Jack of Harts

The history of Russia is not well known in Western histories. They first came together as a collection of Slavic tribes centered around Kiev who called themselves the Rus. They commanded most of Eastern Europe beyond Lithuania, Poland, and Hungary. The Mongolian horde crushed the Rus, drove them north, and forced them to pay tribute. Moscow rebelled in time to form the Russian Empire and they considered it their duty to retake all the lands they lost and to drive all the way back to Mongolia to make certain the Mongols didn’t do it to them again. They also drove west into what we now call Eastern Europe and fought a long series of wars with the European powers over the lands they wanted back. And maybe a little bit more to act as a buffer zone for their people.

The Russo-Ottoman Wars are also not well known in the West. Both the Russians and the Turks were rising powers when they met. Sometimes the Russians won. Sometimes the Turks. But as time went on, the Russians marched south through all the lands they lost. Some names from that time resound even in our own ears. Ivan the Terrible. Peter the Great. Kiev. Ukraine. Sevastopol. Crimea. The Russians spent literal centuries retaking their lost territories and more. They didn’t want anyone driving them from their lands. Again. And just as the Turks moved into a region they conquered, so did the Russians. And neither side was keen to let the other remain settled in a land they conquered. Forced conversions or executions were common on both sides. And as the Russians advanced most of the Turkish Muslim populations migrated back into modern day Turkey. Sometimes willingly. Sometimes to escape the executioners.

Both the terms mass migration and genocide describe the population movements along the shifting frontiers over the centuries, and neither the Russians, the Europeans, or the Turks were shy about implementing either. One might even call that entire mess we call Eastern Europe the result of weaponized mass migration.