Is Mass Repatriation of Adygeis Feasible?

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Subject: Is Mass Repatriation of Adygeis Feasible?

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Is Mass Repatriation of Adygeis Feasible?


THE JAMESTOWN FOUNDATION
PRISM
A BI-WEEKLY ON THE POST-SOVIET STATES
13 November 1998        No.22          Part 4
________________________________________________________________
 
THE INTERNATIONAL CIRCASSIAN COMMUNITY: IS MASS REPATRIATION OF
ADYGEIS FEASIBLE?
By Igor Rotar
 
In August, on board aircraft from the Russian ministry for emergency
situations, twenty-three Adygei families (eighty-six people) were
brought to Adygea from the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. In Kosovo
itself only seven Adygei families remain. The chief organizers of this
mission were the president of the Adygea Republic Aslan Djarimov and
the Russian foreign ministry. The immigrants are now living in a
kindergarten in the Adygea capital, Maykop, but by spring the Adygea
government is supposed to provide land for them. "Almost all the
Kosovo Adygeis are peasants, so here in Adygea, as in Kosovo, we are
planning to work on the land. It's no problem to feed yourself here -
as long as you're not afraid of hard work. I think that in Russia
today a lot of people have simply forgotten how to work - which
explains the poverty. We are used to plowing from dawn to dusk, so we
are in no doubt that we can earn ourselves a living," the immigrant 
Abdullakh Khasani told Prism.
 
During the war in the Caucasus in the 19th century, more than half a
million "Circassians" (the generalized name for all north Caucasian
nationalities in those days) migrated to the Ottoman empire to escape
the punitive acts of the Russian army. 

(1) Most of the refugees were Adygeis (the collective name for the
closely related Kabardian, Circassian, Adygei and Abkhazian
nationalities). More than half the migrants died on the way. The
historian Jean Carol called the flight of highlanders from the
Caucasus one of the most tragic pages in the history of world
barbarism. In the words of eyewitnesses, "Boats from the Danube
bringing Circassians to the Balkans... appeared as floating cemeteries
to all who witnessed them." 

(2) Today, in the countries formed after the collapse of the Ottoman
empire, there is a powerful and influential "Circassian" community
(all those from the North Caucasus who settled abroad are still known
as Circassians). It is not known exactly how many Adygeis there are
abroad. The president of the "International Circassian Association"
Boris Akbashev puts the total number of Adygeis abroad at 6 million.
"If Moscow's poorly thought out policies turn the Adygeis against it,
the consequences will be infinitely more terrible than the Chechen
war. Six million fellow-countrymen will come to our aid from abroad!"
Akbashev claimed in an interview with Prism. However, the Adygea
deputy minister for the press, Gazi Chemso, who is organizing the
repatriation of expatriate Adygeis to the republic, considers
Akbashev's figure to be grossly exaggerated. "In actual fact there are
no more than 3 million people abroad with any Adygei roots at all. And
many of them don't speak the Adygei language," Chemso said.
 
"How exactly we ended up in Kosovo nobody remembers," Enver Tsei, a
migrant from Kosovo, told Prism. "But there is a story that has been
handed down from generation to generation in our family: In the 19th
century, during the Caucasian war, our family decided to leave its
homeland. Our ancestors got to the Balkans by horse. The journey took
several months. However, every Adygei believed that sooner or later he
would return to his homeland. Almost every Adygei family in Kosovo
kept, like a relic, a child's cradle that their ancestors had brought
from the homeland 150 years ago. Today these relics are back in Adygea
- and we believe that this symbolizes the fact that we have returned
to our homeland for good!" It is astonishing that, far from home, the
Adygeis maintained the traditions of their ancestors better than their
fellow-countrymen in the homeland. For example, Adygeis in Kosovo only
speak their native language to each other, while their counterparts in
Adygea often speak to each other in Russian. Unlike their north
Caucasian blood brothers, Kosovo Adygeis are very devout: They
religiously observe all Moslem rites, and almost all of them abstain
from alcohol.
 
The immigrants are reluctant to talk about the war in Yugoslavia. "We
have finally made it back to our homeland, and we want to forget what
we went through in Kosovo." However, all the immigrants are unanimous
in saying that they lived peacefully with the Serbs, whereas the
Albanians were quite hostile towards the Adygeis. Adygei children were
often beaten up at school by their Albanian contemporaries. The adults
were uneasy too: There were robberies, Adygei homes were burned down,
snipers often took potshots at Adygei peasants as they worked in the
fields. Enes Khasani remembers: "The main problem was that we Kosovo
Adygeis were law-abiding citizens of Yugoslavia. But the Albanians
wanted us to join their campaign of insubordination against the Serb
authorities. When we refused, they immediately dubbed us traitors. In
our village, Donja-Stanovitsa, most of the inhabitants were Albanian,
and it got to the point where often neighbors wouldn't greet each
other and Albanian and Adygei children played apart. In the local
school, the Albanians introduced a system of "parallel education" and
forced our children to study in Albanian. We had to bus our children
to the Serb village of Priluzhye, where they were taught in both
Serbian and their native Adygea. Our Albanian neighbors didn't like
that at all, and they often threw stones at the buses carrying the
schoolchildren. To give ourselves some protection from persecution, we
asked the Serb authorities to give us guns, and they allowed us to
form Circassian self-defense brigades."
 
Gazi Chemso explained to Prism: "For the vast majority of the
international Circassian community, the explanation for the return of
Adygeis from the Yugoslav province of Kosovo to Adygea is that they
were forced to flee to escape persecution by the Serbs. But
paradoxically, though both the Adygeis and the Albanians are Moslems,
relations with the Serbs were in fact far better than relations with
their fellow-believers, the Albanians. Perhaps this can be explained
by the character of the Adygei people. In carrying out my job I have
visited every country where Adygeis live, and have noticed the
following pattern: Adygeis are loyal to the authorities everywhere.
For example, the Royal Guard in Jordan is made up of Circassians, in
Turkey local Adygeis fight in the army against Kurdish separatists,
and in Israel, where there are about 3,500 Adygeis, two flags fly over
their settlements: Israeli and Circassian."
 
Gazi Chemso quoted for Prism from Boris Yeltsin's address to the
peoples of the Caucasus:
 
"In different periods of history, depending on the political
situation, the Caucasian War of 1820-1860 has been examined and
assessed differently. Today, when Russia is building a legal state and
gives priority to values which are common to all mankind, it is
possible to treat the events of the Caucasian War objectively, as a
spirited fight by the peoples of the Caucasus not just for their
survival on their native land, but for the preservation of their
original culture and the best traits of their national character. The
problems bequeathed to us from the Caucasian War, in particular the
return of the descendants of Caucasian migrants to their historical
homeland, should be resolved at an international level by means of
negotiations involving all interested parties".
 
In Chemso's opinion, that this address has appeared at all testifies
to the fact that Russia is at last genuinely interested in dealing
with the repercussions of the Caucasian war:
 
"Although the initiative to repatriate the Kosovo Adygeis came from
our president, Aslan Djarimov, it has received the full backing of the
Russian foreign ministry. In my view, there are two reasons for
Moscow's support for our initiative. First, the fact that the Kosovo
Adygeis are not fleeing from persecution by the Orthodox Serbs is of
great importance to Moscow. Second, with the current tension in the
North Caucasus following the Chechen war, it is very important for
Moscow to demonstrate its friendly attitude to the peoples of the
North Caucasus, and in this sense the return of the Kosovo Adygeis has
been a very successful diplomatic move."
 
According to Adygei President Aslan Djarimov, the repatriation of the
Kosovo Adygeis was an excellent way of attracting international
attention to the problem of returning Adygeis to their historical
home. "The return of this small group of Adygeis from Kosovo has
stirred the whole Circassian world. It is an example of historical
justice - indeed of justice as a whole. There probably isn't an ethnic
group on earth which suffered the genocide that the Adygeis did.
Yesterday the world did not know about this. Now it does," Djarimov
said.
 
At the end of October, the son of King Hussein of Jordan, Ali-bin
al-Hussein, visited the North Caucasian republics, where many Adygeis
live (Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachayevo-Cherkessia and Adygea). The
prince and his entourage, made up of Jordanian Adygeis, made the whole
journey from Amman to the North Caucasus on horseback, thus repeating
in reverse the route the fleeing Adygeis took from the North Caucasus
in the 19th century. In the prince's opinion, this journey was to
symbolize the start of the return of Adygeis to their historical home.
"My mother is Circassian, and my father's mother was Circassian, so my
interest in the North Caucasus cannot be described as coincidental.
Moreover, I am a 42nd-generation descendant of the Prophet Muhammad
and am duty bound to care for Moslems throughout the world," Ali-bin
al-Hussein told Prism. Although the prince graduated from Cambridge
University in England, he plans to continue his education in Nalchik,
the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, where he intends to study the
Adygei and Russian languages and the history if the North Caucasus.
That the prince's intentions are serious is attested by the fact that
the prince has received a repatriate's certificate in Maykop.
"According to our laws, these certificates can only be given to
Adygeis. To avoid embarrassment we explained this to the prince, and
asked him whether we should produce such a document for him. He said
yes," Gazi Chemso told Prism.
 
In Ali-bin al-Hussein's opinion, the Circassians, Kabardians and
Adygeis are one Adygei people and a Circassian republic should be
formed on Russian territory which would incorporate Kabardian,
Circassian and Adygei lands. There is undoubtedly some logic to the
prince's opinion. In 1922 two neighboring dual-subject autonomous
regions were created: Karachayevo-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria.
As a result, the border between them divided both the Adygeis who
lived on the plain and the foothills - the Kabardians and Circassians
- and the closely related mountain peoples - the Karachayans and
Balkarians.
 
About eighteen months ago in Nalchik, the leaders of
Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachayevo-Cherkessia and Adygea signed an
agreement on the creation of an Interparliamentary Council of the
three republics. In November of last year, the first session of the
interrepublican legislative body took place in Cherkessk. "At first
our initiative was not supported by Moscow. We had to go to the very
top to explain what we wanted," the chairman of the Council of the
Republic (the lower house of parliament) of Kabardino-Balkaria, Zaubri
Nakhushev, told Prism. "If we look at the national make-up of our
republics, Adygeis, Circassians and Kabardians are linguistically and
culturally very close to each other and form a single ethnic community
of Adygeis. Balkarians and Karachayans are also closely related
peoples and speak one Karachai-Balkar language which belongs to the
Turkic family of languages. In addition, in all three republics there
is a large Russian population. So our alliance is natural. Although
our union is not closed (theoretically other republics may join it), I
think that if this happened it would become a formal economic
association," Nakhushev said.
 
The authorities of the North Caucasus republics, however, see this
alliance as a purely economic and cultural association. "To talk about
closing the borders in the North Caucasus is madness. This would lead
to mass bloody clashes," Gazi Chemso said. Chemso is fairly skeptical
about the Jordanian prince's idea that the mass resettlement of
foreign Adygeis back home would revive the Circassian economy. "I have
been dealing with repatriation for several years now, and have come to
the sad conclusion that a mass return of Adygeis to their historical
home is just not realistic today. Judge for yourselves: Despite the
efforts of the authorities, as of today around 500 foreign Adygeis
have immigrated to Kabardino-Balkaria, about 300 to Adygea and just a
few dozen to Karachayevo-Cherkessia. Above all, this is because the
standard of living in the North Caucasus is much lower than in the
countries where the Adygeis are living today. The mass migration of
Kosovo Adygeis is an exception to the rule. In the first place, there
was a war going on in Kosovo and the local Adygeis feared for their
lives. In my opinion, another important reason why the migrants from
Kosovo have settled here in Adygea is that Yugoslavia, like Russia, is
a former socialist country, so the Kosovo repatriates find it easier
to adapt to our conditions than their fellow-countrymen from Turkey or
Jordan," Gazi Chemso believes.
 
Nalchik-Maykop-Moscow
 
Notes:
 
1. Robert Land, Islam in Russian History, Moscow, 1995, p. 113
2. "Expert" magazine, 24 August 1998
3. "Expert" magazine, 24 August 1998
 
Igor Rotar is an analyst with the Jamestown Foundation.
_____________________________________________________________________
 
http://www.jamestown.org
 
Prism is a publication of the Jamestown Foundation.
Copyright (c) 1998 The Jamestown Foundation.

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