Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T05:18:56.792Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

From national humiliation to difference: The image of the Circassian beauty in the discourses of Circassian diaspora nationalists

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2015

Setenay Nil Doğan*
Affiliation:
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Yıldız Technical University, [email protected]

Abstract

The Circassian Beauty, attributed to the women of the Caucasus, is a historical image of idealized feminine aesthetics that has prevailed in Orientalist literature, art and knowledge production as well as Turkish popular culture. This article argues that this image has been central to the gendered construction of diasporic identity among Circassian diaspora nationalists in Turkey. It aims to explore the multiple meanings attached to the image of the Circassian Beauty, and the ways in which these meanings are historically transformed in line with the political and historical transformations of the Circassian diaspora in Turkey.

Type
Dossier on Gender, Ethnicity, and the Nation-State
Copyright
Copyright © New Perspectives on Turkey 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adıvar, Halide Edip. Sinekli Bakkal, İstanbul: Özgür, 2006.Google Scholar
Ahıska, Meltem. “Gender and National Fantasy: Early Turkish Radio Drama.” New Perspectives on Turkey, no. 22 (2000): 2560.Google Scholar
Ahmetbeyzade, Cihan. “Negotiating Silences in the So-Called Low-Intensity War: The Making of the Kurdish Diaspora in Istanbul.” Signs 33, no. 1 (2007): 159–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aksoy, Zeynep. “Çerkeş Teavün Cemiyeti.” Toplumsal Tarih, no. 117 (2003): 100–01.Google Scholar
Aksu, Mustafa. Türkiye'de Çingene Olmak. İstanbul: Kesit Yayınlan, 2006.Google Scholar
Altınay, Ayşe Gül, ed. Vatan, Millet, Kadınlar. İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2004.Google Scholar
Anthias, Floya. “Evaluating “Diaspora”: Beyond Ethnicity?Sociology 12, no. 3 (1998): 557–80.Google Scholar
Aydemir, Şevket Süreyya. Tek Adam. Vol. 2. Istanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 1975.Google Scholar
“Ben Bir Kabartay Çerkezi'yim.” Sabah, 16 October 2006, http://arsiv.sabah.com.tr/2006/10/16/gny/gny115-20061016-200.html.Google Scholar
Berktay, Fatmagül. “Dogu ile Batı'nın Birleştiği Yer: Kadın İmgesinin Kurgulanışı.” In Modernleşme ve Batıcılık: Modern Türkiye'de Siyasi Düşünce, edited by Kocabaşoğlu, Uygur, 275–84. İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2002.Google Scholar
Bezanis, Lowell. “Soviet Müslim Emigrés in the Republic of Turkey.” Central Asian Survey 13, no. 1 (1994): 59180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhabha, Homi K.The Other Question: The Stereotype and Colonial Discourse.” In Twentieth Century Literary Theory: A Reader, edited by Newton, Ken M., 293301. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Brah, Avtar. Cartographies of Diaspora. London: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar
Büker, Seçil. “The Film Does Not End with an Ecstatic Kiss.” In Fragments of Culture: The Everyday of Modern Turkey, edited by Kandiyoti, Deniz and Ayşe, Saktanber, 147–70. London: I.B. Tauris, 2002.Google Scholar
Clifford, James. “Diasporas.” Cultural Anthropology 9, no. 3 (1994): 302–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Çağlayan, Handan. Analar, Yoldaşlar, Tanrıçalar. Kürt Hareketinde Kadınlar ve Kadın Kimliğinin Oluşmu. İstanbul: İletişim, 2007.Google Scholar
“Çerkeş Kızı Olmak Hoşuma Gidiyor.” Vatan, 28 December 2003, http://haber.gazetevatan.com/haberdetay.asp?Newsid=i99U&Categoryid=1.Google Scholar
Çingeneler Kitap Sayfalarına Girdi.” Sabah, 14 September 2006, http://arsiv.sabah.com.tr/2006/09/14/gny/gny119-20060914-200.html.Google Scholar
Diderot, Denis, and D'Alambert, Jean. “Circassie.’ In Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonné Des Sciences, Des Arts et des Métiers. Geneva: La Société Typographique, 1778.Google Scholar
Dorsay, Atilla. Sümbül Sokağın Tutsak Kadını. İstanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 1998.Google Scholar
Erdem, Hakan. Slavery in the Ottoman Empire and Its Demise, 1800-1909. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evergeti, Venetia. “Living and Caring between Two Cultures.” Community, Work and Family 9, no. 3 (2006): 347–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frost, Linda. “The White Gaze, the Spectacle of Beauty and the Circassian Beauty.” In Neuer One Nation: Freaks, Savages and Whiteness in U.S. Popular Culture 1850-1877, 5685. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Ganglily, Keya. ‘Migrant Identities: Personal Memory and the Construction of Selfhood.” Cultural Studies 6, no. 1 (1992): 2749.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. New York: Cornell University Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Gold, Steven. ‘Gender and Social Capital among Israeli Immigrants in Los Angeles.” Diaspora 4, no. 3 (1995): 67301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gopinath, Cayatri. “Bombay, UK, Yuba City: Bhangra Music and the Engendering of Diaspora.” Diaspora 4. no. 3 (1995): 303–22.Google Scholar
Güneş-Ayata, Ayşe. “Etnik Kimlik ve Toplumsal Cinsiyet: Ankara'da Çerkeş Kadınlar.” In 20. Yüzyılın Sonunda Kadınlar ve Gelecek Konferansı 19-21 Kasım 1997, edited by Çitçi, Oya, 7180. Ankara: TODAİE İnsan Hakları Araştırma ve Derleme Merkezi Yayını, 1998.Google Scholar
Hale, William. Türkiye'de Ordu ve Siyaset. İstanbul: Hil Yayın, 1996.Google Scholar
Houston, Serin, and Wright, Richard. “Making and Remaking Tibetan Diasporic Identities.” Social《 Cultural Ceography 4, no. 2 (2003): 217–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kandiyoti, Deniz. “End of Empire: Islam, Nationalism and Women in Turkey.” In Women, Islam and the State, edited by Kandiyoti, Deniz, 2247. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kanuko, Cemil. “Utanç Aynası [Mirror of Shame].” Yamçı, February 1976, 38.Google Scholar
Karden, D.Kadınlar Yılında.” Yamçı, December 1975, 9.Google Scholar
Kuyaş, Nilüfer. “‘Türk Erkeği Gibi Bakmışım’: Türkan Şoray Efsanesini incelediği Kitabında Atilla Dorsay'dan Cesur İtiraf.” Milliyet, 26 November 1997, http://www.milliyet.com.tr/1997/11/26/entel/entel.html.Google Scholar
Mason, Jennifer. “Qualitative Interviewing: Asking, Listening and Interpreting.” In Qualitative Research in Action, edited by Tim, May, 225–41. London: Sage, 2002.Google Scholar
Mojab, Shahrzad, ed. Devletsiz Ulusun Kadınları: Kürt Kadını Üzerine Araştırmalar. İstanbul: Avesta Yayınlan, 2005.Google Scholar
Muhittin, Nezihe. Bütün Eserleri. Vol. 1. İstanbul: Kitap Yayınevi, 2008.Google Scholar
Nuri, Celal. Kadınlarımız. Eskişehir: T.C. Kültür Bakanlığı, 1993.Google Scholar
Özgürel, Avni. “Cariyeliğin Bittiği Günler.” Radikal, 22 June 2003.Google Scholar
Schick, Irvin Cemil. Çerkeş Güzeli: Bir Şarkiyatçı İmgenin Serüveni. İstanbul: Oğlak Yayıncılık, 2004.Google Scholar
Scott, Joan. Gender and the Politics of History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Sezai, Sami Paşazade. Sergüzeşt. İstanbul: Sis Yayınları, 2008.Google Scholar
Shami, Seteney. “Circassian Encounters: The Self as Other and the Production of the Homeland in the North Caucasus.” Development and Change 29 (1998): 617–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverman, David. Doing Qualitative Research: A Practical Handbook. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2000.Google Scholar
Sirman, Nükhet. “Gender Construction and Nationalist Discourse: Dethroning the Father in the Early Turkish Novel.” In Gender and identity Construction: Women of Central Asia, the Caucasus and Turkey, edited by Acar, Feride and Ayşe, Cüneş-Ayata, 162–76. Leiden: Brill, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sirman, Nükhet. “Kadınların Milliyeti.” In Milliyetçilik: Modern Türkiye'de Siyasi Düşünce, edited by Bora, Tanıl and Murat, Gültekingil, 226–44. İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2001.Google Scholar
Siu, Lok. “Queen of the Chinese Colony: Gender, Nation, and Belonging in Diaspora.” Anthropological Quarterty 78, no. 3 (2005): 511–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skrbis, Zlatko. Long-Dista nee Nationalism: Diasporas, Homelands and Identities. Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1999.Google Scholar
Şener, Cemal. Çerkeş Ethent Olayı. İstanbul: Okan Yayınlan, 1986.Google Scholar
Şoenu, M. Fetgerey. Çerkeş Meselesi. İstanbul: Bedir Yayınlan, 1993.Google Scholar
Şoenü, Mehmet Fetgeri. “Osmanlı Sosyal Yaşamında Çerkeş Kadınları.” In Tüm Eserleriyle Mehmet Fetgeri Şoenü, Ankara: Kafdav Yayıncılık, 2007.Google Scholar
Toledano, Ehud R.As If Silent and Absent: Bonds of Enslavement in the Islamic Middle East. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Toledano, Ehud R.Slavery and Abolition in the Ottoman Middle East. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Toumarkine, Alexandre. “Balkan and Caucasian Immigrant Associations: Community and Politics.” In Civil Society in the Crip of Nationalism: Studies on Political Culture in Contemporary Turkey, edited by Yerasimos, Stefanos, Seufert, Gunter and Vorhoff, Karin, 403–32. Würz burg: Ergon Verlag, 2000.Google Scholar
Tsolidis, Georgina. “The Role of the Maternal in Diasporic Cultural Reproduction―Australia, Canada and Greece.” Social Semiotics 11, no. 2 (2001): 193208.Google Scholar
Tunaya, Tank Zafer. Türkiye'de Siyasi Partiler. Vol. 2. İstanbul: Doğan Kardeş Yayınları, 1952.Google Scholar
Turan, M. Aydın. “Osmanlı Dönemi Kuzey Kafkasya Diaspo rasi Tarihinden Şimali Kafkas Cemiyeti.” no. 172 (1998): 242–51.Google Scholar
Walby, Sylvia. “Woman and Nation.” In Mapping the Nation, edited by Balakrishnan, Copal, 235–54. London: Verso, 1996.Google Scholar
Yeoh, Brenda S. A., and Willis, Katie. “‘Heart’ and ‘Wing/ Nation and Diaspora: Gendered Discourses in Singapore's Regionalization Process.” Gender, Place and Culture 6, no. 4 (1999): 355–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yuval-Davis, Nira, and Anthias, Floya. “Woman-Nation-State.” In Nationalism, edited by Hutchinson, John and Smith, Anthony D., 1475–88. New York: Routledge, 2000.Google Scholar