Savaş ve soykırım - War and genocide

Erol Taymaz
"21 Mayıs'ta Dünya Gündemi", diaspora yazıları, 6 Kasım 2020.

Giriş
156.yılında 21 Mayıs ile ilgili pek çok etkinlik gerçekleştiriliyor. Covid-19 salgınından dolayı bu yıl etkinliklerin büyük bir kısmı sosyal medya üzerinden düzenleniyor. Bu doğrultuda yeni teknolojilerin sunduğu olanaklar başarılı bir şekilde kullanılıyor.

21 Mayıs’larda Çerkes Soykırımı ve Sürgünü’nün anılması ve tanıtılması için çalışılmalar yapılması son derece önemli. Aynı zamanda geleceğe bakılması, geleceğe yönelik çıkarımların da yapılması gerekiyor. Geleceğe yönelik çıkarımları yaparken, Çerkes Soykırımı ve Sürgünü’nün yaşandığı coğrafyayı, Kafkasya’yı, dünyadan izole bir bölge olarak düşünmemek gerekli.

Kafkasya’da 156 yıl önce yaşananlar, o dönemin dünya gündeminden bağımsız değildi. Bu nedenle geleceğe yönelik çıkarımlar yapmak, politika ve programlar geliştirmek istiyorsak Kafkasya’yı dünya gündemi içerisindeki yeri ile birlikte değerlendirmemiz gerekiyor.

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Fabio L. Grassi
A New Homeland: The Massacre of The Circassians, Their Exodus To The Ottoman Empire and Their Place In Modern Turkey, 2018, Istanbul: Istanbul Aydin University.

In this work famous Italyan historian Fabio L. Grassi addresses Russian conquest of North-Western Caucasus, the massacre and expulsion of the natives, their forced migration into the Ottoman lands and the economic, political and socio-cultural impact of these events along with the struggle of the Circassians for acknowledgement and remembrance. “A New Homeland” enlightens the tragic concequences of the colonialist policies implemented by the Trarist regime in the Caucasus and the place of the refugees and their descendants in the formation of the modern Turkish nation.The book also includes the transcription of very important but neglected documents in French and in Italian. Also fort his reason, Fabio L. Grassi’s work deserves to be welcomed as an important contribution to our knowledge of an event one must absolutly know to understand the history of late Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey.

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Maja Catic
"Circassians and the Politics of Genocide Recognition", Europe-Asia Studies, 2015, Vol 67, No 10.

This article examines the evolution and significance of the genocide recognition initiative among Circassians at the turn of the twenty-first century. It argues that, on the most basic level, the Circassian genocide recognition initiative is an identity-driven project, resulting from a fear of extinction that grows out of the experience of being a vulnerable, ethno-national group living with memories of massacres, deportations, exile and fragmentation. Genocide, in effect, becomes a frame used to articulate a seemingly universal Circassian grievance—the fear of extinction—but one that manifests itself in diverse ways on the homeland–diaspora continuum.

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Walter Richmond
The Circassian Genocide, 2013, New Brunswick, New Jersey and London: Rutgers University Press.

Circassia was a small independent nation on the northeastern shore of the Black Sea. For no reason other than ethnic hatred, over the course of hundreds of raids the Russians drove the Circassians from their homeland and deported them to the Ottoman Empire. At least 600,000 people lost their lives to massacre, starvation, and the elements while hundreds of thousands more were forced to leave their homeland. By 1864, three-fourths of the population was annihilated, and the Circassians had become one of the first stateless peoples in modern history. Using rare archival materials, Walter Richmond chronicles the history of the war, describes in detail the final genocidal campaign, and follows the Circassians in diaspora through five generations as they struggle to survive and return home.

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Euro Clio
The Russian Expulsion of Circassian Peoples in the 19th Century, European Association of History Educators, 2011, 73 pp.

This documet is prepared by the European Association of History Educators with the financial assistance of the Anna Lindh Foundation.It provides background information on the expulsion of  Circassian peoples by Russia as a part of the project on "Discovering Diversity: An Integrative Approach to the History of Migrants".

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Max Sher
Circassians: a Holocaust in Paradise, "Sochi's Locals" (on Circassian communities in Sochi), Bolshoi Gorod magazine), (MaxSher.com) 2009

It is not a surprise that the Russian authorities keep the history of Circassians under a thick cover of censorship: what happened to this people 145 years ago could be described as the first full-scale ethnic cleansing in modern history. Sochi is known as a popular ex-Soviet resort, the future Olympic-2014 host city on Russia’s Black Sea coast. What else do we know about this region and its past?

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Paul B. Henze 
Circassian Resistance to Russia, ‘The North Caucasus Barrier’, edited by Marie Bennigsen Broxup, Hurst & CO.  2009.

The long struggle of the North Caucasian Mountaineers against Russia in the mid-nineteenth century attracted broad European sympathy and admiration. Among prominent writers who championed the cause of the Caucasian Muslims we find Karl Marx, whose writings about this and other freedom struggles of subject peoples in the Russian empire, such as the Poles, were a constant source of embarrassment to the Soviets. Marx and even professional historians described the struggle primarily in terms of the leadership and personality of the Imam Shamil. Shamil is unquestionably one of the most colourful and effective anti-colonial resistance leaders of the nineteenth century.

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Nazan Çiçek
"Talihsiz Çerkeslere İngiliz Peksimeti": İngiliz Arşiv Belgelerinde Büyük Çerkes Göçü (Şubat 1864-Mayıs 1865)", Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Dergisi, Cilt 64, No 1, ss. 57-88.

Bu çalışma Rusya’nın on dokuzuncu yüzyılda Kafkaslar’daki ilerleyişinin bir sonucu olarak ortaya çıkan ve 1864-1865 yılları arasında yüzbinlerce Çerkes’i Osmanlı ülkesine savuran “Büyük Çerkes Göçü”nü, konuya ilişkin İngiliz arşiv belgelerine dayanarak ve “Şark Meselesi” çerçevesine yerleştirerek ele almaktadır.

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Walter Richmond
Defeat and Deportation, ''The Northwest Caucasus: Past, Present, Future'', Routledge, 2008

Even before their final victory over the Circassians the Russian government had decided to deport the majority to the Ottoman Empire and settle their lands with Cossacks. In the fifth of his “Letters from the Caucasus” General Rostislav Fadeev claimed that “Field Commander Prince Bariatinksy, satisfied with the submission of the Lezgins and Chechens, set as the goal of the war in the west Caucasus the unconditional expulsion of the Circassians from their mountain refuges [ . . . ] such was the plan of the war in its last four years.”[1] Fadeev was apparently referring to a meeting of the Caucasus commanders in October 1860 in Vladikavkaz, the subject of which was the resolution of the western Circassian question. According to Dmitry Miliutin, only Filipson argued for a humane approach to the Circassians:

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Irma Kreiten
The Russian final subjugation of Northwestern Caucasus: Colonial Atrocities and European Responsibilities, Circassian Day in European Parliament: “A Day With Circassians. Federation of European Circassians & Cem Özdemir“, Brussels, 6 October 2008

Why should someone who is not a Circassian himself be interested in Circassian history? Isn’t the study of Circassian history and culture something quite exotic? Should – or could- such a field of knowledge not be left to specialists? I want to seize the opportunity of the Circassian Day in European Parliament in order to argue that, whether we are Circassians or not, Circassian history, and especially 19th century colonization, is something that should concern us all. As our historical pasts are intertwined, this means that, by learning about each other, we also learn something about ourselves.

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Isla Rosser-Owen
The First ‘Circassian Exodus’ to the Ottoman Empire (1858-1867), and the Ottoman Response, Based on the Accounts of Contemporary British Observers, MA Thesis, Near and Middle Eastern Studies, SOAS, University of London, 2007.

This  is  a  preliminary  analysis  of  the  impact  of  the  first Circassian  exodus  on Ottoman society, assessing  the Ottoman  response  to  an unexpected  refugee crisis, between 1858 and  1867.  It  is  based  primarily  on  the  contemporary  accounts  of  British  observers, including consuls,  journalists, and  the correspondence of other eye-witnesses sent  to  the Foreign Office or  the British Press.

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Cahit Aslan
"Bir Soykırımın Adı: 1864 Büyük Çerkes Sürgünü", Uluslararası Suçlar ve Tarih, Ağustos 2006, Sayı 1.

Özet: Kuzey Kafkasya’nın çok dilli özelliğine rağmen, ortak tarihsel, sosyal, kültürel ve jeopolitik menfaat birliğinin yol açtığı bir üst kim kimliği taşıyan Çerkesler, Kuzey Kafkasya’nın kadim halklarıdır. Rusların emperyalist yayılmacı politikasının Kafkasya’ya dayanması yüzünden Çerkesler, uzunca yıllar Rus Çarlığına karşı özgürlük mücadelesi vermişlerdir. Bu mücadele sürecinde Ruslar, Çerkeslere çok kötü davranmış ve Kafkasya’da etnik temizliğe varan savaş metotları uygulamışlardır. Sonuç olarak, Çerkesler, 21 Mayıs 1864’te özgürlük savaşlarını kaybetmişler ve nüfuslarının önemli bir kısmı jenosit kurbanı olmuştur; geri kalan nüfus ise, Kafkasya dışına, özellikler Osmanlı topraklarına sürülmüşlerdir. İşte bu yazı, bu trajedi (Çerkes trajedisi) hakkındadır.

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Kemal Karpat
Çerkes Sürgünü, Çerkes Sürgünü'nün 140. yıldönümü anma etkinlikleri kapsamında Kafkas Dernekleri Federasyonu ve Ankara Kafkas Derneği tarafından 21 Mayıs 2004 günü Ankara Milli Kütüphane'de düzenlenen konferansta sunulan tebliğ.

Kafkasya’yı işgal etmeyi planlayarak yola çıkan Rusları Kafkaslılar önceleri birer misafir gibi gördüler ve geleneksel tavırlarıyla karşıladılar. Ama, çok geçmeden Rusların kurmak istedikleri yönetim sistemini ve kalıcı yapı değişikliğini anladılar. Kafkasya’nın işgal projesine son şeklini veren Çar Petro’dur. Ve o devirde Terek Nehri, Rusya ve Kafkas halkları ile Hıristiyanlık ve Müslümanlık arasında bir sınır olarak görülmüştür.

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Barasbiy Bgajnoko
Çar II. Aleksandr'ın Abzehlerle Görüşmesi, "
Vatanından Uzaklara Çerkesler" (Ed. Murat Papşu, 4.Bölüm, s. 95‐105, Chiviyazıları Yay., İstanbul, 2004)

1861 yılı sonbaharında, Rus‐Kafkas Savaşı’nın tamamlanma aşamasında Çar, Abzeh ileri gelenleriyle görüşmek için özel olarak Kuban’a gelmişti. Bu önemli olay, ilginçtir ki, Sovyet tarihçilerinin çalışmalarında gerekli ilgiyi görmedi ve yeterince incelenmedi. Oysa devrim öncesi yayınlarda Çerkesya’nın ta ‘kalbine’ yapılan ve o zaman için hiç de tehlikesiz sayılmayacak bu ziyaret oldukça ayrıntılı şekilde tasvir edilmişti. Örneğin, 1895 yılında Vasili Potto, çok ciltli “44’ncü Nijegorod Dragon Alayı’nın Tarihçesi” başlıklı çalışmasında bundan bahsediyor. Çarın Kuban Oblastı’na gelişini ve geçtiği güzergahı Semyon Esadze, Batı Kafkasya’nın fethinin ellinci yıldönümüne atfettiği kitabında gün gün ayrıntılı olarak anlatıyor.

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Antero Leitzinger
“Çerkes Soykırımı”. Orijinal metin: "The Circassian Genocide",The Eurasian Politician Issue 2, October 2000.

Özet: Şüphesiz ki 19. yüzyılın en ağır soykırımı; 1800’lü yıllarda Çarlık Rusya’sının Çerkes ulusuna karşı uyguladığı soykırımdır. Yahudilerin yakılarak öldürülmesinin yada Ermeni soykırımının çoğu insan tarafından bilinmesine rağmen Çerkes soykırımı özellikle yakın tarihte bütünüyle unutulmuştur. Bu olayı, sadece ayırmak olarak değil, özellikle 1856 ve 1956 yılları arasında büyük meblağlara ulaşan, Sovyet Rusya’nın yıkılışına ve hatta günümüze kadar devam eden müslüman ve hrıstiyan insanlardan oluşmuş bir topluma uygulanmış planlı bir soykırım olarak ele almalıyız.

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Stephen D. Shenfield
"Çerkesler: Unutulmuş bir Soykırım mı?". Orijinal metin: Stephen D. Shenfield, "The Circassians: A Forgotten Genocide?", Mark Levene and Penny Roberts (der.), The Massacre in History, Oxford ve New York: Berghahn Books, 1999, ss. 149–62.

Rusların Çerkes topraklarını işgali ve Çerkesleri buralardan sınırdışı etmesi, önceden tasarlanmış, kasıtlı bir soykırım mıdır yoksa bu bölgelerdeki Çerkesleri, büyük bir yıkıma neden olsa da, sadece uzaklaştırma amacı güden bir hareket midir? Benim bu soruya cevap verebilmek için yaklaşımım, ilk olarak; Rusya’nın daha önceki dönemlerde veya aynı dönemde işgal ettiği topraklardaki politikalarını incelenmesi gerektiği doğrultusundadır.

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Willis Brooks
"Russia's Conquest and Pacification of the Caucasus: Relocation Becomes a Pogrom in the Post-Crimean War Period", Nationalities Papers, 1995, Vol 23, No 4, pp.675-686.

"The history of Russia is the history of a nation that colonized itself.”

Russia's greatest historian has affirmed that the expansion of Russian rule, particularly its method, is of fundamental significance in understanding the course of Russian history, and the establishment of Russian power in the Caucasus has attracted as much scholarly attention as any other region where Russian imperialism spread in the last two centuries. Russia's finest literary figures, scholars of the most divergent bent, Russian participants in the conquest and, of course, native inhabitants themselves have examined geographic, political, military and economic, as well as cultural and other factors that would explain how the many non-Slavic peoples of this strategically critical region were incorporated into the tsarist empire.

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Ashad Çirg
Adığelerin 19. Yüzyıl Tarihinin İncelenmesi Gerekir, Kafkasya Gerçeği, Sayı 11, Ocak 1993, s. 55-64

Sovyet tarih bilimi Adığelerın politik tarihinin incelenmesinde belli başarılar elde etmiştir. Birçok kitap, belge ve makale yayınlanmıştır. Bununla birlikte birçok güncel sorun ideolojinin tahakküm ve baskı döneminin uygulamaları nedeniyle gerektiği ölçüde ortaya konamamıştır. Kafkasolojinin günümüzdeki aşamasında tarihçilerin eskiden yasak olan konulara yaklaşımı, halkımızın geçmişindeki "beyaz lekeleri" silmek şeklindedir. Yeni olguların birikimi bazı bilimsel tezlerin yeniden gözden geçirilmesini ve Çerkesya'nın politik tarihinin objektif olarak ortaya konmasını zorunlu kılmaktadır. Buna bağlı olarak, derinlemesine incelenmesi gereken bazı konular üzerinde kısaca durmak istiyoruz. 

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Peter Brock
The Fall of Circassia: A Study in Private Diplomacy, The English Historical Review, Vol. 71, No. 280. (Jul., 1956), pp. 401-427.

During the last few years considerable interest has been shown by Soviet historians in the British attitude towards the Russian conquest of north Caucasia which, beginning in the early years of the nineteenth century, was finally completed in 1864. Until recently Soviet historians had ascribed a democratic and progressive character to the resistance carried on over many decades by the tribesmen of the area. This resistance was represented as the heroic struggle of peoples fighting for their national independence against the encroachments of Tsarist imperialism.

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John T. Baddeley
The Rugged Flanks of the Caucasus, Volume 1, Oxford University Press London: Humphrey Milford 1940

When, on the 16th of February 1940, at Oxford, John Baddelel died, this book was ready for the press. His good friend Sir Charles Hagberg Wright was asked to write a foreword and was already at work on it when he too died. The finished memoir to his friend which follows was to have been contributed to the pages of Georgica and was probably the last article he ever wrote.

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John T. Baddeley
The Russian conquest of the Caucasus, With Maps, Plans and Illustrations. London, New York, and Calcutta, 1908

When a non-military writer deals with military affairs a word of explanation seems called for. Riding through and through the Caucasus unaccom-panied save by native tribesmen, living with them, accept-ing their hospitality, studying their way of life and character, conforming as far as possible to their customs, noting their superstitions and prejudices, writing down their songs and legends, I became interested, likewise, in all that related to that strife with Russia in which they or their fathers had, almost without exception, taken part. Nor is this surprising ; for the whole country teemed with memories of the fighting days, and wherever we rode, wherever we rested—in walled cities, in villages, on the hills or the plains, in forest depths, in mountain fastnesses —there were tales to tell of desperate deeds, of brave adventures, the battle shock of armies, the slaughter of thousands, the deaths of heroes. Dull, indeed, must he be whose blood is not stirred in a land so varied and beautiful, filled with memories so poignant. 

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London Daily News -
Circassia, London Daily News, Monday 3 September 1866

Letters received here from Soukoum Kale state that 7,000 Abasians attacked and captured that town on the 27th July, the Russian garrison at the time numbering only 600 men. A reinforcement of 1,100 Russian troops had subsequently arrived at Soukoum Kale and driven out the insurgents.

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Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper
Frightful Massacre in Circassia, Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, Sunday 9 September 1866

Letters from the Circassian coast report popular outbreaks against the Russian authorities at Souanettri in the southern Abasian slopes of the Caucasus, and the Russian consul here has, I learn, received reports from Soukoum kale, more or less confirmatory of these statements. 

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Robert Hardwicke
The Circassian War: As Bearing on the Polish Insurrection, London, February, 1863

There pages had just been concluded, when there was placed in the writer's hands and inedited work entitled "Twelve Years of Diplomacy in Europe:" drawn up in 1842 by M. de BIELKE, late Minister of Denmark at Berlin and London.

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The Illustrated London News
Deputation Of Circassian Chiefs To The Sultan, The Illustrated London News, 24 May 1856

The silence which the Treaty of Peace observes about Circassia has caused great disappointment, which is fully shared by Circassia itself. The simple news that peace had been concluded produced a very strong excitement there. The mountaineers flocked down in thousands to Anapa, where a Turkish Governor, Sefer Pacha, a Circassian by birth, resides.

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Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine
Travels in Circassia – Part II, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 80 July-December, London 1856 pp.45-61

It would have been interesting, could we have spared the time, to have visited the church of Pitzounda, celebrated as the oldest Christian church in the Caucasus, and situated upon a remarkable promontory, which we steamed past the morning after leaving Ardiller. It is almost exactly similar to that of Souksou, but upon the scale of a cathedral instead of a church. It has been described at length in the elaborate work of Mons. Duboies de Montpereux, whose extensive researches into the history and antiquities of the Caucasian province are a most valuable source of reference. Founded by the Emperor Justinian about the middle of the sixth century, it embraced within is patriarchate nearly all the Caucasian countries.

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Yorkshire Gazette
The Circassian War, Yorkshire Gazette - Saturday 25 October 1845

The following is a note made after a long conversation with a most intelligent Circassian, just arrived from his own country. It contains no fresh intelligence, but may be interesting to some of our readers, in as much as it shows the state of popular feeling in that part of the world.

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Freeman's Journal
Circassia-The Vixen - Freeman's Journal - Friday 24 March 1837

To understand the question relative to the Vixen, it is necessary to be acquainted with the present state of the coast of the Black Sea, more particularly as respects the country of the Abasians. The Abasians are composed of about forty thousand families. They inhabit the western side of the Caucasus, and the valleys which descend from that mountain range towards the sea. Behind them, in the glens and on the summits of those mountains, dwell the Circassians. These Abasians are the descendants from the ancient inhabitants of the country; they were independent of the Emperors of Byzantium, as they have since been of the Turks ; at most they occasionally paid a tribute. Nevertheless, they became Christians at the instance of the emperors, and received Islamisms from the hands of the sultans.

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Cobbett's Weekly Political Register,
Circassian Declaration, Cobbett's Weekly Political Register, Saturday 20 February 1836

This decleration, which appeared some weeks since in the "Portfolio," is one of a series of state documents, the publication of which has excited no little of both curiosity and alarm. The genuineness of these documents may be disputed in some instances perhaps. With regards to the "declaration" which I insert, it must be acknowledged that it carries truth upon the face of it: that if really a paper issuing from any portion of the people of the nation it relates to, it is a composition of inimitable simplicity; and that, supposing it to have been written in London or Paris, either by the editor of this English journal or by any Parisian homme de lettres, it is a piece of inimitable art; and, written where, or by whom it may, the only question ought to be, whether the facts be true, and the sentiments ascribed to the people referred to, faithfully represented.

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Musa Şaşmaz
"Longworth's Mission to Circassia, 1855", Ankara Üniversitesi Osmanlı Tarihi Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi Dergisi, No 10, pp. 219-241.

This paper presents a detailed account of Longworth's mission to Circassia in 1855. It is focused on the British-Ottoman relations regarding Circassia in the period from August 1855 to February 1857.

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