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DOI: 10.46698/VNC.2025.97.58.003

ON THE USE OF THE TERMS “MUKHADZHIR” AND “MUKHADZHIRSTVO” IN RELATION TO NORTH CAUCASIAN MIGRANTS/MIGRATIONS TO THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE IN THE 19 – EARLY 20 C.

Chochiev, Georgy V.
Izvestia SOIGSI. 2025. Issue 58 (97). P.32-46.
Abstract:

The terms “mukhadzhir” and “mukhadzhirstvo”, used since about the middle of the 20th century in Russian-language historical Caucasian studies to mean respectively migrants and migrations from the North Caucasus to the Ottoman Empire, at the same time cause certain criticism from some researchers, primarily due to their supposedly inherent religious content and thus the emphasis on the voluntary (Islamically motivated) nature of migration. The article attempts to examine the history of the functioning and specificity of the semantization of these lexemes in the Ottoman- Muslim and Caucasian/Russian discourses in order to clarify the question of the degree to which they correspond to the role assigned to them in the academic literature. The Arabic word “muhacir”, which in the Turkish language denoted settlers in a very broad sense but optionally indicated also the religious and/or forced nature of the displacement, since the mid-18th century was primarily applied to migrants from the territories lost by the Porte, including North Caucasian lands, to the central regions of the state. The perception of the word as a self-designation by the mountaineer migrants occurred in the process of their integration into Ottoman society as immigrants/muhajirs and the formation of a corresponding identity, while its spread in North Caucasian and Russian usage was the result of later importation through contacts of muhajirs with their country of origin. It is concluded that the terms “mukhadzhiry” and “mukhadzhirstvo” remain quite valid and functional umbrella definitions for describing the said migration mobility, while a more precise qualification of individual ethno-local versions and stages of the mountaineer exodus should be achieved through an in-depth analysis of each of them.

Keywords: North Caucasus, Ottoman Empire, migration, muhajirs, muhajirism, historical Caucasian studies, terminology, discourse.
Language:: Russian Download the full text  
For citation:: Chochiev, G.V. On the use of the terms “mukhadzhir” and “mukhadzhirstvo” in relation to North Caucasian migrants/migrations to the Ottoman Empire in the 19 – early 20 c. // Izvestiya SOIGSI. 2025. Iss. 58 (97). Pp.32-46. (in Russian). DOI 10.46698/VNC.2025.97.58.003
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