Navigation will appear here.
The Circassian Genocide
The Circassian Genocide refers to the mass killing, forced displacement, and destruction of Circassian society carried out by the Russian Empire during and after the conclusion of the Caucasian War in the nineteenth century, particularly in the period leading up to and following 1864.
Russian military strategy combined scorched-earth tactics, systematic village destruction, starvation, and the deliberate targeting of civilian populations. Circassian communities were expelled from their ancestral lands en masse, often under extreme violence and in conditions that led to widespread death from disease, exposure, and hunger during forced marches and maritime deportations across the Black Sea.
Contemporary accounts, imperial records, and later historical research indicate that a substantial proportion of the Circassian population perished during this process, while the survivors were permanently removed from their homeland. The demographic transformation of the North Caucasus was not an unintended consequence of war but the result of a deliberate imperial policy aimed at eliminating Circassian presence and resistance.
The majority of surviving Circassians were resettled in the Ottoman Empire, where they faced further hardship, secondary displacement, and long-term marginalization. The genocide produced one of the largest forced migrations of the nineteenth century and created a global Circassian diaspora that persists to this day.
The Circassian Genocide remains largely unrecognized in international political and legal frameworks, despite its scale and documentation. For Circassian communities, remembrance of the genocide is central to historical consciousness, identity formation, and contemporary demands for recognition, memory, and justice.
