The concept of Circassian beauty is an ethnic stereotype of the Circassian people. A fairly extensive literary history suggests that Circassian women were thought to be unusually attractive, spirited, smart, and elegant. Therefore, they were seen as mentally and physically desirable for men, although most Circassians traditionally refused to marry non-Circassians in accordance with Adyghe Xabze. A smaller but similar literary history also exists for Circassian men, who were thought to be especially handsome.Çelebi, Evliya. SeyahatnameCameron, Poullet. Circassia summaryAl-Masudi's Travels
There are folk songs in various languages all around the Middle East and the Balkans describing the unusual beauty of Circassian women. This trend popularised greatly after the Circassian genocide, although the reputation of Circassian women dates back to the Late Middle Ages, when the Circassian coast was frequented by Italian traders from Genoa. This reputation was further reinforced by the Italian banker and politician Cosimo de' Medici (the founder of the Medici dynasty in the Republic of Florence), who fathered an illegitimate son with his Venice-based Circassian slave Maddalena. Additionally, the Circassian women who lived as slaves in the Ottoman harem, the Safavid harem, and the Qajar harem also developed a reputation as extremely beautiful, which then became a common trope of Orientalism throughout the Western world.Irvin Cemil Schick, Çerkes Güzeli: Bir Şarkiyatçı İmgenin Serüveni [The Fair Circassian: Adventures of an Orientalist Motif], trans. A. Anadol (Istanbul: Oğlak Yayınları, 2004).
As a result of this reputation, Circassians in Europe and Northern America were often characterised as ideals of feminine beauty in poetry and art. Consequently, from the 18th century onward, cosmetic products were often advertised by using the word "Circassian" in the title or by claiming that the product was based on substances used by women in Circassia.
Many consorts and mothers of the Ottoman Sultans were ethnic Circassians, including, but not limited to: Mahidevran Hatun, Şevkefza Sultan, Rahime Perestu Sultan, Tirimujgan Kadin, Nükhetsezâ Hanim, Hümaşah Sultan, Bedrifelek Kadin, Bidar Kadin, Kamures Kadin, Servetseza Kadin, Bezmiara Kadin, Düzdidil Hanim, Hayranidil Kadin, Meyliservet Kadin, Mihrengiz Kadin, Neşerek Kadin, Nurefsun Kadin, Reftarıdil Kadin, Şayan Kadin, Gevherriz Hanim, Ceylanyar Hanim, Dilfirib Kadin, Nalanıdil Hanim, Nergizev Hanim, and Şehsuvar Kadın. It is likely that many other concubines, whose origin is not recorded, were also of Circassian ethnicity. The "golden age" of Circassian beauty may be considered to be between the 1770s, when the Russian Empire seized the Crimean Khanate and cut off the Black Sea slave trade, which increased the demand for Circassian women in Muslim harems; and the 1860s, when the Russian Empire perpetrated the Circassian genocide and destroyed the Circassians' ancestral homeland during the Russo-Circassian War, creating the modern-day Circassian diaspora. After 1854, almost all concubines in the Ottoman harem were of Circassian origin; the Circassians had been expelled from Russian-controlled lands in the 1860s, and the impoverished refugee parents sold their daughters in a trade that was tolerated despite being formally banned.Brookes, Douglas Scott (2010). The Concubine, the Princess, and the Teacher: Voices from the Ottoman Harem. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-78335-5. p. 6-8
"Circassian Beauties" became a mainstay of sideshows until the late 19th century, attracting American audiences fascinated by the "exotic Orient". In the 1860s, the American showman P. T. Barnum exhibited women who he claimed were Circassian beauties. They had a distinctively curly style of big hair, which had no precedent in earlier portrayals of Circassians, but which was soon copied by other female performers, who became known as "moss-haired girls" in the United States. This hairstyle was a sort of exhibit's trademark and was achieved by washing the hair of women in beer, drying it, and then teasing it. It is not clear why Barnum chose this hairstyle; it may have been a reference to the standard Circassian fur hat, rather than the hair.
There were also several classical Turkish music pieces and poems praising the beauty of the Circassian ethnic group, such as "Lepiska Saçlı Çerkes" (); the word "Lepiska" refers to long and blonde hair that is straight, as if it was flat-ironed.
Circassian slave trade
From the Middle Ages until the 20th century, Circassian women were a major target for sexual slavery in the harems of the Islamic Middle East. In the Middle Ages, the Black Sea slave traders bought slaves from a number of different ethnic groups in the Caucasus, such as Abkhazians, Mingrelians and Circassians.Roşu, Felicia (2021). Slavery in the Black Sea Region, c.900–1900 – Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection Between Christianity and Islam. Studies in Global Slavery, Volume: 11. Brill. p. 21-22
In the context of the Circassian slave trade, the term Circassians did not necessarily refer to ethnic Circassians, but was used as an umbrella term for a number of different ethnicities from the Caucasus region, such as Georgians, Adyge, and Abkhazians, in the same fashion as the term "Abbyssinians" was used as a term also for African slaves who were not from Abyssinia.Zilfi, M. (2010). Women and Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire: The Design of Difference. Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p.
The slave trade with Circassians from Caucasus had been a big slave route already during the Italian slave trade period, but during the Crimean slave trade it came to be a permanent luxury slave trade route providing elite slaves to the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East.Roşu, Felicia (2021). Slavery in the Black Sea Region, c.900–1900 – Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection Between Christianity and Islam. Studies in Global Slavery, Volume: 11. Brill p. 337-385Yaşa, F. (2022). Review of Felicia Roșu (ed.) 2022. Slavery in the Black Sea Region, c.900–1900: Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection between Christianity and Islam. Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 75(2), 331, xxiii + 448 pp-340. https://doi.org/10.1556/062.2022.00250
During the early modern Crimean slave trade, the trade of Circassians from the Caucasus expanded and developed in to what was termed a luxury slave trade route, providing elite slaves to the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East.Roşu, Felicia (2021). Slavery in the Black Sea Region, c.900–1900 – Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection Between Christianity and Islam. Studies in Global Slavery, Volume: 11. Brill p. 337-385 The Crimean slave trade was one of the biggest suppliers of concubines (female sex slaves) to the Ottoman Imperial Harem, and virgin slave girls (normally arriving as children) were given to the Sultan from local statesmen, family members, grand dignitaries and provincial governors, and particularly from the Crimean Khan; the Ottoman Sultan Ahmed III received one hundred Circassian virgin girl slaves as presents upon his accession to the throne. When the Crimean slave trade was ended with the Annexation of the Crimean Khanate by the Russian Empire in the 18th century, the trade of Circassians was redirected from Crimea and went directly from the Caucasus to the Ottoman Empire, developing in to a separate slave trade which continued until the 20th century.Zilfi, M. (2010). Women and Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire: The Design of Difference. Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p. 217
The Circassian slave trade was heavily (though not entirely) focused on slave-girls. In the Islamic empires of the Middle East, enslaved African black women – trafficked via the Trans-Saharan slave trade, the Red Sea slave trade and the Indian Ocean slave trade – were primarily used as domestic house slaves and not exclusively for sexual slavery. Conversely, white women, trafficked via the Black Sea slave trade, were highly sought after by Middle Eastern Muslim slave traders to be used as concubines (sex slaves) or wives for wealthy elites.Gordon, Murray (1989). Slavery in the Arab World. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-941533-30-0. p.79-89 It was commonly known that Circassian girls were mainly bought to become wives or concubines to rich men, which made the Circassian slave trade to be viewed as a form of marriage market, and it was commonly claimed in these regions that the Circassian girls were in fact eager to be enslaved by the Muslims and asked their parents to sell them to the traders because it was the only way for them to enhance their class status.Zilfi, M. (2010). Women and Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire: The Design of Difference. Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p. 126-127
There was a tendency of apologetism by the Ottomans to claim that slavery was beneficial to the Circassians, since it delivered them from "primitivism to civilisation, from poverty and need to prosperity and happiness", and that they became slaves willingly: "Circassians came to Istanbul willingly 'to become wives of the Sultan and the Pachas, and the young men to become Beys and Pachas'". Globalization. (2001). Storbritannien: Duke University Press. p. 240-241
The New York Daily Times reported on August 6, 1856: "There has been lately an unusually large number of Circassians going about the streets of Constantinople. [...] They are here as slave dealers, charged with the disposal of the numerous parcels of Circassian girls that have been for some time pouring into this market. [...] ...never, perhaps, at any former period, was white human flesh so cheap as it is at this moment.In former times a “good middling” Circassian girl was thought very cheap at 100 pounds, but at the present moment the same description of goods may be had for 5 pounds! [...] Formerly a Circassian slave girl was pretty sure of being bought into a good family, where not only good treatment, but often rank and fortune awaited her; but at present low rates she may be taken by any huxter who never thought of keeping a slave before. Another evil is that the temptation to possess a Circassian girl at such low prices is so great in the minds of the Turks that many who cannot afford to keep several slaves have been sending their blacks to market, in order to make room for a newly-purchased white girl." "Horrible Traffic in Circassian Women—Infanticide in Turkey," New York Daily Times, August 6, 1856, p. 6.
There was a greater reluctance from Ottoman authorities to prohibit the Circassian slave trade than the African slave trade, because the Circassian slave trade was regarded as in effect a marriage market, and it continued until the end of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.Zilfi, M. (2010). Women and Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire: The Design of Difference. Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p. 217
Girls from Caucasus and the Circassian colonies in Anatolia were still trafficked to other parts of the Middle East, especially the Arab world, in the 1920s; in 1928, at least 60 white slave girls were discovered for sexual purposes in Kuwait.ZDANOWSKI, J. The Manumission Movement in the Gulf in the First Half of the Twentieth Century, Middle Eastern Studies, 47:6, 2011, p. 871. In the 1940s, it was reported that Baluchi girls were shipped via Oman to the rest of the Arabian Peninsula, where they were popular as concubines since Caucasian girls were no longer available, and were sold for $350–450 in Mecca. The legal sex slave trade to the Middle East was ended with the abolition of slavery in Saudi Arabia, slavery in Dubai and slavery in Oman in the 1960s.
Literary allusions
The legend of Circassian women in the western world was enhanced in 1734, when, in his Letters on the English, Voltaire alludes to the beauty of Circassian women: