Circassian Deportation in Light of Academic Disinformation
By: Adel Bashqawi
25 August 2018
The facts concerning the situation of Circassians and the peoples of the Caucasus have been undermined by those who are obstructing the truth and historical evidence. These individuals are promoting false, malignant, biased, and misleading information concerning the wars of annihilation waged by the Russian Empire against the Circassians and the occupation of their homeland. Those individuals have deliberate, malicious intentions to circulate fabricated information through the different media outlets. These are suspicious techniques used as deceptive public relations tools.
On August 19, 2018, the Jordanian newspaper Al-Rai published an article entitled “Jordanian-Russian Understandings Contributed to the Stability of the Situation in the South of Syria,” which addressed the minutes of a symposium organized by «Al-Rai Center for Studies». In addition to a selection of Jordanian politicians and economists, the participants were Dr. André Mokhov, the Director of the Black Sea Center for Information Analysis, Dr. Tatiana Sinochkina, Professor of Political Science at the Federal University of Crimea, and Dr. Ammar Qanah, Professor of Political Science at the Sevastopol State University. In the presence of Deputy Russian Ambassador to Jordan Oleg Levin, the dialogue focused on the regional crises, “Russia and the region’s issues”.
The participants discussed the difficulties and obstacles that have resulted from Russia taking part in influencing mechanisms that led to the creation of regional and international crises. It is not intended through this written response to participate or to express an opinion on the new issues concerning the Russian Federation. However, this is a response to one of the participants, Dr. Ammar Qanah, who affirmed disregard to the historical facts about the consequences of the Russo-Caucasian War, the Russo-Circassian War, and the adventures of Russian Tsars in occupying Circassia, Chechnya, and other homelands of the peoples and nations in the nineteenth century.
The newspaper quoted the following: “Concerning the displacement of Chechens and Circassians, Qanah stated that they were not deported, as this is a historical political equation, and called everyone to re-read what happened to the Chechens in the Caucasus region, which was historically a conflict area between the Ottomans, Persians, and Russians, and subsequently, this was a political issue and was not deportation, but a voluntary exit, where there are a lot of Muslim ethnicities in that region that no one came out of them”.
The fact must be addressed quite simply, the premonition of annexing the occupied territories to the empire was one of the most important desires the Russian empire had long dreamed of achieving. This has resulted in a substantial change in the political and demographic map of the Caucasus region and beyond, not to mention the unprecedented humanitarian tragedies. The bloody events that lasted for decades affected millions of human beings. Who is inventing and fabricating this fake description of this genocide as if they are accidental occurrences only for the interests of invaders, occupiers and colonists? Whether this misleading information is intentionally or unintentionally stated, it is not an acceptable excuse for distorting historical facts affecting the dignity and legitimate rights of the people, guaranteed in accordance with international laws and norms.
Confucius must be quoted here: “Study the past if you would define the future,”[1]
Within this context, in order to clarify the truth, it is necessary to make a brief reference to the following facts and references:
Pogodin’s report to Czar Alexander II clearly defines the place of Circassia, and of the Caucasus in general, in the foreign policy plans of Russia: “The East must belong to us by right. We should not relax our activities in the direction for one moment.”[2]
In Chechnya and Daghestan [The Central and eastern parts of the northern Caucasus] the Russians were satisfied with the natives’ subjugation, but on the Black Sea coast they intended to gain possession of the wide and fertile Circassian lands to provide for a part of the great wave of Russian peasant migration resulting from emancipation of the serfs in 1861. Every year Cossacks and peasant migrants from central Russia were penetrating farther and farther up the affluents of the [Rivers] Kuban, Laba, Belaya and Urup.[3]
The Caucasus Front and the de facto Authorities
The Chechen losses were explained by Amjad Jumukh, who said in his book on Chechnya: “The Chechens suffered horrific losses in human life during the long war. From an estimated population of over a million in the 1840s, there were only 140,000 Chechens left in the Caucasus in 1861 — a literal decimation. By 1867, the number had gone even further down to a lowly 116,000 (N. G. Volkova 1973: 121). According to M. Vachagaev (1995: 35), the Chechens lost more than half a million people in the war.
“As part of a master plan to empty the North Caucasus of its original inhabitants and replace them with Cossacks and Slavs, mass deportation of some 80,000 Chechens to Ottoman lands was inhumanely carried out in 1860. A central figure in this scheme was the conspiratorial Musa Kondukhov, a high-ranking officer in the Russian Army, of Ossetian origin.”[4]
The de facto authorities carried out the odious demographic engineering policy against many peoples of the Caucasus. It had innumerable negative effects, where the military administrations after the occupation have killed, ethnically cleansed, and exiled the people of those lands. According to documented sources, M. Togoyev has written that, “In addition to the Daghestanians, in his opinion, Osetia and Kabarda also gave a considerable number of these ‘resettlers’. According to the data of A. Ubichini and P. de-Kurteil, in the beginning of 1866, the total number of the evicted indigenous Caucasians reached 1,000,000. A. Berkuk, the Turkish historian, shares this opinion. The Circassian point of view about their eviction is well expressed in this song:
I took my soil with me even abroad,
Seven sacred cupfuls of my hand!
This is all I could save, I’ll sadly tell my son,
From your motherland!” [5]
Russia’s successive regimes have proven to be similar while continuing comparable conduct with the nations occupied by the Russian empire in the 19th century. “On 23 February 1944, the Soviet authorities started to implement plan to deport the Chechens and Ingosh en masse to Central Asia and Siberia. Code named ‘Lentil’, the week-long secretive operation, which was carried out by thousands of NKVD and Red Army troops, was a brainchild of Stalin himself, who wanted to get rid of the ‘troublesome’ Chechens once and for all and to replace them with more trustworthy Slavic elements – ethnic cleansing at its vilest.”[6]
In the foreword for the book written by Wlater Richmond, “Northwest Caucasus, Past, Present, Future,” John Colarusso stated, “This book is extraordinarily rich, Dr. Richmond begins his book with dramatic eyewitness accounts of the deportations of the nineteenth century and of World War II, followed by a brief account of present-day ethnic and political tensions that have resulted from them. As in almost every following chapter he makes an important observation in this introduction: Russian rule contains a profound element of irony, because policies that, at their face value, are intended to protect ethnic identity and to insure inter-ethnic peace have in fact threatened such identities at the same time that they have exacerbated inter-ethnic conflict.”[7]
“The contrary case of the Circassians brings home to us how easily the genocide of a people can, under less favorable circumstances, still fade out of historical consciousness.”[8]
Northwest Caucasus and Western Circassia Front
— The Russian Tsars’ final plan was to subjugate the peoples of the Caucasus and the other occupied territories by various ways and means, and to oblige the peoples to abandon their homelands by means of intimidation and seduction. However, the coastal part of Circassia on the Black Sea was to be completely vacated of its inhabitants, whether by annihilating or deporting them beyond the Kuban River basin or to the Ottoman Empire. They wanted settlers from other nationalities to settle instead of them in the Circassian homeland.
— K. A. Borod said: “At the end of the war of 1864, General Yevdikimov ordered to assemble the Circassians on the Black Sea coast. Then he pointed out to them by saying: “Who wants to live beyond the Kuban, should go there (He said so, knowing that no one will be able to cross the sea), but he who does not want to, should board one of the ships to Istanbul.” Borod also confirmed that if Cossacks were not distributed on the land that we took over, war would never have ended.[9]
— “In 1860, having failed to subdue the Circassians in ninety-seven years of warfare, the Russian government decided to enforce their mass migration to other regions of the empire or to Turkey. General Yevdokimov was entrusted with the exception of this policy, and advanced into the still unconquered parts of Circassia with newly formed mobile columns of riflemen the Cossack cavlary.”[10]
— “On June 24, 1861, Alexander II signed the ‘imperial’ rescript on the ‘Settlement of the North Caucasus.’ It says, ‘Now with God’s help, the matter of the complete conquest of the Caucasus is near to conclusion. A few years of persistent efforts are remaining in order to utterly force out the hostile mountaineers from the fertile countries they occupy and settle on the latter a Russian Christian population forever. The honor of accomplishing this glorious deed belongs mainly to the Cossacks of the Kubanski armed forces.’ To encourage the Cossacks and to speed up process, the emperor promised them monetary compensation and other privileges.”[11]
— Russia’s scheming actions against the indigenous peoples were not isolated from governmental military and colonial decisions and plans of the Russian Empire. “Despite the fact that the united Circassian nations resisted the Russians obstinately during the final stage of their long war, the Russian armies in 1862 occupied the lands lying between the Laba and Byelaya Rivers and the slopes of the mountains lying between Anapa and Adagum. In this way they obliged all the Abazas and Circassians living on the right bank of the Byelaya to choose either:
a — To accept all the Russian demands in full and to remove to the lands allotted to them, or,
b — To immigrate to the Ottoman territories.”[12]
— In his book, “Northwest Caucasus, Past, Present and Future,” author Walter Richmond says that Circassians were defeated by the Russian Empire “in one of the bloodiest struggles in the history of the Russian Empire. Over the next several years, over 90 percent of the Circassians, along with the majority of Abazas and entire Ubykh nation, were forced from their homeland to the shores of the Black Sea, where those who did not die of disease and starvation were loaded onto ships and deported to the Ottoman Empire.
Some 140 years later this date, known in the Northwest Caucasus as ‘The Day of Remembrance and Grief,’ was marked in the tiny Republic of Adygeia by multiple events, including an address by Republic President Khazret Sovmen, who highlighted the particular significance the war still held for the Circassian people, the primary victims of this war.”[13]
— It is necessary to know the colonial policy adopted by the Russian Tsarist Empire to eliminate the Circassian resistance which was able to resist Russian imperialist aggression for a century. The saying, ‘the end justifies the means’ was implemented in its worst negative, cruel, and inhumane form. “Once they concluded that the Circassians would be eliminated in any event, they began to treat them with increasing levels of brutality. Velyaminov, Zass, Serebryakov, and others were the pioneers who laid the ideological and tactical foundations that Nikolai Evdokimov would employ in the 1860s to commit genocide.
One reason why the Russians turned to genocide as solution to the Circassian issue was that they could never develop a coherent plan for subjecting them to Russian rule. Although Raevsky’s efforts to conquer the Shapsugs in 1838 met with total failure, in January 1839 Russian minister of war Alexander Chernyshev proposed virtually the same plan.”[14]
— Describing one of the Tsarist Russian invasion’s consequences, Walter Richmond wrote: “Those who were captured fared little better. Already exhausted, starving, and no doubt terrified at what was to come next, they were driven to the coast, surrounded by Russian cordons. Fonville describes the operation: ‘The inhabitants of the auls came running out of all the places where they had lived, which were subsequently occupied by the Russians, and their starving parties went through the country in different directions, leaving their sick and dying on the path. Occasionally entire groups of emigrants froze to death or were carried away by snowstorms, and we frequently noticed their bloody trails as we passed. Wolves and bears were digging in the snow and pulling out human corpses’.”[15]
— Circassian exodus was a policy adopted by the Russian Empire based on understandings that were sometimes held with the actors at the time. “The Ottomans were indeed incompetent when it came to settling the Circassians, but the Russians did all they could to deceive them about to the volume and pace of deportation. In 1859, even as the Tatars experiment was making it clear that undertaking mass immigration too rapidly was risky, the Russians began negotiating with the Ottomans about Circassian migrations. Initially they promised that no more than fifty thousand people would be sent and that the process would be gradual. The first migrants, mainly wealthy Kabardian aristocrats, arrived in 1860 and 1861 and were quickly settled in new locations, but the forced deportations of 1863 quickly overwhelmed the Ottomans. They repeatedly asked the Russians to slow down the flow of immigrants, but St. Petersburg responded that thousands of Circassians were already at the beach and that if the Porte did not accept them at once they would be driven inland, resulting in a great deal of bloodshed.”[16]
— The Circassians’ mass deportation to Turkey cannot be denied in any way. “The most dramatic period of the ethnic history of Circassians in the 1850-60s. In Russian (and not only in Russian) this period is known under the name of Muhajiring of Circassians. It should be said that a term Muhajiring does not reflect the historical reality of the conditions in which the mass deportation of Adyges from their homeland has been carried out. It would be correct to say that it was the period of deportation to Turkey— more exactly of genocide of Circassians.
“Russian autocracy carried out the genocide of Adyges by two methods: 1. by physical annihilating of their best part during the Caucasus War and, 2. by internally displacing of survived and depressed Circassians to Turkey.
“Today majority of ethnic Circassians who are beyond the historic homeland is residing on all continents of our planet (in more than 40 countries). According to modern authoritative scholars, in Turkey, Syria and Jordan there are residing more than 3 million Circassians.”[17]
— The data of the victims, who have been subjected to ethnic cleansing and forced deportation, has been disclosed by various sources. “The following is reported and published by Ali, Robert, and Iqbal, which presented the war outcome that led to slaughter, occupation, deportation, and thus enumerating ‘more than 400,000 Circassians were killed, 497,000 were forced to flee abroad to Turkey, and only 80,000 were left alive in their native area, Circassians died from diseases when they were forced into Turkey’ and finally stating, ‘Sea storms killed some Circassians while on boats looking through the eyes of the Circassians was horrifying, lots of deaths were taking place in front of their family and friends. Circassians suffered from sickness and poverty. They were in oversized groups forced into small boats’.”[18]
— The tragedies and hardships suffered by all were described as a result of the brutal tactics of the invading forces. “The characterization went on to elaborate on the significance of the results that pertains to deportation: ‘By 1859, Russians implemented a policy of deporting the Circassian people, by ship, to a choice of Turkey or Anatolia (which is now present-day part of Turkey).’ Displaced Circassians suffered from the horrors of displacement away from their homeland and were subjected to the impact of harsh weather conditions, such as extremely high and low temperatures, rain, snow, storms, exposure to cold, and sunstrokes.”[19]
— The intentions of the Russian Empire erupted and became the official colonial policy of the state. It was established and decided upon to apply its rules, by various ways and means, against the indigenous and original landowners, even though they had a proven developed civilization for thousands of years. “The Circassian deportation was proven to be planned by the Russian army. Their plan was to clear the Circassian coast on the Black Sea from the indigenous population. Those who weren’t killed were to be transferred to areas beyond the Kuban River or to be deported to the Ottoman Empire. The Russians’ intentions stipulated total elimination of the Circassian national resistance, which aimed to defend the homeland from the invasion of foreign powers that did not have any ethnical, national, religious links or any common goals with the Circassians.”[20]
— Needless to indicate that some of the documents extracted from the Russian archives contained instructions and guidelines of the chief of staff of the Caucasus army, other field commanders, high-ranking officers of the Russian armed forces, and Cossack militias. Information is available and it cannot be concealed anymore. It demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt the intention of the Russian Empire against the peoples of the Caucasus in general and Circassian people in particular. The documents disclosed displayed the extent of elaborating on military operations and the use of excessive and disproportionate force against the Circassian nation and its homeland. The established and confirmed plans endorsed occupation, destruction, systematic murdering, annihilation, ethnic cleansing, and coordinated forced deportation. Documents mentioned here as an example of thousands others: 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281, etc. etc.[21]
Sochi Winter Olympics
Circassians objected to holding the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. “For most Russians, the town of Sochi represents one of the country’s finest ski resorts in an area of outstanding natural beauty. But for exiled Circassians, the same land harbours a devastating secret. It was the place their ancestors endured terrible atrocities in the late 1800’s in a series of military campaigns by tsarist forces.”
The available data confirms that, “Sochi was the last territory conquered by the Russian Empire through force of arms. After massacring a population already weakened by starvation and war, the land was occupied … They deported more than 90 percent of the population to Ottoman lands and conquering Sochi meant conquering the entire Caucasus.”[22]
Recent information released in 2018 in Moscow
Recently, more data has been released with modesty, by a radio station in Moscow, about the Circassian Question and the forced deportation of the Circassians from their homeland. “Two days ago, a Moscow radio station carried a rare broadcast on the deportation of the Circassians from Russia in 1864, an action that affected up to 95 percent of all Circassians in the North Caucasus then newly conquered by Russian forces, Pavel Pryanikov reports.” The article adds: “The Circassian expulsion gives ‘food for thought for alternative historians.’ Had the Circassians and other North Caucasians remained in their historical motherland, today, there would be 25 to 30 million of them in that region. ‘Kuban and Stavropol would be 90 percent mountaineers’.”[23]
Conclusion
It is central to say that addressing these facts is to highlight the confiscated Circassian rights. There is no intention to cause hostility and hatred against any party. Nor is there any intention to promote praise to any other party. Violations must be recognized and the truth must be well-known. Rumors and false information about the deportation of the vast majority of the Circassian nation must be disregarded. The consequences of the Russo-Circassian War included but were not limited to murder, destruction, occupation, ethnic cleansing, extermination, and deportation. There is no room for denying these notorious facts, which were mentioned in many neutral and even Russian sources. The available data confirms that the consequences of tragedies do not affect only one particular party, but multiple parties and peoples whose rights and interests have been squandered and confiscated. They have been dispersed as individuals and groups across the globe, where they are almost forgotten.
In the same context, it is necessary to mention the facts concerning the Circassian Question, and to call upon those who are familiar and knowledgeable of the topics to be addressed. More researchers, scholars, and interested people are encouraged to read and delve into the documents and facts available to present, publish, diversify, and vary the methods of distributing factual information amongst the public. Since the Circassian nation is scattered amongst the homeland and in diaspora around the world, it necessary to use multiple languages and references. The various issues of the Circassian Question could be translated to other languages to expose the reality of the genocide and deportation. We can only appeal to researchers and scholars to cautiously focus on being precise, prudent, and careful when talking about specific historical facts and events.
References
[1] https://jhss10cestoncarino.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/study-the-past-if-you-would-define-the-future-confucius/
[2] ‘Circassian History’, by Kadir I. Natho, Page 269
[3] ‘The Massacre in History’, by Stephen D. Shenfield, Edited by Mark Levene & Penny Roberts, Page 156
[4] ‘The Chechens a Handbook’, by Amjad Jaimoukha, Page 50
[5] ‘Circassian History’, by Kadir I. Natho, Page 368
[6] ‘The Chechens a Handbook’, by Amjad Jaimoukha, Page 58
[7] ‘Northwest Caucasus, Past, Present, Future’, by Wlater Richmond, Foreward, Page viii
[8] ‘The Massacre in History’, by Stephen D. Shenfield, Edited by Mark Levene & Penny Roberts, Page 160
[9] ‘The Historical Encyclopedia of the Circassian Nation (Adyghe)’, Volume III / Part II, Page 264
[10] ‘Massacre in History’, by Stephen D. Sheinfeld, edited by Mark Levine and Bennie Roberts, Page 151
[11] ‘Circassian History’, by Kadir I. Natho, Page 361
[12] ‘Heroes and Emperors in Circassian History’, by: Shauket Mufti, Page 267
[13] ‘Northwest Caucasus, Past, Present, Future’, by Wlater Richmond, Page 1
[14] ‘The Circassian Genocide’, by Walter Richmond, Page 58
[15] ‘The Circassian Genocide’, by Walter Richmond, Page 85
[16] ‘The Circassian Genocide’, by Walter Richmond, Page 100
[17] ‘Adygean (Circassian) Culture’, by Nugzar Antelava, Page 60
[18] ‘Circassia: Born to be Free’, by Adel Bashqawi, Page 112
[19] ‘Circassia: Born to be Free’, by: Adel Bashqawi, Pages 112-113
[20] ‘Circassia: Born to be Free’, by: Adel Bashqawi, Page 7
[21] (http://www.circassian-genocide.com/Documents/English.pdf) (http://www.circassian-genocide.info/Documents/English.pdf)
[22] https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/aljazeeraworld/2013/06/20136179431945292.html
[23] http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/08/russians-dont-like-to-talk-about.html
