THE NATIONAL COALITION OF INDEPENDENT SCHOLARS

Within the context of verified historical and military accounts and materials – the prolonged Caucasian War (1817-1864)[1], the ultimate Russian conquest and the annexation of Northern Caucasus, the follow up mass-murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide,[2] followed by mass deportation to Anatolia, and from there to the Balkans and elsewhere,[3] and the following sweeping diaspora – the book will be principally focused on the recollections of a little diaspora girl of Jordan, whom we’ll call Zouzou, a name reserved for her by her maternal grandfather, whom she adored. We shall accompany Zouzou as she discovers who she was, where she came from and why; who her people were: their history, their regrets, their longings and their aspirations. We shall move forward with her as she grows up, in her everchanging milieu. We shall almost see how she develops physically, mentally, emotionally, and socio-politically; hear her and feel her as she speaks to us, addresses us, her readers.  We can almost see the twinkle in her eyes, as she assesses her situation, looking into the eyes of her listeners, or turning her ears to whoever might be addressing her, in full concentration; constantly, enacting and reacting. 

[1] In fact, the conflict between the Russian Empire and Circassia (Northern Caucasus) began much earlier (1763) with what Russia assumed would be a quick annexation. That did not work to Russia’s liking, thanks to the resistance of Circassians.  Hence, when Circassians talk about the war with Russia, they think of it as the 101years war (1763-1864). Circassians were finally defeated on May 21, 1864. For Circassians in the diaspora (in more than 50 countries, around the World: Turkey, the Middle East, especially in Jordan, Syria, Israel, Iraq, Egypt, and Iran, Eastern Europe especially in Albania, Romania, Kosovo, Western Europe, and North America). May 21has become a yearly day of mourning, in remembrance of the Russia-inflicted, Circassian Genocide.  

[2] Walter Richmond, The Circassian Genocide, Rutgers University Press, 2013. While there are now quite a few studies done and reports and papers published about the Circassian Genocide, Richmond’s coverage of that tragedy remains, in my view, the cream of the crop.  In fact, many of the sources I have examined have significantly relied on Richmond’s first-rate book and various papers, and for a very good reason.

[3] Circassians began entering the Ottoman Empire in large numbers, in the 1850s. An 1860 agreement between the Ottoman and Russian empires authorized the immigration of 40,000–50,000 Circassians into Ottoman territory: Anatolia. (Hamed-Troyansky 2017, pp. 608–10). However, the Russians “dumped” between 800,000 to 1,200,000, Circassians of whom about 175,000 were resettled by the Ottomans into Ottoman-controlled Christian Balkan territories in 1864, and from where they were expelled after the Russo–Turkish War of 1877–1878 (Rogan, 1999).