Old Traditions and New Beginnings

By Audrey L. Altstadt

The names of the newspapers published by the Azerbaijan Popular Front (APF) and other political organizations in the republic tell a great deal about the nature of the two-year-old movement there—Azadlik (Freedom), Umid (Hope), Akhyn (Torrent), Seher (Morning). The words paint a picture of independence, energy and new beginnings.

The Azerbaijanis are also angry about the inequitable economic arrangements mandated by Moscow in which Azerbaijan supplies raw materials (cotton, wool, steel) so that factories in other republics can manufacture finished goods. These are then sold back to Azerbaijan.

People are angry at small insults on top of great injuries.

Ten years ago, people privately grumbled about such inequities. Now they speak publicly. One Azeri economic historian went so far as to call Azerbaijan's economy "colonial."

It would be a mistake, however, to see this national movement as purely a matter of economics. Popular anger encompasses political, ecological and cultural matters, as reflected in printed sources, at public rallies, and in interviews with leaders.

Gorbachev's sending Soviet troops to Baku last January was denounced as a violation of the republic's sovereignty. The creation of a "special regime" for Nagorno-Karabagh, which Azerbaijanis regard as their historic patrimony. was castigated for the same reason.

APF leaders have been arrested as "extremists" and held incommunicado, despite their commitment to "humanism, democracy, pluralism, internationalism, and human rights." No Helsinki Watch groups or foreign correspondents inquire about those arrested. Nor do human rights watchdogs embrace Azerbaijan's demands for free movement across borders. And people are angry at small insults on top of great injuries: Russians born in Azerbaijan never speak Azerbaijani Turkish, for Azerbaijanis are expected to speak Russian.

The area in which grievances were first revealed, with surprising boldness since about 1982, is the realm of culture, the one avenue which remained open at least to cautious exploration and assertion even when political action was impossible.

The Azerbaijani Turkish scholars, writers and artists began to clarify their historic origins, the links between their Turkish dialect and those used by other Turks. especially in Central Asia, and the values and traditions contained in the great works of their language.

This is emphatically not the chimerical "Pan-Turkism." Rather, it is a recognition of common origin, cultural bonds, and values—rather like Americans reading Chaucer.

Azerbaijanis arc aware of being Turks and Muslims, though some have questioned how important Islam should be within their identity. Azerbaijan itself has a long secular tradition in politics and the few groups who have used Islamic rhetoric have gained little popular following.

First and foremost, Azerbaijan's national movement presents a challenge to Russian hegemony in all spheres. The leaders make this challenge on the basis of their own national, cultural and human rights.

Dr. Audrey L. Altstadt, assistant professor of history at Central Connecticut State University spent 15 months in Baku on exchange fellowships and is the author of more than a dozen articles on Azerbaijan.

Aspirations to Unity and Independence

By Tadeusz Swietochowski

Azerbaijan—the name has cropped up in our media for the last two years because of the ethnic violence over Nagorno-Karabagh. But the January 1990 events indicate a more momentous turn of affairs than the clashes with the Armenians. Those crowds, cheerfully clipping barbed wire and burning frontier posts along the Soviet-Iranian border evoke images of what happened to the Berlin Wall.

Like the Germans, the Azerbaijanis are a people divided, with part under Soviet rule, and a somewhat larger portion forming a Turkic-speaking minority within Iran. In this case, however, the division has lasted for more than a century and a half. A national movement emerged among the northern, or Russian, Azerbaijanis. whose leaders governed the independent Azerbaijan Republic from 1918 to 1920, when it was turned into a Soviet republic.

The long-range, supreme goal of Azerbaijani nationalism has always been the reunification of the two parts. The unity could be under the rule of Iran, as it was for many centuries in the past, or brought about by Russian action as in 1945 and 1946, when Soviet forces occupied Iranian Azerbaijan. Or it could be the most fascinating prospect of all, an independent Azerbaijan on both sides of today's border.

The differences in approach to this goal are more than tactical, and reflect sectarian and cultural orientations. The majority of Azerbaijanis are of Shi'i background. For those especially from the rural regions along the frontier, Iran has remained a spiritual homeland, its appeal reinforced by the religious upsurge symbolized by Khomeini.

Nearly one third of the Azerbaijanis, however, trace their roots to Sunni Islam. This large minority tends to look for inspiration to Turkey, the nation closest linguistically to Azerbaijan. This orientation is largely shared by the secular-minded intelligentsia of the urban center of Baku, who see in Turkey a model of Westernization and an economic success story.

Clearly, religion could not form a sound basis for political action in Azerbaijan.

The differences in approach are more than tactical.

Quite likely, Azerbaijani political stirrings would have remained buried had it not been for the Armenian challenge. The Nagorno-Karabagh conflict led to a political awakening. Its byproduct was the mushrooming of independent publications, refugee relief committees, associations, and in the end the emergence of the powerful Popular Front, one of the most effective umbrella organizations of its kind in the Soviet Union.

It was the local branches of the Popular Front that sponsored the demonstrations along the frontier line, against the isolation from their compatriots across the border imposed on them by the Soviet rule. Subsequently, in Baku, the Azerbaijan Supreme Soviet, in reply to Moscow's military intervention, uttered openly what until recently had been unthinkable: the threat of secession from the USSR.

Of the three strains in the Azerbaijani upheaval, Islam, ethnic antagonism, and national aspirations, the latter, with its strivings for unity and independence, has proven to be the most dynamic force.

Dr. Tadeusz Swietochowski, a professor at Monmouth College in NJ, is the author of Russian Azerbaijan, 1905-1920: The Shaping of National Identity in a Muslim Community.