Circassians
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The term Circassians is a term derived from the Turkic Cherkess (Çerkez), and is not the self-designation of any people. It has sometimes been applied indiscriminately to all the peoples of the North Caucasus. Most specifically, the term can apply only to the Adyghe.
More commonly it has referred to all the peoples of the Northwest Caucasus:
- Adyghe ("Circassians" in the narrowest sense, inhabitants of Circassia, including Kabardin),
- Abkhaz (including Abazins),
- Ubykh (linguistically vanished),
Various communities of Caucasian origin living in the Middle East, notably Jordan and Syria, are known as Circassians, and a suburb of Damascus settled by these people is called Al-Tcharkassiyya. Modern Amman was reborn after Circassians settled there in 1878. Another important Jordanian town re-established by Circassians in 1878 was Jerash.
During the French Mandate period in Syria, in the 1930s, some Circassians in the mostly Circassian town of Al-Quneitra tried to convince the French authorities to create a Circassian national home for them in the Golan Heights, but failed in their attempt. The objective was to group there large numbers of Circassians already living in Turkey and in various Middle Eastern countries.
Another small minority of Circassians lived since the late 1880's in Kosovo Polje (Fushë-Kosovë in Albanian), which was given mention by Noel Malcolm in his seminal work about that province, but they were repatriated to the Republic of Adygea, in Southern Russia in the late 1990's
In Israel, there are also a few thousand Circassians, living mostly in Kfar-Kama and Reyhaniye. These two villages were a part of a greater group of Circassian villages around the Golan Hights. The Circassians in Israel enjoy, like Druzes, a status aparte. Male Circassians are mandated for military service, while females are not.
Circassians (черкези) were introduced to the territory of modern Bulgaria during the Ottoman rule of the country, mostly in 1864-1865 [link] to serve as bashi-bazouks. They are known to have pillaged many villages in the 19th century and to have taken an active part in the suppression of the Bulgarian uprisings. After 1878, when Bulgaria became a separate state, most Circassians fled from the country to Turkey fearing a Bulgarian retribution. Today only some 1,300 people identify as Circassians in Bulgaria.
In late middle ages (around 1600), several emigrants from the Caucasus region, of somewhat noble blood, settled in the then Principality of Moldavia, and became under the name "Cerchez" (pronounced Cherkez in Romanian) one of its 72 boyar families. In time they were assimilated into the general population. However one of the last descendants of this family was a Romanian national hero in the War of 1877-78, thought (by Romania) around Plevna (Pleven) in northwestern Bulgaria against the Ottoman Empire (Russian troups in the same War were mostly finghting in the northeastern Bulgaria and todays Dobrogea). One of the main halls of the Cotroceni palace in Bucharest is named "Sala Cerchez" ("Cerchez Hall") in memory of General Cerchez.
The term's vagueness stems largely from the fact that the northern Caucasus was a remote and relatively unknown area for Westerners and Turks, who often did not distinguish carefully between similar groups living there.
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