NOTORIOUS SUBJECTS, INVISIBLE CITIZENS: NORTH CAUCASIAN RESISTANCE TO THE TURKISH NATIONAL MOVEMENT IN NORTHWESTERN ANATOLIA, 1919–23

Abstract

This piece raises the historical and contemporary importance of a little-known campaign of resistance to the ascendancy of the Turkish National Movement (a movement that would later spawn the Republic of Turkey) during the Turkish War of Independence. Unlike other acts of resistance carried out by Ottoman Christians and Kurds, the rebellion profiled here was largely led and populated by members of the north Caucasian or Circassian diaspora of northwestern Anatolia. As a population that became economically and socially disjointed through settlement along the southern littoral of the Marmara Sea, a significant component of this exile community repeatedly rejected forces led by Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk). This article approaches the Circassian rebels' provincial origins and motivations and offers new insights into localist, as opposed to nationalist, forces that have both shaped and resisted the formation of the Republic of Turkey.