Required fields are marked *. Daguerreotype of a "Circassian beauty" by Matthew Brady, New York, circa 1861. Not to be denied his harem slave, Barnum hired a frizzy-haired local woman, put her in . They were probably funny but rebellious. At the same time writers and illustrators were also creating images depicting the authentic costumes and people of the Caucasus. Jul 31, 2017 - Explore lynda heath's board "circassian women" on Pinterest. Whether it's Chechnya, a country where many Circassians are or any Caucasus country you will be breaking your neck left and right seeing how many beautiful women walk around. taken by an unknown photographer and affixed to a plain brown card. 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. Most Beautiful Caucasian Actresses Top 100. . But the very appearance of the Circassian Lady in the circus sideshow, alongside other human types designated freaks, must have blunted all such questions. They are called "Cherkesses" by the Russians and Turks, but their word for themselves is "Adighe." Said that the Circassian beauties with the hair "Massimi as moss" captivate with their beauty and are much in demand in the harems of Oriental sovereigns. It claims that the product was endorsed by Lady Mary Wortley Montague who stated that it was very helpful "for removing those sebacious impurities so noxious to beauty". The term Circassian Beauty refers to the romanticized portrayal of women from The Caucasus: breathtakingly beautiful and feminine, slender-waisted and pale-skinned, with rosy cheeks and lustrous, big blue eyes. Many Georgian and Circassian families even encouraged their daughters to enter concubinage for the promise of a life of luxury and comfort, and many Circassians become favorite wives or consorts to the Ottoman sultans. In fact, the Caucasian label is more absurd, and more pernicious, because by now we really should know better. Nature has there lavished upon the women beauties which are not to be seen elsewhere. As a result of this reputation, in Europe and America Circassians were often characterised as ideals of feminine beauty in poetry and art. It is history and has to be known. Jelena. [12] The fact that Circassian women were traditionally encouraged to wear corsets in order to keep their posture straight might have shaped their wasp waist as a result. Beautys brightest colours Had decked her out in all the hues of heaven. But if they ask $4000 each, probably one would be better than two, for $8000 in gold is worth about $14,500 in U.S. currency. To deny that race matters, todeny that we do see color, as Stephen Colbert often does as an act of parody, would be to deny that the history of racism has had and continues to have its profound effect; such denial would only reinforce white privilege as the default. It clearly states that he hired local women to pretend to be Circassians. The Circassians are a North Caucasian ethnic group native to Circassia. Thomas Jefferson himself had sired children with his slave Sally Hemings, herself the child of an enslaved mother and a white masterand the half sister of Jeffersons deceased wife. . This was June of 2014. Watch. I have not observed a single ugly face in that country, in either sex; but I have seen angelical ones. Her social media activities reveal that she is very interested in Circassian cuisine, history and culture in general. And yet we can combat the most absurd aspects of racial nomenclature. And yet, at the same time, because the Circassian was thought to be the purest, most primordial exemplar of the white race, that may have led the white viewer to yet another thought: that the sexual fate and the sexual proclivities of the Circassian Lady (no true lady by Victorian standards because of these very proclivities) might just as well be those of any given American Lady, who must be, after all, the racial descendant of the woman on exhibit. In the aftermath of WWIIs significant instability came the 1950s, suburbia, and the dream of a picture-perfect family. Symbolic and only barely covert sexualization seems to have thrived in the liminal space of the sideshow freaks, as in this portrait of a snake charmer: The mystical symbolism of a freakish whiteness seems to have been even more accentuated in the case of some albinos, the whitest persons of all, who adopted the cachet of mysterious powers, such as mind reading, as a feature of their sideshow acts: This comes full circle in the portrait below of Aggie Zolutia, representing the highest possible pitch of a fetishized whiteness: an albino Circassian. Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich, and Hunter, John, On the Natural Variety of Mankind inThe Anthropological Treatises of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, trans. Biographical outline of the beautiful Circassian girl, Zobeide Luti, or, Lady of beauty [microform] together with a brief sketch of the manners, customs, and inhabitants of Circassia. 16 Barnum, in his autobiography, says little about what followed, except that Greenwood disguised himself as a slave-buyer and saw "a large number of Circassian girls and women" in . While most Circassian tribes were famous for abundance of fair or dark blond and red hair combined with greyish-blue or green eyes,[12] many also had the pairing of very dark hair with very light complexions, a typical feature of Peoples of the Caucasus. 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. The first photograph of a Circassian Lady I found led me on a journey of inquiry whose strangeness I would never have guessed. Francis Davis Millet depicted Circassian women during his 1877 coverage of the Russo-Turkish war, specifying local costume and hairstyle. 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. [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. The handsome and graceful Circassian women were much more numerous than at Bet il Mtoni, where my mother and her lady friend Medne were the only members of this race. 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 extraordinary hairdo was entirely Barnums invention, but it stuck as one of the defining markers of the Circassian woman, no matter what circus or sideshow put a Circassian performer on the stage: a huge mass of hair, washed in beer and teased to a frizzy cloud resembling what might remind someone today of an Afro from the 1960s or 1970s. They may be mans best friend, but man has also changed them beyond all recognition, these incredible pictures of dog breeds reveal. Circassian-Abkhaz Beauties! This last point helps to explain the costume of the Circassian Ladies in the sideshow: their outfits were inventions, having nothing to do with the actual clothing of women from the Caucasus region. Updated on July 7, 2013, to included a discussion of the essay Has Caucasian Lost Its Meaning?by Shaila Dewan. Greece was on the publics mind at the time, especially the minds of romantics and idealists, for the country had fought a successful war of independence from the Ottoman Empire from 1821 to 1830. Moore Brothers, Zublia Aggolia, carte-de-visite, front and reverse (circa 1870), collection of the author. Obermller and Kern, Miss Millie La Mar, Mind Reader, cabinet card (circa 1890), collection of the author. 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. The Circassian Lady therefore literally embodied a taboo. Abraham Bogardus, Caucasian Girl, carte-de-visite, front and reverse (circa 1865), collection of the author. While individuals may choose to refuse these labels, the sheer fact is that these categories are so deeply engraved into our ways of seeing that they are even embraced by those victimized by that history, in part precisely because they were victimizedas such and bythat history of race. Her sale sent home some disappointed bawlers, Frost, Linda, The Circassian Beauty and the Circassian Slave: Gender, Imperialism, and American Popular Entertainment, in Never One Nation: Freaks, Savages, and Whiteness in US Popular Culture, 18501877(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005). "So even if you don't know that a word highlighted like this _____ denotes sarcasm, the context should have given it away. The Circassians were often sent to the sultans court as gifts from the governors, bought in slave markets after being kidnapped or sold by impoverished parents. 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. [37] Actual Circassian hairstyles bore no resemblance to Barnum's fantasy. 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. in, This page was last edited on 27 February 2023, at 12:54. The Anthropological Treatises of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit, Never One Nation: Freaks, Savages, and Whiteness in US Popular Culture, 18501877. Charles Eisenmann, Zumiya the Egyptian, Age 20, carte-de-visite, front and reverse (circa 1870s), collection of Greg French. Heres a newspaper clipping from the Edinburg Daily Courier, and is dated October 29, 1938. You readEdmund Morgans workand actually see racism being inscribed in the law and the country changing as a result. A fairly extensive literary history suggests that Circassian women were thought to be unusually beautiful, spirited, and elegant, and as such were desirable as concubines. [23], Circassian men were also exalted for their beauty, manliness and bravery in Western Europe, in a way Caucasus historian Charles King calls "homoerotic". In a letter of May 1864, Barnum authorized his agent, John Greenwood Jr., to spend up to $5,000 in gold each (a vast sum in that day) for two Circassian beauties if Greenwood could successfully infiltrate the slave markets of Istanbul to buy them without being detected as a Westerner. Galilee Area - portrait. These Circassians were actually women from the countryside of the United States who had a more exotic appearance, which he exaggerated by styling them with afro haircuts. Crane, Sylvia E., Greenough, Powers and Crawford, American Sculptors in Nineteenth Century Italy(Coral Gables,Florida: University of Miami Press, 1972). The novel is based on a true story told in a village in the Turkish highlands close to the Georgian border. The Colonial Contexts for the Harem Representation", "XLIV. The writer and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates has emphasized the potential vulnerability of such constructed concepts in an essay, Good People, Racist People: Last night I had the luxury of sitting and talking with the brilliant historian Barbara Fields. This is the case despite the fact that contemporary biological science has completely discredited Blumenbachs theory of the origins and categories of human beings. One hundred years later, around 1870, this identification of the Circassian and Caucasian as the most perfect representatives of whiteness had taken hold of the public imagination in the United States. Barnum had written to John Greenwood, his agent in Europe, asking him to purchase a beautiful Circassian girl to exhibit, or at least to hire a girl who could "pass for" one. What is especially ironic is the tax stamp on the back of the portrait of Zulumma Agra: these stamps raised revenues for the Federal troops fighting in the Civil War, and yet the image traded in part on their titillating suggestion of white women sold into slavery. Barnum's wigsWhy do you perpetuate these racial stereotypes when they have been historically proven to be false?Would you be offended if someone posted images of Vietnamese people with zippers running along their hairlines? Circassian is the name of a people living on the northeast shores of the Black Sea. Dress of black gossamer net over white satin slip, round frock front edged with Vandyke lace. Legend had it that the Circassians produced the worlds most beautiful white women, who were consequently in great demand for the harems of Turkish sultans. In this way, the purest white is made an Otherby associating it, however subconsciously, with white Americans physiological stereotypes about blacks. "[11], An anthropological literary suggests that Circassians were best characterized by what was called "rosy pale" or "translucent white skin". So one of the most beautiful would do, but be sure & get a decent-looking chap of 16 years old or more. TV series: "I - cloud," others are not translated. Circassian beauty or Adyghe beauty is a stereotype and a belief referring to the Circassian people. The type included a number of key features: the woman must be pretty, or even beautiful, by Victorian standards; she would wear exotic clothing, generally more revealing than that worn by European and American woman of that era; she might display striking jewelry and other ornaments, such as strings of pearls or richly embroidered clothes. We have to remember that the explosion of frizzed hair in the portraits of Circassian women was an entirely artificial effect, both cosmetically and culturally: it had to be created with beer shampoo and teasing comb; it had nothing to do with how actual Circassian women wore their hair. The Circassians With The Most Beautiful Women In The World There are folk songs in various languages throughout the Middle East and the Balkan peninsula that describe the superior appearance of Circassian girls. In Blumenbachs racial typology, then, the purest, most original white people came from the Caucasus region. What do Chechen and Circassian girls generally look like? Enjoy the story, stop bringing your hate into this. An advertisement from 1782 titled "Bloom of Circassia" makes clear that it was by then well established "that the Circassians are the most beautiful Women in the World", but goes on to reveal that they "derive not all their Charms from Nature". At Bet il Sahel there was much more luxury and grand style than at Bet il Mtoni. Titillation should not be confused with illumination. Already in his 1775 text, Blumenbach specifically identified the Circassian women among the peoples of the Caucasus as the single most beautiful representatives of this pure and primordial Caucasian type: Take, of all who bear the name of man, a man and a woman most widely different from each other; let the one be a most beautiful Circassian woman and the other an African born in Guinea, as black and ugly as possible (Blumenbach, Anthropological Treatises, 363). Orientalizing paintings of nudes were also sometimes exhibited as "Circassians". In the American context, that meant that human beings seeking to escape from their own form of very real enslavement could expect their liberty to be respected nowhere in the nation, not even in the supposedly free states of the North. In the late 18th century, it was claimed by Western European couturiers that "the Circassian Corset is the only one which displays, without indelicacy, the shape of the bosom to the greatest possible advantage; gives a width to the chest which is equally conducive to health and elegance of appearance". They wore a distinctive curly, big hair style, which had no precedent in earlier portrayals of Circassians, but which was soon copied by other female performers in the United States, who became known as "moss-haired girls". [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. Wunder, Richard, Hiram Powers: Vermont sculptor, 1805-1873 (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1991). Thomas Benyshe (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1865). "The First 'Circassian Exodus' to the Ottoman Empire (18581867)". 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. Want to Read. Measures about 58 X 23 inches. The article also claimed that children born to the "inferior" black concubines were being killed. Admired for their pale and translucent skin, delicate features, light eyes and hair, small waist, good posture and elegant behavior. Surely that is part of what was so titillating to the white male viewer of the Circassian Beauty as a type: her narrowly avoided fate as a harem slave, her strange clothes, her exposed flesh, her half-mad hair all indicate an uninhibited, if publicly exposed, even forced, sexuality. 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. It would be impossible to paint more charming visages, or better figures, than those of the Georgians (Blumenbach, Anthropological Treatises, 269). The luxurious palaces of the sultans housed Georgians, Abkhazians and Circassians as concubines and odalisques. 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. It is not history, it is fiction.Like mermaids.The fact that you think it is real tells a lot about why this site has turned into such a laughing stock. The Orientalist fantasy, especially the imagining of the harem and the seraglio, allowed Europeans and Americans to project their subterranean prurience onto a safely distant world. Circassian girls are beautiful especially the older generation , but this is not specific to them , Caucasus girls are . Similar claims about Circassian women appear in Lord Byron's Don Juan (18181824), in which the tale of a slave auction is told: Some went off dearly; fifteen hundred dollars The charged ambiguity of the Circassian Beauty, straddling sexual transgression and religious transcendence, marks this type of person with a certain mystical value grounded in her freakish whiteness. 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. "Not to be denied his harem slave, Barnum hired a frizzy-haired local woman, put her in a Turkish costume and dubbed her Zalumma Agra, Star of the EastThe Circassian beauty was an instant success, soon to be followed by a succession of imported beauties with an enigmatic letter Z figuring prominently in all their names. There is also the factthat so many Circassian womens stage names began with Z: the letter itself is largely foreign to English and American namesalmost none begin with it. This is not Circassian history, it is American history, and the weird things that went on in the 19th century. Under these circumstances it was bound to happen that occasionally a kind of ridiculous "racism" broke out among my brothers and sisters. This lovely name offers a range of beautiful pet names, such as Jelica, Jele, Lena, Lenotschka, and Lenka. [19], Regarding one of her half-sisters who was also from a Circassian mother, Princess Ruete of Zanzibar mentions that "The daughter of a Circassian was a dazzling beauty with the complexion of a German blonde. Your email address will not be published. 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. *Updated April 19, 2013, adding everything after But dont we now have a choice? Minor corrections made on May 22, 2013. From personal experience of travelling to many countries in the Caucasus, they tend to be very very beautiful. Today Circassians live around the world in countries such as Turkey (with almost eighty percent of the community), Israel, Syria, Lebanon, United States and several European countries. 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. It is not merely arbitrary to compare theCircassian hairstyle and the Afro. This reputation dates back to the later . Zoe looks white and lives free on a plantation in the American South. In 1802 "the Balm of Mecca" was also marketed as being used by Circassians: In the Russo-Circassian War (17631864) the Circassians were expelled from their homeland by Tsar Alexander II, forcing 1.5 million to flee to the Ottoman Empire. The legend of Circassian women in the western world was enhanced in 1734, when, in his Letters on the English, Voltaire alludes to the beauty of Circassian women: The Circassians are poor, and their daughters are beautiful, and indeed it is in them they chiefly trade. Also peculiar is how many of the Circassians have names beginning with a combination of Z and A or A and ZZublia Aggolia, Zalumma Agra, Aggie Zolutiaas if they were the alpha and omega of whiteness. I'm sure the sultans had good taste . Another Circassian celebrity from Turkey (Tokat), Sari Seker Sema is a prominent radio and television host, presenter, DJ and columnist. Thomas Gamaliel Bradford, Map of Caucasian Countries and Turkey in Asia (1835), Wikipedia Commons. Of course, individuals may make that choice in the waythey use everyday language, but that choice is made more difficult to the extent that government officials still employ Caucasian as a legitimate identifying label, as Shaila Dewan has pointed out in a recent essay,Has Caucasian Lost Its Meaning?,in the New York Times:Justice Anthony M. Kennedy saw fit to use the term in the pivotal affirmative action decision, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin; on the very first page, in the statement of facts, Justice Kennedy describes Abigail NoelFisher, who sued the university for discrimination, as the Petitioner, who is Caucasian . She wears a jeweled crucifix and pearl-studded, low-cut dress, and the characteristic hairstyle is unmistakable. Hair in the Eastern style with Spartan diadem. [16], In Henry Lindlahr's words in the early 20th century, "Blue-eyed Caucasian regiments today form the cream of the Sultan's army. Appear in advertisements on Turkish TV, in the theater. My father was of course never forgiven the fact that he had chosen his favourite children Sharfe and Choleboth by Circassian mothers, Sharfe even being blue-eyedfrom the hateful race of "cats". Perhaps it was the juxtaposition of the young womans abstracted gaze with the absurdly wild mass of hair flaming around her head. Pontios. How intentional this exposure was is evident in the portrait of Zublia Aggolia: in high magnification, one can see that the photographer has retouched the negative to accentuate the cleavage of her bustsomething that would never occur in an ordinary portrait of a Victorian lady. But at the same time, at her throat, just above the bust, hanging like a protective talisman, lies a large, ornate crucifix, an item common to Circassian portraits. 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. Because this strange position enticed nineteenth-century viewers to transgress these categories, at least in their imaginations while viewing the sideshow or in private while gazing at a photographic portrait, the natural place for this kind of performance was the strange and yet protected and circumscribed space of the freak show, pioneered so effectively by P. T. Barnum himself. Those Ottomans never got past the Caucasus. 2020. Emma Stone. Maker unknown, Circassian wife and husband, albumen photograph (circa 1865). The untamed hair evoked exoticism; it served as a marker that this woman, who otherwise appeared entirely white, was in fact something Other. Whatever we might say about the complexities of their particular relationship, mass rape was a defining feature of the history of slavery in the United States. The legend of the Circassian woman involved a provocative component for white Americans: the idea that the Circassians were the most primordial form of the white race, and therefore also the purest and most beautiful exemplars of whiteness, especially their women; yet at the same time, these Circassian women were subject to the slave trade of the Ottoman Empire. 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. 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. Despite that, her portrait has taken me down a path of discovery whose connections I would have never guessed. The Grail Myth is the True Soul of The West. 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. She embodies ideals of womanly purity and virtue, but also sexuality; she is alluringly exotic, yet familiar. Later in 1864, Barnum put on show someone he dubbed Zalumma Agra (Star of the East), a young woman who had come to his operation seeking work whom he dressed up in the invented costume that became the model for the Circassian Ladies who subsequently sprang up in circus sideshows all over the country. In the 1860s the showman P.T. It "instantly gives a Rosy Hue to the Cheeks", a "lively and animated Bloom of Rural Beauty" that would not disappear in perspiration or handkerchiefs.[34]. Many writers and travelers through the ages have described Circassians as the most beautiful women in the world. Emily Jean "Emma" Stone was born on November 6, 1988 in Scottsdale, Arizona to Krista Jean Stone (ne Yeager), a homemaker & Jeffrey Charles "Jeff" Stone, a contracting company founder and CEO. And that, in turn, would suggest that the white American lady was, at bottom, in her unadorned, uncultured nature, no different from the Circassianand so no different from the African. Dec 30, 2016 - erkesler. Whatever faults remain, of course, are my responsibility. 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. For example, in 1859, a play by Dion Boucicault called The Octoroonopened in London. A circa 1900 albumen photograph (3 7/8 in. [1][2][3], There are folk songs in various languages all around the Middle East and Balkans describing the unusual beauty of Circassian women, a trend popularised after the Circassian genocide, although the reputation of Circassian women dates back to the Late Middle Ages when the Circassian coast was frequented by traders from Genoa, and the founder of the Medici dynasty, Cosimo de' Medici, had an illegitimate son from a Circassian slave. I have decided to finish this article with a excerpt from the travel diary of Florence Nightingale, founder of modern nursing, who referred to Circassian women as the most graceful and most sensual-looking creatures I have ever seen. A little tribute to a people who have been denied their homeland and who struggle to maintain their traditions. Dated 19th Century RM 2HEH22X - Regency woman and child in mourning dress. It is derived from the Slavic girl's name Yelena, which is a slavicized form of the Greek name Helen. Knowledge of this "Liquid Bloom" had been brought back by a "well-regarded gentleman" who had traveled and lived in the region. We, the children of Circassian women, were usually called "cats" by those of our brothers and sisters who had African blood in their veins, because some of us had the misfortune of possessing: blue eyes.