Eylem Daş/JINHA

ISTANBUL – On May 21st, the day when Circassians commemorate the 19th century genocide that displaced or killed 90% of their people, journalist and writer İnci Hekimoğlu says the millions of Circassians who have for generations lived in exile from their historic homeland are now at risk of losing their cultures and identities, making the genocide complete.

Circassians were targeted by Czarist Russia for policies of extermination and deportation from their homeland in the Caucasus region, considered a restive area ripe for resettlement by Christian subjects of the Empire. Today, far more Circassians live in Turkey (around two million) than in any other country. Only one in seven Circassians lives in their historic homeland. İnci says that the 21st of May, 1864 has become the symbolic genocide commemoration day, but the history stretches back for around a hundred years of Russian military campaign against its Circassian subjects.

The Ottoman demand for new military troops as it lost territories in Europe led to the Ottoman Empire agreeing with the Russians to cooperate in designing the brutal deportation plan, said İnci. Russians packed 100-person boats with two or three times their capacity in the plan to forcibly deport the Circassians. Countless boats sank in the Black Sea on the passage to Anatolia.

When they reached the Ottoman Empire, Circassians were subject to a resettlement policy designed to produce "buffer zones" in areas inhabited by native populations in the Balkans and Anatolia, particularly in the Black Sea cities of Trabzon and Samsun. The survivors arrived in Anatolia starving and disease stricken.

"Despite the fact that it was forbidden for migrants to enter the military under Ottoman law, they were used because of their poverty and desperation and forced to fight as so-called 'volunteer units,'" said İnci. Many Circassian troops then took part in the Armenian genocide. In the Republican period, the nationalist state targeted the Circassians, along with Kurds, Laz, Georgians and other minorities, for "Turkification."

"While Circassians were struggling to stay alive, they were being told in their villages to speak Turkish," said İnci. "Of course, they were scared; they weren't teaching their children Circassian." Today, the two million Circassians in Turkey have become an invisibilized group. The stereotype of the "beautiful Circassian girl" is among the only traces of their existence in Turkish popular culture.

"But this has started to change," said İnci, noting there has been a revival of Circassian culture over the last ten years. "I think that the Circassian struggle for identity has become more visible and it will continue to do so."

(sö/gc/mg/cm)