Syrian Civil War and Syrian Circassians

Circassians are the old autochthonous people in the Caucasus. They never existed in an institutional sense, but since ancient times they have maintained their existence in the patriarchal society that they created. In the 15th century, the Caucasus was under the sphere of influence of the Ottomans through the Crimean Khanate, which was under the Ottoman rule of Fatih Sultan Mehmet. After that, the Caucasus became a goal of Russian expansionism of the Russian Tsar Ivan IV, who destroyed the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates. After this date, the Caucasus was transformed into a chessboard of great powers who wanted to rule over it. The free peoples of the Caucasus after a series of wars called the Caucasian-Russian wars were defeated by Russian imperialism in the last battle in the Kbaada Valley in 1864 and were exiled from their homeland from the Caucasus. Circassians, who were exiled from their homeland by tsarist Russia, in economic and social collapse found refuge in the Ottoman Empire. According to various estimates, 1-1.5 million Circassians were distributed throughout the empire in accordance with the settlement policy of the Ottoman Empire. Circassians were resettled in the territory of present-day Syria during the period of the Ottoman Empire. It is expected that about 100 thousand Circassians living in Syria today are descendants of immigrants from the Ottoman Empire. It is estimated that about 15 thousand Circassians left the country because of the Syrian civil war. The migration of Circassians to the geographic of Syria, as well as the process of adaptation of Circassians after migration, have been investigated from a historical point of view. The migration of Circassians outside Syria due to the civil war, which continues from March 2011, was discussed on the basis of Russian-Turkish and international institutions, and ways to solve the problems of Syrian Circassians were presented in the final part of the study