Cizvit Misyonerin G？zünden Tokat’ta Kuzey Kafkas G？？men K？yleri: Bey Dü？ünü ve Vatan Mar？？ [North Caucasian Immigrant Villages as Seen by a Jesuit Missionary in Tokat: the Princely Wedding and the Motherland Anthem]

The article by a Jesuit missionary in the Ottoman Empire Antoine Poidebard, which was published originally in 1907, contains valuable observations and evidence concerning the North Caucasian community of the Tokat region of Central Anatolia. The author presents the text of Ossetian song that is obviously reminiscent of the well-known poem Sagh？st？ (“Bitter Thoughts”) by emigrant poet Temirbolat Mamsurov. Comparison of the two texts reveals both multiple coincidences and indisputable discrepancies between them along with the distinctly lesser completeness of the plot of the newly published version in whole. Besides this, noteworthy is the marriage ceremony of a member of princely family comprising a lot of elements characteristic of the model traditional wedding, as well as a number of other socio-cultural details. The material in question appears one of the most informative Western autobiographical sources to shed light on the past of the Caucasian diaspora in the Ottoman Middle East