text:
Talk:Confederation of the Rhine

Untitled
Alright I am probably going to need help on this one. The intial draft is very poorly worded but its something. I'll try to clean it up and augment it next week. cheers. GrazingshipIV

Flag
I noticed an error: The flag is the flag of France - not the flag of the Confederation of the Rhine. I presume, that the confederation has never had an own flag. But the different member states of the confederation used their flags for themselves. The member states of the Confederation of the Rhine had not been part of France, but had accepted Napoleon in his function as "protector". This fact doesn't make the Confederation of the Rhine a part of France. So the flag of France is no official symbol for the Confederation of the Rhine! The member states had been co-founders of the Confederation of the Rhine. So they had been subjects not objects of international law. Formally they kept their sovereignty and were no client states of France. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.207.181.26 (talk • contribs)
 * The Flags of the World site says that the French flag was used for the Confederation of the Rhine. Member states did use their own flags, but the Confederation itself used the French one. Using the French flag does not necessarily imply that the Confederation was part of France. - 52 Pickup 10:46, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry,52 Pickup, but the honoured tricolor is not the flag of the Conf. of the Rhine. I can't remember clearly but I THINK it was orange-ish and had sort of a white rising sun. Main point: That is not the right flag. I wikianswer-ed it and found this out.Philippe Auguste 01:49, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

 * The only other flag that I have seen is this one on the right, but it is stated in many places (e.g. ) that this was only allegedly used and not used officially . On FOTW it says "The Confederation of the Rhine had no flag but the French [flag] and the Imperial Standard of its protector (Napoleon)." And other sites use the French flag to represent the confederation (eg. ). If you have references for this orange flag of which you speak, I would be interested to see them. But as far as the info looks right now, the Confederation was represented either by the French flag or by none at all. - 52 Pickup 07:45, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Mostamazing (talk) 17:07, 21 February 2017 (UTC)I was looking at this topic and found that according to alternate wikipedia sources, The Confederation of the Rhine was indeed represented by one flag, as seen here, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag-map_of_the_Confederation_of_the_Rhine_(1812).svg and here http://historicalnations.wikia.com/wiki/Confederation_of_the_Rhine If you can please look into this and maybe edit your wiki page.Mostamazing (talk) 17:07, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

I understand, I stated no sources therefore what I say isn't reliable. But that flag is one I've seen before used for the Conf. of the Rhine. The other one I said I saw before in an almanac somewhere. How'd you find/make the flag here? Maybe I could show you what I saw.Philippe Auguste (talk) 23:38, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

 * To make a flag, any graphics program will do. But without stating where the image came from, placing an image here on Wiki might be a problem. Maybe if you ask the people over at FOTW they could help you out with finding the image and/or some further information. Either way, I'd be interested to hear how it goes. - 52 Pickup (talk) 10:03, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

The French flag as the flag of the Conf. of Rhine would mean, that the Conf. of Rhine was a part of France or France was the suzerain of it. But France was - following the Rheinbundakte (contract between France and 16 German princes) - only the military alliance partner of the Conf. of Rhine and no part of it. The emperor of France was only the "protector" and no suzerain of the Conf. of Rhine. So I presume that there was no official flag of the Conf. of Rhine. Its members used their individual flags, because they have kept their souverainity and wanted to show it. 82.207.181.26 (talk) 13:50, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Erfurt
It says, that all of the Holy Roman Empire except for Danish Holstein, Swedish Pommern, Prussia and Austria were part of the Confederation of the Rhine, the land west of the Rhine and large parts of northwestern Germany were incorporated into France. This misregards Erfurt, which was incorporated into France as well when obtained from Prussia, and which was consequently not part of the Confederation. The wording should be redone in this sense or a clause be added that mentions this fact. 87.234.124.78 21:17, 12 July 2007 (UTC)Toscho

List of members
I'd like to change it to a table, so that it can be organized in different ways. Any objections? Andrew 6 47 15:00, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Not a client-state
I don't think, that the Confederation of the Rhine had been a state or a client-state. I think the Confederation of the Rhine had been a confederation of client-states (please look into the "Rheinbundakte", the treaty between France an the 16 german princes!). The "Rheinbund"-states had been de iure souverain, but de facto clients of France. So the article should be corrected in this point! Tfjt (talk) 18:36, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree. It was not a state. Jan.Kamenicek (talk) 17:48, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

"Rhine Confederation" [sic]
Does that exact phrasing have any legitimacy in English?

A preliminary web search does not reveal any. The "Flags of the World" site is not a guide to English language usage.

"Rhine Confederation" is one literal translation of the German Rheinbund, yes, but that appears to be all.

That phrasing can be restored with a proper citation.

Varlaam (talk) 17:35, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

 * Before a while ago my edit was reverted because I gave no citation, rhinebund is Rhine confederation, Konföderation von der rhein or something similar I put, because it literally meant Confederation of the Rhine I didn’t know how to cite back then Emmanuelbruh (talk) 00:44, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

External links modified
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Why i think we should include the Alleged flag in the infobox
I think that we should include the "Alleged flag of the Rhine Confederation" for the following reasons: I invite User:Jangga0118 and User:Pinkbeast to stop edit warring and try to reach a consensus. Koopinator (talk) 18:24, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The Flag has a serious source backing it up ( https://www.flaggenlexikon.de/fdtlhirb.htm#Flagge )
 * Users might go to this page to find the Alleged flag
 * There is no harm in keeping it as long as we say it's alleged.
 * The Flag is used in several other infoboxes including that of the War of the Sixth Coalition
 * That serious source explicitly says it is not known to be the flag; that it is not known if the Confederation had a flag. It does not in way say where this alleged flag came from or what evidence there is for it. The harm is that users may be misled into thinking it is the actual flag (if they don't look carefully) or into thinking it is more than undocumented guesswork.
 * Clearly it should be removed from all infoboxes because there is no actual reason to think it is a real flag. We might usefully have an RFC here and carry out the outcome elsewhere. Pinkbeast (talk) 22:56, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Alright, you've convinced me that the flag shouldn't be in the infobox. Now we just need to know what User:Jangga0118 thinks. Koopinator (talk) 09:40, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I'll wait, but I observe they have never edited a talk page (or even wrote an edit summary), so - call me a cynic - I don't expect them to start. Pinkbeast (talk) 14:10, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Indeed, I've just been reviewing the rest of their contributions. Nearly all of them are flag-related.
 * changes a flag to an image that literally has "fictitious" in the name and (inasmuch as it purports to be anything) purports to be a naval flag, as such unlikely to be pertinent to the Siege of Vienna.
 * changes the description of a flag from one that is correct (as you can see from viewing the image or reading the accompanying text) to one that is incorrect.
 * inserts a start date for a flag that has no justification (my later edit to the page adds a cite for the earliest known date).
 * incorrectly uses an infobox field (for a flag).
 * , for a change, inserts a bogus date that isn't flag-related.
 * oh look, more spurious flag date changes.
 * in their defence, while they did insert an incorrect date here, at least it was replacing a different incorrect date.
 * Bluntly, this user is either a persistent vandal or not competent to edit. Please can we now remove the made-up flag they inserted? Pinkbeast (talk) 04:54, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks (I see you have removed it). I have removed it from other en.wikipedia pages, but it is used on many other wikis and there is not a prayer of fixing it on those since in most cases I could not write an edit summary in the relevant language. How would you feel about proposing deletion of the file itself? I appreciate you worked on it, but to me it is hard to see that it is wanted on any wikipedia page, given its dubious provenance.
 * I imagine my spate of removals may lead some other editors to this discussion, which I mentioned in the edit summary. Pinkbeast (talk) 14:19, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Further to the above, the same flag with a different filename was deleted from Commons twice on the basis that it is fictitious. Pinkbeast (talk) 14:22, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Go ahead an remove it. I have archived it here for future reference. Koopinator (talk) 14:33, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * It is not the flag it had none, each state used its own. Leapcake123 (talk) 18:08, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
 * This statement is undoubtedly one of the most accurate I've ever seen about the CotR (Confederation of the Rhine). However, there is a fine difference between "there is no flag" and "there probably was no flag". Plus, the Napoleonic wars happened more than 200 years ago now, so we can't exactly consult the nearest old guy. Nunyanator (talk) 23:22, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
 * i do not agree because it could lead to people being misinformed plus just saying alleged wont mean people are gonna stop using it, people are dumb Normalwriter810 (talk) 11:45, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

"Commemorative medal"
Why the hell is an unsourced picture of medal (??) being put in place of a non-existent coat of arms? --178.252.126.70 (talk) 00:50, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
 * that picture of a medal is based on an original by User:Finanzer (See File:Medaille rheinbund 472.jpg ) - I believe that tagging him here should notify him, but i'll also ask him on his commons talk page. Koopinator (talk) 03:29, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Why is there no flag?
I think we should add the alleged flag of the confederation of the rhine, and if some people don’t want to add it because it’s "non-official" flag we can always just add "alleged flag" on the bottom. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dobledude44 (talk • contribs) 16:18, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

 * @Dobledude44 Do not add the flag. It has already been agreed that the "flag" is fictional Ihaveabadname (talk) 02:07, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * the country was a loose confederation simply to protect napoleon. each state was its own completely. this is why the confederation did not have a flag. Leapcake123 (talk) 16:50, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Maps
I cannot click on the three maps of the CotR in the table, and they are unreadable and useless in this size. I don't know how to fix it, but if you do, please, fix it. --Krmarci (talk) 06:35, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I was confused by this too. Should be fixed now. Tvoetp (talk) 13:12, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Confederation of the Rhine flag source
I managed to email the author of flaggenlexikon and asked him about the Confederation of the Rhine flag. His response is written below:

"Now you ask me from where I got the picture of the flag. Unfortunately, I can not tell you. When I started the Flaggenlexikon, I worked without any sources at all. It was a small hobby project that grew and grew. Later I worked on the sources. When I revised the Confederation of the Rhine, it was no longer possible to keep track of it. But it is a fact that the Confederation of the Rhine certainly did not have a flag. That is why I have kept the flag mentioned, pointing out this fact, and the word "alleged" was added from the beginning. It is regrettable that facts are created from this, but for me it is also part of the process of gaining knowledge. Wikipedia seems to me to be the appropriate platform for this." Throwawayaccount1871 (talk) 20:25, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

 * Thank you for obtaining and sharing a direct comment from FlaggenLexicon.
 * Well, there it is from the mouth of the flag's creator himself. The issue is definitively resolved - if it wasn't already. There are multiple edits and reverts adding a flag to this article weekly. Should this article have some kind of protection on it now?
 * EtheyB (talk) 13:51, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah. I think it's time to go to WP:RPP and request semi-protection. Lots of news users and IPs making bad edits. Koopinator (talk) 14:11, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
 * This page has now received WP:WHITELOCK protection to at least stabilise the public page. EtheyB (talk) 19:44, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
 * thanks for finally saying this. Yup01oi (talk) 17:54, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
 * thanks for finally saying this. Yup01oi (talk) 17:54, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Now that the article is moderated, perhaps the spurious flag images ( File:Flag_of_the_Confederation_of_the_Rhine.png and File:Alleged_flag_of_the_Rhine_Confederation_1806-13.svg) should be deleted. I have already removed all article links to the former. The latter is used in articles on 16 Wikipedia sites, and my understanding for correcting these is:
 * As a symbol of a person's nationality or military allegiance, it should be replaced with the flag of a state within the Confederation if one is known, or the medal if not.
 * As a symbol of the political entity and its succession (e.g. HRE -> Confederation) it should be replaced with the medal.
 * In galleries of historical flags, it should be removed. 67.180.143.89 (talk) 15:34, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

 * The file is used more widely than I thought. It will take a while to replace everything. Surprisingly it is used the most on fr. 67.180.143.89 (talk) 04:20, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Confederation of the Rhine


text:
Talk:Geocode

Merging
Discrete_global_grid and List of geocoding systems

Definition varians

 * Variant 1: "A geocode is the GPS coordinates (or the latitude and longitude) of a physical address" ref, Two main ways to get a location's geocode:
 * 1)  to physically stand in the spot you want to geocode and use a GPS device to give you the precise latitude/longitude coordinates of where you're standing.
 * 2) pointing in the map, or when using address and map,  to interpolate a location's geocoordinates by using math to approximate its position.

 * Variant 2: "A geocode is ..." ref2.

Bad sources
Add here examples of "bad sources" and its ref links.

 * badRef1 say that the term geocode “is just a fancy, shorter way of saying "a latitudinal/longitudinal coordinate"”, and adopt the defintion “a geocode is the GPS coordinates for a specific location”. why it is wrong?  See geocode, it is only one code,  a code relative a finite set (e.g. latitude have infinite distinct valid values)  and the code syntax must be controlled.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Geocode


text:
Lists of Chinatowns

Chinatowns exist in many cities around the world. Lists of Chinatowns include:

 * Chinatowns in Africa
 * Chinatowns in the Americas
 * Chinatowns in Canada
 * Chinatowns in Latin America
 * Chinatowns in the United States
 * Chinatowns in Asia
 * Chinatowns in Europe
 * Chinatowns in Oceania
 * Chinatowns in Australia

title: Lists of Chinatowns


text:
User talk:Phil webster

Hello "Phil webster" and welcome to Wikipedia. A few tips for you:

 * Peruse Welcome, newcomers and associated pages, such as
 * How to edit a page
 * How to write a great article
 * Naming conventions
 * Manual of Style
 * You can experiment in the Sandbox.
 * Sign talk page entries with ~, which is automatically converted to a name and date.
 * If you have any questions, see Help, or you can a question to the village pump.
 * I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian -- Infrogmation 17:40, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Egg
 * You spelled "Phantasy Star Online" incorrectly —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.143.11.200 (talk) 11:11, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs
Hello Phil webster! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 1 of the articles that you created  is an  Unreferenced Biography of a Living Person. Please note that all biographies of living persons must be sourced. If you were to add reliable, secondary sources to this article, it would greatly help us with the current Category:All_unreferenced_BLPs article backlog. Once the article is adequately referenced, please remove the unreferencedBLP tag. Here is the article:

Thanks!--DASHBot (talk) 17:28, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Gordon J. Key -

Proposed deletion of Gordon J. Key

The article Gordon J. Key has been proposed for deletion  because of the following concern:
 * Apparently non-notable game software developer, unreferenced BLP.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the  notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing  will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:48, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Nomination of Gordon J. Key for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Gordon J. Key is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Gordon J. Key until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Bongo  matic  11:28, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

 * Where next? -- Trevj (talk) 01:08, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

title: User talk:Phil webster


text:
Talk:Geographic coding

has to be merged with geocode Tobias Conradi 17:40, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Done. — Johan the Ghost seance 16:40, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

title: Talk:Geographic coding


text:
Nailsworth

Nailsworth is a town and civil parish in the Stroud District in Gloucestershire, England, lying in one of the Stroud Valleys in the Cotswolds, on the A46 road (the Roman Fosse Way), 4 mi south of Stroud and about 25 mi north-east of Bristol and Bath. The parish had a population of 5,794 at the 2011 census.

History
Nailsworth in ancient times was a settlement at the confluence of the Avening Valley and the Woodchester Valley, on the Nailsworth Stream, and from the 1st or 2nd centuries CE on the Roman Fosse Way. Among many notable historic medieval buildings in the area are Beverston Castle and Owlpen Manor. Nailsworth Town Hall, built as a chapel for a dissenting congregation, was completed in 1867.

In the modern era, Nailsworth was a small mill town and centre for brewing. It was connected directly to the UK national rail network between 1867 and 1947, as the terminus of the Stonehouse and Nailsworth Railway.

Amenities
These days Nailsworth is visited in the summer by walkers. It holds a farmers' market every fourth Saturday in the month. Local events such as the market and the Nailsworth Festival are still announced by a town crier.

Over the past decade the small town centre has been reinvigorated. Besides numerous restaurants and cafes, it now contains a number of shops, including bakers, a delicatessen with a fishmonger, a hardware store, butchers, craft shops, bookshops, art galleries and a gardening shop. Nailsworth is a Fairtrade Town and twinned with the French town of Lèves, with which it enjoys an exchange visit in alternate years.

Nailsworth remains connected by regular public transport; it is the terminus of the hourly Stagecoach Gold bus route 63 from Gloucester via Stroud.

St George's Church
Built on the higher ground at the centre of town, St George's was consecrated in November 1900. Before 1895, the Church of England had provided for Nailsworth through several neighbouring parishes. The new church, which can now seat 500, was designed in the Early English style by M. H. Medland of Gloucester. A shortfall in funding meant that neither a tower or a chancel was provided. The large entrance was originally designed as a tower, but the elevated ground was found to be too unstable to support the weight, resulting in the unusual porch. A chancel, the Lady Chapel, and vestries were added in 1939, commemorating those from the town who died in World War I. In 1980 a parish room was completed. The church has no churchyard.

Three of the stained-glass windows in the south aisle, depicting St Luke, St Paul and St Barnabas, are by Charles Eamer Kempe. Three others depict St Richard of Chichester, St George and St Martin of Tours. A further window, by Herbert Bryans, shows Anna the Prophetess (Luke 2:36–38) The East window was designed by Peter Strong and installed in 1977. On the west wall is a mural painted by Sir Oliver Heywood in 1985, showing community life in the town.

Christ Church and Tabernacle Church
In 1837, the Baptist chapel at Shortwood was rebuilt and by 1851 was serving a congregation of over 1,000 despite an exodus of nearly 100 members to Australia in the previous decade. In 1864 disagreements over the appointment of a new minister saw a secession, with some members leaving to open the Nailsworth Tabernacle Church. The division lasted until 1910. In the 1960s, Shortwood, in conjunction with the Forest Green Congregationalists, established a new church, Christ Church. In 1972 the Shortwood congregation joined the United Reformed Church.

Governance
An electoral ward in the same name exists. This mainly covers Nailsworth, but also stretches south to Horsley. The total ward population at the 2011 census was 6,614.

Twinned
Nailsworth is twinned with Lèves, France. On November 27, 2019, Nailsworth signed a Friendship Agreement with the Village of Perry, New York, United States of America.

Sport and recreation
Forest Green Rovers is the premier football club in Nailsworth and at The New Lawn stadium in Forest Green. After winning the 2017 National League Play-off Final the club were promoted to League 2, making Nailsworth the smallest settlement ever to host an English Football League team. They were crowned League 2 champions in 2022, but immediately relegated from EFL League One the following season. They were relegated to the National League the following season. The town also has a non-League football club, Shortwood United F.C. at the Meadowbank Ground in Shortwood. It plays in the, part of the tenth tier of the English football league system.

Media
Local TV coverage is provided by BBC West and ITV West Country. Television signals are received from either of the one local relay transmitters (Nailsworth and Stroud ). Local radio stations are BBC Radio Gloucestershire on 95 FM and Heart West on 103 FM. The Stroud News and Journal is the weekly local newspaper that serves the town.

Notable people

In birth order:
 * Mary Deverell (1731–1805), sermon writer, poet and playwright, died here.
 * Joseph Edkins (1823–1905), translator and missionary to China, was born here.
 * W. H. Davies (1871–1940), Newport-born tramp poet, lived here from the mid-1920s until his death.
 * John Furnival (1933–2020), artist of visual and concrete poetry who lived most of his life near Nailsworth.
 * Michael Bichard, Baron Bichard (born 1947), civil servant, is from Nailsworth.
 * Pete Reed (born 1981), Olympic rower, was brought up in Nailsworth.

title: Nailsworth


text:
Pearly Kings and Queens

Pearly Kings and Queens, known as pearlies, are an organised charitable tradition of working-class culture in London, England.

Henry Croft

The practice of wearing clothes decorated with mother-of-pearl buttons is first associated with Henry Croft (1861–1930), an orphan street sweeper who collected money for charity. At the time, London costermongers (street traders) were in the habit of wearing trousers decorated at the seams with pearl buttons that had been found by market traders. In the late 1870s, Croft adapted this to create a sequin suit to draw attention to himself and aid his fund-raising activities. In 1911 an organised pearly society was formed in Finchley, north London.

Croft's funeral in January 1930 was attended by 400 followers and received national media coverage. In 1934 a memorial, referring to him as "The original Pearly King", was unveiled in St Pancras Cemetery, and in a speech to mark the occasion he was said to have raised £5,000 for those suffering in London's hospitals.

Pearly organisations

The pearlies are now divided into several active groups. Croft's founding organisation is called the Original London Pearly Kings and Queens Association. It was reformed in 1975 and holds the majority of the original pearly titles which are City of London, Westminster, Victoria, Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Shoreditch, Islington, Dalston and Hoxton. Other groups have also been established over the years. The oldest is the Pearly Guild, which began in 1902. Modern additions include the London Pearly Kings and Queens Society, which started in 2001 and the Pearly Kings and Queens Guild. Despite the rivalries, each group is associated with a church in central London and is committed to raising money for London-based charities. A parade of real-life Pearly Kings and Queens was featured at the 2012 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony.

title: Pearly Kings and Queens


text:
Circassians

The Circassians or Circassian people, also called Cherkess or Adyghe (Adyghe and Адыгэхэр) are a Northwest Caucasian ethnic group and nation who originated in Circassia, a region and former country in the North Caucasus. As a consequence of the Circassian genocide, which was perpetrated by the Russian Empire during the Russo-Circassian War in the 19th century, most of the Circassian people were exiled from their ancestral homeland and consequently began living in what was then the Ottoman Empire—that is, modern-day Turkey and the rest of the Middle East. In the early 1990s, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization estimated that there are as many as 3.7 million Circassians in diaspora in over 50 countries.

The two Circassian languages—western Adyghe and eastern Kabardian—are natively spoken by the Circassian people. Khabzeism is their ethnic religion, which was historically practiced in Circassia since ancient times, but Sunni Islam became the dominant religion among them around the 17th century, following a long period of Islamization. Circassia has been repeatedly invaded since ancient times; its isolated terrain coupled with the strategic value external societies have placed on the region have greatly shaped the Circassian national identity as a whole.

The Circassian flag consists of a green field charged with 12 gold stars and, in the centre, three crossed black arrows. The stars represent the 12 Circassian tribes: the Abzakh, the Besleney, the Bzhedugh, the Hatuqway, the Kabardians, the Mamkhegh, the Natukhaj, the Shapsugh, the Chemirgoy, the Ubykh, the Yegeruqway and the Zhaney.

Circassians have played major roles in areas where they settled: in Turkey, those of Circassian origin have had massive influence, being instrumental in the Turkish War of Independence and among the elites of Turkey's intelligence agency; in Jordan, they founded the capital city Amman, and continue to play a major role in the country; in Syria, they served as the volunteer guards of the Allies upon their entry into the country and still have high positions; in Libya, they serve in high military positions; in Egypt, they were part of the ruling class. They also contributed to cultural literary, intellectual, and political life starting with the reign of Muhammad Ali Pasha in Egypt and continuing to the modern day, especially through the country's largest Circassian clan: the Abaza family. in Israel, they are considerd one of the most interesting and unique minority communities.They served in the Haganah during the Israeli War of Independence. Bibras Natcho is the captain of the Israeli national soccer team.

In Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, historical Circassia was divided into the republics of Adygea, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, and Krasnodar Krai, and southwestern parts of Stavropol Krai. Accordingly, Circassians have been designated as Adygeans in Adygea, Kabardians in Kabardino-Balkaria, Cherkess in Karachay-Cherkessia, and Shapsug in Krasnodar Krai; all four are essentially the same people. Today, approximately 800,000 Circassians remain in historical Circassia, while 4,500,000 live elsewhere.

Adyghe
The Circassians refer to themselves as Adyghe  (also transliterated as Adyga, Adiga, Adige, Adığe, Adyge, Adygei). According to one view, the name derives from Atyghe (Iатыгъэ) meaning "high [in altitude]" to signify a mountaineer, as the Circassian people have lived in and near the mountains for thousands of years.

Circassian, Cherkess
The word Circassian is an exonym, Latinized from Russian Cherkess (Черкес; Чэркэс/Шэрджэс), which is of debated origin. The term, in Russian, was traditionally applied to all Circassians before Soviet times, but it has since usually referred only to Circassians living in northern Karachay-Cherkessia, a federal subject of Russia, where they are indigenous and were about 12% of the population in 2010. In English, it still refers to all Circassians.

The origin of the term "Circassian" is disputed. One view is that its root stems from Turkic languages, and means "head choppers" or "warrior killers", because of the Circassians' battle practices. Other sources argue that the term comes from Mongolian Jerkes, meaning "one who blocks a path". Some believe it comes from the ancient Greek name of the region, Siraces. According to another view, its origin is Persian and combines two parts, kar ("mountain") and kās ("region", in Pahlavi), meaning "mountainous region". The spelling Cherkess may be an abbreviation of Persian Chahār-kas ("four people"), denoting four tribes. Ali ibn al-Athir (died c. 1232/3) and Ibn Khaldun (died 1406) used the term Jahārkas, but the Persian hypothesis remains uncertain.

In early Russian sources, Circassians are called Kasogi, but one view holds that the modern term "Cherkes" derives from Kerket, the name of one of the ancient Circassian tribes.

In languages spoken geographically close to the Caucasus, the native people originally had other names for the Circassians (such as Georgian: ჯიქი, Jiqi), but with Russian influence, the name has been settled as Cherkess. It is the same or similar in many world languages that cite these languages.

The Encyclopaedia Islamica adds: "The Cherkess: the Kabardians and the western Adyghe people share a common language, which is spoken by the north-western Caucasian people, and belongs to the family known as Abkhazian-Adyghe".

In Medieval Oriental and European texts, the Adyghe people were known by the name Cherkess/Circassians. In Persian sources, Charkas/Cherkes is used to refer to the "actual" Circassians of the northwest Caucasus, and in some occasions as a general designation for Caucasians who live beyond Derbent (Darband).

Soviet policy
Despite a common self-designation and a common Russian name, Soviet authorities divided the nation into four different peoples and applied four designations to Circassians remaining in the historic lands of Circassia:
 * Kabardian, Circassians of Kabardino-Balkaria (Circassians speaking the Kabardian language, one of two indigenous peoples of the republic)
 * Cherkess (Шэрджэс), Circassians of Karachay-Cherkessia (Circassians speaking the Cherkess, i.e. Circassian, language, one of two indigenous peoples of the republic who are mostly Besleney Kabardians. The name "Cherkess" is the Russian form of "Circassian" and was used for all Circassians before Soviet times.)
 * Adyghe or Adygeans, the indigenous population of the Kuban including Adygea and Krasnodar Krai
 * Shapsug, the indigenous historical inhabitants of Shapsugia. They live in the Tuapse District and the Lazarevsky City District (formerly the Shapsugsky National District) of Sochi, both in Krasnodar Krai and in Adygea.

Origins
Genetically, the Adyghe have shared ancestry partially with neighboring peoples of the Caucasus, with some influence from other regions. The most prevalent SNP haplotypes among all Circassian tribes is G2-YY1215 (43%); others are R1a-M198* (13%), G2-YY9632 (9%), J2-M172* (7%), sharing a single common ancestor 3,000 years ago, with the largest demographic growth between 2,000 and 1,500 years ago. Prevalence of the G2-YY1215 haplogroup is larger on the Western Caucasus and decreases to the east, while G2-YY9632 has the opposite tendency. R1a-M198* is shared with Balkars, Karachays and Kuban Cossacks.

The Circassian language, also known as Cherkess, is in the Northwest Caucasian language family. Archaeological findings, mainly of dolmens in Northwest Caucasus region, indicate a megalithic culture in the Northwest Caucasus.

The ancestors of present-day Circassians are known as the Sind-Maeot tribes. Archaeological research shows that these tribes were the indigenous people of the Caucasus. Some researchers have claimed there may be links between Circassians and Indo-European-speaking communities, and some have argued that there are connections between Circassians and Hatti, who are from ancient Anatolian peoples,  but these theories are not widely accepted. According to genetic tests performed on Circassians, their closest relatives are Ingush, Chechens, Georgians and Abkhazians.

Pseudoscientific claims
Turkish nationalist groups and proponents of modern-day Pan-Turkism have claimed that the Circassians are of Turkic origin, but no scientific evidence supports this claim and it has been strongly denied by ethnic Circassians, impartial research,   linguists, and historians around the world. The Circassian language does not share notable similarities to the Turkish language, except for borrowed words. According to various historians, the Circassian origin of the Sind-Meot tribes refutes the claim that the Circassians are of Turkic ethnic origin.

German racial theorists, after comparing skull shapes, declared that Europeans, North Africans, and Caucasians were of a common race, termed "Caucasian" or later "Caucasoid". Scientific racism emphasized the so-called "superior beauty" of the Circassian people, referring to them as "how God intended the human race to be", leading to the 18th century stereotype of the Circassian beauty.

Medieval period
Feudalism began to emerge among Circassians by the 4th century. As a result of Armenian, Greek and Byzantine influence, Christianity spread throughout the Caucasus between the 3rd and 5th centuries. During that period, Circassians (known at the time as Kassogs) began to accept Christianity as a national religion, but did not abandon all elements of their indigenous religious beliefs. Circassians established many states, but could not achieve political unity. From around 400, wave after wave of outsiders began to invade the lands of the Adyghe people, who were also known as the Kasogi (or Kassogs) at the time. They were conquered first by the Bulgars (who originated on the Central Asian steppes). Outsiders sometimes confused the Adyghe people with the similarly named Utigurs (a branch of the Bulgars). After the Khazar state dissolved, the Adyghe people were integrated around the end of the 1st millennium AD into the Kingdom of Alania. Between the 10th and 13th centuries Georgia had influence on the Adyghe Circassian peoples. In the medieval era there was a Circassian kingdom called Zichia (Адзыгъэй; ) or Zekchia.

In 1382, Circassian slaves took the Mamluk throne, the Burji dynasty took over and the Mamluks became a Circassian state. The Mongols, who started invading the Caucasus in 1223, destroyed some of the Circassians and most of the Alans. The Circassians lost most of their lands during the ensuing Golden Horde attacks and had to retreat to the back of the Kuban River. In 1395 Circassians fought violent wars against Tamerlane, and although they won the wars, Tamerlane plundered Circassia.

Prince Inal, who owned land in the Taman peninsula during the 1400s, established an army and declared that his goal was to unite the Circassians under a single state. They were divided into many states at that time, but after declaring his own princedom, Inal conquered all of Circassia one by one. Circassian nobles and princes tried to prevent Inal's rise, but Inal and his supporters defeated 30 Circassian lords. After successfully uniting the Circassians, Inal still wanted to include the closely related Abkhazians. Inal, who won the war in Abkhazia, officially conquered Northern Abkhazia and the Abkhaz people recognized his rule. One of the stars on the flag of Abkhazia represents Inal. He divided his lands between his sons and grandchildren in 1453 and died in 1458. After that, Circassian tribal principalities were established, including Chemguy, founded by Temruk; Besleney, founded by Beslan; Kabardia, founded by Qabard; and Shapsug, founded by Zanoko.

Early modern period
In the 17th century, under the influence of the Crimean Tatars and of the Ottoman Empire, large numbers of Circassians converted to Islam from Christianity.

In 1708, Circassians paid tribute to the Ottoman sultan in order to prevent Tatar raids, but the sultan did not fulfill the obligation and the Tatars raided all the way to the center of Circassia, robbing everything they could. For this reason, Kabardian Circassians announced that they would never pay tribute to the Crimean Khan and the Ottoman Sultan again. The Ottomans sent their army of at least 20,000 men to Kabardia under the leadership of the Crimean Khan Kaplan-Girey to conquer the Circassians and ordered that he collect the tribute. The Ottomans expected an easy victory against the Kabardinians, but the Circassians won because of the strategy set up by Kazaniko Jabagh during the battle of Kanzhal.

The Crimean army was destroyed in one night on 17 September 1708. The Crimean Khan Kaplan-Giray barely managed to save his life, and was humiliated, all the way to his shoes taken, leaving his brother, son, field tools, tents and personal belongings. In 2013, the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences recognized that the Battle of Kinzhal Mountain with the paramount importance in the national history of Circassians, Balkarians and Ossetians.

Circassian Genocide
In 1714, Peter I established a plan to occupy the Caucasus. Although he was unable to implement this plan, he laid the political and ideological foundation for the occupation to take place. Catherine II started putting this plan into action. The Russian army was deployed on the banks of the Terek River.

The Russian military tried to impose authority by building a series of forts, but these forts in turn became the new targets of raids and indeed sometimes the highlanders actually captured and held the forts. Under Yermolov, the Russian military began using a strategy of disproportionate retribution for raids. Russian troops retaliated by destroying villages where resistance fighters were thought to hide, as well as employing assassinations, kidnappings, and the execution of whole families. Because the resistance was relying on sympathetic villages for food, the Russian military also systematically destroyed crops and livestock and killed Circassian civilians. Circassians responded by creating a tribal federation encompassing all tribes of the area. In 1840 Karl Friedrich Neumann estimated the Circassian casualties at around one and a half million. Some sources state that hundreds of thousands of others died during the exodus. Several historians use the phrase "Circassian massacres" for the consequences of Russian actions in the region. "In a series of sweeping military campaigns lasting from 1860 to 1864... the northwest Caucasus and the Black Sea coast were virtually emptied of Muslim villagers. Columns of the displaced were marched either to the Kuban [River] plains or toward the coast for transport to the Ottoman Empire... One after another, entire Circassian tribal groups were dispersed, resettled, or killed en masse." Circassians established an assembly called "Great Freedom Assembly" in the capital city of Shashe (Sochi) on June 25, 1861. Haji Qerandiqo Berzedj was appointed as the head of the assembly. This assembly asked for help from Europe, arguing that they would be forced into exile soon. However, before the result was achieved, Russian General Kolyobakin invaded Sochi and destroyed the parliament and no country opposed this.

In May 1864, a final battle took place between the Circassian army of 20,000 Circassian horsemen and a fully equipped Russian army of 100,000 men. Circassian warriors attacked the Russian army and tried to break through the line, but most were shot down by Russian artillery and infantry. The remaining fighters continued to fight as guerillas and were soon defeated. All 20,000 Circassian horsemen died in the war. The war ended officially on May 21, 1864. The place where this war took place is known today as Krasnaya Polyana. "Krasnaya Polyana" means red meadow. It takes its name from the Circassian blood flowing from the hill into the river.

The proposal to deport the Circassians was ratified by the Russian government, and a flood of refugee movements began as Russian troops advanced in their final campaign. Circassians prepared to resist and hold their last stand against Russian military advances and troops. With the refusal to surrender, Circassian civilians were targeted one by one by the Russian military with thousands massacred and the Russians started to raid and burn Circassian villages, destroy the fields to make it impossible to return, cut trees down and drive the people towards the Black Sea coast.

Although it is not known exactly how many people are affected, researchers have suggested that at least 75%, 90%, 94%, or 95% -97% of the ethnic Circassian population are affected. Considering these rates, calculations including those taking into account the Russian government's own archival figures, have estimated a loss 600,000-1,500,000. Ivan Drozdov, a Russian officer who witnessed the scene at Qbaada in May 1864 as the other Russians were celebrating their victory remarked:"On the road, our eyes were met with a staggering image: corpses of women, children, elderly persons, torn to pieces and half-eaten by dogs; deportees emaciated by hunger and disease, almost too weak to move their legs, collapsing from exhaustion and becoming prey to dogs while still alive."

The Ottoman Empire regarded the Adyghe warriors as courageous and well-experienced. It encouraged them to settle in various near-border settlements of the Ottoman Empire in order to strengthen the empire's borders.

According to Walter Richmond, Circassia was a small independent nation on the northeastern shore of the Black Sea. For no reason other than ethnic hatred, over the course of hundreds of raids the Russians drove the Circassians from their homeland and deported them to the Ottoman Empire. At least 600,000 people lost their lives to massacre, starvation, and the elements while hundreds of thousands more were forced to leave their homeland. By 1864, three-fourths of the population was annihilated, and the Circassians had become one of the first stateless peoples in modern history.

As of 2020, Georgia was the only country to classify the events as genocide, while Russia actively denies the Circassian genocide, and classifies the events as a simple migration of "undeveloped barbaric peoples".

Post-exile period
As early as 1859, the Russian government had sought potential avenues for expelling the native Circassian population, and found a solution in the Ottoman Empire. Despite their numerous historical and ongoing disputes, the two empires negotiated on the impending migrations and resettlements. The Russians promised a gradual process that would see the Ottomans ultimately receive fewer than 100,000 Circassians. The Circassians would first be moved, or coerced to move, to the Circassian Black Sea coast, from which Ottoman boats would take them to designated ports in Anatolia. The recently formed Ottoman Muhacirin Komisyonu, or Emigrant Commission, would coordinate both the retrieval and resettlement of the Circassians throughout the Ottoman Empire. The process of expulsion had already begun even before the end of the Russo-Circassian war; the first Circassians had begun to arrive in small numbers as early as 1859, mainly consisting of wealthier aristocrats.

Even prior to the end of the Russo-Circassian War, expelled Circassians had begun to crowd the Circassian coast in far greater numbers than the Ottomans had anticipated, easily reaching tens of thousands at a time. Conditions on the beaches were dismal, as those waiting for Ottoman-chartered ships contended with insufficient supplies of food and shelter, occasional raids from Russian soldiers, and outbreaks of typhus and smallpox that were only exacerbated by the cramped and unsanitary conditions. By 1864, hundreds of thousands of Circassians had either already entered the Ottoman Empire or still languished on the Circassian coast awaiting transit, even as far greater numbers arrived following the Russo-Circassian War's conclusion. What was intended to be an orderly, gradual expulsion quickly eroded over the following months, as the Ottomans overcrowded boats and neglected previously enforced safety regulations. Numerous boats sank, unable to safely accommodate these larger loads, while the overcrowded conditions helped disease spread even further among both the Circassian migrants and the Ottoman crews.

Upon their arrival, the Emigrant Commission attempted to relocate most of the new arrivals as quickly as possible to alleviate the strain on Ottoman port cities, and began to settle the Circassians throughout the Ottoman Empire. The exiled Circassians were resettled in the Empire's remaining Balkan territories, in Ottoman Syria and Transjordan, and Anatolia, while a smaller number were resettled into the Empire's major cities.

In January 1922, the Soviet government created an autonomous oblast which was the predecessor of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic.

The actions of the Russian military in acquiring Circassian land through expulsion and massacres have given rise to a movement among descendants of the expelled ethnicities for international recognition of the perpetration of genocide. On 20 May 2011 the Georgian parliament voted in a 95 to 0 declaration that Russia had committed genocide when it engaged in massacres against Circassians in the 19th century.

Culture

Adyghe society prior to the Russian invasion was highly stratified. While a few tribes in the mountainous regions of Adygeya were fairly egalitarian, most were broken into strict castes. The highest was the caste of the "princes", followed by a caste of lesser nobility, and then commoners, serfs, and slaves. In the decades before Russian rule, two tribes overthrew their traditional rulers and set up democratic processes, but this social experiment was cut short by the end of Adyghe independence.

Language

Circassians mainly speak the Circassian languages, two mutually intelligible languages of the Northwest Caucasian language family, namely Adyghe (West Circassian) and Kabardian (East Adyghe). Adyghe is based on Temirgoy (Chemirgoy) dialect, while Kabardian is based on the dialect of the same name. Circassians also speak Russian, Turkish, English, Arabic, and Hebrew in large numbers, having been exiled by Russia to lands of the Ottoman Empire, where the majority of them live today, and some to neighboring Persia, to which they came primarily through mass deportations by the Safavids and Qajars or, to a lesser extent, as muhajirs in the 19th century.

Linguists divide the Northwest Caucasian languages into three branches, namely Circassian (Adyghe and Kabardian), Ubykh (consisting only of the Ubykh language, which is considered to have diverged from the Circassian languages and is now a dead language), and Abazgi (Abkhaz and Abaza). The Ubykhs lived on the Black Sea coast, around the city of Sochi, the capital of Circassia, north of Abkhazia.

Although related, Abazgi and Circassian are mutually unintelligible. Abazgi is spoken by Abkhazians and the Abazins. The Abkhazians lived on the coast between the Circassians and the Georgians, were organized as the Principality of Abkhazia and were involved with the Georgians to some degree. The Abazins or Abaza, their relatives, lived north of the mountains and were involved with Circassia proper. They extended from the mountain crest northeast onto the steppe and partially separated the Kabardians from the rest. Sadz were either northern Abkhazian or eastern Abaza, depending on the source.

Walter Richmond writes that the Circassian languages in Russia are "gravely threatened." He argues that Russian policy of surrounding small Circassian communities with Slavic populations has created conditions where Circassian languages and nationality will disappear. By the 1990s, Russian had become the standard language for business in the Republic of Adygea, even within communities with Circassian majority populations.

Religion
Ancestors of modern Adyghe people gradually went through following various religions: ancient polytheist beliefs, Christianity, and then Islam.

It is the tradition of the early church that Christianity made its first appearance in Circassia in the first century AD via the travels and preaching of the Apostle Andrew. Subsequently, Christianity spread throughout the Caucasus between the 4th century and the 6th century.

A small Muslim presence in Circassia has existed since the Middle Ages, but widespread Islamization occurred after 1717, when Sultan Murad IV ordered the Crimean Khans to spread Islam among the Circassians, with the Ottomans and Crimeans seeing some success in converting members of the aristocracy who would then ultimately spread the religion to their dependents. Moreover, the ever increasing threat of an invasion from Russia helped expedite the already centuries long process of gradual islamization of the region.

Significant Christian and pagan presence remained among some tribes such as the Shapsugs and Natukhai with Islamization pressures implemented by those loyal to the Caucasus Imamate. Sufi orders including the Qadiri and Nakshbandi orders gained prominence and played a role in spreading Islam.

Today, the vast majority of Circassians are Muslim, and significantly fewer are Habze, atheists and Christians. Among Christians, Catholicism, originally introduced along the coasts by Venetian and Genoese traders, today constitutes just under 1% of Kabardins, notably including those in Mozdok and some of those Kursky district. Among Muslims, Islamic observance varies widely between those who only know a few prayers with a Muslim identity that is more "cultural" than religious, to those who regularly observe all requirements.

Both Islam and the Habze are identified as national characteristics even by those that do not practice. Today, Islam is a central part of life in many Circassian diaspora communities, such as in Israel, while in the Circassian homeland Soviet rule saw an extensive process of secularization, and there is wide influence of many social norms which contradict Islamic law, such as widespread norms like social alcohol consumption; in Israel, meanwhile, such non-Islamic social norms are not present.

In the modern times, it has been reported that they identify primarily as Muslims. There have also been reports of violence and threats against those "reviving" and diffusing the original Circassian pre-Islamic faith. The relationship between habze and Islam varies between Circassian communities; for some, there is conflict between the two, while for others, such as in Israel, they are seen as complementary philosophies. In 2005, a representative sample study of younger generation of Circassians aged 20–35 found that some 26% of those surveyed identified as irreligious.

Traditional social system
Society was organized by Adyghe khabze, or Circassian custom. Many of these customs had equivalents throughout the mountains. The seemingly disorganized Circassians resisted the Russians. The aristocracy was called warq. Some aristocratic families held the rank of Pshi or prince and the eldest member of this family was the Pshi-tkhamade who was the tribal chief. Below the warq was the large class to tfokotl, roughly yeomen or freemen, who had various duties to the warq.

They were divided into clans of some sort. Below them were three classes approximating serfs or slaves. Of course, these Circassian social terms do not exactly match their European equivalents. Since everything was a matter of custom, much depended on time, place, circumstances and personality. The three 'democratic' tribes, Natukhai, Shapsug, and Abdzakh, managed their affairs by assemblies called Khase or larger ones called Zafes.

Decisions were made by general agreement and there was no formal mechanism to enforce decisions. The democratic tribes, who were perhaps the majority, lived mainly in the mountains where they were relatively protected from the Russians. They seem to have retained their aristocrats, but with diminished powers. In the remaining 'feudal' tribes power was theoretically in the hands of the Pshi-tkhamade, although his power could be limited by Khases or other influential families.

In addition to the vertical relations of class there were many horizontal relations between unrelated persons. There was a strong tradition of hospitality similar to the Greek xenia. Many houses would have a kunakskaya or guest room. The duty of a host extended even to abreks or outlaws. Two men might be sworn brothers or kunaks. There were brotherhoods of unrelated individuals called tleuzh who provided each other mutual support. It was common for a child to be raised by an atalyk or foster father. Criminal law was mainly concerned with reconciling the two parties. Adyghe khabze is sometimes called adat when it is contrasted to the kind of Islamic law advocated by people like Imam Shamil.

Traditional clothing

The traditional female clothing (Бзылъфыгъэ Шъуашэр, Bzıłfıǵe Ȿuaşer ) was very diverse and highly decorated and mainly depends on the region, class of family, occasions, and tribes. The traditional female costume is composed of a dress (Джанэр, Janer ), coat (Сае, Saye ), shirt, pant (ДжэнэкӀакор, Jeneç'akuer ), vest (КӀэкӀ, Ç'eç' ), lamb leather bra (Шъохътан, Ȿuex́tan ), a variety of hats ({{lang-ady |ПэӀохэр}, Peꜧuexer}} ), shoes, and belts (Бгырыпхыхэр, Bğırıpxıxer ).

Holiday dresses are made of expensive fabrics such as silk and velvet. The traditional colors of women's clothing rarely includes blue, green or bright-colored tones, instead mostly white, red, black and brown shades are worn. The Circassian dresses were embroidered with gold and silver threads. These embroideries were handmade and took time to complete as they were very intricate. The traditional male costume (Адыгэ хъулъфыгъэ шъуашэр, Adığe X́uıłfıǵe Ȿuaşer ) includes a coat with wide sleeves, shirt, pants, a dagger, sword, and a variety of hats and shoes. Traditionally, young men in the warriors’ times wore coat with short sleeves—in order to feel more comfortable in combat. Different colors of clothing for males were strictly used to distinguish between different social classes, for example white is usually worn by princes, red by nobles, gray, brown, and black by peasants (blue, green and the other colors were rarely worn).

A compulsory item in the traditional male costume is a dagger and a sword. The traditional Adyghean sword is called shashka. It is a special kind of sabre; a very sharp, single-edged, single-handed, and guardless sword. Although the sword is used by most of Russian and Ukrainian Cossacks, the typically Adyghean form of the sabre is longer than the Cossack type, and in fact the word Shashka came from the Adyghe word "Sashkhwa" (Сашьхъуэ, Sas̨x́ue) which means "long knife". On the breast of the costume are long ornamental tubes or sticks, once filled with a single charge of gunpowder (called gaziri cartridges) and used to reload muskets.

Traditional cuisine

The Adyghe cuisine is rich with different dishes. In the summer, the traditional dishes consumed by the Adyghe people are mainly dairy products and vegetable dishes. In the winter and spring the traditional dishes are mainly flour and meat dishes. An example of the latter is known as ficcin.

Circassian cheese is considered one of the more famous types of cheeses in the North Caucasus.

A popular traditional dish is chicken or turkey with sauce, seasoned with crushed garlic and red pepper. Mutton and beef are served boiled, usually with a seasoning of sour milk with crushed garlic and salt.

Variants of pasta are found. A type of ravioli may be encountered, which is filled with potato or beef.

On holidays the Adyghe people traditionally make haliva (хьэлжъо, Helɀua) (fried triangular pastries with mainly Circassian cheese or potato), from toasted millet or wheat flour in syrup, baked cakes and pies. In the Levant there is a famous Circassian dish which is called Tajen Alsharkaseiah.

Traditional crafts
The Adyghes have been famous for making carpets (пӏуаблэхэр, P'uablexer ) or mats worldwide for thousands of years.

Making carpets was very hard work in which collecting raw materials is restricted to a specific period within the year. The raw materials were dried, and based on the intended colours, different methods of drying were applied. For example, when dried in the shade, its colour changed to a beautiful light gold colour. If it were dried in direct sun light then it would have a silver colour, and if they wanted to have a dark colour for the carpets, the raw materials were put in a pool of water and covered by poplar leaves (екӏэпцӏэ, Yeç'epc'e ).

The carpets were adorned with images of birds, beloved animals (horses), and plants, and the image of the Sun was widely used.

The carpets were used for different reasons due to their characteristic resistance to humidity and cold, and in retaining heat. Also, there was a tradition in Circassian homes to have two carpets hanging in the guest room, one used to hang over rifles (шхончымрэ, Şxuençımre ) and pistols (къэлаеымрэ, Qelayeımre), and the other used to hang over musical instruments.

The carpets were used to pray upon, and it was necessary for every Circassian girl to make three carpets before marriage. These carpets would give the grooms an impression as to the success of their brides in their homes after marriage.

Tribes
From the late Middle Ages, a number of territorial- and political-based Circassian tribes or ethnic entities began to take shape. They had slightly different dialects.

Dialects came to exist after Circassia was divided into tribes after the death of Inal of Kabardia, who united Circassia for the last time before its short reunion during the Russo-Caucasian War. As the logistics between the tribes became harder, each tribe became slightly isolated from one another, thus the people living under the banner of each tribe developed their own dialects. In time, the dialects they speak were named after their tribes.

At the end of the Caucasian War most Circassians were expelled to the Ottoman Empire, and many of the tribes were destroyed and the people evicted from their historical homeland in 1864.

The twelve stars on the Circassian flag symbolize the individual tribes of the Circassians; the nine stars within the arc symbolize the nine aristocratic tribes of Adygea, and the three horizontal stars symbolize the three democratic tribes. The three democratic tribes or tribes were the Natukhai, Shapsug, and Abdzakh. They managed their affairs by assemblies while the other tribes were controlled by "princes" or Pshi. The twelve tribes are the Abdzakh, Besleney, Bzhedug, Hatuqwai, Kabardian, Mamkhegh, Natukhai, Shapsug, Temirgoy, Ubykh, Yegeruqwai, and Zhaney.

Adyghe tribes with remnants still in Circassia are: Kabarda (the largest), the Temirgoy and Bzhedug in Adygea, and the Shapsug near Tuapse and to the north of Tuapsiysiy Rayon of Krasnodarskiy Kray. There are also a few Besleney and Natukhai villages, and an Abdzakh village. The majority tribes in diaspora are Kabardian, Abdzakh, and Shapsug.

Other Adyghe groups
Small tribes or large clans that are included in one of the twelve Adyghe tribes:

The Circassian tribes can be grouped and compared in various ways:

 * The narrow Black Sea coast was occupied, from north to south by the Natukhai, Shapsug, and Ubykh. The main part of the Natukhai and Shapsug tribes were located in the north of the mountains. The Natukhai were enriched by trade since their coast was not backed by high mountains and opened onto the steppe.
 * The north slope was inhabited, from north to south, by the Natukhai, Shapsug, and Abdzakh. They seem to have been the most populous tribes after the Kabarda and its inland location gave then some protection from Nogai and Cossack raiding.
 * In the far west were three small tribes that were absorbed into the Natukhai and disappeared. These were the Adele Адале on the Taman peninsula and the Shegak and Chebsin (Хегайки and Чебсин) near Anapa.
 * Along the Kuban were the Natukhai, Zhaney, Bzhedug, Hatuqwai, and Temirgoy. The tribes along the Kuban and Laba rivers were exposed to Nogai and Cossack raiding than those in the interior.
 * On the east, between the Laba and Belaya, from north to south, were the Temirgoy, Yegeruqwai (Егерукаевцы), Makhosh (Махошевцы), and Besleney. The Besleney were a branch of the Kabardians. Along the Belaya River were the Temirgoy, the ill-documented Ademey (Адамийцы) and then the Mamkhegh near the modern Maykop.
 * The Guaye (Гуайе) are poorly documented. The Tchelugay lived west of the Makhosh. The Hakuch lived on the coast south of the Natukhai. Other groups are mentioned without much documentation. There are reports of tribes migrating from one place to another, again without much documentation. Some sketch maps show a group of Karachays on the upper Laba without any explanation.
 * In the Far east the Kabarda occupied about a third of the north Caucasus piedmont from mid Circassia proper eastward to the Chechen country. To their north were the Nogai nomads and to the south, deeper in the mountains, were from west to east, the Karachays, Balkars, Ossetes, Ingushes, and Chechens. The Kabardians were fairly advanced, interacted with the Russians from the sixteenth century and were much reduced by plague in the early nineteenth century.

Circassian diaspora

The Circassian people were subjected to ethnic cleansing by the Russian military during the Caucasus War and mass exile to the Ottoman Empire. In the 1860s and the 1870s, the Ottoman government settled Circassians in territories of modern-day Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, Georgia, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Kosovo, Greece, Cyprus, and North Macedonia. Most Circassian refugees in the Balkans had fled the region during the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877–78. However, Circassians have also lived outside the Caucasus region since the Middle Ages. They were particularly well represented in the Ottoman Empire and Egypt.

Turkey
Turkey has the largest Adyghe population in the world, around half of all Circassians live in Turkey, mainly in the provinces of Samsun and Ordu (in Northern Turkey), Kahramanmaraş (in Southern Turkey), Kayseri (in Central Turkey), Bandırma, and Düzce (in Northwest Turkey), along the shores of the Black Sea; the region near the city of Ankara. All citizens of Turkey are considered Turks by the government, but it is estimated that approximately two million ethnic Circassians live in Turkey. The "Circassians" in question do not always speak the languages of their ancestors, and in some cases some of them may describe themselves as "only Turkish". The reason for this loss of identity is mostly due to Turkey's Government assimilation policies  and marriages with non-Circassians. Circassians are regarded by historians to play a key role in the history of Turkey. Many of the Young Turks were of Circassian origin. Some of the exilees and their descendants gained high positions in the Ottoman Empire. Until the end of the First World War, many Circassians actively served in the army. In the period after the First World War, Circassians came to the fore in Anatolia as a group of advanced armament and organizational abilities as a result of the struggle they fought with the Russian troops until they came to the Ottoman lands. However, the situation of the Ottoman Empire after the war caused them to be caught between the different balances of power between Istanbul and Ankara and even become a striking force. For this period, it is not possible to say that Circassians all acted together as in many other groups in Anatolia. The Turkish government removed 14 Circassian villages from Gönen and Manyas regions in December 1922, May and June 1923, without separating women and children, and drove them to different places in Anatolia from Konya to Sivas and Bitlis. This incident had a great impact on the assimilation of Circassians. After 1923, Circassians were restricted by policies such as the prohibition of Circassian language, changing village names, and surname law Circassians, who had many problems in maintaining their identity comfortably, were seen as a group that inevitably had to be assimilated.

Cyprus Circassians had settled in Cyprus during the Memluk period. However these were mainly members of Memluk Army and majority of them left the island during the Venetian period. Even though, Circassians have arrived to the island during the Ottoman Empire from Caucasus by ships and they settled Limasol Circassian Farm (Cerkez Ciftlik) and villages of Larnaca; Arsos (Yiğitler), Vuda, Tremetousa (Erdemli), Paralimni in October, 1864. Cypriot Circassians had joined the Turkish Cypriot Community and some of them the Greek Cypriot Community. Although they lost their original language and culture, they still view themselves as Circassian.

Syria
Circassians play a major role in the history of Syria. In Syria, they settled mainly in the Golan Heights. Prior to the Six-Day War of 1967, the Adyghe people – then estimated at 30,000 in number – were the majority group in the Golan Heights region. The most prominent settlement in the Golan was the town of Quneitra. Estimates of the total number of Circassians in Syria range from 50,000 and 100,000. In 2013, as tensions between the Baath government and the opposition forces escalated, Syrian Circassians said they were exploring returning to Circassia. Circassians from different parts of Syria, such as Damascus, have moved back to the Golan Heights, believed to be safer. Some refugees have been reportedly killed by shelling. Circassians have lobbied the Russian and Israeli governments to help evacuate refugees from Syria; Russia has issued some visas.

Israel
In Israel, the Adyghe initially settled in three places—in Kfar Kama, Rehaniya, and in the region of Hadera. Due to a malaria epidemic, the Adyghe eventually abandoned the settlement near Hadera. Though Sunni Muslim, Adyghe within Israel are seen as a loyal minority who serve in the Israeli armed forces.

Jordan
The Circassians had a major role in the modern history of Jordan. Circassian refugees started arriving in Ottoman Transjordan after their expulsion from the Ottoman Balkans during the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878). Between 1878 and 1904, Circassians founded (or re-established) five sites: Amman (1878), Wadi al-Sir (1880), Jerash (1884), Na'ur (1901), and al-Rusayfa (1904). Amman was primarily a Circassian village until World War I. Amman grew rapidly thanks to Circassian agricultural labor and trade, and mercantile investment from Damascus, Nablus, and Jerusalem, made possible by the construction of the Hejaz Railway.

Over the years, various Adyghe have served in distinguished roles in the kingdom of Jordan. Adyghes have served as a prime minister (Sa'id al-Mufti), as ministers (commonly at least one minister should represent the Circassians in each cabinet), as high-ranking officers, etc., and due to their important role in the history of Jordan, Adyghe form the Hashemites' honour guard at the royal palaces. They represented Jordan in the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo in 2010, joining other honour guards such as the Airborne Ceremonial Unit.

Egypt
During the 13th century the Mamluks seized power in Cairo. Some 15th-century Circassian converts to Islam became Mamluks and rose through the ranks of the Mamluk dynasty to high positions, some becoming sultans in Egypt such as Qaitbay, Mamluk Sultan of Egypt (1468–1496). The majority of the leaders of the Burji Mamluk dynasty in Egypt (1382–1517) had Circassian origins, while also including Abkhaz, Abaza, and Georgian peoples whom the Arab sultans had recruited to serve their kingdoms as a military force. With the rise of Muhammad Ali Pasha (who ruled Egypt from 1805 to 1848), most senior Mamluks were killed by him in order to secure his rule and the remaining Mamluks fled to Sudan. Most Circassian communities in Egypt were assimilated into the local population. several thousand Adyghe reside in Egypt; in addition to the descendants of Burji Mamluks of Adyghe origin, there are many who descend from royal Circassian consorts or Ottoman pashas of Circassian origin as well as Circassian muhajirs of the 19th century.

The biggest Circassian clan in Egypt is the Abaza family, the country's largest aristocratic family which settled in the Nile Delta in the 18th century. It gained prominence under the Muhammad Ali dynasty, and maintained it in the contemporary republican period.

Iraq
Adyghe came to Iraq directly from Circassia. They settled in all parts of Iraq—from north to south—but most of all in Iraq's capital Baghdad. Many Adyghe also settled in Kerkuk, Diyala, Fallujah, and other places. Circassians have played major roles in different periods throughout Iraq's history, and made great contributions to political and military institutions in the country, to the Iraqi Army in particular. Several Iraqi prime ministers have been of Circassian descent.

Iran
Iran has a significant Circassian population. It once had a very large community, but the vast majority were assimilated in the population in the course of centuries. The Safavid (1501–1736) and Qajar (1789–1925) dynasties saw the importing and deporting of large numbers of Circassians to Persia, where many enjoyed prestige in the harems and in the élite armies (the so-called ghulams), while many others settled and deployed as craftsmen, labourers, farmers and regular soldiers. Many members of the Safavid nobility and élite had Circassian ancestry and Circassian dignitaries, such as the kings Abbas II of Persia (reigned 1642–1666) and Suleiman I of Persia (reigned 1666–1694). While traces of Circassian settlements in Iran have lasted into the 20th century, many of the once large Circassian minority became assimilated into the local population. However, significant communities of Circassians continue to live in particular cities in Iran, like Tabriz and Tehran, and in the northern provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran.

Notable places of traditional Circassian settlement in Iran include Gilan Province, Fars Province, Isfahan, and Tehran (due to contemporary migration). Circassians in Iran are the nation's second largest Caucasus-derived nation after the Georgians.

Rest of Western Asia
Significant communities live in Jordan, Syria (see Circassians in Syria), and smaller communities live in Israel (in the villages of Kfar Kama and Rehaniya—see Circassians in Israel). Circassians are also present in Iraq. Baghdad, Sulaymaniyah, and Diyala comprise the country's main cities with Circassians, though lesser numbers are spread in other regions and cities as well.

Rest of Europe
Out of 1,010 Circassians living in Ukraine (473 Kabardian Adyghe (Kabardin), 338 Adygean Adyghe, and 190 Cherkessian Adyghe (Cherkess) —after the existing Soviet division of Circassians into three groups), only 181 (17.9%) declared fluency in the native language; 96 (9.5%) declared Ukrainian as their native language, and 697 (69%) marked "other language" as being their native language. The major Adyghe community in Ukraine is in Odesa.

There is a small community of Circassians in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (where the surname "Čerkez" exists) and North Macedonia. A number of Adyghe also settled in modern Bulgaria and in Northern Dobruja, which now belongs to Romania (see Circassians in Romania, in 1864–1865, but most fled after those areas became separated from the Ottoman Empire in 1878. The small part of the community that settled in Kosovo (the Kosovo Adyghes) moved to the Republic of Adygea in 1998, after the reprisals of the Serbian occupation forces became heavily intensified. The majority of the community, however, remained in Kosovo where they have been well established and integrated into Kosovan society. Many members of this community can be identified as they carry the family name "Çerkezi", or "Qerkezi". This community is also well established in the Republic of North Macedonia, usually mingling with the Albanian Muslim population. Circassians can be found also in Albania but totally assimilated. The surname "Çerkezi" or "Çekrezi" is carried by this families.

There are Circassians in Germany and a small number in the Netherlands.

North America
Numerous Circassians have also immigrated to the United States and settled in Upstate New York, California, and New Jersey. There is also a small Circassian community in Canada.

Sochi Olympics controversy
The 2014 Winter Olympics facilities in Sochi (once the Circassian capital) were built in areas that were claimed to contain mass graves of Circassians who were killed during genocide by Russia in military campaigns lasting from 1860 to 1864.

Adyghe organizations in Russia and the Adyghe diaspora around the world requested that construction at the site stop and that the Olympic Games not be held at the site of the Adyghe genocide, to prevent desecration of Adyghe graves. According to Iyad Youghar, who headed the lobby group International Circassian Council: "We want the athletes to know that if they compete here they will be skiing on the bones of our relatives." The year 2014 also marked the 150th anniversary of the Circassian Genocide which angered the Circassians around the world. Many protests were held all over the world to stop the Sochi Olympics, but were not successful.

title: Circassians


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Michelle Malkin

Michelle Malkin ( Maglalang; born October 20, 1970) is an American conservative political commentator. She was a Fox News contributor and in May 2020 joined Newsmax TV. Malkin has written seven books and founded the conservative websites Twitchy and Hot Air.

Around 2019, Malkin began to distance herself from conventional conservatism and instead publicly support members of the extreme right, including Nick Fuentes, as well as other white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and Groypers, including Identity Evropa leader Patrick Casey. In November 2019, she was dropped by conservative organization Young America's Foundation (YAF), citing her support for individuals associated with antisemitism and white nationalism.

Early life
Michelle Malkin was born October 20, 1970, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, to Philippine citizens Rafaela (née Perez), a teacher, and Apolo DeCastro Maglalang, who was then a physician-in-training. Several months prior to Malkin's birth, her parents immigrated to the United States on an employer-sponsored visa. After her father finished his medical training, the family moved to Absecon, New Jersey. She has described her parents as Ronald Reagan Republicans who were "not incredibly politically active".

Malkin, a Roman Catholic, attended Holy Spirit High School, where she edited the school newspaper and aspired to become a concert pianist. Following her graduation in 1988, she enrolled at Oberlin College. Malkin had planned to pursue a bachelor's degree in music, but changed her major to English. During her college years, she worked as a press inserter, tax preparation aide, and network news librarian. At Oberlin, she wrote for a conservative student newspaper started by Jesse Malkin, who later became her husband. Her first article for the paper heavily criticized Oberlin's affirmative action program, and she said it received a "huge[ly] negative response" from other students on campus. She graduated in 1992 and later described her alma mater as "radically left-wing".

Journalism
Malkin began her journalism career at the Los Angeles Daily News, working as a columnist from 1992 to 1994. In 1995, she worked in Washington, D.C. as a journalism fellow at the libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute. In 1996, she moved to Seattle, Washington, where she became a columnist for The Seattle Times. According to Goldsea, by the end of the year "Malkin was unleashing the no-holds-barred style of political spitballing that would ultimately make her a poster girl for the radical right".

Since 1999, Malkin has written a syndicated column for Creators Syndicate. Her column is published by outlets including Townhall. Some publications which previously carried her column, such as The Daily Wire and National Review, stopped doing so around 2019 when she began to espouse more extreme views. The white supremacist publication American Renaissance began publishing her column in 2020.

On April 24, 2006, Malkin launched the conservative blog Hot Air, where she remained CEO until she sold the website in 2010. The site's staff at launch included Allahpundit and Bryan Preston; Preston was later replaced by Ed Morrissey on February 25, 2008. In February 2010, Salem Communications bought Hot Air from Malkin. In March 2012, Malkin founded the website Twitchy, a Twitter content curation site. She sold Twitchy, also to Salem Communications, the following year.

For years, Malkin was a frequent commentator for Fox News and a regular guest host of The O'Reilly Factor. In 2007, she announced that she would not return to The O'Reilly Factor, alleging that Fox News had mishandled a dispute over derogatory statements made about her by Geraldo Rivera in a Boston Globe interview. Malkin joined Conservative Review's online television network, CRTV, when it launched in 2016, to host the documentary-style show Michelle Malkin Investigates. Malkin left CRTV under unclear circumstances when it merged with TheBlaze in December 2018. Malkin later joined competitor Newsmax TV in May 2020, where she began to host the show Sovereign Nation.

Books
Malkin published her first book, Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces, in 2002. It reached #14 on the New York Times bestseller list.

In 2004, she published In Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on Terror, defending the U.S. government's internment of 112,000 Japanese Americans in prison camps during World War II, and arguing that racial profiling is acceptable in times of war. The book drew harsh criticism from mainstream scholars, organizations, and individuals including the Japanese American Citizens League and Fred Korematsu. The Historians' Committee for Fairness, an organization of scholars and professional researchers, published an open letter condemning the book for not having undergone peer review and arguing that its central thesis is false. Some conservative scholars spoke out in support of the book, including Thomas Sowell and Daniel Pipes. The Virginian-Pilot called her "an Asian Ann Coulter" and dropped her column in November 2004. Eric L. Muller also published a critique of In Defense of Internment.

Malkin's third book, Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild, was released in October 2005. Malkin released her fourth book, Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies, in July 2009. It remained on The New York Times Non-Fiction, Hardcover Best Seller list for six weeks. Her fifth book, Who Built That: Awe-Inspiring Stories of American Tinkerpreneurs, was released in May 2015 and was a response to the "you didn't build that" statement made by President Barack Obama three years earlier, on July 13, 2012. Malkin published Sold Out: How High-Tech Billionaires & Bipartisan Beltway Crapweasels Are Screwing America's Best & Brightest Workers in 2015 along with John Miano. She published Open Borders Inc.: Who's Funding America's Destruction? in 2019.

Blogging
In June 2004, Malkin launched a political blog, MichelleMalkin.com. A 2007 memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee described Malkin as one of the five "best-read national conservative bloggers". In December 2008, Malkin's blog was the largest conservative blog, and in 2011, the people search company PeekYou reported that Malkin had the largest digital footprint of any political blogger. In April 2020, Malkin moved her blog and its archives to The Unz Review, a far-right website run by former publisher of The American Conservative, Ron Unz. According to the Anti-Defamation League, The Unz Review is "a site that features numerous white supremacists and antisemites and is run by Ron Unz, who has written a number of antisemitic tracts."

Malkin has also been a contributor to the far-right anti-immigration website VDARE, writing a weekly column since 2002.

Jamil Hussein
In late 2006 and early 2007, Malkin was a leading voice among several right-wing bloggers who questioned both the credibility and the existence of Iraqi police captain Jamil Hussein, who had been used as a source by the Associated Press in over 60 stories about the Iraq war. The controversy began in November 2006 when the AP reported that six Iraqis had been burned alive as they left a mosque and that four mosques had been destroyed, citing Hussein as one of its sources. The Iraqi Ministry of the Interior and the United States military initially denied Hussein existed, leading Malkin and others to dispute the AP's reporting.

In January 2007 the AP reported that the Ministry had acknowledged Hussein's existence, and that authorities were seeking his arrest for having spoken to the press. Malkin reported the Iraqi government's confirmation. According to The Washington Post, Malkin also "expressed regret", though media scholar Arthur S. Hayes wrote in his 2008 book Press Critics are the Fifth Estate that her post "contains no apology or words of regret from her".

Speaking
For 17 years, Malkin was a featured speaker for Young America's Foundation (YAF). On November 14, 2019, during a YAF-sponsored speech at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Malkin praised white nationalist political commentator Nick Fuentes.Multiple sources:

 * In the same speech, she spoke supportively of the Proud Boys, Laura Loomer, and former Iowa Republican Representative Steve King. YAF cut ties with Malkin on November 18, saying, "there is no room in mainstream conservatism or at YAF for holocaust deniers, white nationalists, street brawlers, or racists". Organizers at Bentley University also canceled a scheduled book promotion event after the incident.
 * In the same speech, she spoke supportively of the Proud Boys, Laura Loomer, and former Iowa Republican Representative Steve King. YAF cut ties with Malkin on November 18, saying, "there is no room in mainstream conservatism or at YAF for holocaust deniers, white nationalists, street brawlers, or racists". Organizers at Bentley University also canceled a scheduled book promotion event after the incident.
 * In the same speech, she spoke supportively of the Proud Boys, Laura Loomer, and former Iowa Republican Representative Steve King. YAF cut ties with Malkin on November 18, saying, "there is no room in mainstream conservatism or at YAF for holocaust deniers, white nationalists, street brawlers, or racists". Organizers at Bentley University also canceled a scheduled book promotion event after the incident.
 * In the same speech, she spoke supportively of the Proud Boys, Laura Loomer, and former Iowa Republican Representative Steve King. YAF cut ties with Malkin on November 18, saying, "there is no room in mainstream conservatism or at YAF for holocaust deniers, white nationalists, street brawlers, or racists". Organizers at Bentley University also canceled a scheduled book promotion event after the incident.
 * In the same speech, she spoke supportively of the Proud Boys, Laura Loomer, and former Iowa Republican Representative Steve King. YAF cut ties with Malkin on November 18, saying, "there is no room in mainstream conservatism or at YAF for holocaust deniers, white nationalists, street brawlers, or racists". Organizers at Bentley University also canceled a scheduled book promotion event after the incident.
 * In the same speech, she spoke supportively of the Proud Boys, Laura Loomer, and former Iowa Republican Representative Steve King. YAF cut ties with Malkin on November 18, saying, "there is no room in mainstream conservatism or at YAF for holocaust deniers, white nationalists, street brawlers, or racists". Organizers at Bentley University also canceled a scheduled book promotion event after the incident.
 * In the same speech, she spoke supportively of the Proud Boys, Laura Loomer, and former Iowa Republican Representative Steve King. YAF cut ties with Malkin on November 18, saying, "there is no room in mainstream conservatism or at YAF for holocaust deniers, white nationalists, street brawlers, or racists". Organizers at Bentley University also canceled a scheduled book promotion event after the incident.
 * In the same speech, she spoke supportively of the Proud Boys, Laura Loomer, and former Iowa Republican Representative Steve King. YAF cut ties with Malkin on November 18, saying, "there is no room in mainstream conservatism or at YAF for holocaust deniers, white nationalists, street brawlers, or racists". Organizers at Bentley University also canceled a scheduled book promotion event after the incident.
 * In the same speech, she spoke supportively of the Proud Boys, Laura Loomer, and former Iowa Republican Representative Steve King. YAF cut ties with Malkin on November 18, saying, "there is no room in mainstream conservatism or at YAF for holocaust deniers, white nationalists, street brawlers, or racists". Organizers at Bentley University also canceled a scheduled book promotion event after the incident.

Malkin has spoken at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). She was a featured speaker in 2019, and her anti-immigration speech, in which she condemned the "ghost" of John McCain, drew controversy. In 2020, Malkin spoke at the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC), an event organized by Nick Fuentes that was described by Rolling Stone as the "right-wing extremist answer to CPAC". She also received press credentials to attend CPAC 2020, but did not speak at the conference. She spoke again at AFPAC 2021.

Views
Until 2019, Malkin was generally described as a conservative. Beginning in 2019, some publications began to describe her as right-wing, while some continue to describe her as conservative. She has been described as far-right by HuffPost in 2019, and Business Insider, Vanity Fair, and the Washingtonian in 2020. She has been described as alt-right by The Bulwark and The Independent in 2020.

Daniel Holtzclaw
Malkin has written about Daniel Holtzclaw, a former Oklahoma City Police Department patrol officer who was convicted in December 2015 of multiple counts of rape, sexual battery, forcible oral sodomy, and other sexual charges. She has repeatedly argued that she believes Holtzclaw is innocent, saying that the forensic evidence backs his version of events, not the accusers' versions, and also that the investigators chose not to perform several tests she characterized as routine. Malkin debuted her first and second episodes of CRTV.com's Daniel in the Den on December 12, 2016, in Enid. Malkin released her film about the case, entitled Railroaded: Surviving Wrongful Convictions in 2017.

Immigration
Malkin supports stricter immigration laws in the United States. She was a featured speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in 2019, where she said levels of immigration into the United States amount to an "invasion" and "endanger our general welfare and the blessings of liberty". She also condemned politicians, including the "ghost" of recently deceased Senator John McCain, for failing to enact stricter immigration regulation.

Since 2002, Malkin wrote a weekly column for VDARE, a far-right anti-immigration website. In a 2002 appearance on Hannity & Colmes, Malkin called for militarization of the Canadian border, comparing Canada to conflict zones where United States troops were deployed and saying, "Canada bears a lot of responsibility for making us as vulnerable as we are to terrorism".

In 2017, Malkin endorsed alt-right candidate Paul Nehlen in his ultimately unsuccessful primary challenge against Paul Ryan for Wisconsin's 1st congressional district, citing Nehlen's opposition to "elites" who support open borders as the reason for her endorsement.

Muslims
Malkin has advocated for interning Muslims on national security grounds. Malkin also defended "racial, ethnic, religious, and nationality profiling policies" used during the War on Terror.

Malkin has covered anti-Muslim topics on episodes of her CRTV show Michelle Malkin Investigates, including "The Muslim Refugee Rape Epidemic" and "Honor Killings: The Real War on Women". Malkin promoted her 2019 book, Open Borders Inc., at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a non-profit that has been described as Islamophobic.

Support for white nationalists
Amanda Carpenter wrote in March 2020 that Malkin had begun to "link arms with the most vocal elements of the white nationalist movement". In August 2020, the Anti-Defamation League wrote, "in the past year ... she has publicly and explicitly allied herself with white supremacists" and that she herself was "echoing" white supremacist views. The Southern Poverty Law Center described her in January 2021 as a "former conservative-pundit-gone-white-nationalist-apologist".

YAF dismissed Malkin in November 2019 after she gave a YAF-sponsored speech at UCLA titled "America First: the Torch Is Being Passed". In her speech, she praised Nick Fuentes as "one of the New Right leaders", and also spoke supportively of the Proud Boys, Laura Loomer, and Steve King. In 2020, Malkin faced criticism for speaking at the America First Political Action Conference, which is hosted by white nationalist Nick Fuentes and also featured Patrick Casey, the founder of the neo-Nazi group Identity Evropa. Malkin has also supported Gavin McInnes, and has described him and Laura Loomer as friends of hers. She has described herself as the "mommy" of the Groypers, a loose collection of white nationalists who follow Nick Fuentes.

In 2020, Malkin appeared on Red Ice, a white supremacist radio program, and cautioned listeners about changing demographics and "multicultural rot".

In November 2021, Malkin delivered a speech at the annual American Renaissance Conference, hosted by the white nationalist New Century Foundation. Malkin and her family were subsequently banned from using Airbnb in reaction to her having appeared at the event.

Accusations of antisemitism
According to Bridge Initiative, a Georgetown University research project on Islamophobia, Malkin has promoted conspiracy theories about George Soros on her social media and on Fox News programs. In 2019, Malkin joined far-right commentator Gavin McInnes for a Facebook Live event to promote her book, and agreed with him when he claimed that Soros was "not a Holocaust survivor" but a "Holocaust facilitator": Malkin has denied accusations of anti-semitism, saying that she is "the proud wife of a grandson of Ukrainian Jews who came to this country to escape pogroms [and is] a proud supporter of Israel, but more importantly, a proud supporter of American sovereignty." At the 2020 America First Political Action Conference, Malkin said it was "not anti-semitic" to question "whatever the precise number of people is who perished in World War II."

2020 United States presidential election
Following the 2020 United States presidential election, Malkin helped advance the conspiracy theory that the election was stolen from Trump. She used the #StopTheSteal hashtag on Twitter and spoke at a Stop the Steal rally in her hometown of Colorado Springs to protest the election results. She also appeared in a trailer for a film about the movement, which also featured Fuentes and Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander.

Personal life
While in college at Oberlin, she began dating Jesse Malkin. They married in 1993 and have two children. Jesse Malkin worked as a healthcare consultant for RAND Corporation. Jesse is a retired health economist, who now works on his wife's speaking engagements and helps her run her business.

Malkin and her family lived in North Bethesda, Maryland, until 2008 when they relocated to Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Books

 * In Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on Terror (ISBN 0-89526-051-4)
 * Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild. Washington, D.C.: Regnery (2005). ISBN 978-0895260307..
 * Sold Out: How High-Tech Billionaires & Bipartisan Beltway Crapweasels Are Screwing America's Best & Brightest Workers, with John Miano. New York: Threshold Editions/Mercury Ink (2015). ISBN 978-1501115943..
 * Audiobook read by Juliet St. John, with an introduction read by the author. New York: Simon & Schuster Audio (2015). ISBN 978-1442390782..

Book contributions

 * "The Patriot Act Does Not Target Immigrants" (viewpoint six). In: The Patriot Act, edited by Lauri S. Friedman. Detroit: Greenhaven Press (2006), pp. 41–46. ISBN 978-0737735253..
 * "The Military Prison at Guantanamo Bay Should Stay Open." In: Prisons, edited by Lauri S. Friedman. Detroit: Greenhaven Press (2008), pp. 85–90. ISBN 978-0737735789..

Reports

 * "The Deportation Abyss: 'It Ain’t Over 'Til the Alien Wins.'" Backgrounder (September 2002).

title: Michelle Malkin


text:
Southwest Mountains

The Southwest Mountains of Virginia are a mountain range centered on Charlottesville, parallel to and geologically associated with the Blue Ridge Mountains, which lie about 30 miles (50 km) to the west. Some of the more prominent peaks include Carters Mountain, Fan Mountain, Brush Mountain, Peters Mountain, Walton's Mountain, and Hightop Mountain.

Geography
The Southwest Mountains are not particularly large. They are one of the easternmost ranges in Virginia (along with the geologically associated Bull Run Mountains and Catoctin Mountain) and the viewshed for the Blue Ridge Mountains through Nelson and Albemarle Counties.

The range bisects Nelson, Albemarle, and Orange counties. A portion of the Southwest Mountains in Albemarle County has been designated a Rural Historic District by the National Park Service, though none of the range is designated as state or national parkland. Mineral resources of soapstone and vermiculite continue to be mined here.

Geology
The Southwest Mountains are underlain by a belt of Catoctin greenstone, which forms the eastern edge of the Blue Ridge anticlinorium. The Catoctin Greenstone belt extends north into Maryland and also supports the Bull Run and Catoctin Mountains. The basalt flows which were metamorphosed to greenstone were deposited during the latest Precambrian age and first uplifted during Grenville Orogeny then again during the Alleghenian Orogeny, in which they were also transported westward to their present location.

History and culture
In its designation as a Virginia historical landmark, the Virginia Board of Historic Resources described the northern Albemarle portion of the Southwest Mountains as "some of the Piedmont's most pristine and scenic countryside." They went on:

"Characterized by undulating pastures, winding roadways, forested hills, and small hamlets, the district contains a broad range of 18th-, 19th- and early 20th-century rural architecture, reflecting the evolving cultural patterns of more than 250 years of settlement."

The estates of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe are all located within the Southwest Mountains, as are many non-presidential estates, including Castle Hill.

These mountains were at one time also referred to as the "Chestnut Mountains". The plateaux of the Southwest Mountains in southern Albemarle were once referred to as the "Green Mountains."

Virginia Governor James Barbour, who lived in Orange County, wrote in 1835:

"Let us, the inhabitants of the South-West Mountains, rejoice and be grateful that our benefits greatly preponderate over our ills. And so far as my testimony goes, resulting from actual observation of near one-third of the entire circumference of the earth, I feel no hesitation in declaring that I deem them the most desirable abode I have ever seen."

title: Southwest Mountains