Memory, Adventure, and the Rediscovery of Circassia: A Look at Italian Sources, 18th-19th Centuries

• In Event: The (Re-)Discovery of Circassia, Then and Now

Abstract

To Italian missionaries, diplomats, and adventurers who travelled to or through the northern Caucasus between the 18th and 19th centuries, Circassia appeared as a dangerous place yet also as a land of opportunity for economic gain, religious activism, and strategic observations. Through the analysis of their dispatches and private correspondences, this paper will argue that the various views of Circassia were rooted in both historical memory of the medieval past and recent geopolitical developments. In particular, these were the renewed cultural interest in the study of Genoese late-medieval settlements in the Black Sea and the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Russian Empire and the Italian states from the late 1700s onwards, which inevitably put the Black Sea back on the map of global geopolitical interests.

Author

• Lorenzo Caravaggi, Lancaster U (UK)