72nd Death Anniversary of Kushuk Kaspoletovich Ulagay

Türkçe Tercüme
Today, we respectfully commemorate Kushuk Kaspoletovich Ulagay, one of the well-known figures of 20th-century North Caucasian history, on the 72nd anniversary of his death. Born on January 25, 1893, in the village of Psebaj in the Lower Kuban region, Kushuk Ulagay's father Kaspolet was one of the highest-ranking officials of the Tsarist regime in the Caucasus. He accompanied Grand Duke Michael on his deer hunts during his travels in the Caucasus. Despite being a high-ranking official of the Tsarist regime, he was also a community leader who properly preserved his North Caucasian identity and tried to use his rank and privileges to benefit his people.

Born as the son of such a father, Kushuk completed his secondary education in Krasnodar and graduated from the Elisavetgrad Cavalry School, one of Russia's most distinguished military academies, as a lieutenant in 1913. He started his military career in World War I in the Sever Dragoon Guards Regiment. After the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, he served in the Circassian Division established by General Sultan Klych Girey within General Denikin's Volunteer Army during the years of the Civil War.

With the evacuation of the Wrangel Army, he was also forced to leave his homeland, never to see it again. Kushuk Ulagay, who spent some time in the Balkans with the North Caucasians and Cossacks within the Wrangel Army, was given Albanian citizenship by King Zogu in 1924 and joined the Albanian Army with the rank of Captain. He served in the Albanian Army from 1935 to 1939, rising to the rank of Chief of the General Staff and Chief Military Advisor to the King in 1936.
In 1939, he participated in some special operations on behalf of the German Army in Serbia. Kushuk Ulagay, who participated in numerous special operations within the German Army until 1944, was appointed commander of the North Caucasus SS-Regiment within the Caucasian Waffen-SS, established by order of Heinrich Himmler in 1944. During the last period of the war, he made great contributions to the efforts of the North Caucasus National Committee in Berlin to free North Caucasian Mountaineers among the Soviet citizens held in German POW camps and to gather North Caucasian refugees scattered throughout Europe.

He provided outstanding services in the creation of a living space for North Caucasian Mountaineers in the town of Paluzza in the Friuli region of Northern Italy, the establishment of self-defense units, and the protection of refugees from attacks of the Italian and Yugoslav Partisans. Following the end of the war, Kushuk Ulagay, who was among the refugees who left Italy and took refuge in the Drau Valley of Austria, was saved from this forced repatriation, which meant death, by presenting his Albanian citizenship when the British Army handed the refugees over to the Soviets on May 28, 1945.
Kushuk Ulagay in Buenos Aires with former German Army members in Argentina for a while after the war, later settled in Chile and died in the capital Santiago on April 8, 1953. The fates of Kushuk Ulagay’s wife Ludmilla, who was 46 years old when he passed away, his 24-year-old daughter Marem, and his 22-year-old son Rüstem are unknown.

In memory of the anniversary of Kushuk Ulagay's death, I am sharing with you his CV from our archives, which he submitted to the SS Central Headquarters on August 28, 1944, with his autograph.

Cem Kumuk
Istanbul, 8 April 2025