A Circassian Village in Turkey: Uzuntarla ( Hajamiko Hable) is out!

One of the associate members of the Center for Circassian Studies, Ms Mesude Cetinbas, has published her first book entitled “A Circassian Village in Turkey: Uzuntarla ( Hajamiko Hable)”. The new publication, co-edited by Murat Papsu and Zeynel A Besleney of the CCS, was presented on 7 May in the picturesque town of Uzuntarla (called Hajamiko Hable in Circassian), which lies within Kartepe township famous for its sights, forests, water sports centers and ski resorts in the city of Kocaeli, located a hundred kilometres from Istanbul.

In addition to the residents and community activists of Uzuntarla and other Circassian towns nearby, Mr Mustafa Kocaman, the mayor of Kartepe, attended the presentation. The municipality of Kartepe has generously sponsored the cost of publishing. The chairman of the Center for Circassian Studies Murat Papsu was also amongst the attendees.

Being the first academic study of its kind for Circassian settlements in Turkey, “A Circassian Village in Turkey: Uzuntarla (Hajamiko Hable)” is based largely on the dissertation Cetinbas wrote for a recently-completed postgraduate degree she did as a mature-student at the Circassian Language and Literature Section of the Department of Caucasian Languages and Cultures of Duzce University. studies the foundational history and past and present sociological, cultural and linguistic state of the Circassian quarter of the town.

Founded in 1879 by Circassians who, having survived the Circassian Genocide had been deported by the Russian Empire from their original settlement near River Kurdzhips in the Republic of Adygeya, the Western Circassia, and settled in the Balkans in the 1860s and then were uprooted once again from there to move to Anatolian lands of the Ottoman Empire following the Ottoman-Russian War of 1877-78. The Circassian quarter of Uzuntarla is now home to around 250 households.

Congratulating Ms Cetinbas on her graduation and the publication of this seminal work, the CCS looks forward to similar studies to be done on other Circassian settlements across Turkey. The book can be ordered online here.