CC BY
27
R. F-oglu Safarov,
Dr. Sc. (Philosophy), the Institute of Archeology
and Ethnography, National Academy
of Sciences of Azerbaijan
THE AZERBAIJANI PEOPLE ARE BETWEEN
THE MUSLIM UMMAH
AND THEIR NATIONAL IDENTITY
The ideology of nationalism was alien to Muslim thinking. It originated in Europe and was imported into Russia and Dar-ul-Islam. It is necessary to define the fundamental difference between the concepts of "ethnicity" and "nation", which is quite confusing and outdated, and between which the equality sign is put frequently. Modern researches clearly formulate the difference between a nation and an ethnic group, pointing to the different nature of the origin of these concepts. Ethnicity as a phenomenon is a collective form of existence of human individuals. We regard the nation as a political community of citizens of a particular state. Today there are about two thousand peoples, but only a little more than two hundred countries and dependent territories.
Extensive contacts with Europe and Russia were established in the colonial era, and various scientific concepts (racial and linguistic), political doctrines and ideologies penetrated into Dar al-Islam from them. All these teachings were ideologically inspired by European nationalism. The concepts of "race" / "ethnicity" and "nation" were unknown to the inhabitants of the Middle East until such time as the European influence has become more perceptible there. Even then, ideas of determining a nation as a race were openly proclaimed by intellectuals and political leaders mostly. Ordinary people still identify themselves by religion as Muslims.
Azerbaijan and Iran were connected by a common geography and historical destiny. Centennial struggle for the central power, between the Azerbaijani factions was completed by the victory of Shiite Azerbaijanis in the early 16th century. By the middle of the 16th century the significant Azerbaijani lands in Asia Minor and Iraq, and the Azerbaijanis living there (known as turkimen), came under Ottoman rule. The next division of the territory of Azerbaijan was in the 19th century, when Northern Azerbaijan got under colonial rule of the Christian states of Russia, which was subjected to the Europeanization since the 18th century. Northern Azerbaijanis fell under the influence of European culture earlier than many other Muslim community, but through Russia.
The Azerbaijanis with Turks were the basis of the Ottoman Empire. However, the Ottomans did not consider the Ottoman Empire Turkish only - it was an Islamic state for them, which based on Islamic canons under the rules of the Sultan. The Ottoman Empire was not a national empire: there was no official separation by ethnic group1.
As in Turkey, the Muslim population of Northern Azerbaijan consisted of Shiites and Sunnis. Interaction of the two centers - the Ottoman and Iranian - was manifested in the birth and formation of national identity.
But the colonial era for Azerbaijan meant partition of the country and its people above all. Two parts of Azerbaijan, were in different areas of the historical development, where one was under European influence, perceived mainly through the prism of Russia. Social transformation has been slow and limited after the seizure of Azerbaijan, but the economic and social character of the land to the north of the Aras River became greatly differ from similar characteristics in the south, at the end.
Contact of the two civilizations - European, provided by Russia, and traditional Islamic - has created local intellectuals. In the second half of the century graduates of Russian and European universities, seminaries of the Caucasus, began to dominate in Azerbaijan's intellectual environment, and become agents of modernization ideas, and in the future - a major factor in the current changes in the local community.
The first and most important was the spread of education, which has been linked to secularism, not so much because of hostility to Islam, but as a means of gradual suggestion sense of community of the Caucasus Muslims overcoming division between Shiites and Sunnis. An important area of activity of the Azerbaijani intellectuals was also a literary revival.
Since literary revival came from the need to spread the ideas of education among the greatest possible number of people in their own language, this movement inevitably led to the creation of a new group identity. The process of weakening the influence of Iran on the Azerbaijanis in the Russian Empire has led to their liberation from the centuries-long Iranian cultural domination2. It found some support from the Russian authorities, seeking to ease the identification of the Azerbaijanis from Iran and strengthen the linguistic Russification. The Azerbaijani press appeared almost simultaneously with the emergence of the theater.
The views of pan-Islamism were dominant among the Azerbaijani intellectuals in the late 19th century3. Pan-Islamism appealed to the collective consciousness of the Ummah - the worldwide community of all believers, regardless of their ethnic differences, with calling for the unity of Muslims around the world in response to the invasion of the West ,but it was not able to develop into a well-defined doctrine as a defensive reaction to external pressure.
There were several versions of pan-Islamism. The liberal one propagated the compatibility of Islam with the mind, science, technology, and encouraged to accept (albeit selectively) Western techniques and methods. This version of pan-Islamism attracted especially young Azerbaijanis, with the prospect of reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites in the spirit of a modernized Islam.
In addition, it facilitates the cultivation of historical ties with Iran for them4. New Pan-Turkism movement in the Russian Empire began to spread. Basically in order to oppose Russification, which was inspired by pan-Slavism a protective union program of the Turkic-speaking peoples in the framework of the Russian Empire - Turkism and Pan-Turkic - was developed.
The first term meant the desire for the ethnic identity of the Turkic peoples, the second - for their cooperation and solidarity. At the same time, Pan-Turkism and pan-Islamism did not exclude one another, as Islam is a common religion for almost all the Turkic peoples. Pan-Turkism roots were in the ethnic and linguistic identity of the group of peoples while the pan-Islamism expressed their religious identity.
The preached unity was spiritual, linguistic and cultural. The first step towards this goal was the creation of a literary language, which was the basis of the Istanbul dialect of Turkish language, i.e. the language of the Ottoman Empire5. Such an attempt exposed to criticism because of its artificiality, but this tendency was held nevertheless.
Nevertheless, the rise of Turkism stimulated the search for identity by Azerbaijanis. A distinction was made between the concepts of the local religious community and nationality, still denoted by single word "millet", the term "Azerbaijani Turks" was proposed to describe the people living on both sides of the Iran-Russian border6.
This approach to the problem of forming identity linking the Turkic identity7 and the actual identity of the Azerbaijani meant that
intellectuals of the last decade of the 19th century differed from their predecessors radically: their work has been inspired by political ideas. Later the slogan "Turkization, Islamization, Europeanization" has been formulated; subsequently it became famous, it was a battle cry of Turkists in the Ottoman state, and these three words have received symbolic expression in the three colors of the flag of an independent Republic of Azerbaijan after a while8.
Group identity changed much more slowly. In the early 20th century, Iranians visiting Baku still felt at home. In 1908, the Young Turks seized power in Turkey, which had a dynamic and profound impact on Azerbaijanis9. Turkism propaganda movement was headed by intellectuals of Azerbaijan environment, including the local Azerbaijanis and the Turkis invited from Russia - Tatars and Azerbaijanis. Recognized in Turkey at last, Pan-Turkism (previously amorphous cultural movement) gained politically organized form.
Migrants from eastern Trans-Caucasus brought home the idea of Turkism, and it has become a dominant trend in the Azerbaijani political thought after 1908. Even conservatives were covered with a spirit of solidarity with the Ottomans, although treated nationalism with suspicion, and were prone to Shiite prejudices against Turkey.
Since the last quarter of the 19th century, the debate on national issues unfolded among the educated stratum of the Transcaucasian Muslims under the influence of European concepts of "race" and "nation", including the self-name. The names of "Azeris", "Azerbaijanis" and "Azerbaijani Turks / Ottomans' were offered for the identity10. A long discussion was politicized. Starting from 1905-1907, the supporters of romantic ideas of Pan-Turkism imposed a linguistic term "Turk", which previously was not used in any national sense, using the indifference of the people11.
The active political life started in Azerbaijan immediately after the February 1917 revolution. Azerbaijani national political parties have emerged and adhered to each one of the ideological orientations that shaped the political process in Azerbaijan: nationalism pan-Islamism, socialism. At that time nationalism meant a Turkism with a growing component of the Azerbaijani identity. Two main ideas were: the first was the secular Turkic nationalism, when the nation meant a common language, religion, traditions, culture, literature and law. The religious community did not form the nation by itself12. Another idea was a project of the Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan as a part of Russia, which became the federation of free and equal states. It was evidence of a new stage of historical evolution of Azerbaijanis - a stage of transition to a national state. Striving for federalism was a constant, not a transient feature, connected with the doubts about the viability of a fully independent Azerbaijan.
The culmination of the formation of national identity was a declaration of independence and the formation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic on May 28, 1918. Now the value of nationalism was in recognition of the Azerbaijani as an independent nation, even though a member of the family of Turkic peoples. Turkic (Azerbaijani) language was declared the official language of the republic.
Lasted for a short time, the independent Azerbaijani statehood has become a historical fact of enormous value. Republic was viable enough to force the Bolsheviks recognize the Azerbaijanis as a nation having the right to their own state, no longer independent, but having autonomy of the Soviet type. That autonomy was the most prominent tendency in the national movement until 191813.
Like any form of colonialism, the Russian governance had dark and light sides, but one thing was particularly important: the identity of the Azerbaijani-Turkic nation arose gradually, to the north of the Araks;
The growth of the intelligentsia, modern means of communication, the development of education contributed to this process. Nascent nationalism, even more Turkic than Azerbaijan, was forced to establish an independent national state in 1918.
Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was the highest point of the national aspirations of Azerbaijanis before the collapse of the USSR, although independence was not included in the number of tasks in 1918. Soviet authorities continued the transformation of Azerbaijanis in the nation in 1920 (national agreement on indigenization, alphabet reform, secularization). Azerbaijanism, particularistic component of group identification of Azerbaijanis, was cleared of the Turkic and Islamic heritage and imposed cruel as it was inherent in the period of Stalin era.
References
J. McCarthy., K. McCarthy. Tyurki i armyane Rukovodstvo po armyanskomu voprosu. [Tyurki and Armenians: A Guide to the Armenian issue] / Per. from English. - Baku: Azerneshr, 1996. P. 9.
Algar H. Mirza Malkum Khan. A Study in the History of Iranian Modernism.Berkeley, 1973, pp. 64-268.
A. Arsharuni, H. Gabidullin. Ocherki panislamizma I pantyurkizmav Rossii [Outlines of pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism in Russia]. Moscow. 1931. N. Keddie. An Islamic Response to Imperialism: Political and religious Writings of Sayyid Jamal addin "al-Afghani": A Political Biography. Berkeley: California University Press, 1972.
Zenkovsky S. Pan-Turkism and Islam in Russia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960. P. 24-36. Keshkul. Baku. 1891. № 22. Hayat. Baku. 1905. 7 iyun.
Kamaloglu R. Turk dunyasinin boyuk ideologu // Azerbaycan. 1991. № 3 (23). Feroz A. The Young Turks: The Committee of Union and Progress in Turkish Politics. Oxford University Press, 1969.
R. Safarov. Endoetnonimy azerbaydzhantsev v istoricheskoy retrospektive [Endo-ethnonyms of the Azerbaijanis in the historical retrospectives] // Actual problems of East: history and modernity. - Baku, 2003. pp. 66-68.
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3
4
5
See: ibid. p. 68. Keykurun N. Turk Ademi Merkeziyet Firkasinin faaliyeti ve Musavat Partisiyle birlesmesi // Musavat Bulteni. 1962. № 4. p. 19-21. Swietochowski T. Russian Azerbaijan. 1905-1920. The Shaping of National Identity in a Muslim Community. - Cambridge University Press, 1995. P. 165190;
M. Rasulzade. Azerbaycan Cumhuriyyeti. Baku: Elm, 1991. pp. 66-78.
"The 2ndBigiev's readings. Muslim thought in the 21st century: unity of tradition and innovation." (Articles of the 2nd International Scientific - Educational Conference, St. Petersburg, 17-20 May 2015), Moscow, 2016, pp. 351-362.
13
I. Ryzhov,
Dr. Sc. (hist.)
M. Borodina,
PhD student, Nizhny Novgorod,
State University named after N.I. Lobachevsky
ETHNIC PROBLEMS OF MODERN IRAN
About 15 different ethnic minorities live on the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran today. The ethnic factor influences all spheres of life - political, economic and social processes. The complex ethnic diversity complicates the solution of many social and political issues and ethnic conflicts, and numerous ethnic minorities experience serious problems of integration in the political space of Iran. Thus, the ethnic problems are one of the most relevant for Iran as they are accompanied by the desire of a number of ethnic minorities for autonomy, the growth of terrorism and extremism, as well as a very high interest in this question of some regional and extra-regional actors.
Islamic Republic of Iran, one of the regional Middle East leaders, is a country of "imperial" type with a complex ethnic structure. That is why the ethnic problems are extremely important for the modern Iran. The existence of numerous ethnic minorities, separated peoples seeking
