Circassians
From Free net encyclopedia
The term Circassians is term derived from the Turkic Cherkess, and is not the self-designation of any people. It has sometimes been applied indiscriminately to all the peoples of the North Caucasus.
More commonly it has referred to all the peoples of the Northwest Caucasus: the Adyghe (inhabitants of Circassia), the Abkhaz, and the vanished Ubykh, to the exclusion of the eastern Chechens and the peoples of Dagestan.
Various communities of Caucasian origin living in the Middle East, notably Jordan and Syria, are known as Circassians, and a suburb of Damascus settled by these people is called Al-Tcharkassiyya. Modern Amman was reborn after Circassians settled there in the late 1800s. Most specifically, the term can apply only to the Adyghe.
During the French Mandate of Syria, some Circassians in the mostly Circassian town of Al-Quneitra tried to convince in the 1930s the French authorities to create for them a Circassian national home in the Golan Heights, but they failed in their attempt. Their objective was to group there large numbers of Circassians already living in Turkey and in various Middle Eastern countries.
In Israel, there are also a few thousands Circassians, living mostly in Kfar-Kama and Reyhaniye, who enjoy, like Druzes, a status aparte, being voluntarily subjected to the military service in the IDF [1].
The term's vagueness stems largely from the fact that the northern Caucasus was a remote and relatively unknown area for Westerners, who often did not distinguish carefully between similar groups living there.