Azerbaijan has been marched over by different empires over the millennia, absorbing, assimilating, intermingling, intermarrying. This has created a culture which is rich. A fusion of different elements. It has also led to a confusion in the populace. Who are we? Are we Shiites? And therefore close to Iran? To ancient Persia? Are we Turks? What does it mean to be “Azeri”? Is there such a thing? The majority of Azeris live in Iran. That’s something like 4 million people. Azerbaijan lost almost 20% of its territory in its war with Armenia. It is a scrap of land now. What is it? Who are they? How do they define themselves?
A couple of quotes on this issue:
“In the past Azerbaijan was more of a geographic and cultural concept than a political one. There never really was a centralized state of Azerbaijan, and in this its history differs from that of Georgia and Armenia. It differs in other respects as well. By way of the Black Sea and Anatolia, Georgia and Armenia maintained contact with ancient Europe, and later with Byzantium. They received Christianity from there, which created within their territories a resistance to the spread of Islam. In Azerbaijan the influence of Europe was weak from the onset, at best secondary. Between Europe and Azerbaijan rise the barriers of the Caucasus and the Armenian Highland, whereas in the east Azerbaijan turns into lowlands, is easily accessible open. Azerbaijan is the threshold of Central Asia.” — Ryzsard Kapuscinsky, Imperium
“This culture was deepening, even if nationhood was indistinct. Outwardly, it was becoming as if the Russians had never been here … Turkish kebab stands were appearing … Ramiz, Reza’s friend, declared a fourth vodka toast to Azerbaijan, the hearthplace of Turkish literature … But Azeri culture wasn’t simply Turkish. Ramiz’s very manner, the tender, cloistered expression in his searching eyes, and the fetid dining room full of vodka, rotting cheeses, old photos, and perspiring, very lightly drunken men and women — as if they were in one evening-long communal hug — proclaimed an atmosphere similar to what I had experienced in Eastern Europe during communist rule — places where political life had been so sterile that the vacuum, perforce, had been filled by a personal life, making the latter far richer than people in Western Europe and North America could imagine…There was also much Persian influence.” — Robert Kaplan, The Ends of the Earth
And one last thing to cap it all off:
“Azerbaijan was not merely an eastern extension of Turkey, but a grey, shaded area where the Turkish, Russian, and Iranian worlds overlapped. Because of seven decades of totalitarianism, which buried this rich legacy, this cultural eclecticism had become a confusing void.” — Robert Kaplan, The Ends of the Earth
Azerbaijan is one of the first countries I ever became curious about. In the way that I am now curious about almost all countries. Azerbaijan ushered me into a new world. So I have a soft spot in my heart for Azerbaijan. Not that anybody cares, but I thought I would share that.
