Russian–Circassian War
| Russo-Circassian War | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Caucasian War | |||||||||
|
|||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Russian Empire
|
 Circassia Caucasian Imamate (Western)Sadzen |
||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
|
Catherine II, Tsar Nicholas I, Tsar Alexander I, Tsar Alexander II, Aleksey Yermolov, Mikhail Vorontsov, Aleksandr Baryatinskiy, Nikolai Evdokimov
|
Kazbech Tuguzhoko Jembulat Bolotoko The Naibs who ruled over Shamil's west |
||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 150,000 – 200,000. | 20,000 regulars. | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| An unknown number of indigenous Caucasians killed during deportation. About 500,000 indigenous highland Caucasians were expelled mainly to the Ottoman Empire, and a much smaller number to Persia. | |||||||||
The Russo-Circassian War (1763–1864) refers to a series of battles and wars in Circassia, the northwestern part of the Caucasus, which were part of the Russian Empire's conquest of the Caucasus lasting approximately 101 years, starting under the reign of Tsar Peter the Great and being completed in 1864. Although the conquest of the Caucasus started at least as early as the Russo-Persian Wars, the term Caucasian War commonly refers only to the period 1817–1864. Those who use the term Russian–Circassian War take its starting date as 1763, when the Russians began establishing forts, including at Mozdok, to be used as springboards for conquest.
The Caucasian War ended with the signing of loyalty oaths by Circassian leaders on 2 June [O.S. 21 May] 1864. Afterwards, the Ottoman Empire offered to harbour the Circassians that did not wish to accept the rule of a Christian monarch, and many emigrated to Anatolia, the heart of the Ottoman Empire and ended up in modern Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Iraq and Kosovo. Different smaller numbers ended up in neighbouring Persia. Various Russian, Caucasus, and Western historians agree on the figure of ca. 500,000 inhabitants of the highland Caucasus being deported by Russia in the 1860s. A large fraction of them died in transit from disease. Some of those that remained loyal to Russia were settled into the lowlands, the left-bank of the Kuban River.
Circassia (Cherkessia in Russian) refers to a region the majority of whose inhabitants before the 1860s were the Adygey (Adyghey, Adyghe) ethnic group, known to the West as Circassians. This region consisted for the most part of the region between the westward flowing Kuban River to the north and the Caucasus mountain range to the south, although the Kuban River constituted only part of the northern boundary. The Circassians were never politically united for a long period. The western bulk of Circassia, they belonged to any of about ten tribes, living in communities headed by chieftains. In the east of Circassia were two feudal polities, Greater Kabardá and Lesser Kabardá. In the late 1550s, the ruler of one of the Kabardás, Temryuk (or Temriuk), struck a politico-military alliance with Tsar Ivan IV of Russia ("Ivan the Terrible"), for mutual assistance against expansionist attacks by the Persian and Ottoman Empires. In this period of history, the Circassians were Christians; Islam did not begin to penetrate Circassia until the following century. In the 1560s Ivan and Temryuk directed forts to be constructed, including Tumnev at the western end of Circassian lands and at Sunzha Ostrog at the mouth of the Sunzha river, at the eastern end of Circassian lands.
...
Wikipedia