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13 
 
peoples that inhabited the area and it accepted that they formed the present day 
Balkars and Kumuks respectively.
19
 
In the 9-10
th
 centuries, with the arrival of another Turkic group, the 
Pechenegs, the ethnic structure of the North Caucasus became more complex. 
Although their exact impact on the formation of the ethnic pattern of the North 
Caucasus is not so clear, together with the large number of newly arrived Kipchak-
Turkic dialects speaking nomads, they mixed with the indigenous Caucasian tribes 
and formed the Karachays.
20
 
As a result, most of the indigenous North Caucasian peoples were being 
forced to retreat into the mountains. Moreover, with the invasion by the Oghuz 
speaking Turkics of the southern parts of the Caucasus and Dagestan, and their 
amalgamation with the native population of the region, the Azeri speaking 
population of the current time emerged. This endorsed the dominant position of the 
Turkic speaking populations in the region.
21
 
The late comers of the region were the Slavs. The Slavic speaking 
population of the North Caucasus began to come to the region as late as the 16
th
 
century, during which Muscovite Russia began to show some interest in the region. 
The first Slavs or the chief instruments of Muscovite Russia were the runaway serfs 
looking for freedom and land of their own. They were called as Cossacks 
(originally ‘Kazak’ meaning ‘free man’ or ‘unruly’ in Turkic). They established 
military orders to protect themselves against the Russian State, the nomads and the 
mountaineers. These earlier Cossacks who settled in the eastern plains area 
                                                 
19
 Wixman, 69-70. 
20
 Wixman, 71. 
21
 Wixman, 71. 

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14 
 
(Grebenskiy, Stavropol and Terek) were Russians, while those who later settled in 
Kuban in the 18
th
 century were Zaporozhian, i. e. Ukrainian Cossacks.
22
 
Thus by the 18
th
 century the current ethnic and linguistic make up of the 
North Caucasian region has more or less been shaped. However, the Russian 
invasion of the region and the Caucasian Wars, which took place during the mid-
19th century, altered the ethnic and demographic position of the native populations 
of the North Caucasus. Besides the loss in lives due to the war itself, and famine 
and diseases resulting from it, there was mass emigration especially from the 
western part of the North Caucasus, to the Ottoman Empire.
23
 As the most tragic 
one, the entire surviving population of Ubykhs, around 30,000, who inhabited the 
Black Sea coast emigrated to Ottoman lands.
24
 As a result, the Russian Empire 
settled large numbers of Slavs in the North Caucasus. After the abolishment of the 
serfdom in 1861, the inogorodnye
25
 and the landless poor peasants rushed to the 
region. With the influx of merchants, traders, clerks and immigrant workers 
                                                 
22
 For the emergence and the settlement of the Cossacks see Philip Longworth, 1969. The Cossacks, 
New York: Halt, Rinehart and Winston, and Maurice Gerschon Hindus, 1946. The Cossacks, 
London: Collins. 
23
For the numbers of the North Caucasian immigrants, several numbers of sources are given varying 
figures changing between one and two million. Among these groups, Ubykhs and Shapsugs with the 
almost entire of their population came first. In addition, a striking numbers of Kabardians, 
Karachays, and other Circassian people also forced to immigrate. For the settlements of the 
Circassians on the Ottoman lands see Justin McCarthy, 1995. “Eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus,” 
Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, New Jersey: The Darwin Press, 23-58. 
Kemal H. Karpat, 1985. “Population Movements in the Ottoman State in the Nineteenth Century,” 
in  Ottoman Populations 1830-1914, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 55-77 and 1980. 
“The Status of Muslims under European Rule: The Eviction and the Settlement of the Çerkes,” 
Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 1: 7-27. Dr. Hayati Bice, 1991. Kafkasya’dan Anadolu’ya 
Göçler, Ankara: Diyanet Vakfı Yayınları. Abdullah Saydam, 1997. Kırım ve Kafkas Göçleri (1856-
1876), Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu. Süleyman Erkan, 1996. Kırım ve Kafkas Göçleri (1878-1908), 
Trabzon: Karadeniz Teknik Üniversitesi. N. Berzeg, 1996. Çerkes Sürgünü: Gerçek, Tarihi ve 
Politik Nedenleriyle, Ankara: n.p., and İ. Aydemir, 1988. Kuzey Kafkasyalıların Göç Tarihi: 
Muhaceretin 125. Yılı Anısına, Ankara: n.p. 
24
 For a comprehensive work related with the Ubykhs Sefer E. Berzeg, 1998. Soçi’nin Sürgündeki 
Sahipleri Çerkes-Vubıhlar, Ankara: Kafkasya Gerçeği. 

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15 
 
seeking employment in the oil fields and in the growing towns in the area in the 
late 19
th
 century, the region demographically became more complicated. 
 
The first census, thus the first data on the populations of the North 
Caucasus was dated 1897. In this census, the peoples of the Russian Empire were 
asked to declare their native language and religion to the census takers. Therefore, 
these first concrete numbers were the numbers of native speakers of the given 
languages and not necessarily the population of the ethnic group. The peoples of 
the North Caucasus were asked to declare both their ethnic identity and mother 
tongue in the Soviet censuses of 1926, 1959, 1970, and 1989, it goes without 
saying that these censuses reflected the results of the Soviet nationality policy (see 
Appendix 2). 
 
3-The Religious Structure:
26
 
The overwhelming majority of the Mountaineers are Muslims, but the 
majority of the Osetians, and 30-50 per cent of the Abkhaz are Orthodox 
Christians. The great majority of the Muslim population belong to the Sunni Islam 
but, there is a small number of Shi’is
27
 living especially in the southern parts of 
                                                                                                                                        
25
  Inogorodnye literally means ‘those of other cities’, and was used not only as a designation of 
those Slavs coming in the 19
th
 century, but also of Armenians and Jews who came in to the area as 
traders and merchants. 
26
 Alexander Bennigsen and S. Enders Wimbush, 1985. Mystics and Commissars: Sufism in the 
Soviet Union, London: C. Hurst, hereafter Mystics and Commissars. A. Bennigsen and Chantal 
Quelquejay, 1967. Islam in the Soviet Union, London: Pall Mall Press. Alexandre Bennigsen and S. 
Enders Wimbush, 1985. Muslims of the Soviet Empire: A Guide, London: C. Hurst, and also Shirin 
Akiner, 1986. 
27
 Small number of Lezgin and Dargin population that are living at the border of Dagestan-
Azerbaijan. There is also some small number of Muslim Tats which belongs to the Twelves Shi’i. 

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