Expulsion of the Circassians
| Circassian genocide | |
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Attack type
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Genocide, mass murder, expulsion |
| Deaths | more than 400,000 (official Russian estimate) Other sources: at least 600,000 (3/4 of the total Circassian population) – 1,500,000 deaths with a similar number expelled. |
| Perpetrators | Russian Empire |
The Circassian genocide was the ethnic cleansing, killing, forced migration, and expulsion of the majority of the Circassians from their historical homeland Circassia, which roughly encompassed the major part of the North Caucasus and the northeast shore of the Black Sea. This occurred in the aftermath of the Caucasian War in the last quarter of the 19th century. The displaced people moved primarily to the Ottoman Empire.
Circassians, the indigenous peoples of this region, were ethnically cleansed from their homeland at the end of the Russo-Circassian War by Russia. The expulsion was launched before the end of the war in 1864 and it was mostly completed by 1867. The peoples planned for removal were mainly the Circassians (or Adyghe), Ubykhs, and Abaza, but Ingush, Arshtins, Chechens, Ossetians and Abkhaz were also heavily affected.
This expulsion involved an unknown number of people, perhaps numbering hundreds of thousands. In any case, the majority of the affected people were expelled. The Imperial Russian Army rounded up people, driving them from their villages to ports on the Black Sea, where they awaited ships provided by the neighboring Ottoman Empire. The explicit Russian goal was to expel the groups in question from their lands. Only a small percentage (the numbers are unknown) accepted resettlement within the Russian Empire. Circassian populations were thus variously dispersed, resettled, or in some cases killed en masse. An unknown number of deportees perished during the process. Some died from epidemics among crowds of deportees both while awaiting departure and while languishing in their Ottoman Black Sea ports of arrival. Others perished when ships underway sank during storms. Calculations including those taking into account the Russian government's own archival figures have estimated a loss of 90, 94% or 95–97% of the Circassian nation in the process.
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