Circassian question put in Tbilisi

      Georgian and American scholars press for the recognition of genocide of Adygs

      A conference on the situation in the North Caucasus has taken place in Tbilisi. Despite academic-like type of the event it can sharpen even more the relationships between Georgia and Russia as it touches the problem of stability in the region of the North Caucasus which is complicated and confusing for the Russian Federation. The conference “Unknown Nations. Continuing Crime: Circassians and Caucasian Peoples between Past and Future” has been officially initiated by Tbilisi Ilia Chavchavadze State University and American Jamestown Foundation which has been collaborating with Georgia for long time.

     The chancellor of the university Gigi Tevzadze is considered one of the ideologists of the “Rose Revolution” (2003) and is an influential figure in the president Saakashvili’s team as well as the head of the “International School for Caucasus Studies” at the “Ilia University”, a political scientist Georgi Nodia who initiated the conference alongside with the American foundation.

      In his interview to the VK Mr. Tevzadze said that conference taking place would by no means be able to sharpen the relationships between the two states and all the publications on this point in the Russian press are not to be taken seriously. “If somewhere an academic discussion is to undermine the stability, what kind of stability it is?”

      In the meanwhile, Georgi Nodia said to the VK: “We have recently created the ‘International School for Caucasus Studies’ together with the Jamestown foundation. A scientific conference can’t be considered as a provocation. No decisions are made there, only the scientific problems are discussed”

      The organizers consider one of such problems the recognition or non-recognition of the events of 1860s as “genocide of Circassians”. In 1864 the Russian empire won the Caucasian war which had long for almost 50 years, from 1818. After putting down Chechnya the Russian army managed to capture all the fortresses in the North-West Caucasus and suppress the Circassian Resistance. As a result about 95% of Circassians and a half of  Abkhazians (which are kindred to them) had to leave their homeland for the Islamic countries, in particular Turkey (VK “Firm Muhajirs http://vestikavkaza.ru/articles/obshestvo/religion/13448.html”).

      The descendants of these muhajirs put the question of recognition of these events as genocide of Circassians (adygs) from time to time and speak about their homecoming. Moreover, some of them stand against the Olympic Games 2014 in Sochi (VK “Olympics: Winter, Summer, Circassian http://vestikavkaza.ru/articles/obshestvo/sochi/15727.html”). “It is a blasphemy to organize the Olympic Games in Krasnaya Polyana, where the invaders murdered so many people that the field became red with the blood” – says one of the participants of the conference, a Circassian historian Ali Berzegi. “In 2014 there are 150 years from this tragedy, and it is decided to organize the Olympics just in this year in Sochi”. Georgian officials allowed Berzegi to the state archives where he “managed to discover quite worthy documents on the events of 1964”. The evidences include, for example, some internal documents sent by Russian officers to the officials of higher rank speaking about the mass burials of Circassians on the shore of Black Sea, the general list of the Caucasian emperor army and the correspondence which irrefutably proves the fact that the deportation and massacre of Circassians has been a purposeful policy of Petersburg, and therefore genocide. 

      It is worth to note that the important documents of the Czar administration of Caucasus (which was situated in Tbilisi in these times) have been discovered right now. Formerly Georgia didn’t allow North Caucasian scholars to these documents, obviously due to the request of Russia, but after the South Ossetia war of 2008 the situation changed fundamentally.

      Some character personalities have participated in the conference, among which we can mention Alla, the widow of the first president of “Ichkerria” Dzhokhar Dudayev, Anzor – the son of the president Maskhadov, members of Chechen and Circassian diasporas prom Turkey, USA, Canada, European and Asian countries, caucasologists from the leading scientific centers. Though, many of the scholars invited from Adygei, Karachai-Cherkess, Kabardino-Balkaria did not come to the conference. “It is likely that they did not come because of the pressure of Russian secret services” – says a source from the organizing committee of the conference, “But we are quite sure that they are very anxious of recognizing of the events of 1864 genocide”. But it is possible that there is one more reason for this. Circassians, at least those of them who live in the North Caucasus, don’t want to sharpen their relationships with Moscow, which has recognized the independence of Abchazia, a region which is ethnically an culturally close to them.

      The most of the participants of the conference spoke for the recognition of the genocide and claimed that the Georgian parliament would have to support them. If the members of the governing party “United National Movement” base their decisions only on the ideas of ‘reciprocity’, no hindrances are going to appear. It is Russia which not only called the events of the 5 days war in Southern Ossetia genocide but also instituted a criminal case against the leaders of a neighboring state. At the same time the Georgian opposition warns the government that it is dangerous  to interfere the domestic affairs of a country possessing nuclear weapons and calls their initiatives “fire games”. This is the point of view of, for example, the former speaker of the parliament Nino Burjanadze.

      The Circassian question has not been the only topic of the conference. The same attention has been paid on the past and present of Chechnya and Dagestan. A historian professor Georgi Anchabadze said in the VK interview that a scientific conference is unlikely to influence the situation seriously. “First of all, as to the very notion of  ‘genocide’, it is always tried to make it as ancient as possible. Following the same logic, the Mongol invasion is a genocide too. I am not surprised with the fact that so many people from Cherkess itself didn’t come. They followed the “advice”. And the question of the “homecoming” of Circassians is not a question of nowadays. For instance, the muhajirs have hardly come back to Abkhazia after the end of its war with Georgia.

      It seems that the problem of recognition of genocide of Circassians and the question of the Olympics in Sochi is now only starting to play an important role. Georgia has already affirmed that its sportsmen are not going to Sochi because “it is impossible to organize sport competitions on the corpses of hundreds thousands of innocent people”, as one of the officials of the national Olympic committee says. On the other hand, Moscow is constantly observing the situation and is likely to react in some way if the problem of genocide is discussed in the Georgian parliament.

      Georgi Kalatozishvili. Special for VK