Information about Circassian beauties

Circassian beauties were women of the Circassian people of the Caucasus mountain range in Circassia, Northern Caucasus. A fairly extensive literary history suggests that Circassian women were unusually beautiful, spirited and elegant, and as such were desirable as slave concubines.

This reputation dates back to the Ottoman Empire when Circassian women living in the Sultan's Harem started to build their reputation as extremely beautiful and genteel. As a result of this reputation, American showman P. T. Barnum exhibited women whom he claimed were Circassian beauties.

A reputation for extraordinary beauty

Painting by Jean Leon Gerome of a veiled Circassian

The legend of Circassian women in the western world is at least as old as 1734, when, in his Letters on the English,Voltaire alludes to the beauty of Circassian women:

"The Circassians are poor, and their daughters are beautiful, and indeed it is in them they chiefly trade. They furnish with those beauties the seraglios of the Turkish Sultan, of the Persian Sophy, and of all of those who are wealthy enough to purchase and maintain such precious merchandise. These maidens are very honorably and virtuously instructed how to fondle and caress men; are taught dances of a very polite and effeminate kind; and how to heighten by the most voluptuous artifices the pleasures of their disdainful masters for whom they are designed." Letter XI, On Inoculation.^[1]

Their beauty is also mentioned in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, in which Fielding remarked, "How contemptible would the brightest Circassian beauty, drest in all the jewels of the Indies, appear to my eyes!"^[2]

Similar erotic claims about Circassian women appear in Lord Byron's Don Juan, in which the tale of a slave auction is told:

For one Circassian, a sweet girl, were given,
Warranted virgin. Beauty’s brightest colours
Had decked her out in all the hues of heaven.
Her sale sent home some disappointed bawlers,
Who bade on till the hundreds reached the eleven,
But when the offer went beyond, they knew
‘Twas for the Sultan and at once withdrew.

: - Don Juan, canto IV, verse 114

The legend of Circassian women was also repeated by Karl Marx, who in The Philosophical Manifesto of the Historical School of Law wrote that "Even beauty is more likely to be found in a Circassian slave girl than in a beggar girl", referring to the fact that even a slave has some security and safety, but a "free" beggar has none.^[3] Mark Twain reported in The Innocents Abroad that "Circassian and Georgian girls are still sold in Constantinople by their parents, but not publicly."^[4]

In the mid nineteenth century "Circassian hair dye" was marketed to create a rich dark lustrous effect.^[5]

Their beauty is still known in many cultures where Circassian people immigrated and live since then. Poems and songs were written about the Beauty of Circassian women in countries such as Turkey, Jordan and Syria and the term "Circassian beauty" is still used in countries where people of Circassian origin still live.

19th century sideshow attraction

As a sideshow attraction, Circassian beauties were women with big hair. Circassian ancestry was not required.

In 1856 The New York Daily Times reported that a consequence of the Russian conquest of the Caucasus was an excess of beautiful Circassian women on the Constantinople slave market, and that this was causing prices of slaves in general to plummet.^[6] The report drew on the existing idea that the region was the source of the purest Caucasian stock, producing the most beautiful white women.^[7]

The combination of the popular issues of slavery, the Orient, racial ideology and sexual titillation gave this report some notoriety at the time. Circus leader P. T. Barnum capitalized on this interest, displaying a "Circassian Beauty" at his American Museum in 1865. Barnum's Circassian beauties were young women with tall, teased hairstyles, rather like the Afro style of the 1970s. Actual Circassian hairstyles bore no resemblance to Barnum's fantasy.[1] Barnum's first "Circassian" was marketed under the name "Zalumma Agra" and was exhibited at his American Museum in New York from 1864. Barnum had written to John Greenwood, his agent in Europe, asking him to purchase a beautiful Circassian girl to exhibit, or at least to hire a girl who could "pass for" one. However, it seems that "Zalumma Agra" was probably a local girl hired by the show, as were later "Circassians".^[8]

The trend spread, with supposedly Circassian women featured in dime museums and travelling medicine shows, sometimes known as "Moss-haired girls". As the original fad faded, the "Circassians" started to add to their appeal by performing traditional circus tricks such as sword swallowing.

References

1. ^ Voltaire's Letters on the Engllish
2. ^ Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, book 5, ch. 10
3. ^ Karl Marx, The Philosophical Manifesto of the Historical School of Law", first appearing in Supplement to the Rheiniche Zeitung No. 221, August 9, 1842. (Excerpts online)
4. ^ Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, ch. 34.
5. ^ Thomas M Barrett (1998), Southern Living (in Captivity): The Caucasus in Russian Popular Culture, The Journal of Popular Culture 31 (4), 75–93.
6. ^ Horrible Traffic in Circassian Women—Infanticide in Turkey; New York Daily Times, August 6, 1856
7. ^ Circassian beauty archive
8. ^ Rosemarie Garland Thomson, Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body, New York University Press, 1996, pp.249-50

External links

Circassians is a term derived from the Turkic Cherkess (Ã‡erkes), and is not the self-designation of any people. It has sometimes been applied indiscriminately to all the peoples of the North Caucasus.
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Caucasus or Caucasia is a region in Eurasia bordered on the north by Russia, on the southwest by Turkey, on the west by the Black Sea, on the east by the Caspian Sea, and on the south by Iran. The Caucasus includes the Caucasus Mountains and surrounding lowlands.
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Circassia, also known as Cherkessia in Russian, is a region in Caucasia. Historically it comprised the coast and all the interior of the current Krasnodar Territory, Stavropol Territory, but now only refers to a portion of the Karachay-Cherkessia
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The North Caucasus is the northern part of the Caucasus region between Europe and Asia. The term is also used as a synonym for the North Caucasus Economical Region of Russia.
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Concubinage is the state of a woman or youth in an ongoing, quasi-matrimonial relationship with a man of higher social status. Typically, the man has an official wife and, in addition, one or more concubines.
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Ottoman Empire or Ottoman Caliphate (1299 to 1922) (Old Ottoman Turkish: دولت عالیه عثمانیه Devlet-i Ã‚liye-yi OsmÃ¢niyye, Late Ottoman and Modern Turkish:
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Phineas Taylor Barnum (July 5, 1810 – April 7, 1891) was an American showman who is best remembered for his entertaining hoaxes and for founding the circus that eventually became Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus.
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Letters on the English) in that language in 1733. It was a series of essays concerning his thoughts on the religion, politics, and culture of England. He later (circa 1778) rewrote the entire text in English and published it as Letters on the English.
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FranÃ§ois-Marie Arouet (21 November, 1694 – 30 May, 1778), better known by the pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, essayist, deist and philosopher known for his wit, philosophical sport, and defense of civil liberties, including freedom of religion and
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Pseudonym: "Captain Hercules Vinegar", also some works published anonymously
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The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

Title page from the 1749 edition
Author Henry Fielding
Country Britain
Language English
Genre(s) Novel
Publisher A Millar
Publication date 28 February 1749
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Don Juan (or Don Giovanni) is a legendary fictional libertine, whose story has been told many times by different authors. El Burlador de Sevilla, "The Scoundrel of Seville" or "The Playboy of Seville" is a play by Tirso de Molina, published in Spain around 1630 , and set in
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The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims' Progress was published by American author Mark Twain in 1869. The travel literature chronicles Twain's pleasure cruise on board the chartered vessel Quaker City
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Slavery is a social-economic system under which certain persons — known as slaves — are deprived of personal freedom and compelled to perform labour or services.
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Caucasian race, sometimes called the Caucasoid race,^[1]^[2] is defined by the Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English as "relating to a broad division of humankind covering peoples from Europe, Western Asia, and parts of India and North
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Barnum's American Museum was located at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street in New York City from 1841 to 1865. The museum was owned by famous showman P.T. Barnum and his partner and original owner, John Scudder.
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