[RESPONSE TO THE “SLAVERY REFERENCES TO CIRCASSIAN WOMEN”] Osmanli âlem-i içtimâisinde Çerkes kadinlari; Çerkeslik, Türklük [i.e., Circassian women in the Ottoman society]

SHOENU, MEHMED FETGERI [FETGEREY] (1890-1931).

Zarâfet Matbaasi, Istanbul, AH 1330 = [1914].

Original wrappers. Foolscap 8vo. (18 x 12 cm). In Ottoman script (Old Turkish with Arabic letters). 63, [1] p., decorated heads, ills. Occasionally slight foxing on the cover and pages. Contemporarily a paper was added and covered to the spine. Overall, a good copy.

First and only edition of this extremely rare book on the Circassian women by Fetgerey Shoenu, a writer and intellectual from an Abkhaz family who had to leave their homeland and migrate to Anatolia after the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878). The book was written as a response to politician Celal Nuri Ileri's (1881-1938) "slavery" references to Circassian and Georgian women in a white paper he wrote in 1914 about his book titled "Kadinlarimiz" [i.e., Our Women].

Fetgerey was a thinker and an ardent nationalist from North Caucasia, and he wrote books on sociology and physical education, as well as various works on the Caucasus and Caucasians.

Özege 15848., As of January 2024, OCLC shows sixteen copies worldwide, and twelve of them are in North American libraries.