Intro
Azerbaijan is a poor Turkic country, sitting on the Caspian Sea. It has borders with Russia, Georgia, Armenia (with which it has been at war), Turkey and Iran. This country (or the land, actually…since the Azeri Turks have never really known unity…They identify with Turkish and Muslim identities rather than any sort of national identity) was conquered by Alexander the Great (but then again, who the hell wasn’t?), and has been fought over by Turkey and Persia for centuries. The battle for influence within Azerbaijan between Turkey and Iran goes on until this day.
The Azeris are Shi’ite Muslims. For those of you who do not know, there are 2 main sects of Islam: Sunni Muslim (think Saudi Arabia), and Shi’ite Muslim (think Iran). This is an incredible oversimplification, but suffice it to say that there is an enormous painful split between these two “brands” of Muslims.
However, the Azeris are a mish-mash. They are Turkic (which is, traditionally, Sunni), and yet their religion is Shiite. They also are relatively secular (which is a no-no in both sects). Liquor overflows in Azerbaijan, as does pornography and prostitution.
One other fact, which I find completely fascinating: They have changed their alphabet three times in the 20th century. (This is evidence of the confusion in the country, as they try to congeal into some sort of cohesive nation.) Alphabets and languages have been imposed on these people for centuries. This country has been conquered and reconquered and conquered again countless times.
In the 1920s, Azerbaijan changed its alphabet from Arabic to Latin. In the 1930s they changed from Latin to Cyrillic. And in the 1990s they changed back to Latin from Cyrillic. I read a great article about what massive confusion this has caused. Street signs, newspapers, schoolbooks…all in different languages.
So you can imagine how confused the populace is, with all this shifting about. This is one of the reasons why Armenia was so able to kick their butt in the war over Nagorno Karabakh, in the 1990s, because Armenia has a strong (iron-strong) sense of national identity, and national personality, and the Azeris are still searching for theirs.
