The Circassian Genocide (Genocide, Political Violence, Human Rights)

Excellent book arguing the case for calling Russia's treatment of the Circassians a genocide. Reads well and has enough fascinating characters for a novel, although I wish I had seen and gotten to know a few of the Circassians involved. It's a lot easier to sympathize with the victims if you know them a little, and most of what we're shown is from the Russian perspective.I think a few maps would have helped too--showing the original country of Circassia, the placement of the tribes, and possibly some of the routes taken during the multiple forced marches out of the mountains to Sochi.As an American I blush to think of the Cherokee "trail of tears," the Wounded Knee debacle, the Nez Perce flight and fight. These were wrong, bad, awful things to do, and there's no justification for it. But at least as a nation we have more or less acknowledged the mistakes that were made, the bad choices, the people who were involved. There won't be justice to the Native Americans; there can't be without mass deportation of every non-Indian. But at least recognition has been accomplished. To this day, Russia denies its part in what happened to the Circassians, blaming them for the crime of living on land the Russians wanted, and telling the lie that the Circassians were offered viable alternatives which they turned down. Richmond shows exactly how "viable" the alternative offerings were and how even the few Circassians who accepted the alternative were later expelled anyway.A good book. I hope Richmond can find some descendants of survivors to add the Adige perspective, and add a few maps, for a subsequent edition.

That's one of the greatest books written about this topic and gives lots of details. Also, very wide range of reliable references were used. I suggest this book to people who are interested in this topic or want to learn something about an "unknown" issue.

As you would expect from the title, this is one of those books where the reader is supposed to be shocked by the wickedness of someone or other. If you read enough history you get used to such things. The text is full of words like ‘pathetic state’, ‘pawns’, ’absurdist play’, ‘war crimes’, ’sham’, ‘absurd neologism’, ‘systematic xenophobia’, ’shocking outrages’, ‘cruel joke’, ‘frantic speed’, ‘chicanery’, ‘charade’ and so on. Beyond some point such language is self-refuting. This book adds little to his previous book on the Northwest Caucasus, which has more information. The general point is this. Over the last two hundred years, from Estonia south to Greece, and across the north of the old Ottoman Empire and the south of the Russian Empire, there has been a tendency for peoples to sort themselves out into ethnic blocks, often along political borders. This was sometimes very bloody and sometimes voluntary. If the editors of this series of this series of genocide and political violence studies were to commission a comparative history of this process of resettlement they would make a useful contribution to scholarship.

Finally someone adding to the scarce resources of the tragic Circassian history and the need for an international and immediate acknowledgment of the genocide of a rich cultured and brave people of the caucuses.

you think the jews got a bad deal. read this well written story of the circassians. eye opener to their survival in this crazy world we live in.

This is a solidly researched and well-written account of a grim subject. Genocide and ethnic cleansing are always contentious subjects, and it is the case here. The Russians in their expansion into the Caucasus faced fierce opposition from many ethnic groups, most of them Muslim and some of them extremely formidable. The Circassian tribes were part of this process. Note that there are few innocents in this region or era. Some tribal peoples participated in the long-lasting and sizable business of slave raiding, most of the groups in the region were warlike and mercy for an enemy was not always likely.That said, this is undeniably an ethnic cleansing of large dimensions, The perpetrators were Russian. Whether it was a full-fledged genocide is up to the reader to decide. The Russian goal was control and appropriation of land. Resistance was a consequence, and destroying a fiercely militant people was seen as the best policy. There was hard campaigning with heavy casualties on all sides. Russian pacification of villages was brutal. The upshot is that virtually all the Circassian groups were forced out--their homeland was a considerable area on the Black Sea side of the Caucasus. There were hundreds of thousands of deaths, and Circassian refugees flooded into the Ottoman empire. There are still Circassians in places like Jordan and Syria. Memories are long, and this ethnic cleansing is not just ancient history.The book is clear in its purpose of highlighting a forgotten--outside the Middle East--genocide. It is a fierce indictment of the Russians. Objectivity is not the author's purpose, so you can look at this book as propaganda if you wish. That doesn't make the historical fact of this very large ethnic cleansing go away. Think about it--Muslim rage may have some rather good, if historical reasons behind it, This is one of them.

This is a detailed narrative of the deportation and genocide aspects of Circassian/Russian history of the 18th century. The second half of the book deals with Circassians in the Diaspora and has no relationship to the actual suffering of the people. It is basically the story of the descendants of the deported. It is a good and useful read and I recommend it to all interested in Circassian affairs.

This books opens up the lid of a masterfully, well buried crime chest in the history. Most people even know when you use the word "Cirkassian". Who are they? Are they like one of these lost civilizations; like people of Atlantis? Why would they care to know? That is the point. That was the point when the Russians decided to annihilate an entire nation that existed nearly 4000 years in that region without a hesitation, without a rumors. It seems like they still don't care. They rely on the forgetfulness of the historical memory of the region. Of course, there is no oil or other economical appeal to the world. If there were they would be in the first raw to defend the acceptance of the Cirkassian genocide and the Cirkassians' rights. I never knew all the historical facts, the enormous and ominous destiny of the Cirkassians either.If we look at the extent and the acts that had been undertaken it seems to be the inspiration of the holocaust. The proportionally speaking (the percentage to the world's population) it makes over 10 millions people that had been killed by a systematically designed mass distinction—far from any spark of human consideration. If a crazy car driver hits five people accidentally the entire western media speaks and writes for days and weeks. People drop off flowers and burn candles at the venue in the anniversary of the incident. But almost an entire nation that had been suffered and massacred to the brink of its extinction. Who cares? Why would they? This is the fact, the bitter real face of the Western world: a double standard of humanitarian values, or a theatre of being a sensitive society. But we all have iPhones; we are advanced. Right...I am sure that the hidden history of Cirkassians may not be the only one that has found a crack to leak to the day light today. Apparently, Cirkassians are not good at politics, creating lobbies and emitting direct and subliminal propaganda for a revenge—as the holocaust nation. Apparently, they have never been. So sad... A nation that has the importance of being the step stone between the Eastern and the Western, between the Northern and the Southern civilizations. Upon having finished that book I directly purchased the Nart Sagas by John Colarusso. It is breathtaking; it is astonishing. I even didn't know that the Amazon women were part of the Nart civilization. It is also so sad that the entire nation also has been assimilated by Turks by a set of sanctions e.g., ban of speaking their own language or cunning historical tricks to put the entire nation under the feel of guilt, e.g., Cherkess Ethem Bey as described in Turkish history books.In the book it is sometimes difficult to follow up the chronological order of the incidents. While reading I also tried to double confirm the names and places. I am afraid that part of the history has been well buried. It requires the attention of academics and historians. When I read Tolstoy's Hadji Murad long time ago I did not know he was so familiar with the Cirkassians. When this book came along it caused me to open up the Hadji Murad's page. I've found this saying by Tolstoy that I really like. Arguably, along with Shakespeare, as being one of the biggest genius writers having the talent to see the core of the human nature and the characters he utters this:"Cirkassians are like sea urchins in a clean and clear sea. They do not harm anybody unless someone steps on them."As an academic (PhD), and as a human, I really recommend this book to anyone who has the courage to step out of h/er comfort zone of the imposed history written by the authority of the power holders.

Thanks to Walter Richmond the Circassian people got what they were waiting for a long time. They are still waiting desperately for the recognition of the atrocities made by tzarist Russia in the Caucasian Wars. Especially the Circassian Genocide which still not recognized by the Russian government. The voices of the unheard Circassians are being heard here. For anyone who is interested in alternative history writing and the rights of indigenious people or generally interested people in history this book is a piece of gold.