Language and Culture of the Greeks of Kabardino-Balkaria (Based on Materials from the Ethnolinguistic Expedition of 2025)

Abstract

The article examines the features of the language and culture of the Greeks of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic based on materials from an ethnolinguistic expedition conducted in 2025. Greeks appeared in Kabarda in the early twentieth century, having migrated from the Ottoman Empire. The memory of the ancestors’ resettlement in Russia is preserved among our informants in the form of family narratives. Most of the settlers were speakers of the Pontic dialect of the Greek language. In addition to the Greeks who arrived in Kabardino-Balkaria as part of the migration wave from the Ottoman Empire, the region was also settled by Greeks who returned from deportation to Kazakhstan in the 1950s. Moreover, in an attempt to avoid the repressions of 1937, some Greek families moved from neighboring Stavropol Krai to Kabardino-Balkaria. Today the community is small in number, and the Greek society in the region (est. 1991) has ceased its activities. From the 1990s to the present day, an outflow of the Greek population from the region has been observed, both to Greece and to neighboring regions in Russia. The Greek community in Kabardino-Balkaria is urbanized, as most of its members live in the major cities of the republic, Nalchik and Prokhladny. The urban environment has affected the preservation of ritual complexes (family and calendar rituals) characteristic of an agrarian culture. The article focuses primarily on funerary and commemorative rites. The analysis demonstrates the preservation in the local tradition of a number of Pontic elements (the preparation of wheat κοκία according to a special recipe, the forty-day cycle of commemorations, and the prohibition of the autopsy), as well as the influence of the Russian and Caucasian cultural milieu. A gradual transformation of ritual practice is noted, associated with urbanization, the decline in the size of the community, and the decreasing role of Greek public organizations.

Acknowledgements

Work was supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation No. 22-18-00484-P, https://rscf.ru/project/22-18-00484/.

Received 3 September 2025

Revised 15 November 2025

Accepted 20 November 2025

For citation: Klimova, K. A., Nikitina, I. O., Chivarzina, A. I., 2025. Language and Culture of the Greeks of Kabardino-Balkaria (Based on Materials from the Ethnolinguistic Expedition of 2025). Slavic World in the Third Millennium, 20 (3–4), pp. 251–266. https://doi.org/10.31168/2412-6446.2025.20.3-4.12