The Two Azerbaijans: A Common Past and A Common Future

by David Nissman

David Nissman is the author of the book, "The Soviet Union and the Iranian Azerbaijan: The Use of Nationalism for Political Penetration." (Westview Press, 1987)

The recent merger of four Southern Azerbailani (Iranian) political parties as the Front for the National Independence of South Azerbaijan (FNISA) and subsequent remarks on it by the deposed President of Azerbaijan Elchibey have drawn attention to the unification of the two parts of Azerbaijan-Northern and Southern Azerbaijan, or the Azerbaijan Republican and Iranian Azerbaijan. The reports have failed to mention, however, that this Is the third time since the beginning of World War II that such a movement has emerged in Southern Azerbaijan, and that each time it has gained the support of Northern Azerbaijan's intellectual, creative, and political elite. The difference this time, according to a FNISA spokesperson, is that the appearance or the independent republic of Azerbaijan created a real base for the unification of Southern and Northern Azerbaijan and a single, independent state of Azerbaijan."

If the movement for the reunification or Azerbaijan was only political, it could still be easily dismissed: Azerbaijan, though independent, suffers from a potentially disastrous economic crisis and has been engaged in a long-lasting conflict with Armenia over the status of Upper Karabakh since 1988. As it stands, the country does not have the strength to even tacitly give any support to an irredentist movement over its or Iran's oil, especially since Iran is nominally more Important as a friend than as an enemy. At the same time. Azeri national movements in Iran throughout this century have only been successful when they have had the support of the North - not only support from Azeris north of the Iranian border, but support from the Soviet Union. This movement is also cultural and traditional: over the years it has developed its own school of literature, the 'literature of longing,' and this literature has developed its own symbolism.

The movement also has its own history and, like the history of every people on the face of the earth, this history also carries with it its own martyrs and victims - the Southern Azeri patriot Semed Behrangi, murdered by Savak in his attempt to swim to the northern bank of the Araz River, which marks the border between Iran and the Azerbaijan Republic. The Azeri popular song, 'Semed, Semed!' is dedicated to this event and Behrangi 5 successful swim. Subsequently, there is the strange case of the 'accidental' death of Pishevari in Northern Azerbaijan in 1947, who was president of the Azerbaijan democratic Republic from 1944-1940. The circumstances surrounding his death are still unexplained. Above all, the movement is bound together by families separated by the border between Iran and Azerbaijan. It is not a movement created by chance, nor is it trivial.

The Origin of the Southern Azerbaijani National Liberation Movement

Azerbaijan was separated into two parts by the Treaty of Turkmanchay, signed between Russia and Iran in 1828. While believed to be the stimulus for a 'One Azerbaijan' movement, the treaty primarily affected those merchants who traded across both borders, who were taxed with various levies. The only significant change from the split was the creation of a Russian province in Northern Azerbaijan: cross-border movements by the Azeri population was not impeded.

The real beginning or the modern movement took place during the occupation of northern Iran, including Southern Azerbaijan, during the World War II. Under occupation, a large contingent of Soviet Azeris served as liaisons with the local population. performing various propaganda and communication functions including the establishment of newspapers. magazines, cultural contacts, and the training of Southern Azeri journalists. writers. and political activists in their own language and culture.

The teaching or the Azeri language had been banned under Reza Shah. A newspaper started up under the Soviet Azeris ill Tabriz. Vatan Yolunda (On The Road To The Fatherland), played a major role in the educational process. Mirza Ibrahimov, by far the Southern Azeri's most important figure in the postwar years, wrote in 1983 that Vatan Yolunda shined like a light in the darkness for the Southern Azeri s-for whom schools, the press, and literature in the mother tongue were banned, and who had been exposed to oppression and persecution through the denial of their identity, nationality, history, culture, and language under the severe social and national tyranny of the Shah's despotism."

While the Soviet Azeri educational process In Southern Azerbaijan had a major impact on developing national self-awareness among their perceived conationals in Iran, it also changed the attitudes of Soviet Azeri participants in this program: they themselves were inculcated with the same national ideals they were teaching and, following their return to the Soviet Union, continued to develop and propagandize these ideals. In a sense, Southern Azerbaijan can be considered one or the birthplaces of the modern national movement in the North.

The Postwar Period: From 1947 To The Mid-1980s

The Soviet Azeri experience in Southern Azerbaijan ended badly. The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. which had been established in Iranian Azerbaijan under Soviet protection in 1945, collapsed following the Red Army's departure. Many Southern Azeri political leaders, poets. and writers, fled to Soviet Azerbaijan where they found a warm reception by the literary community. They gradually integrated themselves into Soviet Azeri society, Most of them continued to work for the liberation of Southern Azerbaijan. Southern Azeri émigré writers and poets used the phrase 'second Fatherland' when speaking of Soviet Azerbaijan. This phrase was dropped in the early 1980s when the concept of 'One Azerbaijan' was launched by the poet Suleyman Rustem.

In the late 1940s, the Southern Azeri national liberation struggle was the subject of a novel by Mirza Ibrahimov. "The Coming Day". Published in Baku, this novel was revised and translated into Russian, subsequently receiving the Lenin Prize and thus creating a much wider audience for the "Southern Question." Poetry written by Suleyman Rustam, which reflected his experiences in Tabriz during the Soviet occupation, also won a Soviet state prize in 1947. Rustam 5 poem "Winter in Tabriz." Was voted one of the best poems of 1949 by the Moscow journal Ogonyok.

During this same period, guidelines for the symbols of "longing" for Southern Azerbaijan and the history of the entire Southern movement were set down by Jafer Khendan in his 1949 doctoral dissertation "The Ideas of the National Liberation Movement in Southern Azerbaijan," guidelines that are still followed by poets and critics today. Although the symbols are codified, a casual reader unaware of the ideological apparatus developed for the literature of longing can nonetheless read a poem without losing any meaning: for example. A verse from Kamran Mehdi's 1983 poem "Longing" is obvious:

The Araz, nurturing us with sorrow,
Flows on, cutting like lightning.
True, the Araz divides a nation,
But... the earth underneath is one!

And the symbols could evolve. Resolving the contradiction involved in a "second Fatherland" by stating there was only "One Azerbaijan", Rustem began contemplating the writing of this symbol in poetic terms. To this end, Balash Azeroglu, one of the poets who had emigrated to the North after the collapse of the Azerbaijan in Azeri literary establishment, published a long autobiographical poem called "The Path of Life" in 1980. it concludes with the lines:

The sorrows and wounds of this land are one.
The battles of Baku and turmoil of Tabriz -
Do these not lead to one goal?
The fatherland is neither separated nor divided!

From the 19505 to the 1970s the "Southern Question" was institutionalized in the North. The USSR Academy of Sciences began the process by creating the Institute of Oriental Studies in Baku; the purpose was to make it "the major center of Iranian studies in our USSR." its functions included ways to develop national liberation movements in the Middle East. In 1976 the Nizami Institute of Literature established a special section for the study and publication of Southern Azeri literature. Radio Baku, which had been beaming programs to Iran since 1941. and began broadcasting programs in 1978 especially designed for listeners in Southern Azerbaijan. The "Southern Question" had not only developed a unique culture, but also had spawned the institutional apparatus essential for its continued survival as a movement.

The Fall of The Shah

Soviet Azerbaijan was prepared for the fall or the Shah. in the south. literary journals and newspapers sprang up in the cities of Iran's northwestern provinces due to the lifting of the ban on the use of the Azeri language in 1979. A number of movements were formed, most advocating some form of national and cultural autonomy within Iran. The many Soviet Azeri institutions concerned with the South stepped up operations concerned with communicating to their Southern conationals the cultural, political and linguistic directions they felt should be taken. The problem was that the Soviet Union, which had openly supported Azerbaijan's intentions on Iranian Azerbaijan, had become an impediment. Marxism-Leninism, which was imperceptibly in its death throes in the USSR, was not acceptable to the rank and file of Southern Azeris.

Yet, the primary line taken by "Southern Question" ideologists centered on developing the sense of an Azeri nationality distinct from that of other nationalities within Iran through stimulating the development of the Azeri-Turkic language. This policy also paid domestic dividends: the Azeri sense of nationality within Soviet Azerbaijan was also enhanced at the same time. Ultimately, what developed was a sense of common Azeri identity which was supposed to supersede the Iranian or Soviet identity among the Azeris whether one lived north or south of the Araz River. By 1983. the Islamic Republic of Iran under the leadership of the Ayatollah Khomeini was firmly in control of the country and the various Southern movements for national autonomy or more were dispersed. Southern Azeri publications. with one or two exceptions. virtually ceased to exist, and the Southern movement became dormant in the South.

This was not the case in the North. Two plays by Ilyas Efendiyev - Khurshidbanu Natevan and Sheykh Khiyabani - staged in Baku in the 1980s. emphasized the theme of a divided Azerbaijan. Sheykh Khiyabani. who had played a prominent role in Iranian politics and perhaps the dominant role in Iranian Azerbaijan until his execution by the Iranian government in 1920. has long been promoted in northern Azerbajan as a hero of Southern Azeri national liberation. As a reviewer pointed out, "the performance of the drama Sheykh Khiyabani has gained the deep respect of art lovers for attracting their attention to the great two parts. the "Southern Question." This marked an important phase in the evolution of the "Southern Question": national myth had replaced historical reality. history records no statement by either the poetess Natevan nor Sheykh Khiyabani on the division of Azerbaijan.

There can be no doubt that the issue of the "Southern Question" had dominated the Azeri cultural media throughout the 1980s until the beginning of 1988. This subject was soon to be replaced by one of more immediate importance to the North. In February 1988, the first groups of Azeris who had been driven by Armenia began to arrive in the cities of Azerbaijan. Primarily Baku, Ganja, and Sumgait. While the Azeri media gave only limited coverage to the issue, the increasing presence of the émigrés for whom no provisions had been made in terms of jobs, housing or other necessities, became a more and more visible presence as the year progressed. The impending conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan effectively removed the "Southern Question" from the pages of Azerbaijan's media.

The massive demonstration in Baku in November-December 1988 brought forth a variety of political organizations in Azerbaijan of which the most important was the Azerbaijan, Popular Front (APF), established in 1989, which soon had an opportunity to prove its effectiveness as a political movement. As it happened, it concerned the "Southern Question."

In 1989 talks were initiated and delegations exchanged between Moscow and Tehran with the goal of expanding trade relations between the two countries. As a consequence of expanded trade, it was felt in Azerbaijan that cross-border contacts between the Azeris Of the Soviet Union and of Iran would be eased. This was always a minimal objective in the context of the "Southern Question" and had also become a significant issue in the broader context of Soviet Azerbaijan’s reassertion of its own national identity. After many delays a protocol was signed between Azerbaijan and Iran in October, 1989 on the establishment of direct trade relations. And nothing happened.

The Events On The Azerbaijan-Iran Border

A primary interest of the Nakhchevan regional APF charters was the easing of border crossings between northern and southern Azerbaijan. No action seemed to be forth coming from the series of discussions on the establishment of direct trade relations was completely dependent on the whim of Moscow, and Moscow did not appear to be inclined to allow a union republic any latitude in the expansion of its sovereignty. With this in mind, on December 4. 1989 the Nakhchevan Peoples Front held a series of meetings on the banks of the Araz River "with the goals of restoring economic. cultural and every kind of human relations with Southern Azerbaijan." On December 12th of the same year. another series of meetings along the Araz were held. ostensibly marking the 45th anniversary of a significant event in the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. This meeting was also attended by representatives from Southern Azerbaijan who gathered on the opposite banks of the Araz, directly across from the APF meetings, which took place in six locations along the river (Kerimbeyli. Mughanly, Shahtakhty, Nehrem, Julfa and Ordubad). Five days later, a number of tents were raised for an additional series of meetings along the Araz. This time, entertainment was also provided, and a noted Azeri vocalist sang songs (including "Ayrylyg" ["Separation"], whose lyrics stress the separation between the Azeris of the South and the North). More importantly, the Nakhchevan Peoples Front issued an ultimatum to "government organs" and the border command which stated that if the barbed wire fences along the border were not taken down by December 31st, the border installations would be burned down. The official mass media of Azerbaijan carried no news about this ultimatum or about the earlier Araz meetings. On December 30th, a group of Azerbaijan Supreme Soviet deputies and border troop generals came to Nakhchevan and demanded that the ultimatum be withdrawn. There was no response to their demands.

At noon on December 31st, the Peoples Front held meetings along the Araz River in the neighborhood of the towns of Sederek, Shahtakhty, Nehrem, Julfa, and Ordubad. After the meetings. all of which were ten minutes long. the border installations were burnt down, and the border guards made no effort to interfere.

On the next day, people began to flood into the border area from other parts of Nakhchevan and Azerbaijan. At first, Iranian border guards at first made an effort to halt impromptu meetings which were taking place on the Iranian side, but soon ceased their efforts. Azeris crossed the bridges linking Iranian and Soviet Azerbaijan from both directions and mingled freely, For the APF, the burning of the border installations marked their greatest victory. Eight days later, in fact, V.M. Nikiforov, deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, arrived in Baku to discuss ways of simplifying cross-border contacts between the Azeris of the USSR and Iran. The Popular Front was able to control the current of a major dream of the Azeris of the Soviet Union, that of unification with their compatriots in the South, even if it was only to be for a very brief length of time.

Some two weeks later, the Soviet Army occupied Baku with considerable bloodshed to end a pogrom against the Armenians which had ended five to six days earlier. In the long run, the experience of the military occupation strengthened support for incident. In June 1992, the APF's candidate, Abulfaz Elchibey, was swept into the President Azerbaijan's first democratic elections in more than seventy years.

The "Southern Question" And Azerbaijan's Independence

Resolving the "Southern Question" in the North became more complicated during independence than It had been during the years of Soviet rule. During the Soviet period, the Azerbaijan cause was backed nominally by the Soviet threat. From the Southern standpoint the Soviet affiliation made unification with the North less palatable. Now that Azerbaijan is independent, however, unification is no longer tied to the threat of Marxist-Leninism. On the other hand, Azerbaijan's first years of independence have been fraught with economic, political, and social difficulties. Above all, the question of unification between Northern and Southern Azerbaijan is not lust a political question: there are other bonds that are of equal importance - their blood relationship, their common language and past, and their common history of struggle against national oppression. These are the issues that will define a common Azeri future.

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