The Azerbaijani Turks: Power and Identity under Russian Rule

by Audrey L. Altstadt, Wayne Vucinich

This is the first comprehensive account of Azerbaijan's rich and tumultuous history up to the present time. The Azerbaijan Republic is situated where ancient Media once stood, a territory invaded and influenced by Persian king Cyrus the Great, Alexander of Macedonia, and Pompey's Roman legions. Since the early nineteenth century its Muslim Turkish people have been ruled by Russia, first by the imperial tsars and then by the Soviet regime. In 1990, two centuries of harsh domination culminated in Black January when Soviet troops opened fire on the civilian population of Baku. The following year, Azerbaijan declared its independence and began rebuilding its political and economic system. Former Communists and opposition leaders continue to struggle for dominance. Audrey L. Altstadt makes use of both Russian-language and Azerbaijani Turkish-language newspapers, journals, and scholarly publications. Much of this material has never been used in any other Western studies. Altstadt's original research adds the Azerbaijani perspective on the two-century relationship between Russia and Azerbaijan. She identifies key issues and actors and documents a pattern of continual struggle against colonial rule from the initial conquest to the political movements of the late twentieth century. Russian domination has encompassed more than the military, political, and economic spheres. There have also been harsh restrictions on cultural expression, including killing leading intellectuals and falsifying historical facts. However, Azerbaijani Turks continue to thwart Russian control by protecting their rich and ancient heritage through native-language education and the arts. As Altstadt writes, "the Azerbaijani Turks use the antiquity of their history, language, and literature as a weapon of self-defense, as proof they need no tutelage in self-government, economic management, education, or literature."

Genres: History, Russian Empire, Middle East, Russia

334 pages, Paperback

First published March 31, 1992

Reviews

[Bubba · Rating 4 out of 5]

The classic introduction to the development of the Azerbaijani nation and the state they eventually came to rule. Alstadt briefly covers the Azerbaijani ethnogenesis--a fusion of Caucasian Albanians subjected to Sassanian Persian rule, Turkification, and Islamization (becoming Twelver Shi'ism under the Safavids). Azerbaijan was a battleground for Ottoman and Safavid rivals, and was finally snatched away from the Persian political orbit by Russia in the early 19th century.

The story of Azerbaijan under Russian rule, both tsarist and Soviet, will be familiar to students of Central Asian and Soviet history. There was exploitation by the metropole (particularly in terms of oil), mistrust of Muslim subjects, fears of Pan-Turkism, and continued prejudice into the Soviet era when friendship of peoples based on Leninst principles was supposed to have held sway. The region's bourgeois nationalists and socialists/Bolsheviks vied for supremacy following the collapse of the empire (with a brief Azerbaijani Democratic Republic and Turkish intervention), but the Red Army ensured victory for Moscow. The presence of an influential, orthodox Christian Armenian population in the South Caucasus added a crucial element to regional dynamics. As in Central Asia, early socialists/Bolsheviks were mostly ethnic Russians or Armenians, and the imperial center continued to favour ethnic Armenians in the republic, as in Nagorno-Karabakh, until 1991. Indeed, the main theme of Alstadt's work is Moscow's exploitation and partiality to the Armenian lobby within Azerbaijan, which has resulted in the existence into the present day of the Former Soviet Union's most knotty frozen conflict.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Altstadt is one of the foremost experts on Soviet Azerbaijan, and this book was a major work on the development of an Azerbaijani identity. The focus is on the Soviet period and how Azerbaijan developed then, but she does touch on the pre-Soviet era to establish a solid background, and then continues on throughout the period to the end of the Soviet Union, as the book was published in 1992. While it does lack from not having access to local archival materials, it is still a valuable book on the topic of Azerbaijan, and worth reading for anyone looking to understand the region and the people, especially during the Soviet period.

[Azerbaijani]

good first book, if you are new to Azerbaijani issues