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Abstract
Azerbaijan is a state both confronting protracted minority group secessionism and culturally associated with large co-ethnic minority groups in neighbouring states. This context has generated conflicting pressures on the visualisation of territory in Azerbaijani geopolitical culture. This article surveys contemporary cartographic practices in Azerbaijan and identifies two salient traditions, one reproducing consensus on the territorial integrity of the Azerbaijani state and the other mobilising grievance at truncations of an Azerbaijani ethnic homeland. It identifies the emergence of hybridity between these modes of seeing Azerbaijani territory and discusses their implications for the resolution of the Armenian–Azerbaijani conflict.
Notes
1 For example, see Ker-Lindsay (Citation2012) and Coppieters (Citation2018).
2 For the transliteration of Azerbaijani, I have used the simplified system in Allworth (Citation1971), which can be retrieved at https://transliteration.eki.ee/pdf/Azerbaijani.pdf, accessed 13 August 2020. For ease of reading, as far as possible I have used toponymic spellings already in wide circulation in the English-language literature, rather than less well-known transliterations (for example, Kelbajar and not Kälbäjär).
3 Author’s interview with Jasur Mammadov Sumerinli, director Doktrina NGO, Baku, 29 May 2014.
4 ‘Iranian Azerbaijan’ is itself not a clear-cut or stable geographical referent. It is composed of four provinces, only two of which bear the name ‘Azerbaijan’ (West Azerbaijan and East Azerbaijan, the other two being Ardabil and Zanjan). Large numbers of Azerbaijanis live outside of these provinces, particularly in Tehran, while substantial numbers of other communities live within them. Elling (Citation2013, p. 28) cites both Iranian estimates likely to be conservative at less than nine million, and what he sees as exaggerated Western claims of 23 million. Numbers alone, in any case, cannot be taken to assume a corresponding group identity. Elling nevertheless remarks on ‘the paradox of Iran’s largest minority—a community so large that most Iranian scholars never use the word minority to describe it’ (Elling Citation2013, p. 63).
5 This is the meaning of his assumed name, ‘Elcibey’; his real name was Aliyev.
6 Author’s interview with Adalet Tahirzade, former deputy minister of education (1992–1993), Baku, 1 June 2014.
7 See, for example, Balayev (Citation1992).
8 Author’s interview with Adalet Tahirzade, former deputy minister of education (1992–1993), Baku, 1 June 2014.
9 These were the Surmalı district, contested with Armenians, and several districts in Akhaltsikhe and Borchalo, contested with Georgians although violence was avoided.
10 On this, see Broers (Citation2019, p. 80).
11 On these, see Broers and Toal (Citation2013).
12 Variants of this map were used at the official inauguration of the BTC pipeline and have also been used for events and publications associated with the now defunct Centre for Strategic Studies under the President of Azerbaijan. The latter can be viewed at: http://sam.az/uploads/PDF/Az-Geo-Tr%20kitab%20a4%20for_Web.pdf, accessed 30 January 2019.
13 These are the Azerbaijani place-names of locations which, with the exception of Terter, are contested by Armenians.
14 See also Erőss and Tátrai (Citation2016).
15 While this may be true of maps, the news site OC Media provides evidence that some history books produced under the aegis of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Culture and Tourism revive support for Azerbaijani territorial claims on Iran (‘Libraries Full of Hate: from Azerbaijan to Georgia’, OC Media, 30 August 2019, available at: https://oc-media.org/features/libraries-full-of-hate-from-azerbaijan-to-georgia/, accessed 14 August 2020).
16 Author’s interview with Jamil Hasanli, historian and opposition politician, Baku, 5 June 2014.
17 ‘Il’kham Aliyev nazval strategicheskoi tselyu azerbaidzhantsev “vozvrashchenie” Erevana’, Interfax, 8 February 2018, available at: http://www.interfax.ru/world/599092, accessed 4 July 2018.
18 ‘The Republic of West Azerbaijan (Erevan) was Declared in Exile’, Turan, 10 May 2020, available at: http://www.turan.az/ext/news/2020/5/free/politics%20news/en/123959.htm, accessed 14 August 2020.
19 ‘Gärbi Azärbayjan Respublikasïnïn gerbi gäbul olundu—Foto’, Teleqraf.com, 3 August 2020, available at: https://teleqraf.com/news/dunya/256690.html, accessed 14 August 2020.
20 See, https://www.tarix.az/, accessed 17 August 2020.
21 See maps in Mahmudlu et al. (Citation2013, pp. 368, 375).
22 Author’s interview with Araz Azimov, Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, Baku, 20 February 2015. See also President Ilham Aliyev’s comments to Dmitri Kisilev, head of the Russian news agency Rossiya Segodnya (‘Reasonable Compromise on Karabakh is Possible’, Azernews, 20 October 2016, available at: https://www.azernews.az/nation/103946.html, accessed 30 January 2019).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Laurence Broers
Laurence Broers, Research Associate, Centre for Contemporary Central Asia and the Caucasus, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London, WC1H 0XG, UK. Email: [email protected]