Eric Halsey of the History of Bulgaria Podcast Presents: Nationalism and the Circassians

Beginning in the mid 19th century, Russian expansion pushed hundreds of thousands of Circassians out of their homes and into places like Bulgaria. There, they encountered a population in the process of a national revival which painted Islam, the Orient, and the Ottomans as enemies. The result was a series of exoduses to all corners of the Ottoman world, fleeing nationalisms and violence driven by new understandings of identity in a fast-changing world.