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I began my research into Circassians in the summer of 2020 (COVID summer) within the framework of Stanford University's EPIC Fellowship, a fellowship given to community college faculty to globalize their curricula. I have quickly become familiar with Stanford's Ottoman history scholar, Prof. Ali Yaycıoğlu, who, it turns out, was childhood friends with one my best friends, Sinan Birdal (the first serendipitous development). I have learned that Prof. Yaycıoğlu was leading up a digital history project titled "Mapping Ottoman Epirus -MapOE" at Stanford. My education into digital history began. That's when I realized that my project was going to be a digital history project, I just didn't know what digital history was up until that point.
A painting by Pınar Kutat. With special thanks to Ekin Akalın.
Prof. Yaycıoğlu quickly introduced me to his former doctoral student, Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky who had in 2018 completed his doctoral dissertation on Circassians. I immediately downloaded Vladimir's thesis and began reading it. I have realized that one of his chapters (Ch. 5) was on a "Khutatzade" family, whose story Vladimir traced (in a brilliant "history from below" move) through personal letters between two brothers, Fuat and Cevat Beys (Bey=Mister in English although it is added to first names). Second serendipitous development: I have realized the Khutatzade family was the Kutat family, a family my grandparents were friends with for many years. My mom and aunt always reminisced about their good friend, Pınar Kutat, with whom they had lost touch in recent years. Pınar was a painter and I remember attending one of her exhibits in Istanbul as a teenager.
Recently, as I was researching Pınar's work, I have come across an article commemorating her death and providing examples of her work. The article was written by an Ekin Akalın. I soon learned that Ekin was indeed the sister of my roommate in New York, sociologist Ayşe Akalın. The Akalın family was neighbors with Pınar and her family in Umurbey, Gemlik. That was the third serendipitous development.
Am I allowed to mention one more odd coincidence? My EPIC fellowship will culminate with a presentation on May 22, 2021. The date May 21st has been widely accepted in recent years as the day to commemorate the Circassian Exile.
Here is the video of a Google Earth project I've created that traces the Khutatzades' journey from their expulsion from Caucasia to their settlement in Istanbul and Amman. To go deeper, you may view the Google Earth project here as well.
There are aspects of the Khutatzade (or Kutat, as they came to be known in modern Turkey) family's expulsion from the Caucasus to the Ottoman Empire that are sociologically significant and set them apart from an average Circassian. For example, they were a well-to-do family in the Caucasus and owned land. At least part of the family migrated voluntarily (although of course, precipitated by the invasion of their lands by Russian forces. They have used their education, know-how, and social capital to further their position in the Ottoman Empire. Both branches of the family did well, although the branch in Jordan did very well for themselves, socio-economically speaking.
One of the next areas of inquiry is for me to evaluate a Circassian family's former social standing, including social class in the Caucasus (landowner, peasant or slave, for example) and see how their families did in their new homes. As I also mentioned in the section Stories of Exile: My Family's Story, my great-grandfather, Hamte Ahmet came from Caucasia with 40 slaves and sold them to the Ottoman palace. He was a "prince" back in Caucasia and owned a village of 40 homes. What is the relationship between this background of property, privilege, and power, and our family's later social status? What are the criteria that determined our family's social standing? What accounted for our social mobility? These are interesting questions to ask to evaluate migrant experiences in host country.
Oya Baydar, a celebrated Turkish sociologist and writer, also told the story of the Kutat family in her book Cumhuriyet'in Aile Albümleri (Family Albums of the Republic).
Fuat Bey's children in 1932. From left to right: Reşat, Şaziment, Suat. Source: Oya Baydar's Cumhuriyet'in Aile Albümleri.
My grandparents met Servet and Reşat Kutat during my grandfather's tour as a police officer in Kayseri. Reşat was Fuat Bey's son (Fuat Bey is the Circassian man whose letters Dr. Hamed-Troyansky uses in his dissertation). Fuat Kutat and Adil Bey were good friends. Later, Adil Bey's daughter Servet married Fuat Bey's son, Reşat. My grandparents also knew Servet Hanım's parents Nimet and Adil quite well. Per my mother, their friendship continued in Istanbul, then Bursa (Gemlik). I am guessing their common Circassian background brought them closer together. My grandparents had many similar friends and acquaintances whom they treated as family but who were not related to us by blood. The migrant and minority experience includes the creation of these fictive kin networks (like the compadre/ comadre or "compadrazgo" tradition among Latin American immigrants in the U.S. ) to build relationships of support and mutual aid with another family, to withstand the lack of security and familiarity in the new culture.
A page (p. 198) from Oya Baydar's Cumhuriyet'in Aile Albümleri.
On top: Servet as a 2.5 year old. Caption says her picture was published in a magazine's child care pages with the explanation: "Captain Adil Bey's daughter Servet was not fed mother's milk. She was raised in scientific ways."
Middle left: A family photo from 1930. Servet is 4 years old.
Bottom right: Servet was 7 years old when this photo was taken in 1933. Reşat was visiting Uncle Adil. Even though they didn't know they were going to be married 12 years later, Adil Bey did.
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