Cid
Cid (El Cid) (in Arabic, al-Sid) (c.1043, Vivar, near Burgos, Spain - July 10, 1099, Valencia). Popular name for Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar. He is the most celebrated of the heroes of Castilian chivalry. The name is derived from Arabic "sayyidi", “my master,” in vulgar Spanish "sidi", “mio Cid,” a name given to him by the Muslim soldiers of Saragossa. From 1081 onwards he led the life of a “condittiere,” fighting, as occasion arose, the Muslims or his own co-religionists on behalf of a third person or on his own behalf. He offered his services to the Hudids of Saragossa, and received tribute from the Count of Barcelona, the Muslim princes of Tortosa and Valencia and several Arab lords. He forced King Alfonso VI of Castile to lift the siege of Valencia and, after a revolt in the town led by the judge Ibn Jahhaf against his Muslim lieutenant Ibn al-Faraj, El Cid took the town in 1094, of which he remained absolute master until his death.
Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (c. 1040, Vivar, near Burgos, Spain – July 10, 1099, Valencia), known as El Cid Campeador, was a Castilian nobleman, a military leader and diplomat who, after being exiled, conquered and governed the city of Valencia. Rodrigo Díaz was educated in the royal court of Castile and became the alférez, or chief general, of Alfonso VI, and his most valuable asset in the fight against the Moors.
The Cid, Spanish El Cid, also called El Campeador (“the Champion”), byname of Rodrigo, or Ruy, Díaz de Vivar, Castilian military leader and national hero. His popular name, El Cid, dates from his lifetime.
Rodrigo Díaz’s father, Diego Laínez, was a member of the minor nobility (infanzones) of Castile. But the Cid’s social background was less unprivileged than later popular tradition liked to suppose, for he was directly connected on his mother’s side to the great landed aristocracy, and he was brought up at the court of Ferdinand I in the household of that king’s eldest son, the future Sancho II of Castile. When Sancho succeeded to the Castilian throne (1065), he nominated the 22-year-old Cid as his standard-bearer (armiger regis), or commander of the royal troops. This early promotion to important office suggests that the young Cid had already won a reputation for military prowess. In 1067 he accompanied Sancho on a campaign against the important Moorish kingdom of Zaragoza (Saragossa) and played a leading role in the negotiations that made its king, al-Muqtadir, a tributary of the Castilian crown.
Ferdinand I, on his death, had partitioned his kingdoms among his various children, leaving Leon to his second son, Alfonso VI. Sancho began (1067) to make war on the latter with the aim of annexing Leon. Later legend was to make the Cid a reluctant supporter of Sancho’s aggression, but it is unlikely the real Cid had any such scruples. He played a prominent part in Sancho’s successful campaigns against Alfonso and so found himself in an awkward situation in 1072, when the childless Sancho was killed while besieging Zamora, leaving the dethroned Alfonso as his only possible heir. The new king appears to have done his best to win the allegiance of Sancho’s most powerful supporter. Though the Cid now lost his post as armiger regis to a great magnate, Count García Ordóñez (whose bitter enemy he became), and his former influence at court naturally declined, he was allowed to remain there; and, in July 1074, probably at Alfonso’s instigation, he married the king’s niece Jimena, daughter of the count of Oviedo. He thus became allied by marriage to the ancient royal dynasty of Leon. Very little is known about Jimena. The couple had one son and two daughters. The son, Diego Rodríguez, was killed in battle against the Muslim Almoravid invaders from North Africa, at Consuegra (1097).
The Cid’s position at court was, despite his marriage, precarious. He seems to have been thought of as the natural leader of those Castilians who were unreconciled to being ruled by a king of Leon. He certainly resented the influence exercised by the great landed nobles over Alfonso VI. Though his heroic biographers would later present the Cid as the blameless victim of unscrupulous noble enemies and of Alfonso’s willingness to listen to unfounded slanders, it seems likely that the Cid’s penchant for publicly humiliating powerful men may have largely contributed to his downfall. Though he was later to show himself astute and calculating as both a soldier and a politician, his conduct vis-à-vis the court suggests that resentment at his loss of influence as a result of Sancho’s death may temporarily have undermined his capacity for self-control. In 1079, while on a mission to the Moorish king of Sevilla (Seville), he became embroiled with García Ordóñez, who was aiding the king of Granada in an invasion of the kingdom of Sevilla. The Cid defeated the markedly superior Granadine army at Cabra, near Sevilla, capturing García Ordóñez. This victory prepared the way for his downfall; and when, in 1081, he led an unauthorized military raid into the Moorish kingdom of Toledo, which was under Alfonso’s protection, the king exiled the Cid from his kingdoms. Several subsequent attempts at reconciliation produced no lasting results, and after 1081 the Cid never again was able to live for long in Alfonso VI’s dominions.
The Cid in exile offered his services to the Muslim dynasty that ruled Zaragoza and with which he had first made contact in 1065. The king of Zaragoza, in northeastern Spain, al-Muʿtamin, welcomed the chance of having his vulnerable kingdom defended by so prestigious a Christian warrior. The Cid now loyally served al-Muʿtamin and his successor, al-Mustaʿīn II, for nearly a decade. As a result of his experience he gained that understanding of the complexities of Hispano-Arabic politics and of Islamic law and custom that would later help him to conquer and hold Valencia. Meanwhile, he steadily added to his reputation as a general who had never been defeated in battle. In 1082, on behalf of al-Muʿtamin, he inflicted a decisive defeat on the Moorish king of Lérida and the latter’s Christian allies, among them the count of Barcelona. In 1084 he defeated a large Christian army under King Sancho Ramírez of Aragon. He was richly rewarded for these victories by his grateful Muslim masters.
In 1086 there began the great Almoravid invasion of Spain from North Africa. Alfonso VI, crushingly defeated by the invaders at Sagrajas (October 23, 1086), suppressed his antagonism to the Cid and recalled from exile the Christians’ best general. The Cid’s presence at Alfonso’s court in July 1087 is documented. But shortly afterward, he was back in Zaragoza, and he was not a participant in the subsequent desperate battles against the Almoravids in the strategic regions where their attacks threatened the whole existence of Christian Spain. The Cid, for his part, now embarked on the lengthy and immensely complicated political maneuvering that was aimed at making him master of the rich Moorish kingdom of Valencia.
The Cid’s first step was to eliminate the influence of the counts of Barcelona in that area. This was done when Berenguer Ramón II was humiliatingly defeated at Tébar, near Teruel (May 1090). During the next years the Cid gradually tightened his control over Valencia and its ruler, al-Qādir, now his tributary. His moment of destiny came in October 1092 when the qāḍī (chief magistrate), Ibn Jaḥḥāf, with Almoravid political support rebelled and killed al-Qādir. The Cid responded by besieging the rebel city. The siege lasted for many months; an Almoravid attempt to break it failed miserably (December 1093). In May 1094 Ibn Jaḥḥāf at last surrendered, and the Cid finally entered Valencia as its conqueror. To facilitate his takeover, he characteristically first made a pact with Ibn Jaḥḥāf that led the latter to believe that his acts of rebellion and regicide were forgiven; but when the pact had served its purpose, the Cid arrested the former qāḍī and ordered him to be burnt alive. The Cid now ruled Valencia directly, himself acting as chief magistrate of the Muslims as well as the Christians. Nominally he held Valencia for Alfonso VI, but in fact he was its independent ruler in all but name. The city’s chief mosque was Christianized in 1096; a French bishop, Jerome, was appointed to the new see; and there was a considerable influx of Christian colonists. The Cid’s princely status was emphasized when his daughter Cristina married a prince of Aragon, Ramiro, lord of Monzón, and his other daughter, María, married Ramón Berenguer III, count of Barcelona. The Cid continued to rule Valencia until his death in 1099.
The great enterprise to which the Cid had devoted so much of his energies was to prove totally ephemeral. Soon after his death, Valencia was besieged by the Almoravids, and Alfonso VI had to intervene in person to save it. But the king rightly judged the place indefensible unless he diverted there permanently large numbers of troops urgently needed to defend the Christian heartlands against the invaders. He evacuated the city and then ordered it to be burned. On May 5, 1102, the Almoravids occupied Valencia, which was to remain in Muslim hands until 1238. The Cid’s body was taken to Castile and reburied in the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña, near Burgos, where it became the center of a lively tomb cult.
The Cid’s biography presents special problems for the historian because he was speedily elevated to the status of national hero of Castile, and a complex heroic biography of him, in which legend played a dominant role, came into existence; the legend was magnified by the influence of the 12th-century epic poem of Castile, El cantar de mío Cid (“The Song of the Cid”) and later by Pierre Corneille’s tragedy Le Cid, first performed in 1637.
El Cid see Cid
Sid, al- see Cid
Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar see Cid
Vivar, Rodrigo Diaz de see Cid
Ruy Diaz de Vivar see Cid
Vivar, Ruy Diaz de see Cid
Cid (El Cid) (in Arabic, al-Sid) (c.1043, Vivar, near Burgos, Spain - July 10, 1099, Valencia). Popular name for Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar. He is the most celebrated of the heroes of Castilian chivalry. The name is derived from Arabic "sayyidi", “my master,” in vulgar Spanish "sidi", “mio Cid,” a name given to him by the Muslim soldiers of Saragossa. From 1081 onwards he led the life of a “condittiere,” fighting, as occasion arose, the Muslims or his own co-religionists on behalf of a third person or on his own behalf. He offered his services to the Hudids of Saragossa, and received tribute from the Count of Barcelona, the Muslim princes of Tortosa and Valencia and several Arab lords. He forced King Alfonso VI of Castile to lift the siege of Valencia and, after a revolt in the town led by the judge Ibn Jahhaf against his Muslim lieutenant Ibn al-Faraj, El Cid took the town in 1094, of which he remained absolute master until his death.
Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (c. 1040, Vivar, near Burgos, Spain – July 10, 1099, Valencia), known as El Cid Campeador, was a Castilian nobleman, a military leader and diplomat who, after being exiled, conquered and governed the city of Valencia. Rodrigo Díaz was educated in the royal court of Castile and became the alférez, or chief general, of Alfonso VI, and his most valuable asset in the fight against the Moors.
The Cid, Spanish El Cid, also called El Campeador (“the Champion”), byname of Rodrigo, or Ruy, Díaz de Vivar, Castilian military leader and national hero. His popular name, El Cid, dates from his lifetime.
Rodrigo Díaz’s father, Diego Laínez, was a member of the minor nobility (infanzones) of Castile. But the Cid’s social background was less unprivileged than later popular tradition liked to suppose, for he was directly connected on his mother’s side to the great landed aristocracy, and he was brought up at the court of Ferdinand I in the household of that king’s eldest son, the future Sancho II of Castile. When Sancho succeeded to the Castilian throne (1065), he nominated the 22-year-old Cid as his standard-bearer (armiger regis), or commander of the royal troops. This early promotion to important office suggests that the young Cid had already won a reputation for military prowess. In 1067 he accompanied Sancho on a campaign against the important Moorish kingdom of Zaragoza (Saragossa) and played a leading role in the negotiations that made its king, al-Muqtadir, a tributary of the Castilian crown.
Ferdinand I, on his death, had partitioned his kingdoms among his various children, leaving Leon to his second son, Alfonso VI. Sancho began (1067) to make war on the latter with the aim of annexing Leon. Later legend was to make the Cid a reluctant supporter of Sancho’s aggression, but it is unlikely the real Cid had any such scruples. He played a prominent part in Sancho’s successful campaigns against Alfonso and so found himself in an awkward situation in 1072, when the childless Sancho was killed while besieging Zamora, leaving the dethroned Alfonso as his only possible heir. The new king appears to have done his best to win the allegiance of Sancho’s most powerful supporter. Though the Cid now lost his post as armiger regis to a great magnate, Count García Ordóñez (whose bitter enemy he became), and his former influence at court naturally declined, he was allowed to remain there; and, in July 1074, probably at Alfonso’s instigation, he married the king’s niece Jimena, daughter of the count of Oviedo. He thus became allied by marriage to the ancient royal dynasty of Leon. Very little is known about Jimena. The couple had one son and two daughters. The son, Diego Rodríguez, was killed in battle against the Muslim Almoravid invaders from North Africa, at Consuegra (1097).
The Cid’s position at court was, despite his marriage, precarious. He seems to have been thought of as the natural leader of those Castilians who were unreconciled to being ruled by a king of Leon. He certainly resented the influence exercised by the great landed nobles over Alfonso VI. Though his heroic biographers would later present the Cid as the blameless victim of unscrupulous noble enemies and of Alfonso’s willingness to listen to unfounded slanders, it seems likely that the Cid’s penchant for publicly humiliating powerful men may have largely contributed to his downfall. Though he was later to show himself astute and calculating as both a soldier and a politician, his conduct vis-à-vis the court suggests that resentment at his loss of influence as a result of Sancho’s death may temporarily have undermined his capacity for self-control. In 1079, while on a mission to the Moorish king of Sevilla (Seville), he became embroiled with García Ordóñez, who was aiding the king of Granada in an invasion of the kingdom of Sevilla. The Cid defeated the markedly superior Granadine army at Cabra, near Sevilla, capturing García Ordóñez. This victory prepared the way for his downfall; and when, in 1081, he led an unauthorized military raid into the Moorish kingdom of Toledo, which was under Alfonso’s protection, the king exiled the Cid from his kingdoms. Several subsequent attempts at reconciliation produced no lasting results, and after 1081 the Cid never again was able to live for long in Alfonso VI’s dominions.
The Cid in exile offered his services to the Muslim dynasty that ruled Zaragoza and with which he had first made contact in 1065. The king of Zaragoza, in northeastern Spain, al-Muʿtamin, welcomed the chance of having his vulnerable kingdom defended by so prestigious a Christian warrior. The Cid now loyally served al-Muʿtamin and his successor, al-Mustaʿīn II, for nearly a decade. As a result of his experience he gained that understanding of the complexities of Hispano-Arabic politics and of Islamic law and custom that would later help him to conquer and hold Valencia. Meanwhile, he steadily added to his reputation as a general who had never been defeated in battle. In 1082, on behalf of al-Muʿtamin, he inflicted a decisive defeat on the Moorish king of Lérida and the latter’s Christian allies, among them the count of Barcelona. In 1084 he defeated a large Christian army under King Sancho Ramírez of Aragon. He was richly rewarded for these victories by his grateful Muslim masters.
In 1086 there began the great Almoravid invasion of Spain from North Africa. Alfonso VI, crushingly defeated by the invaders at Sagrajas (October 23, 1086), suppressed his antagonism to the Cid and recalled from exile the Christians’ best general. The Cid’s presence at Alfonso’s court in July 1087 is documented. But shortly afterward, he was back in Zaragoza, and he was not a participant in the subsequent desperate battles against the Almoravids in the strategic regions where their attacks threatened the whole existence of Christian Spain. The Cid, for his part, now embarked on the lengthy and immensely complicated political maneuvering that was aimed at making him master of the rich Moorish kingdom of Valencia.
The Cid’s first step was to eliminate the influence of the counts of Barcelona in that area. This was done when Berenguer Ramón II was humiliatingly defeated at Tébar, near Teruel (May 1090). During the next years the Cid gradually tightened his control over Valencia and its ruler, al-Qādir, now his tributary. His moment of destiny came in October 1092 when the qāḍī (chief magistrate), Ibn Jaḥḥāf, with Almoravid political support rebelled and killed al-Qādir. The Cid responded by besieging the rebel city. The siege lasted for many months; an Almoravid attempt to break it failed miserably (December 1093). In May 1094 Ibn Jaḥḥāf at last surrendered, and the Cid finally entered Valencia as its conqueror. To facilitate his takeover, he characteristically first made a pact with Ibn Jaḥḥāf that led the latter to believe that his acts of rebellion and regicide were forgiven; but when the pact had served its purpose, the Cid arrested the former qāḍī and ordered him to be burnt alive. The Cid now ruled Valencia directly, himself acting as chief magistrate of the Muslims as well as the Christians. Nominally he held Valencia for Alfonso VI, but in fact he was its independent ruler in all but name. The city’s chief mosque was Christianized in 1096; a French bishop, Jerome, was appointed to the new see; and there was a considerable influx of Christian colonists. The Cid’s princely status was emphasized when his daughter Cristina married a prince of Aragon, Ramiro, lord of Monzón, and his other daughter, María, married Ramón Berenguer III, count of Barcelona. The Cid continued to rule Valencia until his death in 1099.
The great enterprise to which the Cid had devoted so much of his energies was to prove totally ephemeral. Soon after his death, Valencia was besieged by the Almoravids, and Alfonso VI had to intervene in person to save it. But the king rightly judged the place indefensible unless he diverted there permanently large numbers of troops urgently needed to defend the Christian heartlands against the invaders. He evacuated the city and then ordered it to be burned. On May 5, 1102, the Almoravids occupied Valencia, which was to remain in Muslim hands until 1238. The Cid’s body was taken to Castile and reburied in the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña, near Burgos, where it became the center of a lively tomb cult.
The Cid’s biography presents special problems for the historian because he was speedily elevated to the status of national hero of Castile, and a complex heroic biography of him, in which legend played a dominant role, came into existence; the legend was magnified by the influence of the 12th-century epic poem of Castile, El cantar de mío Cid (“The Song of the Cid”) and later by Pierre Corneille’s tragedy Le Cid, first performed in 1637.
El Cid see Cid
Sid, al- see Cid
Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar see Cid
Vivar, Rodrigo Diaz de see Cid
Ruy Diaz de Vivar see Cid
Vivar, Ruy Diaz de see Cid
Ciller
Ciller (Tansu Ciller) (Tansu Penbe Ciller) (b. May 24, 1946). Turkish politician, member of parliament, and leader of the True Path Party. She was Turkey’s first female prime minister from 1993 to 1996.
Ciller was born in Istanbul. She was the daughter of a Turkish governor of Bilecik province during the 1950s. She graduated from the School of Economics at Robert College after finishing the American College for Girls in Istanbul. She received her Master of Science from the University of New Hampshire and a doctorate from the University of Connecticut. She later completed her post-doctoral studies at Yale University. After teaching economics at Franklin and Marshall College, in 1978, she became a lecturer at Bosphorus University in Istanbul and in 1983 she was appointed as professor by the same institution. She also worked in the now-defunct Istanbul Bank as president of the company.
After teaching at several universities as a professor, she entered politics in November 1990, joining the conservative True Path Party (DYP). She was first elected to parliament in October 1991 as deputy of Istanbul and served as Minister of State in charge of economics in the coalition government of Süleyman Demirel. On June 13, 1993, she became the leader of the True Path Party and later she became the Prime Minister of a coalition government. After the withdrawal of the Republican People's Party (CHP) from the coalition in 1995 she attempted to form a minority government, which failed. After that she agreed to form another cabinet with CHP and went for general elections.
In September 1995, the Republican People’s Party left the government, which forced Ciller to call for early elections. In December, Ciller did not achieve the number of votes needed in the parliamentary elections, as her party only received nineteen percent, two percent less than the winning Islamist Welfare Party.
In March 1996, Ciller and the True Path Party formed a government together with Mesut Yilmaz of the Motherland Party, leaving him in the position of prime minister. Later, in June, Ciller cooperated with Necmettin Erbakan of the Islamist Welfare Party in overthrowing her partner Yilmaz. In July, a coalition was forged between Erbakan and Ciller which left Ciller in the position as foreign minister.
Çiller also served as Turkey's Foreign Affairs Minister and the vice prime minister between 1996 and 1997. After the Susurluk scandal, she praised Abdullah Catli, a leader of the ultra-nationalist Grey Wolves killed during the Susurluk car-crash.
In June 1997, Ciller announced her intentions to become prime minister after the resignation of Erbakan, but President Suleiman Demirel asked Yilmaz to form a new government instead, thereby forestalling Ciller’s plans.
Throughout her career, Ciller’s politics were marked by attempts to liberalize both the economy of Turkey and the individual rights of its people. The European Union-Turkey Customs Union agreement was signed in 1995 and came into effect in 1996, during Çiller's government. Çiller was also Turkey's Prime Minister during the Imia/Kardak crisis with neighboring Greece in 1996.
One of her major achievements was to transform the Turkish Army from an organization using vintage equipment from the United States Army to a modern fighting force capable of defeating the PKK, using hit-and-run tactics. She also convinced the United States government to list the PKK as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, which was later followed by the acceptance of the same by the European Union.
Ciller was investigated by the Turkish Parliament on serious corruption accusations following her period in government. Along with another former Prime Minister, Mesut Yılmaz, she was later cleared of all the charges mainly due to technicalities such as statute of limitations and political immunity.
Prime Minister Tansu Çiller was a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an International network of current and former women presidents and prime ministers whose mission was to mobilize the highest-level women leaders globally for collective action on issues of critical importance to women and equitable development.
After her November 2002 election defeat, Ciller retired from political life.
She married Özer Uçuran Çiller and they had two sons.
Tansu Ciller see Ciller
Ciller, Tansu see Ciller
Tansu Penbe Ciller see Ciller
Ciller, Tansu Penbe see Ciller
Ciller (Tansu Ciller) (Tansu Penbe Ciller) (b. May 24, 1946). Turkish politician, member of parliament, and leader of the True Path Party. She was Turkey’s first female prime minister from 1993 to 1996.
Ciller was born in Istanbul. She was the daughter of a Turkish governor of Bilecik province during the 1950s. She graduated from the School of Economics at Robert College after finishing the American College for Girls in Istanbul. She received her Master of Science from the University of New Hampshire and a doctorate from the University of Connecticut. She later completed her post-doctoral studies at Yale University. After teaching economics at Franklin and Marshall College, in 1978, she became a lecturer at Bosphorus University in Istanbul and in 1983 she was appointed as professor by the same institution. She also worked in the now-defunct Istanbul Bank as president of the company.
After teaching at several universities as a professor, she entered politics in November 1990, joining the conservative True Path Party (DYP). She was first elected to parliament in October 1991 as deputy of Istanbul and served as Minister of State in charge of economics in the coalition government of Süleyman Demirel. On June 13, 1993, she became the leader of the True Path Party and later she became the Prime Minister of a coalition government. After the withdrawal of the Republican People's Party (CHP) from the coalition in 1995 she attempted to form a minority government, which failed. After that she agreed to form another cabinet with CHP and went for general elections.
In September 1995, the Republican People’s Party left the government, which forced Ciller to call for early elections. In December, Ciller did not achieve the number of votes needed in the parliamentary elections, as her party only received nineteen percent, two percent less than the winning Islamist Welfare Party.
In March 1996, Ciller and the True Path Party formed a government together with Mesut Yilmaz of the Motherland Party, leaving him in the position of prime minister. Later, in June, Ciller cooperated with Necmettin Erbakan of the Islamist Welfare Party in overthrowing her partner Yilmaz. In July, a coalition was forged between Erbakan and Ciller which left Ciller in the position as foreign minister.
Çiller also served as Turkey's Foreign Affairs Minister and the vice prime minister between 1996 and 1997. After the Susurluk scandal, she praised Abdullah Catli, a leader of the ultra-nationalist Grey Wolves killed during the Susurluk car-crash.
In June 1997, Ciller announced her intentions to become prime minister after the resignation of Erbakan, but President Suleiman Demirel asked Yilmaz to form a new government instead, thereby forestalling Ciller’s plans.
Throughout her career, Ciller’s politics were marked by attempts to liberalize both the economy of Turkey and the individual rights of its people. The European Union-Turkey Customs Union agreement was signed in 1995 and came into effect in 1996, during Çiller's government. Çiller was also Turkey's Prime Minister during the Imia/Kardak crisis with neighboring Greece in 1996.
One of her major achievements was to transform the Turkish Army from an organization using vintage equipment from the United States Army to a modern fighting force capable of defeating the PKK, using hit-and-run tactics. She also convinced the United States government to list the PKK as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, which was later followed by the acceptance of the same by the European Union.
Ciller was investigated by the Turkish Parliament on serious corruption accusations following her period in government. Along with another former Prime Minister, Mesut Yılmaz, she was later cleared of all the charges mainly due to technicalities such as statute of limitations and political immunity.
Prime Minister Tansu Çiller was a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an International network of current and former women presidents and prime ministers whose mission was to mobilize the highest-level women leaders globally for collective action on issues of critical importance to women and equitable development.
After her November 2002 election defeat, Ciller retired from political life.
She married Özer Uçuran Çiller and they had two sons.
Tansu Ciller see Ciller
Ciller, Tansu see Ciller
Tansu Penbe Ciller see Ciller
Ciller, Tansu Penbe see Ciller
Circassians
Circassians. The Circassian population represents a relatively small remnant of a once large and important group of people. As a result of a series of bloody wars, starting in the beginning of the nineteenth century and ending in the mid-1860s, roughly ninety percent of the Circassian population was either killed or forced to flee to various parts of the Ottoman Empire.
The Circassians once dominated the entire fertile steppe area of the western North Caucasus between the Baltic Sea on the west, the Stavropol Plateau on the east, the lower Don River to the north and the Caucasus Mountains to the south. In its more restrictive and more precise meaning, the ethnonym “Circassian” designates the tribes of northwest Caucasic speakers who called themselves Adyge. Adyge is still the self-designation of the Circassian people. In the pre-revolutionary period they were also referred to in Tatar, Turkish and Russian as Cherkess (from whence came the English -- Circassian). In ancient times they were known as Kerkete.
Christianity was introduced among the Circassians between the sixth and twelfth centuries by Byzantine missionaries. The Circassian religion, however, was more of a blending of the pre-Christian religion with Eastern Orthodox elements. Sunni Islam (Hanafi school) was first introduced in the sixteenth century by the Golden Horde. At first Islam was accepted only by the nobility among the eastern Kabard Circassians, and only slowly did it penetrate the lower classes. Islam was introduced among the western Circassian tribes, as well as among the Abkhaz, Abaza and Ubykh, only in the eighteenth century from the Ottoman Turkish town of Anapa on the Black Sea coast. By the late eighteenth century, Islam was well established among all of these peoples, although many Christian and traditional survivals remained. In the nineteenth century Sufi orders attempted to “purify” Islam in this region. They were popular and widespread in influence in the eastern North Caucasus, but they met with far less success among the Circassians.
The lands occupied by the Circassians were among the most productive in Russia and rivaled the Ukraine in crop yields. As such, they were very attractive to the Slavs (Russians and Ukrainians) as well. Starting in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Cossacks (basically runaway serfs who organized themselves into military bands, based on the Tatar model) began moving into the Circassian lands. In the eighteenth century, Catherine the Great transferred a large number of Ukrainian Cossacks into these lands. Although relations between these Slavs and the Circassians were never good, and there were constant skirmishes, a modus vivendi had developed by the early nineteenth century. For the most part, these Cossacks adopted the way of life of the Circassians, including their folk traditions, such as horsemanship, horse breeding, marksmanship, the traditional male costume and the squatting dances performed by the Circassians. Although these Slavs basically maintained the Slavic languages and Christian religion, they adopted the Tatar language as a second tongue, which permitted easy communications with the Tatars and the North Caucasians who also spoke it.
The Russo-Turkish wars of the nineteenth century broke this modus vivendi. These wars were fought on three fronts: the Balkans, the Crimea and the Caucasus. The Christian Cossacks were called upon to fight the infidel Muslim Caucasians, and, conversely, the Circassians joined the other Muslim Caucasians against the Russians and their empire. These wars were disastrous to the Circassians, as well as to many other North Caucasians and the Crimean Tatars. The Circassian population was decimated. Unlike the Daghestanis, Chechens, Karachai, Balkars and others who could retreat into their isolated and easily defensible mountain valleys and gorges, the Circassians lived in the open steppes. A policy of virtual genocide was carried out against them. Only among the Kabards, who generally did not take part in these wars, was a significant population left after the 1860s. It has been estimated that approximately 500,000 Circassians emigrated to Turkey between 1861 and 1864. In addition to the Circassians, the majority of Crimean Tatars, Nogai, Karachai, Balkars and Abkhaz also emigrated. The entire surviving Ubykh population emigrated.
In the 1830s, the Abkhaz population was estimated at approximately 130,000. By 1866, it had been reduced to 65,000, and by 1881 to a mere 20,000. Only the Muslims emigrated. By the late nineteenth century what was once a relatively small Christian minority became the majority. What remains of the Circassian, Abaza, Abkhaz, Crimean Tatar, Nogai, Karachai and Balkar populations today are only small remnants of once far more numerous peoples.
The actual number of Circassians in Turkey and other Southwest Asian countries is not known. It is estimated that there are approximately two million people of Circassian background living in the Middle East today, although many have been linguistically and ethnically assimilated, especially in Turkey. So many Circassians lived in Turkey in the 1920s that Soviet nationality policy among the remaining Soviet Circassians was to make the Soviet Union appear as a great and benevolent state, one that openly supported the Circassian people. The Circassians received three separate autonomies, and after a number of reorganizations, the Adygi Autonomous Oblast (A.O.), the Karachai-Cherkess (A.O.) and Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (A.S.S.R.) emerged. It is not by accident that the names of these autonomies correspond to important Circassian ethnic identities.
In 1922, all Quranic schools were closed, and a major effort was waged by the Soviets against Islam. In 1923-1924, the Circassian literary language was changed to the Latin script. To further complicate matters the Soviets decided (against the will of the Circassian leaders) to create another Circassian literary language. In 1927, a separate Adygei literary language was established on the basis of one of the western Kyakh dialects. The Kyakh dialects were the dominant ones used by the Circassians in Turkey.
In the 1930s, the Circassians were again reorganized. They were divided on a territorial rather than social (or dialectic) basis. The western tribes were designated as Adygei, the central ones as Cherkess and the eastern Circassians as Kabards. Thus many who were Kabards in the 1920s became Cherkess if they lived in what became the Karachai-Cherkess A.O. In addition to this, the Abaza, who numbered a mere 13,826 and who were on the verge of total assimilation by the central Circassians, were given a distinct literary language of their own, one which used the Latin script. In 1938, both Circassian literary languages and Abaza were changed to the Cyrillic script. At the same time, Arabic, Turkic and Persian words and expressions were purged from the languages and replaced by Russian ones. It was also decreed that any further language borrowing must come from Russian itself. Russian was made a mandatory language of study, and the Circassian languages were used in the schools only through the fifth grade, after which all education was in Russian only. In the early 1960s Circassian and Abaza were eliminated completely as languages of instruction in the schools.
The history of Abhkaz is somewhat different. The Soviets wanted to maintain them as a separate group, and they have received an inordinate amount of support as an ethnic group. Abkhaz was originally written in the mid-nineteenth century in the Cyrillic script. It was changed to the Latin in 1928, to the Georgian in 1938 and finally back to the Cyrillic in 1954. Little is printed in any of these languages anyway, and that which is tends to be translations from other languages, most notably Russian. Few books are available in them, and when they are printed few copies are issued. In the Circassian languages (in 1979) only four tenths of one book were available per person. The same is true of Abaza.
Circassians are Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school. Between the end of the fourteenth century until 1517, they constituted the pre-dominant element of Mameluke military society. The Mameluke Sultan Barquq, a Circassian himself, became the founder of what is called the Circassian line of the Mameluke sultans, known as Burjis, which lasted until 1517.
Circassians. The Circassian population represents a relatively small remnant of a once large and important group of people. As a result of a series of bloody wars, starting in the beginning of the nineteenth century and ending in the mid-1860s, roughly ninety percent of the Circassian population was either killed or forced to flee to various parts of the Ottoman Empire.
The Circassians once dominated the entire fertile steppe area of the western North Caucasus between the Baltic Sea on the west, the Stavropol Plateau on the east, the lower Don River to the north and the Caucasus Mountains to the south. In its more restrictive and more precise meaning, the ethnonym “Circassian” designates the tribes of northwest Caucasic speakers who called themselves Adyge. Adyge is still the self-designation of the Circassian people. In the pre-revolutionary period they were also referred to in Tatar, Turkish and Russian as Cherkess (from whence came the English -- Circassian). In ancient times they were known as Kerkete.
Christianity was introduced among the Circassians between the sixth and twelfth centuries by Byzantine missionaries. The Circassian religion, however, was more of a blending of the pre-Christian religion with Eastern Orthodox elements. Sunni Islam (Hanafi school) was first introduced in the sixteenth century by the Golden Horde. At first Islam was accepted only by the nobility among the eastern Kabard Circassians, and only slowly did it penetrate the lower classes. Islam was introduced among the western Circassian tribes, as well as among the Abkhaz, Abaza and Ubykh, only in the eighteenth century from the Ottoman Turkish town of Anapa on the Black Sea coast. By the late eighteenth century, Islam was well established among all of these peoples, although many Christian and traditional survivals remained. In the nineteenth century Sufi orders attempted to “purify” Islam in this region. They were popular and widespread in influence in the eastern North Caucasus, but they met with far less success among the Circassians.
The lands occupied by the Circassians were among the most productive in Russia and rivaled the Ukraine in crop yields. As such, they were very attractive to the Slavs (Russians and Ukrainians) as well. Starting in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Cossacks (basically runaway serfs who organized themselves into military bands, based on the Tatar model) began moving into the Circassian lands. In the eighteenth century, Catherine the Great transferred a large number of Ukrainian Cossacks into these lands. Although relations between these Slavs and the Circassians were never good, and there were constant skirmishes, a modus vivendi had developed by the early nineteenth century. For the most part, these Cossacks adopted the way of life of the Circassians, including their folk traditions, such as horsemanship, horse breeding, marksmanship, the traditional male costume and the squatting dances performed by the Circassians. Although these Slavs basically maintained the Slavic languages and Christian religion, they adopted the Tatar language as a second tongue, which permitted easy communications with the Tatars and the North Caucasians who also spoke it.
The Russo-Turkish wars of the nineteenth century broke this modus vivendi. These wars were fought on three fronts: the Balkans, the Crimea and the Caucasus. The Christian Cossacks were called upon to fight the infidel Muslim Caucasians, and, conversely, the Circassians joined the other Muslim Caucasians against the Russians and their empire. These wars were disastrous to the Circassians, as well as to many other North Caucasians and the Crimean Tatars. The Circassian population was decimated. Unlike the Daghestanis, Chechens, Karachai, Balkars and others who could retreat into their isolated and easily defensible mountain valleys and gorges, the Circassians lived in the open steppes. A policy of virtual genocide was carried out against them. Only among the Kabards, who generally did not take part in these wars, was a significant population left after the 1860s. It has been estimated that approximately 500,000 Circassians emigrated to Turkey between 1861 and 1864. In addition to the Circassians, the majority of Crimean Tatars, Nogai, Karachai, Balkars and Abkhaz also emigrated. The entire surviving Ubykh population emigrated.
In the 1830s, the Abkhaz population was estimated at approximately 130,000. By 1866, it had been reduced to 65,000, and by 1881 to a mere 20,000. Only the Muslims emigrated. By the late nineteenth century what was once a relatively small Christian minority became the majority. What remains of the Circassian, Abaza, Abkhaz, Crimean Tatar, Nogai, Karachai and Balkar populations today are only small remnants of once far more numerous peoples.
The actual number of Circassians in Turkey and other Southwest Asian countries is not known. It is estimated that there are approximately two million people of Circassian background living in the Middle East today, although many have been linguistically and ethnically assimilated, especially in Turkey. So many Circassians lived in Turkey in the 1920s that Soviet nationality policy among the remaining Soviet Circassians was to make the Soviet Union appear as a great and benevolent state, one that openly supported the Circassian people. The Circassians received three separate autonomies, and after a number of reorganizations, the Adygi Autonomous Oblast (A.O.), the Karachai-Cherkess (A.O.) and Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (A.S.S.R.) emerged. It is not by accident that the names of these autonomies correspond to important Circassian ethnic identities.
In 1922, all Quranic schools were closed, and a major effort was waged by the Soviets against Islam. In 1923-1924, the Circassian literary language was changed to the Latin script. To further complicate matters the Soviets decided (against the will of the Circassian leaders) to create another Circassian literary language. In 1927, a separate Adygei literary language was established on the basis of one of the western Kyakh dialects. The Kyakh dialects were the dominant ones used by the Circassians in Turkey.
In the 1930s, the Circassians were again reorganized. They were divided on a territorial rather than social (or dialectic) basis. The western tribes were designated as Adygei, the central ones as Cherkess and the eastern Circassians as Kabards. Thus many who were Kabards in the 1920s became Cherkess if they lived in what became the Karachai-Cherkess A.O. In addition to this, the Abaza, who numbered a mere 13,826 and who were on the verge of total assimilation by the central Circassians, were given a distinct literary language of their own, one which used the Latin script. In 1938, both Circassian literary languages and Abaza were changed to the Cyrillic script. At the same time, Arabic, Turkic and Persian words and expressions were purged from the languages and replaced by Russian ones. It was also decreed that any further language borrowing must come from Russian itself. Russian was made a mandatory language of study, and the Circassian languages were used in the schools only through the fifth grade, after which all education was in Russian only. In the early 1960s Circassian and Abaza were eliminated completely as languages of instruction in the schools.
The history of Abhkaz is somewhat different. The Soviets wanted to maintain them as a separate group, and they have received an inordinate amount of support as an ethnic group. Abkhaz was originally written in the mid-nineteenth century in the Cyrillic script. It was changed to the Latin in 1928, to the Georgian in 1938 and finally back to the Cyrillic in 1954. Little is printed in any of these languages anyway, and that which is tends to be translations from other languages, most notably Russian. Few books are available in them, and when they are printed few copies are issued. In the Circassian languages (in 1979) only four tenths of one book were available per person. The same is true of Abaza.
Circassians are Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school. Between the end of the fourteenth century until 1517, they constituted the pre-dominant element of Mameluke military society. The Mameluke Sultan Barquq, a Circassian himself, became the founder of what is called the Circassian line of the Mameluke sultans, known as Burjis, which lasted until 1517.
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