MOBILIZATION OF THE CIRCASSIANS IN VIEW OF THE 2014 OLYMPIC GAMES
Abstract
When in Europe, I am often asked about my occupation at home. My answer, “I study the ethnography of the peoples of the Northern Caucasus,” baffles people; most of them do not know where to look for the Caucasus on the map, however everyone recognizes the word “Chechens,” an echo of the Chechen wars of the 1990s.
At the turn of the 2010s, the world learned about another North Caucasian ethnicity, known abroad as the Circassians, the new ethnic name came with the decision of the IOC to organize the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, the historical home of the Adighe peoples.
Who are the Adighes or Circassians? The latter term was used by the first European travelers who reached the Caucasus several centuries ago. Ethnographers use the blanket term “Adighes” to refer to several kindred ethnic sub-groups and sub-ethnicities who speak the Adighe languages. They are the Kabardins, who live in Kab-ardino-Balkaria; the Circassians, who live in Karachay-Cherkessia; and the Western Adigh-es (known in Soviet times as the Adighes from the name of their autonomous region called Adi-gey). The Adighes are divided into smaller ethnic groups—Shapsugs, Natukhays, Abadzekhs, Temirgoys, Bjedugs, etc. Some of the Western Adighes live along the Black Sea coast, in the Lazarevskoe and Tuapse districts of the Kras-nodar Territory, between the cities of Sochi and Tuapse.
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See: Severny Kavkaz v sostave Rossiiskoy imperii, Series “Fringes of the Russian Empire” of the Open Society Institute (in co-authorship with V.O. Bobrovnikov and others), NLO, St. Petersburg, 2007.
See: Materaily po deiatelnosti Natsionalnogo soveta Balkarskogo naroda. 1994-1998, Archives of I.L. Babich.
Etnopoliticheskaia situatsia v Kabardino-Balkarii. Sbornik dokumentov natsionalnykh dvizheniy, in two volumes,Introduced, compiled, and edited by I.L. Babich, Vol. II, Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, RAS, Moscow, 1994,p. 13.
For more detail, see: Ibid., Vols. I, II, 1994.
See: Problemy Kavkazskoy voyny i vyselenie cherkesov v predely Osmanskoy imperii (20-70-e gody XIX v.). Sbornik arkhivnykh dokumentov, Compiled by T.Kh. Kumykov, Nalchik, 2001, p. 206.
State Archives of the Krasnodar Territory (further GAKK), rec. gr. 389, inv.1, f. 39, sheets 50-51.
See: Vdali ot Rodiny. Sbornik dokumentov, Compiled by Kh.M. Dumanov, Nalchik, 1994, p. 10.
See: N.A. Sostavov, Severny Kavkaz v kavkazskoy politike Rossii, Irana i Turtsii v XVIII v., Makhachkala, 1989.
Problemy Kavkazskoy voyny…, p. 103.
See: T.Kh. Kumykov, Vyselenie Adygov v Turtsiyu—posledstvie Kavkazskoy voyny, Nalchik, 1994, pp. 21, 47, 76.
See: Ibid., p. 438.
See: Ibid., p. 440.
See: Tragicheskie posledstviia Kavkazskoy voyny…, p. 231.
See: Tragicheskie posledstviia Kavkazskoy voyny…, pp. 235-237.
Ibid., p. 204.
See: Ibid., p. 205; Russian State Military-Historical Archives (further RGVIA), rec. gr. VUA, f. 6696, sheet 271.
See: Problemy Kavkazskoy voyny…, p. 200.
See: Ibid., p. 192.
See: T.Kh. Kumykov, op. cit., p. 88.
See: Problemy Kavkazskoy voyny…, p. 105.
See: Ibid., p. 107.
RGVIA, rec. gr. 14257, inv. 3, f. 528, sheets 1-6.
See: Problemy Kavkazskoy voyny…, p. 187.
See: Tragicheskie posledstviia Kavkazskoy voyny…, pp. 204, 207-208.
See: Problemy Kavkazskoy voyny…, pp. 197, 204, 219, 229.
See: Ibid., p. 101; Tragicheskie posledstviya Kavkazskoy voyny…, p. 316.
See: Problemy Kavkazskoy voyny…, pp. 360-370.
Central State Archives of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, rec. gr. 454, inv. 2, f. 341, sheets 10-11rev.
See: Problemy Kavkazskoy voyny…, p. 402.
See: Ibid., p. 374.
See: A.K. Kasumov, Raznye sudby, Nalchik, 1967, p. 26.
See: Tragicheskie posledstviya Kavkazskoy voyny…, p. 335.
See: S.F. Alibekov, “Lezginskaia diaspora v Turtsii,” in: Emigratsiia severokavkazkikh narodov v Osmanskuiu imperiiu (vtoraia polovina XIX-nachalo XX vv.), Collection of articles compiled by S.F. Alibekov, Makhachkala, 2000,p. 115.
See: I.L. Babich, V.V. Stepanov, Istoricheskaia dinamika etnicheskoy karty Kabardino-Balkarii, Institute of Eth-nology, RAS, Moscow, 2009.
For more detail, see: I.L. Babich, Islamskoe vozrozhdenie v Kabardino-Balkarii, Moscow, 2003.
See: I.L. Babich, Problema sokhraneniia identichnosti shapsugov Prichenomoria v XXI veke, Moscow, 2008.
See: Field ethnographic materials gathered by I.L. Babich in the Lazarevskoe and Tuapse districts, Krasnodar Territory, Russia, 2002, 2007.
They live in the mountain villages (auls) of Makopse, Golovinka, Psebe, Shkhafit, Akhintam, Bolshoy Kichmai,Maly Kichmai, Khajiko, Tkhagapsh, Bolshoe Pseushkho, Maloe Pseushkho, Tsipka, Aguy-Shapsug, as well in Lazarevskoe,a large settlement of the urban type, and the cities of Tuapse and Sochi.
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