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The Politics of Genocide Claims and the Circassian Diaspora
Allegations of genocide are often politically charged. On January 23, 2012, the French parliament voted to criminalize the denial of the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Empire during...
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Dreams of a Circassian Homeland and the Sochi Olympics of 2014
The resurgence of Circassian identity in recent years faces daunting obstacles. Many Circassians believe that the long-term sustainability of their community requires a return to the northwestern...
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The Circassian Mystique and Its Historical Roots
Although little known today, the Circassians were once a famous people, celebrated for their military élan, physical mien, and resistance to Russian expansion. In the nineteenth century,...
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Sochi 2014: A Subtropical Winter Olympics?
In 2010, Foreign Policy magazine asked Russian opposition leader and Sochi native Boris Nemtsov why he opposed the 2014 Winter Olympics in his hometown. Nemtsov’s reply was broad ranging. He decried...
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The Role of the Caucasus in Russian Cultural and Intellectual History
(by guest blogger Vitaliy L. Rayz, in collaboration with Martin W. Lewis) The present GeoCurrents series has focused on the peoples of the Caucasus, examining Russia and Russians only insofar as they...
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The Many Armenian Diasporas, Then and Now
Armenians have long been scattered over many countries, whether as permanent migrants or temporary sojourners. Today, only about a third of their population lives in Armenia, with the rest spread over...
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The Centrality of the Caucasus
For the past month, GeoCurrents has focused on the Caucasus, exploring the region’s history, languages, cuisines, and more. Two additional posts will conclude the series. We will subsequently pause to...
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Chechnya’s Questionable Votes—and Investments
Returns from the recent elections in Russia indicate significant “irregularities” in the voting process. Nowhere was fraud more widespread than in Chechnya, which recorded a 99.6 percent voter turnout,...
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The Sochi Olympics and the Circassians: A Media Failure?
When lecturing on the Caucasus last fall, I asked my Stanford students if any of them had ever heard of the Circassians. Out of a class of roughly 100 students, two raised their hands. I then told that...
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Radicalization of Russia’s Muslims—Are Crimean Tatars Next? (Part 1)
[Thanks to Iryna Novosyolova for a helpful discussion of some of the issues discussed in this post.] A recent article in Foreign Affairs listed the use of the French language as the best predictor of...
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