Unbroken Circassia: The Lessons of May 21
On the Eve of May 21: A Brief Look into the Tragedy of Our People.
So That We Remember.
The events dedicated to Circassian Flag Day have just taken place, and already we stand on the eve of a new date — the most significant in the Circassian calendar — May 21, the Day of Remembrance and Mourning.
Some may ask: why do we keep speaking about the past? Why remember, year after year, and grieve for those who are gone — for those who fought for the freedom of Circassia, who perished or endured the suffering of war, who knew the weight of life in exile and then died without ever seeing their homeland again, and for those who were born in exile and know their homeland only through the memories of their fathers and grandfathers?
We answer this way: even at the level of a single person, it is perfectly natural and deeply human to remember the people dear to us who are no longer by our side. In many families, there are rituals of remembrance: people visit graves, speak of departed relatives with warmth, tell grandchildren about their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, recall the contributions of their elders and their role in building a life, and give thanks for the legacy they left behind — spiritual example, life experience, wisdom, cultural values, useful guidance. In any normal family, children and grandchildren are taught to do this.
So who would dare to say that our ancestors, as a whole, do not deserve the same remembrance and reverence? Does the shared fate and tragedy of an entire people not deserve even greater tribute and remembrance than the memories of individual people? War and exile from our Homeland — this is our collective trauma, our pain, and our memory. It is a historical and moral fact.
That is precisely why we, like thousands of other Circassians around the world, continue our work, invoking the past again and again. Because it directly concerns every Circassian. Our shared fate and our shared future are impossible without preserving our shared past.
Having stated the convictions that guide us, in this article we will provide a brief historical account of the tragedy that befell our people, so that the full picture of the trials endured by our ancestors may come alive before our eyes once more.
Turning the Pages of History
There is no doubt that the Russo-Caucasian War was a great tragedy for the entire Caucasus, but for the Circassians, it was a war waged by an empire not merely against armed resistance, but against the very possibility of an independent Circassia existing on its ancestral land — from the Don to the Black Sea coast, from the Taman Peninsula to Chechnya. The Russian Empire sought not only to crush resistance, but to clear a strategically vital territory, settle it with a more loyal population, establish itself on the Black Sea, and eliminate the possibility of outside influence from the Ottoman Empire and Britain. Historian Stephen Shenfield writes that by the mid-nineteenth century, Russian authorities had reached a conclusion: it was impossible to simply subjugate the Circassians — they could only be deported or destroyed as a political force.
The history of this war is often traced back to 1763, when Russia built the fortress of Mozdok on the territory of eastern Circassia (Kabarda) and began a systematic advance into Circassian lands. In broader Caucasian historiography, the period of 1817–1864 is sometimes referred to as the Caucasian War as a whole. But for Circassians, it is important to remember: our resistance was not an episode, but a century-long struggle of a people for their land, their freedom, and their right to live by their own laws. The Encyclopaedia Britannica cautiously notes that the Circassians offered “particularly stubborn and prolonged resistance to Russian rule.”
A special place in this history belongs to Kabarda — the eastern gateway of Circassia and one of the first Circassian lands to be struck by imperial expansion. In 1763, Russia founded the fortress of Mozdok on Kabardian territory; as early as 1764, the Circassians of Kabarda demanded its removal, understanding that what was at stake was not a trading post, but the beginning of a military stranglehold on their country. In 1774, following the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, the Ottoman Empire formally “ceded” to Russia its rights over Kabarda, though Kabarda itself was not Istanbul’s property to give away without the will of its people. From 1777, Russia began the active construction of the Azov-Mozdok defensive line, building a series of fortresses directly on the pastoral lands of Kabarda. This deprived the local population of their vital winter pastures and provoked a major military uprising in 1779, known in oral tradition as the “Seven-Month War.” In the course of large-scale combat, Circassian units attempted to storm the fortresses but ultimately suffered a heavy defeat at the hands of General Yakobi’s regular troops, sustaining significant losses. By the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, resistance in Kabarda had also taken on a religious-political form, though its essence remained the same — the fight for independence.
Between 1794 and 1807, Prince Adil-Girey Atazhuki and Efendi Iskhak Abukov led the anti-colonial resistance, followed by punitive campaigns, the burning of villages, and the displacement of part of Kabarda’s Circassian population across the Kuban River: in 1805, Glazenap’s forces burned dozens of settlements, and in 1810, according to a number of sources, approximately 200 villages were set ablaze. By 1818, when Yermolov began the final military-administrative consolidation of Kabarda, its demographic losses were already catastrophic: according to a frequently cited estimate, the population of Greater and Lesser Kabarda shrank from approximately 350,000 to 50,000; another estimate suggests a decline from 200,000 in 1790 to 30,000 by 1830. These figures should not be mechanically interpreted as the number of people killed alone: some perished in war, from punitive expeditions, famine, and epidemics, while others were displaced, crossing the Kuban and continuing their struggle for independence from there. But the outcome was clear: Kabarda, once one of the most powerful centers of the Circassian world, was broken first — and its tragedy became the prelude to the conquest of Circassia.
In 1829, following the Treaty of Adrianople, the Ottoman Empire recognized Russia’s sphere of influence on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, yet Circassia was not Istanbul’s property, and the Circassians did not consider themselves conquered. They continued to resist, to negotiate, to seek allies; they created political structures and tried to explain to the world that what was happening was not a “rebellion,” but the defense of a homeland.
The middle of the nineteenth century became a turning point. After the Crimean War of 1853–1856, Russia gained the ability to concentrate its forces on the Western Caucasus. Following the fall of Imam Shamil’s resistance in the Eastern Caucasus in 1859, the empire’s main resources were directed against the Circassians. According to data cited in research on Sochi and the Circassian question, after the Treaty of Paris, the Russian forces arrayed against Circassia numbered approximately 300,000 soldiers, while the Circassian confederation could field about 80,000 well-armed fighters and up to 50,000 reservists. But the Circassians responded with more than weapons. In 1861, a Circassian Mejlis (Adyghe Khase) — a parliament — was established in Sochi, an attempt to shape Circassia into a federated political entity. This was a crucial moment: in the tragedy of May 21, we must see not only death, but also the maturity of our people. The Circassians strived to remain actors on the international stage. They understood that courage alone was not enough against the imperial machine. What was needed was political unity, diplomacy, statehood, and an appeal to the world. In September 1861, the New York Times reported that “the Circassians have proclaimed a republic.”
That same year, 1861, representatives of the Circassian Mejlis (Khase) met with Alexander II. The Circassian side was prepared to discuss peace and even Russian patronage, provided internal autonomy was preserved, but the empire’s position was different. According to the sources, Alexander II demanded that the Circassians either resettle to the plains under Russian control or leave for Turkey. For a Circassian, this was an almost impossible choice: to abandon the mountains, the ancestral land, the graves of one’s forebears — or to leave the Caucasus entirely.
Between 1860 and 1862, the Russian leadership finalized the plan for expulsion. General Filipson had proposed a softer approach — fortifications, roads, trade, and administration that took local customs into account. But War Minister Dmitry Milyutin and General Yevdokimov chose a different path. Members of the commission openly warned that such a plan would lead not to submission, but to “extermination.” Nevertheless, on May 10, 1862, Alexander II approved the plan, and a committee for the deportation of the Circassians was established.
In 1863–1864, the war transformed into a methodical operation aimed at destroying the living environment of an entire people. The Russian military witness Venyukov wrote that the war was conducted with “relentless, merciless severity,” and that Circassian villages “were burned by the hundreds.” This is a critically important testimony, because it comes not from Circassian memory or modern journalism, but from among the victors themselves. Troops advanced up the valleys, burning villages, destroying food supplies, driving off livestock, felling or occupying the spaces where people might take shelter. Then they would push deeper into the mountains and burn the temporary refuges again. Historian Walter Richmond describes this operation as a repeating cycle, continuing until the command was satisfied that the population had either perished or been driven to the sea.
This was not merely a military victory — it was the destruction of an entire way of life. When a people’s village is burned, they lose their home. When their harvest is destroyed and their livestock driven away, they lose their food and risk not surviving the winter. Now imagine all of this descending upon the Circassians at once, ending for those who survived in a harrowing retreat across devastated land toward the seashore, under the barrels of rifles and cannons, to bid farewell to their Homeland forever.
In April 1864, Circassian leaders appealed to Queen Victoria of England. In that petition, there are words that even today read as the voice of a people driven to their last shore. The Circassians wrote that Circassia was “our home and our country,” and that they had defended it as a land “dearer to us than our very lives.” In these words lies the very core of Adyghe philosophy: for a Circassian, the land is not merely real estate — it is an extension of one’s lineage and language, the possibility of building one’s future. And that future, it seemed then, had been taken from us forever.
British Ambassador Henry Bulwer, forwarding the petition to London, reported on April 12, 1864, that the Russian advance and the cruel treatment of the local population had already led to a nearly complete emigration from the country; to Trabzon alone, by his account, 25,000 people had arrived, while others were attempting to flee on small vessels at the risk of their lives. He wrote that the loss of life in these attempts “shocks humanity.”
And then May 21, 1864, arrives by the old calendar — a day that for the Russian Empire became a day of victory parades, and for us — a day of national mourning. In the area of Kbaada, today’s Krasnaya Polyana, after the final battles, the Russian command held a parade and a banquet. Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich gave a toast; medals were distributed. But for the Circassians, this was no celebration — it was a symbol of the end of historical Circassia across the greater part of its territory. According to Richmond, on June 2 by the new calendar, that is, May 21 by the old, Yevdokimov declared that there were no more Circassians in the region, and a victory celebration was staged.
This is why that date is so painful for every Circassian. Kbaada became for us not simply a place, but a wound. The numbers of the tragedy remain a subject of debate, because war, deportation, famine, disease, and death at sea are difficult to count precisely. But the overall scale of the catastrophe is beyond question. Richmond, comparing various estimates, writes that in 1864 alone, between 600,000 and 750,000 Circassians actually reached the ships bound for the Ottoman Empire; even by the most conservative calculations, no fewer than 625,000 Circassians perished during Yevdokimov’s operations. He also cites an estimate that between 95 and 97 percent of the Circassians were killed, died during the campaign, or were deported.
Shenfield offers an even grimmer assessment: before the Russian conquest, the Circassians, including related groups, may have numbered around two million; by 1864, the Northwest Caucasus had been almost completely cleared of its indigenous population, and the number of those who perished in the catastrophe of the 1860s, by his reckoning, was hardly less than one million and may have approached one and a half million.
The road to the sea was especially horrific. People were driven toward the Black Sea coast in winter and early spring, without adequate food, without medical care, without proper organization of the crossing. In the areas around Tuapse, Novorossiysk, Anapa, Taman, Sochi, and other points, tens of thousands of refugees gathered. Disease, cold, hunger, rain, and the wait for ships turned the shore into an enormous graveyard. Olshevsky, a Russian officer, described the shore as “one vast cemetery,” traces of which are still being uncovered by archaeologists and construction workers to this day.
Some people perished before even reaching the sea — in gorges, forests, and on the roads. Russian military reports mentioned “frozen bodies covering the roads.” Yevdokimov cynically asked whether he and the Grand Duke were not aware of this, and whether it was possible to “reverse the calamity.” This question reads like a cold bureaucratic signature beneath a tragedy: they knew, they understood, and they continued.
Others died by the hundreds at sea. Ships were overloaded, storms sank boats, and diseases spread in the crowded conditions. Those who made it to the Ottoman shores often ended up in camps unprepared to receive such numbers of exhausted people. The Russian consul in Trabzon reported that out of approximately 240,000 who had arrived in Trabzon and its surroundings, 19,000 had already died, the mortality rate reached 200 people per day, and typhus raged among the displaced.
Thus, this was the cold-blooded extermination and deportation of a people numbering two million, accompanied by the burning of villages, the destruction of livelihoods, mass death, loss of life in transit, and the subsequent settlement of the emptied territory by other groups. This is precisely why May 21 is for us a day not only of mourning, but of historical truth that we wish to convey to the rest of the world. On this day, we remember not only the dead, but the very fabric of the Circassian world that was torn apart — a fabric that we have been piecing back together, generation after generation.
Lessons of the Past for the Circassians of the Future
The purpose of this article is not to make it merely a lament for the past. The history of the Circassians is also a lesson in dignity. Our ancestors lost the war against an empire, but they did not lose their spirit, and they preserved the respect of other peoples. They carried their native language to Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Europe, and America; our flag, our traditions — Khabze, our humanity and the Adyghe philosophy of life — Adygaghe, and the memory of our clans and villages. We have proven that a people can be scattered, but not broken.
We will touch upon the lessons that our people must draw from what happened in the coming articles of this series, but for now, let us confine ourselves to one crucial conclusion: the Circassian tragedy happened not only because the enemy was strong. It became possible also because international politics proved cold and calculating, and the interests of great powers were placed above the fate of one of the world’s most ancient peoples with its unique culture. This is a bitter lesson for us today: a people that wishes to survive must have memory, organization, education, a voice in the world, internal solidarity, and the ability to speak about themselves loudly and in time on the international stage.
Every year on May 21, we bow our heads in memory of those who are gone, but we must not let our hands fall idle. We remember not to live in the past, but to ensure that our heritage does not vanish. We mourn not to instill in ourselves a sense of inferiority, but to cultivate dignity. And we must remember the fallen not as faceless shadows — these were people who once loved their families, cared for their elders, taught their children to stand tall, welcomed guests, prayed, tilled the soil, defended the mountain passes, and believed that Circassia would live on. Our ancestors did what they could. Now, the future of Circassia depends on us.
As long as May 21 unites us not only in grief, but in responsibility toward one another for our shared future, wherever we may be right now — we are on the right path.
Adyghe Lhepkyr Psewshch!
The Center for Strategic Studies of the Circassian Socio-Political Organization “Khabze.”