History Main / CircassianBeauty

* The UsefulNotes/OttomanEmpire certainly did acquire a lot of slaves, including harem women, from the Caucasus, especially between the 1770s and the 1860s. Hence, this trope started out with some TruthInTelevision. Perhaps the most notable example (despite not being Circassian, or even from the Caucasus) being Hurrem Sultan, also known by the nickname Roxelana, initially a Ruthenian slave in the harem of sultan UsefulNotes/SuleimanTheMagnificent, the Sultan would fall deeply in love with her, eventually taking her as his legal wife and empress of the Ottoman Empire. Most depictions of her portray her in Ottoman fashion, yet as a delicate, white-skinned, red-headed lady.

* ''Literature/{{Temeraire}}'': In ''Black Powder War'', Captain Laurence, Temeraire, and their crew are treated to a banquet by a vizier of the Ottoman Empire, with scantily-clad Circassian {{belly dancer}}s for entertainment. Laurence is [[NotDistractedByTheSexy annoyed rather than captivated]] because he's an uptight British gentleman, and also because he's there to check on an important deal Britain made with the Ottomans (which the latter seem to have reneged on), and knows this is a blatant attempt to distract him from pursuing the issue. Temeraire, being a huge dragon, is more interested in their jewelry than their bodies.

Beyond these falsehoods, fantasies, and fabrications, there is a [[TruthInTelevision degree of truth]] behind the Circassian mystique. Caucasians were targeted as a prized commodity in the eastern slave trade, where they were sold into the harems of Sultans, Shahs, and other wealthy men. Many notable consorts of Ottoman Sultans had their roots in the Caucasus, including several ''valide sultans'' (queen mothers).

Note that in context of the trope, "Circassian" may refer either to the people also known as the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassians Adyghe]], or more broadly, to indigenous Caucasian highlanders. This latter category includes the Adyghe as well as peoples such as Georgians, Chechens, Ossets, and Avars. In English, "Circassian" was originally a catch-all term for "mountaineer" or "highlander" (equivalent to Russian ''gorets''), a definition that did not begin to narrow until around the mid-19th century.

In the latter half of the 19th century, so-called "Circassian Beauties" would become a staple of sideshow attractions across the UsefulNotes/UnitedStates -- [[FakeNationality local performers]] billed as {{Sex Slave}}s freed from the eastern markets and the purest form of the white race, identifiable by their "exotic" Afro-like hairstyles which in truth bore little resemblance to anything out of the Caucasus. In a cruel twist of irony, this coincided with the very real oppression of actual Circassians, who were [[ThePurge massacred and forcibly exiled]] by Imperial Russia in a genocide beginning in 1864.[[note]]Many Circassians thus ended up in the Arab World, and today live as semi-Arabized minorities in various countries. They are particularly prominent in UsefulNotes/{{Jordan}}, where their women married into the upper classes and their men won places in the government and military through loyal service to the House of Hashem.[[/note]]

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, so-called "Circassian Beauties" would become a staple of sideshow attractions across America -- [[FakeNationality local performers]] billed as {{Sex Slave}}s freed from the eastern markets and the purest form of the white race, identifiable by their "exotic" Afro-like hairstyles which in truth bore little resemblance to anything out of the Caucasus. In a cruel twist of irony, this coincided with the very real oppression of actual Circassians, who were [[ThePurge massacred and forcibly exiled]] by Imperial Russia in a genocide beginning in 1864.[[note]]Many Circassians thus ended up in the Arab World, and today live as semi-Arabized minorities in various countries. They are particularly prominent in UsefulNotes/{{Jordan}}, where their women married into the upper classes and their men won places in the government and military through loyal service to the House of Hashem.[[/note]]

The allure of the Circassian Beauty reached far beyond popular literature, however; it too exerted its influence on the [[UsefulNotes/TheEnlightenment Enlightenment-era]] [[ScienceMarchesOn "science" of racial classification]]. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, one of the most influential taxonomists of the period, first used "Caucasian" to describe the "white" variety of man. Blumenbach declared the peoples of the Caucasus (specifically Georgians) as the "most beautiful of mankind" and theorized they were the most primordial, uncorrupted form of the human race, from which the lesser, more degenerate races derived.

The allure of the Circassian Beauty reached far beyond popular literature, however; it too exerted its influence on the Enlightenment-era [[ScienceMarchesOn "science" of racial classification]]. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, one of the most influential taxonomists of the period, first used "Caucasian" to describe the "white" variety of man. Blumenbach declared the peoples of the Caucasus (specifically Georgians) as the "most beautiful of mankind" and theorized they were the most primordial, uncorrupted form of the human race, from which the lesser, more degenerate races derived.

The trope takes a somewhat different (though no less orientalist) form in RussianLiterature, where the Caucasus is more likely to feature as a setting. In the romantic imagination, the Caucasus was [[WildWilderness an untamed land on the edge of civilization]], where men could find adventure and freedom (think of it as equivalent to the American WildWest); it was a perilously enticing frontier, home to exotic customs, fierce mountain clans, marauding raiders, and of course, bewitchingly beautiful women. In these stories, the Circassian Beauty appears as a member of a rugged yet [[NobleSavage noble mountaineer clan]], and often the protagonist's ill-fated LoveInterest.

In western literature and art, the Circassian Beauty will typically be a [[BeautifulSlaveGirl nubile slave girl]] on the [[AuctionOfEvil auction block]], ultimately destined for [[RoyalHarem the sultan's harem]]; she will likely be portrayed as the most beautiful girl in the palace, who nevertheless dreams of someday escaping her GildedCage. Some theorists [[http://mirrorofrace.org/circassian/ have suggested]] that the image of the enslaved Circassian played into transgressive fantasies of a white-passing woman as a sexual object, subjected to the whims of her master. Her predicament would simultaneously disgust, horrify, fascinate and titillate the audience, who could safely experience the thrill of the situation by projecting onto an eroticized Other.

* "Litterature/TheShadowOfTheVulture" by Creator/RobertEHoward features Roxelana, the wife of UsefulNotes/SuleimanTheMagnificent and empress of the Ottoman Empire (see RealLife below), her sister, the equally fiery-haired and beautiful Red Soyna of Rogatino.