ISTANBUL — The upcoming Olympic Winter Games in the southern Russian resort of Sochi have invigorated a movement of ethnic Circassians across the Black Sea in Turkey. Activists say their campaign against the Games, which kick off on Feb. 7, has politicized ethnic Circassians in Turkey for the first time. 

Between 2 million and 5 million Turks trace their families’ origins to the Caucasus, which was partly ruled by the Ottoman Empire before Russia established its hold there in the 18th and 19th centuries and pushed out Muslim Circassians. 

Sympathies for Circassian and Chechen causes remain strong in Turkey. Chechen and pro-Chechen Turkish activists in Turkey have staged several spectacular attacks to draw attention to their cause. In 1996, activists hijacked a Black Sea ferry, and in 2001 and 2002, others held guests in two five-star hotels in Istanbul hostage to protest against Russia’s military campaigns against Chechen rebels. 

But for most Turks with roots in the Caucasus, those headline-grabbing incidents did not translate to more political action. Activity in Circassian associations in Turkey was “mostly folklore,” Ozgur Aktekin, an engineer and Circassian activist in Istanbul, told Al-Monitor. It took the decision by Russian President Vladimir Putin to stage the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi to change that, he added. “By moving the Games to Sochi, Putin gave the movement new dynamics,” Aktekin said.