Russo-Circassian War

The Russo-Circassian War, also known as the Russian invasion of Circassia, took place in the North Caucasus between July 1763 and June 1864. It began when the Russian Empire entered Circassia and occupied Mozdok, which prompted the Circassian people to organize a resistance movement to preserve their independence. Over the next century, the Imperial Russian Army expanded across the country until the last Circassian fighters were defeated in the Battle of Qbaada. It remains the longest war to have ever occurred in the Caucasus and in the history of Russia, as well as the longest and final war in the history of Circassia. Although it initially involved only Russia and Circassia, the conflict soon drew in a number of other Caucasian nations after they also became targets for Russian conquests, and it is consequently sometimes considered to be the western half of the Caucasian War.

During the hostilities, Russia recognized Circassia not as an independent polity, but as a Russian region that had fallen under rebel occupation—in spite of the fact that Circassia had never been controlled by Russia prior to the first incursion at Mozdok in 1763. Many Russian generals did not refer to the Circassians by their ethnonym and instead called them "mountaineers" or "bandits" in a pattern of broadly dehumanizing and xenophobic rhetoric that glorified the mass murder and rape of Circassian civilians.

Upon achieving hegemony throughout Circassia in 1864, Russia perpetrated the Circassian genocide, which continued until 1878 and resulted in the destruction of about 97% of the entire Circassian population. Upwards of 2,000,000 Circassians were killed during this period, while another 1,500,000 were displaced to the Ottoman Empire. The genocide caused the formation of the Circassian diaspora, which is mainly concentrated in countries that were once part of the Ottoman Empire, particularly Turkey, Jordan, and Syria.

In modern Russia, the war has been the subject of historical negationism: Russian state media and officials have gone as far as claiming that the invasion "never happened" and that Circassia "voluntarily joined Russia in the 16th century" in lieu of genocidal events documented by Russian historians of the 1860s. Contemporary accounts include those of Russian bureaucrat Adolf Berzhe, who portrayed the expulsion of Circassians as essential for "Russian security"; and Russian historian Rostislav Fadeyev, who described the campaign as "one of the most vital tasks in Russian history." Furthermore, in 1861, Russian emperor Alexander II (r. 1855–1881) publicly ordered the Imperial Russian Army to "utterly force out the hostile mountaineers (Circassians) from the fertile countries they occupy and settle on the latter a Russian Christian population forever."