“CIRCASSIAN GIRLS” OF TURKISH LITERATURE"

The article discusses history of Circassian slaves in the Ottoman Empire by using several examples from Turkish literature, with the focus being on slave trade in Istanbul and life of Circassian women in harems of the Sultan and Turkish noblemen. Although we find romantic and stereotypically exotic descriptions of odalisques in the works of Ahmed Midhat Hagur, Emin Nihat, Namyk Kemal, S. Samipashаzade and others, many 19th-century writers also raised social problems associated with exploitation, polygamy and motherhood in their depictions of Circassian girls. Against this background, the article analyses verses by several Turkish poets — including Abdulhak Hamid Tarhan and Hamdullah Subhi Tanriover — devoted to their Circassian mothers. Also, the paper examines narratives by female writers, such as Hayriye Melek Hunch, Nezihe Muhiddin Tepedelengil, Suat Dervi§, Lider Er^an, who in their work created tragic images of Circassian women, by the will of fate divorced from their roots, but remaining faithful to the Caucasian principles of honour and nobility. Er^an’s novel Setenay: Bir tyrkes Kiyi (Setenay: A Circassian girl, 2019) is probably the most recent but certainly not the only work of our time that is dedicated to resilience shown by these highlander women. The author, herself an offspring of the Ubykh people, was able to skillfully convey emotional and psychological moments from the work of her predecessors; she also employs Nart mythology as an artistic tool, introducing, for instance, the image of the fire goddess Setenay who opposes the forces of evil. The article also touches upon the history of Circassian struggle in Turkey to preserve ethnic identity, language and national traditions in the diaspora.