Course of events
According to the 1939 census, there were 87,510 Talyshs in the Azerbaijan SSR. Thus, the Talysh were the fifth largest nationality in Azerbaijan (after Azerbaijanis, Russians, Armenians and Lezgins), being one of the largest ethnic minorities in the republic. However, the 1959 census counted only 85 people of Talysh nationality in Azerbaijan. The official explanation of the authorities for the almost complete "disappearance" of the Talysh in this census was that "the Talysh voluntarily and en masse identified themselves as Azerbaijanis" in front of the census takers. In her book, Krista Goff shows, with documentary evidence, that the Moscow Central Statistical Office had plans to include the category of Talysh nationality in the 1959 census, but this category was excluded during the collection and preparation of census reports in Azerbaijan itself.
The leadership of the Azerbaijan SSR, according to Goff, used the census data in Soviet ethnography, creating a narrative about the "completely voluntary and natural assimilation" of the Talysh people. It was followed by the production of a large amount of ethnographic, linguistic, historical-geographical and other material, developing and reproducing narratives designed, according to Goff, to justify the national “erasure” of the Talysh and strengthen the official myth of their “voluntary assimilation”. Soviet ethnographers, describing what happened to the Talysh, emphasized their common features in culture and life with the Azerbaijanis and presented the "assimilation" of the Iranian-speaking Talysh by the Turkic-speaking Azerbaijanis as an "impressive achievement" of the Soviet state, "ethno-historical progress." So, for example, the Great Soviet Encyclopedia began to say that “in the USSR, the Talysh almost merged with the Azerbaijanis, who are very close in material and spiritual culture, therefore they were not singled out in the 1970 census”. [4] According to researchers, the "erasing" of the Talysh from the census, as well as of some other peoples, was one of the main ways to increase the "titular" Azerbaijani majority in the republic and its homogenization.
This assimilation policy put great social, political and economic pressure on the Talysh and their daily life, stimulating them to "merge" with the titular Azerbaijani nation. So, for example, Talysh could not be registered as representatives of the Talysh nationality in official documents, and parents could not enroll their children in schools teaching in the Talysh language. Some Talysh petitioned the authorities for their rights to be identified as Talysh in government documents, but all these requests were denied by the authorities until 1989. Others, finding no other way out, adopted Azerbaijani identification in order to avoid discrimination in everyday life, for example, when applying for a job. Krista Goff also cites stories of Talysh who admitted that due to the stigmatization of their nationality, the lack of schools, books and other resources among the Talysh of Azerbaijan, as well as the lack of any preferences to be Talysh, they preferred Azerbaijani self-identification and the Azerbaijani language, even being afraid that their children may face discrimination if they speak Azerbaijani with a Talysh accent. Representatives of the Talysh people often assimilated these assimilation narratives about themselves, which they were told and which they found in encyclopedias, articles and other printed material.
From 1960 to 1989, the Talysh were not included in the censuses as a separate ethnic group, as they were considered part of the Azerbaijanis (Azerbaijani Turks).
In 1978, a part of the Talysh addressed the Central Statistical Office in Moscow and the Pravda newspaper with collective complaints that the census workers refused to register them as Talysh in the upcoming 1979 census. To which they received a response letter from the head of the Department of the All-Union Census A. A. Isupov, saying that the category of Talysh nationality would not be included in the census, because, Isupov wrote, referring to the ethnographic report on the assimilation of the Talysh, the Talysh are now Azerbaijanis.
In her book, Krista Goff provides interviews with the Talysh: “During these censuses [from 1959 to 1979] no one asked us about our nationality or self-identification. The census workers sat in the regional or village office and filled in the national composition of the population ahead of time based on orders from above. Then they asked us to fill in the other lines.” Respondents also shared stories with Goff about how census takers wrote them down as “Azerbaijanis” when they introduced themselves as Talysh, and denied the very existence of a Talysh nationality; in addition, when collecting information for the census, workers avoided the categories of mother tongue and nationality. During the preparation of materials for the 1970 census, some ethnographers and cartographers in Moscow expressed doubts about the census data, stating that the Azerbaijani authorities responsible for the census artificially assimilated the Talysh and "present their region as more ethnically homogeneous, and the Azerbaijani nation more consolidated" than in fact.
According to Goff, in order to justify the assimilation policy towards non-titular minorities, Azerbaijani officials and scholars from the 1950s increasingly began to talk about the "supposedly ancient local origin of the Azerbaijani nation", including minorities, including the Talysh, in its history. Thus, emphasizing that the Talysh and other peoples of the Azerbaijan SSR “descended from the same ancient population” as the Azerbaijanis (Azerbaijani Turks), they, according to Goff, tried to present the formation of the Turkic-centric Soviet Azerbaijani people as a “natural centuries-old process, and not the result of forced assimilation, as some minorities claimed."
Only in 1989, the Talysh nationality was returned to the census, immediately counting 21,196 Talyshes.
In modern Azerbaijan
Historical suppression of identity and inability to practice their culture and language instilled self-censorship in the Talysh. [14] This makes it difficult to assess support for any kind of Talysh movement. [15] According to Hema Kotecha, many Talysh fears that they will be considered linked to the separatist Talysh-Mugan Autonomous Republic, Russia or Armenia if they speak out openly and try to speak out about their beliefs in the public sphere. One case of the current repressions, when a school in Lerik wanted to invite a poet from Lankaran to meet with the children: the director was told that in this case he would be fired. Fear of the police is another reason for this silence, although support for secular democracy and shared Azeri-Talysh feelings about Nagorno-Karabakh also contribute to this. [16]
International organizations such as Washington Profile, [17] the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization [18] and Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty [19] [20] have expressed concern over the arrest of Novruzali Mammadov, chairman of the Talish Cultural Center and chief editor of the newspaper "Tolyshi Sado". He was arrested and sentenced to 10 years on charges of high treason after his newspaper published articles claiming that the poet Nizami and the leader of the anti-Arab uprising Bābak Khorramdin were Talysh (and not Azerbaijanis, as officially considered in Azerbaijan). [21]
The report of the "European Commission against Racism and Intolerance" (ECRI) noted that against the background of the cultivation of anti-Armenian sentiments in Azerbaijan, serious concerns are also expressed in connection with incitement of hatred towards the Talysh minority. ECRI notes with concern cases of abuse of legislation against members of minorities. This is how the former editor-in-chief of the only Talish-language newspaper "Tolyshi Sado", human rights activist Hilal Mammadov, was arrested and charged with drug possession. During his arrest, he was beaten and insulted on ethnic grounds. Hilal Mammadov was taken into custody after he posted a video about Talysh culture on the Internet, which received more than 20 million views. Leyla Yunus described his arrest as an example of pressure on representatives of national minorities. Earlier, the previous editor of the same Talysh newspaper, Novruzalli Mammadov, was arrested and died in prison. [22]
Forced assimilation is the involuntary cultural assimilation of religious or ethnic minority groups, during which they are forced by a government to adopt the language, national identity, norms, mores, customs, traditions, values, mentality, perceptions, way of life, and often the religion and ideology of an established and generally larger community belonging to a dominant culture.
The Talysh people or Talyshis, Talyshes, Talyshs, Talishis, Talishes, Talishs, Talesh are an Iranian ethnic group, with the majority residing in Azerbaijan and a minority in Iran. They are the indigenous people of the Talish, a region on the western shore of the Caspian Sea shared between Azerbaijan and Iran. The main city of the Talysh people and their homeland is Lankaran, the majority of the population of which is ethnically Talysh. They speak the Talysh language, one of the Northwestern Iranian languages. The majority of Talyshis are Shiite Muslims.
Talysh-Mughan, officially known as the Talysh-Mughan Autonomous Republic, was a short-lived autonomous republic in Azerbaijan that lasted from June to August 1993.
National delimitation in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was the process of specifying well-defined national territorial units from the ethnic diversity of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and its subregions.
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.
This article focuses on ethnic minorities in the Republic of Azerbaijan.
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.
Novruzali Khanmammad oğlu Mammadov was an Azerbaijani philologist, journalist and activist of Talysh ethnicity. He was the founder and editor of the now-defunct newspaper Tolyshi Sado. Mammadov also worked at the Nasimi Institute of Linguistics of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences and headed a Talysh cultural center, which was closed after his imprisonment.
Mass deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia took place several times throughout the 20th century, and sometimes some of them have been described by some authors as acts of forced resettlement and ethnic cleansing.
Hilal Mammadov is an Azerbaijani journalist and human rights activist. He is the chief editor of the Baku-based newspaper "Tolyshi sado", the only newspaper in Azerbaijan printed in the minority Talysh language. After Novruzali Mammadov died in custody, Hilal Mamedov became a second community leader for the Talysh people. He is also known as the author of the meykhana video Ty kto takoy? Davay, do svidaniya! which became an Internet meme both in Azerbaijan and Post-Soviet states.
Anti-Armenian sentiment or Armenophobia is widespread in Azerbaijan, mainly due to the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. According to the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), Armenians are "the most vulnerable group in Azerbaijan in the field of racism and racial discrimination." A 2012 opinion poll found that 91% of Azerbaijanis perceive Armenia as "the biggest enemy of Azerbaijan." The word "Armenian" (erməni) is widely used as an insult in Azerbaijan. Stereotypical opinions circulating in the mass media have their deep roots in the public consciousness.
Mamed Iskenderov was the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic from 10 July 1959 to 29 December 1961. He was a member of the Communist Party.
Tālīsh is a region in the southwestern coast of the Caspian Sea. It is a homeland of the indigenous Talysh people, who inhabit the region and speak the Talysh language. The territory and the language set apart Talish from its neighbors.
The Lenkoran uezd or Talysh uezd was a county (uezd) within the Baku Governorate of the Russian Empire, and then of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and the Azerbaijan SSR until its formal abolishment in 1929. The county was located on the southern part of the governorate, bordering Caspian Sea to the east, Javad uezd to the north, and Iran to the southwest. The administrative centre of the county was the city of Lenkoran.
The Talysh National Movement is a Talysh movement created in 2007 in the Netherlands, where part of the Talysh leadership lives in exile. Many of the movement's members had previously participated in the formation of the Talysh-Mughan Autonomous Republic in 1993, including board member Alikram Hummatov.
The Talysh People's Party —political party of the Talysh people, founded in 1991 in Azerbaijan.
Zulfugar Ahmedzade was a Talysh poet, public and political figure, publicist, translator, leader of the Talysh national and cultural revival in the 1930s.
The Sadval movement, or simply Sadval, meaning "Unity"; is a Lezgin political movement, whose initially stated goal was to address the perceived discrimination and marginalization of their community in Azerbaijan. Formed in July 1990 in Dagestan, the Sadval movement addressed issues important to both Russian and Azerbaijani Lezgins. Around the same time, prior to the imminent breakup of the former Soviet Union, other ethnic minority groups in the region began to assert their own cultural and political identities
Fakhraddin Aboszoda was a Talysh rights activist and historian. He was a leader of the Talysh national movement. He was a chairman of the majlis (parliament) of the Talysh-Mughan Autonomous Republic within Republic of Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan has had a deliberate policy of forced assimilation of ethnic minorities since Soviet times and up to the present. Non-Turkic peoples, such as Talyshis, Lezgins, Tats and others have been subjected to forced Azerbaijanization (Turkification).
