Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict in the South Caucasus by Geukjian Ohannes.;

Author:Geukjian, Ohannes.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2012-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Azerbaijani National Aspirations (1960-79)

Concerning the territorial disputes, the Azerbaijanis too were dissatisfied with the Soviet territorial arrangements of the 1920s. The Azerbaijani nationalists considered Zangezur ‘historically’ Azerbaijani land that was given to Armenia when the NKAR was created inside Azerbaijan.113 In addition, they viewed the NKAR ‘within their republic as an official lever installed by Moscow to facilitate Russian manipulation of regional politics and to frustrate Azerbaijani national aspirations’.114

The Azerbaijanis rejected the Armenian demands because they based their argument on living traditions. Moreover, the demands for the unification of N-K with Armenia was not seen justifiable because, according to Article 78 of the 1977 Soviet constitution, a Union republic’s borders could not be altered without its consent.115

In Azerbaijan nationalism developed in the early twentieth century, although Azerbaijani nationalism could have different connotations following the first independence of Azerbaijan in 1918.116 This could be attributed to the recent formation of the Azerbaijani people, as was examined in Chapter 2. In the 1960s the Sparrow Society (1966-8) that emerged in Azerbaijan called for Azerbaijan to be separated from the USSR and embraced the idea of a new independent state. Its members did not become dissident nationalists because they were not subjected to harsh treatment.117 The Azerbaijani anti-Soviet sentiment and the sensitivity of the N-K question left an impact on domestic political life.

It is worth stressing that in Azerbaijan dissident nationalism in the period under discussion in this book did not appear.118 Instead, Azerbaijani nationalism could be viewed within the context of interactive nationalism against the Russians and N-K Armenians as an internal threat, particularly after the waves of petitions sent to Moscow from 1945 until the late 1970s demanding the unification of N-K with Armenia.119

The Azerbaijanis rejected acknowledging the issues that were raised in the Armenian petitions. They also rejected being held responsible for socio-economic under-development, historical injustice and discrimination against the N-K Armenians. The Azerbaijani stance could be partially justified because they considered the problems of N-K to be a product of the Soviet nationalities policy and Soviet conditions of economic stalemate and neglect in the NKAR, two issues that were salient in many other regions in the USSR.120 Still, Soviet ethno-territorial federalism encouraged the Azerbaijani titular nationality to play a dominant role in its republic.

Nora Dudwick argued that ‘the Armenian territorial claims to Azerbaijan and separatist desires in N-K increased the Azerbaijani nationalism’.121 The territorial dimension of national identity was very significant for the Azerbaijanis, as was explained in Chapter 3. Therefore, the Azerbaijanis perceived the Armenian territorial demands as ‘attempts to aggrandize’ at the expense of Azerbaijani territory and a direct threat to their national identity.122

Within this context, Frank Huddle argued that Azerbaijani nationalism in the Brezhnev-Kosygin era did not surface as such for two reasons. First, ‘there was little samizdat relevant to the Azerbaijanis that was capable of reaching them’ because of the Soviet tight control over the republic’s border and its separation from Turkey. This meant that ‘the Azerbaijanis were ideologically isolated from any potential spirit of Turkic nationalism which might emerge’.

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