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Azerbaijanis {Azerbaijani Turks, Azeris, Azeri Turks, Madlar, Medes, Caucasian Albanians, Caucasian Tatars} are the native people of Azerbaijan, a historic, ancient country and territory situated on the crossroads between eastern Europe and central Asia, adjacent to the western shores of the Caspian Sea and eastern edge of mount Arararat. The Azerbaijanis speak a Turkic language officially called Azerbaijani, locally called Turku/Turki, which is often reffered to as Azerbaijani Turkish. They nominally adhere to the Shia sect of Islam and are the inheritors of several rich ancient civilizations such as Elam, Mannai, Urartu, Media and Caucasian Albania..
The Azerbaijanis (Azerbaijani: Azerbaycanlilar, Azerbaycan Turkleri) are the Japhetic descendants of Turkic peoples who were the founders of several civilizations and states across Euroasia since antiquity, but especially the Oghuz Turks, who dominated the land from the post-Islamic period onwards.
A nation in the Caucaus region and an ethnic group in northwestern Iran, alltogether, the Azerbaijanis number more than 35 million in the Republic of Azerbaijan, northwestern Iran, eastern Turkey, parts of Russia, northern Iraq and southern Georgia. The modern Republic of Azerbaijan, established in 1991, is only a portion of what is historically and tradtionally considered their native land. Most Azerbaijanis live outside the borders of the republic. Scholars consider the ancestral home of the Azerbaijanis "a region spanning from the northern slopes of the Caucaus mountains bordering Russia south to parts of present-day north-central Iran."
During the Seljuk and Safavid establishments, Azerbaijanis adapted and implied their own traditions and institutions to the ends of the Islamic world and along with other Turks in history, they dominated as empire-builders with a keen sense of statecraft, making a positive contribution to history as the different regions in which they lived and ruled evolved into new phases of social, economic, religious and intellectual advancement. Throughout the course of the 20th century, Azerbaijanis were some of the most liberal-minded of ideologists. They were the first nation in the Islamic world to establish a fully democratic and secular independent country, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic of 1918, which was later attacked by the Soviet army. During the age of nationalism and idealism, the Azerbaijanis spread democratic and secular concepts in their society as well as to different Islamic peoples.
The three colors of the Republic of Azerbaijan's national flag stand for "Turkism, Europeanism and Islamism" which have been the main elements that have shaped the Azerbaijani identity and school of thought: Turkic national, cultural and historic identity, the strive for a modern society, parallel to that of European socities, and Islamic spirituality. Thus, being a Turk, being modern and being a Muslim (or spiritual) define an Azerbaijani.
Background
The Azerbaijanis are a nation and ethnic group that number more than 35 million worldwide. They are a historically divided people, seperated by Iran (then called Persia) and Russia since the early 19th century. The physical and political seperation of the Azerbaijanis came as a result of Russian colonial expansion into the Caucaus mountain region, northwestern Iran and Central Asia, lands that are predominantly Turko-IslamicAfter the Perso-Russian wars and Russia's defeat of Iran, the land of Azerbaijan, then and independent kingdom traditionally covering the area from Derbent to Hamedan which was articulated by the Azerbaijanis with a khanat (principality) system, was seperated in half along the Araz {Araxes} river following the Treaty of Turkmenchay, signed outside the outskirts of the city of Meyaneh (Meyana) in February 1828.
Czarist Russians took the northern part and made it an autonomous republic within the Russian empire (1828-1919) and later an autonomous republic within the Soviet Union (1920-1990) while the southern half remained ruled by the Qajar kings (1828-1921) and was later added to modern Iran (1935-) Since 1828, the historical nation of Azerbaijanis have been divided geographically and politically, leading them to two different destinies which have emerged from different historical paths and social experiences largely bestowed upon them by their colonizers. Although the Azerbaijanis remained mutual in many aspects up until the 1920's and common poems, fables, stories and songs emerged amongst them despite a political barrier, the different colonial regimes that have ruled them henceforth eventually increased their level of social, political and economic seperation.
Azerbaijanis of the Republic of Azerbaijan
Those who live in the independent Republic of Azerbaijan make up only a quarter of the entire Azerbaijani population. The population of the Republic of Azerbaijan is 8.1 million, of which 91% are indegenous Azerbaijanis (Azerbaijani Turks.) There are also other Turkic groups in the Republic of Azerbaijan such as the Tatars and Meshkhetian Turks, as well as the Azerbaijani Turkic Afshar tribe. The Republic of Azerbaijan in its initial phase of inception was established back in 1918, when Memed-Emin Resulzade, a native of Salmas in southern Azerbaijan, established the first democratic, secular and pro-Turkist country in the Islamic world of the 20th century, granting women the right to vote (the Azerbaijanis were the first Islamic people to let women vote in the 20th century.) This state was attacked by the Soviet forces in 1920, and after the Soviet Union collapsed 70 years later, the modern Republic of Azerbaijan (1991-) was in reality "re-established" with its roots stemming from the Resulzade government.
Upon the establishment of the republic in 1991, the highly favored Abulfazl Elchibey, an extremely vibrant Azerbaijani nationalist and Turkist with anti-Russian and anti-Iranian tendences was elected president, and his government lasted until 1994, when he was replaced by Heydar Aliyev, who passed away in 2003 and was replaced by his son Ilham Aliyev who is the third president of the Republic.
Azerbaijanis of South Azerbaijan (northwestern Iran)
In addition to the Republic of Azerbaijan, more than 20 million ethnic Azerbaijani Turks live in the northwestern region of Iran, a territory some reffer to as South Azerbaijan. This area was divided into East Azerbaijan province and West Azerbaijan province in 1937, but is now composed of four provinces: Ardebil, East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan and Zanjan. A great portion of Qazvin province, parts of Hamedan, Gilan and Markazi provinces are also traditionally considered Azerbaijani lands, where the Azerbaijani Turks and Azerbaijani tribal Turks such as the Afshar, Shahsevan and Qarapapaq are the majority population. In the 20th century, two independent periods existed in South Azerbaijan in 1920 and briefly during World War II (1945-1946) under the leaderships of Muhammad Khiyabani and Jafar Pishevari.
The Azerbaijanis were the instigators and spearheads of the 1906 Constitutional revolution, lead by the Azerbaijani rebel Sattar Khan, as well as the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, which were both initially triggered in Tabriz, the main city in the Azerbaijani provinces of northwestern Iran. During the Islamic revolution period in 1980, Ayatullah Shariat-Madari and his rebels demanded autonomy for South Azerbaijan within Iran's Islamic system, and controlled the city of Tabriz for a month, but they too failed to bring sovereignty to South Azerbaijan.
The Azerbaijani Safar Khan served as the longest imprisoned man in Iran's history, spending more than 40 years in jail because he was involved in Azerbaijani "seperatist" activities during World War II. The Azerbaijani poet, Samad Behrangi who espoused the literature of his homeland and wrote works in Azerbaijani Turkish was drowned in the Araz river. Prior to establishing a government in South Azerbaijan, Pishevari was impriosned for many years by the Persian Shah. Khiyabani and Sattar Khan were both executed. In the early 1980's, Ayatullah Shariat-Madari was put on house arrest until his death. Estimates vary, but many groups inside Iran state that more than 30 million Azerbaijanis and other ethnic Turks live throughout the Islamic Republic, and form the largest population. The Azerbaijanis and their tribal components make up 35% of Iran's population.
Azerbaijanis in the neighbouring regions
The Azerbaijanis also have large scattered communities across eastern Europe as well as central and western Asia in neighbouring Turkic, Arabic, Caucasian, Slavic and Iranian-speaking regions. As a result, different peoples such as Russians, Persians and Arabs have used Azerbaijanis as subjects that would pass on their individual nations' supremecy or ideological concepts beyond the borders of their states.
Throughout the centuries, besides writing in Azerbaijani Turkish, Azerbaijanis have also written intellectual, political, satirical and poetic works in Persian, Arabic and Russian; often to enhance Azerbaijan's political and social agenda amongst different diasporas to unite under Azerbaijani nationalism or Islamic unity, or to portray different Marxist, Socialist and Iranist ideologies that sought to colonize Azerbaijan since the 19th century. Some of the most enlightened ideologists and national figures of modern Iran have been Azerbaijanis, as have many of the ideologists and writers of the Soviet Union. In Iran, ethnic Azerbaijani authors such as Kasravi, Etesami, Ganjavi, Molana and others have influenced the culture of Iran and the Persian language.
e division of Azerbaijan gave the Azerbaijanis a unique role as conduit of ideas among the three empires around them, especiallly since they could read texts published in Turkish and Russian (among them works translated from European languages) and could pass on the ideas to their co-ethnics elsewhere, especially in Iran. They could also pass along ideas prominent among Iranian intellectuals, Muslims in the Russian empire and the Ottoman empire. The Azerbaijanis were one of the first intellegstia in the Turkic world to espouse a standard Turkish language based on the Ottoman dialect during the early 20th century, and were the first Turks to enhance and upgrade their own language, Azerbaijani Turkish, which at one point was the lingua-franca of Turkic and Islamic peoples of the former Soviet Union.
In Iran's capital city, Tehran, there are more than 5 million Azerbaijanis; mostly descendants of migrants from northwestern Iran who poured into the center of the country in search of jobs and opportunities after WWII, especially during the 1970's when Iran's oil industry had flourished. The majority of Tehrani Azerbaijanis (Tehrani Turks, Turk-e-Tehrani) are almost all assimilated into Persian culture and language, yet make up 40% of the city's population.
There are also various Azerbaijani Turkic tribes spread out across Iran including the Qajar, Timurtash, Pichaghchi, Qaraqozlu, Qaray, Inanlu, Baharlu as well as the popular Afshar and Shahsevan who number 1 million. The Afshar were one of the original tribes of Oguz Turks, the tribe that Nader Guli Bey (Nader Shah) originated from. The Afshar have populations in the Republic of Azerbaijan, the territory of South Azerbaijan and across Iran and Turkey.
Azerbaijanis descend from Afshar clans of the Oghuz tribes, who became sedenetary over the last few centuries and evolved into the settled urban and rural Azerbaijan population. The Shahsevan, spread across South Azerbaijan and regions just west of Tehran are a tribe that were created during the Safavid period in the 15th century and are the second largest Azerbaijani Turkic tribe in Iran. The Qarapapaq are a large tribal community who live southwest of Lake Urmia in South azerbaijan (in the West Azerbaijan province.) Almost all regions of Iran, from north to south and east to west, are full of different Turkic populations that are traditionally considered Azerbaijani. The most uniting factor between these ethnic Turks and other groups in the country such as Persians is religion and cultural similarities that have arised from Shiasm.
In Iran, the "Shia" or "Shia-Iranian" identity of the Azerbaijanis is more appearant than their Turkic ethnic identity. In the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijanis locally reffer to themselves as Turk, and officialy reffer to their nation as Azerbaijani while the most educated class use the term "Azerbaijani Turk" to designate national, geographic, ethnic and linguistic identity, while in Iran, the Azerbaijanis are almost always reffered to as Turks (Tork) and their language is reffered to as Turki (Torki, Turkish.)
There are 1 million native Azerbaijanis in eastern Turkey, in the regions of Kars and Igdir where the Turkish language spoken is not based on the Ottoman dialect, but Azerbaijani. In Turkey, they are reffered to mostly as Azeri or Azeri Turks (Azeri Turkler.) The term "Azeri" is derived from the Arabic "Al-Azeriye" which was a word first used in the 13th century by the historian Al-Hamawi, later adapted in Ottoman and Persian sources as a designation of the Azerbaijani-Turk nation.
In Russia, there are more than 1 million Azerbaijanis who live mostly in the Dagestan republic (adjacent to the northern border of the Republic of Azerbaijan) and in Moscow, where most of the city's economic sectors are controlled by Azerbaijani and Tatar Turks. In the southern region of Georgia, bordering the Republic of Azerbaijan, there are more than 400,000 Azerbaijanis. The Khorasani Turks located north of Mashhad, live side by side with the Turkmens of Turkmen Sahra and speak Azerbaijani Turkish, but are considered a seperate ethnic group who themseleves number more than 500,000.
The Turkmens in Iran are often considered Azerbaijani, yet are a seperate Turkic group who make up the Turkmen nationality in the republic of Turkmenistan and the population in the northeastern frontier of Iran, however, the Turkic people of Iraq, reffered to as "Turkomens" are historically Azerbaijanis who migrated to northern Iraq from Azerbaijan during the time of the Aq-Qoyonlu, Qara Qoyonlu and Safavid dynasties.
The Turkomens of Iraq number 2 million and live mostly in Mosul, Irbil, Suleymaniya and Kirkuk. The nomadic Qashqay confederation who make up the majority population of Fars province and southern parts of Isfahan province in Iran originated in Azerbaijan in the 14th century, but speak a seperate dialect and have a nomadic identity. They have a large settled population in the city of Iqlid in Isfahan province. The Khalaj Turks, located west of Tehran, are a unique Turkic people who fall into an independent branch of the six traditional branches of worldwide Turks and although they are not Azerbaijani in terms of national identity, they identify with Azerbaijan as their traditional homeland, since they and the Azerbaijanis are both Turks. The Khalaj number close to 40,000 and have mostly vanished over the last few decades as a result of assimilation.
In Jordan there are Azerbaijanis, as well as in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakstan, where they have been considered indegenous because of their common Turkic roots..
After 80 years of state-sponsored assimilation, distortion of historical materials and close religious ties with the Persians for years, perhaps the majority of Azerbaijanis in modern Iran have assimilated into Persian culture and language, unaware and careless of an Azerbaijani identity. However, a great portion of the Azerbaijani population in Iran has kept Azerbaijani (Turkic) ethnic, national and cultural identity alive, a factor which lead to the establishment of two independent Azerbaijan republics in South Azerbaijan (1920 and 1945.) Most Azerbaijani nationalists from Iran also use the terms "Azerbaijanis" and "Azerbaijani Turks" to designate their nationality. They claim that the Azerbaijanis of Iran are the largest stateless nation in the world. The majority of Azerbaijanis are sedenetary urban-dwellers and are mostly farmers. Agriculture is also common amongst the tribal and rural population of Azerbaijanis.
In Russian historical documents relating to the imperial period, the Azerbaijanis and other Turkic peoples were often all reffered to as "Tatar" (for example the Azerbaijanis living north of the Araz river were reffered to as "Caucasian Tatars") while the name "Turk" was used to designate them until 1937. The terms Turkmen or Turcoman were applied to Muslim Turks of Azerbaijani, Ottoman and central Asian Turkmen backgrounds, and thus Azerbaijanis were often reffered to as Turkomens or Turcomans, though the modern Turkmen ethnic group in Turkistan later adapted this designation for themseleves. Russians often reffered to the settled Azerbaijanis in Caucasia as "Tatars" and to the rural Azerbaijanis as "Turkomens." Since the age of nationalism in the 20th century, the official designations of the Azerbaijani nation have been "Azerbaijanis" and "Azerbaijani Turks" (Azerbaycanlilar / Azerbaycan Turkleri.)
Language & Religion
Main article: Azerbaijani language
The language of the Azerbaijanis is officially reffered to as "Azerbaijani" but the Azerbaijanis reffer to their language mostly as "Turki or Turku." It is often reffered to Azerbaijani Turkish, Azeri or Azeri Turkish (Azeri Turkce, Torki-e-Azary.)
Azerbaijani is a western Turkic language, part of the southwest (Oghuz) branch of Turkic languages. The closest languages and dialects close to Azerbaijani are Turkish, spoken in Turkey, Balkan Turkish, spoken in parts of the former Yugoslavia, and Turkmen, spoken in Turkmenistan and by Turkmens who live in the northeastern frontier of Iran. Azerbaijani has a rich history of literature and is one of the more advanced of Turkic languages. Its modern formation took place during the 10th-13th centuries, in Azerbaijan's historical "golden era" when the identity of the modern Azerbaijani people was established.
Azerbaijani is spoken by more than 35 million people, mostly in Iran where it is traditionally considered the country's second language, yet no official usage of Azerbaijani in Iran at a government or state level is prohibited. In the Republic of Azerbaijan, many Russian technical and political words are used. Many Turkified technical words (Turkified from Russian, Arabic or Persian) are used in Azerbaijani society, especially in the Republic of Azerbaijan.
In religion, the Azerbaijanis and the Persians are the only two major Shia Islamic peoples in the world, an affinity that goes back to the period of the Safavid kings who converted both people in hopes of creating a supra-ethnic identity based on unity under the banner of Shia Islam, which created the national identity of modern Iran. There is also a Sunni Muslim population amongst them, as well as small populations of Jews, Baha'is and Zoroastians. Altogether, more than 90% of world Azerbaijanis are ethnic Turko-Muslims, and are the only major Turkic group in the world that adhere to the Shia sect of Islam, while there have been conversions to Sunni Islam as of late.
Direct ethnic ties between the Azerbaijanis and other western Turkic peoples such as the Turks of Turkey, Balkan Turks of Yugoslavia, and Turkmens comes from common Oghuz backgrounds, which eventually created individual national and regional identities for each of these Turkic peoples. The Azerbaijanis, like other Turkic peoples, also share cultural, historical, traditional and ethno-linguistic ties to eastern Turks such as Uzbeks and Uygurs and others.