KAFA CHIKH (QAFE K'IH) -

Accordeon: Aslan Tlebzu -

Guitar: Sahno Genadii -

Bjami (Flute): Anzor Uvij -

Symphonic Orchestra of Republic of Adygheya -

Gufit Dance Ensemble -

Choreographer: Aidamir Nanij -

Director: Bisher Yerokua -

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To whom it may concern,

In addition to the many unspeakable tragedies of the Balkan wars, one act of cultural vandalism caught the world's attention, as it happened as the world's cameras were trained on Bosnia-Herzegovina. This was the destruction of the Library of Sarajevo, which stored manuscripts and other documents recording the multi-cultural heritage of the state, at the end of August 1992. With help from libraries and cultural organisations around the world, many of the losses were made good in the post-war years of reconstruction.

Two months after the Sarajevo library was left in ruins, similar deliberate acts were perpetrated in another part of Europe in a war which was never the centre of media-attention, though the consequences of the war resurfaced in August 2008 with Russia's recognition of the Republic of Abkhazia in Transcaucasia. Georgian troops entered Abkhazia on 14th August 1992, sparking a 14-month war. At the end of October, the Abkhazian Research Institute of History, Language and Literature named after Dmitry Gulia, which housed an important library and archive, was deliberately torched by the invaders, who were bent on destroying the documentary evidence that proved Abkhazians' residence in their historical homeland; also targeted was the capital's public library. Though help to restore the losses has come from institutions and private donors in Russia, no further assistance has been offered by the wider international community. The short film you are about to watch is designed to alert the world to this cultural loss and thereby to encourage all in a position to do so to make the kind of help described above for Sarajevo available also to Abkhazia.

http://circassianworld.blogspo t.com/2008/11/history-erased-a bkhazias-archive-fire.html

For more information & contact: info@circassianworld.com

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Abkhazia's archive: fire of war, ashes of history

by Thomas de Waal

The documented history of the cosmopolitan Black Sea territory of Abkhazia was destroyed in war on 22 October 1992. Its Greek archivist is conserving what little remains, reports Thomas de Waal.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/d emocracy-caucasus/abkhazia_arc hive_4018.jsp

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Abkhazia: Cultural Tragedy Revisited

An archivist reflects on the destruction a decade ago of a priceless record of Abkhazia's cosmopolitan past.

By Thomas de Waal in Sukhumi (CRS No. 122, 28-Mar-02)
http://www.iwpr.net/?p=crs&s=f &o=161411&apc_state=henicrs200 2

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UNPO Abkhazia Report, November 1992, b. Human Rights and Cultural Destruction

http://www.unpo.org/downloads/ AbkGeo1992Report.pdf

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Origins and Evolution of the Georgian-Abkhaz Conflict, by Stephen Shenfield

http://www.circassianworld.com /Geo_Abk_conflict.html

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Soviet Abkhazia 1989, Facts and Thoughts by Viktor A. Popkov

http://www.circassianworld.com /Popkov_Facts_Thoughts.html

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A chapter from Sam Topalidis' book; 'A Pontic Greek History'

Note 2.3 Ascherson (1,1995, pp. 253-4), describes how the State Archives building was destroyed during the civil war in Abkhazia.

One day in the winter of 1992, a white Lada without number-plates, containing four men from the Georgian National Guard, drew up outside. The guardsmen shot the door open and then flung incendiary grenades into the hall and stairwel. ... Sukhum citizens tried vainly to break through the cordon and enter the building to rescue burning boks and papers. ... The archives also contained the entire documentation of the Grek community, including a library, a collection of historical research from all the Grek villages of Abkhazia and complete files of the Grek language newspapers going back to the first years after the revolution.

Please note that this story was previously quoted in Agtzidis (Jan 1994). Agtzidis (1994) states on page 27 that, Kharalombos Politidis witnessed the catastrophe described above. Clogg (1999) add that these irreplaceable documents for around 45 Greek communities in Abkhazia included the only complete set of the Pontic Grek newspaper Kokinos Kapnas. This story is distressing, since records of my parent's families in Yiashtoha and Portch, near Sukhum could be lost forever.

''A Pontic Greek History'', by Sam Topalidis, 2007 - Australia - p.140

http://circassianworld.blogspo t.com/2008/07/abkhazias-archiv e-fire-of-war-ashes-of.html

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1992 - 93 Georgian-Abkhazian War

Still unresolved, the war in Abkhazia 1992-1993 is largely overlooked. At the time nationalism was rampant throughout the Caucasus. Georgia, reeling from an internal squabble between its first elected president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, and the head of the National Guard, Tengiz Kitovani and his ally Dzaba Ioseliani, launched an ill-fated attempt to solidify central government control over separatist minded Abkhazia.

The Georgians were finally driven out a year and a half later (September 1993) by Abkhazian forces strengthened, if not spearheaded, by hundreds of North Caucasus volunteers, among them future Chechen field commanders Shamil Basayev and Ruslan Galayev. Basayev actually received the Hero of Abkhazia medal and was credited for, among other military feats, liberating the northern city of Gagra and pushing the Georgians across the Psou River into Russia proper, where they were repatriated to Georgia via the ports at Poti and Batumi.

Although it took place early in the conflict, the Battle for Gagra was a turning point in the war. Georgian forces had made an amphibious landing to seize Gagra during the first weeks of the war, intending to then push southward and squeeze Abkhazian forces in a pincer movement between a second Georgian force moving north from Sukhumi. The Georgian forces failure to hold the strategic northern city, let alone use it as a base to launch further attacks southward, severely hampered its efforts to impose its will against the Abkhazian separatist movement.

Finally, there has been much written about Russias involvement in Abkhazia. Most analysis insists that without Russian support Abkhazia would not have been able to break free (In fact, believing Abkhazia to be another Transdeniester, hundreds of Ukrainian volunteers fought on the Georgian side). However, there are problems with this analysis. First, most of the foreign fighters involved in Abkhazia were not Russian soldiers but, like Shamil Basayev, independent minded fighters from the north Caucasus. Others came from the Abkhazian diaspora, primarily from Turkey. Second, complaints of Russian armor and aircraft involved in the fighting as proof of Russian complicity is problematic, as all armor and aircraft on both sides of the conflict was of Russian/Soviet origin. Georgian officials have even claimed publicly that they themselves rented Russian tanks and their crews for combat missions by the day or even by the hour, more accurately suggesting that rather than an instrument of policy, the Russian army, in a state of flux in 1992, was open to the highest bidder.

(The Battle of Gagra - by Dodge Billingsley (www.combatfilms.com)

http://www.combatfilms.com/cfr tv_archive_0009.asp

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Клип Уэ сыножьэ (Южная ночь) из нового альбома - "Пять"

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www.uzunyayla.com 1994 Uzunyayla sürgün çekimleri

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A documentary about the history of Circassian in Kabarday language
Cerkezlerin tarihi belgeseli-Kabardeyce
Die Geschichte der Tscherkessen auf Kabardinisch

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