation is so mixed. A great deal of the work is remedial, in the sense that many learners have varying levels of proficiency in the indigenous language, ranging from reasonable fluency to semilingualism. Many of the students will be members of the ‘in-between’ generation, who have learned the dominant language as a first language in order to assimilate, and who now have no alternative but to learn the ancestral language as if it were a foreign language. The teachers also have to cope with enormous variations in student temperament, ability, and motivation; a sociopolitical situation which may not always be sympathetic to their work; and an economic situation in which typically there is a shortage of materials and resources. The job, in short, is not easy, and demands proper status and pay – with indigenous teachers being paid comparably to visiting teachers who may have been imported to assist with the problem. Unfortunately, low salaries and discrepant levels are all too common, in endangered situations.

5. An endangered language will progress if its speakers can write their language down

The teaching of literacy is, of course, a major educational function; but literacy raises so many special issues that it requires a section to itself. It has a unique role in the maintenance of a language, as Samuel Johnson asserted, reflecting on the differences between a written and an unwritten language:

Books are faithful repositories, which may be a while neglected or forgotten; but when they are opened again, will again impart their instruction: memory, once interrupted, is not to be recalled. Written learning is a fixed luminary, which, after the cloud that had hidden it has past away, is again bright in its proper station. Tradition is but a meteor, which, if once it falls, cannot be rekindled.

Just because a language is written down does not automatically mean it will survive, of course, as is evident from the many extinct languages of classical times which we know about only through their written records. But equally, once a language passes the stage where it can be transmitted between generations as the first language of the home, its future is vastly more assured if it can be written down. The reason is not simply to safeguard a corpus of data for posterity: if this were all that were required, these days it would be enough to make large numbers of audio or video recordings. The writing down of a language is a different kind of activity, as it involves an intellectual step – an analysis of the way the sound system of the language works, so that the most efficient form of spelling system can be devised, and the preparation of materials to aid learning, in the form of dictionaries, grammars, and other manuals. It is a step that linguists should be trained to do, in ways which will be reviewed below. It can also be a controversial step, so this postulate for progress needs to be viewed with caution.

For people whose culture has a history of several centuries of literacy, it can come as a surprise to realize that literacy has its down side, in relation to endangered languages. But there are several ways in which this can be so. To begin with, there may be resistance from the people themselves. If literacy has never been part of your culture, it is easy to see how its adoption could be perceived as a loss rather than a gain – a surrendering of that culture to a possibly hostile outside world, or a loss of ownership (see further below). Some people think of their language as being destroyed, once it is written down. And certainly, there is bound to be an effect on the way the language is represented: the stories of oral tradition are typically dynamic in character, varying between retellings, relying greatly on a lively interaction between speaker and listeners, and using an array of communicative effects of a non-verbal kind. When written down, they become static, reduced in form, and lacking a dialogic element; moreover, the alphabetical system is incapable of coping with the melodies, rhythms, tones of voice, gestures, and facial expressions that give the stories so much of their life. All recordings privilege one version above others; and in a tradition where the whole point is to allow for narrative variation, a great deal is lost as a consequence of the selection.

The decision to introduce literacy involves a second problem of selection. Which variety of the language shall be written down? Many endangered languages exist in a variety of dialects, some of which are very different from each other in sounds, grammar, and vocabulary. It is rarely possible, for reasons of practicality, to write them all down; so one dialect must be selected. What, then, happens to the others? Ironically, the very process of selection can be a factor leading to the loss of the diversity it was designed to safeguard. A literacy programme tends to burn money, and resources which might otherwise have been used in support of a range of dialects suddenly turn out to be available no longer. Moreover, when a particular dialect is chosen for literacy, it inevitably acquires a higher status, and this can result in community divisiveness, which again might hasten the process of language loss. The problem is especially difficult in places where two different alphabetical systems are in competition, perhaps associated with different cultural or religious traditions – such as the Roman (Christian) and Arabic (Islamic). The decision to write down any of the unwritten endangered languages within the Arabic- or Hindi-speaking countries can lead to confrontations of this kind. It is easy to see why ‘standardization is the single most technical issue in language reinforcement’– needed before the production of written materials can make much progress.

It is important not to overstate the problems. Indeed, sometimes the risk is the opposite one – people become so positive about literacy that they develop a false sense of security, believing, for example, that once a language is written down it is thereby saved, and nothing more needs to be done. Literacy programmes have been successfully implemented in hundreds of endangered language situations, and is a priority in most revitalization projects. Sometimes, two writing systems can be involved. In Yup’ik, for example, intergenerational transmission was at risk because the schoolchildren were having difficulty understanding the language of the elders. A book of elders’ narratives was therefore compiled; and it was decided to print this in two orthographies. This was because the region was in a transition period between older missionary-developed orthographies which the elders would be used to, and the newer phonetic orthography which was being used in the schools. (This project had other interesting features. For instance, the compilers decided to keep the older, more difficult words in the text undefined, to encourage the children to ask their teachers, parents, and elders about them. This strategy shifted the emphasis away from the text and into the community, resulting in a more dynamic linguistic interaction.)

Even the question of competing dialects can be handled, with careful planning. An example is Quechua, where several local dialects were each given official status, all written in one alphabet. Another is Romansh, where five dialects had each developed an individual literary norm. In 1978, a non-Romansh linguist, Heinrich Schmid, was given the task of devising a unified system which would treat each dialect impartially. The resulting ‘Rumantsch Grischun’ reflected the frequencies with which words and forms were used in the different dialects, choosing (whenitems were in competition) those which were most widespread. Although controversially received, as an artificial standard, it hassince come to be increasingly used as a practical administrative tool, in official situations where the five dialects need a lingua franca. All dialects seem to have benefited from the newfound prestige, as a result.

6. An endangered language will progress if its speakers can make use of electronic technology

To some extent, this is a hypothetical postulate, as many parts of the world where languages are most seriously endangered have not yet come to benefit from electronic technology – or, for that matter, electricity. But in principle, information technology (IT) – and the Internet in particular – offers endangered languages which have been written down a fresh set of opportunities whose potential has hardly begun to be explored. The chief task presented by my first postulate above involved the need to give an endangered language a public profile. Traditionally, it is an expensive business: newspaper space, or radio and television time, does not come cheaply. Only the ‘better-off’ languages could afford to make routine use of these media. But with the Internet, everyone is equal. The cost of a Web page is the same, whether the contributor is writing in English, Spanish, Welsh, or Navajo. It is perfectly possible for a minority language culture to make its presence felt on the Internet, and this has begun to happen – notwithstanding the attempted repression of some languages by the occasional service-provider. There are probably over 500 languages with an Internet presence now. What is significant, of course, is that the Net provides an identity which is no longer linked to a geographical location. People can maintain a linguistic identity with their relatives, friends, and colleagues, wherever they may be in the world. Whereas, traditionally, the geographical scattering of a community through migration has been an important factor in the dissolution of its language, in future this may no longer be the case. The Internet, along with the growth of faster and cheaper means of travel between locations, is altering our scenarios of endangerment.

There is a great deal to be done before these scenarios become compelling. Software developers need to become more multilingual. More comprehensive coding conventions for non-Roman alphabets need to be implemented. And for many endangered communities, the basic possibility of an Internet connection is a long way off, given the lack of equipment – or even electricity. But there are already several signs of progress. A number of language maintenance projects have recruited language technologies to facilitate their task. For example, spelling-checkers have been used to help implement normalized spelling conventions in a newly written language – particularly useful where there is interference from some other language in the region. Computers have begun to handle bodies of specialized knowledge, such as lists of place names, genealogies, or plants. There has been a steady growth in computer-assisted self-study materials. One of the most promising signs is in the knowledge-management side of IT, where the importance of the notion of localization has steadily grown, to the extent that it must now be regarded as an industry in itself, with its own association, LISA (the Localization Industry Standards Association). In this context, localization refers to the adaptation of a product to suit a target language and culture, and is distinguished from both globalization (the adaptation of marketing strategies to regional requirements of all kinds) and internationalization (the engineering of a product, such as software, to enable efficient adaptation of the product to local requirements). It is a healthy sign tosee this swing back from the global to the local, within such a short time, and it may be that endangered languages will be one of the domains which will benefit from this change of focus. At any rate, I am sufficiently convinced of the potential power of electronic technology to make it one of my six postulates for progress in language maintenance, notwithstanding the limited role it has been able to play in this domain hitherto.

My six postulates cut the cake in a certain way, and there are of course many other ways. Yet, despite differences of terminology and emphasis, similar themes recur. For example, Akira Yamamoto distinguishes nine factors ‘that help maintain and promote the small languages’:

• the existence of a dominant culture in favour of linguistic diversity;
• a strong sense of ethnic identity within the endangered community;
• the promotion of educational programmes about the endangered language and culture;
• the creation of bilingual/bicultural school programmes;
• the training of native speakers as teachers;
• the involvement of the speech community as a whole;
• the creation of language materials that are easy to use;
• the development of written literature, both traditional and new;
• the creation and strengthening of the environments in which the language must be used.

And Lynn Landweer provides eight ‘indicators of ethnolinguistic vitality’ for an endangered language

• the extent to which it can resist influence by a dominant urban culture;
• the number of domains in which it is used;
• the frequency and type of code switching;
• the existence of a critical mass of fluent speakers;
• the distribution of speakers across social networks;
• the internal and external recognition of the group as a unique community;
• its relative prestige, compared with surrounding languages;
• its access to a stable economic base.

These lists have a great deal in common.

https://davidcrystal.com/GBR/David-Crystal

Just before midnight on 2 November 1925, a hundred and fifty Circassian cavalrymen were camped near Kalaat-Djendal, in the hills south of Damascus. They had spent the autumn chasing Druze rebel bands across the Ghouta and the approaches to Soueida, and they had earned a night’s rest. They did not get one. Druze fighters fell on the camp in the dark, and what followed was close, ugly, hand-to-hand fighting among the tents and horse lines.

By dawn the squadron had ten dead and thirteen wounded. It had also killed some seventy of the attackers and inflicted around three hundred casualties in total. A unit that had ridden into the ambush a hundred and fifty strong rode out barely a hundred strong.

It should have been the end of the story. Instead, Kalaat-Djendal became the seed of something bigger. Within weeks, three new squadrons had been raised around that battered core. Within a year, there were eight. The men doing this fighting were exiles from the Caucasus, recruited by a French officer who had learned their language, and for the better part of two decades they carried their mountain traditions, their weapons and their horsemanship into somebody else’s colonial war.

Exile to the Levant

Circassians, the Adyghe people of the north-west Caucasus, did not choose Syria. Russian imperial conquest pushed them out of their homeland in a mass expulsion that peaked in 1864, and the Ottoman Empire settled them across Anatolia, Palestine, Jordan and Syria. When the French Mandate replaced Ottoman rule in 1920, it inherited a Circassian population still, two generations on, distinctly Caucasian in dress, in custom and in its instinct for the saddle. The French had a use for that.

Collet finds his cavalry

Philibert Collet was born in Sidi-Bel-Abbès, in French Algeria, on 12 December 1896, the son of Joseph Collet and Dolorès Hurtado. He enlisted at eighteen and spent the First World War with the 9th Régiment de Marche de Tirailleurs Algériens, fighting in the Somme in 1916 and through the German counter-offensive in Picardy in the summer of 1918. Wounded twice, he ended the war with four citations, a Croix de Guerre, and a Chevalier’s cross of the Légion d’Honneur, awarded on the battlefield that October, aged twenty-one.

Peace in Europe did not interest him much. In 1919 he volunteered for the Levant, serving with the 412th Infantry Regiment and then the 1st Régiment de Tirailleurs Algériens. In 1920, leading first a section and then an irregular groupe franc, he helped open the road to Homs, adding four more citations to his record. By November he had moved into the Levant’s intelligence service, combining militia command with the job of administrative adviser to a caza, a Syrian district. Two years later he was at Aleppo, commanding a mobile gendarmerie squadron, when he noticed something: a detachment of Circassian horsemen serving alongside him who would not break and would not desert.

He said as much himself, years later, to a French journalist touring the Levant. During the first Druze uprising of 1921, he recalled, Syrian gendarmes deserted or went over to the rebels wholesale; only one unit held its ground, the Circassian squadron. Collet asked to serve alongside its commander, Iman Bey, and together they raised its strength to a hundred and fifty men, recruited around Quneitra.

Working with two Circassian officers, Toufik Bey and Osman Bey, Collet’s men helped pacify the Idlib and Hadjilar districts between 1922 and 1924, then moved into the Djebel Druze. Hadjilar and Djebel Druze became the first two names embroidered on the unit’s future standard. His own men, meanwhile, gave him a title: they elected him émir, the way the Ismailis of Syria looked to the Aga Khan, and it was not a formality. Officers under his command later told visitors he was the only man they knew who would ride into a fight unarmed and still hold their obedience, because he gave his orders in their own language.

Eight squadrons, ten battle honours

When the Great Syrian Revolt broke out in the Djebel Druze in the summer of 1925, Collet asked to take his First Squadron into the field. In September it rode as vanguard cavalry with the Gamelin Column’s advance on Soueida, the Druze capital, taking Tell i-Hadid on the 23rd and reaching the citadel alone, two hours ahead of the main column, on the 24th. Brought back to Damascus in October for the city’s own uprising, the squadron spent nearly two weeks fighting through the Ghouta before Kalaat-Djendal all but destroyed it in November.

What came out of that ambush was not a broken unit but a founding one. Three fresh squadrons were raised that same month under Osman Bey, Toufik Bey and a third Circassian commander, Hadji Acha, each a hundred and fifty strong, with French lieutenants attached to liaise. The Groupement Tcherkess now existed as a formal command, under Collet, and it barely had time to organise before the fighting resumed. Through the winter the squadrons were in action almost continuously, at Medjel Chems, Otaya, Harasta, Deraya, and in a bruising night action south of Yelda on New Year’s Eve. In February a Druze band under Chekib Ouahab cost the Tcherkess their heaviest single loss yet, twenty-one men killed at a place called Halvi.

By March 1926 a fifth squadron had been added, deliberately mixed this time, bringing Ismaili, Kurdish, Druze and Chammar recruits in alongside the Circassian core and widening the unit’s reach into rival communities’ intelligence networks. That same month, at Katana, some twelve hundred rebels tried the Kalaat-Djendal trick again, surprising four squadrons by night. This time the cavalry held, fighting house to house and killing forty-two attackers for the loss of seven of their own.

Two months later came the action the sources hold up as the model of everything this unit did well. At the end of May, working from solid intelligence, Collet secretly assembled four squadrons at Sassa, rallied two more overnight, and rode eight kilometres to encircle a rebel band at Joubbat el-Khachab before it knew he was coming. Forty-one of the enemy died, including their commander and his brother; the Tcherkess captured a machine gun and lost two men. By midsummer two more squadrons had joined, bringing the total to eight: eight times the strength of the single unit that had ridden into Soueida less than a year before.

The rest of 1926 read like a ledger of hard, grinding actions: a sweep of the Ghouta in July that took the rebel headquarters at Bala farm for twenty-eight dead, including two Circassian lieutenants; a night march over the mountains to storm the supposedly impregnable Djebel Berber in August; the destruction of the Akkache band near Mazraba in September. The worst came in October, when the squadrons finally cornered the most dangerous rebel force still in the field, led by a former French-trained captain named Faouzi and Emir Izzeddine. The fighting through the Ghouta orchards killed Osman Bey, the Circassian officer who had stood beside Collet from the beginning and had already lost three family members to this war, and an eighteen-year-old Druze driver famous in the unit for his devotion to Collet. The Tcherkess lost thirty-five men in this single engagement and inflicted well over sixty on the other side.

It is worth being honest about why men kept riding into this. The pay was good by regional standards, and French commanders permitted the squadrons a degree of licence to take plunder from the bands they broke, according to later academic research into the campaign. That does not make the courage on display any less real, but it complicates any account that wants to make this a simple story of loyalty for its own sake.

The rebellion had one more act. Emir Izzeddine, having taken refuge in the Safa desert, pushed back into the Ghouta in May 1927 with roughly a hundred and fifty men. After hard fighting near Bala farm on the 17th, his band was trapped and wiped out near Dereidj two days later. Izzeddine died there, along with both his lieutenants. The Tcherkess lost their own standard-bearer, an adjutant named Hadj-By, in the final fighting inside a cave where the last rebels made their stand. The sources on this campaign treat Dereidj as the close of the squadrons’ heroic period, and it is not hard to see why.

Across roughly two years of this fighting, the Groupement lost around three hundred cavalrymen killed, twenty of them officers. Ten names went onto the standard: Hadjilar, Djebel Druze, Kalaat-Djendal, Medjel Chems, Katana, Joubbat el-Khachab, Ghouta, Maaraba, Anti-Liban, Dreidje. The unit earned seven citations to the order of the army, and in 1927 Collet was made an Officier of the Légion d’Honneur.

The horsemen’s own world

None of this looked like a French colonial unit from the outside, and that was rather the point. The parade dress was pure north Caucasus: a collarless blouse called the kaptal fetsa, black in winter and white in summer, worn under the tsé, a tunic open in a V across the chest and fitted with rows of false cartridge cases, the gazyrs, carved from wood, bone, ivory or silver and sewn diagonally into the fabric. Cossacks called this same garment the tcherkesska. Over the shoulders went the bachlik, a white hooded cape against the weather, and on the head sat the kalpack, a cylindrical black astrakhan cap with a pale blue crown and crossed braid, gold for officers, yellow for the rank and file.

Alongside the Mauser and later Model 1916 carbines that French cavalry carried everywhere, the Tcherkess kept their own weapons: the nagaika, a plaited leather whip whose silver-niello handle often hid a small dagger or a revolver barrel behind a hidden catch; the kindjal, a straight forty-centimetre dagger with a silver or gold hilt, which men rarely let out of their reach; and the chachka, a hilt-less sabre up to a metre long, slung from a black leather belt studded with silver.

The unit’s badge, made by the Paris firm Chobillon in 1930, showed a mounted Tcherkess in full parade dress, nagaika in hand and kindjal at his belt, framed by a crescent and a six-palm Croix de Guerre. The standard itself, green silk, dated 1930 and now held in the Salle des Drapeaux at the Musée de l’Armée in Paris, carries all ten battle honours on its face. Turn it over and the writing is in Circassian: ‘Yapeqhe Tcherkess’, Circassians, forward, above seven stars for the seven principal Circassian tribes. Individual squadron fanions carried their own colours and nicknames: green for most, the colour associated with the Prophet, black for the fourteenth squadron, white for the sixteenth; the twelfth called itself ‘la foudre’, the thunderbolt, and the fifteenth ‘l’invincible’.

A journalist who travelled with the squadrons in the late 1930s left one of the few outside descriptions of Collet himself: a lean, dark-haired man in his early forties, met bare-headed and in shorts, a length of brown cotton wound round his neck against the dust, riding ahead of his troops in a Ford with a switch in his hand. When she asked one of his oldest Circassian officers, Toufik Bey, what made the men follow him, he told her that Collet was the bravest man alive, the only one who went into battle unarmed, and the only French officer who could give a Tcherkess an order in his own tongue.

A frontier crossed in secret

Collet left the Groupement in January 1938 to command a battalion of Moroccan Tirailleurs near Antioch and Alexandretta. He was back in Damascus by October 1940, under a French state that had surrendered to Germany, and rebuilt a force of Circassian partisans fourteen squadrons strong, ostensibly to watch the frontier with British-held Transjordan and Palestine. That post gave him a channel to General Georges Catroux, the Free French commander for the Middle East, and he used it, receiving Gaullist emissaries at real risk to himself under a regime that would have called it treason.

The break came in May 1941, when Vichy France signed the Paris Protocols, opening Syrian air bases to German aircraft supporting an anti-British revolt in Iraq. Collet protested to the Vichy High Commissioner, General Henri Dentz, and was ignored. On 20 May he crossed the Syrian-Transjordanian frontier in secret, at the Deraa border post, to meet Catroux in person. The bulk of his men, something like four hundred and fifty of them by most counts, twenty-three officers, thirty NCOs and around four hundred Circassian cavalrymen, followed him across the same border the next day and were received at Irbid by a squadron commander of the 1st Moroccan Spahis. Vichy struck Collet from the army list and stripped him of his French nationality on 24 May. Two days later, de Gaulle himself came to the frontier with General Legentilhomme to salute the unit that had just defected to him.

Free French propaganda seized on the story almost as soon as it happened, which says something about how useful a picturesque colonial rallying was to a movement still short of legitimacy in 1941. What that propaganda left out is that most of the Groupement did not follow Collet at all. The squadrons that stayed behind remained loyal to Vichy and fought against the British and the Free French that June, which means Circassian cavalrymen ended up shooting at each other under two flags within weeks of each other. Collet, now a colonel, led the cavalry group of the Legentilhomme Division from 8 June and was named Free French delegate at Damascus that same month. He was made a brigadier general in August, later commanded the Meknès military region in Morocco, and received the Croix de la Libération from de Gaulle’s own hand in Algiers in January 1944.

What was left

Syrian independence in 1946 ended the squadrons for good. A minority of Circassians left for Jordan, for Palestine, for the Caucasus itself. Those who stayed, never fully absorbed after a quarter-century as the Mandate’s mounted police, paid for it in reprisals from communities they had fought as French auxiliaries, the Druze above all but not only the Druze. It is a grim, quiet coda to a loud story, best told plainly rather than dwelt on. Three other men who had served with Circassian units, Marc Martin-Siegfried, Louis Rivié and Nicolas Roumiantzoff, were also later named Compagnons de la Libération: a reminder that Collet was not the only one this war marked.

Collet himself did not have long left. Appointed to command the 17th Military Region at Toulouse in October 1944 and made a Général de Division and Grand Officier of the Légion d’Honneur that same year, he spent what strength he had left restoring order in a région militaire still unsettled by the upheavals of Liberation. He died at Toulouse on 15 April 1945, worn down by illness, and is buried there.

What should a Circassian reader take from this? Not a simple story, and certainly not a triumphant one. This was a diaspora community that had already lost its homeland once, finding a way to keep its horses, its blades, its dress and its own language alive in the service of somebody else’s empire, against neighbours who had never done it any harm. They fought well. They fought each other, in the end, over a French civil war that was never theirs either. And when the empire they had served let Syria go, it left without them, and some paid a price that others in the country had been waiting years to collect. That the Adyghe language still turns up embroidered on a green silk flag in a Paris museum, seven stars for seven tribes, is not nothing. But it is not the whole of what happened, and a rigour-first telling owes the reader both halves.

'First published in Russian in the journal 'Cultural Life of the South of Russia' ('Kulturnaya zhizn Yuga Rossii'), No. 3 (41), 2011, pp. 36 to 38; translated into English by CircassianWorld.'

Roman Ostapenko
Adyghe State University, General history, Post-Doc.

Based on the narrative texts of European authors, this article traces the evolution of the religious beliefs of the Adyghe over seven centuries, from the thirteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century. Particular attention is given to the changing historical memory and spiritual world of the inhabitants of the north-western Caucasus, and above all to the Circassian people’s preservation of a relict Orthodoxy stripped of its ritual component.

Key words: beliefs of the Adyghe, Orthodoxy, paganism, Islam, religious syncretism.

From the sixth to the mid-fifteenth century, the dominant religion in Circassia was Orthodox Christianity, sustained by the Byzantine Empire. The Church preserves testimony to the labours of the holy ascetics with whom the Christianisation of the north-western Caucasus began: Andrew the First-Called, Simon the Canaanite, Matthew and Bartholomew. In the fortieth year from the Nativity of Christ they preached among the Alans, Abazgs and Zichs (Zikhi) [1]. The Apostle Andrew carried the teaching to the Adyghe tribes (the Kasogs), who, as many scholars note, refused Christianity on account of their rough temperament: ‘The Zichs are a harsh and coarse people, half unbelieving even now; they meant to kill Andrew, but seeing that he was poor, meek and led a strict life, they abandoned the intention’ [2].

After a time the territory again became the object of a Christian mission, though now unintentionally and by chance. The rulers of the Roman Empire fought bitterly against the new faith as it steadily gained ground, and one of the punishments imposed on the baptised was exile to the Greek settlements that lay here: Phanagoria, Tanais (at the mouth of the Don), Anaturos (on the Kuban), Phasis, Dioscurias and others. The teaching ‘could not but spread among the mountaineers of the North Caucasus, with whom the Greek colonies maintained active trade’ [3]. Once the religion became the state religion of the Byzantine Empire (the fourth century), its hold on the spiritual life of the population grew stronger along the Black Sea coast as well.

Christianity flourished among the Adyghe tribes in the sixth century, during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justinian the Great. The Adyghe accepted the faith without resistance, and many churches were raised in their land. In the words of the enlightener Shora Nogmov, ‘The name of Justinian stood in such honour among the Adyghe that, to confirm their word, the people would swear by the throne of Justinian. Through the mountaineers’ religious union with the Byzantine Empire, the Greek clergy, penetrating the Caucasus mountains, brought with them the pursuit of the arts and enlightenment’ [4].

Traces of this influence show in the accounts of the spiritual world of the Adyghe left by Europeans: travellers, scholars, missionaries, political agents and merchants. Until the mid-fifteenth century, all of them without exception called this people’s religion Orthodox Christianity and reported that the services were conducted by Greek priests. Such testimony appears in the Dominican Julian (’On the Journey to the Land of the Volga Hungarians’), who visited the North Caucasus in 1235; in the monk of the French order of Minorites, William of Rubruck (’The Journey to the Eastern Countries’), who was among the Circassians in 1253; and in the German traveller Johann Schiltberger (’Travels through Europe, Asia and Africa’), squire to the knight Leonhard Reichartinger, who spent several decades in Turkish and Tatar captivity [5].

With the fall of Byzantium, religious preferences began to shift, and a so-called syncretic dualism took shape: pagan cults were now practised alongside Orthodoxy. The coexistence of Christian and pagan rites is attested by the Genoese traveller Giorgio Interiano (’The Life and Country of the Zichs, Called Circassians’), who was among the Adyghe in 1502, and by the Polish diplomat Marcin Broniewski (’Description of Tartary’). A further weakening of faith in Christ appears in the narrative of the European missionary Arcangelo Lamberti, an Italian who visited the Caucasus in the early seventeenth century. The same was recorded by the prefect of Kaffa, Emiddio Dortelli d’Ascoli (’Description of the Black Sea and Tartary’), and by the Dominican monk Jean de Luca (’Description of the Perekop and Nogai Tatars, Circassians, Mingrelians and Georgians’), who was there in about 1625 [6].

The period of change in the spiritual world of the Adyghe that opened in the mid-seventeenth century, when Islam joined a Christianity and a paganism already reshaped by circumstance, was marked by a syncretic trialism. One of the first to note the entry of Islam into the Circassian world was the French dealer in precious stones Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (’The Six Voyages to Turkey, Persia and India’), who reached the North Caucasus in the course of his travels through Asia. His observations were confirmed by the German scholar and ‘ambassador of Holstein to Muscovy’ Adam Olearius (’Description of a Journey to Muscovy’), whose notes appeared in 1647 [7].

At the turn of the eighteenth century, Europeans who had been among the mountaineers struggled to define the religion of the Circassians, so intricate was the syncretic cult that flourished there; more and more often, foreign writers called the Adyghe unbelievers. This was the view of the Dutch subject Jan Struys (’Description of the Town of Terki’), who came to the Caucasus at the end of the seventeenth century in the company of Genoese merchants, and of the Dutch cartographer Nicolaes Witsen (’North and East Tartary’) [8], who compiled a description of the region.

In 1672 the French traveller Jean Chardin (’Journey to Persia and Other Eastern Countries’) concluded that the Circassians had ‘no religion at all, not even a pagan one’; his compatriot Ferrand (’Journey from the Crimea to Circassia’) added that, ‘for want of books and priests among the Circassians’, one could not tell what their faith was. Aubry de la Motraye took the same view in a book published in 1723 (’Travels through Europe, Asia and Africa’) [9].

The next observation belongs to the Scot Peter Henry Bruce (’Memoirs of a Journey through Germany, Russia, Tartary and the West Indies’), who entered Russian service and visited the Caucasus in the first quarter of the eighteenth century: ‘Here every tribe offers its sacrifices as it pleases’ [10].

The German officer in Russian service Johann Gustav Gerber, in a work entitled ‘Notes on the Peoples and Lands on the Western Shore of the Caspian Sea, between Astrakhan and the River Kura, and on Their Condition in 1728’, recorded the strengthening of Islam among the Adyghe at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The French consul in the Crimea, Xaverio Glavani (’Description of Circassia’), wrote of the mountaineers: ‘They keep Saturday, Sunday and Friday, celebrate Easter with the Christians and Bayram with the Turks, and hold that all is well’ [11].

The notes titled ‘The Newest States of Kazan, Astrakhan, Georgia and Many Others’ stand apart from this general picture. That their author, the traveller Engelbert Kaempfer, who came to Russia with a Swedish embassy, describes the Adyghe chiefly as Christians of the Greek confession may be explained in two ways. Either Kaempfer drew on the works of predecessors who had visited the Circassians several centuries before, or, under Ivan the Terrible, the Adyghe did briefly return to the fold of the Orthodox Church.

From the second half of the eighteenth century, among the Adyghe tribes and the Kabardians above all, the standing of Islam grew under pressure from the Ottoman Empire and the Crimea. Throughout the century the Adyghe remained divided in their spiritual life: often some tribes kept certain elements of Christian worship while others professed Islam, but did so inconsistently, taking up one thing and casting off another. In these years the mountaineers of the north-western Caucasus had no religious hierarchy, Christian or Muslim. Among the European accounts that bear this out are the work of John Cook (’Travels and Voyages through the Russian Empire and Tartary’, 1736) and that of the French consul in the Crimea, Charles de Peyssonnel (’A Study of Trade on the Circassian and Abkhazian Coast of the Black Sea in 1750 to 1762’) [12]; the writings of the naturalist Johann Anton Güldenstädt, a Baltic German in Russian service (’Geographical and Statistical Description of Georgia and the Caucasus’), who was among the mountaineers during the Russo-Turkish War of 1768 to 1774; and those of Professor Peter Simon Pallas (’Notes on Travels in the Southern Governorates of the Russian Empire’), who visited the Caucasus in 1793 to 1794 [13].

Even at the start of the nineteenth century, paradoxically, and despite the advance of Islam, the Christian ‘past’ still lived in the historical memory of the Adyghe. We find this in the Polish historian Jan Potocki (’Journey into the Astrakhan and Caucasian Steppes’), who left a religious description of the Adyghe tribes of the Ubykhs and Abazins; in the German academician Julius Heinrich Klaproth (’Travels through the Caucasus and Georgia’), who saw the Caucasus in 1807 to 1808; and in the merchant Raffaele Scassi (’Extract from a Memoir on the Affairs of Circassia’). They are joined by the French soldier Jacques-Victor-Édouard Taitbout de Marigny (’Journey to Circassia’), who served with the Russian army in the Caucasus in 1818; the Scot Robert Lyall (’Travels in Russia, the Crimea, the Caucasus and Georgia’), who lived among the Adyghe in 1822; the French traveller Jean-Charles de Besse (’Journey to the Crimea, the Caucasus, Georgia, Armenia, Asia Minor and Constantinople’), who was in the Caucasus in 1829 to 1830; the German in Russian service Johann Blaramberg (’Historical, Topographical, Statistical, Ethnographical and Military Description of the Caucasus’); the French traveller Frédéric DuBois de Montpéreux (’Journey around the Caucasus, to the Circassians and Abkhazians, to Colchis, Georgia, Armenia and the Crimea’); the English agent James Bell, who lived among the Circassians from 1837 to 1840 and roused them to revolt against Russia (’Journal of a Residence in Circassia’); and Karl Koch (’Journey through Russia and into the Caucasian Lands’) [14]. The memoirs of Edmund Spencer speak of religious syncretism among the Adyghe in the nineteenth century: ‘The doctrine of Mahomet, however, has not struck deep roots among this people [...] it is so mingled with Christianity that it almost forms a separate religion’ [15].

In different historical periods, then, the spiritual preferences of the Adyghe shifted for two reasons: first, through the political and economic influence of neighbouring states; and second, through the tolerance characteristic of the Adyghe (the absence of any ‘religious immunity’) and their partial integration (a half-immersion into whatever religious structure was at hand). The proof and the outcome of this was the normative code of etiquette they worked out, Adyghe Khabze (the Circassian code of custom and etiquette), which in the religious sphere passed over into Adygaghe (’Circassian-ness’, the moral ideal). To this day most of the Adyghe hold themselves apart from any religious doctrine, replacing it with unifying factors of their own. The words of Aubry de la Motraye therefore still hold: ‘There is nothing more complicated than the Circassian religion’ [16].

References and Notes

1. Makary, Archbishop of Kharkov. ‘The History of Christianity in Rus’ before Prince Vladimir, Equal to the Apostles’. St Petersburg, 1868. P. 11.

2. Petrovsky S. V. ‘Apocryphal Tales of the Apostolic Preaching along the Black Sea Coast’ // ‘Notes of the Odessa Society of History and Antiquities’. Vol. 21. Odessa, 1898. P. 83; later reprinted in Kuznetsov V. A. ‘Christianity in the North Caucasus before the Fifteenth Century’. Vladikavkaz, 2002. P. 13; Dorofei, Hieromonk (Dbar). ‘The History of Christianity in Abkhazia in the First Millennium’. New Athos, 2005. Pp. 65 to 66.

3. ‘A Historical Note. On Christianity in the North Caucasus’ // ‘Stavropol Diocesan Gazette’. 1888. No. 18. P. 713.

4. Nogmov Sh. B. ‘The History of the Adyghe People’. Tiflis, 1861. P. 43.

5. ‘Adyghe, Balkars and Karachais in the Accounts of European Authors, Thirteenth to Nineteenth Centuries’. Nalchik, 1974. Pp. 32 to 33; 36; 38.

6. Ibid. Pp. 47; 54; 59; 67; 70 to 71.

7. Ibid. Pp. 76 to 79; 40.

8. Ibid. Pp. 102; 94.

9. Ibid. Pp. 104; 112; 141 to 142.

10. Ibid. Pp. 149 to 150.

11. Ibid. Pp. 154 to 155; 161 to 162.

12. Ibid. Pp. 176 to 177; ‘Materials for the History of the Circassian People’. Issue 2. Krasnodar, 1927. P. 21.

13. ‘Adyghe, Balkars and Karachais ...’ Pp. 207 to 208; 215, 218.

14. Ibid. Pp. 226; 239; 269; 319; 327; 339; 372 to 373; 450; 529; 625.

15. Spencer, Edmund. ‘Journey to Circassia’. Maikop, 1993. P. 106.

16. De la Motraye, Aubry. ‘Travels through Europe, Asia and Africa’ // ‘Adyghe, Balkars and Karachais ...’ Pp. 141 to 142.
    
    

In the middle of spring 1779 the men of Kabarda crossed the Malka with their plough teams. From the new fortresses it could pass for the opening of the farming year. The Kabardians called such work ven-sen (вэн-сэн), ploughing and sowing, and the steppe north of the river, the Kurey (Къурей губгъуэ), held the winter pastures on which their herds, and therefore their livelihood, depended. But this was the whole adult male population, armed with whatever it could carry. On the steppe they raised field-works and made gear for storming fortresses. The armed core of the host camped in a wooded tract called Qeitiqwe T’wasch’e (Къетыкъуэ ТIуащIэ), near the present-day village of Psykhurey, where, in Sokurov’s reconstruction, the main military preparations of the year were made.[1]

The war that followed is remembered in Kabardian tradition as Maziybl Zawe (Мазибл зауэ), the Seven-Month War, and as the Qwrey War (Къурей зауэ), after the steppe on which it was fought.[2] It was the first full-scale war between Kabarda and the Russian Empire, and it ended before the year was out, with oaths sworn on the Quran, reparations counted down to the last ox, and a frontier drawn along two rivers.

The line of forts

On paper, Kabarda’s freedom was forty years old. The sixth article of the Treaty of Belgrade of 18 September 1739 had settled the matter between the two empires: the two Kabardas, Greater and Lesser, ‘shall remain free, and will submit to neither of the two empires’, and would be reckoned the boundary between them.[3] In 1763 Russia built the fortress of Mozdok on the left bank of the Terek, on the site of a Kabardian village. In 1764 a Kabardian emissary, Qeisin Qeitoqwe, carried to St Petersburg a petition for its removal, recording the limits of Kabardian land as the Kabardians understood them: to the Kuma and the ruins of Madjar on one side, and down the Terek to Meken, at least sixty versts below Mozdok, on the other (a verst is roughly 1.07 kilometres).[4]

The petition failed, and so did the next. In 1769 the princes sent to St Petersburg a deputation of two, one from each rival princely party; it waited over a year and came home with a Charter to the Kabardian people, signed by Catherine II on 17 August 1771, which promised much and categorically refused the one thing asked: the demolition of Mozdok. The refusal, Jaimoukha writes, convinced many Kabardians that occupation was the intent.[5]

The Russo-Ottoman war of 1768 to 1774 closed at Kuchuk Kaynardji with the Porte ceding Kabarda to Russia, though, as Jaimoukha observes, the Porte had no claim over Kabardian land to cede.[6] On Grigory Potemkin’s project the line from Kizlyar to Mozdok was then extended into the Azov-Mozdok Line: from 1777, ten fortresses along some five hundred versts, from the Malka’s confluence with the Terek to the mouth of the Don. Six of them stood on Kabardian territory: Ekaterinogradskaya on the Malka, Pavlovskaya on the Kura, Maryinskaya on the Zolka, Georgievskaya and Konstantinogorskaya on the Podkumok, and Aleksandrovskaya on the Tomuzlovka.[7]

The Line cut Kabarda off from its lands north of the Malka, and above all from the Kurey. ‘For the Kabardians (and the Balkars and Ossetians too), in whose economy stockbreeding played the leading role, the winter pastures of the Kurey were of vital importance,’ Naloyev wrote.[8] A herding society had lost its winter grass. That, more than any point of honour, was the grievance.

Protest turned into arms by degrees. In 1778 Kabardian lords attacked Pavlovskaya; Russian units under Major-General Ivan Yakobi came up in time and drove them off. At the end of that year the Kabardians demanded once again that Russia destroy all the frontier fortifications. On 29 March 1779 the princes met in congress and resolved that if Russia refused to raze the forts, they would go to war.[9]

Not everyone wanted the war. The senior prince of Kabarda, Dzhankhot Tatarkhanov of the Bekmurza line, tried to prevent it; Kalmykov takes him for one of the few who grasped that Kabarda lacked the strength for a contest with Russia. Glasheva’s commentary describes the same man as an adherent of anti-Russian policy, a partisan of Kabardian independence and a participant in the events of 1778 to 1779. The portraits are compatible: a prince who thought the war unwinnable, and did not desert it.[10]

The mood ran dark enough that leaving was discussed. In December 1778 Erekle II (Heraclius II) of Kartli-Kakheti wrote through couriers to lords of both Kabardas, inviting them to resettle in Georgia and promising good places and valleys. Butkov records the letters; the Caucasus administration reported to St Petersburg in alarm that ‘all Kabarda, with all its bonded serfs, intends to migrate to Georgia’.[11]

The government, then, knew what was coming. And in the middle of spring the ploughmen crossed the Malka.

The campaign

By custom, the senior prince of Kabarda became dzepsch (дзэпщ), commander of the host, automatically in wartime; if he could not serve, a dzepsch was elected from the other princes for the duration.[12] Tatarkhanov stood against the war, and the host elected Misost Bamatov of the Atazhukin line, a prince with a name for generalship. His position had a private edge: in 1776, after Russian successes in the Crimea, the princes of both Kabardas had been brought to an oath and made to give amanats, hostages; one had come from Bamatov’s house, and his son Temirbulat was being schooled inside the empire while his father commanded the war against it.[13] Bamatov led one of the host’s three detachments; the other two went to Hamurza Kaytukin and to Karamurza, of the Misostov princely house in Sokurov’s view.[14]

Intelligence fell to the prince Ezbazduka Kanametov, who handled it well. He recruited a Crimean Armenian, Artemy Vaskanyan, who made his way into the fortress of Aleksandrovskaya and set fire to the church refectory. The blaze was the agreed signal for attack.[15]

Operations opened in mid-May, and Kabarda did not fight alone: the Besleneys and Temirgoys came in, and the Chechens and the Nogais. Up to fifteen hundred Trans-Kuban Circassians raided towards Stavropol; the Chechens pressed the Cossack settlements of the Mozdok regiment; there was fighting around Pyatigorye.[16] The main Kabardian force worked the country around Ekaterinogradskaya and Maryinskaya. It did not take the fortresses, but it broke the resistance of the Cossacks outside them and drove off up to five thousand head of cattle. Sokurov adds the dry correction that they were mostly taking back what had been driven off from them shortly before.[17]

On 5 June a force five thousand strong divided into three before attacking. One column struck the Cossacks and Kalmyks marching to join Yakobi. The second fell on Yakobi’s own camp, met artillery and dense musketry, and was thrown back. The third stormed Maryinskaya, for two days and two nights running, and failed, at a cost of a hundred and twenty men.[18]

On 10 June Yakobi brought his infantry out of Pavlovskaya and formed three squares. The Kabardians first drew up in one long line, then re-formed into three bodies to match his disposition, and came on. Yakobi let them close before opening with every gun and musket he had. They fell back, regrouped, struck his left flank, and were beaten off a second time with heavy losses. Near Maryinskaya, Captain Bessos led his detachment out of the fortress into the open against the levies and killed ninety-seven of them.[19]

On 18 June Yakobi reported that he had routed the Kabardians so thoroughly that ‘they left behind and carried away up to three thousand men killed and wounded’. Kalmykov, quoting the report, supplies the necessary caution: the Russian command habitually inflated the enemy’s losses.[20] What the summer had shown was narrower and harder. Kabardian horsemen could raid, screen the steppe and take cattle. Against squares, entrenchments and massed guns, they could not win a pitched battle.

Rumour promised help that never came. Pro-Ottoman agitation quickened in Kabarda, especially among the common people, and Turkish agents spread word that a certain Adzha Ali-bek stood ready to march to the mountaineers’ aid with a strong corps.[21] Catherine II drew her own conclusion. In July 1779 she issued a secret order granting her forces a free hand in Kabarda: ‘We command,’ it runs, ‘that for their curbing a detachment of troops be formed, and that they be brought into proper obedience.’[22]

The night of 29 September

Major-General Fyodor Fabritsian marched out of the camp by Pavlovskaya in the evening with two jaeger battalions, two companies of the Mozdok field battalion, a thousand Cossacks and a thousand Kalmyks. At midnight the column forded the Malka. The horses were sent off to a distance, and Fabritsian took position on the Kabarda side of the camp at Qeitiqwe T’wasch’e, so that no reinforcement could reach it. Yakobi came up to the Malka with three squadrons, sealed the camp along the river above and below, and posted himself with the infantry on the high northern bank, his artillery able to fire down into the camp.[23]

‘The Kabardians themselves were famed for the art of night attacks,’ Sokurov writes, ‘but this time the Russian troops used the tactic successfully.’[24] The battle fought at first light is the one the songs remember as Qeberdey Zheschteiwe (Къэбэрдей жэщтеуэ), the Kabardian Night Assault.

At seven in the morning on 29 September 1779 (Old Style; 10 October by the New Style) the firing began; by Fabritsian’s own account it did not stop until noon. Inside the ring stood the noble force, about three hundred men. Butkov, drawing on the military reports, wrote that they ‘withstood fire from all sides and fought with such fury that they would in no way surrender’, and that they died to the last man.[25]

Six versts away stood the armed levy of the common people. It never reached the field. Butkov records the fact and gives no reason. Kalmykov offers two: the Russian cordon existed precisely to stop it, and five hours was too little time for men on foot to arrive.[26]

The disparity in weapons closes the account. A Kabardian fighter carried a matchlock, sabre, shashka, dagger and bow; the matchlock gave him one shot in a battle, and after the shot came cold steel. Against him stood artillery and rifled guns, numbers several times his own, and an enemy that had picked both the ground and the hour.[27]

The figures for the dead must be kept apart: the sources differ, and averaging would falsify them all. Sokurov and Kalmykov put the force destroyed at Qeitiqwe T’wasch’e at about three hundred, and Kabarda’s losses across the whole of 1779 at up to three thousand, falling, in Kalmykov’s words, exclusively on the princes and the nobility. Jaimoukha’s account of the September battle counts about fifty princes and more than three hundred and fifty noblemen killed, ‘a huge toll by the reckoning of those days’.[28]

The capitulation

Even now Kabarda did not offer unconditional surrender. In Kazharov’s account, the Kabardians still framed their relations with Russia as a feudal treaty: since the days of Ivan IV they had been kunaks of the tsars, allies bound by guest-friendship, not subjects of the empire. To the Russian command that position was itself the pretext for a punitive expedition.[29] On 28 November the troops entered Kabarda in two columns, Yakobi into Greater Kabarda and Colonel Savelyev into Lesser Kabarda. They met stubborn resistance and answered it with fire; fields, orchards and houses burned. In the first days of December, Yakobi and Fabritsian reported that Greater and Lesser Kabarda had been ‘brought to obedience’.[30]

What obedience meant was set down in four documents held in the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire and published by Zuleikha Glasheva in 2021: an Obligation imposed on ‘the Kabardian lords and nobles and all the black people’, and three oaths, from the princes and nobles of Greater Kabarda, from the ‘black people’, and from Lesser Kabarda.[31]

The Obligation opens with an inventory. Everything taken in the summer’s ‘evil deeds’ was to be restored at once: 2,150 horses, 1,914 oxen, 2,845 cows, 4,539 sheep and 10,000 roubles; and the text, rough even by chancery standards, bars the Kabardians from setting against that account anything the troops had taken from them. All captives were to be returned, among them people carried off near the Kalinovskaya settlement by the Chechens and a nobleman named Molchanov, seized in 1777 with goods valued at three hundred roubles; so was property robbed from inhabitants of Kizlyar and Mozdok, Georgians and Armenians among them; so were the Russian deserters who had fled to Kabarda that summer. Everything passed through Lieutenant-Colonel Taganov, the pristav, the government’s overseer of Greater Kabarda since 1769.[32]

The fourth clause drew the border. ‘The border of your Kabardian possession shall be the river Malka,’ and beyond that river all lands belonged to the fortresses of the Line; the Kabardians were neither to drive their herds across nor to establish tillage there, ‘nor to consider those lands as belonging to you’. For Lesser Kabarda the border was the Terek; Butkov’s summary of the two borders is exact: neither crops nor cattle on the far banks.[33] The Kurey pastures, the first cause of the war, were gone.

Entry into the Line went onto billets. A Kabardian could pass only with a ticket issued by Taganov on the surety of the senior prince Dzhankhot Tatarkhanov. At the gates he announced himself to the commandant through the non-commissioned officer of the watch. A lord might bring in two armed nobles and one armed bondsman; a commoner entered unarmed; inside the fortress each went where he was shown and nowhere else.[34] By December, men who in June had demanded the levelling of the forts needed a ticket to pass them.

Two provisions reached deep into Kabardian society. The ninth clause of the Obligation permitted the ‘black people’, if a lord burdened them with excessive exactions or other oppression, to leave him and seek a dwelling place within the Line. The oath imposed on the black people went further. Should their lords conspire against the government, or so much as intend to remove elsewhere or into the mountains to escape Her Majesty’s subjecthood, the peasants were to renounce obedience, to stay on their lands ‘immovable and independent of their power’, and to report the undertaking to the authorities. Other conditions run the same way: peasants of lords accused of treason were declared free; the black people were free to accept Christianity; the Ossetians and Ingush in Russian subjecthood were not to be molested. Kazharov reads these clauses as a deliberate assault on the cohesion of Kabardian society, the state reaching into the relation of lord and peasant to break the social order from within, while, as Kalmykov notes, serfs inside Russia were being reduced to the condition of slaves. Russia, Kazharov writes, no longer thought it necessary to conceal that the object was ‘to sow quarrel and discord among them’.[35]

The seventh clause cut the ties running outward. With the peoples beyond the Kuban, with the Temirgoys and the Besleneys, the Kabardians were to have no part, ‘neither in counsels nor in their defence’; Lesser Kabarda was barred from the Chechens. Officials on the Line received instructions in the same spirit: ‘to guard above all against the union of the mountaineers, and to kindle among them the fire of internal discord.’ Independent dealings with the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate, and with them any foreign policy of Kabarda’s own, were finished.[36]

The oaths wrapped the whole in a story. The princes and nobles of Greater Kabarda swore before the Quran that they had been subjects of the Russian throne ‘from of old, from the very times of the blessed and eternally worthy memory of the All-Russian Sovereign Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich’; that in raising ‘mutiny and revolt’ the past summer and daring ‘to demand the destruction of the fortresses’ they had acted out of mere levity; and that they now acknowledged themselves ‘slaves subdued by the arms of Her Majesty’. The oath of the black people repeats the formula almost word for word. It was sworn in the camp at the Tanbiev kabaks, the hamlets of that family on the little river Kishpek, on 3 December 1779; having no seals, the commoners pressed their fingers to the paper, ‘for ourselves and for the whole community of the black people’. Glasheva notes that the peasant estate was put on oath although it had taken no part in the war.[37]

The fourth document, the oath of Lesser Kabarda, survives in a damaged state. Long stretches of the transcription are garbled beyond honest translation, and none is attempted here. Its substance, so far as the wreckage lets it through, mirrors the Greater Kabarda oath: the profession of ancient subjecthood, the confession that the men of Lesser Kabarda had everywhere ‘helped and reinforced the rebels’ in the summer’s revolt, submission on the new terms, and the peasants’ clause. A closing annotation records that the oaths as submitted were written in Tatar, with the ink seals of the lords and nobles affixed. One anomaly must be noted rather than corrected: the heading is dated 6 January 1779, months before events the oath itself describes as past. The date stands so in the published transcription.[38]

Execution of the whole settlement was laid, by name, on two men: the senior prince Dzhankhot Tatarkhanov, who had opposed the war, and Misost Bamatov, who had commanded it.[39]

The song and the silence

The chancery file preserves the victors’ account of 1779, in the victors’ language. The other record was made in Kabarda. In 1779 to 1780 a band of bards working under the minstrel Lhepschiqwe Tawiqwe (Таукъуэ Лъэпщыкъуэ) composed «Къэбэрдей жэщтеуэм и уэрэд», ‘The Song of the Kabardian Night Assault’. Jaimoukha places it at the head of an entire genre, the songs of resistance in which Circassians chronicled the war against the empire for the better part of a century.[40]

The song asks to be read as a source, not as ornament. Naloyev, examining it in 1978, established the high degree of its correspondence to the documented events of 1779.[41] Composed within a year of the battle by men who knew the dead, it works as a casualty roll where the imperial record offers round numbers. It names Hamurza and Ismail Kaytukin, father and son; Khatokshoko and Misost Atazhukin; Azhdzheri Khamurzin; the four brothers of the Bzhekhukov house; and four men whose family names it could not preserve: Musa, Khasansh, Doltuko and Kazi the Younger.[42]

For most of two centuries the war itself had no historians. Kalmykov is blunt about why: official ideology in the Soviet decades placed a taboo on such pages, lest they injure the friendship of peoples. The one dedicated study remains Sokurov’s article of 1995, ‘Maziybl zawe’, published in Kabardian and never translated into Russian; the general histories of the republic pass the war by; and Glasheva, publishing the documents in 2021, could still observe that neither Russian nor North Caucasian historiography possesses a synthesising study of the causes and consequences of the last quarter of the eighteenth century.[43]

What public history offered instead was the union. In 1957 Nalchik celebrated the 400th anniversary of Kabarda’s ‘voluntary union’ with Russia and raised a statue of the princess Gwascheney (Гуащэней), married to Ivan IV in 1561, above the words ‘For ever and ay with Russia’; in 2007 the 450th anniversary was celebrated in its turn, with state sponsorship, although a meeting of scholars from Adygea and Moscow had concluded in 1996 that the treaty of 1557 was no more than a temporary union between two equal parties.[44] The archive supplies the footnote to both festivals: the fullest surviving statement of Kabarda’s ‘ancient subjecthood’ to Russia is the formula defeated men were made to swear in December 1779, with the army that had beaten them standing on the Malka.

The war took its place at the opening of a much longer one. Kalmykov sets 1779 within the Russo-Circassian War of 1763 to 1864; by one reckoning that Jaimoukha cites, its Kabardian phase ran from 1779 to 1818.[45] The song came first, and it keeps the last word. Kalmykov prints the closing lines of the Kabardian variant in Russian translation; rendered here from his Russian, they run:

The one for whom chance passers-by grieve at the graveside, who all his life loved great battles, is our Musa. The one who took the hail of bullets upon himself is Khasansh. The one whose gun fires like a great cannon is Doltuko. The one lost to sight in the powder smoke is Kazi the Younger.[46]

The empire’s documents count what Kabarda paid: horses and oxen, roubles, rivers. The song keeps the other ledger. The bards could not recover the family names of those four men, so they gave each of them what a song can give, a line of his own; and the lines have lasted.

Notes

1. Zhilyabi Kalmykov, ‘On the History of the Seven-Month War of the Kabardians, 1779’ (Nalchik), drawing on Sokurov, ‘Maziybl zawe’ (in Kabardian), ‘Waschhemaxwe («Іуащхьэмахуэ»), 1995, no. 6, pages 98 to 105. Cited below as Kalmykov and Sokurov 1995.

2. Amjad Jaimoukha, ‘Songs of Resistance against Russian Occupation: Introducing an Apt Title to an Old Song Genre’; Kalmykov.

3. Treaty of Belgrade, article six, quoted (after Nolde) in Amjad Jaimoukha, A Brief History of Kabarda.

4. Jaimoukha, A Brief History of Kabarda, where the petition’s boundary description is given after Nolde.

5. Zuleikha Glasheva, ‘Documents on the History of the Seven-Month War in Kabarda, 1778 to 1779’, Izvestiya Kabardino-Balkarskogo nauchnogo tsentra RAN, no. 1 (99), 2021, pages 70 to 81, commentary on the deputation of 1769 and the Charter of 17 August 1771; Jaimoukha, A Brief History of Kabarda. Cited below as Glasheva 2021.

6. Jaimoukha, A Brief History of Kabarda; Kalmykov.

7. Glasheva 2021, with reference to Butkov and the Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire; Kalmykov, on the six fortresses standing on Kabardian territory.

8. Naloyev, From the History of the Culture of the Adyghes (Nalchik, 1978), page 104, cited in Kalmykov.

9. Kalmykov, citing Sokurov 1995 and the Adyghe (Circassian) Encyclopaedia.

10. Kalmykov; Glasheva 2021, commentary.

11. Butkov, Materials for a New History of the Caucasus from 1722 to 1803, and Khakulova, ‘On the Question of Russo-Kabardian Relations in the 1770s’ (Nalchik, 1983), both cited in Kalmykov.

12. Kalmykov, drawing on Naloyeva’s study of the political order of Kabarda in the first half of the eighteenth century (1972).

13. Glasheva 2021, commentary on Misost Bamatov; Kalmykov.

14. Sokurov 1995, cited in Kalmykov.

15. Sokurov 1995, cited in Kalmykov.

16. Kalmykov, citing the Adyghe (Circassian) Encyclopaedia.

17. Sokurov 1995, cited in Kalmykov.

18. Kalmykov.

19. Kalmykov.

20. Sokurov 1995, cited in Kalmykov; the caution on inflated Russian reporting is Kalmykov’s.

21. Khakulova, cited in Kalmykov.

22. Khakulova, cited in Kalmykov.

23. Butkov and Sokurov 1995, cited in Kalmykov.

24. Sokurov 1995, cited in Kalmykov.

25. Butkov, cited in Kalmykov; the timing is from Fabritsian’s account as reported there.

26. Butkov, cited in Kalmykov; the two explanations are Kalmykov’s.

27. Kalmykov.

28. Sokurov 1995 and Kalmykov; Jaimoukha, A Brief History of Kabarda and ‘Songs of Resistance against Russian Occupation’.

29. Kazharov, Selected Works on the History and Ethnography of the Adyghes (Nalchik, 2014), cited in Kalmykov.

30. Kalmykov, citing Sokurov 1995 and Khakulova.

31. AVPRI, f. 115 (Kabardian, Circassian and Other Affairs), op. 2, d. 1: the Obligation at fols 26 to 30v; the oath of the princes and nobles of Greater Kabarda at fols 7 to 11v; the oath of the ‘black people’ at fols 16 to 21v; the oath of Lesser Kabarda at fols 38 to 42v; all published in Glasheva 2021. The same file holds Grigory Potemkin’s memorandum on Yakobi’s report on the pacification, with the opinion of Count Nikita Panin.

32. AVPRI, f. 115, op. 2, d. 1, fols 26 to 30v, via Glasheva 2021; on Taganov’s office, Glasheva 2021, commentary.

33. AVPRI, f. 115, op. 2, d. 1, fols 26 to 30v, via Glasheva 2021; Butkov, cited in Kalmykov.

34. AVPRI, f. 115, op. 2, d. 1, fols 26 to 30v, via Glasheva 2021.

35. AVPRI, f. 115, op. 2, d. 1, fols 26 to 30v and 16 to 21v, via Glasheva 2021; Glasheva 2021, commentary; Kazharov, ‘The Clash of Civilisations and the First Defeats of Kabarda in the 1760s to 1790s’, Istoricheskii vestnik, issue IV, 2006, pages 206 to 254, cited in Glasheva 2021, and Selected Works, cited in Kalmykov.

36. AVPRI, f. 115, op. 2, d. 1, fols 26 to 30v, via Glasheva 2021; the instruction to officials from Khakulova, cited in Kalmykov; on the loss of foreign policy, Glasheva 2021 and Kalmykov.

37. AVPRI, f. 115, op. 2, d. 1, fols 7 to 11v and 16 to 21v, via Glasheva 2021; Glasheva 2021, commentary.

38. AVPRI, f. 115, op. 2, d. 1, fols 38 to 42v, via Glasheva 2021.

39. AVPRI, f. 115, op. 2, d. 1, fols 26 to 30v, via Glasheva 2021.

40. Jaimoukha, ‘Songs of Resistance against Russian Occupation’.

41. Naloyev, From the History of the Culture of the Adyghes (Nalchik, 1978), pages 104 to 110, cited in Kalmykov.

42. Kalmykov, citing Kazharov, Adyghe Songs of the Time of the Caucasian War (Nalchik, 2014 edition), and Naloyev.

43. Kalmykov; Sokurov 1995; Glasheva 2021.

44. Jaimoukha, A Brief History of Kabarda.

45. Kalmykov; Jaimoukha, A Brief History of Kabarda and ‘Songs of Resistance against Russian Occupation’.

46. Kalmykov; the English rendering from his Russian text is made for this article.

The piano was loud in the Verzilin drawing room that evening, which is why the joke should have stayed private. Prince Sergei Trubetskoy was at the keys. Lev Pushkin, brother of the dead poet, was among the guests. And through the door came Nikolai Martynov, a retired major, dressed as he always dressed that summer: a showy cherkeska trimmed with silver gazyrs, a long dagger at his belt, a Russian officer got up as the very highlanders the empire was fighting.

Mikhail Lermontov was sitting beside one of the daughters of the house. He leaned towards her and said quietly, in French: ‘Mademoiselle Emilie, take care, the ferocious highlander approaches.’

At exactly the wrong moment, the piano fell silent. The words carried across the room to Martynov, an old cadet school comrade who had heard one joke too many about his costume. As the guests were leaving, he demanded that Lermontov stop such jokes, at least in front of women. Then he issued the challenge.

To understand what the Caucasus was to the man who made that joke, go back to a motherless child from Penza province.

Born in October 1814, Lermontov lost his mother in early childhood and was raised by his grandmother, Elizaveta Arsenyeva, at Tarkhany. When his health faltered she took him south, to the waters. He first came to the Caucasus spa country as a small child; the summer that marked him was 1825, aged ten, travelling in a great family convoy through Stavropol to Goryachevodsk, later renamed Pyatigorsk.

What he saw that summer never left him. The blue bulk of Beshtau, and beyond it, far off, the snows of Elbrus. The Kabardian aul of Babukovo with its flat-roofed stone houses. The market at Goryachevodsk, where Circassians from nearby auls sold poultry, German colonists sold bread and butter, and riders in papakhas moved through the crowd. A Cossack watch post on Mashuk. There, within sight of the mountains where the poem is set, the ten-year-old first read Aleksandr Pushkin’s ‘Prisoner of the Caucasus’. His earliest surviving drawing is dated 13 June 1825, at the Hot Waters. He was already recording what he saw.

By his mid-teens he was writing his own Caucasian poems: ‘The Circassians’, his first known poem, then ‘Prisoner of the Caucasus’, ‘Kally’ and ‘Aul Bastundzhi’. In 1830, aged fifteen or sixteen, he wrote the short lyric that explains almost everything that followed. ‘Though at the dawn of my days fate tore me from you, O southern mountains,’ it runs, ‘like a sweet song of my homeland, I love the Caucasus.’ Then comes the stranger, sadder turn: ‘In infancy I lost my mother, but it seemed to me that in the rose-coloured hour of evening the steppe repeated her remembered voice. For that I love the summits of those crags.’

The mountains had taken the place of the mother. In a prose fragment he put it another way: ‘Blue mountains of the Caucasus, I greet you! You cradled my childhood... you taught me to know the sky, and ever since I have dreamed of you and of heaven.’

In January 1837 Pushkin died in a duel, and Lermontov’s furious elegy ‘Death of the Poet’ went around Russia in manuscript. The tsar’s answer was arrest and a transfer from the Guards to the Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon Regiment, stationed in the Caucasus, where the empire’s war with the highlanders was in its third decade.

It was meant as punishment. It read like a homecoming. He fell ill on the road and was sent to take the waters at Pyatigorsk, where the shabby settlement of his childhood had turned into a fashionable spa town. From there he wrote a letter whose two sentences, side by side, hold the whole problem of his life: ‘Every morning from my window I look out on the chain of snowy mountains and on Elbrus... As soon as I am well, I shall set out on the autumn expedition against the Circassians.’

There it is. The lover of the mountains and the officer of the empire in a single paragraph, with no visible sense of contradiction. He never resolved it, and it would be dishonest of us to resolve it for him.

That year he travelled the entire Caucasus Line from Kizlyar to Taman, crossed the range and met exiled Decembrists in Stavropol. From Tiflis (now Tbilisi) he reported: ‘I have crossed the mountains, been in Shusha, in Quba, in Shamakhi, in Kakheti, dressed in Circassian style, a rifle over my shoulder; I have slept in the open field and fallen asleep to the crying of jackals.’

The exile did not begin his Caucasian writing. ‘Izmail-Bey’ and ‘Hadji Abrek’ had been written years earlier by a teenager. What 1837 did was replace imagination with knowledge. That single year fed straight into ‘A Hero of Our Time’: the spa society of ‘Princess Mary’, the smugglers’ hut of ‘Taman’. ‘Bela’, ‘Mtsyri’ and ‘The Demon’ carry that knowledge in their bones.

The knowledge came in through the eye. Lermontov drew and painted constantly in the Caucasus: pencil, watercolour, oils. ‘Two Highlanders by a River’. ‘Memory of the Caucasus’. ‘View of Krestovaya Mountain’, which he gave to Vladimir Odoevsky before his final departure south. What marks the work is exactness rather than fantasy: how a rider sits a horse, how a burka is fastened, how a dagger is mounted, the individual face of an old abrek where a lesser hand would have painted a generic ‘Oriental’.

The writer worked like the painter. His highlanders are not noble savages, and they are not villains either. In ‘Bela’, Kazbich is a brave warrior who kills the girl he could not have. Azamat is a boy ready to trade his own sister for a horse. Bela herself is proud and strong and destroyed by other people’s passions. Lermontov passes no verdict. He grants his Caucasian characters what his state denied their living originals: the dignity of being complicated human beings.

Once, in verse, he went further. In ‘Izmail-Bey’, written in 1832, he said of the people the official press called savage tribes: ‘The bold Circassian in a righteous fight knows how to die with glory... but freedom, freedom to the hero is dearer than homeland and than rest.’ For an officer of Nicholas I’s army, that was about as close to insubordination as poetry could go. It needs saying plainly what that war was: it ended, a generation later, in the destruction and expulsion of most of the Circassian people. Lermontov did not live to see 1864. But he had already put into Russian, for Russian readers, the idea that the freedom of the Circassian was worth more than anything the empire had to offer.

He fought in that war, and fought well. Exiled a second time in 1840, after a duel with Ernest de Barant, he was posted to the fortress of Groznaya and served in General Apollon Galafeev’s punitive expedition in Chechnya. At the river Valerik on 11 July 1840 he carried messages to the storming column under heavy fire ‘with exceptional courage and coolness’, in the words of the official journal of military operations. That October he took over a detachment of mounted volunteers, desperate men, demoted officers, Cossacks and Kabardians together; a fellow officer wrote that no better choice could have been made, that Lermontov was everywhere first under fire. Twice he was recommended for decorations and for transfer back to the Guards. Twice the tsar refused. Whatever Nicholas I saw in this officer, he did not intend to reward it.

In late May 1841, after two months’ leave in Petersburg, he was back in Pyatigorsk, sharing modest lodgings under a reed roof at the foot of Mashuk, with a small terrace looking towards the snow chain and the two-headed Elbrus. Six weeks later came the evening at the Verzilin house: the piano, the cherkeska, the joke, the silence, the challenge.

On the way to the duel he told his second, Mikhail Glebov, what he would write next. Two great novels, he said: one following Russia’s war with Napoleon from Petersburg to Paris to Vienna, the other set in the Caucasus of Yermolov’s time, ending with the death of Griboyedov in Tehran. Neither would ever be written. On 15 July 1841, between six and seven in the evening, in a thunderstorm at the foot of Mashuk, Nikolai Martynov shot him dead. He was twenty-six. The other second, Aleksandr Vasilchikov, glanced at him a moment before the shot and never forgot ‘the calm, almost cheerful expression’ on the poet’s face, the pistol already aimed at him.

Vissarion Belinsky wrote that this life was fated to flash like a brilliant meteor, leave behind a long trail of light, and vanish in its full beauty. Three years after the duel, a poem appeared in print that Lermontov had never published: ‘To you, Caucasus, stern tsar of the earth, I dedicate once more my careless verse: bless it as a son, and shade it with your snow-white summit... In the north, in a land foreign to you, I am yours in heart, always and everywhere yours.’

Read those lines in Amman, in Kayseri, in New Jersey, and they sit strangely. The most gifted young officer the empire sent against the mountains loved the mountains more than the mission. That saved no aul from what was coming. But it left, inside the conqueror’s own language, a record the conquest could never quite erase: that the peoples of the Caucasus were exactly what the official story could not afford them to be, brave, flawed, dignified, human and free.

Fourteen years after his death on 5 July, we remember the folklorist, poet and man of conscience who founded the modern study of Circassian oral tradition, stood with Abkhazia in its hardest years, and wore the Order of Leon.

Zaur Naloev died in Nalchik on 5 July 2012 and was buried in the city where he had done his life’s work. He was eighty-three. Fourteen years on, the tributes in Kabardino-Balkaria remember a folklorist, a poet, a scholar who all but rebuilt the study of Circassian oral tradition. The tributes in Abkhazia remember something more particular. They remember a brother.

Fourteen years before his death, in Sukhum, Abkhazia gave Naloev its highest state honour. He received the Order of Leon on 14 December 1998. A photograph from that year shows him beside President Vladislav Ardzinba, the two men standing together in the recovering capital of a republic that had come through its war five years earlier. Abkhazia does not give the Order of Leon lightly. It gave it to a Kabardian.

He came to that honour from a life that began far from any capital. Naloev was born on 15 July 1928 in the village of Stary Urukh, known in Kabardian as Khatuey, in the Urvan district. He started work at fourteen, a blacksmith in the Sheker collective farm, and in 1945 he was decorated for his labour through the war years. He graduated from the Kabardian Pedagogical Institute in 1952, joined the research institute in Nalchik in 1954, and earned his doctorate in philology from Tbilisi State University in 1971. The philologist Zera Bakova notes that the Naloev line was of Digor origin, having crossed from Digoria into Kabarda in the mid-nineteenth century. Kabarda claimed him all the same, and he claimed Kabarda. Kabardian was his mother tongue and his life’s material.

What he did with that material changed a field. The bibliography compiled by his colleagues at the Institute for Humanities Research in Nalchik lists more than two hundred works and some fifteen monographs and essay collections, though Bakova’s tribute counts seven. The number matters less than what sat inside it. Naloev recovered the dzheguako, the professional bards of old Circassia, and set them where they belonged. He read them alongside the Russian skomorokhi, the Turkic akyns, the French jongleurs, the German spielmänner, the Spanish juglares, and he argued that the Adyghe singer held the licence they held: a freedom of speech and a personal inviolability that even the princes could not shake. “I remained forever a captive of the dzheguako,” he said in one interview. The capture was mutual. He carried them out of local folklore and into the comparative study of world culture, and in doing so he founded the modern school of Circassian folklore studies in the republic and trained the generation that carried it on.

It is the honour of another people, given to a man they had decided was not another people at all.

He also gave a nation back one of its poets. Ismail Klishbiev wrote in secret and died in 1974 without a single poem in print. Power hunted him from the 1920s, arrested him in 1942, sentenced him to the camps, and cleared him only in 1981, seven years after his death. His manuscripts were seized and never returned. Naloev went after the erasure. He reconstructed the life, argued the case, and put the name back into the record. Bakova, who later taught Klishbiev’s story to students in Nalchik and to audiences in Istanbul, frames the act plainly: to return a great poet to a people is to hand back a treasure the nation is incomplete without.

The list of what he built runs long. Essays on the History of Kabardian Literature. Folk Songs and Instrumental Tunes of the Adyghe, in three volumes. The Legends of Zhabaghi Kazanoko, which he assembled across the languages of the North Caucasus. The Adab of the Baksan Cultural Movement, in 1991. The Anthology of Early Adyghe-Language Literature, in 2010, which students at Kabardino-Balkarian State University still use as a textbook. He conceived an anthology of Kabardian children’s literature and paid for much of it himself. His novella collection The Lonely Crane became a landmark of Kabardian prose. And in 1974, when Soviet atheism ruled the academy, he wrote an essay called “On the Eastern Cultural Channel,” arguing that Muslim culture had shaped the Circassians as deeply as any Russian project. The researcher Naima Neflyasheva has described reading it as a student and finding her whole course of work set by it.

Scholarship did not keep him at his desk when the region turned. In the years around 1990, Naloev moved into public life with the same refusal to defer that marked his writing. He led Adyghe Khase as its Thamada. He sat in the Supreme Council of Kabardino-Balkaria from 1990 to 1993. In 1991 he joined the meeting of the Adyghe world in the Netherlands that called the International Circassian Congress to Nalchik, he helped found the International Circassian Association that same year, and he served on its council until 1993. He was a member of the Congress of the Kabardian People. Bakova writes that men like Naloev were loved and found impossible in equal measure, because they bowed to no authority except the one a person earns through honest work.

All of this pointed him toward Abkhazia. The kinship is old and real. Abkhaz and the Circassian languages belong to the same small family in the north-west Caucasus, close cousins parted in deep time, and the two peoples have read each other’s fortunes as their own for as long as either can remember. When Abkhazia fought for its survival in 1992 and 1993, in what Abkhazia calls the Patriotic War of the People of Abkhazia, the North Caucasus did not watch. It came. The Abkhaz poet and national-movement figure Gennady Alamia has named Naloev among those who stood with Abkhazia in that fight, alongside Yusup Soslambekov and Musa Shanibov. That places him not at the edge of the solidarity but near its head, among the men who turned kinship into a movement.

The friendships were personal. A photograph keeps Naloev beside Bagrat Shinkuba, the poet who stood at the summit of Abkhaz letters and did for the memory of the Ubykh what Naloev did for the dzheguako. He knew the Abkhaz leadership, and the leadership knew him. He wrote about Abkhazia directly, not as a distant subject but as family. His essay “Our North Caucasian Brothers,” on Abkhazia, appeared in the Sukhum journal Vozrozhdenie in 2002.

Abkhazia answered in kind. It named him an Honoured Worker of Culture of the Republic of Abkhazia in 1995. It marked his seventieth birthday on its own soil that December, and one Abkhaz writer gave her account of the jubilee evening a headline that says everything: a man whose roots are one with ours. Then came the Order of Leon. His own republic honoured him too, as a Distinguished Scientist in 1986 and a People’s Writer in 2009, and in 2019 a memorial plaque went up on his house on Gorky Street in Nalchik. The Order of Leon sits apart from all of it. It is the honour of another people, given to a man they had decided was not another people at all.

When Naloev died in 2012, Abkhazia mourned him as its own. Its leadership sent condolences, President Alexander Ankvab and the speaker Valeri Bgazhba among them, and Abkhazia held that it would keep his memory as an outstanding son of the Circassian nation.

That decision outlived him. Each year the Abkhaz and Adyghe worlds meet at Lake Ritsa for a literary festival, “Rhymes on Ritsa,” held under the patronage of Abkhazia’s Ministry of Culture and dedicated to his memory. In 2023 the festival marked what would have been his ninety-fifth birthday. Poets from Sukhum and Nalchik read to each other beside the water, in two languages that were one language once, and the bridge Naloev spent his life building held.

He left a line that reads now like his own epitaph, and it belongs to both shores. A nation is strong not by its numbers, but by its undying soul.

First published on AbkhazWorld

In the aul of Kosh-Khabl, in the Khabez district of Karachay-Cherkessia, a kamyl player named Nukh Kondokhov sat down in 1949 and played a tune he had probably known his whole life. Kondokhov was born in 1878. The man recording him was the Kabardian writer and folklorist Askerbi Shortanov, and the tape still sits in the phonogram archive of the Institute for Humanitarian Research in Nalchik, catalogued as item No. 86/6. It can be heard accompanying this article. By the time Shortanov reached Kosh-Khabl, the rite that tune belonged to, Псыхэгъэ, Psykheghe, had likely already stopped being performed as a living ritual. What no collector could capture was the thing itself: a procession, a river, a body still missing. What remains is the recording, later notated by Angela Gucheva: the only known audio document of the instrumental naigrysh that once accompanied the Circassian search for a drowned person's soul (Gucheva & Guliyeva, 2017). Everything that follows is an attempt to explain what that tune meant.

Read more on CircassianWorld

Auladin Sarabievich Dumanishev [Думэныщ Iэулэдин] (b. 1954, Nartan, Kabardino-Balkaria) was a choreographer and People’s Artist of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic. He was appointed Artistic Director of the ‘Kabardinka’ Academic Dance Ensemble during the upheavals of 1991.

According to Dumanishev, in the culture of some peoples it is music that prevails, in others singing, and in others still the dance. The Circassians, by contrast, possess a tripartite unity of music, dance and song: three elements of folk culture fused into a single harmonious whole. The new artistic director directed his work towards restoring this unity, in which the spirit of the people finds its expression.

Under Dumanishev the ensemble began to incorporate ancient dances, music and instruments into its repertoire. In search of ethnographic material, the choreographer visited Kabardian villages in Kabardino-Balkaria, Mozdok, Adyghea, Shapsughia and Karachay-Cherkessia.

Working by his own empirical method, he recorded a great quantity of musical and choreographic material. The writings of the Circassian scholars S. Mafedzev, Z. Naloev and B. Bgazhnokov, devoted to ancient Circassian rituals, games and dances, proved invaluable to the ballet-master. In recognition of the ensemble’s achievements, it was awarded the title ‘Academic’ in 1994.

It was largely thanks to Dumanishev that the traditional institution of the ‘Khatiyako’ began to revive. He drew the idea of bringing the ‘Khatiyako’* into the dance from B. Kh. Bgazhnokov’s book ‘Circassian Play’.

*Khatiyako [хьэтиякIуэ]: master of (the dance) ceremonies, rewarded with gifts for his work. Among his duties was to choose and pair the dancers, indicating them with his decorated staff (хьэтиякIуэ баш, khatiyako bash).

The bare outline of a career seldom conveys what was at stake within it. Dumanishev’s years at the head of Kabardinka fell within a moment of rare openness, when the loosening of Soviet structures allowed questions of national identity to be asked aloud and answered in public form. What had been a ‘national’ ensemble in the Soviet sense, a showcase of folk colour arranged for the stage, became under his direction an instrument for a different proposition: that there existed a distinctly Circassian way of moving, of dressing and of carrying oneself, and that this way of being was worth recovering from the archive and from village memory before it slipped beyond recall.

That endeavour did not unfold in isolation. It belonged to a wider current of cultural reassertion that ran through the North Caucasus in the early 1990s, carrying scholars and artists into public prominence and binding the work of the dance floor to the work of the lecture hall.

The fullest account of Dumanishev’s reforms, and of how the politics of the republic in time overtook both the troupe and its choreographer, comes from Charles King and Sufian Zhemukhov in their study ‘Dancing the Nation in the North Caucasus’. The passage that follows is drawn from that work.

Final segment of the choreography W’erq’ Q’afa (in Circassian Уэркъ Къафэ) = Dance of the Nobility, by the State Academic Dance Ensemble ‘Kabardinka’, performed in Amman, Jordan in 1998. Choreographer: Auladin Dumanish(ev). (Думэныщ Iэулэдин - Dumanish Auladin) Soloists: Kuday Fatima & Bitoq Aslanbech

The State Academic Folk Dance Ensemble of Adygea, Nalmes, celebrates a landmark anniversary. It is a company that is a source of pride for the entire Adyghe world. Some call the ensemble a cultural symbol of our republic, others describe it as “the soul of the people expressed in dance”, while others have named it “a precious diamond”. It is hard to overstate the importance of Nalmes, which for ninety years has remained the chief guardian of the people’s centuries-old cultural traditions. Sovetskaya Adygeya tells the story of this distinguished choreographic ensemble.

Nalmes is one of Russia’s most sought-after professional ensembles. For many years it has held the title Academic, the highest in the genre of folk choreographic art. A laureate of international festivals and competitions and a recipient of the Glory of Adygea medal, the dance ensemble is a welcome guest at government concerts and at events of federal and republican significance. Nalmes honourably represented Adygea in the cultural programme of the Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014. The celebrated company has danced on prestigious stages around the world and shone on Red Square in Moscow. Finally, Nalmes is the only Caucasian ensemble that last year gave a solo concert on the stage of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses.

Contents

• From the history

• Dance works

• Life on the road

• A unifying force

• The younger generation

From the history

The history of Nalmes includes the main stages in the formation of professional choreographic art in Adygea.

Back in 1936, by decision of the Adyghe Regional Committee of the CPSU, a song and dance ensemble was established. The company began its creative path under the direction of Abdul Bedzhashev and Shaban Kubov. The ensemble not only danced, but also performed old Adyghe songs and works by composers of the Soviet period.

Any creative company is first and foremost a story of names. At all times Nalmes has brought together talented ballet masters, dancers and musicians who devoted themselves to choreographic art and to serving the culture of their people. Among those who stood at its origins, in the first line-up of the ensemble, were the dancer Ibragim Temizok, the celebrated performer of song folklore Zulkhadzhe Chicheva, the outstanding accordionist Sagid Beshkok and many others.

When the Great Patriotic War (the Second World War on the Eastern Front) began, the entire ensemble went to the front. The company resumed its work only in 1946. In the years that followed, young artists came to Nalmes whose names would be inscribed forever in the history of Adygea’s culture: Maskhud Beshkok, Umar Thabisimov, Yeredzhib Mamiy, Yusuf Khadjaev, Gissa Chich, Yuri Chirg, Cheslav Anzarokov, Shkhamcheriy Tuov, Ibragim Kurashinov, Aliy Temzok and many others.

In 1971, the company acquired the status of a state folk dance ensemble. To train professional performers, a three-year studio was opened at the Tbilisi Choreographic School, to which thirty people were sent. At the same time, another twenty artists underwent training in Maykop under Maskhud Beshkok and Nikolai Ignatenko. A truly stellar creative line-up took shape in the ensemble: Muradin and Marziyat Khadjaev, Nurbiy and Lida Kulov, Adam Barcho, Nurbiy and Larisa Khasinov, Azamat and Taganguash Baste, Lyudmila and Nalbiy Guchetl, Mira and Intikham Mamiek and many others.

Another important milestone for the ensemble was the opening, in 1979, of a choreography department at the Maykop Music College. Young talents were selected from across Adygea. In Nalmes, then led by the ballet master Amerbiy Kulov, the next generation of artists grew up and added to the company’s fame. Adam Aliberdov, Mukhamed and Mira Kulov, Aslan and Rimma Namitokov, Vladislav Tkharkakho, Asker Guchetl, Marina Guchetl, as well as a group of young professionals including Aidamir Naniz, Ruslan Abdokov, Skhatbiy Berzegov, Zarema Namitokova, Victoria Yedidzhi, Irina Abdokova, Saniyat Aliberdova, Tamara Skhaplok and many others, became the embodiment of major creative achievements.

The year 1996 was also a landmark for Nalmes. After a brilliant performance as part of the Days of Adygea’s Culture in Moscow, the ensemble was awarded the high title Academic. In the early 2000s, the company was led by Azamat Baste and Mukhamed Kulov, brilliant dancers in their time, as director and artistic director of the ensemble. New stars lit up in Nalmes: Anzhelika Khakuy, Baturay Shaguch, Adam Bakhov, Irina Mamsirova, Ruslan Ashinov, Ademir and Muradin Kulov.

Thirteen years ago, Aslan Khadjaev, a representative of a well-known dance dynasty, became head of the ensemble, and under his leadership Nalmes continues to reach new heights. New names began to be heard: Diana Berzegova, Aliy Kulov, Gushau Yedydzh, Artur Abidov, Murat Kiyasov, Susanna and Beslan Simbuletov, and other talented artists.

The company has always had an orchestra of Adyghe musical instruments, whose professionalism and performing mastery have never lagged behind those of the ensemble’s dancers. We wrote about its instrumental group earlier in Sovetskaya Adygeya, no. 101 of 9 June.

Dance works

The dances and choreographic compositions are what make Nalmes outstanding, unlike any other ensemble, and what lift it to the highest professional level. Each number is a complete dance work, built according to all the laws of dramatic composition. Over the ensemble’s long history, its ballet masters have created the most varied artistic images, masterfully embodied on stage by the dancers Khadjismel Varziev, Khashir Doshuev, Grigory Galperin, Muradin Khadjaev, Amerbiy Kulov, Mukhamed Kulov and Aslan Khadjaev. Today, all the numbers in the repertoire are gathered into ten different programmes. Each time the artists step onto the stage, the audience is drawn again and again into a dance story created by music, movement and the emotions of the performers.

In the old Adyghe dance Zafak, which stands at the centre of Adyghe choreographic culture, a kind of dialogue unfolds on stage between a young man and a young woman. It is marked by smoothness, restraint and grace. In the repertoire of Nalmes, this majestic dance has existed in productions by different ballet masters. The soloists who performed the main part became true favourites of the people. In professional circles, the dance pair of Marziyat Khadjaeva and Aslan Namitokov is regarded as a model of benchmark performance of Zafak. They danced together for ten years.

Dances such as Youth of Adygea, Qesh’oq’aunch, Lhepech’as and the choreographic miniature At the Haymaking are full of playfulness and fiery energy, which reach the audience. Comic productions in the Nalmes repertoire have always aroused special interest among the public. The older generation of spectators remembers well the number based on a folk tale, in which the resourceful Quizhiy managed to outwit the fearsome giant Inyzh. In the 1970s, this production enjoyed enormous success with audiences. Among the first performers of the number were Muradin Khadjaev and Amerbiy Kulov. Later, both dancers proved themselves as ballet masters, and their vivid productions adorned the Nalmes repertoire for many years.

“When I was given the role of the Giant, I remember they suggested I dance in a mask. But I refused, because it was always important to me to show all the actor’s emotions with my own facial expressions. It was a very good, expressive number,” recalls Amerbiy Kulov.

One of the vivid character images created in Nalmes was the mythical warrior woman Tyrghetau, by the ballet master Amerbiy Kulov. In the choreographic composition, the dancer conveys a whole range of difficult emotions. The image of an Amazon in armour, forced to fight with her braids hidden beneath a helmet, was embodied by different performers, but for the Honoured Artist of Russia Anzhelika Khakuy, Tyrghetau became a truly star-making role. For many years, it has been her image as the Amazon that has adorned the ensemble’s posters and concert stage.

The public also loves The Birth of Islamey, staged by Mukhamed Kulov. A legend is played out before the audience, telling of one of the most beautiful old Adyghe dances. The production uses complex costumes with sleeve pieces imitating great wings. The male and female performers soar across the stage like two majestic birds, creating a familiar dance pattern.

In the project Adyghe Folk Wedding, the staging was by the ensemble’s chief ballet master, Aslan Khadjaev. It is a dance performance in which the artists of Nalmes, beyond the choreographic part, have to inhabit a character and deliver lines.

“This was a large-scale grant project in 2023, in which the centuries-old customs of the people were conveyed down to the smallest detail. Ethnographic scholars worked on it, costumes were specially made, the musical material was carefully selected, and animated scenery was created. The project was a success. Adyghe Folk Wedding is well received by audiences of any nationality,” says Aslan Khadjaev.

It is impossible within a single article to describe the variety of numbers in the exceptionally rich repertoire of the Nalmes ensemble. Each of them is like part of a magnificent pattern stitched into the history of Adygea’s choreographic art.

Life on the road

Touring is an inseparable part of the creative life of a large company. The route map, road, bus, hotel, stage, becomes a way of life for the ensemble’s members. Over its years of work, Nalmes has travelled through dozens of cities and countries, demonstrating the highest level of performance skill. One curious exhibit recalling the ensemble’s trip to Japan is kept in the museum of the Philharmonic of the Concert Association of Adygea. Among retro posters and other valuable items, attention is drawn to a souvenir in the form of a traditional headpiece, which was presented to Nalmes during tours in the early 1980s. The Honoured Artist of Russia Azamat Baste was part of that young company that set off to win over the Land of the Rising Sun. A graduate of the three-year special course at the Tbilisi Choreographic School, he and his wife, the People’s Artist of Adygea Taganguash Baste, were soloists of Nalmes for many years.

Later, Azamat Chemalevich worked as director of the ensemble for sixteen years.

“We went there at the invitation of the Socialist Party of Japan. The head of the delegation was Ruslan Panesh, head of the culture department of the Adyghe Regional Executive Committee, and it was to him that this commemorative helmet was presented at the farewell evening. Of course, that trip was something unusual for us. Japan was exotic and far away. The public received us wonderfully. We performed in sixteen cities, including Olympic Sapporo, where the 1972 Winter Games were held. As for my time as director, those were years when, after the perestroika period, we had to look for new paths and establish contacts. In sixteen years, Mukhamed Kulov and I managed to organise many trips. One of the significant ones was to Italy. In the city of Catania, on the stage of the famous opera house, Teatro Massimo Bellini, Nalmes performed to a full house for eight evenings in a row,” Azamat Baste recalls with pride.

Besides Japan and Italy, the ensemble’s extensive touring biography includes concerts in China, Poland, Bulgaria, Belarus, the United States, Canada, Belgium, the UAE, Libya, Germany and France.

There were also tours in the chronicle of Nalmes that had historical significance. These were the ensemble’s first visits to countries where the Adyghe diaspora lives: Turkey, Israel, Syria and Jordan. Today, performances by Nalmes before compatriots abroad are no longer rare, and modern technologies also make it possible to organise online broadcasts of concerts that anyone can join. In the early 1990s, however, each arrival of Nalmes became a true celebration for the large Adyghe diaspora. Galim Zubail, one of the long-standing members of Nalmes, a People’s Artist of Adygea and a musician in the orchestra, shared his memories of the first trip to Turkey.

“The very first concert took place in a sports hall for several thousand people. In those days, that was normal. We, the artists, had to walk along the stands to the central area. And can you imagine, spectators were jumping over the barriers towards us with tears in their eyes, just to embrace us! We gave more than twenty concerts in Turkey then, and every time we were received like that. That is something I have remembered for the rest of my life,” the artist admitted.

A unifying force

Nalmes became an invisible thread connecting Adyghes throughout the world. Over time, dances preserved among Adyghes abroad appeared in the ensemble’s repertoire: Lheperyshu, A Necklace of Folk Dances of the Adyghe Diaspora and Dance of the Circassians of Anatolia. The artistic company was also joined by dancers from among compatriots who had returned to their historical homeland. One of the leading performers today is Gushau Yedydzh. The name of Baturay Shaguch is also well known to all admirers of Nalmes. He was a young man from Turkey who came to Adygea, following his dream of dancing in the legendary Nalmes. Having travelled the long road from beginner artist to soloist and performer of one of the most difficult numbers, the dagger dance, Baturay, through his vivid individuality and skill, managed to win the recognition of the public. For his high professional achievements, he was awarded the title People’s Artist of the Republic of Adygea.

Nalmes is one large dance family. The ensemble’s line-up is multinational. Among those captured many years ago by the unifying force of dance was Elena Sergeeva. She devoted more than twenty years to Nalmes, her entire working life as a ballet artist. In Elena’s view, the years in the ensemble amount to a whole lifetime. Long journeys, rehearsals, concerts, and without mutual support and respect among the artists, nothing can succeed. She recalled how, as a teenager at the Palace of Pioneers, she attended a dance circle led by the choreographer Sara Tlekhuch, but had not planned to connect her life with the stage. Her friends invited her to take the entrance examination at the music college.

“I absorbed a special attitude to Adyghe culture in early childhood. We girls would run to Nalmes concerts and watch Mukhamed Kulov and Vladislav Tkharkakho. They were our idols. At the college, of course, it was not easy. Students were admitted from the seventh class. We lived for two years in the boarding school, then studied for another three years. I remember all my teachers with warmth and gratitude: Amerbiy Tsuovich Kulov, Inver Salikhovich Yunukh and other mentors. In Nalmes, when I had just arrived, that was in 1991, the senior artists helped us a great deal, Zoya Kemecheva and others. Nalmes is like family to me. Even in the city, when I see the ensemble’s bus, everything tightens inside,” Elena admits. “Of all the dances, I always loved the most classical ones: Zafak, Nalmes Dances, Wuj. They have that unsurpassed manner and bearing we were taught. In these productions, the beauty of Adyghe dance is reflected especially vividly.”

Once they have touched the world of choreography, many artists remain faithful to this art form for their whole lives, while for some, service to the stage becomes a family tradition. Over the long history of Nalmes, many dance dynasties have taken shape: the Khadjaevs, Kulovs, Bastes, Namitokovs, Khasinovs, Gunazhokovs, Barchos, Guchetls, Mamieks and others.

A vivid example of continuity between generations is the Khadjaev dynasty. Today, a representative of the fourth generation of this artistic family dances in Nalmes. It all began with the outstanding Yusuf Salikhovich Khadjaev. His son Muradin, a dancer and ballet master who led the Nalmes ensemble, followed in his footsteps. His wife Marziyat Khadjaeva was, for twenty years, not simply a soloist of the ensemble, but a standard of stage beauty and grace. Their son Aslan Khadjaev, the current artistic director of Nalmes, continues the family tradition. Two of his children also work in the company: Daniel dances in the ballet, while Iland plays in the orchestra.

Following the example of their parents, Islam Bakhov, Muradin Kulov, Madina Mamsirova, Batyr and Bela Namitokov now appear on stage. They continue the creative families of stage masters who devoted many years to national choreography.

The younger generation

Many generations of spectators have grown up on the dances of Nalmes. The company has always set dance trends among young people, and over time, under its influence, a distinctive code of behaviour has formed, one that people try to follow on any dance floor where Adyghe music is heard. The ensemble has set a high standard, and now dozens of young talents in the republic’s children’s companies strive towards it. Many of them, from an early age, catch fire with the dream of dancing specifically in Nalmes.

For many years, the main forge of professional personnel for the company has remained the U. H. Thabisimov Adyghe Republican College of Arts. Since 2015, a special course has operated there to train artists for the Nalmes ensemble. The initiator of the course was Mukhamed Kulov, then Minister of Culture of Adygea and formerly a dancer and artistic director of Nalmes. During their training, young artists have the opportunity to hone their skills while being close to the company’s current dancers. The students master the entire repertoire and are ready at any moment to join the troupe.

“The best years of my life were spent in Nalmes. To get there was my dream. And I can say that it came true two hundred per cent: I danced, I directed, and I taught. From time to time the personnel question would come to a head, and there was a shortage of young reinforcement. We began to work on that. We drew up a tripartite agreement between the educational institution, the region’s Ministry of Culture and the employer, so that graduates would first of all enter Nalmes, work for the good of the republic and continue the people’s great dance heritage. And now it can be said with confidence that this method works very effectively,” says Mukhamed Kulov.

Today’s Nalmes is the splendour of stage costumes, a diversity of musical instruments and an exceptionally rich repertoire. A special source of pride is the ensemble’s concert hall, which after reconstruction has become a modern temple of art and has given Nalmes even greater technical possibilities. Yet the ensemble’s greatest wealth has always been, and remains, its creative company, in which around a hundred people work.

The dance ensemble is spending its anniversary year with a dense touring schedule. As part of the festive tour, the company has already visited many Russian cities. The artists of Nalmes have been applauded in Lipetsk, St Petersburg and even Kaliningrad. According to the ensemble’s artistic director and chief ballet master, a round anniversary is merely a reason to breathe out a little and set one’s sights on new heights.

“There are always many creative ideas. Perhaps the moment they run dry, life will no longer be interesting. In this sense, we are very ambitious. We know where we need to move and where we should not go. And the best is still ahead,” Aslan Khadjaev is certain.

Towards ten o’clock on the morning of 10 July 1829, the watchers in General Emanuel’s camp on the river Malka saw something that the dispatch they later sent down to Tiflis struggles to keep calm about. The climbing party, academicians, Cossack volunteers and a handful of Circassian escorts, had been visible all morning labouring up the snows of Elbrus, more than half way by nine, then hidden behind a band of rocks where they stopped to rest. An hour passed. Then a single man appeared above the rocks, alone, advancing towards the summit with what the report calls a firm and measured step. The camp waited in vain for others to follow him. Nobody appeared; on the contrary, many of the climbers began to come down. Every eye fixed on the one who kept going. He rested every five or six steps, and just below the top he vanished among the rocks. Towards eleven o’clock he was suddenly seen on the very summit of Elbrus, and the camp answered him with a discharge of musketry, with music, songs and cheering.

Until that evening, the dispatch admits, nobody below knew who he was. The party had to come back down before the camp learned that the man who had alone dared the final ascent, the first of mortals, as the report puts it, to stand on the highest mountain of the Caucasus, was a Kabardian, a former shepherd, lame and deformed, named Kilar. General Emanuel paid him the promised prize of 400 roubles in assignats and five arshins of cloth.

That identification, written within weeks of the event by people who had watched the climb through their own eyes and questioned the descending party the same evening, is the bedrock of everything that can be said about the climber’s origin. His name reaches us in several spellings, Kilar, Killar, Kiliar in the 1829 texts, and in the fuller modern form Khilar Khashirov; this essay keeps to Khashirov. His ethnicity, by contrast, has become a matter of dispute. Kabardians, a Circassian people, count him as one of their own, and so do the Karachays, a Turkic people of the same mountains. The question is best settled the way historians settle most such questions, by going back to the earliest records and following them forward in order.

The expedition and its dispatch

The ascent took place during the scientific expedition that left the hot mineral waters near Beshtau for Elbrus on 26 June 1829, commanded in person by the cavalry general Emanuel. With him travelled a serious scientific party: Kupfer the mineralogist, Ménétrié the zoologist and keeper of the museum of the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Lenz the physicist, Meyer the botanist of Dorpat, and Vansovich, an officer of the mines of the Lugansk works. After a wet and difficult march the expedition reached the foot of Elbrus on 8 July and camped on the Malka, the baggage left fifteen versts behind, a single cannon hauled to within eight versts of the camp. The next morning the sky cleared and, in the dispatch’s words, the two pinnacles of Elbrus appeared in all their majesty. The academicians decided to seize the weather. Equipped with pointed staves and cords, escorted by some Circassians and Cossack volunteers, they left camp at nine in the morning, reached the first snows by evening, and set out for the summit at three o’clock on the morning of the 10th.

The account of what followed, the frost that favoured them, the softening snow that clogged their feet, the frequent halts, the turning back of the rest, and the lone climber’s final hour, was written up as a report dated from Goryachevodsk on 2 August 1829 and published by the Gazette de Tiflis. Its authors were participants in the expedition who had observed the ascent from the camp below. On the climber’s identity the report is explicit: he was a Kabardian (a Circassian), a former shepherd, deformed and lame. It is worth pausing on how good this evidence is. It is contemporary, written within three weeks. It is first hand, since the writers spoke with the returning party that same day, and Khashirov was physically present in the camp to receive his reward from Emanuel’s own hand. And it had no stake whatever in any later quarrel between Kabardians and Karachays; in 1829 there was no controversy to take a side in. The report simply states what the expedition learned.

The dispatch crosses Europe

The Tiflis report did not stay in the Caucasus. On 19 September (1 October by the new style) 1829 it was reprinted by the Journal de St-Pétersbourg, and from the capital it travelled west with remarkable speed, the identification of the climber travelling intact with it.

In Paris the Nouvelles Annales des Voyages et des Sciences Géographiques printed a full version in its volume for October to December 1829, under a title that puts the climber’s nationality on the masthead: Ascension du Mont Elbrouz par un Cherkesse contrefait et boiteux, the ascent of Mount Elbrus by a deformed and lame Circassian. The journal’s editors prefaced the report with a careful discussion of the mountain’s height, drawing on the measurements that the astronomer Vishnevsky had made in 1813 from the fortresses of Konstantinogorsk and Kislovodsk. Vishnevsky, who could not approach the mountain itself with his instruments, had found Elbrus to have two distinct summits, the eastern at a mean of 2,878 toises above the sea and the western at 2,898, and the editors judged his figures sounder than the round 16,800 feet given in the dispatch. Which of the two summits Khashirov reached the documents do not say, and nothing is gained by guessing; the report says only that he was seen on the very top of Elbrus.

The scientific results travelled by the same channels. Gay-Lussac presented to the Paris Academy of Sciences a letter from Kupfer, written from the waters of Beshtau on 29 July 1829, describing the physical observations made on the mountain, among them the finding that magnetic intensity diminished with altitude, a result the academicians compared with Gay-Lussac’s own balloon ascent over Paris in 1804. The Bulletin des Sciences Géographiques carried the notice in 1830, in its volume XXI, and its title repeats the essential fact once more: the first ascent of the summit of the Caucasus chain par un Tcherkesse, by a Circassian. The Revue encyclopédique of 1830 told the same story, citing the Tiflis source, of the lame Kabardian’s incredible climb.

The English press kept step. The Morning Post of London, on Thursday 29 October 1829, printed the Gazette de Tiflis report at length under the heading The Scientific Expedition to the Caucasus. Its translation follows the French closely, the departure on 26 June, the camp on the Malka, the escort of Circassians and Cossack volunteers, Lenz reaching 15,200 feet, and on the central point it is unambiguous: the audacious adventurer who had alone dared the ascent and proved its possibility was a Kabardian, an old herdsman named Kiliar, lame and deformed, rewarded with 400 roubles and five arshins of cloth offered by General Emanuel. Within four months of the climb, then, readers in Tiflis, St Petersburg, Paris and London had all been given the same man with the same identity.

Golitsyn, the Karachay claim, and the long afterlife

The near-contemporary Russian record points the same way. Prince Golitsyn, Emanuel’s biographer, in his Life-Sketches of the Cavalry General Emanuel (Moscow, 1851), names Khilar specifically as a Circassian from Kabarda. Golitsyn wrote within living memory of the expedition and of its commander, and he had no discernible motive to assign the climber to one mountain people rather than another. With his testimony the chain is complete: eyewitness dispatch, French and English reprints, and the general’s own biographer, all agreeing.

Against this stands the Karachay tradition, which holds that the climber was a Karachay and so a Turkic highlander rather than a Circassian. The claim deserves to be stated fairly, and it is sincerely held. But it is a later attribution, and it finds no support in the documents of 1829 to 1851. No contemporary source calls the climber a Karachay; every contemporary source that names his people calls him a Kabardian or a Circassian, beginning with the men who stood in the camp and watched him climb. Where the evidence is of such different weight, eyewitness record on one side and later tradition on the other, the historian’s duty is plain.

The ascent itself had a long afterlife in print, and the afterlife confirms how the nineteenth century remembered it. When three Englishmen climbed Elbrus and Kazbek in the 1860s, parts of the British press treated theirs as a first ascent, and the Glasgow Evening Citizen of 1868, citing a German paper, took the trouble to correct the mistake. It is an error, the notice says, to suppose these mountains were then ascended for the first time; in 1829 Kupfer, Meyer and other men of science were sent into the Caucasus by the Academy of Sciences at St Petersburg and ascended Elbrus with Circassian guides, the history of the expedition being given in Kupfer’s Voyage dans les environs du Mont Elbrouz of 1830 and in Klaproth’s Nouveau Journal Asiatique for January 1831. Even at forty years’ distance, with the climber’s name forgotten, the memory that survived in the European press was of Circassians on the mountain.

The record, then, is unusually consistent for an event of its date. A dispatch written by eyewitnesses within weeks names the man who reached the summit as a Kabardian shepherd. The journals of Paris, the bulletin read to the French Academy, the newspapers of St Petersburg and London repeat it without variation. The biographer of the general who paid out the 400 roubles confirms it a generation later. Khilar Khashirov has every right to be remembered exactly as the men who watched him climb described him on the day: a Kabardian Circassian, lame, unheralded, and first of mortals on the summit of Elbrus.

Sources

1. “Ascension du Mont Elbrouz par un Cherkesse contrefait et boiteux”, Nouvelles Annales des Voyages et des Sciences Géographiques, 2e série, tome XIV (October to December 1829), Paris, pp. 120 to 124, reproducing the Gazette de Tiflis dispatch of 2 August 1829; Russian translation in “Voskhozhdenie na Elbrus v 1829 godu. Arkhivnye materialy”.

2. “Observations faites sur le Mont Elbrouz par M. Kupfer, et première ascension de la sommité de cette chaîne du Caucase par un Tcherkesse”, Bulletin des Sciences Géographiques, tome XXI, Paris, 1830, pp. 497 to 501.

3. “The Scientific Expedition to the Caucasus”, The Morning Post, London, 29 October 1829.

4. Prince Golitsyn, Zhizneopisanie Generala ot Kavalerii Emanuelya (Life-Sketches of the Cavalry General Emanuel), Moscow, 1851.

5. “The Caucasus”, Glasgow Evening Citizen, 1868.

6. Khilar Khashirov briefing document (with reference to the Journal de St-Pétersbourg reprint of 19 September / 1 October 1829 and the Revue encyclopédique, tome XLV, 1830).

The first album, Нартыжь (Nartyzh – The Narts), is dedicated to the memory of the legendary Circassian singer, musicologist, and folklorist Vladimir Baragun (1939–1997). One of the greatest voices in Circassian music, Baragun devoted his life to preserving ancient songs, Nart epics, heroic ballads, and traditional melodies. His powerful operatic voice and lifelong work documenting Circassian musical heritage continue to inspire new generations. This album is offered as a humble tribute to his remarkable legacy.

Listen Нартыжь on Spotify | YouTube | Apple Music

The second release, Хэкум и Джэрпэджэжхэр (Echoes of the Caucasus), presents a collection of instrumental arrangements and reinterpretations of beloved melodies from Circassia and Abkhazia. Drawing primarily from modern compositions while remaining rooted in the region’s musical traditions, the album seeks to introduce the beauty of Caucasian music to both long-time listeners and new audiences.

Listen Нартыжь on Spotify | YouTube | Apple Music

Both albums are now available on major streaming platforms. I hope they contribute, in their own small way, to keeping our musical heritage alive and sharing it with the wider world.

Metin Kodzoko
Къуэдзокъуэ Метин

Summary

Georgian scholars like to refer to their constituent musical traditions as ‘dialects’. But visits to the borderlands of the state (notably Svaneti and Tusheti) suggest that this may be the wrong metaphor, given the affinities of these traditions with North Caucasian practices (Kabardino-Balkaria and Chechnya / Dagestan respectively). If we visit yet another Georgian ‘borderland’, Abkhazia, the issue comes into yet sharper focus, since here musical affinities with North Caucasian (Circassian) traditions serve to underline the contested politics of the state.

An Abkhaz-Adygean (Circassian) culture survives today as much (or more) in Turkey as in its ancestral homelands, following the expulsion of populations in the 1860s. It has been cultivated above all in the Circassian Associations of cities such as Kayseri and Ankara, where music and dance (even more than language) have been important markers of cultural and political identity in a context of frequent minoritarian oppression. Since the 1990s, however, return to the Caucasus has become possible, whether as occasional visits, as a vie bifurquée, or as full settlement. There can also be movement in the other direction, and of course the Internet can now enable ‘virtual returns’. In this context, music and dance become the litmus tests of allegiance.

Key words: Migration, exile, identity, return

This paper is about Circassians, whose ancestral homeland lies north of the Greater Caucasus mountain range, but many of whom were exiled to Anatolia and beyond in the 1860s. I will get to that story shortly. However, I want to begin with Georgia, which lies south of the mountain range, and specifically with the Georgian borderlands. Everyone knows that Georgia is proud of its traditional polyphony. It has become something of a national symbol. As such it helped preserve a sense of Georgian identity during Soviet times, and it has been worn as a badge of pride since the declaration of independence in 1991. Indeed, following its recognition by UNESCO in 2001, Georgian polyphony has been all but fetishized in its homeland.[1] The scholarly emblem of this is the Centre for Traditional Polyphony at Tbilisi Conservatory, with its biennial published symposia produced by an energetic team of scholars under the direction of Rusudan Tsurtsumia.[2] Yet all this needs a little scrutiny. Georgia comprises regions that have their own languages, their own histories, and their own strongly developed sense of cultural identity. So we should, I think, be a little cautious of the tendency of Georgian scholars to label their regional polyphonic practices as musical ‘dialects’, with the implication that they are variants of a unified national culture.

In the course of fieldwork in Georgia I visited song masters in both the north-western and the north-eastern borderlands. When I listened to the music of Svaneti in the western mountains, it was immediately obvious that this simple homorhythmic polyphony had little in common with the complex textures of Guria, Mingrelia or Adjara down on the Black Sea littoral.[3] Georgian scholars have assigned various labels to it, including ‘synchronised polyphony’ and ‘chordal units polyphony’.[4] The labels are unsatisfactory (at least in translation), but they do at least draw attention to the prevailing homophony, within which there exists a kind of dialectic between independent and interdependent part movement.[5] The inclination of the singers is to a normative organum-like parallelism, coloured by non-tempered tunings. But the individual parts constantly seek to break free from this norm, deviating from the pervasive parallelism to generate idiomatic dissonant harmonies. Now the Svaneti song master Islam Pilpani assured me that you hear rather similar music on the other side of the mountain range, in what are now the Russian republics of Karachay-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria, and I was later able to confirm this on a visit to the North Caucasus. The Maykop-based ethnomusicologist Alla Sokolova told me that, aside from the language, she could barely distinguish Svaneti singing from the eastern Circassian singing in Karachay-Cherkessia (even today, political borders are not easily controlled in these high mountains). So I have to be suspicious of the pedigreed narrative about dialects. And by the way in some accounts it even becomes an historical narrative, with the Svanetian tradition represented as an early stage in the evolution of Georgian polyphony. What is clear is that cultural and political borders are out of sync.

Sometime after the trip to Svaneti I visited Tusheti in the eastern mountains. And it was while I was looking around the ethnographic museum in Zemo Alvani, on the border between Kahketi and Tusheti, that I heard a rather haunting music played on accordion in another part of the building. When I sought it out, it transpired that the performer was Eliko Torghiraidze, niece of the well-known Tushetian musician Epiro Torghiraidze, and one of the few people currently performing a traditional Tushetian repertory on the instrument today. I was taken aback when I heard this music, for it was actually a style I recognised. Six months earlier I had been in central Anatolia among the Circassian diaspora communities. The music played by Eliko instantly recalled music I had heard there, music that had originated in the North Caucasus. There were differences of course, but the underlying harmonic basis, often a simple alternation of a major triad and the minor triad a tone higher, was the same, as was the repetitive rhythm and the dense layer of trilled ornamentation over alternating pedal points.

If we insist on invoking dialects here, we might want to claim that this music is a dialect not so much of Georgian as of North Caucasian music. In other words, I was discovering that the musical idioms of the North Caucasus had spilled over the mountain range to Tusheti in eastern Georgia. Again I had to question the Georgian narrative. What we actually see in both these borderlands is a political boundary dividing a shared culture. This is not exactly uncommon. One only has to think of the traditional polyphony of Epirus, labelled by UNESCO as ‘Albanian folk iso-polyphony’, but also performed by Greek singers (in the Greek language of course) on the other side of the political border, and indeed by Vlach singers (in the Aromanian language) on both sides.[6] None of this should surprise us. It is in the nature of music to flow and to spread. Partition is not its natural condition.

The third borderland I visited was Abkhazia, whose political status, as everyone knows, is contested. For Abkhazians, theirs is a politically independent country, albeit heavily dependent economically on Russia. Yet for Georgians, and for most of the international community, it remains an occupied part of Georgian territory; it is Georgian. This is not so much a political boundary dividing a shared culture as a cultural border dividing an officially unified polity. In any case, however you view the politics, there is in truth a considerable cultural space between Georgia and Abkhazia, and it goes without saying that it has been consciously widened in recent years. The Abkhaz language belongs to a Northwest Caucasian group, entirely separate from the Georgian Kartvelian group, and it has especially close affinities with Adygean. Indeed the term ‘Abkhaz-Adygean’ is sometimes used to describe this western branch of the language, and the term also has a wider cultural resonance. The remnants of Circassian culture in the Caucasus today exist within a triangular nexus formed by Sukhum, Maykop and Nalchik, the three capitals of Abkhazia, Adygea and Kabardino-Balkaria respectively, though there are lower-level activities in Cherkessk in Karachay-Cherkessia, and especially among the Abazin populations there (it should be emphasized that Circassian peoples are in a minority in these homeland territories, and especially in Adygea).

Of my several encounters with traditional music during my stay in Abkhazia the most memorable was a vodka-fuelled rehearsal by one of several secondary ensembles that were established there during Soviet times. The ensemble is called Gunda, after a female character in the Nart sagas, which might be considered the originary epic of Circassia, and of the North Caucasus more generally. Incidentally, the distribution of Nart corpora also speaks very powerfully of a shared Abkhaz - Circassian culture,[7] and there exists a body of mid-twentieth-century recordings of Nart epic songs, notably by the once celebrated Narta amateur ensemble of so-called ’long-lived’ men, founded in 1946 and directed by Ivan Kortua. The music performed by Gunda is far removed from these early recordings. Moreover, unlike the excellent Zhyu ensemble in Maykop, directed by the multi-talented Zamudin Guche, Gunda seldom performs the Nart songs, whose minimalist character, mantra-like repetitions, narrow tessitura chanting and ritual word-tone archaisms (‘woyra, woyra, woriyrariy!’) are distinctly at odds with the performance styles of today (they are best heard in traditional Adyge villages such as Shovgenovsk). Under their charismatic leader Rosa Chamagua, Gunda favours instead a heavily folklorized performance style, in the manner of the ensembles that once paraded their wares at festivals and competitions all over Soviet and Soviet-controlled territories. Yet it was still obvious to me that this music was much closer to Circassian than to Georgian traditions. And again I was reminded of the performances I had heard in the Circassian communities of Anatolia.[8]

Which brings me at last to Turkey. In the early evening of 22 May last year I joined several hundred Abkhazians and Circassians in the Turkish city Kayseri for their annual ‘genocide day’ commemoration (the day itself is actually 21 May). The genocide in question (though there are the usual queries about the term) took place in the mid 1860s, with 1864 as the key date. In the wake of a comprehensive defeat of the legendary Dagestani warrior Imam Shamyl in 1859, Russia engaged in a campaign of destruction and deportation, marking a definitive stage in its conquest of the Caucasus. At this point vast numbers of Circassians were exiled to Anatolia, and Abkhaz Muslims were expelled shortly after. The preservation and subsequent reconstruction of their cultural identities in the Ottoman world was a long, arduous and defensive process. But it was driven throughout by a powerful sense of that original injustice. The imperative was to counter the injustice through the reconstitution of an ethnic memory. Preserving the culture – the cultural nation – was a political enterprise from the start.

The events in Kayseri began with an organized walk. We made our way northwards along Mustafa Kemal Paşa Bulvarı, and then, describing a kind of extended arc, into Ayvacık Caddesi until finally we arrived at the Kadir Has Kongre Merkezi ve Spor Kompleksi for the formal part of the ceremony. Distinctive green Circassian flags were held aloft during the walk, along with innumerable placards, some referring to the genocide itself, others calling for a wider international recognition of Abkhazia. The mood was festive and good-humoured, and it was soon clear that this is a tight-knit community, one where people know each other well. At the main auditorium the events of the 1860s were evoked through a lengthy representational sequence, involving old photographs, film, dance, music, poetry and mime, all clearly designed to draw together the public and private dimensions of the massacres and the subsequent expulsion, in the course of which many more died. The more monumental aspects of the history were certainly on display, but there were also vignettes depicting the impact of these events on domestic life. It was an impressive programme, and it became genuinely moving at the end, when the Imam gave a final benediction in the mother tongue, long banned from the mosques of Turkey. At this point, among the older generation, tissues began to make discreet appearances.

In considering the Circassian narrative it is hard not to be struck by the parallel with Armenians in diaspora, albeit with oppressors (Turkey and Russia) and faiths (Christian and Muslim) standing in something like an inverse relation. There are similar stories to tell about the nation-defining role of the genocides, especially in light of non-recognition by respective perpetrators, about the ambivalence that attaches itself to concepts of home(s) and of return (more recently, the Internet has transformed this latter concept), about the key roles of language and music in validating the diasporic nation, about the ‘second generation’ effect beloved of exile studies more generally, and about an internal east-west division – with associated dialects – within the respective national communities. Even the outsider characterization of femininity constitutes a shared narrative. Naturally there are differences. Despite their best efforts, Circassians in diaspora arguably lost the battle for language, and partly for this reason music and dance have assumed primary significance in defining their culture, albeit in a homogenized form that can rather easily fall prey to exoticist readings by host communities. In comparison, as Sylvia Angelique Alajaji makes clear, the Armenians, and especially the Lebanese Armenians, secured the language and quickly harnessed it to the national cause.[9] Another crucial difference is that the entire world knows about the Armenian genocide, while the Circassian story struggles to be heard, as does, incidentally, the story of the Crimean Tatars, to cite another viable comparator. There is an asymmetry of visibility, and we may well ask why.

The significance of Kayseri for the Circassians is that it is placed strategically on one of two rather distinct lines of migration across Anatolia followed by the original Circassian settlers. The western line, taken by those who landed at the port of Kefken, near Düzce, crosses to Bursa, and proceeds from there down through Karıncalı and Manisa to Izmir on the Aegean coast (there are Circassian writings on the walls of a large cave near Kefken where many of the refugees initially sheltered). The eastern line begins at the ports of either Trabzon or Samsun (in some cases also Sinope) and takes in Sivas and Kayseri before making its way down through Kahramanmaraş and Hatay to Israel, Jordan and Syria. Circassian communities can be found at various points along these two lines of travel. Needless-to-say, this is a somewhat oversimplified mapping. There was in reality a much wider dispersal, and in numerous cases there was secondary displacement and renewed settlement. But the model does have some explanatory value when we look at the geography of the diaspora in Turkey today. The Western line was made up mainly of western Circassians, including Abazins and Ubyks, while the eastern line was mainly Kabardians. There are significantly different musical idioms between these two groups – indeed there is a preference for dance in the eastern line and for music in the western – but I will pass over that here.

By any account, Kayseri is of central significance for Circassians. The present-day Circassian population of the city was initially based in around seventy villages in the nearby district of Uzunyayla, with the process of settlement intensified following the Russo-Circassian war of 1763-1864. The layout of Uzunyayla, and in particular the names of its villages and streets, has been examined in a project on ‘landscapes of memory’ by Eiji Miyazawa, focusing especially on how changes in the names spelt out changing connections between the ancestral homeland and the adopted homeland.[10] Miyazawa documents the on-going defensive struggle to maintain an ethnic identity, a process he regards as both heavily contested within the community and of its nature incomplete. Yet, however much a separate Circassian identity may have been subject to internal dissension and the politics of envy in this and other relatively closed communities (bearing in mind the tribal diversity of these peoples), it was preserved in a relatively stable state in the late nineteenth century, and for much of the subsequent history of the diaspora. This did not preclude Circassians achieving distinction within the ranks of the Ottoman administration and military, but it did mean relatively little intermarriage with the Turks, and even a form of Islam that was essentially different from Ottoman traditions (many of the Imams had studied in Egypt). The Uzunyayla villages in particular were insulated from their immediate surroundings. Aside from living ‘in khabze’ (a ubiquitous, if untranslatable, Kabardian word embracing traditional values and customs, codes of etiquette, property and inheritance, and the pedigreed practices of hospitality and of everyday social life), their population, including the younger generation, spoke the mother tongue, even when they became Turkish citizens with the establishment of the Republic (which limited their language rights), and this remained the case until the 1980s.

At this point things began to change, partly because of a renewed Turkification of both schools and mosques, and partly because, under the more general imperatives of modernity, Circassians from the villages began to drift towards the cities, with a consequent weakening of the oral tradition, and increasing intermarriage with the Turks. Today the villages of Uzunyayla are largely depleted, and it is only in summer that people return there to tend their plots. It is generally considered that the move to the cities (Ankara as well as Kayseri) was hugely detrimental to a strong sense of Circassian identity, mainly because the younger generation developed more and more points of contact with their coevals in the Turkish community. In the terms adopted by some critical theorists, genealogical thinking (the ways of the fathers) began to yield to a form of generational (or cohort) thinking associated with a shared, and increasingly global, youth culture.[11] Ironically enough, this tendency was reinforced by the pedigreed separation of the generations in traditional Circassian society; even in modern households today, it is deemed inappropriate for a daughter-in-law to initiate conversation with the man of the house, for example.

This opening out to Turkey has continued apace, but after the break up of the Soviet Union, there has also been a contrary process, as Circassians have simultaneously closed in on themselves, renewing their culture, re-investing in its traditions, and re-forging a sense of national identity in defiance of assimilationist tendencies and policies of Turkification. The process was facilitated by easier travel to Sukhum, Maykop and Nalchik, by the renewed possibility of direct dialogue between the ancestral homeland and diasporic communities, and – as recently as 2013 – by the government’s eventual acceptance of Abkhaz and Adygean as official minority languages (it should be stressed that even those younger people to whom the language is lost can preserve a cultural identity through investment in khabze). This cultural renewal was no longer a matter of preservation but of reconstruction, and the prime movers in the reconstruction were the Circassian Associations. The associations were really products of the migration of Circassian populations to the cities, and they effectively set out to recreate the villages within the cities by re-vivifying the culture, albeit in a newly homogenized form. There are more than sixty such associations in Turkey today, networked through the Federation of Circassian Associations in Istanbul and the International Circassian Association in Nalchik.

The Association movement began with a single dernek (association building) in the early twentieth century, but it mushroomed in the post World War II era, albeit facing a difficult period following the 1980 coup d’état. Today the associations function in part as social gathering places, with young people spending much of their free time in the cafés and restaurants of the dernek, all serving traditional Circassian food, notably the distinctive ravioli-like çerkez mantısı, filled with either potato or meat and served with ‘red sauce’. Kids grow up in the shadow of the dernek and develop many of their early friendships there. But the associations further provide platforms for ethno-cultural debate, and they have often been linked with political radicalism, to the extent that Circassians from the villages sometimes look on them with disapproval. They are also centres of education, offering language classes and employing teachers from the Caucasus to give lessons in music and (especially) dance.

The double process I have described here – opening out and closing in – is mirrored rather precisely by the fates of language and music respectively. Thanks to the opening out, many young Circassians no longer speak the language. And precisely because this crucial identifier is now widely considered a lost cause, music and dance have become correspondingly more important in reconstructing the culture. That represents the closing in. The derneks I visited in Kayseri and Ankara each had a large hall with a wall-length mirror, specifically for the dance classes that take place every weekend. Since the early 1990s, it has been customary to bring (and to pay) professional teachers from institutes and colleges in the North Caucasus to instruct the children and to work with the local ensembles. Accordingly the level is high (professional standard), and the ensembles in both cities give regular public performances. While in Kayseri I watched classes given to around forty children under twelve and also attended rehearsals by the dance ensemble Ashemez (another Nart character), accompanied by members of the music group Maze, whose leader, Kayhan Demirci , is an Abkhazian. Likewise in Ankara I caught a full-dress rehearsal for a public performance to be given by junior members of the resident ensemble Badin, led by Şamil Dinçer. The costumes are worn with pride, bearing in mind that until 2008 the cherkessa was technically banned under the Turkish ‘hat law’.

To watch these rehearsals is to witness up close just why this highly stylized model of folklore (positively balletic in its poise, elegance and artistry) can function so effectively as a means of reconstructing a cultural identity. It homogenizes team behaviour, unifies group ideologies, encourages pride in the group, demands commitment, and promotes a work ethic. These dance ensembles, with their elaborate choreography, conformant costumes and routines of rehearsal, constitute structures of sociability and solidarity. They work to affirm and reinforce the attitudes and prejudices associated with Circassian identity, and at the same time they bolster resistance to any undermining of that identity by assimilationist pressures. And it all starts young. Small children have little investment in the cause, and as any advertising agent knows, the lower the investment in the product, the more effective the propaganda. And by the way, there is a further consequence of this strengthened collective identity. It renders the group an easy target for exoticist agendas on the part of the host community. Several Turkish acquaintances of mine told me how much they enjoy these full-costume dance performances, just as they appreciate Circassian food, and the fair complexions of the (mythically beautiful) Circassian women.

The performances I witnessed in Kayseri and Ankara were polished and professional. They were highly formalized, mixing line and (open) circle dances with couple dances, but also allowing for bravura male solos, notably en pointe (Adygean “lheperischw”). Gender separation was instantly apparent, with the positioning of the woman at once symbolic of domestic centrality and modesty, and suggestive of a traditional obligation on men to protect the women. In Kayseri I saw mannered depictions of several stages of the wedding ceremony, including the procession of the bride as she is escorted to her new home and the “Niseyiish” dance, where she is welcomed by her future inlaws. In Ankara I observed the stately Knight’s dance “Qafe”, the fast tempo “Shishan”, and numerous versions of the ritual dance “Wuig”, some performed as circle dances, others as couple dances. In all cases, the accompaniments, lively if unvaried, were provided by the familiar duo of Pshina (accordion) and Pxachich (clappers), but with the occasional addition of a Shik’epshine (similar to a kemençe) in Kayseri, and with energetic input from the Doul (frame drum) of Şamil Dinçer in Ankara. There was a frisson when Auledin Dumanish, one-time director of the Nalchik state ensemble Kabardinka, visited the dernek in Kayseri on the Sunday afternoon following genocide day and briefly participated in the dancing.

It is obvious that these performances have little to do with the traditional wored-s (songs) of the “long-lived” men of Circassia, however much lip service may be paid to the values of that primary practice. As in Georgia, there existed in Abkhazia and the Circassian lands a rich tradition of music connected to everyday life, including work songs, ceremonial songs (especially hunting songs), lullabies and laments, with the latter two traditionally the preserve of women. Mostly these songs were monophonic, but some were traditionally sung in two- or three-part polyphony, and even the monophonic songs often have either a vocal refrain in parallel fourths or fifths or a multi-part instrumental accompaniment. Here we might note that while North Caucasian polyphonies remained distinct in idiom from Georgian counterparts, Abkhazia had points of contact with both. Of the various northern traditions it was proximate to ancient Ossetian styles in particular, for reasons that are not entirely clear, but there were also, predictably enough given the geopolitics of the region, shared characteristics with Mingrelian idioms that are today considered Georgian (Mingrelia was part of the medieval Abkhaz Kingdom). Short-breathed phrases, a high level of repetition and a background pulse often articulated by clappers are characteristic. In addition to these repertories of ritual song, there were epic songs referencing Abkhaz and Circassian histories, often performed as stridently recited poetry with semi-improvised accompaniment. These songs are a reminder of a bardic tradition that was once widespread across the Caucasus, inviting comparison with epic traditions both to the north (Russia) and to the south (Turkey).[12]

Again as in Georgia, it is hard to pinpoint a starting point for the folklorization of Abkhaz-Adygean traditional music, given that from an early stage music was associated with particular families (in Abkhazia) and villages (in both Abkhazia and Adygea), which established and maintained a reputation for excellence. In other words, an ethos of professionalism had deep historical roots in these lands. But in the early twentieth century there was something of a step change, and this included the emergence of a star system, with legendary singers and instrumentalists beginning to appear, some of them leaving a recorded legacy. Soviet ideology played its customary role in this, of course, but it was by no means a sole cause. What it guaranteed was that a distinctive folklore movement appeared some time before such movements became commonplace, indeed all but universal, in the aftermath of World War II. And it had one other effect. The hierarchy of values created by folklore – everyday singers, professional singers – ensured that right from the start there was an ambiguity at the heart of the collecting process in the sense that collectors invariably sought out the best singers.

Undoubtedly the stylized performances of the Circassian ensembles in Turkey owe a great deal to this earlier folklore movement, which followed much the same pattern in the Abkhaz-Adygean lands as elsewhere in the Soviet Union. A professional or semi-professional genre of “folk music” was constructed on the ground of a traditional musical culture that was simultaneously made the subject of extensive collection and intensive study, and all informed by a mixture of ideologically driven and genuinely disinterested (scholarly) motives. The tasks in the Soviet Union were threefold: to map out regional musics on a systematic basis, to arrive at theoretical principles for the description and classification of those musics, and to render traditional music applicable to the modern urban world, which meant creating new institutions to support it. Of the three, it is the last that has informed the movement in Turkey, and especially in respect of dance. It is noteworthy that the choreographing and training of the dance groups in the North Caucasus often involved practitioners from long-established Russian traditions of classical ballet, and the results were transmitted in turn to the ensembles in Turkey. In short, the song and dance ensembles might best be considered simulacra, rather as Jean Baudrillard understood this term. They simulated a reality that was not (or was no longer) there, gathering a cluster of separate elements into a largely synthetic whole.[13]

Inevitably, there has been a further layer of modernization in more recent years. Traditional instruments are still used, but not exclusively. A modern clarinet appeared at one concert I attended in Kayseri, as well as an electric bass guitar. And as the latter instrument suggests, there is a similar fluidity as to style. Circassian ethno-pop is now a recognized genre (with notable stars such as the Canadian-Circassian singer Aslan Gotov and the well-known chanteuse Svetlana Kushu), and it is not uncommon for Circassian concerts to host star singers and accordionists with synthesized backing in which the clappers have been replaced by the familiar reproduction drum kit. Provided the music is recognizably an emblem, a badge, of Circassian identity – and the ubiquity of a specific accordion style is key here – many genres are possible, and may even be juxtaposed at a single event. One Turkish doctoral student at Erciyes University described to me a so-called Uzunyayla Fellowship Night in Kayseri, in which a music and dance ensemble from Ankara shared the platform with a well-known Circassian pop singer. And in an interesting twist on the politics of language, the singer included some Turkish popular songs in Circassian translation.

My final remarks are about return. For long enough the native soil – the idea of it – exerted a powerful influence in absentia on Turkish Circassians, with children encouraged to ‘turn their faces towards the Caucasus’ from the earliest age. But the reality of a Caucasian homeland, known only to their distant ancestors, remained inaccessible. Then, with the break-up of the Soviet Union, this too began to change. Again the associations were instrumental, acting as important channels to the ancestral homeland, working as facilitators for the repatriation committees, arranging cultural exchanges and excursions, and hosting visiting academics and tour groups from Nalchik or Maykop. Initially membership of a music or dance ensemble was one of the easiest and most practical ways for young people to visit both the North Caucasus and Abkhazia. These early returns had something of a pilgrimage character (the Mecca analogy was often made). They were testing grounds for the matching up of image and reality, and as such they were invariably highly charged emotionally. But they also provided opportunities for cultural transfer, and in both directions. The familiar exilic trope of cultures preserved in diaspora and then transferred back to the homeland was active here too.

It is now common enough for Circassians in Turkey to return to the Caucasus. But, as Jade Cemre Erciyes notes in an admirable study, return can mean many things.[14] There is a spectrum: occasional visits, ‘virtual return’ through the Internet, a transnational vie bifurquée (involving a hybrid identity), and finally full settlement, though there are obstacles of different qualities – legal, bureaucratic, political and emotional – to full settlement. Making choices is by no means straightforward, not least because there are certain essential differences between the profiles of home and diaspora communities, mainly concerning the role and importance of Islam. Very broadly, religion is a much more fundamental dimension of Circassian identity in Turkey, at least for older and middle generations, than in the Caucasus (as I saw for myself, the Imam is a figure of veneration in the associations). One informant told me that he was in the habit of telling people in Nalchik that they needed to learn from the diaspora in this respect (‘they are all atheists there’), just as the diaspora Circassians could learn more about the particularities of Adigag (which incorporates khabze and is virtually a religion in itself) from Maykop and Nalchik. Such differences can prove unsettling – sometimes literally so – for those who travel in either direction. There are generational differences, too, though I will pass over those. And there is reverse nostalgia, of a kind I have also encountered among returnees in other cultures, including the Crimean Tatars.

What I think potentially emerges from these reflections is a sermon on culture and nation. One obvious inference is that culture and nation are functioning here in counterpoint. But counterpoint is not the same as opposition. To be synoptic, I propose that nations are not only political, and that cultures are also political. The stories of the Georgian borderlands and the Circassian migrations have in common politically motivated appropriations of culture. In the Georgian borderlands such appropriations were initially external to the practice. But practitioners themselves can be rather easily converted, and when that happens the propaganda becomes self-propaganda, blissfully indifferent to any contradiction between what is claimed and what is truly believed (there really are nuances in all this). In the case of the Circassian diaspora it was self-propaganda from the start, and non-practitioners more often than not either ignored or misread the signals. I am quite unable to resist adding that according to Wikipedia, whose virtues were recently extolled by John Julius Norwich in an issue of The Times, self-propaganda can be a form of self-deception.[15]

[1] Anzor Erkamaishvili, Director of the Rustavi Ensemble and Head of the International Centre for Georgian Folk Song, was in large measure responsible for preparing the ‘Chakrulo’ submission to UNESCO in 2001.

[2] As of today there are seven volumes of proceedings, all published by the Centre for Traditional Polyphony.

[3] Already in the 1860s, the mountaineer and geographer Douglas Freshfield was struck by the distinctive singing of the Svanetians, and urged the collection of their ballads. See D. Freshfield, Travels in the Central Caucasus and Bashan including Visits to Ararat and Tabreez and Ascents of Kazbek and Elbruz (London: Longman, Green and Co, 1869), vol. 1, 219.

[4] See, for example, the essay by Shalva Aslanishvili in R. Tsurtsumia and J. Jordania (eds), Echoes from Georgia: Seventeen Arguments on Georgian Polyphony (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2010).

[5] Several students of traditional polyphony argue that the term ‘polyphony’ is inadequate for this kind of homorhythmic style. See, in the context of Russian traditional polyphonies, contributions to Les polyphonies populaires russes: actes du colloque de Royaumont (Paris: Éditions Créaphis, 1991).

[6] V. Nitsiakos and C. Mantzos, ‘Negotiating Culture: Political Uses of Polyphonic Folk Songs in Greece and Albania’, in D. Tsiovas (ed.), Greece and the Balkans: Identities, Perceptions and Cultural Encounters since the Enlightenment (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 192-207.

[7] The major anthology in English is J. Colarosso (ed. and trans.), Nart Sagas from the Caucasus: Myths and Legends from the Circassians, Abazaa, Abkhaz, and Ubyks (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2003).

[8] The major studies of Abkhazian music are in the Russian language. They include, М. М. Xaшба, Народная Музыка Абхазов: Жанры, Стилистика, Кросс-Куллтурные Параллели [The National Music of Abkhazia: Genres, Styles and Cross-Cultural Parallels] (Sukhum: Abkhazian Academy of Sciences, 2007) and Д. А. Чурей, Из Пессено-Инструментальной Традиции Абхазов [From the Vocal-Instrumental Traditions of Abkhazia] (Sukhum: Abkhazian Academy of Sciences, 2014).

[9] S. A. Alajaji, Music and the Armenian Diaspora: Searching for Home in Exile (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015).

[10] E. Miyazawa, Memory Politics: Circassians of Uzunyayla, Turkey. PhD Diss., School of Oriental and African Studies (London, 2004).

[11] S. Lovell, ‘From Genealogy to Generation: The Birth of Cohort Thinking in Russia’. Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 9/3 (2008), 567-94.

[12] Н. Д. Чанба, Героическая Хоровая Песния Абхаэов [Heroic Choral Songs of Abkhazians] (Sukhum: Abgiz, 2014). On the Russian tradition, see I. F. Hapgood, The Epic Songs of Russia (London; Constable & Co, 1915), N. Kershaw Chadwick, Russian Heroic Poetry (New York; Russell & Russell, 1964 [1932]), and J. Bailey and T. Ivanova, An Anthology of Russian Folk Epics (New York and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1998). On the Turkish Ashik tradition (though not exclusively focusing on epics), see Y. Erdener, The Song Contests of Turkish Minstrels: Improvised Poetry Sung to Traditional Music (New York and London: Garland, 1995) and N. Kononenko Moyle, The Turkish Minstrel Tale Tradition (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993). More generally, see K. Reichl (ed), The Oral Epic: Performance and Music (Berlin: Verlag für Wiss. und Bildung, 2000), and on the Balkans, see P. Bohlman and N. Petković (eds.), Balkan Epic: Songs, History, Modernity (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2011).

[13] J. Baudrillard, ‘Simulacra and Simulations’, in Selected Writings (Cambridge: Polity, 1988 [1981]), 169-87.

[14] J. C. Erciyes, Return Migration to the Caucasus: The Adyge-Abkhaz Diaspora(s), Transnationalism and Life after Return. PhD Diss., University of Sussex (Brighton, 2014).

[15] J. J. Norwich, ‘All hail Wikipedia’, letter to The Times (14 June 2015).

Aslanbek Mirzoyev, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Leading Research Fellow, Department of Ethnology, D.I. Gulia Institute for Humanitarian Research, Academy of Sciences of Abkhazia, Sukhum, Abkhazia.

This article examines the coexistence of egalitarian and hierarchical models of social organisation within a single ethnic group and a single ethnic culture in the Western Caucasus, a phenomenon attested in the past not only among the Circassians but also among other peoples (in Dagestan, Chechnya, and South-East Asia). It considers the relationship between the feudal domains of Circassia and the democratic polities of the Western Caucasus, together with the principal factors and consequences of the democratic transformation of the socio-political order of the Western Caucasian Circassian societies from the first half of the seventeenth century to the 1860s.

The democratic societies of the Western Caucasus, like the “free societies of Dagestan”, bore a typological resemblance to the communities of the Circumpontic region in the classical period. Communities of this type were self-governing micro-political formations that incorporated their military, legal, and political functions in their entirety, along with their social classes, including the communal nobility and, in some cases, the feudal estates, into a single communal organism with civic self-government.

Read the article on CW

We are excited to share a rare piece of North Caucasian history newly translated into modern English: the Relation des Circasses (Account of the Circassians). Originally published in Paris in 1696 by the royal printer Jacques Langlois, this ethnographic vignette was compiled by the famous French geographer and traveler Melchisédech Thévenot in his monumental collection, Relations de divers voyages curieux.

Writing at a crucial geopolitical turning point, just as Muscovite influence was expanding into the region and Islam was steadily spreading alongside ancient Christian and traditional practices, Thévenot provides a fascinating European window into the North Caucasus.

While the text inevitably reflects the colonial vocabulary and biases of its era, it stands out for its vivid, appreciative, and remarkably detailed observations of 17th-century Circassian life. Within these few pages, Thévenot captures:

• Geographical Boundaries: A breakdown of historical territories, rivers, and the strategic placement of villages hidden within dense forests.

• Military Mastery: The formidable reputation of Circassian horsemen, their defensive tactics against neighboring Tartar raids, and their mastery of both traditional and specialized weaponry.

• Culture & Customs: Deeply rooted traditions of hospitality, the egalitarian dynamics of their marriage contracts, and intense, dramatic funerary rites.

• Spirituality in Transition: A snapshot of a society preserving ancient sacred groves (Curbans) and ancestral traditions while navigating shifting religious landscapes.

This translation bridges the gap between 17th-century French travel lore and modern readers, preserving the exact nuances and historical weight of the original text while making it fluid and accessible. We hope this primary source offers valuable insights to historians, cultural enthusiasts, and anyone passionate about Circassian heritage.

The Geography and Borders of Circassia

The Circassians closely resemble the Nogay Tartars, with one primary difference: the Circassians live exclusively in the deepest, most heavily fortified parts of the forests, where they entrench themselves. They border the Nogay Tartars to the north. To the east live the Cornuchi, who are also Tartars, though they practice a different religion and follow different customs. To the south lie the Abassas [Abkhazia —Ed.], and to the west are exceptionally high mountains that separate them from Mingrelia.

Consequently, the widest expanse of their territory stretches from Taman to Demir-capi (also known as Derbent, a city on the edge of the Caspian Sea), a journey taking a good twenty-six days.* Between Taman and Tomeruchi lies a peninsula along whose shores several villages are located.

Historical Note from Margins: To the east, their territory is bounded by the Caspian Sea; to the west, by the Sea of Camase; to the south, by the Bustro River (which separates them from the Dagestani Tartars); and to the north, by the moors and heaths of Astrakhan. In Turkish, Capi means gate, while Temir means iron; the Persian word Derbent carries the exact same meaning.

Language, Religion, and Geopolitical Status

The people speak both the Circassian and Turkish languages. They are of mixed faiths: some are Muslims and others practice the Greek Orthodox Rite, though Muslims are more numerous. While a Greek priest based in Terki occasionally travels to administer the sacrament of baptism,* he provides very little actual religious instruction. As a result, the inhabitants convert to Islam day by day. Virtually nothing remains of their Christian faith except for a lingering tradition of placing meat upon the graves of their deceased and observing a few fasts.

Historical Note from Margins: This Greek priest in Terki answers to the Tsar (the Grand Duke of Muscovy). Since falling under the dominion of the Muscovites, these people have become more approachable and cooperative.

These villages swear allegiance to the Tsar of the Muscovites and to specific murzas (nobles) of his court, to whom the Tsar granted these lands as rewards for military service. From the mountains they call Varrada down to Cudofcio, the first of the Circassian villages along the coastline, the distance is 300 miles. Although this vast stretch of land is highly fertile, it remains entirely uninhabited; however, one can count 140,000 inhabitants from Cudofcio to the territory of the Abassas. The tribes living in these mountains, as well as those inhabiting the lowland forests, call themselves Christians, and each group obeys its own local princes.

Regional Rulers and Distances

The principal rulers and the distances between the territories under their command are as follows:

• From Tomeruchi to Carbatei is an eighteen-day journey. This sparsely populated region is ruled by Schaban Ogoli.

• It takes two days to travel from Tomeruchi to Giana, and another two days from Giana to Codicoï.

• From Giana to Bolettecoï is a four-day journey; Giancosobey is the lord of this territory.

• From there to Besinada is an eight-day journey; from Besinada to Carbataï is another eight days; and from Carbataï to Derbent takes ten days.

The Masters of this final region are the Princes Scaence Temircas, who are relatives of the Tartar Khan. Meanwhile, the brothers Prince Casibei and Prince Sancascopei jointly command all the coastal villages. Though these lands are highly pleasant, they are sparsely populated because the people refuse to build settlements anywhere except in the densest parts of the forests.

Laws, Commerce, and Daily Custom

The Circassians possess no written laws or formal religious practices, contenting themselves merely with the label of being Christians. Their trade consists primarily of trafficking slaves, deer hides, ox hides, leopard skins,* and wax, which they harvest in abundance from the forests. They cultivate their arable lands using only basic hoes. Because they have no minted currency, all commerce is conducted via barter.

Linguistic Note: The original 1696 text uses tigres (tigers), a common early modern European catch-all for any large, patterned wild cat found in the East, historically referring here to Caucasian leopards or similar local felines.

Their clothing is not vastly different from Western attire. They wear cotton shirts dyed red and a cloak made of pressed wool or felt. They dynamically rotate this cloak to block whichever direction the wind is blowing, as it is designed to cover only half the body.

Marginal Annotation (in Italian): An added notation by the Lieutenant states: “Lascianoma! [An exclamation/expression regarding local interactions]. They easily bargain away their virgins from head to toe, except for the venereal act itself, which is strictly prohibited, especially in the presence of parents.”

Hospitality, Village Defense, and Warfare

There are no more beautiful people in the world, nor any who offer a warmer welcome to strangers. For the first three days of a guest’s stay, the hosts serve them personally. The young boys and girls attend to guests bare-headed and wash their feet, while the women take charge of laundering their linens.

Their houses are constructed from two rows of stakes driven firmly into the ground, with tree branches tightly interwoven between them; they fill the gaps with mortar and thatch the roofs with straw. The prince’s residences are built of the same materials but are notably larger and taller.

Because their villages are tucked away in the thickest parts of the forests, they fortify them by interweaving living trees together. This creates a dense natural barrier designed to obstruct the Tartar cavalry. They clash frequently with these neighbours; scarcely a year passes without the Tartars launching a raid to capture slaves, driven primarily by the renowned beauty of the Circassian people. The Nogay Tartars launch frequent incursions for the exact same reason.

This perpetual state of warfare has thoroughly hardened the Circassians, rendering them the finest horsemen in the region. They are lethal archers capable of shooting effectively both while charging forward or retreating, and they are fiercely brave when wielding scimitars. For defense, they wear chainmail hoods that protect their faces; for offense, alongside the bow, they carry lances and javelins. Hidden in the woods, a single Circassian can successfully hold off twenty Tartars.

Morality, Social Rituals, and Diet

They feel absolutely no moral guilt about robbing one another. Theft is so institutionalised that those caught in the act are not punished; instead, individuals who display exceptional cleverness in thievery are highly esteemed. In fact, elders and community leaders will refuse to pour wine for young men at feasts unless the youths have successfully pulled off a clever robbery or a significant killing.

The nation’s most common beverage is made by boiling water with honey and a small amount of millet. They leave the mixture to ferment for ten days, then boil it a second time. This drink possesses the same intoxicating strength as wine, yet the Circassians are not generally prone to habitual drunkenness. Instead of glass cups, they drink from the horns of wild buffaloes or other animals, and they traditionally consume their beverages while standing completely upright.

Sacrificial Sites, Marriage, and Funerary Rites

In the territory of the Cudofci, there are sacred sites filled with the heads of cattle left over from the Curbans (sacrifices) performed there.* Hanging from the surrounding trees, one can see bows, arrows, and scimitars left behind as tokens of fulfilled vows. The collective reverence for these sanctuaries is so profound that even the most notorious thieves will not touch anything left within them.

Historical Note from Margins: During these sacrifices, they impale the head of a ram or sheep at the top of a cross and stretch its hide out over the adjoining branches.

Their marriage ceremony consists entirely of a mutual verbal pledge exchanged between the bride and groom, verified by the affirmation of a witness. A man never takes a second wife unless his first wife dies, or unless he is forced to do so by an incredibly compelling circumstance. A father who gives his daughter away receives a bride-price present in return; consequently, men who lack the means to provide these gifts are unable to find wives.

When accompanying the dead to their burial, the funeral procession begins its wailing and lamentations long before arriving at the deceased’s home. The male relatives flagellate themselves and the women tear at their faces. Meanwhile, the priest chants memorized prayers over the body, offers incense, and places pasta and bozza (food and drink) directly onto the grave. Afterward, they heap earth over the trench; the resulting mound marks the final burial site.

Industry and Natural Resources

The Circassians possess no industry or art outside of warfare, which occupies their entire lives. Slaves captured from this nation command a much higher price on the market than those of other backgrounds, owing both to their exceptional physical beauty and the high intelligence and capability they traditionally display in any task assigned to them.

Circassian horses are similarly valued far above Tartar horses, being widely prized for their superior speed and spirit. The territory features two major rivers: the Psi, which flows directly into the Black Sea,* and the Sil, which flows close to Cabarda [Kabarda —Ed.]. There are also numerous smaller, unnamed streams that cause little hindrance, as they are easily crossed on foot or horseback.

Geographical Note: The text reads mer Calcane, a historical typographic variant/corruption relating to the Black Sea / Sea of Azov region.

A 17th-Century Window into Abkhazia: The Relation des Abbassas (Abkhazians)

Following the account of the Circassians, the 1696 French collection by Melchisédech Thévenot turns its focus to their immediate neighbors in the section titled Relation des Abbassas (Account of the Abkhazians/Abazas). This brief but highly descriptive ethnographic vignette offers a fascinating look at the historical Abkhazian coast and mountains during a period of intense geopolitical isolation and regional warfare.

Thévenot’s account captures the striking landscape where the Caucasus Mountains plunge directly into the Black Sea, while detailing the unique socio-political and cultural traits of the population. Writing from a European perspective of the era, he records invaluable historical details, including:

• The Port of Eschisumuni: A rare description of early commercial trade in the region, where merchants from Constantinople, Trebizond, and Caffa traded maritime goods under strict non-aggression oaths.

• Unique Cultural & Dietary Practices: Distinct traditions, ranging from the preference for raw meats to specialized grooming styles that separated the secular warriors from the bearded Papari (priests/undertakers).

• Air Burials: A firsthand observation of the ancient Caucasian tradition of suspending hollowed-tree coffins high above the ground or within wild grapevines.

• Mastery of Falconry: The legendary skill of local handlers who trained wild falcons and sparrow hawks in just eight days to supply the elite courts of Persia and the Ottoman Empire.

This translation preserves the vivid observations and historical vocabulary of the 1696 original, providing our community with an accessible primary source on the intertwined histories of the North Caucasian peoples.

The Relation des Abbassas

Following the account of the Circassians, the 169 French collection by Melchisédech Thévenot turns its focus to their immediate neighbors in the section titled Relation des Abbassas (Account of the Abkhazians/Abazas). This brief but highly descriptive ethnographic vignette offers a fascinating look at the historical Abkhazian coast and mountains during a period of intense geopolitical isolation and regional warfare.

Thévenot’s account captures the striking landscape where the Caucasus Mountains plunge directly into the Black Sea, while detailing the unique socio-political and cultural traits of the population. Writing from a European perspective of the era, he records invaluable historical details, including:

• The Port of Eschisumuni: A rare description of early commercial trade in the region, where merchants from Constantinople, Trebizond, and Caffa traded maritime goods under strict non-aggression oaths.

• Unique Cultural & Dietary Practices: Distinct traditions, ranging from the preference for raw meats to specialized grooming styles that separated the secular warriors from the bearded Papari (priests/undertakers).

• Air Burials: A firsthand observation of the ancient Caucasian tradition of suspending hollowed-tree coffins high above the ground or within wild grapevines.

• Mastery of Falconry: The legendary skill of local handlers who trained wild falcons and sparrowhawks in just eight days to supply the elite courts of Persia and the Ottoman Empire.

This polished translation preserves the vivid observations and historical vocabulary of the 1663 original, providing our community with an accessible primary source on the intertwined histories of the North Caucasian peoples.

Geography, Governance, and Diet of the Abkhazians

The Abassas [Abkhazians/Abazas]* inhabit the rugged mountain ranges that continuous with Circassia. Their territory is bounded by the coastline of the Black Sea to their right [west] and by Mingrelia to the east. Spanning roughly 150 miles, this country is ruled by two regional princes: one named Pusso and the other Carabei.

The land features no formal cities; instead, numerous homesteads are scattered across these mountains, which are among the highest I have ever seen, plunging directly down to the water’s edge. In most respects, their customs mirror those of the Circassians, with one notable exception: the Abkhazians eat their meat almost completely raw.

*Historical Note from Margins: Variant regional spellings include Abcasia and Abazza.

Language, Religion, and Commerce

The region produces an abundance of wine. The language of the Abkhazians is fundamentally different from those spoken by any of their neighbors. They have no codified, written laws, and the population is entirely illiterate, having no concept of a written script. While they identify as Christian by profession, they do not actively practice any tenets of the faith. Although I observed numerous Christian crosses throughout their territory, the people are notorious thieves and highly prone to dishonesty.

The landscape is crossed by two primary rivers, the Southesu and the Subasu, making for a highly picturesque country with exceptionally healthy air. The dense forests function as both their sanctuaries and their cities; however, unlike nomadic tribes, once they establish a homestead in a specific area, they remain there permanently.

Their primary wealth and trade goods consist of various animal hides, wax, honey, and slaves. It is a standard practice for local rulers to sell their own subjects to the Ottoman Turks in exchange for foreign goods, as minted currency holds no value or circulation among them.

The Port of Eschisumuni and Military Prowess

The country boasts an excellent, highly viable harbor known as Port Eschisumuni. Every year, merchant ships arrive from Lazica, Trebizond, Constantinople, and Caffa, with some crews even choosing to overwinter in the port. To ensure safety, visiting merchants never venture inland to the locals’ actual homes. All commerce is conducted strictly at the docks or directly aboard the vessels. Before trading begins, the merchants and locals extract mutual oaths of non-aggression or exchange hostages to guarantee peace.

The Abkhazians are frequently at war with both the Circassians and the Mingrelians. They are formidable warriors, highly proficient both as infantrymen and cavalrymen, and they are exceptionally skilled in handling firearms. For weaponry, they carry scimitars, bows, and arrows. While they dress in the exact same style as the Circassians, they style their hair quite differently.

Grooming, Burial Customs, and Falconry

The secular population grows long moustaches but shaves their chins completely bare. Conversely, their Papari, the spiritual caretakers tasked with burying the dead and praying for their souls, grow full, untrimmed beards.

Their funerary customs are highly distinct: they place the bodies of the deceased inside hollowed-out tree trunks that serve as coffins. They then suspend these airborne coffins outside, securing them atop four elevated wooden stakes.*

* Historical Note from Margins: An alternative contemporary travel account notes that some tribes alternatively suspend these hollowed-tree coffins from sturdy wild grapevine runners high up in the canopy.

Because the forests serve as their exclusive domain, they maintain very few domesticated herds and possess little fabric for clothing. Instead, they subsist primarily on honey-wine [mead], wild venison, and the native fruits gathered from the woods. They cultivate no wheat, use absolutely no salt, and refuse to expend any effort on fishing, even though their coastal waters are remarkably teeming with fish.

This aversion to labor means they dedicate themselves almost exclusively to hunting and falconry. They possess an immense number of sparrow hawks and falcons, which they are capable of training perfectly in a mere eight days. Elite markets in Constantinople, Persia, and Georgia are routinely supplied with raptors from this region. These birds are so expertly broken in that they will hunt independently and immediately fly back to their handler with their prey at the distinct sound of a small handbell.

Epilogue: Observations on Mingrelia

I will not offer a lengthy description of neighbouring Mingrelia here, as I am aware that highly detailed and accurate accounts of that region have already been published by other travellers. I will simply add from my own firsthand observations that medicinal plants such as senna, scammony, and black hellebore grow abundantly in these districts, alongside many other heavily utilized medicinal herbs. Furthermore, the local culture is deeply militarised; even the Mingrelian bishops and Christian clergy regularly march alongside their prince into active warfare, wearing iron helmets on their heads and carrying scimitars at their sides.

The Circassians of the north-western Caucasus developed one of the most elaborate and best-documented traditions of healing song in the entire Caucasus region. This article reconstructs that tradition through its central institution, the chapsh (кIапщ / щIапщэ), the all-night healing vigil held at the bedside of the sick and wounded, drawing on the mythosemiotic scholarship of Andzhela Gucheva, the ethnomusicology of Alla Sokolova, and the documentary anthologies produced under Evgeny Gippius and his Kabardian colleagues.

The article examines the two principal varieties of the rite: the smallpox vigil (фэрэкI щIапщэ) and the chapsh for wounds, fractures and bullet extraction. It reconstructs the mythological world surrounding the smallpox cult, including the taboo on naming the disease, the divine figures of Ziuskhan and Khana Guasha, and the four functional varieties of the healing song cycle (фэрэкI уэрэд). The Bzhedug smallpox song «Си кIакIор кIэкIошIу» is analysed as a worked example, with attention to its chain-strophe structure, boundary symbolism and apotropaic musical devices.

A central concern of the article is Sokolova’s argument that the therapeutic power of chapsh music resided not in the notes themselves but in their ritual reception, a conclusion explored through the legend of the bullet extracted from the warrior Kozheberduko to the sound of a designated melody. The article also considers the cosmological dimensions of Adyghe sound culture through the kamyl flute and its shepherd rituals, Abkhazian parallels, and the place of song within a broader folk-medical system that included variolation, herbal treatment and dietary practice. It closes by reflecting on what the chapsh intuitively anticipated of modern psychoneuroimmunological thinking, and on the urgency of preserving the recorded corpus before the last bearers of the tradition are lost.

Read on CW

The Chapsh in Twilight of Hope

This clip is taken from Twilight of Hope («Гугъэм и мэзэх», 1993), the first-ever Circassian-language feature film, directed by Ruslan Hachemiz and produced by LenFilm and Little Prince. Set during the Circassian-Russian War in the first half of the nineteenth century, the film faithfully recreates the daily life, customs and ancient beliefs of the Circassian people, with pagan healing rites, wedding festivities and funerary ceremonies all woven organically into its story.

The scene shows the chapsh (кIапщ), the Circassian healing rite. When a member of the community fell gravely ill or was wounded, the whole village would gather at the sickbed, most often through the night, filling the space with songs, dances, games and laughter to keep the patient awake and drive away the spirit of disease. Far more than entertainment, the chapsh was a complete cosmological ceremony, calling upon the Lord of Smallpox Ziuskhan and the patron deity Sozeresh, and surrounding the sick with the collective warmth and sound of the community until the crisis passed.

The focus is shifting toward production, creating documentary films, video interviews, and podcasts to document our community and history in modern formats.

To make this happen at a professional standard, there are immediate costs. Producing high-quality media today requires advanced AI tools for editing and processing, as well as dedicated hardware like a professional camera and microphone setup for on-site interviews.

If you value the history of this platform and want to support its future as a multimedia hub, please consider making a donation. Every contribution directly funds the equipment and software needed to bring these projects to life.

Support the project here: ko-fi.com/circassianworld

CircassianWorld in 2005, 2011 and 2018

Return of the Circassian World: May the Force Be with You

Written to mark the return of the CircassianWorld website in 2018 after a long absence, Jade Cemre Erciyes reflects on what this digital gathering-place has meant, to the diaspora, and to the academics, researchers, and journalists who depend on it. A personal essay on memory, community, and the role of a single archive in holding a dispersed nation together.

Read the article here: https://circassianworld.com/pdfs/return-of-circassian-world.pdf

This article, translated for a global audience, was first published in Russian by Sovetskaya Adygeya. It tells the story of a pioneering but short-lived institution: the Circassian School in early 20th-century Istanbul. Founded in the wake of the Ottoman Empire's collapse, this remarkable school was the project of the Circassian Women's Mutual Aid Society. It offers a poignant glimpse into the community's struggle to preserve its identity in diaspora, blending a modern education with the conscious teaching of Circassian language and history. Through stories of its young, dynamic director and dedicated teachers, we see how the school became a vibrant centre of culture and innovation, championing co-education and a new alphabet. By making this history available in English, we hope to share this inspiring chapter of Circassian resilience and intellectual life with a wider world.

Istanbul is a city that captivates everyone who walks its streets and squares. It is a city of untamed aromas, of the sea, fish, roasted chestnuts, sesame buns, boiled corn, coffee, spices, pomegranates, and heaven knows what else. A symphony of sounds, the call to prayer flowing over the city, seagulls, street vendors, and a Babylonian cacophony of languages. And a riot of colours, from carpets and cushions burning with every shade of red and, of course, turquoise, the colour that reigns supreme above all others in Ottoman culture.

This is how the Russian artist Alexander Vertinsky, who was in Turkey in the 1920s alongside other White émigrés from Russia, described Istanbul: “A fairytale city, bathed in sunlight… The slender needles of minarets. Palaces like white sugar… Red fezzes, a sea of red fezzes. People in white. Sun. A guttural language. And flags, flags, flags.”

Nearly a hundred years have passed since then, but the essential sensations of Istanbul remain unchanged: minarets piercing time, history meeting modern life, artisans’ quarters coexisting with the luxury of sultanic villas and mansions, modern hipsters and beauties merging in the urban flow with women in hijabs and respectable family men conversing leisurely on plastic chairs under trees.

The First Public Organisations

The history of Istanbul is inextricably linked with Circassian history and the Circassian diaspora, which began to form in the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the 19th century. As the political and cultural landscape of this city changed, so too did the lives of the Circassians in this imperial capital.

For the Circassians in Turkey, the beginning of the 20th century was a very eventful period, the first public organisations were being established, where the most educated and motivated individuals sought not only forms of possible self-organisation but also ways to preserve Circassian identity. For the first time, we hear the voices of young Circassian women: in their published articles, they wrote about how to preserve their roots, language, and culture. This was the era of the first Circassian newspapers and magazines, of creating and reforming the alphabet, and of the first attempts to establish regular contacts with the lost homeland.

In 1908, the Circassian Society for Unity and Mutual Aid was founded in Istanbul, and ten years later, in September 1918, its women’s wing, the Circassian Women’s Mutual Aid Society [Çerkes İttihat ve Teavün Cemiyeti —Ed.]. The society was founded by five Circassian women from Istanbul: Hayriye Melek Hunç (President), Seza Pukh Hanım, Makbule Berzek, the wife of Ottoman deputy Mazhar Müfit, Emine Reşit Zalik, the wife of retired Ottoman General Reşit Pasha, and Faika Hanım, the wife of the Egyptian pasha, the Circassian (Cherkess) Ishak. They were all from well-known, respectable families, had received an excellent education, and knew several languages.

Hayriye Melek Hunç graduated from Notre Dame de Sion, a French lycée for girls in Istanbul. She was one of the few Muslim women to study at this prestigious school. In addition to Turkish and French, Hayriye Melek spoke several dialects of Circassian, as well as Ubykh and Abkhaz. Together with Seza Pukh, she published the magazine Diyane, which was published twice a month in Circassian and Turkish from 1920.

Seza Pukh wrote in one of the issues of the magazine: “The value of a civilisation is proportional to the status of women in society. As long as women can freely exercise their natural talents, they always assist the development of society. When their role diminishes, it leads to the demise of civilisation.” These words can be seen as the creed of the Circassian Women’s Mutual Aid Society.

A Subject of Interest for Researchers

The Society opened a remarkable school in Istanbul, the history of which has yet to be studied academically by domestic historians. The school existed only briefly—from 1919 until September 1923. The building it occupied still stands in Istanbul today, at No. 52 on Akaretler Hill. The project for the Circassian School had been part of the plans of the Circassian Society for Unity and Mutual Aid, but it was not realised immediately.

The school was private, with six grades. Initially, the director was Mustafa Butbay, but his position on a number of issues did not find support with the school’s board of directors, and Mustafa Butbay resigned. He was replaced by the 20-year-old Seza Pukh Hanım. Later, in his book, Mustafa Butbay wrote: “I was appointed director. Then I resigned due to a dispute that erupted between me and the board of directors regarding the curriculum. The board wanted education to be conducted in Circassian and supported this idea. I believed this was unacceptable from a legal standpoint, that education should be in Turkish, but a separate class could be opened for those wishing to study in Circassian. My proposal was rejected, and I insisted on resigning.”

Though it existed for only a short time, the Circassian School in Istanbul became a unique experiment in self-organisation and the search for pedagogical models within a diaspora context. Its experience remains relevant today.

Seza Pukh Hanım, the daughter of a general, born into an aristocratic family, was well-educated, she graduated from the American College for Girls. Despite her youth, she handled the duties of school director superbly. Thanks to her personal efforts, her family’s connections, and her access to influential circles in Istanbul, she managed to promote her school in many areas. The best intellectual forces of the Circassian community in Istanbul were attracted to educate the children—lawyers, diplomats, and former military officers, professional musicians and artists generously shared their knowledge with the students.

The school had between 150 and 180 children, with 25–30 pupils per class. In old black-and-white photographs, the few documentary testimonies that can tell us about the school, we see students and teachers: refined, European-dressed instructors, boys wearing Circassian coats (cherkeska), papakhas, or fezzes with dignity, and elegant girls in both national and European dress.

The Circassian Women’s Mutual Aid Society in Istanbul took in émigrés who had fled Russia in the 1920s, housing them in the school building, and their children were able to study there.

Although the school was open to all, its pupils were predominantly Circassian children. The staff and teachers were mainly volunteers and received no salary; only a few had a regular stipend. The fees collected from students went towards the building’s rent, current expenses, and salaries for some teachers. A confectionery workshop was also located there, providing work for Circassian women in need.

Three Innovations

The school established a system of co-education for boys and girls, which for that time was a bold step. It offered three innovations: a kindergarten, co-education, and finally, teaching the native language using a Latin-based alphabet.

For the first time in a Muslim state, the Ottoman Empire, girls and boys studied together. Furthermore, a kindergarten for children aged 4–6 was opened at the school. For the first quarter of the 20th century, the appearance of such a form of upbringing and education was also innovative. This kindergarten was one of the very few in the entire state.

Also for the first time in the Ottoman Empire, children at a Muslim school were taught their native language using an alphabet based on Latin script. This innovation corresponded to the high reputation of the Circassian elite in Istanbul. The Latin alphabet was not only used in the school, the Circassian Society for Unity and Mutual Aid printed books using this alphabet and sent them to the Caucasus.

The Curriculum

In addition to Turkish, history, and geography, the children were taught the Circassian language, and the history and geography of Circassia. Language, literature, geography, and history of the Caucasus were taught in Circassian; other subjects, including French, geography, drawing, music, dance, and gymnastics, were taught in Ottoman Turkish. Furthermore, English language classes were an integral part of the curriculum. The school administration, paying particular attention to the children’s cultural development, decided to teach them piano, dance, theatre, painting, music, and physical education.

Seza Pukh taught Turkish language and geography; Lamia Jhankat lectured on the language, history, and geography of the Caucasus and Circassia; and Hilim Tsey taught the children Circassian literature and poetry. The lawyer Shami Time taught Circassian pronunciation. Zeki Venc Hanım was the Turkish teacher for two classes. Lutfullah Shaw, a graduate of the University of Lausanne, taught French (he was later appointed a diplomat to Saudi Arabia). Vasfi Güzär taught biology. It is also known that the school had an English teacher educated in Great Britain. Art lessons were taught by the artist Namık Ismail Zefi, and Blenaw Harun taught Circassian language, history, and geography. Professor Hege taught music, played Circassian instruments brought from the Uzun Yala region from Kayseri and Gönen (a town and district in Balıkesir province and a town and district in Isparta province – Ed.), collected sheet music, played the piano, and gave lectures. The children were taught to play the pşîne (the Adyghe harmonica). İkbal Hanım taught solfège. Major Sant Nahush Bey, retired after service in military schools in Damascus and Edirne, was the physical education teacher. Furthermore, an Armenian girl named Meliha taught the children the popular dances of the time, the polka, mazurka, quadrille, and waltz.

A special atmosphere was created by the school theatre: on stage, girls and boys staged plays and performed in national costumes. The play “Towards the Caucasus,” written by Seza Pukh, was a great success, the performance was staged several times. Costumes for the theatrical productions were specially sewn in the school’s sewing workshop.

A cursory glance at the list of subjects and the calibre of the teachers is enough to understand that the goal of the education was not only to provide children with a necessary body of knowledge but also to teach them to adapt to the socio-cultural context in which they were to live, while also raising them in the spirit of Circassian culture.

A Social Project

On the first floor of the school, the Circassian Women’s Mutual Aid Society, whose charter stated that it would seek opportunities to provide work for those in need, established a clothing workshop and a shop. Women who did not know how to sew were taught the trade, while experienced seamstresses designed costumes for the city’s wealthy. The money earned was divided equally. Therefore, in modern terms, the Circassian School can also be considered a social project.

Though it existed in Istanbul for only a short time, the Circassian School nevertheless became a unique experience in self-organisation and the search for pedagogical models in a diaspora context. Its experience can still be of value today.

If you find yourself in Istanbul, climb Akaretler Hill and look at this building, perhaps it still holds the spirit and the dreams of early 20th-century Circassian intellectuals for educated and cultured descendants...

In 1562, five Kabardian princes left their homes between the Terek and the Kuban and made their way to Poland, bringing their families and, by the reckoning of Polish writers of the period, some three hundred warriors with them. They came because Kabarda had passed under Russian rule a few years earlier, and because a tsar in Moscow had marked certain of their kinsmen for death. The Polish king received them with honours and estates, granted “Iron Letters” to the Petyhorcy who wished to follow, and in time men such as Temruk Szymkowicz commanded their own regiments in the royal army, formations that kept their Circassian dress and tactics until the partitions of 1795 swept the Commonwealth away. Marcin Kruszyński’s account of these princes belongs to a distant age, and it would be a mistake to read the nineteenth century back into it. Yet the shape of the thing is uncannily familiar. A Caucasian people pressed by an expanding Russia looked westward to a Polish state that was itself wary of the same power. Three centuries later the heirs of that expansion would press Poles and Circassians alike, and the two would find each other once more.

For most of those intervening centuries the Caucasus meant nothing to Polish politics. As Żurawski vel Grajewski puts it plainly, until the early 1830s the region had no place in Polish political thinking at all. What changed everything was defeat. The November Uprising of 1830 to 1831 collapsed, and roughly ten thousand of the country’s political, military and cultural elite went into exile, mostly to France and Britain, in what came to be called the Great Emigration. Among the punishments visited on the defeated was conscription. The Russian authorities dispatched something on the order of nine thousand former soldiers of the Polish army to fight the mountaineers of the Caucasus, which is to say they sent rebels to die subduing other rebels. The figure is not settled. Csorba, working from different records, suggests that twenty-five to thirty thousand Poles may have been serving in the tsarist forces in the Caucasus after the forced recruitments of the early 1830s, though that is a broader category than the men sent specifically against the Circassians and the Chechens. Whatever the true number, reports soon reached Western Europe that these men were deserting, and desertion was the hinge on which Polish strategy would turn.

Prince Adam George Czartoryski, who led the conservative wing of the emigration from his residence in Paris, grasped the implication from about 1834. A fresh Polish rising could not succeed in isolation; it needed a war between Russia and a great European power to draw the tsar’s armies away and give the insurgents their chance. The Caucasus, where Russia was already bogged down and where thousands of armed Poles might be turned against their masters, was at once the likeliest place for such a war to ignite and the likeliest source of a ready-made Polish force. The interest, in other words, was strategic well before it became sentimental. The Serbian historian Ekmečić, quoted by Csorba, caught the habit of mind with some asperity: the Poles, he wrote, had eyes for a single European issue at a time, one in which there were only ever two factors that mattered, the first always Polish and the second whichever nation happened to have momentous events under way. For a generation, Circassia was that second nation.

The first ventures were made not in the mountains but in London. The Eastern Crisis of the 1830s, set off by the quarrel between Sultan Mahmud II and Muhammad Ali of Egypt and sharpened by the Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi in 1833, had alarmed the Foreign Office about Russian designs on the Ottoman Empire and the road to India. Czartoryski’s agents, working with the Russophobe diplomat David Urquhart and his circle of British Circassophiles, turned that alarm to account. They helped to publish The Portfolio, a journal that printed Russian secret dispatches seized by the insurgents in Warsaw in 1830 alongside articles condemning Russian advances in the Caucasus. Then, in a bolder stroke, Czartoryski’s nephew Władysław Zamoyski joined Urquhart in organising the voyage of the Vixen, a British merchant vessel sent in 1836 to the blockaded Circassian coast in the hope of provoking an incident. An incident duly came. Russian forces seized the ship that November, and the affair filled the British press and Parliament with argument over Circassian sovereignty and the legitimacy of Russia’s claims. Here the deeper logic of the alliance became visible. As Mira Ahmad shows, British liberals had come to file Circassia and Poland together, two peoples fallen or falling under the same autocracy, two causes by which a confident liberalism could measure its principles against Russian despotism. The difficulty was that filing a cause and fighting for it are not the same act. Palmerston, who privately doubted Russia’s right to Circassia, removed Urquhart from the diplomatic service in 1837 and refused to be goaded into war. Britain would furnish sympathy, banquets and fine speeches. It would not furnish soldiers.

Frustrated in London, the Poles tried the mountains directly, and there they fared worse. In 1844 Czartoryski sent Ludwik Zwierkowski to the Shapsugs; he returned to Istanbul two years later, gravely wounded. A second emissary, Kazimierz Gordon, set out for Imam Shamil in Dagestan but got no further than the lands of the Ubykh, where a Russian agent killed him. Csorba records a more encouraging episode from 1843, when Czartoryski’s delegates managed to negotiate with Shamil himself and to improve the lot of the Polish prisoners and deserters in his territory. The general pattern, though, was failure, and the one durable thing to come out of the decade was not a battle plan but a refuge. In 1842 Czartoryski secured a small village on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus where Poles who had escaped the Caucasus could settle. They named it Adampol, after the prince; the Turks called it Polonezköy, the village of the Poles. It survives to this day, and Żurawski notes that some forty of its inhabitants still speak Polish. A scheme conceived to topple an empire produced, in the end, a quiet Anatolian village.

The most elaborate of all the plans was drawn up in Constantinople in the summer of 1849, and it reaches us chiefly through two letters preserved in the archives of the Topkapı Palace. By then Czartoryski’s man in the Ottoman capital was Michał Czajkowski, called Czajka in the Hungarian sources, who would later convert to Islam and serve the Sultan as Sadık Pasha. The wider context was the Hungarian war of independence, then entering its final and desperate weeks against Austria and an intervening Russia. Czajka’s first letter, whose dating is itself a small puzzle, since the Topkapı copy reads 3 September while the version in the Polish emigration archives is dated 1 July, urged the Porte toward a policy that would quietly favour Hungary, Poland and the Caucasus together. The second letter, of 10 August, set out the actual design. Three Circassians had come to Czajka, telling him that their fight was being wasted for want of leadership and that they had given up on British and French help, but that the Hungarian revolution had rekindled their hope. The proposal was to spirit Sefer Bey Zanoko, the notable who had led his people’s diplomacy from Constantinople since 1830, back to the coast together with a Hungarian envoy and ten Polish officers. Sefer Bey would unite the tribes; the Poles would direct operations and work to turn their compatriots and the Cossacks in Russian service; the Hungarian would speak for his own nation. Csorba’s reading of the Topkapı letters even preserves the budget, drawn up by the Circassians themselves and running to some six hundred thousand piasters, for ships and rifles and sailors and the wages of the Polish officers, in return for which sixty thousand Circassians were promised in arms.

It was a magnificent piece of paper, and it was stillborn. By the time the second letter was written the Hungarian army was already broken, so the external war that gave the scheme its purpose had effectively ended before the scheme could begin. The Porte, on whose tacit blessing everything depended, had no appetite for a confrontation with Russia, and Csorba is candid that no source records the Ottoman view directly, which is itself a kind of answer. The promise of sixty thousand fighters was almost certainly inflated, and the seasoned Russian troops in the region were not the brittle adversary the planners imagined. Above all there was the matter of Circassian unity, or its absence. The plan rested on Sefer Bey gathering the tribes under one command, yet by 1849 the man actually attempting that work was Muhammad Amin, the deputy whom Shamil had sent west in 1846, and the two were rivals rather than partners. The fractures ran between Muslim and non-Muslim tribes, and ran just as deeply between competing leaders, and a handful of Hungarians and Poles arriving by boat could not have closed them. Ottoman caution, the want of a European war, and Circassian disunity: the three obstacles that would defeat every version of the alliance stood present together in 1849.

For a brief season in the following decade the largest of those obstacles seemed to lift. The Crimean War gave the emigration exactly the thing it had wanted for twenty years, a war between Russia and the great Western powers. In March 1854 Britain and France declared war, and Palmerston, now near the height of his influence, wrote to Lord Clarendon of war aims that reached well beyond the defence of Constantinople. He imagined that Poland might be re-established and Circassia made independent, and for a moment the two causes the liberals had so long bracketed together stood at the centre of British strategy. The war was fought and won without either result. The Treaty of Paris in 1856 said nothing of the Circassians, and within a year, as Ahmad documents, the Foreign Office had quietly agreed to respect Russian trade regulations along the coast, which amounted to conceding Russian sovereignty over it. Contemporaries felt the abandonment exactly. To desert Circassia, some of them said, was the same as deserting Poland.

Out of the Crimean War came the one moment when Poles fought in Circassia in real numbers rather than as lone emissaries. In 1857 a detachment of about a hundred and twenty men, raised in Ottoman territory under Teofil Łapiński, landed near Tuapse and fought the Russians through the campaigns of the next three years. By then the British mood had hardened. Ahmad traces how the romance of the noble Circassian curdled after the Crimean War and the Indian rebellion of 1857 into something closer to indifference and even contempt, the same press that had once lionised the mountaineers now ranking them with other peoples it dismissed as barbarians unworthy of liberal exertion. The Circassians kept petitioning, in 1857 and again in 1862, and kept being heard politely and helped not at all.

The sharpest expression of that indifference came at the very end. In June 1861 the western Caucasian peoples, the Ubykhs and Shapsughs and Abadzekhs along with Abkhazian tribes of the coast, had formed an assembly near Sochi, the Great and Free Assembly, and sent a deputation abroad under Izmail Barakay-Ipa Dzapsh to plead for help. At the close of 1862 Urquhart summoned Łapiński, who had spent three years among the Circassians, to lead an Abkhaz and Adyghean delegation in London, and arranged for it to be received by Palmerston. Łapiński made the strategic case as well as it could be made. The Abkhazians, he argued, were the last in the Caucasus still mounting serious resistance; they could hold perhaps three years more; and a power that wished to weaken Russia and keep its armies occupied in the south should support them before they were driven from their soil. He pressed his pamphlet on the progress of Russia into the Prime Minister’s hands. Palmerston’s reply, which Łapiński never forgot and later set down in his diaries, was a single sardonic sentence. He was not in the least surprised by the Colonel’s opinion, he said, for all the ambassadors and consuls in the East had been writing him the same thing for forty years. The deputation, in Łapiński’s own phrase, set sail from the shores of England with nothing. The vindication, when it came, was bitter and swift. Łapiński had given the Circassians three years; the catastrophe arrived in two.

By then Poland too was rising again. The January Uprising broke out in 1863, and the old logic asserted itself a final time. In October of that year Prince Witold Czartoryski, the son of Adam George, organised a last detachment under Colonel Klemens Przewłocki and sent it to Circassia, where it fought into March 1864. The symmetry of what followed is almost unbearable to set down. Within a few months of one another the two resistances that had looked to each other for thirty years were extinguished together. The Circassian war ended in the mass expulsion of the mountaineers to the Ottoman Empire and the emptying of the western Caucasus. The January Uprising was crushed, and there followed what Żurawski calls the darkest period of repression and Russification, in which the very name of Poland was effaced in favour of the bureaucratic “Vistula Country,” and the Polish language was driven from the schools and the public sphere, tolerated only within the walls of the Church.

So the strategic calculation that had brought the two peoples together ended where such calculations so often end, in a shared defeat that neither could prevent. What the politics could not secure, memory kept. The emissaries were killed or wounded, the legions were small and arrived too late, the grand alliance of 1849 never left the page, and Palmerston’s forty years of consular dispatches yielded forty years of nothing. Yet on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus the village of Adampol still stands, founded for men who had fled a Caucasian war, its handful of Polish speakers a thread running back to Czartoryski’s failed designs. Żurawski ends on the conviction the two peoples shared in their defeat and, he writes, share still, that God is great, and greater than Russia. It is the consolation available to those who have lost everything except the belief that the loss was unjust. The Poles and the Circassians had come to regard each other as natural allies because the same empire loomed over both, and in 1864 that empire proved the point by crushing them in a single season. The alliance failed at every practical task it set itself. The recognition beneath it, of a common predicament and a common adversary, outlived them all.

Works drawn upon

• Radosław Żurawski vel Grajewski, “Polish–Circassian Relations in the 19th Century” (CircassianWorld).

• György Csorba, “The Circassian-Polish-Hungarian Alliance Plans Against the Russian Empire in the Final Days of the 1848–1849 Hungarian Revolution,” Journal of Caucasian Studies (2016).

• Teofil Łapiński, “The Abkhaz people are the last in the Caucasus who still put up resistance to the Muscovites” (from his diaries, Gazeta Narodowa, 1878; and Die Bergvölker des Kaukasus und ihr Freiheitskampf gegen die Russen, Hamburg, 1863).

• Mira Ahmad, “The Circassian question: liberalism and the pursuit of freedom in the mid-nineteenth century,” Middle Eastern Studies (2024).

• Marcin Kruszyński, “Circassian Princes in Poland: The Five Princes.”