Circassians

Circassians
Адыгэ
Attéghéi
Flag of Adygea.svg
Flag of Circassia
Total population
c. 3-4 million worldwide
Regions with significant populations
Russia (Krasnodar Krai, Adygea, Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria), Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Israel, United States
Languages

Circassian
Religion

Predominantly Sunni Islam, Christian minority
Related ethnic groups

Abkhaz (Abkhazians, Abaza, or Abazin) and Ubykh

Circassians (Circassian: Адыгэ, Attéghéi) are a North Caucasian nation and an ethnic group who belong to one of the oldest indigenous peoples of the Caucasus and are among the original inhabitants of the Caucasus.[1][2][3] They dwelled and inhabited the whole northwestern region of the Caucasus[4][5] They were once among the majority living in the Caucasus before the Russian conquest of the Caucasus (1763–1864), which led to a massacre and a forced deportation of more than half of the population.[6][7] Today, Circassians are among the minority living in the Russian Federation of the Caucasus, living in the republics of Krasnodar Krai, near the Sochi region and some villages near the Uspensk region,[8] Adygea, Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, and North Ossetia-Alania, near the Mozdok[8] region of their divided ancestral country, or homeland Circassia,[9] while the rest live in diaspora, scattered throughout the world, living in countries outside of their divided ancestral homeland. The majority of living in diaspora live principally in Turkey, while the rest live in mostly in Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Israel, as well as countries in Europe and the United States.[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]

Contents

Etymology

The name Circassian is purely that of Italian origin and came from the medieval Genoese merchants and travelers who first gave currency to the name.[18][19][20] The name Cherkess is not a native name, but one applied to by the Turkic peoples (principally Kyrgyz,[18] Tatar[21][22][23][24] and Turkish[25]) and the Russians. The name Cherkess was usually explained to mean banditti, brigands, cut-throats, highwaymen, robbers, thieves, etc.[26], but is derived from the circumstance of the Circassians never permitting the march of a foreign invader, or foreign soldier through their lands and is considered by some and is applied indirectly to the strenuous defense against invaders.[27] By others, the name is supposed to refer to the predatory habits among Circassians as well as the other peoples of the Caucasus.[25] The Russians gave the collective name of Cherkess to all the mountaineers of the Caucasus who are divided into nations and divided into many tribes.[28] Circassians call and distinguish themselves from other peoples of the Caucasus by the name Attéghéi or Adighe, which is the really native name of the Circassians. “Atté” in the Circassian language means “height” of a place to signify a mountaineer, or a highlander and “ghéi” means the sea, signifying a people dwelling and inhabiting a mountainous country, or region near the sea coast, or between two seas.[29][30][31]

Origins

The majority of Russian anthropologists, archaeologists and linguists as well as other scholars of history generally agree that the early indigenous dwellers and inhabitants of the northwestern region of the Caucasus supplied a significant element of the Circassian genetic pool dating back to the Paleolithic Era.[32][33] Circassians were well known to ancient, or classical authors and writers long before the Christian Era and had gained considerable fame through their national qualities and their heroic struggle with numerous races and foreign invaders dating back to the Ancient Greeks.[34]

The early ancestors of Circassians were the Maeotians who are the forbearers of the modern Circassians and the language of the Maeotians is the predecessor of the modern Circassian language.[35][36][37][38][17] The name Maeotian is derived from the Latin, Palus Maeotis, the ancient name for the Sea of Azov.[39] The Maeotians dwelled and inhabited the whole Northwestern region of the Caucasus from the coast, or shore which stretches from the Kerch Strait to Krasnodar Krai along the northeastern coast, or shore of the Black Sea towards the culminating heights of the lofty summit of Mount Elbrus of the Caucasus Mountains. They made a living as farmers and were involved in agricultural activities, fishing and traded with Ancient Greeks after their arrival in the Caucasus between the 7th century and the 6th century BC.[40][41][42][43][44][45][46] Although the Maeotians were farmers, they had a ruling class, militias and a professional military force.[47]

Like the modern Circassians, the Maeotians were divided into several tribes. Of the several tribes, the Sindians, or Sindi, were the strongest, most numerous and achieved greater prosperity than the Maeotians. Sindians made a living as farmers and were involved in agricultural activities and fishing.[47] The Sindians were consdiered the upper class of the Maeotian tribes.[48]

The Maeotians, or the Circassians were known to foreigners, or outsiders as the Zichians, or Zygii, and in the 1st century BC, Strabo referred to the Zichians as a people who dwelled and inhabited principally the same region whence the Maeotians descended and made a living as farmers and were involved in agricultural activities and fishing.[49][50] Their country was commonly known and usually rendered to ancient, or classical authors and writers as Zichia, also known as Zikhia or Zykhia.[51][52][53] In the year 74 AD, one hundred and three years after Strabo, Pliny the elder mentions the Cercetes as a people who dwelled and inhabited principally the same region as the Zichians of Strabo and their country was commonly known and usually rendered to ancient, or classical authors and writers as Cercetae.[54][55][56] It is regarded that the Zichians of Strabo and the Cerketes of Pliny the Elder are the ancient nations of the true and the primeval stock of the Circassians.[57]

Religion

Before monotheistic religion, the Circassians were pagan at first and adhered to their ancient indigenous pagan beliefs, worshiping multiple deities, or gods and goddesses.[58][59][60][61] Between the 2nd century[62] and the 4th century,[63] Christianity reached and spread throughout the Caucasus and was first introduced between the 4th century[64][65] and the 6th century[66] under Greek Byzantine influence and later through the Georgians between the 10th century and the 13th century. During that period, Circassians began to accept Christianity as their national religion, but did not fully adopt Christianity as elements of their ancient indigenous pagan beliefs still survived.

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

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

Today, the majority of Circassians are predominately Sunni Muslim and adhere to the Hanafi school of thought, or law, the largest and oldest school of Islamic law in jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. Only major Islamic ritual practices and the usual Muslim holidays are observed today. There is, however, a small minority of Circassians living in North Ossetia-Alania who remained Christian.

Notable Circassians

Tevfik Esenç, last representative of Ubykh nation destroyed by Russia.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Adams, Charles J., Wael B. Hallaq, and Donald P. Little. Islamic Studies Presented to Charles J. Adams. Leiden: Brill, 1991. Pp. 194
  2. ↑ "One Europe, Many Nations: A Historical Dictionary of European National Groups." Questia Online Library. Web. 25 Aug. 2010. Pp. 12
  3. ↑ Pendergast, Sara, and Tom Pendergast. Worldmark Encyclopedia of National Economies. Detroit: Gale Group, 2002. Pp. 241
  4. ↑ The Universal Cyclopaedia. New York: D. Appleton, 1900. Pp. 575
  5. ↑ DePuy, William Harrison. Americanized Encyclopaedia Britannica; Revised and Amended. Chicago: Belford-Clarke, 1893. Pp. 1607
  6. ↑ Simmons, Mary Kate. Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization: Yearbook 1995. The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1996. pp. 61
  7. ↑ Strachan, Edward, and Roy Bolton. Russian Orientalism: Central Asia and the Caucasus. London: Sphinx, 2009. pp. 88
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization: Yearbook. The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1996. Pp. 66
  9. ↑ Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization: Yearbook. The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1997. Pp. 67
  10. ↑ Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization: Yearbook. The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1997. Pp. 97
  11. ↑ Khanam, R. Encyclopaedic Ethnography of Middle-East and Central Asia. New Delhi: Global Vision House, 2005. Pp. 155
  12. ↑ Olson, James Stuart, Lee Brigance. Pappas, and Nicholas Charles. Pappas. An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1994. Pp. 167
  13. ↑ Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization: Yearbook. The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1996. Pp. 61
  14. ↑ Gammer, M. The Caspian Region. London: Routledge, 2004. Pp. 64
  15. ↑ Meyer, Birgit, and Peter Geschiere. Globalization and Identity Dialectics of Flow and Closure. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999. Pp. 25
  16. ↑ Spolsky, Bernard, and Elana Goldberg. Shohamy. The Languages of Israel: Policy, Ideology, and Practice. Clevedon, [UK: Multilingual Matters, 1999. Pp. 132
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Smith, Sebastian. Allah's Mountains: the Battle for Chechnya. London: TPP, 2006. Pp. 53
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Latham, R. G. Descriptive Ethnology. London: J. Van Voorst, 1859. Pp. 50
  19. ↑ Latham, R. G. Elements of Comparative Philology. London: Walton and Maberly, 1862. Pp. 279
  20. ↑ Latham, R. G. The Nationalities of Europe: Vol. 1-2. London, 1863. Pp. 307
  21. ↑ Klaproth, Julius Von, Frederic Shoberl, and Steven Runciman. Travels in the Caucasus and Georgia: Performed in the Years 1807 and 1808, by Command of the Russian Government. London: Printed for Henry Colburn, and Sold by G. Goldie, Edinburgh, and J. Cumming, Dublin, 1814. Pp. 310
  22. ↑ The British Review, and London Critical Journal. Vol. 6. London: Thoemmes, 1815. Pp. 469
  23. ↑ Taitbout, De Marigny. Three Voyages in the Black Sea to the Coast of Circassia. London, 1837. Pp. 5-6
  24. ↑ Charnock, Richard Stephen. Local Etymology; a Derivative Dictionary of Geographical Names. London: Houlston and Wright, 1859. Pp 69
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Guthrie, William, James Ferguson, and John Knox. A New Geographical, Historical and Commercial Grammar and Present State of the Several Kingdoms of the World ... Philadelphia: Johnson & Warner, 1815. Pp. 549
  26. ↑ Reclus, Élisée, and A. H. Keane. The Earth and Its Inhabitants, Asia: Asiatic Russia. Ottawa: Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions, 1891. Pp. 55
  27. ↑ Spencer, Edmund. Turkey, Russia, the Black Sea, and Circassia. London: G. Routledge &, 1855. Pp. 347-348
  28. ↑ Golovin, Ivan. The Caucasus. London, 1854. Pp. 81
  29. ↑ Spencer, Edmund. Travels in the Western Caucasus, including a Tour through Imeritia, Mingrelia, Turkey, Moldavia, Galicia, Silesia, and Moravia in 1836. London: H. Colburn, 1838. Pp. 6
  30. ↑ Loewe, Louis. A Dictionary of the Circassian Language: in Two Parts: English-Circassian-Turkish, and Circassian-English-Turkish. London: Bell, 1854. Pp. 5
  31. ↑ The Home Friend: a Weekly Miscellany of Amusement and Instruction. London: Printed for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1854. Pp. 314
  32. ↑ Shami, Seteney Khalid. Population Displacement and Resettlement Development and Conflict in the Middle East. New York: Center for Migration Studies, 1994. Pp. 189
  33. ↑ Richmond, Walter. The Northwest Caucasus: Past, Present, Future. London: Routledge, 2008. Pp.8-9
  34. ↑ Caucasian Review. Vol. 1-7. Munich (München), 1955. Pp. 145
  35. ↑ Caucasian Review. Vol. 1-7. Munich (München), 1955. Pp. 145-146
  36. ↑ Rhyne, George N., Edward J. Lazzerini, and Bruce Friend. Adams. The Supplement to The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian, Soviet and Eurasian History. Vol. 1. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International, 1995. Pp. 78
  37. ↑ Azouqa, Aida O. The Circassians in the Imperial Discourse of Pushkin, Lermontov and Tolstoy. Jordan: University of Jordan, 2004. Pp. 33
  38. ↑ Richmond, Walter. The Northwest Caucasus: Past, Present, Future. London: Routledge, 2008. Pp. 12
  39. ↑ The Periodical. Vol. 8. Oxford UP, 1922. Pp. 28
  40. ↑ Klaproth, Julius Von, Frederic Shoberl, and Steven Runciman. Travels in the Caucasus and Georgia: Performed in the Years 1807 and 1808, by Command of the Russian Government. London: Printed for Henry Colburn, and Sold by G. Goldie, Edinburgh, and J. Cumming, Dublin, 1814. Pp. 363-364
  41. ↑ Strabo, Horace Leonard Jones, and J. R. Sitlington Sterrett. The Geography of Strabo. Vol. 2. London: W. Heinemann, 1917. Pp. 221
  42. ↑ McGushin, Patrick. Sallust, The Histories. Vol. 2. Oxford: Clarendon, 1994. Pp. 108
  43. ↑ Boardman, John. The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and Other States of the Near East, from the Eighth to the Sixth Centuries B.C. Vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991. Pp. 572
  44. ↑ Ustinova, Yulia. The Supreme Gods of the Bosporan Kingdom: Celestial Aphrodite and the Most High God. Leiden: Brill, 1999. Pp. 14
  45. ↑ Friar, Kimon. The Greek Heritage. Vol. 2. 1965.
  46. ↑ Wilson, Nigel Guy. Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece. New York: Routledge,2006. Pp. 149
  47. ↑ 47.0 47.1 Richmond, Walter. The Northwest Caucasus: Past, Present, Future. London: Routledge, 2008. Pp. 229
  48. ↑ Boardman, John. The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and Other States of the Near East, from the Eighth to the Sixth Centuries B.C. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991. Pp. 72
  49. ↑ Smedley, Edward, Hugh James Rose, Henry John Rose, and William Kelly. Encyclopædia Metropolitana: Or, Universal Dictionary of Knowledge. London: Printed for Baldwin and Cradock, 1845. Pp. 687
  50. ↑ Purchas, Samuel. Hakluytus Posthumus, Or, Purchas His Pilgrimes: Contayning a History of the World in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells by Englishmen and Others,. Glasgow: J. MacLehose and Sons, 1905. Pp. 355
  51. ↑ Macartney, C. A. The Magyars in the Ninth Century. Cambridge England: University, 1930. Pp. 44
  52. ↑ < Ripley, George, and Charles A. Dana. The American Cyclopaedia: a Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge. New York: D. Appleton, 1883. Pp. 605
  53. ↑ Pritsak, Omeljan. The Origins of the Old Rus' Weights and Monetary Systems: Two Studies in Western Eurasian Metrology and Numismatics in the Seventh to Eleventh Centuries. Cambridge, MA: Distributed by Harvard UP for the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1998. Pp. 104
  54. ↑ Sears, Edward I. The National Quarterly Review. New York, 1872. Pp. 155
  55. ↑ Reineggs, Jacob, Von Marschall, and Charles Wilkinson. A General, Historical, and Topographical Description of Mount Caucasus: with a Catalogue of Plants Indigenous to the Country. London: C. Taylor, 1807. Pp. 270.
  56. ↑ Kāzim, Beg Mīrzā. Derbend-Nâmeh or the History of Derbend. St. Petersburg, 1851. Pp. 204
  57. ↑ Saxton, L. C. Fall of Poland; Containing an Analytical and a Philosophical Account of the Causes Which Conspired in the Ruin of That Nation, Together with a History of the Country from Its Origin. Vol. 2. New York: C. Scribner, 1852. Pp. 74
  58. ↑ Meri, Josef W., and Jere L. Bacharach. Medieval Islamic Civilization: an Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge, 2006. Pp. 156
  59. ↑ Loewe, Louis. A Dictionary of the Circassian Language. London: George Bell, 1854. Pp. 6
  60. ↑ The Nautical Magazine :. Vol. 23. London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, 1854. Pp. 154
  61. ↑ Richmond, Walter. The Northwest Caucasus: Past, Present, Future. London: Routledge, 2008. Pp. 28
  62. ↑ Scott, Walter, and David Hewitt. The Antiquary. Vol. 13. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1995. Pp. 274
  63. ↑ Smith, Sebastian. Allah's Mountains: the Battle for Chechnya. London: TPP, 2006. Pp. 32
  64. ↑ Taitbout, De Marigny. Three Voyages in the Black Sea to the Coast of Circassia. London, 1837. Pp. 74
  65. ↑ The Penny Magazine. London: Charles Knight, 1838. Pp. 138
  66. ↑ Minahan, James. One Europe, Many Nations: a Historical Dictionary of European National Groups. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000. Pp. 354

References

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