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The statue sealed Powerss fame, despite the debates that the statue aroused. Clearly influenced by Powerss The Greek Slave, Bells statue depicts an octoroon, that is, a person of one-eighth African ancestry, as a naked woman in shackles, perhaps awaiting the auction block, her modesty protected only by her inordinately long hair. In fact, the Caucasian label is more absurd, and more pernicious, because by now we really should know better. Jelena is a gorgeous name originating from both Russian and Slavic languages. Updated on July 7, 2013, to included a discussion of the essay Has Caucasian Lost Its Meaning?by Shaila Dewan. [31], Bayard Taylor observed the Circassian women during his trip to the Ottoman Empire and argued that "the Circassian face is a pure oval; the forehead is low and fair, an excellent thing in woman, and the skin of an ivory whiteness, except the faint pink of the cheeks and the ripe, roseate stain of the lips."[11]. Blumenbach was a specialist in comparative anatomy, and he initiated the division of human beings into five distinct races defined by region and color: the Caucasian or white race, the Mongolian or yellow race, the Malayan or brown race, the Ethiopian or black race, and the American or red race. Many writers and travelers through the ages have described Circassians as the most beautiful women in the world. 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. Photographic reproductions of Bells statue circulated onstereoview cards in the United States (see below), which allowed viewers to get a three-dimensional sense of the figure. x 5 1/2 in.) But can we really choose to give up such a term, one that is so intertwined with our history and collective ways of seeing that some of us still use the label Caucasian as a way of identifying ourselves and others, even when we know, or at least ought to know, that it is a fantasy? So can we retire not just the fantastical label Caucasian as a name for whiteness but also the very notion of the human divisions that constitute whiteness itself, as well as the whole umbrella concept of race as color, in which white, black, brown, yellow, and red find their place? "Circassian Eye-Water" was marketed as "a sovereign remedy for all diseases of the eyes",[35] and in the 1840s "Circassian hair dye" was marketed to create a rich dark lustrous effect.[36]. This rule applies to Great Britain and Ireland, to the Germans, Danes, Swedes, and Circassians; but going to the eastward in the same latitude, as we depart from the ocean or the Black Sea, having more dry land to the windward, by which the air is charged with sun-dry exhalations, the skin changes its colour; it ceases to be perfectly fair.[27]. Perhaps it will take an event as revolting and traumatic as the Marathon bombing to finally uncouple the name Caucasian from whiteness and lay it to rest. 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. 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. Their imposing bearing, their romantic dress and their natural dignity of mien, stamp them as very superior Raven haired, black-bearded, broad-browed, with wide springing eyebrows of sooty black these bronzed and armed children of the mountains tend to put us out of love with our own specimens of men, and suggests thoughts not complementary to the types of manhood which, in this country, they are surrounded. All the more remarkable is that the Afro of the 1960s was to a large extent a symbol of rebellion against the norm then for many blacks, namely, straightening the hair to look more white; with the Circassians, we have a nearly reverse effect: frizzing the hair to appear more other, while still remaining identifiably white. 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. This lovely name offers a range of beautiful pet names, such as Jelica, Jele, Lena, Lenotschka, and Lenka. In the 1860s the showman P.T. It is worth underlining that this costume and hair had nothing to do with how actual Circassian women looked, as the illustrations below indicate. Had we understood that, we mightknownow that Blumenbachs division of the human species into five different colorswith the Circassian Caucasians as the purest white, the most original and true of them allis simply false, a fantasy of European narcissism about the pure origins of the white race. 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. Elin Sangu, Turkish actress from a Circassian family. Zalumma was the first of several Circassians in Barnums shows, and even her name was his invention. Yes, I think you would.Time to face some unpleasant facts, Khanhyou simply do not possess the global cultural awareness needed to run a website of this type effectively.Your users have been telling you this, you have been ignoring them, and they have been abandoning your site as a result.This is a very good example of why that is.Do yourself a favor, and learn from it. [24] In Scotland, in 1862, Circassian chiefs arrived to advocate their cause against Russia and to persuade Britain to stop the actions of the Russian army at that time,[25] and upon the arrival of two Circassian leaders, Hadji Hayder Hassan and Kustan Ogli Ismael, the Dundee Advertiser reported that "the Chiefs are two remarkable looking men. . This was June of 2014. Admired for their pale and translucent skin, delicate features, light eyes and hair, small waist, good posture and elegant behavior. 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. Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich, and Hunter, John, On the Natural Variety of Mankind inThe Anthropological Treatises of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, trans. In this way, the purest white is made an Otherby associating it, however subconsciously, with white Americans physiological stereotypes about blacks. Barnum's Circassian beauties were young women with tall, teased hairstyles, rather like the Afro style of the 1970s. That would be a fitting end to a term for whiteness worn out long ago. Generally Circassians (Adygei) have pale skin,light eyes,and dark blonde or light brown hair.They dont look like their neighbors (Georgians,Osetian,Turks or Daghestanians) Generally they look like Ukrainians. Why not just give up using this freakish label, whose only reality has been a staged reality, as a performed character in a circus sideshow? The fame of these women inspired more than just literary achievement. But when the offer went beyond, they knew 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. Greenwood found no one worth exhibiting, and Barnum instructed him via letter to instead look for "a beautiful Circassian girl if you can get one". It offered the viewer an opportunity to view, and stare at, a sexualized white woman and to imagine her possible fate as a slave were she not spared it by appearing in the sideshow. For one Circassian, a sweet girl, were given, 06-14-2013, 06:51 AM. Powers insisted that the nakedness depicted was not offensive but rather elevating, that it was no incitement to lust but rather an instance of what he called an ideal type, a form that transcends the human body and symbolizes pure principles of human virtue. Want to Read. 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. - YouTube 0:00 / 3:21 Circassian-Abkhaz Beauties! Updated on February 8, 2014, to discuss recent efforts by the Circassian community to protest the Circassian genocide and the hosting, by Russia, of the Olympic Games in Sochi, the site of the Circassians final defeat and mass deportation in 1864. When I first stumbled across the photograph reproduced below, over fifteenyears ago at an antique show, it struck me as ludicrous, inexplicable, and yet also somehow haunting. [9] Mark Twain reported in The Innocents Abroad (1869) that "Circassian and Georgian girls are still sold in Constantinople, but not publicly. Dated 19th Century RM 2HEH22X - Regency woman and child in mourning dress. 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. The first photograph of a Circassian Lady I found led me on a journey of inquiry whose strangeness I would never have guessed. "[10], American travel author and diplomat Bayard Taylor in 1862 claimed that, "So far as female beauty is concerned, the Circassian women have no superiors. From personal experience of travelling to many countries in the Caucasus, they tend to be very very beautiful. This is not Circassian history, it is American history, and the weird things that went on in the 19th century. Beauty's brightest colours Such adventures bring no lasting insight or transformation; quite the reverse, in fact: they tend to shunt a disquieting experience or question off into a limbo that has the effect of making it disappear from active reflection. Aug 11, 2014 - I noticed many half-created topics here on the Circassians, so I decided to make a real complete one on behalf of my people This should make a decent. I found a name, inscribed inpencil more than 130 years agoon the back of the photograph, Zublia Aggolia, and a title, Circassian Lady. Even today, I still know nothing about Zublia herself apart from her name, and even that is not what it seems. Cosmetic products were advertised, from the 18th century on, using the word "Circassian" in the title, or claiming that the product was based on substances used by the women of Circassia. In 1802 "the Balm of Mecca" was also marketed as being used by Circassians: From a historical perspective,Circassian/Abjaz dispora,very similar to both Irish & Jewish dispora before,Buti Still,Circassia Zoe looks white and lives free on a plantation in the American South. They are called "Cherkesses" by the Russians and Turks, but their word for themselves is "Adighe." Beautiful Hijab Cute Beauty Chapel Veil Muslim Beauty Lace Wrap Beauty A soft, lovely all-over embroidered multi-color black floral English net is trimmed in a vintage style gold leaf motif trim and includes a sewn-in clip to hold it in place! Most Beautiful Caucasian Actresses Top 100. 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. Hugo's comment was later condemned by Karl Marx in The Philosophical Manifesto of the Historical School of Law (1842) on the grounds that it excused slavery. The beauty of the Circassian women in the 19th century were considered legendary throughout the world. The US Internal Revenue stamps on the back of each image were required on photographs by law, from August 1864 to August 1866, to raise funds for the Civil War. Thomas M. Barrett (1998), "Southern Living (in Captivity): The Caucasus in Russian Popular Culture", Last edited on 27 February 2023, at 12:54, Said bin Sultan, Sultan of Muscat and Oman, The Philosophical Manifesto of the Historical School of Law, "Chapter 2. Her social media activities reveal that she is very interested in Circassian cuisine, history and culture in general. "The First 'Circassian Exodus' to the Ottoman Empire (18581867)". Maker unknown, Circassian wife and husband, albumen photograph (circa 1865). 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. We can refuse to use Caucasian to describe people, we can point out its absurdity whenever possible, and we can insist that the government not use it in any official capacity. Why? Slow down please, and enjoy the info. "[17], In his book A Year Among the Circassians, John Augustus Longworth describes a Circassian girl of typical Circassian features as the following: "She had regular and pretty features, blue eyes, and fair complexion; her hair was of a light auburn colour, and hung in a profusion of braided tresses over her shoulders, from a bonnet of scarlet cloth, trimmed and crossed with broad silver lace, not unlike the Albanian skull-cap. In the aftermath of WWIIs significant instability came the 1950s, suburbia, and the dream of a picture-perfect family. The Sultana Served by her Eunuchs, Painting by Charles Amedee Philippe van Loo.Circassian woman, 1870s-80s. During the Ottoman Empire and Persian Safavid and Qajar dynasties, Circassian women living as slaves in the Sultan's Imperial Harem and Shah's harems started to build their reputation as extremely beautiful, which then became a common trope in Western Orientalism.[4]. All actresses are 100% of European descent. As Linda Frost has suggested, the Circassian woman occupied a very peculiar place in the nineteenth-century imagination, a place that challenged the dominant classifications of race, gender, and sexuality. So now we are in a better position to answer our question: Why Circassian Ladies but not Circassian Gentlemen? The legend of Circassian women was also repeated by legal theorist Gustav Hugo, who wrote that "Even beauty is more likely to be found in a Circassian slave girl than in a beggar girl", referring to the fact that even a slave has some security and safety, but a "free" beggar has none. 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. Pinterest. Nature has there lavished upon the women beauties which are not to be seen elsewhere. [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. 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. One Circassian woman, favoured with an aristocratic appearance, was avoided and even hated by the chocolate-coloured African women through no fault of hers, but simply because she looked majestic. See more ideas about women, traditional outfits, traditional dresses. By policy, we must understand not only the three hundredplus years of law and governmental action that established categories of human beings fit for enslavement and other forms of oppression but also the shared conceptual and linguistic heritage that has formed the meaning of race in our world and that has worked its way into everything from everyday talk to official forms and the pronouncements of the Supreme Court. History of Circassian Beauties 9,242 views Jun 8, 2021 When I discovered a weird picture in a photo album i was sent down the rabbit hole of research covering everything from the. As such, Greece became a symbol of republican liberty against corrupt tyranny. Another Circassian celebrity from Turkey (Tokat), Sari Seker Sema is a prominent radio and television host, presenter, DJ and columnist. And above all, who but must long for an article, from the seraglio of the Grand Turk, which produces a near resemblance to the Georgian and Circassian beauties? [14], It has also been suggested that a lithe and erect physique were favored for Circassians, and many villages had large numbers of healthy elderly people, many over a hundred years of age. Circassian is the name of a people living on the northeast shores of the Black Sea. At Bet il Sahel there was much more luxury and grand style than at Bet il Mtoni. As the peasants danced to the mournful melodies of the accordion and . Despite that, her portrait has taken me down a path of discovery whose connections I would have never guessed. Today. In this sense, the sideshow served as an inoculation against genuine questions that, if given a real voice, might have unsettled the prevailing categories and assumptions of human classifications such as race and gender. It is history and has to be known. When Zublias photograph was taken, around 1870, Circassia had long been a battleground between the Russians to its north and the Turks of the Ottoman Empire to the south, after Russia invaded the Caucasus, starting in the late eighteenth century. The supposedly scientifically established purity of the Circassian Ladies whiteness played on a white audiences need for reassurance about its identity in a world where octoroons like Zoe might dare to cross the color line. Victorian postmortem photos did exist, no one denies that, however, they were never taken in a standing pose using a stand. has its own identity,and its history serves to enforce their sence of identity, Your email address will not be published. The "golden age" of the Circassian beauty may be considered to be between the 1770s, when the Russian Empire seized the Crimean Khanate and cut off their slave trade, which increased the demand for Circassian women in Near Eastern harems; and the 1860s, when the Russians massacred thousands of Circassians and conquered Circassia. [28] This fuelled the idea of female Circassian beauty. Circassian-Abkhaz Beauties! 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. What I know now is that the woman depicted here fits the model of a kind of performed personality dubbed the Circassian Lady or the Circassian Beauty in mid-nineteenth-century America. They furnish with those beauties the seraglio of the Turkish Sultan, of the Persian Sophy, and of all of those who are wealthy enough to purchase and maintain such precious merchandise. The doctor of medicine Hugh Williamson, a signatory to the United States Constitution, argued that the reason for the extreme whiteness of the Circassian and coastal Celto-Germanic peoples can be explained by the geographical location of these folks' ancestral homelands which lie in high latitudes ranging from 45 to 55 N near a sea or ocean where westerlies prevail from the west towards the east. Around ten percent live in the country formerly known Circassia, now divided into four administrative areas: The Republic of Adygea, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, and Krasnodar Krai. 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. Pontios. Mine Tugay (born July 28, 1978, Istanbul, Turkey) - Turkish actress. Abraham Bogardus, Caucasian Girl, carte-de-visite, front and reverse (circa 1865), collection of the author. The gallery below presents several views of Zalumma (with the name variously spelled); a portrait of another of Barnums Circassians, Zoe Meleke (a made-up name again); and a group portrait of the freaks in Barnums Circus; note that all are white, including the whitest of the white, albinos: And so Barnum invented the Circassian Lady, or sometimes the Circassian Beauty, as a sideshow performer of a particular kind. It is all the more remarkable then that for nearly a century before their conquest and dispersal, the Circassians had been an object of European fascination. "This delicate as well as fragrant composition has been long celebrated as the summit of cosmetics by all the Circassian and Georgian women in the seraglio of the Grand Sultan". First of all, we have to take into account that the myth of the Circassian included several intersecting elements of overwhelming interest, if not fixation, for nineteenth-century white Americans: race, slavery, and ideals of feminine virtue, beauty, and sexuality. For example, in 1859, a play by Dion Boucicault called The Octoroonopened in London. The Colonial Contexts for the Harem Representation", "XLIV. The imperial harem was famous for the extraordinary beauty of its maids, who were considered the most attractive in the Turkish-Ottoman Empire. Circassian beauties are admired for their abundant and luxuriant yellow hair and blue eyes. 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. Dress of black gossamer net over white satin slip, round frock front edged with Vandyke lace. 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. We cannot just shrug offthis history by individual fiat. Wunder, Richard, Hiram Powers: Vermont sculptor, 1805-1873 (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1991). Thomas Gamaliel Bradford, Map of Caucasian Countries and Turkey in Asia (1835), Wikipedia Commons. Your email address will not be published. This resulted in the death of approximately 400,000 Circassians, mostly from epidemics or accidents during the long journey to the Black Sea. . Jul 31, 2017 - Explore lynda heath's board "circassian women" on Pinterest. 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). 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. Hailing from the North Caucasus and the northeastern Black Sea coast, Circassians are an ethnic group historically famous for their alluring females. The first thing to consider is the designation Circassian itself. Moore Brothers, Zublia Aggolia, carte-de-visite, front and reverse (circa 1870), collection of the author. [26], There are not any people, on the old continent, perfectly fair, except those who live in high latitudes, where the westerly winds come from the sea, at no great distance, so tempered as not to be very sharp nor very dry. It is a testimony to the influence of Blumenbach that we still use the term Caucasian to signify white people, and of course the color scheme of white, yellow, brown, black, and red still has currency, too, although in altered forms. But his offhand valorization of the Circassian woman as the ideal of whiteness and the Guinean man as the anti-ideal of blackness could not be more evident; while he holds that they form part of the same species, he clearly considers the Guinean man a devolution from the Circassian type, itself supposedly the most perfect form of the Caucasian. by Gregory Fried Published March 15, 2013*. Titillation should not be confused with illumination. The idea of a woman being at the sexual mercy of her owner was not foreign to the imagination of the white public at the time in the United States, but Powerss statue of a naked white woman alluded only indirectly (and perhaps for that reason in the only way then publicly possible) to the fate of many enslaved black women: it was a well-known but largely unspoken fact that slave owners in the United States often entered into sexual relationships with their enslaved women, relationships that involved a range of coercion, almost all of which we would classify as rape today.