Türkçe TercümeOur New Pole Star, Haydar Bammat's private archive continues with its content to illuminate the dark points in the North Caucasus Freedom and Independence struggle history in the periods of the Revolutions and Interwar.
One of these documents is a letter posted by Abdulmedjid Chermoy from Paris to Haydar Bammat in Istanbul on October 4, 1919. At the outset, we see in this letter that Abdulmedjid Chermoy abandoned Russian, which was in a sense a colonial language for North Caucasians, and that a Chechen and a Dagestani Kumuk started to use French as a common language. This is a crucial indicator in terms of breaking an ossified habit.
The letter coincides with the period when General Denikin's Tsarist armies invaded the North Caucasus and when Haydar Bammat left Paris to participate in the activities of the Allied Madjlis in Exile formed in Tbilisi when all diplomatic paths were blocked in the Paris Peace Conference. From the date of the letter, we understand that Bammat, who left Paris in August, arrived in Tbilisi in early October. The main point of the letter is Chermoy's rebellious statements against the hypocritical attitude of their southern neighbors towards the Caucasian Mountaineers, despite the repeated offers of unity that they had made since the beginning of 1917. Although the Trans-Caucasian politicians were warned several times that the survival of the North was the guarantee of their existence and that the South could not be free without the North being free and independent, they have at every opportunity treated the North as a buffer to keep the Russian threat at bay and have remained indifferent and silent in the face of the destruction of this buffer by the invading Russian forces. They did not want to understand that Russian imperialism, which had occupied the North in recent history, had then descended to the South and colonized them as well. Moreover, besides remaining indifferent and silent against this encroachment, they also tried to occupy and share some regions belonging to the Caucasian Mountaineers for their own which caused Chermoy to drive madder. Another treacherous behavior was that they were trying to convey the message to the Western politicians in Paris that the North had already been lost and it was not too late for them to save the South.
Chermoy in his letter, advised Bammat to be cautious in establishing partnerships with these neighbors. Drawing lessons from the past, he emphasized that these partners could use the Caucasian Mountaineers as bait at any opportunity and repeatedly reminded them that they should not be given that opportunity. Indeed, Chermoy's claims were proven when the Menshevik Georgians sent a delegation led by Uratadze to Moscow in 1920 and concluded a secret treaty with the Russian Bolsheviks. Likewise, during the period of political struggle in Europe after the Bolshevik occupation of the Caucasus, the Georgian Mensheviks and the Azerbaijani Musavatists made the same mistake dozens of times, proving again and again how true the statements in this letter of Chermoy in October 1919 were.
Today, Georgia, which is still involved in the deadlock over issues such as Abkhazia and South Ossetia like an amateur imperialist and is playing into the hands of Russian imperialism, hopes to use the Caucasian Mountaineers as a buffer to keep the Russian threat away from its territory by declaring its recognition of the Circassian Genocide and pretending to allow North Caucasian political opposition to work freely on its territory. On the one hand, he organizes claptrap ceremonies in front of the Circassian Genocide monument in Anaklia, on the other hand, he provokes Ukraine for the North Caucasus by proclaiming at every opportunity that the ancient Circassian land of Kuban belongs to Ukraine. He also calls Ukraine to bomb Abkhazia.
Today's some of the North Caucasian activists, ignorant of their history or incapable of learning from it, cannot avoid falling into these centuries-old traps.
So, it was in this atmosphere and mood that Chermoy sent a letter to Bammat, which strikingly revealed the realities of those days, as well as underlining issues that will be a lesson for today's events...
Cem Kumuk,
Istanbul, 7 September 2024
#*#*#*#*#*#*#
5 rue Villaret de Joyeuse
Paris
My dear Haydar Bey,
I decided to write you this letter after waiting so long for the one you promised to write from Constantinople.
I know from Krasnakoutsky that Dr. Khadzarag and Ibrahim Haidar left Constantinople on September 3 for Batoum, from which I conclude that these gentlemen must have already been there for at least 20 days. I also have no news from the Caucasus. Here I wanted to continue last, but for some time I have been seriously ill, which naturally prevented me from doing everything I wanted. Georgians and Tartars from Azerbaijan support each other at their best. The Claridge Hotel is often honored to give them splendid dinners. These gentlemen have concluded a treaty with each other. They carefully hide all content from us and do their utmost to accredit here that there is no North Caucasian Republic any longer and that it is destroyed forever. Yes, may God protect me from my friends. I will always deal with my enemies. It's worth saying and repeating frequently with our good friends from the South.
From their way of speaking and acting, it can be concluded that these gentlemen, I imagine, can exist either completely detached aggression from Russia or that they intend, in the light of events, they get their hands on certain parts of our territory, strategic positions that would give them strategic positions that would shelter them from aggression from New Russia. Events and many facts that I know allow me, I believe, to have a very bad opinion of the perspicacity and breadth of vision of the political intelligence of these two countries. These gentlemen who want to wear the socialist brand very ostentatiously and not to be seen here as comrades are unfortunately nationalists of chauvinistic and even zoological rights incapable of embracing the bread they present at the same time.
For some time now, the representatives of the non-Natives [non-Russians] seem to have wanted to work more straightforwardly. Even the Georgian representatives stand out for their centrifugal tendencies, their reticence, and their reserve at these conferences.
Most of the non-Natives would like a more direct and more active collaboration, but the big socialist neighbors prelude that the moment has not come because they believe their cause is already won. They don't want to bother with bad causes or the pretensions of savage peoples whom Providence in its high wisdom has created to be despised by them and to serve eternally to enhance the brilliance of Transcaucasian civilization.
Digression aside, we, Tsar’s non-natives are proposing a new note to the Conference in which we protest against Denikin and demand recognition of our independence and the Entente's assistance. The Armenians who are located astride two empires and to which they have equal or rather unequal claims are refused to sign. The final draft will be completed on October 7th, and we will be able to sign it immediately. The Ukrainian delegation is very active, but it is encountering many obstacles in its work.
(Click on the image to access the original document)
In the same post, I'll send you a few copies of the magazine as well as the brochure.
Political situation
The French Chamber ratified the peace treaty after much careful debate, as well as the military agreements with America and England. France is still awaiting ratification of the treaty by the United States. The U.S. Senate is very divided on the question of ratification without, amendment or reservation. The general opinion here is that the Senate will eventually ratify the treaty. The peace of the world, the security of the West, and the equitable settlement of questions in Eastern Europe demand, imperatively this ratification as soon as possible.
England's policy towards Eastern Europe is apparently aimed at restoring Moscow. English billions are being poured into this work, but there are earlier indications that England is spending billions to control Russia's policy. For her, it's a question of preventing Russia from falling into the German hordes. We can be sure that she will stop at nothing to make moral and material sacrifices. At the moment, the struggle between British-backed Tsarism and Bolshevism has entered an acute phase. It seems that both forces were fighting with equal chances. In the vast plains of Eastern Europe and Siberia, it's hardly surprising that monarchist and Bolshevist forces are taking extraordinary leaps forward and backward.
In the letter sent by K. [Kantemir] and dated late August 1919, it is stated that our friends or rather neighbors to the south are ready to help us in our war of independence. I repeat, at the risk of boring you, that it is absolutely impossible to believe in the sincerity of these gentlemen. I firmly believe that they are doing all this to keep the Tsarist hordes at bay by using us as cannon fodder.
These gentlemen are too narrow-minded and too blindly selfish to understand that the Caucasian confederation with all Caucasian elements is absolutely necessary for their existence as a state and even as a common people. Given this unfortunate mentality of our southern neighbors, I believe it is the duty of all of you who are on the spot to be excessively circumspect with our southern neighbors. It would be criminal on your part to forget all the intrigues and betrayals they have committed against the North Caucasus in the belief that they are serving their national interests well. Always be cautious with our southern neighbors, whose political education has yet to be completed and whose people are incurably short-sighted. They claim to be democrats and socialists, but they insult their neighbors, whose age-old struggles against the enemy have prevented them from assimilating. They are angry that they are now steering their political boat in such a way as to dominate, as true imperialists, the territories of the peoples who saved them from sinking beneath the waves of the Slavic world. I, who for ten years have been dreaming of Caucasian brotherhood for the salvation of all, am nauseated by the imperialist follies of our southern neighbors, and I can't help saying: "senseless breakdown!"
The fat diplomat from the Claridge Hotel never misses an opportunity to tell anyone they meet that we're incompetent and must be governed by others, of course by them.
Go and do these gentlemen another 3 favors.
I've talked too much about people who don't have anything to do, and I assure you I regret it.
Moving on to another subject, it seems that the Paris Conference is tired of the issues it has resolved or believes it has resolved. Mister President of the Conference has written a letter to Colonel House [Edward M.], who is in charge of the organization of the League of Nations, suggesting that he convene as soon as possible the High Council of this international organization, from which the world is awaiting its salvation. The Conference will probably break up after signing the Bulgarian treaty, without even settling the Turkish question. From this, I conclude that the settlement of Eastern European questions will be a matter for the League of Nations, which means that we have a lot of work ahead of us, and we need to be patient, without making false moves and false demarches.
Meanwhile, the peoples whose fate has not yet been settled are sending delegates to America; the Armenian delegates left a few days ago, and the Georgians are preparing to do the same.
Have for politics Immediately after your departure, I paid your cobbler and gave him your address; but in the two letters, which you sent me from Italy you didn't tell me anything about your shoes. I'm still waiting for your letter from Constantinople as well as those from the Doctor and his former deputies in the Caucasus Duma. I had entrusted certain things to the Doctor to be given to my family; I don't know if he was able to manage for someone who doesn't speak foreign languages, it's not easy to travel, especially after the Great War.
I am always waiting to hear from you and others.
In the meantime, please accept my best regards.
P.S. The game of our two southern neighbors is quite clear in Paris. I urge you not to let our compatriots embark on a new adventure that would make us crash like breadcrumbs and would later allow our neighbors to discredit us in the West and then seize each for their own account the parts of our Territories that they have coveted for a long time.
Our death, with the possibility of resurrection, is our division into several parts. Either we will all be independent within the Caucasian Confederation, or we will return to the bosom of Holy Russia, our old stepmother. We must never and never allow our two friends from the South to carry out vivisections on the national body. If we did, we would be the last of our kind. These gentlemen are short-sighted to the last degree, and no number of spectacles can enable them to see clearly. They are so deceitful and false that Jesus would find it hard to give them lessons in uprightness and morality.
Please read carefully the notes they publish in the Russian I'm sending you. You'll understand right away, or you'll have new evidence to add to the already numerous ones you've had for a long time.
Abdulmedjid Chermoy
