Europe

Europe

Circassians who settled in the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the 19th Century found themselves within the borders and as citizens of the nation states of Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Israel and Yugoslavia, in the early 20th Century.

In time, and especially after 1950 following the end of World War II, some of those Circassians partook in another wave of migration, this time mostly as economic migrants but also as political refugees from turbulent political upheavals and moved to Europe. The “Gastarbeiter” or guest workers were mostly from Turkey and settled in Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland where they formed, in time, secondary Circassian diaspora communities. Their second and third generation descendants are now citizens of their respective adapted countries.

Today there are Circassian NGOs and community centers in all these countries that tackle social, cultural, linguistic and political matters of the Circassian diaspora communities.