A Flag for Circassia, or a Curious Episode in the Great Game

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

Abstract

During the 1830s, the British public was increasingly infatuated with the image of freedom loving Circassian mountaineers propagated in popular culture, while the British foreign policy establishment considered Circassia pragmatically as one of the weak spots of the Russian Empire, which could be used to retard its "progress in the East". As Russia’s war in the Caucasus continued to drain its financial and human resources, a group of Russophobes started to congregate around King William IV who was increasingly running his own shadow foreign policy, relying primarily on covert operations. Based on new archival materials, this paper investigates one of these operations by telling the fascinating story of how the Circassian national flag came into being, thereby fusing the popular with the political interest in Circassia.

Author

• Azamat Kumykov, U of Cambridge (UK)