The Circassian Revival: a Quest for Recognition
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The Circassian Revival: A Quest for Recognition Mediated transnational mobilisation and memorialisation among a geographically dispersed people from the Caucasus Hansen, Lars Funch Publication date: 2014 Document version Early version, also known as pre-print Citation for published version (APA): Hansen, L. F. (2014). The Circassian Revival: A Quest for Recognition: Mediated transnational mobilisation and memorialisation among a geographically dispersed people from the Caucasus. Det Humanistiske Fakultet, Københavns Universitet. Download date: 30. Sep. 2021 The Circassian Revival: A Quest for Recognition Mediated transnational mobilisation and memorialisation among a geographically dispersed people from the Caucasus PhD Thesis by Lars Funch Hansen Centre for Comparative Cultural Studies Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies University of Copenhagen February 2014 1 2 Contents Preface ......................................................................................................................... 5 Part I 1. The Circassian Revival ........................................................................................ 7 The Aim and Relevance of the Thesis ................................................................. 8 The Themes of the Thesis .................................................................................. 13 Mediation, Internet and Digital Diaspora ........................................................... 14 Memorialisation .................................................................................................. 18 Mobilisation ........................................................................................................ 27 Institutionalisation, Knowledge-Production and Geopolitics ..............................32 The Institutionalisation of Circassianness .......................................................... 34 Knowledge Production (and Uneven Geographies) ........................................... 36 Geopolitical Reconfigurations ............................................................................ 38 Methods ...............................................................................................................40 The Structure of the Thesis ................................................................................. 47 Abstracts of Chapters .......................................................................................... 49 Overall Conclusions of the Thesis ...................................................................... 53 Part II 2. Renewed Circassian Mobilisation in the North Caucasus .............................. 69 The Circassian Question ..................................................................................... 71 Civil Society Mobilization .................................................................................. 75 Youth Mobilization ............................................................................................. 81 Internet Mobilization .......................................................................................... 87 Factors Enhancing Ethnic Mobilization ............................................................. 90 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 93 3. Frontier-Zones of Diaspora-Making ............................................................... 101 Historical Background ...................................................................................... 103 Contemporary Circasian Diaspora Trends .........................................................104 Diaspora ............................................................................................................ 106 Ethnic Minorities .............................................................................................. 109 Civil Society and Space for Action ................................................................... 111 Frontier Zones ................................................................................................... 113 Organizational Trends ....................................................................................... 115 Transnational Cooperation ................................................................................ 117 Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 121 Part III 4. Contested Circassian Territory: The Nineteenth Century Context ............. 129 3 The Imperial Russian Army in the North Caucasus .......................................... 131 North Caucasus in Russian Literature ............................................................... 138 Geopolitical Competition: The Great Game ...................................................... 140 The Creation of a Russian Oriental Space in the North Caucasus .................... 143 Academic Orientalism and Caucasology in the Russian Empire .......................144 Excursus: The Continued Institutionalisation of Territorial Affinity ................ 145 Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 146 5. Territorial Institutionalisation of Circassianness .......................................... 149 Phase 1. The Establishment of Territorial Form .............................................. 151 Phase 2. The Establishment of Territorial Symbols / Symbolic Shape ........... 152 Phase 3. The Development of Institutions ....................................................... 158 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 159 6. iCircassia: Digital Capitalism and New Transnational Identities ................ 165 From Print to Electronic to Digital Capitalism ................................................. 166 Re-Imagining Circassia .................................................................................... 169 Discussion: Digital Mediation .......................................................................... 178 Concluding Remarks ........................................................................................ 183 Part IV 7. Role of May 21 and 1864 in the Contemporary Circassian Revival ............ 191 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 201 8. Genocide recognition ........................................................................................ 203 Genocide in a Caucasian and Post-Soviet Context ........................................... 204 The Post-2005 Process ...................................................................................... 208 An Example from the Archives ........................................................................ 214 Another Example from Nineteenth-Century Sources ........................................ 216 Discussion .......................................................................................................... 217 Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 225 9. Sochi as a Site of Circassian Long-Distance Memorialisation ..................... 231 Circassian Counter-Memorialisation ................................................................ 234 The Sochi Olympics in the Circassian Revival ................................................. 243 Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 250 Appendix A. Acknowledgements .......................................................................... 254 B. Facts and Maps: Circassians and Circassia ...................................... 255 C. Visual Representations of the Circassian Revival ............................ 258 D. Circassian/Caucasian Organisations in Turkey 2008-2009 .............. 277 E. Summary and Resumé ...................................................................... 286 4 Preface This thesis consists of a number of published papers and conference papers written between 2009 and 2013 that constitute the chapters 2 - 9. Chapter 2 was published in 2012 and the chapters 3 and 9 in 2013. Chapter 1 is the joint chapter where the key themes that connect the papers, which from the outset focus on different aspects of the Circassian revival, are outlined and discussed. This includes the key research questions. The conclusion is placed at the end of chapter 1. As the published chapters are kept in their published form, a number of overlaps and repetitions cannot be avoided, though a few of the most obvious have been removed. The thesis includes a comparatively high number of footnotes. This is partly due to the general lack of knowledge on Circassian context. It is also an acknowledgement of the importance of footnotes when researching into the Circassians as dispersed minorities that often have been forgotten or disappeared from many history books in, for instance, Russia and Turkey. Background information on the Circassian context can be found in Appendix B: ‘Facts and maps on Circassians and Circassia’. 5 Part I 6 Chapter 1 The Circassian Revival: A Quest for Recognition Mediated transnational mobilisation and memorialisation among a geographically dispersed people from the Caucasus The Winter Olympic Games will be held in Sochi by the Black Sea coast of Russia in 2014. The downhill skiing competitions of the Olympic