Turkey, As an Influential North Caucasian Émigré Center Between the Two World Wars
Turkey, As an Influential North Caucasian Émigré Center Between the Two World Wars

Summary/Abstract: The article basically aims to shed light on the efforts of the Caucasian peoples to establish a state and unity, especially on the axis of the Caucasian Mountaineers, and their activities emigration activites during the turbulent years of the world. Today, Turkey is home to North Caucasian community representing about 10% of its population. Although this ratio represents a small percentage of the Turkish population, it has a very different meaning for the peoples of the North Caucasus. If we consider that the population of genuine North Caucasians today is half of the population of the diaspora and that only Russians, Cossacks, and other settlers live in many parts of the North Caucasus now, the meaning of the North Caucasian diaspora in Turkey can be understood much better. Although the North Caucasian ethnicities in Turkey were the victims of large-scale assimilation, especially during the first fifty years of the republican regime, they are still of great importance to their homeland. We witnessed the most striking example of this during the 1992–1993 Abkhaz-Georgian war. Within the scope of this article, we will examine the events that developed in the North Caucasus in the years between the revolutions at the beginning of the 20th century and the world wars, and the influence of Turkey and North Caucasian immigrant community in Turkey on the course of events. We also submit the issue of a Confederative Union of the peoples of the Caucasus to the attention of the reader from the perspective of North Caucasian Mountaineers.

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