Of the myriad controversies surrounding the upcoming Olympics, one that’s gotten relatively little attention—at least outside Russia—is the ongoing campaign against the games by the global Circassian community. The choice of Sochi as a venue has highlighted a tragic but largely forgotten chapter in the region’s history. The Circassian Genocide , book published last year by Occidental College historian Walter Richmond , makes a compelling case that Sochi was the site of modern Europe’s first genocide, a crime against humanity that presaged many of the worst atrocities of the 20 th century. The Circassians , who also self-identify as the Adyghe, were once one of the predominant ethnic groups of the North Caucasus, predominantly Sunni Muslim and speaking a distinctive group of languages. They also had the unfortunate historical luck to have lived between two expansionist empires—Czarist Russia and Ottoman Turkey—at the worst possible time. Russia had...