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3 unusual facts about Circassian diaspora


Circassian diaspora

In 2009, the Circassian Culture Academy was founded, aiming to preserve the Circassian language, which comprises the closely related Adyghe and Kabardian languages (considered to be dialects of Circassian by some linguists).

However, one of the last descendants of this family, Mihail Christodulo Cerchez, was a Romanian national hero in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 (Osman Paşa, the Turkish commander of the Pleven garrison, who was an Adyge himself, surrendered his sword to Cerchez at the end of the siege).

A small minority of Circassians had lived in Kosovo Polje since the late 1880s, as mentioned by Noel Malcolm in his seminal work about that province, but they were repatriated to the Republic of Adygea in southern Russia in the late 1990s.



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