The historical fact of the Genocide perpetrated by the Russian state against Circassians is as clear as the territories of western and central Circassia….
However the world is still ignorant of these facts, and apathetic to such representations, that are clearly evident in the circumstances that Circassians find themselves in today. Therefore exists a strong need to show documented evidences. I applied for fellowship in the research program offered by Ilia University, International School for Caucasus Studies “Deportation, Ethnic Cleansing, Genocide: Tools of Russian and Soviet Ethnic Policies in the Northern Caucasus (19th-20th Centuries)”. I worked over two months working on a daily basis in the State Historical Archives of Georgia. Unrestricted access to archives allowed me to collect a mass of horrific yet precious documents. It was an unprecedented chance to scan all documentation relevant to the Circassian issue. I was also given the opportunity to publish these important documents and make them broadly accessible to researchers and the general public.
Altogether, 1500 pages of 300 documents of different volumes were scanned. A summary of my research was presented in Tbilisi, Georgia at the conference titled, “Hidden Nations, Enduring Crimes: Circassians and other North Caucasian Nations between Past and Future” from March 19-21, 2010. Considering the huge amount of data, I had to make a selection to be presented at the conference. However, a great number of the scans in my possession are of interest to a broad audience as well as for professional researchers.
- Ali Berzeg
