Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
The article is based on both published and unpublished Turkish sources and modern, mainly for-eign, historiography, examines the ways and channels of the early (pre-muhajir) penetration of ethnic North Caucasians into the Ottoman Empire and the features of their integration into local society. Particular attention is paid to elucidating the factors and mechanisms of the formation, reproduction and functioning of the Caucasian (Circassian, Abkhaz, West Georgian, Daghestani) elite groups and strata of slave and non-slave origin and their place in the structure of state power and social life of the Ottoman Empire in the classical and postclassical periods of its history. An attempt was made to examine the nature of this community’s ethnonational identity, which demonstrated a certain resistance to assimilation as well as the potential to maintain some aspects of its original cultural profile for an extended period of time. The involvement of Istanbul’s “Cir-cassian” elites in developing and implementing the Porte’s Caucasian policy, as well as launching the enormous exodus of highlanders from the Caucasus to the Ottoman Empire in the mid-19th century, appears insignificant.
Georgy V. Chochiev (Sat,) studied this question.