R. S. Reynolds, subject unknown (snake charmer), carte-de-visite, front and reverse (circa 1865), collection of the author; this image is a composite, formed from a photograph and ink drawing, and rephotographed for reproduction and sale; note the combination of exotic, tropical location with a lady clothed in the (rather out-of-place!) I'm sure the sultans had good taste . 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. Measures about 58 X 23 inches. Circassian = Normal women wearing P.T. But dont we now have a choice? One point she makes that very few Americans understand is that racism is a creation. This theme replicated itself in fiction, too. From personal experience of travelling to many countries in the Caucasus, they tend to be very very beautiful. 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. Originally published in German in 1775. The fame of these women inspired more than just literary achievement. Check out the first comment. Beautys brightest colours Had decked her out in all the hues of heaven. It is not merely arbitrary to compare theCircassian hairstyle and the Afro. 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? More to the point,isnt it just as absurd that now, nearly 250 years after Blumenbach, we still refer to white people as Caucasians? document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Circasians: The Most Beautiful Women in the World. The luxurious palaces of the sultans housed Georgians, Abkhazians and Circassians as concubines and odalisques. Are Circassian women the most beautiful in the world? [Archive] - The "[24], During the 19th century, various Western intellectuals offered pseudoscientific explanations for the light complexion present among Circassians. Here the majority of the women were Circassian, who without any doubt are much more distinguished in appearance. Dec 30, 2016 - erkesler. The Circassian women look languidly to the African with an expression of supreme contempt, which is responded to by a sneer on the face of the Nubian eunuch.[32]. In 1802 "the Balm of Mecca" was also marketed as being used by Circassians: Furthermore, white viewers would have had one very striking point of comparison for supposedly outlandish frizzy hair: this was the hair texture they would attribute to black people. 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. We cannot just shrug offthis history by individual fiat. 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. The sideshow therefore only exploited the ambiguities; it never truly challenged them, and the Circassian Lady never really allowed the Victorian world to call into question the dividing lines of race, freedom, and sexual self-possession that she embodied, if only as a performance of an imaginary human type. 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. 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. For one Circassian, a sweet girl, were given, The Circassian blended elements of white Victorian True Womanhood with traits of the enslaved African American woman in one curiosity. The Circassians are a North Caucasian ethnic group native to Circassia. 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. Circassian Beauty - TV Tropes 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". Most Beautiful Caucasian Actresses Top 100. Circassian beauties are admired for their abundant and luxuriant yellow hair and blue eyes. p. 46, Delaware Gazette and State Journal, 2 February 1815. 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. Europeans had sympathized with Greece not only for its being the font of Western civilization and its ideal of freedom but also for its resistance as a Christian nation against the Muslim Ottomans. Abraham Bogardus, Caucasian Girl, carte-de-visite, front and reverse (circa 1865), collection of the author. 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 article also claimed that children born to the "inferior" black concubines were being killed. Beautiful Circassian Woman - a photo on Flickriver Thomas Gamaliel Bradford, Map of Caucasian Countries and Turkey in Asia (1835), Wikipedia Commons. History of Circassian Beauties - YouTube Uncovering the Truth Behind Barnum's Circassian Beauties Hoax The max they could do is steal children from Caucasus and make fight . 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. In fact, the Caucasian label is more absurd, and more pernicious, because by now we really should know better. Add to this the fact that the Circassian Ladies were no Circassians at all but ordinary women costumed and frizzed to pass for a purely invented Circassian type, and the ambiguities rise to an even greater height: these transgressive women were not the Other at all but the white viewers own kind. Circassian Beauty in the American Sideshow - Brewminate: A Bold Blend It is worth underlining that this costume and hair had nothing to do with how actual Circassian women looked, as the illustrations below indicate. "The Role of Circassian Slaves in the Foreign and Domestic Policy of the Crimean Khanate in the Early Modern Period." Zalumma was the first of several Circassians in Barnums shows, and even her name was his invention. Circassian people. The Circassians - native people of Circassia (North Caucasus "[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. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. 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 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. Jelena. 100 Beautiful Russian Girl Names (With Their Meanings) - Honey Name [20], According to the feminist Harriet Martineau, Circassians were the only saving virtue of the Egyptian harem where these Circassian mothers produced the finest children and if they were to be excluded from the harem, the upper class in Egypt would be doomed. "So even if you don't know that a word highlighted like this _____ denotes sarcasm, the context should have given it away. Bogdan, Robert,Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988). 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. They used a concoction supposedly extracted from a vegetable native to Circassia. But when the offer went beyond, they knew Each is canceled with a stamp that reads Barnums Museum and dated April 26, 1866 (left) and December 5, 1865 (right). 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. 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. 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. After 1854, almost all Ottoman harem concubines were of Circassian origin; the Circassians had been expelled from Russian lands in the 1860s and the improverished refugee parents sold their daughters in a trade that was formally banned, but tolerated.[5]. A Freakish Whiteness: The Circassian Lady and the Caucasian Fantasy I'm sure the sultans had good taste . [37] Actual Circassian hairstyles bore no resemblance to Barnum's fantasy. The untamed hair evoked exoticism; it served as a marker that this woman, who otherwise appeared entirely white, was in fact something Other. Of breathtaking beauty, big and bright eyes and everything that could constitute a Venus. Was how the American traveler and writer Maturin Murray Ballou (1820-95) described the Circassian woman. Circassian is the name of a people living on the northeast shores of the Black Sea. 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. 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. Despite that, her portrait has taken me down a path of discovery whose connections I would have never guessed. "The First 'Circassian Exodus' to the Ottoman Empire (18581867)". If we accept that racism is a creation, then we must then accept that it can be destroyed. [20], In parts of Europe and North America where blond hair was more common, the pairing of extremely white skin with very dark hair also present among some Circassians was exalted, even in Russia which was at war with the Circassians; Semyon Bronevskii exalted Circassian women for having light skin, dark brown hair, dark eyes and "the lineaments of the face of the Ancient Greek". Circasians: The Most Beautiful Women in the World 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. 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. Poetic romance-descriptions of Circassian girls appear in Don Juan by Lord Byron (1818-1824), in which the story of a slave auction is related: Some went off dearly; fifteen hundred dollars For one Circassian, a sweet girl, were given, Warranted virgin. They were typically identified by the distinctive hairstyle, which was held in place by the use of beer. [16], In Henry Lindlahr's words in the early 20th century, "Blue-eyed Caucasian regiments today form the cream of the Sultan's army. Circassian Beauty carte de visite, 4 x 2.5 inches, circa 1870 . [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. Wrap in several ways, or wear down. 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. Had decked her out in all the hues of heaven. Biographical outline of the beautiful Circassian girl, Zobeide Luti, or As a type, the Circassian Lady became quite familiar in the United States, especially after the mid-1860s, when various performers in circus sideshows began playing this role. 22 Circassian women ideas | women, traditional outfits - Pinterest 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. The self as Other, and the Other as self: in this liminal zone, which one defines the meaning of whiteness, of freedom, and of acceptable sexual license? (Although we must remember that this was a fantasy: the Circassian Ladies were performers playing a part.) As a name for whiteness, Caucasian is among the most pernicious because of its role as a label for the purest, most original race. The very nature of the sideshow allowed the viewer to displace any genuinely discomforting questions into the realm of ambiguity, where they could then be safely bundled up and forgotten, just as we today confront our fears in the safety of a horror movie or a roller-coaster ride: as mere entertainment, a thrill to experience and then purge as at bottom unreal. Circassian woman hi-res stock photography and images - Alamy [22] In the United States, the girls disguised as "Circassians" exhibited by Phineas T. Barnum were in fact Catholic Irish girls from Lower Manhattan. Included in my top most beautiful female athletes of the world. : case sensitive: see the pronunciation key for a guide on how to write the sounds; sounds can only be searched in names that have been assigned pronunciations * is a wildcard that will match zero or more letters in the pronunciation example: *lee matches names which end with the sound lee _ is a wildcard that will match exactly one letter in the pronunciation Add to this heady brew the tincture of Orientalism that Edward Said has dissected as a feature of European colonial imagination, and we have in the Circassian Lady an archetype at the intersection of multiple Victorian obsessions, however covert. "[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. Circassian Girl - Galilee_ge12ige01163_itamar Grinberg_imot He displayed a "Circassian Beauty" at his American Museum in 1865. University of Texas Press. The beauty of the Circassian women in the 19th century were considered legendary throughout the world. Thomas Benyshe (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1865). Not to be denied his harem slave, Barnum hired a frizzy-haired local woman, put her in . Day of mourning for the Circassians. 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"[30] Another anthropologist, William Guthrie, distinguished the Caucasian race and the "Circassians who are admired for their beauty" in particular by their oval form of their head, straight nose, thin lips, vertically-placed teeth, facial angle from 80 to 90 degrees that he calls the most developed one, and their regular features overall, which "causes them to be considered as the most handsome and agreeable". Circassiangirl10 | Beautiful russian women, Asian beauty girl, Most 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. Admired for their pale and translucent skin, delicate features, light eyes and hair, small waist, good posture and elegant behavior. 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]. 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. This lovely name offers a range of beautiful pet names, such as Jelica, Jele, Lena, Lenotschka, and Lenka. She was tall, and well, though slightly, shaped; and held herself, like all Circassians, men or women, very erect."[18]. 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. Their beauty is mentioned in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1749), in which Fielding remarked, "How contemptible would the brightest Circassian beauty, drest in all the jewels of the Indies, appear to my eyes!"[8]. 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? 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. But failing in this quest to obtain Circassian slaves, the showman went on to look for women who could fake it for him. I have not observed a single ugly face in that country, in either sex; but I have seen angelical ones. Other features suggested this Otherness, such as the clothing. Dated 19th Century RM 2HEH22X - Regency woman and child in mourning dress. Top-40 beautiful Turkish actresses. Photo Gallery Emma Stone. Whatever faults remain, of course, are my responsibility. Her sale sent home some disappointed bawlers, 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.