Circassia is a mountainous region on the northeast shore of the Black Sea in the Caucasus (see the map below, with the close-up of Circassia in green). The crucifix also shows up in Powerss statue The Greek Slave, where it can be seen, along with her removed clothes, just beneath her hand on the post on which she leans. Circassian beauties is a term used to refer to an idealized image of the women of the Circassian people of the Northern Caucasus.A fairly extensive literary history suggests that Circassian women were thought to be unusually beautiful, spirited and elegant, and as such were desirable as concubines.This reputation dates back to the Ottoman Empire when Circassian women living in . Racism was created by policy. Beautiful Circassian Woman - a photo on Flickriver Is it true that Chechen and Dagestani women are some of the - Quora Racial theories of the mid 19th century held that the people living in the Circassian mountains near the Black Sea were examples of the purest stock of the Caucasian race. According to Blumenbach, the white race originated in the Caucasus region, and all other human races derived from this original source as degenerations of the Caucasian, the highest type. I have decided to finish this article with a excerpt from the travel diary of Florence Nightingale, founder of modern nursing, who referred to Circassian women as the most graceful and most sensual-looking creatures I have ever seen. A little tribute to a people who have been denied their homeland and who struggle to maintain their traditions. We have to remember that the explosion of frizzed hair in the portraits of Circassian women was an entirely artificial effect, both cosmetically and culturally: it had to be created with beer shampoo and teasing comb; it had nothing to do with how actual Circassian women wore their hair. A similar yet smaller literature also exists for Circassian men, who were thought to be especially handsome. Circassian woman hi-res stock photography and images - Alamy The Anthropological Treatises of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit, Never One Nation: Freaks, Savages, and Whiteness in US Popular Culture, 18501877. Whiteness, then, might be seen as no longer a guarantee of liberty and mastery, and so the prospect of the Circassian Lady offered the subtle thrills of danger and ambiguity. The term Circassian Beauty refers to the romanticized portrayal of women from The Caucasus: breathtakingly beautiful and feminine, slender-waisted and pale-skinned, with rosy cheeks and lustrous, big blue eyes. Zoe looks white and lives free on a plantation in the American South. Slow down please, and enjoy the info. 98 Persian, Gypsy & Circassian Women ideas - Pinterest She wears a jeweled crucifix and pearl-studded, low-cut dress, and the characteristic hairstyle is unmistakable. How intentional this exposure was is evident in the portrait of Zublia Aggolia: in high magnification, one can see that the photographer has retouched the negative to accentuate the cleavage of her bustsomething that would never occur in an ordinary portrait of a Victorian lady. But at the same time, at her throat, just above the bust, hanging like a protective talisman, lies a large, ornate crucifix, an item common to Circassian portraits. Why? Observations on the Hypothesis of some modern Writers, that America has been peopled by a distinct Race of Men and Animals; with some Proofs arising from the Natural History and Appearances of the new Continent in favour of the Mosaic Account of the Deluge", "Horrible Traffic in Circassian WomenInfanticide in Turkey", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Circassian_beauty&oldid=1141901272, Natalia Krlikowska-Jedlinska. Circassian beauties - Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core Explore. This pustule produces the same effect in the arm it is laid in as yeast in a piece of dough; it ferments, and diffuses through the whole mass of blood the qualities with which it is impregnated. Many Georgian and Circassian families even encouraged their daughters to enter concubinage for the promise of a life of luxury and comfort, and many Circassians become favorite wives or consorts to the Ottoman sultans. I am grateful forthe detailed comments and valuable suggestions provided by Linda Frost when this essay was under review. Day of mourning for the Circassians. - YouTube 0:00 / 3:21 Circassian-Abkhaz Beauties! These intentional freaks dressed in the very opposite attire of their modest Central Asian "sisters." (A major feature of the post-bellum American sideshows, Barnum's racial and sexual fantasies showed up on postcards, cigarette advertisements, and fliers. The play was a huge hit in England, but when it came to the United States, the ending changed: there is no marriage, and Zoe dies along with her lover in a final fiery cataclysm. Caucasian should become odious as a name for whiteness, just as Aryan already is now. I'm sure the sultans had good taste . . At Bet il Sahel there was much more luxury and grand style than at Bet il Mtoni. So now we are in a better position to answer our question: Why Circassian Ladies but not Circassian Gentlemen? What I learned about what is essentially a circus identity I find fascinating because of what it tells us about how nineteenth-century Americans treated race, even the white race, as a spectacle, as aperformed identity that might not be what it seemed. Measures about 58 X 23 inches. Symbolic and only barely covert sexualization seems to have thrived in the liminal space of the sideshow freaks, as in this portrait of a snake charmer: The mystical symbolism of a freakish whiteness seems to have been even more accentuated in the case of some albinos, the whitest persons of all, who adopted the cachet of mysterious powers, such as mind reading, as a feature of their sideshow acts: This comes full circle in the portrait below of Aggie Zolutia, representing the highest possible pitch of a fetishized whiteness: an albino Circassian. [37] Actual Circassian hairstyles bore no resemblance to Barnum's fantasy. What might be particularly striking to the modern viewer, again, is the big hair, which looks so much like the Afro of the late 1960s and 1970s, then as much symbol of Black Power as a fashion statement. For an American audience both morbidly fascinatedand panicked by the prospect of race mixing, transgression of the taboo could go only so far before being sealed with disaster. Beautys brightest colours Had decked her out in all the hues of heaven. Knowledge of this "Liquid Bloom" had been brought back by a "well-regarded gentleman" who had traveled and lived in the region. "[11], An anthropological literary suggests that Circassians were best characterized by what was called "rosy pale" or "translucent white skin". This resulted in the death of approximately 400,000 Circassians, mostly from epidemics or accidents during the long journey to the Black Sea. Orientalizing paintings of nudes were also sometimes exhibited as "Circassians". Victorian postmortem photos did exist, no one denies that, however, they were never taken in a standing pose using a stand. For one Circassian, a sweet girl, were given, He displayed a "Circassian Beauty" at his American Museum in 1865. But failing in this quest to obtain Circassian slaves, the showman went on to look for women who could fake it for him. As with PowerssGreek slave, the presumed Christian faith of the Circassian Beauty puts into play another paradox: the sexualized Other who is nevertheless both contained and made virtuous by her deep faith, despite her terrible fate. It is a cruelly ironic twist of history that the Circassian Lady became an invented trope of circus spectacle in the United States at precisely the time that the actual Circassians were suffering ethnic cleansing in their homelandby some estimates, over six hundred thousandCircassians died in the Russian campaign to expel them from the region. (Although we must remember that this was a fantasy: the Circassian Ladies were performers playing a part.) 31. Prodigies by James G. Mundie - Circassian Beauty - missionCREEP As a result of this reputation, in Europe and America Circassians were often characterised as ideals of feminine beauty in poetry and art. Pronunciation clear help? By the early nineteenth century, Circassians were associated with theories of racial hierarchy, which elevated the Caucasus region as the source of the purest examples of the "white race", which was named the Caucasian race after the area by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. History of Circassian Beauties - YouTube Credit attribution requested to the photographer and to the Ministry of Tourism Dec 30, 2016 - erkesler. 35 Pictures of Circassians ideas | people, costumes, picture - Pinterest [29], In 1873, the decade after the expulsion of Circassians from the Caucasus where only a minority of them live today, it was argued that "the Caucasian Race receives its name from the Caucasus, the abode of the Circassians who are said to be the handsomest and best-formed nation, not only of this race, but of the whole human family. Circassian beauties, or "Moss-haired girls" as they were sometimes known, reflect a curious legacy of racial stereotyping and sexual titillation. What fair one but must yield implicit faith, when she has the honour of the Countess De fairly pledged, that all sepacious [sic] impurities will be at once removed by this wonder-working nostrum. In 1856 The New York Times published a report entitled "Horrible Traffic in Circassian Women Infanticide in Turkey", asserting that a consequence of the Russian conquest of the Caucasus was an excess of beautiful Circassian women on the Constantinople slave market, and that this was causing prices of slaves in general to plummet. Indeed, arousal was precisely the point of contention. 9 Batter E. Kadkoy Native Adighebze Speaker Author has 69 answers and 694.6K answer views 4 y Related How do Circassians feel about atheism? 06-14-2013, 06:51 AM. We, the children of Circassian women, were usually called "cats" by those of our brothers and sisters who had African blood in their veins, because some of us had the misfortune of possessing: blue eyes. But there was no mistaking the meaning of that fate, even then: as a slave, her body would be at the disposal of her buyer, and it was precisely this fact that would be staring the statues viewers in the face as they stared, in turn, at her white granite bodyor the many photographic reproductions of that body. That potent combination of horror and fascination was evident at least as early as the display of Hiram Powerss statue The Greek Slaveat the Great Exhibition in London in 1845 and then again in 1851. In a letter of May 1864, Barnum authorized his agent, John Greenwood Jr., to spend up to $5,000 in gold each (a vast sum in that day) for two Circassian beauties if Greenwood could successfully infiltrate the slave markets of Istanbul to buy them without being detected as a Westerner. At the same time writers and illustrators were also creating images depicting the authentic costumes and people of the Caucasus. The white nephew of the plantation owner falls in love with Zoe and seeks to marry her, even after she tells him the truth of her ancestry. In consequence, most wives and mothers of several Ottoman Sultans were ethnic Circassians, including Perest Valide Sultan, evkefza Valide Sultan, Tirimjgan Valide Sultan, Nkhetseza Bahanmefendi, emsiruhsar Hatun, Sabal Sultan, Hmaah Haseki Sultan, Hatice Muazzez Haseki Sultan, Aye Haseki Sultan, Bedrifelek I, Bidar II, Kamures I, Servetseza I, Bezmara VI, Dzdidil III, Hayrandil II, Meyliservet IV, Mihrengiz II, Neerek III, Nurefsun II, Reftaridil II, ayan III, amongst many others. It is worth underlining this use of hair as a marker of forbidden sexuality, for it turns up again with the Circassian Ladies, but in a more subtle form. Legend had it that the Circassians produced the worlds most beautiful white women, who were consequently in great demand for the harems of Turkish sultans. In this passage, Blumenbach is discussing the fact that all human beings form part of the same species, because they can reproduce together, despite the external differences of appearance. This theme replicated itself in fiction, too. I consider it to be impossible to look at them without loving them. [1][2][3], There are folk songs in various languages all around the Middle East and Balkans describing the unusual beauty of Circassian women, a trend popularised after the Circassian genocide, although the reputation of Circassian women dates back to the Late Middle Ages when the Circassian coast was frequented by traders from Genoa, and the founder of the Medici dynasty, Cosimo de' Medici, had an illegitimate son from a Circassian slave. Already in his 1775 text, Blumenbach specifically identified the Circassian women among the peoples of the Caucasus as the single most beautiful representatives of this pure and primordial Caucasian type: Take, of all who bear the name of man, a man and a woman most widely different from each other; let the one be a most beautiful Circassian woman and the other an African born in Guinea, as black and ugly as possible (Blumenbach, Anthropological Treatises, 363). Circassian Beauty - TV Tropes Zalumma was the first of several Circassians in Barnums shows, and even her name was his invention. Though Barnum's original women were portrayed as proud and genteel, later images of Circassians often emphasised erotic poses and revealing costumes. The Sultana Served by her Eunuchs, Painting by Charles Amedee Philippe van Loo.Circassian woman, 1870s-80s. It describes what seems to be a Greek monk on M A cool photo collection that shows what naughty ladies looked like in the 1950s. The image below presents a woman of the Circassian style who is labeled a Caucasian; bear in mind that all these titles are fictions applied to a person performing an imagined type: Apart from the influence of the new science of race, another cause for this fascination with Circassians was that, starting in the mid-1700s, it had become a matter of dramatic and romantic lore that beautiful Circassian women were being sold in the slave markets of Istanbul and throughout the Ottoman Empire, to serve in the harems of the sultan and other potentates as the most desirable beauties of the realm. The Circassians became major news during the Caucasian War, in which Russia conquered the North Caucasus, displacing large numbers of Circassians southwards. x 5 1/2 in.) The Circassian Lady therefore literally embodied a taboo. We are caught in the Catch-22 of history: only if we acknowledge the historical and constructed meaning of race can we face up to the ongoing burden of that history in our present. Hailing from the North Caucasus and the northeastern Black Sea coast, Circassians are an ethnic group historically famous for their alluring females. Her sale sent home some disappointed bawlers, [38] Barnum's first "Circassian" was marketed under the name "Zalumma Agra"[39] and was exhibited at his American Museum in New York from 1864. My father was of course never forgiven the fact that he had chosen his favourite children Sharfe and Choleboth by Circassian mothers, Sharfe even being blue-eyedfrom the hateful race of "cats". They may be mans best friend, but man has also changed them beyond all recognition, these incredible pictures of dog breeds reveal. A Freakish Whiteness: The Circassian Lady and the Caucasian Fantasy She was tall, and well, though slightly, shaped; and held herself, like all Circassians, men or women, very erect."[18]. A fairly extensive literary history suggests that Circassian women were thought to be unusually beautiful, spirited, and elegant, and as such were desirable as concubines. white slavery. All actresses are 100% of European descent. Circassiangirl10 | Beautiful russian women, Asian beauty girl, Most The Colonial Contexts for the Harem Representation", "XLIV. kbals (honoured lady consorts) of Circassian descent were also numerous, most notable of them being Cevherriz II, Ceylanyar II, Dilfirib I, Nalandil III, and Nergis IV in addition to Gzdes (favourite lady consorts), including Drdane I, Hsnicenan III, Safderun IV, amongst others. And yet the imageof the Circassian Lady played into an already well-established, if illicit and subversive,fantasy of white women (or at least a white-seeming woman) subjected as slaves to the sexual whims of real or potential owners;after all, the sideshow allure of the Circassian Beauties was that they might well have ended up as slaves in a harem. The statue sealed Powerss fame, despite the debates that the statue aroused. This last point helps to explain the costume of the Circassian Ladies in the sideshow: their outfits were inventions, having nothing to do with the actual clothing of women from the Caucasus region.