Exploring Azerbaijan's Cultural And Ethnic Origins: Slavic Or Not?

Azerbaijan is a transcontinental country at the boundary of Eastern Europe and West Asia. It is a part of the South Caucasus region. Azerbaijan is believed to be named after Atropates, a Persian satrap (governor) who ruled in Atropatene (modern Iranian Azerbaijan) circa 321 BC. The name Azerbaijan is the Arabicized form of Āzarpāyegān (Persian: آذرپایگان) meaning 'the guardians of fire'.

Azerbaijanis are a Turkic ethnic group living mainly in the Azerbaijan region of northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They are predominantly Shia Muslims. They comprise the largest ethnic group in the Republic of Azerbaijan and the second-largest ethnic group in neighbouring Iran and Georgia. They speak the Azerbaijani language, belonging to the Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages.

The modern ethnonym Azerbaijani or Azeri refers to the Turkic peoples of Iran's northwestern historic region of Azerbaijan (also known as Iranian Azerbaijan) and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They historically called themselves or were referred to by others as Muslims and/or Turks.

The earliest inhabitants of the region in the north of the Aras river, where the Republic of Azerbaijan is located, are believed to have been Caucasian-speaking Albanian tribes. The region also saw Scythian settlement in the 9th century BC, followed by the Medes who came to dominate the area to the south of the Aras River.

In the 11th century AD, with Seljuk conquests, Oghuz Turkic tribes started moving across the Iranian Plateau into the Caucasus and Anatolia. The influx of the Oghuz and other Turkmen tribes was further accentuated by the Mongol invasion. These Turkmen tribes spread as smaller groups, a number of which settled down in the Caucasus and Iran, resulting in the Turkification of the local population. Over time they converted to Shia Islam and gradually absorbed Azerbaijan and Shirvan.

Azerbaijan's location

Azerbaijan is a transcontinental country located in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia, straddling West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the north, the Caspian Sea to the east, Iran to the south, and Georgia and Armenia to the west. The country also has an exclave, the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, which is landlocked and bordered by Armenia, Iran, and Turkey. Azerbaijan's capital and largest city is Baku.

Azerbaijan's landscape is dominated by three physical features: the Caspian Sea to the east, the Greater Caucasus mountain range to the north, and extensive flatlands at the country's centre. The country is home to three mountain ranges: the Greater and Lesser Caucasus, and the Talysh Mountains, which cover approximately 40% of the country. The highest peak is Mount Bazardüzü at 4,466 m (14,652 ft), while the lowest point is in the Caspian Sea at -28 m (-92 ft). The country is also known for its mud volcanoes, with nearly half of all the mud volcanoes on Earth concentrated in Azerbaijan.

The Kura and Aras are the major rivers in Azerbaijan, flowing through the Kura-Aras lowland. The country has several islands in the Caspian Sea, mostly located in the Baku Archipelago. Azerbaijan's climate is influenced by cold arctic air masses from Scandinavia, temperate air masses from Siberia, and Central Asian anticyclones. The Greater Caucasus mountains protect the country from the direct influence of cold air masses from the north, leading to the formation of a subtropical climate in most of the country's foothills and plains.

Azerbaijani people's ethnic identity

Azerbaijanis are a Turkic ethnic group living mainly in the Azerbaijan region of northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They are predominantly Shia Muslims and comprise the largest ethnic group in the Republic of Azerbaijan and the second-largest ethnic group in neighbouring Iran and Georgia.

The modern ethnonym "Azerbaijani" or "Azeri" refers to the Turkic peoples of Iran's northwestern historic region of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They historically called themselves or were referred to by others as Muslims and/or Turks. The term "Azerbaijani" was first popularized in the periodical Kashkul in 1891.

The ethnic Azerbaijanis are believed to be descended from the inhabitants of Caucasian Albania, an ancient country located in the eastern Caucasus region, and various Iranian peoples who settled the region. They claim there is evidence that, due to repeated invasions and migrations, the aboriginal Caucasian population may have gradually been culturally and linguistically assimilated, first by Iranian peoples and later by the Oghuz Turks.

The influx of the Oghuz and other Turkmen tribes was further accentuated by the Mongol invasion. These Turkmen tribes spread as smaller groups, a number of which settled down in the Caucasus and Iran, resulting in the Turkification of the local population. Over time, they converted to Shia Islam and gradually absorbed Azerbaijan and Shirvan.

The early Soviet period saw the term "Azerbaijani Turks" and ultimately "Azerbaijanis" come into use. For some time afterward, the term "Azerbaijanis" was then applied to all Turkic-speaking Muslims in Transcaucasia. The temporary designation of Meskhetian Turks as "Azerbaijanis" was most likely related to the existing administrative framework of the Transcaucasian SFSR, as the Azerbaijan SSR was one of its founding members.

The exact number of Azerbaijanis in Iran is heavily disputed, with unofficial population estimates of Azerbaijanis in Iran at around 16% put forth by the CIA and Library of Congress. An independent poll in 2009 placed the figure at around 20-22%.

Azerbaijanis are generally bilingual, often fluent in either Russian (in Azerbaijan) or Persian (in Iran) in addition to their native Azerbaijani.

The majority of Azerbaijanis are Twelver Shia Muslims, with religious minorities including Sunni Muslims, Baháʼís, and Christians.

The vast majority of Azerbaijanis live in the Republic of Azerbaijan and Iranian Azerbaijan. There are more than 80 ethnic groups living in Azerbaijan, with the largest of these being Lezgins, Talysh, Russians, and Georgians.

Azerbaijani language

The Azerbaijani language, also referred to as Azeri Turkic or Azeri Turkish, is a Turkic language from the Oghuz sub-branch. It is the sole official language of Azerbaijan and is spoken by the majority of its population. Azerbaijani is also spoken in Russia, Iran, Georgia, and Turkey, and to a lesser extent, in the diaspora communities in Europe and North America.

Azerbaijani is closely related to Turkmen, Turkish, Gagauz, and Qashqai, and is mutually intelligible with these languages to varying degrees. It is written in a modified Latin alphabet with additional letters and symbols (such as ğ, ö, ş) to accommodate missing phonemes in Turkish and Persian.

Azerbaijani evolved from the Eastern branch of Oghuz Turkic ("Western Turkic") and spread to the Caucasus, Eastern Europe, and northern Iran during the medieval Turkic migrations. The language has been influenced by Persian and Arabic, although Arabic words were mainly transmitted through literary Persian. Azerbaijani is perhaps the Turkic language upon which Persian and other Iranian languages have exerted the strongest impact, particularly in phonology, syntax, and vocabulary.

The historical development of Azerbaijani can be divided into two major periods: early (c. 14th to 18th century) and modern (18th century to present). Early Azerbaijani contained a much larger number of Persian and Arabic loanwords, phrases, and syntactic elements. As the language evolved, it lost many archaic Turkic elements, Iranisms, and Ottomanisms, and became more unified and simplified.

Azerbaijani has two main varieties: North Azerbaijani and South Azerbaijani. North Azerbaijani is spoken in the Republic of Azerbaijan and Russia, while South Azerbaijani is spoken in Iran, Iraq, and Syria. North Azerbaijani is written in the Latin script, while South Azerbaijani uses the Perso-Arabic script. Despite the differences between the two varieties, there is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between them.

Azerbaijani is the native language of most Azerbaijanis and is closely associated with Anatolian Turkish, written in the Perso-Arabic script. The development of Azerbaijani literature is closely tied to prominent literary figures such as Kadi Burhan al-Din, Hasanoghlu, and Imadaddin Nasimi, who helped establish Azerbaijani as a literary language in the 14th century through poetry and other works.

Azerbaijani is a strongly stressed and partially stress-timed language. It is characterized by vowel harmony, where the vowels of the suffixes change to fit the other vowels in the stem. It also exhibits agglutinative grammar, where suffixes that indicate a single meaning are attached to the word stem one after another in a set order.

Azerbaijan's history

Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a transcontinental country at the boundary of Eastern Europe and West Asia. It is a part of the South Caucasus region. The territory of what is now Azerbaijan was first ruled by Caucasian Albania and later various Persian empires. Until the 19th century, it remained part of Qajar Iran, but the Russo-Persian wars of 1804–1813 and 1826–1828 forced the Qajar Empire to cede its Caucasian territories to the Russian Empire; the treaties of Gulistan in 1813 and Turkmenchay in 1828 defined the border between Russia and Iran.

By the late 19th century, an Azerbaijani national identity emerged when the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic proclaimed its independence from the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic in 1918, a year after the Russian Empire collapsed, and became the first secular democratic Muslim-majority state. In 1920, the country was conquered and incorporated into the Soviet Union as the Azerbaijan SSR. The modern Republic of Azerbaijan proclaimed its independence on 30 August 1991, shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The name Azerbaijan was first adopted by the government of Musavat in 1918 after the collapse of the Russian Empire, when the independent Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was established. The name Azerbaijan derives from Atropates, a Persian satrap under the Achaemenid Empire. The original etymology of this name is thought to have its roots in the once-dominant Zoroastrianism.

The earliest evidence of human settlement in the territory of Azerbaijan dates back to the late Stone Age and is related to the Guruchay culture of Azykh Cave. Early settlements included the Scythians during the 9th century BC. Following the Scythians, Iranian Medes came to dominate the area to the south of the Aras river. The Medes forged a vast empire between 900 and 700 BC, which was integrated into the Achaemenid Empire around 550 BC. The area was conquered by the Achaemenids, leading to the spread of Zoroastrianism.

The Sasanian Empire turned Caucasian Albania into a vassal state in 252, while King Urnayr officially adopted Christianity as the state religion in the 4th century. Despite Sassanid rule, Caucasian Albania remained an entity in the region until the 9th century, while fully subordinate to Sassanid Iran, and retained its monarchy. Despite being one of the chief vassals of the Sasanian emperor, the Albanian king had only a semblance of authority, and the Sasanian marzban (military governor) held most civil, religious, and military authority.

In the first half of the 7th century, Caucasian Albania, as a vassal of the Sasanians, came under nominal Muslim rule with the Muslim conquest of Persia. The Umayyad Caliphate repulsed both the Sasanians and Byzantines from the South Caucasus and turned Caucasian Albania into a vassal state after Christian resistance led by King Juansher was suppressed in 667. The power vacuum left by the decline of the Abbasid Caliphate was filled by numerous local dynasties such as the Sallarids, Sajids, and Shaddadids. At the beginning of the 11th century, the territory was gradually seized by the waves of migrating Oghuz Turks from Central Asia, who adopted a Turkoman ethnonym at the time. The first of these Turkic dynasties established was the Seljuk Empire, which entered the area by 1067.

The pre-Turkic population spoke several Indo-European and Caucasian languages, among them Armenian and an Iranian language, Old Azeri, which was gradually replaced by a Turkic language, the early precursor of the Azerbaijani language of today. Some linguists have also stated that the Tati dialects of Iranian Azerbaijan and the Republic of Azerbaijan, like those spoken by the Tats, are descended from Old Azeri.

Locally, the possessions of the subsequent Seljuk Empire were ruled by Eldiguzids, technically vassals of the Seljuk sultans, but sometimes de facto rulers themselves. Under the Seljuks, local poets such as Nizami Ganjavi and Khaqani gave rise to a blossoming of Persian literature in the region.

Shirvanshahs, the local dynasty of Arabic origin that was later Persianized, became a vassal state of Timurid Empire of Timur and assisted him in his war with the ruler of the Golden Horde Tokhtamysh. Following Timur's death, two independent and rival Turkoman states emerged: Qara Qoyunlu and Aq Qoyunlu. The Shirvanshahs returned, maintaining for numerous centuries to come a high degree of autonomy as local rulers and vassals as they had done since 861. In 1501, the Safavid dynasty of Iran subdued the Shirvanshahs and gained its possessions. In the course of the next century, the Safavids converted the formerly Sunni population to Shia Islam, as they did with the population in what is modern-day Iran.

The Safavids allowed the Shirvanshahs to remain in power under Safavid suzerainty until 1538, when Safavid King Tahmasp I completely deposed them and made the area into the Safavid province of Shirvan. The Sunni Ottomans briefly managed to occupy present-day Azerbaijan as a result of the Ottoman–Safavid War of 1578–1590; by the early 17th century, they were ousted by Safavid Iranian ruler Abbas I. In the wake of the demise of the Safavid dynasty, Baku and its environs were briefly occupied by the Russians as a consequence of the Russo-Persian War of 1722–1723. The remainder of present Azerbaijan was occupied by the Ottomans from 1722 to 1736. Despite brief intermissions such as these by Safavid Iran's neighbouring rivals, the land remained under Iranian rule from the earliest advent of the Safavids up to the course of the 19th century.

Azerbaijan's religious freedom

Azerbaijan is a transcontinental country at the boundary of Eastern Europe and West Asia. It is a unitary semi-presidential republic and one of six independent Turkic states. The vast majority of the country's population (97%) is nominally Muslim, but the Constitution of Azerbaijan does not declare an official religion, and all major political forces in the country are secular.

Despite the secular nature of the state, freedom of religion in Azerbaijan is substantially curtailed. The Azerbaijan government, which follows a strictly secular and anti-religious ideology, represses all religions. The government censors religious literature and closes down religious institutions that it considers objectionable. Political speech by religious institutions is forbidden, clerics are not allowed to run for political office, and the display of religious paraphernalia, flags and slogans is forbidden, except in places of worship, religious centres and offices. Ashura festivities in public are forbidden, and the wearing of the hijab in public institutions and schools is forbidden.

The government uses mosque closures to repress independent Muslim groups that act independently of the state. Clerics that act in ways objectionable to the state face dismissal and arrest. The government does not restrict religious conversion, but it does forbid proselytising.

In 2023, the country was scored zero out of four for religious freedom by Freedom House. In 2022, the European Court of Human Rights found the government violated individual freedom of religion or belief in cases involving seven individuals. At the end of the year, 22 individuals were detained due to their religious beliefs or practices.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has also reported on the country's poor record on religious freedom, noting that local police forces continued to "harass, raid, detain, and fine religious communities that did not comply with registration requirements and various restrictions on the production, possession, and dissemination of religious literature".

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