Yeah, like, circus side shows in Amerika in the PT Barnum era had “Circassian princesses”: they’d just grab any random pretty girl off the street and give her a curly afro — possibly inspired by papakhi but this is questionable — and they’d dress her up in some sort of titillating and obviously 200,000% inaccurate “”“traditional outfit”“”, often complete with a nice cross necklace to remind viewers that [gibberish name] is really a good Christian woman… Even though Circassians are in fact Muslims.
So yeah, the Caucasus definitely has a historical place in the popular imagination of as being “simultaneously foreign and familiar”. In that sense I guess you could say that “Circassian beauties” and their likes were just yesteryear’s big tiddy anime GF.
I dunno, I’ve had this thought a few times, about how the Caucasus may have inspired fantasy aesthetics. For instance when I first discovered Circassian musicians like Aslan Tlebzu and Aslan Kulov, I thought, “What, like the Narnia lion?” — naturally, it turns out that “aslan” is just Turkish for “lion”, hence both the Narnia character as well as the Circassian forename. And another time when I had this thought was when I first saw the film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind — because those are very clearly supposed to be gazyri on the titular character’s chest, and I remember there was also one scene in that film with buildings that reminded me a bit of those famous Vainakh towers.
Like my mom always points out that in the Caucasus that interest in traditional culture seems to skew a lot younger and seems to be a lot more widespread compared to in Norway. In fact I got an accordion not too long ago, and when I got it, the thought of playing local folk music like its previous owner did was frankly secondary to the thought of learning some Circassian folk music. Because obviously these Norwegian waltzes with their quaint lyrics, to younger folks like me cannot hold a candle to some raw, concentrated Adyghe swag.
Yeah, like, circus side shows in Amerika in the PT Barnum era had “Circassian princesses”: they’d just grab any random pretty girl off the street and give her a curly afro — possibly inspired by papakhi but this is questionable — and they’d dress her up in some sort of titillating and obviously 200,000% inaccurate “”“traditional outfit”“”, often complete with a nice cross necklace to remind viewers that [gibberish name] is really a good Christian woman… Even though Circassians are in fact Muslims.
So yeah, the Caucasus definitely has a historical place in the popular imagination of
as being “simultaneously foreign and familiar”. In that sense I guess you could say that “Circassian beauties” and their likes were just yesteryear’s big tiddy anime GF.
I dunno, I’ve had this thought a few times, about how the Caucasus may have inspired fantasy aesthetics. For instance when I first discovered Circassian musicians like Aslan Tlebzu and Aslan Kulov, I thought, “What, like the Narnia lion?” — naturally, it turns out that “aslan” is just Turkish for “lion”, hence both the Narnia character as well as the Circassian forename. And another time when I had this thought was when I first saw the film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind — because those are very clearly supposed to be gazyri on the titular character’s chest, and I remember there was also one scene in that film with buildings that reminded me a bit of those famous Vainakh towers.
look if these people didn’t want to be copied endlessly then they should stop looking so fucking cool
Caucasians literally have heavily choreographed pretend sword fights with actual swords, at some point you just gotta say that they know how badass their traditional culture is and they’re just kinda rubbing it in on everyone else.
Like my mom always points out that in the Caucasus that interest in traditional culture seems to skew a lot younger and seems to be a lot more widespread compared to in Norway. In fact I got an accordion not too long ago, and when I got it, the thought of playing local folk music like its previous owner did was frankly secondary to the thought of learning some Circassian folk music. Because obviously these Norwegian waltzes with their quaint lyrics, to younger folks like me cannot hold a candle to some raw, concentrated Adyghe swag.
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2: