Türkiyə azərbaycanlıları | |
|---|---|
| Total population | |
| 800,000-4,500,000 (Diaspora Committee of Azerbaijan) [1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Iğdır, Kars, Marmara, Van, Ağrı,Erzurum | |
| Languages | |
| Religion | |
| Shia Islam (Twelver), Sunni Islam |
| Part of a series on |
| Azerbaijanis |
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| Culture |
| Traditional areas of settlement |
| Diaspora |
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| Language |
| Persecution |
Azerbaijanis in Turkey are Turkish citizens and permanent residents of ethnic Azerbaijani background. It is difficult to determine the exact number of ethnic Azerbaijanis currently residing in Turkey since the Turkish government is known to be repressive towards other ethnicities. [2] According to some estimates, there are currently around 800,000 Twelver Shias in Turkey, however this figure may differ substantially from the real one. [3] There are up to 4,500,000 Azerbaijani citizens who reside in Turkey, according to information provided by the Diaspora Committee of Azerbaijan, although the factual accuracy of this figure is disputed. [a] They are currently the largest ethnic group in the city of Iğdır [5] [ failed verification ] [6] and second largest ethnic group in Kars, [7] where they constitute majority in the district of Akyaka [8] (Azerbaijani : Şörəyel). [9]
Azerbaijanis first settled in what is now Turkey during the period of Safavi governance over Kars and neighbouring areas.[ dubious – discuss ] [10] Their numbers grew during the first half of the nineteenth century, when following the Russo-Persian War (1804–1813), the Russo-Persian War (1826–1828) and the respectively out coming Gulistan and Turkmenchay treaties between Persia and Russia, Persia was forced to cede sovereignty over the khanates of Karabakh (1813), Nakhchivan (1828) and Erivan (1828), among others to Russia, [11] and the Treaty of Adrianople gave Christians and Muslims the right to choose a place of residence between Russia and Turkey. Similarly to those of the North Caucasus, large groups of local Muslim population refused to live within Russian boundaries and migrated to Turkey (or Iran) [12] [13] settling in its eastern regions, especially in the Şenkaya district of Erzurum and the Taşlıçay district of Ağrı. [10] [14] [15] [16] The Turkish dialect of Erzurum has been grammatically influenced by the Azerbaijani language. [17] Phonemic analyses indicate that Azerbaijani-influenced dialects are spoken as far as Elâzığ and Van's Erciş district. [18]
In 1813, a group of Azerbaijanis from Karabakh settled in Aziziye, in the northern part of the Afyon Province. Today their descendants live in the villages of Büyük Karabağ and Orta Karabağ and have recently reestablished cultural ties with their historical homeland through the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency. [19] Despite having undergone major assimilation in their language and religious beliefs, they still identify themselves as Karabağlı and are viewed as a distinct group by the local population. [20] A different branch of the same group settled in Iğdır. Caferoğlu argues that the Afyon group may have left Karabakh for Turkey much earlier, in 1578, fighting for the Ottoman Empire in the Second Ottoman–Safavid War. [21]
In addition, in the early nineteenth century, several Sunni families from Shirvan, particularly from Agsu, [22] settled in Amasya, where for a long time they were known as Şirvanlı. In 1894, a unique baroque-style mosque was built here by Şeyh Hacı Mahmut Efendi. The mosque has been known as the Şirvanlı Mosque or the Azerîler Mosque. [23] The descendants of those migrants nowadays live in six villages of Amasya's Suluova and Merzifon districts and have preserved their Azerbaijani identity and culture. [24] Another group of Azerbaijanis from Shaki relocated to Bursa in 1863.
The next wave of Azerbaijani immigration to eastern Turkey took place in 1918–1925, when many Muslim residents of then newly independent Armenia fled their homes, escaping massacres by armed bands of Armenian nationalists. [25] In 1941, already 5,000 Azerbaijanis lived in 60 villages along the Turkish bank of the Arpaçay.[ citation needed ] They were followed by former members of the overthrown government of the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan and their families, as well as many upper-class Azerbaijanis, who fled to Turkey in fear of persecution by the Bolsheviks and settled primarily in Istanbul, Bursa and Ankara. [26] [27] Together with other political immigrants from the Caucasus and led by members of the deposed democratic government of Azerbaijan such as Rasulzadeh, Khasmammadov and Sultanov, some of them engaged in anti-Soviet political propaganda and activities in Turkey in an attempt to restore the independence of the Bolshevik-occupied Caucasus states. The signing of Soviet-Turkish non-aggression pacts in 1925 and 1935 created obstacles in continuing this activity in the form of arrests and bans on the publishing of anti-Soviet periodicals. This forced some politically active members of the movement to relocate to Germany and Poland by the late 1930s. [28]
After the failure of the USSR-created regional Azerbaijan People's Government in 1946, ethnic Azerbaijani political immigrants from Iran increased the numbers of Azerbaijanis in Turkey. [10] By 1990, about 400,000 Azerbaijanis lived in a belt of land on the Turkish side of the Soviet border. [29] Iranian Azerbaijanis have emigrated and resettled in large numbers in Istanbul, [30] and many Iranian Azerbaijani students who came to study in Turkey have stayed there after the completion of their studies. [31]
Finally, starting from the early 1990s tens of thousands of immigrants from the newly independent Azerbaijan have made their way to Turkey due to economic reasons, settling mostly in big cities. According to the Turkish Ministry of the Interior, between 2003 and 2013 alone over 15,000 immigrants from Azerbaijan received Turkish citizenship. [32] In addition, as of 2019, there were 36,543 citizens of Azerbaijan residing in Turkey. [33]
The Terekeme people are often considered a sub-ethnic group of Azerbaijanis of Sunni Muslim background. [34]
In general, the Azerbaijani population in Turkey is considered well-integrated into Turkish society, mainly due to cultural and linguistic affinities between Azerbaijanis and Turks. Nevertheless, differences still remain in the areas of religion (Azerbaijanis are mainly Shi'a, whereas Turks are mostly Sunni), dialect, and self-conception in terms of historical memory and ethnic/national consciousness. [10] In 2011, Sinan Oğan, an ethnic Azerbaijani and a diaspora activist from Iğdır, won a seat in the Turkish parliament as a Nationalist Movement Party candidate. [35] Following the June 2015 election, Kıznaz Türkeli from the Peoples' Democratic Party, another ethnic Azerbaijani, was elected to represent the same province. [36]
Meskhetian Turks, also referred to as Turkish Meskhetians, Ahiska Turks, and Turkish Ahiskans, are a subgroup of ethnic Turkish people formerly inhabiting the Meskheti region of Georgia, along the border with Turkey. The Turkish presence in Meskheti began with the Ottoman military expedition of 1578, although Turkic tribes had settled in the region as early as the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
Azerbaijanis, Azeris, or Azerbaijani Turks 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 neighboring Iran and Georgia. They speak the Azerbaijani language, belonging to the Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages.
Pan-Turkism or Turkism is a political movement that emerged during the 1880s among Turkic intellectuals who lived in the Russian region of Kazan (Tatarstan), South Caucasus and the Ottoman Empire, with its aim being the cultural and political unification of all Turkic peoples. Turanism is a closely related movement but it is a more general term, because Turkism only applies to Turkic peoples. However, researchers and politicians who are steeped in the pan-Turkic ideology have used these terms interchangeably in many sources and works of literature.
Kars is a city in northeast Turkey. It is the seat of Kars Province and Kars District. As of 2022, its population was 91,450. Kars, in classical historiography (Strabo), was in the ancient region known as Chorzene, part of the province of Ayrarat in the Kingdom of Armenia, and later the capital of the Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia from 929 to 961. Currently, the mayor of Kars is Türker Öksüz. The city had an Armenian ethnic majority until it was re-captured by Turkish nationalist forces in late 1920.
Iğdır Province is a province in eastern Turkey, located along the borders with Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran. Its adjacent provinces are Kars to the northwest and Ağrı to the west and south. Its area is 3,664 km2, and its population is 203,594 (2022). Its population was 168,634 in 2000 and 142,601 in 1990. The province is considered part of Turkish Kurdistan and has a Kurdish majority with a pretty close Azerbaijani minority.
Islam began to make inroads into the Armenian plateau during the seventh century. Arab, and later Kurdish, tribes began to settle in Armenia following the first Arab invasions and played a considerable role in the political and social history of Armenia. With the Seljuk invasions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Turkic element eventually superseded that of the Arab and Kurdish. With the establishment of the Iranian Safavid dynasty, Afsharid dynasty, Zand dynasty and Qajar dynasty, Armenia became an integral part of the Shia world, while still maintaining a relatively independent Christian identity. The pressures brought upon the imposition of foreign rule by a succession of Muslim states forced many lead Armenians in Anatolia and what is today Armenia to convert to Islam and assimilate into the Muslim community. Many Armenians were also forced to convert to Islam, on the penalty of death, during the years of the Armenian Genocide.
The First Republic of Armenia, officially known at the time of its existence as the Republic of Armenia, was an independent Armenian state that existed from May 1918 to 2 December 1920 in the Armenian-populated territories of the former Russian Empire known as Eastern or Russian Armenia. The republic was established in May 1918, with its capital in the city of Yerevan, after the dissolution of the short-lived Transcaucasian Federation. It was the first Armenian state since the Middle Ages.
The peoples of the Caucasus, or Caucasians, are a diverse group comprising more than 50 ethnic groups throughout the Caucasus.
Ahmet Ağaoğlu, also known as Ahmet Bey Ağaoğlu (Azerbaijani: Əhməd bəy Ağaoğlu; or Ahmet Akif Agaoglu was a public and political figure of Azerbaijan and Turkey, thinker, publicist, educator, writer, Turkologist, and the founder of liberal Kemalism.
Iğdır is a city in the Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. It is the seat of Iğdır Province and Iğdır District. Its population is 101,700 (2022).
The Erivan Khanate, also known as Chokhur-e Sa'd, was a khanate that was established in Afsharid Iran in the 18th century. It covered an area of roughly 19,500 km2, and corresponded to most of present-day central Armenia, the Iğdır Province and the Kars Province's Kağızman district in present-day Turkey and the Sharur and Sadarak districts of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic of present-day Azerbaijan.
The Karapapakhs, or Terekeme, are a Turkic people, who originally spoke the Karapapakh language, a western Oghuz language closely related to Azerbaijani and Turkish. Nowadays, the Karapapakh language has been largely supplanted by Azerbaijani and Turkish.
The Provisional National Government of the Southwestern Caucasus, Provisional National Government of South West Caucasia or Kars Republic was a short-lived nominally-independent provisional government based in Kars, northeastern Turkey. Born in the wake of the Armistice of Mudros that ended World War I in the Middle East, it existed from December 1, 1918 until April 19, 1919, when it was abolished by British High Commissioner Admiral Somerset Arthur Gough-Calthorpe. A similar provisional government named Igdir National Government was also founded on Iğdır.
The Armenian Oblast was a province (oblast) of the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire that existed from 1828 to 1840. It corresponded to most of present-day central Armenia, the Iğdır Province of Turkey, and the Nakhchivan exclave of Azerbaijan. Its administrative center was Yerevan, referred to as Erivan (Эривань) in Russian.
Turks in Azerbaijan, or Turkish Azerbaijanis, refers to ethnic Turkish people who live in the Republic of Azerbaijan. The community is largely made of Ottoman Turkish descendants who have lived in Azerbaijan for centuries, as well as the Turkish Meskhetian community which arrived in large numbers during Soviet rule. More recently, there has been Turkish migration from the Republic of Turkey, as well as from other post-Ottoman modern nation-states and from the Turkish diaspora.
Azerbaijanis in Armenia numbered 29 people according to the 2001 census of Armenia. Although they have previously been the biggest minority in the country according to 1831–1989 censuses, they are virtually non-existent since 1988–1991 when most fled or were forced out of the country as a result of the tensions of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War to neighboring Azerbaijan. The UNHCR estimates that the current population of Azerbaijanis in Armenia to be somewhere between 30 and a few hundred people, with most of them living in rural areas as members of mixed couples, as well as elderly or sick. Most of them are reported to have changed their names to maintain a low profile to avoid discrimination.
Islam in Georgia was introduced in 654 when an army sent by the Third Caliph of Islam, Uthman, conquered Eastern Georgia and established Muslim rule in Tbilisi. Currently, Muslims constitute approximately 9.9% of the Georgian population. According to other sources, Muslims constitute 10-11% of Georgia's population.
The Azerbaijani diaspora are the communities of Azerbaijanis living outside the places of their ethnic origin: Azerbaijan and the Iranian region of Azerbaijan.
Minorities in Turkey form a substantial part of the country's population, representing an estimated 25 to 28 percent of the population. Historically, in the Ottoman Empire, Islam was the official and dominant religion, with Muslims having more rights than non-Muslims, whose rights were restricted. Non-Muslim (dhimmi) ethno-religious groups were legally identified by different millet ("nations").
Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment, Azerophobia, Azerbaijanophobia, or anti-Azerbaijanism has been mainly rooted in several countries, most notably in Russia, Armenia, and Iran, where anti-Azerbaijani sentiment has sometimes led to violent ethnic incidents.
However, as of today, no fully reliable statistics exists. According to the non-official information provided by the Diaspora Committee of Azerbaijan, about 4,500,000 Azerbaijanis live in Turkey. It is not clear however what criteria have been used for the calculation, and how many generations of Azerbaijanis as well as which population categories are included in the statistics. Even OECD data are not always reliable.
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| Census in Turkey | |
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