ABSTRACT
In the Circassian homelands, as in Abkhazia, a number of villages have gained a special reputation for traditional music, and none more so than Ulyap in Adyghea. There is even a song about the villages that plays humorously on the fame of Ulyap. Soviet ideology played a well-rehearsed role in this, of course, and it extended to the creation of new songs extolling the regime. The villages of Uzunyayla are largely depleted, and it is only in summer that people return there to tend their plots. It is generally considered that the move to the cities was hugely detrimental to a strong sense of Circassian identity, mainly because the younger generation developed more and more points of contact with their coevals in the Turkish community. In the early 20th century, there were major resettlements and even mass exterminations of Ottoman citizens in Anatolia.
