I wanted to share this song with you. It is related to my writing about Circassian Exile. It is an elegy about exile. The song is in Circassian language. It is about people's sorrowful memories about the exile. It reflects how much they suffer when they forced to leave their homes and relatives. They leaved their homeland, their family passed away while they were trying to arrive another country. They saw many people died. Many of them couldn't see a land, their ship sank in the middle of nowhere. They suffered too much while struggling to survive. This song reflects all this suffer and loss. I couldn't find the lyrics so probably it would mean nothing to you, but at least you know what it is about. :)

SHEIKH ŞAMİL and CIRCASSIAN EXILE

        SHEIKH ŞAMİL

     

    He is one of the most impressive figures of Caucasian history. Most successful resistance aganist Russian occupation occured under his leadership. His aim was to collect all Caucasians under a roof. He became very successful in a short time. He collected all the Chechens who had been fighting aganist Russians unsystematically. He had about 60.000 equipped soldier aganist Russian army. He secured victory countless times aganist czar eventhough his soldiers were less than Russian's. 

        CIRCASSIAN EXILE

    Czar was determined to invade Caucasus. Russia, which wanted to take control of the Caucasus, made Caucasian Committe hatch a plan aganist Sheikh Şamil in 1838 in Petersburg. According to this plan, one third of the Caucasian people were going to be banished and their lands were going to be given to Russians. Caucasians were getting more and more powerful day by day. After Crimea War ended, czar sended more soldier to Caucasus and became more powerful aganist Sheikh Şamil. Russian soldiers fought aganist Caucasians violently. They were cruel to Caucasian people even to women and children. When Russian had the edge over Caucasians, some tribes struck a deal with czar. When Sheikh Şamil remained with less than a hundred people, he had to surrender in 1859. 

      After Russia defeated Caucasians, they immediately implemented their plan. They announced that the people who didn't leave their home would be exiled to various parts of Russia as captives. For this reason, Caucasians who consider captivity and dependence as most ignominious attitude had to leave their beautiful homeland.

Between 1859-1864, thousands of Caucasian people were forced to leave their homeland. They exiled to many diffirent countries by ships. Most of them perished before they could land. Many ships sank short after they sailed because there were more people than it should have been. Many people froze to death. Many people died because of hunger. 

 



     Circassian Exile is one of the most important events in Caucaus history. This shameful event affected their economic, political, social order in a negative way. One of the most influential effect of this exile, in terms of social structure, is that many Caucasian people sold as slaves or maids.
    WE WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT DARK DAY....

TRAVELLING

          I think travelling is one of the most difficult parts of being student in another city. Going back your home is really hard especially if your home is away from where you stay. As each student does, I am looking forward to go home when I am in Ankara, but my home is so far away that it is frightening me to travel for eleven hours. I am living in Odemis/ Izmir. From Ankara to Izmir it takes nine hours, then I have to go Odemis for another two hours by bus.

    Going home by bus takes a lot of time. As I said it takes eleven hours and I think it is a real time wasting. But it is not that difficult to go by bus. I go to ASTI half an hour before my bus leaves and wait for a short time. That's it. But because it lasts too much to go home, I am really bored when I go by bus.

      So, I made my decision. This time I chose to go by plane. I thought it would be easier and faster. It was faster, of course, but I am not sure whether it was easier or not. It took an hour to arrive Izmir from Ankara but it was not that easy to arrive airport. Firstly, I had to go to ASTI because my friend and I were going to go from there to airport. I waited there for my friend about an hour. After she came we waited for EGO about half an hour. Then it took about another an hour to arrive airport. But it didn't end, of course. We were there before 11, but our plane was going to take off at 12. After check in etc. finished we waited there again. Eventually we could get in plane and take off. It was really amazing to see Izmir from plane. When we landed, after an hour, I took a deep breathe. It was over eventually :)