Turkey’s Circassian community has come under fire from nationalist quarters after complaining of assimilation against the Circassian identity.
The controversy began with a video story by German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle. In the 12-minute segment, Fahri Huvaj, a Turkish author of Circassian descent, claimed that Circassians have been a victim of assimilation in Turkey, which hosts the world’s largest Circassian population. Huvaj said that only a fifth of Circassians in Turkey could speak their mother tongue and that Circassian language and culture was on the brink of extinction in Anatolia.