Description
For thousands of years the Ubykh people lived in the Cau- casus Mountains overlooking the eastern shores of the Black Sea, north of what is now Turkey. Today they are extinct.In 1864, following their Muslim leaders and feudal landlords, every last one of the Ubykhs abandoned their homes and began their exodus across the Black Sea to Turkey, where they were promised rich farmlands and wealth. Within a few years thous- ands of Ubykhs had died either of disease while migrating or of hunger in their new homes on the barren territory that the Turks themselves had shunned. Today there are few, if any, Ubykhs alive. Their culture is dead.Many of their neighbors and ethnic relatives, the Abkhasians for instance, chose to remain on their native land until the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, when thousands of Abkhasians were persuaded or forced by the Turks to give up their homes forever and cross the Black Sea to Turkey. The Abkhasians who remained in their native land were the parents and grandparents of today's centenarians who have told me about growing up and growing old in Abkhasia. They explained why so many of their relatives emigrated and then later returned, showed me their culture, shared their ideas about the world today and tomorrow. This book is their story.ISBN:0878671013
