Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and West Asia. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia and Turkey to the west, and Iran to the south. Baku is the capital and largest city.
Azerbaijani or Azeri, also referred to as Azeri Turkic or Azeri Turkish, is a Turkic language from the Oghuz sub-branch. It is spoken primarily by the Azerbaijani people, who live mainly in the Republic of Azerbaijan where the North Azerbaijani variety is spoken, and in the Azerbaijan region of Iran, where the South Azerbaijani variety is spoken. North Azerbaijani has official status in the Republic of Azerbaijan and Dagestan, but South Azerbaijani does not have official status in Iran, where the majority of Azerbaijani people live. It is also spoken to lesser varying degrees in Azerbaijani communities of Georgia and Turkey and by diaspora communities, primarily in Europe and North America.
Turkmen, sometimes referred to as Turkmen Turkic or Turkmen Turkish, is a Turkic language of the Oghuz branch spoken by the Turkmens of Central Asia. It has an estimated 4.3 million native speakers in Turkmenistan, and a further 719,000 speakers in northeastern Iran and 1.5 million people in northwestern Afghanistan, where it has no official status. Turkmen is also spoken to lesser varying degrees in Turkmen communities of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and by diaspora communities, primarily in Turkey and Russia.
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), 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.
Muhammad bin Suleyman, better known by his pen name Fuzuli, was a 16th-century poet who composed works in his native Azerbaijani, as well as Persian and Arabic. He is regarded as one of the greatest poets of Turkic literature and a prominent figure in both Azerbaijani and Ottoman literature. Fuzuli's work was widely known and admired throughout the Turkic cultural landscape from the 16th to the 19th centuries, with his fame reaching as far as Central Asia and India.
The Azerbaijan Democratic Party was a pro-Soviet, separatist, and pan-Turkist party founded by Jafar Pishevari in Tabriz, Iran, in September 1945. It depended on the Soviet Union and was supported by it. The ADP was founded as an opposition party against the Pahlavi dynasty. The Soviet-supported Tudeh Party dissolved its Azerbaijan chapter and ordered its members to join the ADP. The ADP ruled the Soviet-backed Azerbaijan People's Government from 1945 until 1946 with Pishevari as premier.
Turkish people or Turks are the largest Turkic people who speak various dialects of the Turkish language and form a majority in Turkey and Northern Cyprus. In addition, centuries-old ethnic Turkish communities still live across other former territories of the Ottoman Empire. Article 66 of the Turkish Constitution defines a "Turk" as: "Anyone who is bound to the Turkish state through the bond of citizenship." While the legal use of the term "Turkish" as it pertains to a citizen of Turkey is different from the term's ethnic definition, the majority of the Turkish population are of Turkish ethnicity. The vast majority of Turks are Muslims and follow the Sunni and Alevi faith.
Khash is a dish of boiled cow or sheep parts, which might include the head, feet, and stomach (tripe). It is a dish of Armenian origin.
The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, also known as the Azerbaijan People's Republic, was the first secular democratic republic in the Turkic and Muslim worlds. The ADR was founded by the Azerbaijani National Council in Tiflis on 28 May 1918 after the collapse of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, and ceased to exist on April 28, 1920. Its established borders were with Russia to the north, the Democratic Republic of Georgia to the north-west, the Republic of Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south. It had a population of around 3 million. Ganja was the temporary capital of the Republic as Baku was under Bolshevik control. The name of "Azerbaijan" which the leading Musavat party adopted, for political reasons, was, prior to the establishment of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918, exclusively used to identify the adjacent region of contemporary northwestern Iran.
Ahmet Ağaoğlu, also known as Ahmet Bey Ağaoğlu, was a prominent Azerbaijani and naturalized Turkish politician, publicist and journalist. He was one of the founders of Pan-Turkism and liberal Kemalism.
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.
Ayrums are a Turkic tribe, considered to be a sub-ethnic group of Azerbaijanis after the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They have been historically associated with the area nearby the city of Gyumri.
United Armenia, also known as Greater Armenia or Great Armenia, is an Armenian ethno-nationalist irredentist concept referring to areas within the traditional Armenian homeland—the Armenian Highland—which are currently or have historically been mostly populated by Armenians. The idea of what Armenians see as unification of their historical lands was prevalent throughout the 20th century and has been advocated by individuals, various organizations and institutions, including the nationalist parties Armenian Revolutionary Federation and Heritage, the ASALA and others.
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.
The Azerbaijan–Turkey border is a short 17 km (11 mi) long international border between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Turkey. The border is located at the southeastern tip of the Iğdır Province on the Turkish side and at the northwestern tip of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic on the Azerbaijani side; running entirely along the Aras river, it is the shortest border for both countries.
The toponym "Azerbaijan" was historically used to refer to the region located south of the Aras River- today known as Iranian Azerbaijan, located in northwestern Iran. Historians and geographers usually referred to the region north of the Aras River as Arran, but the name "Azerbaijan" has also been extended to this area as well. On May 28, 1918, following the collapse of the Russian Empire, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was proclaimed to the north of the Aras.
Turkoman, also known as Turcoman, was a term for the people of Oghuz Turkic origin, widely used during the Middle Ages. Oghuz Turks were a western Turkic people that, in the 8th century A.D, formed a tribal confederation in an area between the Aral and Caspian seas in Central Asia, and spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family.
