The Evolution of National Identity and Nationalism in Azerbaijan (1900-2018)

Download

10398605.pdf

Date

2022-9-22

Author

Guliyeva, Narmin

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

559
views

522
downloads

The de- and re-construction of national identity have been accelerated in Azerbaijan since the fall of the Soviet Union thanks to which Azerbaijan emerged as an independent nation-state. Azerbaijanism has been promulgated to be the main backbone of state official ideology since independence, except for a short time of Turkism. Though a quarter of a century has passed since the elites started formulating the national identity, it is still incomplete and there from time to time emerges questions about the proper designation for the ethnically Turkic people. This problem stems from the troubled past of Azerbaijan. The name and the language of Azerbaijani people were changed five times in a century. There has been a century-long war between the ethnic and civic markers of the national identity. So, this study aims to discuss the historical evolution of national identity and nationalism in Azerbaijan. It attempts to answer how national identity has been defined and nationalism has been discussed under different political regimes and governments up to recent times, with a special reference to language policy and national minority questions. This thesis reveals that in spite of the consolidation of Azerbaijani identity in the society, there is still a misunderstanding related to its “double” meaning: First, it has “civic” meaning functioning as supra-ethnic identity; second, it has “ethnic” meaning, used to designate ethnically dominant Turkic people. This study attempts to clarify this problem through the lens of ethnicity and nationalism theories. It reveals that though all ethnic groups have been integrated under inclusive civic national identity, they will not likely decline their ethnic affiliation. So, it suggests that Azerbaijani identity successfully functions as citizenship identity, but fails in doing so as an ethnic identity. More specifically, Azerbaijani identity is a supplement, not a substitution to original identities; they do not contradict, rather complement each other.

Subject Keywords

national identity, civic nationalism, ethnic nationalism, Turkism, Azerbaijanism

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/99415

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

Reflections of nationalism and the role of language policies in national identity formation in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan Akyıldız, Selma; Tokluoğlu, Ayşe Ceylan; Department of Eurasian Studies (2019) After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the newly independent Azerbaijan has entered its nation-building process. Azerbaijani political elites aimed to re-form national identity through a set of language policies. In this context, they focused on the alphabet, and on the name of the official language which they consider as markers of their national identity. Turkism versus Azerbaijanism as the two competing ideologies have left their mark on this process. Language has been used as a political tool for pr...
The Uyghur Diaspora in Cyberspace: Identity and Homeland Cause Kuşçu Bonnenfant, Işık (2014-03-01) Since the 1950s, the Uyghur diaspora communities have engaged in a wide array of activities to transnationalize the case of Uyghurs in the homeland. Uyghur diaspora have traditionally organized around associations and worked towards transnationalizing the homeland cause through conferences, press releases, printed materials such as books and journals as well as booklets and pamphlets. For the last decade or so though, Uyghur diaspora groups are benefiting from a new means of communication, the Internet. By ...
Reconstruction of turkish national identity through shifting perceptions of threat Oğuz, Alaattin; Tokluoğlu, Ayşe Ceylan; Department of Sociology (2022-2) The nation-state is undergoing a major identity crisis, and Turkey is not exempted from this conventional disarray such that various ethnic groups tend to create mixed and complex loyalty positions before the state's national policy. Many are locating themselves with different ethnic origins depending on the political, economic, and social involvement/interaction with others. According to various regional and ethnic dispersal positions, the inclusion of these groups to form national unity indicates the emer...
The Impact Of Rising Kazakh Nationalism On Minorities In The Post-Soviet Nation-Building Binici, Duygu; Ergun Özbolat, Ayça; Department of Eurasian Studies (2022-6) This study examines process of nation-building in Kazakhstan with concentrating on the nature of majority-minority relations regarding the rising nationalism in Kazakhstan. To gain a better perspective on Kazakhstan's nation-building policies, the thesis examines the post-Soviet nation-building experiences and the legacy of the Russian Empire and Soviet nationality policies particularly in Kazakhstan. Moreover, the state's nation-building policies attempt to construct Kazakh nation after independence are pu...
Kırım Tatarlarının Ana Vatana dönüşü ve kültürel canlanma sürecinde dil ve eğitim Aydıngün, Ayşegül (2004-01-01) Bu makale 1944 yılında ana vatanları Kırım'dan Orta Asya'ya sürülen ve vatana dönme haklarını ancak 1989 yılında elde eden Kırım Tatarları örneğinde etnik / milli kimlik- dil ilişkisini incelemektedir. Kırım'da gerçekleştirilen saha araştırması verilerine dayanan makalenin temel iddiası, dil-etnik / milli kimlik ilişkisinin, dilin sembolik ve etkileşimsel boyutlarının; kimliğin ise etnik /milli ve kültürel boyutlarının birbirinden ayrılması halinde anlaşılabileceğidir. Ayrıca, makalede, vatana dönüş sonrası...

Citation Formats

N. Guliyeva, “The Evolution of National Identity and Nationalism in Azerbaijan (1900-2018),” Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2022.