The Republic Of North Azerbaijan

In the parliament of Azerbaijan not long ago, an MP proposed changing the name of their nation to "North Azerbaijan".

To those not familiar with the nuances of this etymology and the history, they might well want to know what the reason given for the proposed name change was, and where was "South Azerbaijan", for that matter?

The nation state called Azerbaijan was created in 1992. However, the historical area known as "Azerbaijan" (also called "Atropatene") roughly corresponds with contemporary Azerbaijan (capital: Baku) and north-west Iran (major cities: Tabriz, Ardabil). This geographical area had been populated with ethnic Azeris (and a number of Kurds) for around a thousand years or so.

This historical "Azerbaijan" had been part of, and divided by, various empires over the centuries; arguably reaching its cultural zenith during the times of the Safavid empire around 500 years ago, ruling for more than two hundred years; the Safavids ruled from Ardabil and controlled the area of contemporary Iran, as well as parts of the Caucasus, Pakistan and Afghanistan, making it arguably the greatest of the dynasties of Persia. They were also the first dynasty to make Shi'ism the state religion. As Azeri was the main language of the Safavids, it could therefore be said that the apogee of the Persian empire was when it was, in effect, a greater Azeri empire.

After the fall of the Safavid dynasty in the middle of the 18th century, the nadir of Azeri fortunes was the treaty of 1821 between Russia and Persia. This carved up the area of "Azerbaijan" between the two warring states, the northern portion going to Russia, while the rest remained part of Persia. This northern portion is what the Republic of Azerbaijan is today.

Two hundred years is a long time for people to be apart. Since the re-establishment of an independent Azeri state twenty years ago, relations between Azerbaijan and Iran have, understandably, been strained. Thousands of ethnic Azeri Iranians have relatives in "the north", and even more of them take regular trips to Baku. But although the people of the north and south may still be technically the same, there is much to separate them.

Since becoming part of Russia, the Azeris in the north (I'll use this term from now on to describe people from the Republic, and those in "the south" being those in Iran) naturally became Russified. However, since independence, the northerners have increasingly rediscovered their faith. While the culture of "the north" has been increasingly influenced by the West, there is more and more anecdotal evidence to suggest a kind of "culture war" in Baku; those who still want to look to Russia, those who look to Europe and the West; and increasingly, those who look to their conservative culture, Shi'ism and the religious influence of Iran.

This "culture war" can be seen in the media, where judgemental journalists (who look like they're competing with the sanctimony of the UK's "Daily Mail" -ha, ha) harangue minor celebrities for their uncouth dress sense, women on the length of their skirts, couples kissing in public, women who smoke, and so on. This confusing cultural mess goes on every day in Baku. Turkey has similar issues, to be sure; but in Turkey, no-one is saying that the country is so clearly pulled three ways at once.

The Azeris in the south have had to contend with thirty years of Islamic fundamentalism. Ethnic Azeris make up fully a third of the population of Iran; ethnic Persians are not even a majority in their "own" country; they just happen to be the largest minority. So Persians have been extremely diligent in their oppression of other minorities; as Azeris are the largest minority after the Persians, it is they who are the most oppressed.

This "oppression" includes the active discouragement of Azeri being accepted officially. In response, Azeris in Iran react by ignoring it. It should be remembered that Ayatollah Khameinei is an ethnic Azeri; Iranian Azeris, however, have been taking their religion less and less seriously since the Islamic revolution. More and more, they take their inspiration from the West.

So the Azeris in the south have been growing gradually more and more conscious and vocal in asserting their identity; there is a South Azerbaijan movement that demands a breakaway from Iran, much as there is one for the Kurds in Turkey, minus the conspicuous terrorism.

When Southerners come to "the North", it is not difficult to spot them. They look obviously more Westernised than Northerners, the women wearing stylish dresses and the men smart suits. By comparison, except for those conspicuously showing-off in the top-class Baku cafes or on the "Bulvar", average Northerners wear very simple clothing. This is the paradox: that many of those in "the north" are slowly becoming more "Iranian", at the same time as those in "the south" are becoming more and more Westernised.

In an odd reversal of the 1821 treaty, whereas many Azeris in "the south" want to be an independent, Westernised nation-state, many Azeris in "the north" would like to be a virtual satellite of Iran.

I wonder what the Ayatollah would think of that. Or the West, for that matter. No wonder the powers that be in Baku are twitchy about their own population. They have a fair right to be on the current evidence.

The Other Albania

Everyone knows about "Albania", the one in the Balkans, sandwiched between Greece and the former Yugoslavia.

But there was also an "Albania" in the Caucasus. No relation, by the way. This "Albania" roughly corresponded with the area where Azerbaijan and southern Dagestan in Russia now is. Its people were pagans, neighbours to the Armenians as the Azeris are today . This Albanian kingdom existed for around a thousand years; from around the times of Alexander the Great, until they were defeated and dispersed by the Arabs in the ninth century AD.
More interestingly, they were amongst the world's first nations to convert to Christianity (in the 2nd century AD), before the Armenians. Over the centuries, they built many churches; a lot of them are still standing or in states of ruin around Azerbaijan. Many of the names of famous towns in Azerbaijan are in fact Albanian: Gabala was the capital of ancient Albania; other cities included Sheki, Kish, Agdam, to name just a few.
The Albanian language no longer exists as such, As I said, after the Arab invasions of the Caucasus, the Albanian kingdom was defeated and its people dispersed. But that is not the end of the story. The "Albanians" did not disappear. Many of them chose to convert to Islam. Of those that didn't, they maintained their faith as part of the Armenian Orthodox church.

There are a number of ethnic minorities in Azerbaijan today.
One of them are the Lezgin; with a distinct language unrelated to Azeri or Russian, they also look very different from Azeris, often with round faces, large, oval eyes and round, healthy-looking cheeks. They are also Muslims. Some Azeris mistake them for ethnic Russians as Lezgins also exist in the mountains of southern Dagestan as well as across the north of Azerbaijan.
Another, much smaller and specific ethnic group in Azerbaiijan are the Udin. They speak a language related to Lezgin (though how similar, I can't say for sure). They live in a district between Gabala and Sheki (also where the ruins of ancient Albanian "Gabala" are), mainly in the towns of Nidj and Oguz. Unusually, they are Orthodox Christians.

These two groups are related because they are, in all likelyhood, the same people: the Albanians. The Udins were simply able to hold on to their faith somehow, while the Lezgin were those who chose to submit to Islam.

This story has an oddly poetic feel to it; the idea that these ancient people were able to survive as an ethnic group and maintain their identity after centuries of invasion after invasion. The idea that in this land between the Caspian and the Caucasus mountains, there was an ancient Christia kingdom, and the descendents of those people still exist in the land formerly known as "Albania" today.

The most famous of the Albanian churches is in the town of Kish (known as "Gis" in Albanian times), close to Sheki. It has been expertly restored. Excavations there discovered that the church's foundations dated back almost two thousand years. They also found pagan objects from the Bronze Age in the same location.

There is a personal touch to this story: my wife's paternal grandmother was a Lezgin. In fact, after seeing photos of Lala's grandmother, the resemblance is noticable. It's nice to think that you're married to a woman who can say her genes have been in this part of the world for two thousand years.

The Black Garden: Putting The Record Straight

While I have been in Azerbaijan, I had the pleasure of reading Thomas Golts' excellent book called "Azerbaijan Diary". Golts was an American freelance journalist in Azerbaijan in the early nineties who went on several dangerous assignments to report on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. His reflections, observations and views on the Karabakh issue were invaluable to any outsider ignorant of the history, and are explained in his book, as well as the contemporary political situation in Azerbaijan at the time.

 For those not in the know, Karabakh is a region of Azerbaijan that has been occupied by ethnic Armenians in a self-declared breakaway "state" since the mid-nineties. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Armenians laid claim to the region of Karabakh, some kilometres inside Azerbaijan's borders. The basis for their "claim" was that a large number of Armenians lived there, as well as the long cultural history that the Armenians claimed to that region.
 Naturally, such an explanation was never that simple. In Golts' book, he makes a number of points to refute the Armenian "claims" to Karabakh, as well as other more practical concerns. The Karabakh conflict ended after three years with the Karabakh (so-called) "enclave", as well as its surrounding districts, being effectively robbed from Azerbaijan's control. In Karabakh itself, there were around 150, 000 ethnic Armenians; the result of the war was to make around 1 million ethnic Azeris and Kurds (who lived in Karabakh and the surrounding occupied districts) refugees. The irony to the Armenian's "victory" was twofold. The Causasus is an ethnic and cultural melting-pot; Armenians lived in Azerbaijan, and vice versa. Thousands of Azeris lived in the Armenian capital of Yerevan, and up to 300, 000 ethnic Armenians lived the the Azeri capital, Baku. The Karabakh conflict made necessary the removal of the Armenian population from Baku and to Yerevan. The opposite route was taken of the Azeris in Yerevan. By supporting a war for the sake of 150,000 people, Armenia sacrificed the freedom of 300,000 Armenians (twice that number), and making up to 1 million people (many of whom did not even directly live in Karabakh, but in the occupied "buffer zone") homeless.
They succeeded in turning a multi-cultural region (Karabakh) of a multi-ethnic country (Azerbaijan) into a forcibly homogenised territory of an extremely culturally homegenous country (Armenia). In other words, they created an artificial ethnic state, and destroyed the multi-cultural harmony that had existed before in Karabakh. This point of political stupidity on the Armenian's part does not even mention the war crimes carried during the conflict itself. The most notorious was the Khodjali massacre, where up to 1000 Azeris were killed by Armenian partisans. In many cases, the Armenians forced entire towns to be evacuated of their populations. The city of Agdam, inside Armenian occupied land but close to the cease-fire line, was before the conflict a city of over 100,000 people. These were all forced to leave. At the time, and ever since, the Armenians have been putting across an alternative story to the international media: that story of a poor, oppressed people, who had been the victims of historical injustices, and were fighting for their freedoms and the territorial "birthrights". Their lobby is also very vocal and influential in America.

 If this story sounds familiar, don't be surprised: the Israelis have used the same story ever since the Holocaust to justify their occupation of Palestinan lands, in particular, the West Bank. The West Bank is occupied, in many cases, by extreme Orthodox Jews, who view the West Bank as "their birthright". Karabakh is viewed in the same, irrational, way by the Armenians. Serbians can also be put into this catagory regarding their historical (and pathological) attachment to Kosovo. But that's another story.

Cross-cultural crossover and misunderstanding: comparing Turkish-Azeri ties

There is the famous phrase "Iki devlet, bir milliyet" (or "two states, one nation") that has been used to describe the relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan, but more interesting are the cultural and social similarities and (more commonly) differennces.

To begin with, the language. By and large, the two languages are relatively similar: as similar as, say, Dutch and German, or Norwegian and German - but NOT as similar as, say, Norwegian and Swedish. This has been a cause for both Turks ans Azeris when using their native language in the other's country. Turks come to Azerbaijan speaking Turkish may well be pretty easily understood by Azeris, but as Turkish grammar forms are more various than Azeri (though Azeri has its own various, but differing grammar structures) they will instantly be identified as non-Azeris. One interesting explanation I heard is that Azeri structures bear more similarity to old Ottoman structures, that have since changed much over time in Turkey itself. In other words, when Turks hear Azeris speak, it sounds like they're speaking an archaic form of Turkish. The letters are different in each language, too, and, much more interestingly (and open for entertaining misunderstanding), are the differences in vocabulary.
To give just one example: the Azeri phrase "stop the bus, I want to get off", using the same words in Turkish translates as "hide the bus, I want to fall".
Another reason for the differences is also historical. As Azerbaijan was occupied by Russia for most of the last two centuries, many everyday words have been replaced by the Russian ones (a similar point could be said of Turkish when considering the effect that French has had on their language). Also, there are many leftover Persian or Arabic words in use in Azeri, more than in Turkish, from what I can tell.

In Azerbaijan, and Baku in particular, Russian is still the "imperial" language; like English in today's India, perhaps. Anyone who doesn't have at least a working knowledge of Russian in Baku can be looked down upon, in particular in officialdom or in respectable companies. There are still a large number of Azeris in the country who speak Russian as their first language, and it is almost essential to know at least some Russian to get certain level of intellectual respect from one's peers.
On the other hand, a Russian speaker who has no or limited understanding of Azeri (and one of my former students could be counted as one) struggles to get by with the average Joe on the street. This is Azerbaijan, after all, and not Russia, or even Kazakhstan (where Russian speakers are still a huge segment of the population), and a Russian speaker ignorant of Azeri could be considered elitist or snobbish by the same officialdom and respectable companies. As you can imagine, a fine balance seems to required, but that is where most people exist; seamlessly interchanging between Azeri and Russian mid-sentence throughout conversations.

This has a naturally direct effect on the culture. For Turks who consider Azeris as their linguistic and cultural kinsmen, it comes as a surprise when they find out that they are just one of three competing cultural influences on Azerbaijan: the others being Russia and Iran. For this reason, the cultural differences are subtle but many.
To begin with, contemporary Azerbaijan appears even more secular than Ataturk's Turkey. In Baku, the call to prayer is only heard in the old city, where almost all the historical mosques are. The only other mosques in Baku are relatively new ones built in a few working class neighbourhoods near the centre, or in out-of-the-way suburbs that belong to very devout Muslims. The city centre and much of the city appears practically religion-free. The legacy of Soviet Russia is an obvious explanation for this. The comparison to Turkey, which is also officially secular but has a muezzin-blaring mosque on almost every corner, is stark. The historical reasons for the situation in Turkey are also more complicated: Ataturk never succeeded in fully dampening the devout tendencies of some Muslims in Turkey; he only succeeded in postponing them. The rise of the AK party over the past decade is a testament to the fact that these Islamic sentiments were always just under the surface, waiting for the right opportunity to be returned to the forefront. But that's another story. Perhaps because pre-Soviet Baku was also the most cosmopolitan city in the Russian Empire is another reason why devout Islamism has seen only a fairly modest revival in Azerbaijan overall, and that devout Muslims are a fairly marginalised bunch that few modern Azeris have time for.

But don't let the ostensibly secular appearance of Azerbaijan make you think that this automatically applies to the mindset, though. Unlike Turkey, where the headscarf is prevalent (moreso in recent years), in Azerbaijan it is much less common, for the reason that it has a much stronger link to devout Islam. But the lack of headscarves distracts from other, more socially-conservative tendencies in Azerbaijan. Although there are signs that things are changing (more on that later...), being in an openly sexual relationship before marriage has been considered socially unacceptable in Azerbaijan. Azeri society still has largely traditional views of men and women - to the extent that for many women, the pinnacle of their life's achievement would be to have a good (rich) husband, healthy children, a good house etc etc. And naturally, many of the men expect the same of their women.
To be fair, these views are hardly unknown in the West, either (think of Greece or southern Italy), and there are these days plenty of young women in Baku beating this stereotype with successful careers, and men who have more enlightened views towards the opposite sex. Also, even more encourgingly, the number of young Azeris who have now lived abroad (and have returned to Baku with their Western mindset intact) is increasing all the time, and the streets of Baku are these days filled with contemporary young people. Baku city centre these days looks as much a wealthy Western city as Paris or Copenhagen, albeit with a slightly Middle Eastern flavour.

Then there are more everyday cultural issues such as clothing. Although Turks as shown in the media world dress to kill, and office workers dress to impress, the average Turk in the street seems to dress to...well, dress. In other words, casual clothes, jeans, T-shirts are the norm. Turkey is a young country with a huge youth culture - it seems they are too cool to feel the need to "impress"; much better to wear whatever you feel comfortable in. In this way, young Turks in particular seem like a throwback to eighties America; casual is the new smart.

Azeris, by comparison, certainly dress to impress, every single day, and especially when out with family and others. Azeris are much more conscious, it seems (as Italians are, perhaps) of looking good for the sake of others. Going to a smart cafe in your best clothes is totally normal to an Azeri; they would never consider otherwise. In this way, it may appear to make Azeris more conservative that their Turkish counterparts; maybe, but "conservatism" has many different meanings and expressions, as we can see from the different ways that Turks and Azeris express their culture.

In Baku what was only two years ago unheard of is now commonplace. As I said, Azeris tend to dress to impress; young Baku women these days dress to impress in more and more openly obvious ways. While Turkish women are still happily "sexy" in their T-shirts and jeans, young Azeri woman wear high-heels (though high heels are common for all ages of Baku women), short skirts (which were more linked to prostitutes in Baku in the past, though they still exist) and tonnes of makeup. From what I've seen, Turkish women tend to be much more indifferent to the use of makeup (again, "casual" is king in Istanbul). Whereas Turks may get their clothing and style inspiration from America and the West, Azeris tend to get it from Russia and Iran (Iranian women, even in a headscarf, are obsessed about wearing the right makeup).

One last thing: religion. Some Turks don't realise this, but whereas Turks are Sunni Muslim, Azeris are overwhelmingly Shia. This has an effect on the culture again, but also in subtle ways. The best way to sum it up would be to say that Azeris are more fatalistic as a nation than Turks. Turks have character flaws, too (what nationality doesn't?): a kind of whimsical melancholy that comes from the national character and history; a tendency to see things in black or white; but I don't want to linger on them all.

On the positive side, the long tradition of multiculturalism still exists in today's Azerbaijan to a healthy extent. This is also because nationalism is still quite a new concept to most Azeris. "Azerbaijan" as one empire never existed for long in history as a single entity; most of the time there were rival miniature kingdoms under pressure from Persia or Russia, which were all gone by the early 19th century.
Turkey's sense of self is much more obviously nationalistic, and that has been to the general detriment of multiculturalism. Like Azerbaijan, "Turkey" is also a comparively new concept, created out of the mind of Mustafa Kemal ("Pakistan" was created in a similar fashion after World War Two). Previously it had been the Ottoman Empire, where, although it was a Muslim empire, it was also hugely multicultural as it contained vast numbers of Christians, Jews and others. Many of these "minorities" had a huge cultural impact (and influence) on the Ottoman Empire. The creation of Turkey made all these people "Turks". The elephant in the room was that "Turkey" still contained many "minorities", and although the country was officially secular, in practise, it could be said that Turkish nationalism overlapped with cultural imperialism.
Nowadays, Turks are very protective and defensive of their identity (perhaps Azeris naturally will be too, after another decade of oil-fuelled confidence?), and this has made cultural re-opening a sensitive issue. Some commentators talk of the AK party's policies as a "New Ottomanism" with more engagement with the regional players and neighbours, and a re-flowering of multicultural life inside the country. The former may well be true, but the jury's still out on the latter. As for Azerbaijan, they're still playing their role in the Great Game, now with the added impetus of oil and gas to back them up.

Both countries are going places; just not necessarily to the same destination.

Baku: A City Rejuvenated By Oil

Until the late 19th century, Baku was a small medieval wall town on the western shores of the Caspian Sea, famous only as a home of ancient Zoroastrianism.

Then it discovered oil.

It quickly attracted the attention of Europe's well-heeled rich, and many local farmers had the luck to dig underground, strike oil and become millionaires in months. By the beginning of the 20th century, it produced half the world's oil (by contrast, Kuwait, one of the world's richest petrostates today, produces a mere 5 per cent). By the start of the First World War, Baku (as part of the Russian Empire) had long overgrown the old medieval walled town and was full of mansions, parks and boulevards to rival Europe's richest and most famous cities.

This all ended with the Bolshevik revolution. Although briefly independent (as the Bolsheviks were at first too distracted by the civil war), by 1920 it was part of the Soviet Union, and Baku disappeared off the maps of the world. Baku's first "Oil Boom" was over.

During the Soviet era, Baku as a city stagnated, still well-off and cosmopolitan compared to the rest of the USSR, but its oil industry became inefficient and horribly polluting on the local environment, as the Soviets lacked the money to invest in more mordern, cleaner methods of extraction. Baku and the surrounding region became a toxic mess.

After independence in 1992, Western investment was not long in returning. After the "deal of the century" in the late '90s, BP and other oil multinationals brought a second "Oil Boom". Ten years on from that, Baku, looks to have restored its place on the world stage.

From a personal point of view, the changes in Baku over the past couple of years have been fairly astonishing. First arriving to Baku at the beginning of 2009, Baku looked like a city going places: buildings from the first "Oil Boom" were starting to be properly restored, and there were signs that also iconic ultra-modern structures were starting to be added to the cityscape.

There were still much room for improvement, of course, socially-speaking. The spread of the oil wealth clearly had not touched some people, but that was natural, considering the circumstances. Also, Baku being part of socially-conservative, Muslim Azerbaijan, led to some confusing misconceptions to the foreigner: although people dressed in a fairly Western style of clothing, a Western sense of liberal morality did not always accompany that. Social mores were still rather conservative and traditional.

Recently returning to Baku, after a break of several months, the extent of the changes, both physically and socially, have been remarkable. After many months of work, the city centre has been restored to match the grandiosity of the days of the first "Oil Boom", albeit with 21st refinements. The parks and boulevards of downtown Baku match those, in terms of style and elegance, of the most famous European cities. The city centre may, to architectural snobs, look like a confection of European styles, but this was all built by those Europeans a century ago.

The old city (called "Icherishehir" in Azeri) has been restored and polished up, to the effect that, once you pass through the old town walls, you feel as though you have stepped back a few centuries in time, if you ignore the souvenir hawkers. The old town is a labyrinth of alleyways and passages, and what's more, totally silent.

Socially, too, the changes have been sudden and seemingly irreversable. Young people as well as familes and pensioners, now take advantage of the newly-restored parks and public spaces, hanging out till late. The nightlife scene, at one time somewhat limited in its scope, is rapidly opening up and diversifying.

Baku looks to have regained its due sense of civic pride with gusto, and is a pleasure to spend time in, provided you have the money of course. In other words, Baku is well and truly open for business.