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CIRCASSIAN DIASPORA IN JORDAN
(self-identification, ideas about historical homeland and impact on North Caucasian developments)Anastasia GANICH
Anastasia Ganich, Research associate, The Caucasus and Central Asia Training and Coordinating Center, Institute of Asia and Africa, Moscow State University (Moscow, Russian Federation)
Today, the subject of the North Caucasian diaspora in the Middle East and the historical, social, cultural, political and ethnographic features of its emergence and the present state are actively discussed in Russia and abroad. This interest is heated by the past and present role the Caucasus played, and is playing, in trade, economy, policy, and religious life of many countries as well as the role that people of Caucasian origin played, and are playing, in the East (Egypt of the Mamelukes and the Ottoman Empire in the past, and Turkey, Syria and Jordan today). The public is inclined to associate, at least partially, the events unfolding in the Caucasus with the North Caucasian diaspora. A detailed study of the Caucasian War of the 19th century and the phenomenon of muhajirs has produced a valuable body of knowledge about the past of the Adighes, Abkhaz, Chechens, the peoples of Daghestan, and the Ossets.
While the past has been thoroughly investigated, the present of the diaspora in the Middle East remains a lacuna. This article is one of the few attempts in the Russian historical science to provide a sociological description of the Circassian diaspora at the present stage, to analyze the situation inside the diaspora in Jordan, to discuss the problem of its self-identity, the ideas about the Caucasus, Russia and the diaspora’s future, and to reveal its contacts with the historical homeland and its impact on the developments there.
The article is mainly based on the field materials I collected in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, Abkhazia, and in Moscow in 2001-2002. I also found interesting materials about……………..
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