The current unpleasantness in Ukraine has caught my attention to a
slight degree, especially in light of the Winter Olympics having been
held nearby. The location of the Olympics gave me a hint as to the best
way to handle the matter. As I am sure you know, Sochi was the principal
city of Circassia before the Russians conquered that country to go
along with the rest of their conquests South and East of Russia proper. I
can understand the conquest of the Crimean Peninsula, which the
Russians took over in the 1700's. And we all know that the origin of
Russia was in Kiev, when the position of Grand Duke was given to Rurik
in 862 CE. What is called Russia these days was just a lightly populated
wilderness mostly populated by Finns (or a related people) back when
Kiev was the founding city of Russia.
Since Russia is big on putting things that way they should be, instead
of leaving things as they are, we should do that with a few parts of the
Russian empire. Let's start by giving the North Caucus independence
again. Chechnya, Ingushetia, North Ossetia, Circassia, Dagestan, and so
on were only conquered in the 18th and 19th centuries; the Caucasian War
only ended in 1864, when the Circassians were finally defeated after
resisting Russian aggression for more than a century and never having
accepted defeat. We can let the Cossacks have the Southern stretch on
Russia; they've been the ones living there for several hundred years
now, since the Mongols left, and the boundary between the Cossacks and
the Circassians is still the Kuban River well up into the interior, and
to the East the boundary between Russia and Dagestan and Chechnya and
Ingushetia is the Terek River.
The people of the North Caucasus are worthy of consideration, and they
have recent and current grievances against the Russians. If only one of
the nations there were rebelling, then we could call them savages, and
that’s how the Russians tried to paint the Chechens, but the Circassians
have a long history of being cultured and respectable people, and the
Circassian women are said to be the most beautiful in the world. But the
Russians made war against women and children throughout the North
Caucasus but especially in Circassia.
It is easy to find ancient examples of ethnic cleansing, but there have
been only a few examples in modern times, and what was done in Circassia
is one of the most extreme examples. "A Russian detachment having
captured the village of Toobah on the Soobashi river, inhabited by about
a hundred Abadzekh [a tribe of Circassians], and after these had
surrendered themselves prisoners, they were all massacred by the Russian
Troops. Among the victims were two women in an advanced state of
pregnancy and five children. The detachment in question belongs to Count
Evdokimoff's Army, and is said to have advanced from the Pshish valley.
As the Russian troops gain ground on the [Black Sea] Coast, the natives
are not allowed to remain there on any terms, but are compelled either
to transfer themselves to the plains of the Kouban or emigrate to
Turkey." (McCarthy, Justin. 1995. Death and exile: the ethnic cleansing
of Ottoman Muslims 1821–1922. Princeton, NJ: Darwin. Chapter 2: Eastern
Anatolia and the Caucasus)
The Circassians were not known as criminals or raiders. They had a
settled culture for many centuries in that region, but they were in the
way of Russian desire for empire, so they were slaughtered and driven
out as much as possible. The commonly used number of Circassians driven
out was 500,000, which was thought to be a little more than half of the
total population. The Circassians were the most numerous of the nations
of the North Caucasus, so the numbers of the people slaughtered among
the other nations look tiny in comparison, but the Chechens,
Ingushetians, Ossetians ( or Alans), and few even smaller nations were
treated similarly. The Chechens have been the most violent in their
recent resistance against Russian aggression, but Ingustia has been in
civil war for several years, and the Circassians have been slowly
filtering back to their homeland to fight for it. Most people would be
better off, if they were peaceful, but the Russians have tried to crush a
few too many others, and it might be a good idea, if there were some
payback. To put it in proportion, the ethnic cleansing of Circassia is
similar in nature to the theft of Kosovo, but many, many, many more
people were killed or displaced in Circassia.
I think that the world would be a better place, if there were fewer
people insisting that their tribe should have something, land freedom or
whatever, and the easiest way to have fewer tribes and nations whining
is to give them what they want, especially when all they want are some
steep mountain valleys in an out of the way corner of the world. Let’s
encourage Russia to negotiate the independence of the North Caucasus
countries, and let us encourage the UN to oversee the peace in that
region for some time.
Over the centuries Russia has subjugated other nations, but let’s start
with an area where a single campaign can do a great deal of good. If you
are interested in the issue, then searching for information about the
North Caucasus peoples, the principle nations are the Adyghe (or
Circassians), Chechens, Ingushetians, Ossetians (or Alans), and there
are numerous smaller peoples in Dagestan. If you are interested in other
nations subjugated by the Russians, then look into the Bashkirs, Crim
Tatars, Mari, Finns, and some of the peoples mentioned in the pages
linked below. Borders have moved over the centuries, so some groups that
were subjugated centuries ago now live in other countries; only the
Circassians (Adyghe) emigrated in great numbers.
http://www.euratlas.net/history/europe/1200/
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...1200,_1127.svg
http://xenohistorian.faithweb.com/russia/ru01.html
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...56_%28A%29.jpg
http://www.rferl.org/content/circass.../24674280.html
The Caucasian War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_War
Russian - Circassian War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian...Circassian_War
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