Circassians and the Politics of Genocide Recognition

Abstract

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.

Notes

¹ For a sample of this kind of narrative, see ‘14 Reasons for Opposing Sochi 2014’, available at: http://nosochi2014.com/campaign/14-reasons-for-opposing-sochi-2014.php, accessed 7 May 2012.

² ‘Transnation’ describes an increasingly common form of ethno-national existence, whereby an ethno-national group consists of two equally important and intertwined elements—the territorialised component, a homeland, regardless of whether or not it is a sovereign state, and a diaspora, comprised of the communities belonging to the nominal ethno-national group but scattered away from the homeland. The Circassian transnation is comprised of the Circassian homeland, situated in the northwest Caucasus and under Russian sovereign control, and Circassian diasporic communities in the Middle East, Europe and North America. The concept of ‘transnation’ has been developed by Khachig Tölölyan (2000) in his work on the Armenian transnation.

³ Historical Circassia covered western and central parts of the North Caucasus from the Black Sea and the Kuban River to the mouth of the Sunja and the Terek. The Circassians were divided into ethno-tribal groups, the most numerous of which were Abadzekhs, Besleneys, Bzhedughs, Temirgoys, Natukhays, Kabardeys and Shapsughs. On Circassian history see the following: Jaimoukha (2001), Richmond (2008) and Khodarkovsky (2011).

⁴ There exists a relatively rich historiography of Circassian deportations from the Caucasus and their exile into the Ottoman lands in the nineteenth century. Classics in the field include Berzhe (1882), Karpat (1979, 1985) and Pinson (1970, 1972). For a more recent account, see Cuthel (2003). Estimates on losses vary but they generally fall between one third and one half of a million, with Walter Richmond suggesting the higher figure (Richmond 2008, pp. 77–78).

⁵ The Russo–Caucasian war is also known as the Caucasian War (in the official Russian narrative) or the Russo–Circassian War (preferred by the Circassian narrative in order to emphasise that the war amounted to international conflict between two political entities, Russia and independent Circassia, whose independence was crushed through Russian conquest).

⁶ Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, UN General Assembly, 9 December 1948, Treaty Series volume 78, p. 277, available at: https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-1&chapter=4&lang=e, accessed 23 September 2015.

⁷ The concepts of ‘voluntary joining’ and ‘friendship of peoples’ had several functions as elements of a legitimising narrative of the Soviet state. Voluntary joining was intended to displace the memory of expansion, conquest and subjugation by emphasising, on the one hand, the long history of cooperation between North Caucasus peoples and Russia, and on the other, the role of the ‘Russian protectorate’ against sinister designs of the Ottoman, Persian and British Empires. Thus, anniversaries of the joining of the various peoples of the North Caucasus with Russia were celebrated: in 1957, Adygeia, Cherkessia and Kabarda celebrated the 400th anniversary of the joining with Russia; in 1974 North Ossetia celebrated the 200th anniversary of joining, while in 1981, the celebration of the 200th anniversary of ‘voluntary joining’ of the Chechens and the Ingush took place. Friendship of peoples was intended to legitimate the contemporary territorial-administrative demarcation in the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia as it was consolidated following the return of the repressed North Caucasus nations from internal exile (see Shnirelman 2006, pp. 283–84).

⁸ In a series of academic conferences, as well as in other public forums, Chechen, Ingush and Daghestani historians and intellectuals criticised and challenged the ‘voluntary joining’ thesis. This resistance to the official historical narrative was preceded, and also accompanied, by a resistance to other symbols of Russian colonialism and Soviet repression, including monuments commemorating Russian conquest of the Caucasus, and the renaming of towns and villages (Shnirelman 2006).

⁹ This scholarly conference, dedicated to the history of Adyghe–Circassians in the nineteenth century, was attended by scholars from Circassian autonomous territories, and explored issues such as the nature of Tsarist colonial policy in the Northwest Caucasus in the second half of the nineteenth century, the history of Russo–Adyghe relations, and the causes and nature of the Caucasus war (1817–1864). The proceedings of the conference were published as Cherkessia v XIX veke, Maikop, 1991.

¹⁰ Shenfield (1999, p. 154) analyses Circassian nationhood and identity (as a protected group), makes references to the ‘warrant for genocide’ (intent), and details the various acts of subjugations, removal and destruction (acts constituting genocide).

¹¹ First developed by Hans Mommsen to explain the Nazi state’s genocide of European Jews, cumulative radicalisation thesis shifts focus away from ideological commitments of the political leadership and towards the chaotic logic of the process of policy-making and the enabling societal structures which facilitate mass murder (Mommsen 2015). As an explanatory strategy, cumulative radicalisation thesis was applied to other instances of mass murder, including Donald Bloxham’s work on the Armenian genocide (2005).

¹² Several works of history provide detailed accounts of deportations and massacres of the Circassians, including eye witness and survivor accounts. Those works include Mufti (1944), Allen and Muratoff (1953), Trakho (1956) and Brooks (1995).

¹³ On Ukrainian diaspora and its sense of victimisation, see Satzewich (2002) and Himka (2005); on Armenian identity, see Bakalian (1993).

¹⁴ The three republics in which Circassians constitute a titular group have, since their inception in the early Bolshevik era, been shaped by the vicissitudes of Soviet ethno-federalism. On ‘Circassian republics’ inside the Russian Federation, see Smeets (1995), Hewitt (1999), Matveeva (1999) and Richmond (2008).

¹⁵ In the literature on divided societies, ‘Lebanese style’ political organisation refers to a model of government, also known as consociationalism, that divides power along confessional or ethnic lines. For instance, in Lebanon, power is divided along confessional lines, in Bosnia along ethno-confessional lines, while in Kabardino–Balkaria and Karachaevo–Cherkessia the dominant principle is ethnic.

¹⁶ Karachaevo–Cherkessia and Kabardino–Balkaria were created as autonomous provinces in 1922. In 1926, the former was split into the Karachay autonomous province, and a Cherkes National District, later to become itself a province. In 1943, the Karachay became the first people of the Caucasus to be subjected to collective punishment for alleged collaboration with the Nazis. The punishment entailed mass deportations into Central Asia and dissolving of their territorial autonomy. After the rehabilitation of the Karachay in 1956, they were allowed to return but their autonomy was never fully restored. The common Karachay–Cherkes autonomous province of the early 1920s was reinstated. Similarly, after the deportations of the Balkars in 1944, Kabardino–Balkaria, which in 1936 became an autonomous republic, was renamed a Kabard autonomous republic. After the rehabilitation of the Balkar in 1956, the previous situation was restored. The effects of incomplete rehabilitation of the Karachay and the Balkars will continue to plague inter-ethnic relations in the North Caucasus in the post-Soviet era.

¹⁷ On the genesis of the Abkhaz–Georgian conflict, see Hewitt (1999).

¹⁸ On the origins of the Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus and its activities, see Oguz (2004); see also George Derluguian (2005).

¹⁹ On the salience of the Abkhaz–Georgian war to Adyghe–Circassian mobilisation, see Derluguian (2005, pp. 233–47, 267–73).

²⁰ On the relationship between Islam and Circassian identity, see Bram (2008); see also Derluguian (2005, p. 271).

²¹ On the origins and activities of the ICA, see Bram (2004).

²² ‘Virtual Circassia’ like, for instance, ‘Virtual Kurdistan’ can exist as a result of the revolution in technology and communications, which has enabled constant Circassian encounters in cyber-space, as well as fast and affordable means of transport which facilitate real homeland–diaspora, as well as intra-diasporic, encounters. On the notion of ‘virtual Kurdistan’, see Watts (2004).

²³ For goals of the recognition initiative, see ‘Ob osuzhdenyi genotsida Adygov (Cherkesov) v gody russko-kavkazskoi voiny’, Verkhovnyi Sovet Kabardino-Balkarskoi SSR, Postanovlenie ot 7 fevralya 1992, available at: http://www.elot.ru/main/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1699&pop=1&p, accessed 1 March 2012; ‘Ob obrashchenii k Gosudarstvennoi Dume Federal’nogo Sobraniya Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, Gosudarstvenyi Sovet—Khase Respubliki Adygeya, 29 aprelya 1996, available at: http://www.elot.ru/main/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1698&pop=1&p, accessed 2 March 2012; ‘Vystuplenie General’nogo sekretarya Mezhdunarodnoi Cherkesskoi Assotsiatsii (MChA) A. Okhotova na 53 sessii Komissii Organizatsii Ob’’edinennykh Natsii (OON) po pravam cheloveka’, 24 marta 1997, Gazeta ‘Khabze’, 27, July, available at: http://www.elot.ru/main/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2533&pop=1&p, accessed 1 March 2012; ‘Vystuplenie predstavitelya MChA T. Kazanokova na IV Sesii komissii Organizatsii Ob’’edinnennykh Natsii (OON) po pravam cheloveka v rabochei gruppe po men’shinstvam’, 28 maya 1998, Cherkesskii mir, 2, available at: http://www.elot.ru/main/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2537&pop=1&p, accessed 1 March 2012.

²⁴ For appeals to the 1991 Law on the Rehabilitation of the Repressed Peoples, see ‘Ob obrashenii k Gosudarstvennoi Dume Federal’nogo Sobraniya Rossiskoi Federatsii’, Gosudarstvenyi Sovet—Khase Respubliki Adygeya, 29 April 1996, available at: http://www.elot.ru/main/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1698&pop=1&p, accessed 2 March 2012.

²⁵ ‘Vystuplenie General’nogo Sekretarya Mezhdunarodnoi Cherkesskoi Assotsiatsii (MChA) A. Okhotova na 53 sessii Komissii Organizatsii Ob’’edinennykh Natsii (OON) po pravam cheloveka’, 24 marta 1997, Gazeta ‘Khabze’, 27, available at: http://www.elot.ru/main/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2533&pop=1&p, accessed 1 March 2012.

²⁶ ‘Obraschchenie Adygeiskogo respublikanskogo obshchestvennogo dvizheniya “Cherkesskii congress” k Gosudarstvennoi Dume Federal’nogo Sobraniya Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, Federal’noe Sobranie Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 1 iyulya 2005, available at: http://www.elot.ru/main/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2544&pop=1&p, accessed 4 September 2011; see also Gordin (2007).

²⁷ The legacy of Stalin’s deportations continues to fuel inter-ethnic conflict in the North Caucasus and strain relations between the regions and the central government. With respect to the 1991 Law, deported peoples see it as crucial to their full rehabilitation, while Moscow opposes elements of the Law, namely territorial rehabilitation, for fear of further fragmentation and instability. See Dzadziev (2005); and ‘The Kremlin Rejects Ingushetian Territorial Rehabilitation’, Kommersant’’ Daily, 23 September 2005, available at: http://www.koommersant.com/doc.asp?id=611481&idr=439, accessed 2 October 2012.

²⁸ The primary obstacle to mass return of Circassians has to do with the fact that diaspora Circassians were well-integrated in societies in which they found themselves since their mass exodus from the Caucasus, and did not face immediate, existential threats that would make it easier to abandon their ‘host-states’ for the new life in the Caucasus. Undoubtedly, Russia’s willingness to facilitate return would have greatly assisted Circassians wanting to re-settle in their ancestral homeland, as the case of Kosovo Circassians in 1999 suggests. A comparison with the case of the Jewish ‘return’ to Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s, or the more recent return of Crimean Tatars to Crimea in the 1990s and 2000s provides good illustration. Jews returning to Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s faced obstacles equally, if not more, challenging than the Circassians returning to the Caucasus. But the original Zionist movement was propelled by the vulnerable position of Jews in diaspora. The unanticipated, mass return of Crimean Tatars in the post-Soviet era, to the Crimean homeland in Ukraine, occurred despite numerous political, legal and economic obstacles to their return, since for many returnees life in Central Asian exile was not much better. On issues pertaining to Circassian return, see Shami (1998) and Bram (1999).

²⁹ On Putin’s reforms and their impact on Circassian autonomy in the Caucasus, see Hille (2010, pp. 276–83), Richmond (2008, pp. 151–71).

³⁰ For the analysis of manifestations of Circassian nationalism in exile, see Alankus and Taymaz (2010), Shami (1998). For a more personal account of Circassian encounters, see Natho (2010).

³¹ Given the decline of the Circassian language and the lack of a common written standard, communication among various diasporic segments (Turkophone and Arabophone) is seriously hampered, as is communication between diaspora and the largely Russophone homeland.

³² For an excellent account of diasporic nationalism and the return of exiled nations, see Williams (2001).

³³ Circassian demands have been consistent with demands of other ethnic minorities, such as Bosniaks, Albanians, and especially, the Kurds. The most important gains have been those in the area of language (see Baris Altintas 2012).

³⁴ For an overview of Circassian cultural association in Turkey and their activities, see Toumarkine (2000). On the evolution of Circassian diasporic nationalism in Turkey, see Dogan (2010). On the influence of Circassian (Caucasus) groups on Turkish foreign policy, see Celikpala (2006).

³⁵ Group interview with Ali Berzeg, Zack Barsik and Iyad Youghar of the Circassian Cultural Institute, Wayne, New Jersey, 27 January 2012; interview with Ali Berzeg of the Circassian Cultural Institute, Wayne, New Jersey, 28 January 2012.

³⁶ Jamestown Foundation is CCI’s most important partner in this regard.

³⁷ CCI has partnered with Rutgers University’s Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights which runs the Forgotten Genocides Project. One of the cases covered in this project is the ‘Genocidal Pacification’ of the Circassians in the Russian Caucasus. More information is available at: http://www.ncas.rutgers.edu/center-study-genocide-conflict-resolution-and-human-rights/mid-nineteenth-century-genocidal-pacifica. In addition, CCI has also reached out to the International Association of Genocide Scholars, using the association to promote awareness and the need for research of the Circassian case but also exploring the possibility of obtaining an official resolution similar to the ones the Association passed with respect to late Ottoman genocides, including the Armenian.

³⁸ Consistent with CCI’s anti-Sochi mobilisation, the organisation has used both the Vancouver Winter Olympics (2010) and the London Summer Olympics (2012) to raise the issue of Circassian genocide. These efforts, along with the annual commemoration of the Circassian Genocide Day on 21 May across the Circassian world, have undoubtedly brought the Circassian issues to wider international audiences. Several prominent media outlets ran programmes on the Circassian anti-Sochi movement, including Newsweek magazine, The Economist, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, to name a few.

³⁹ On the Circassian connection with the Captive Nations Project, see Natho (2010, pp. 378–96).

⁴⁰ Pilsudski’s policy relied on the anti-Communist Caucasus leaders in exile across European states from 1925 to 1939, concentrated in the Promethean League of the Nations Subjugated by Moscow. On the Promethen movement in Polish foreign policy, see Woytak (1984); see also Snyder (2005).

⁴¹ Paul Henze, a consultant for the RAND Corporation, was a CIA station chief in Turkey and Ethiopia during the 1960s and 1970s and served in the Carter administration as a deputy to National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. He is best known for his provocative book arguing that the Soviet Union had engineered an attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II.

⁴² A scholar and researcher of Soviet nationalities issues, Paul Goble was an analyst on Soviet Nationalities, Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Central Intelligence Agency and a special adviser on Soviet Nationalities Problems at the US Department of State. He was also a member of the Estonian International Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity, established in 1998 to investigate crimes against humanity committed in Estonia or against its citizens during the Soviet and German occupation, such as Soviet deportations from Estonia and the Holocaust in Estonia. The work of the Commission was used as part of the Estonian and larger Baltic states’ efforts to cast Soviet occupation of the Baltics, both during World War II and after, as acts of genocide (see Finkel 2010).

⁴³ Jamestown Foundation, in cooperation with the Circassian Cultural Institute and the Ilia State University in Georgia, co-organised three conferences dedicated to the Circassian genocide: in Washington, DC in 2007, at Harvard in 2008 and in Tbilisi in 2011.

⁴⁴ The creation of the ‘First Caucasian’ (Pervy Kavkazsky, PIK, available at: http://pik.tv/en/shows/vglyad-s-kavkaza) television channel aimed specifically at the North Caucasus, the waiving of visa requirements for residents of the North Caucasus republics and the recognition of the Circassian genocide reinforce the point that the Georgian government under Saakashvili is pursuing a strategy aimed at challenging Russian influence in the region. The well-known Georgian political scientist, Aleksandr Rondeli, commenting on the resolution on the genocide, explains it in terms of Georgia’s wish to improve its image in the North Caucasus (see Rondeli no date). On Georgia’s ‘North Caucasus pivot’, see Oliver Bullough (2010).

⁴⁵ Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, along with the Ukrainians, started pushing for genocide recognition in the early days of the Cold War. Ukrainian efforts focused on the 1932–1933 famine in Ukraine, or Famine–Genocide as it has become known in recent years, while the Balts have focused on Stalin’s deportations of ethnic Balts. Throughout the 1940s, these groups benefited from Raphael Lemkin’s work on the law prohibiting the ‘new’ crime of genocide and from the anti-Communist stance of the US administration. In fact, a strange symbiosis developed between these groups, Lemkin and the US government. In need of financial support for his research and public engagement regarding the Genocide Convention, Lemkin often received financial support from the Ukrainian and Baltic émigré organisations. This fact, along with his goal of obtaining US support for the Convention, accounts for Lemkin’s willingness to extend the discourse of genocide to strategically include all Soviet crimes (see Weiss-Wendt 2005).