Rauf Garagozov, Dr.

Leading Research Associate

Institute of Strategic Studies of the Caucasus

 

The end of the Soviet system has allowed Azerbaijanis ever more confidently to turn to their own history and collective memory, both of which were seriously distorted by the communist authorities, and thus to continue the process of the recovery of their own past that began during the period of glasnost and perestroika, a time of enormous growth in the interest of people to their own history, a rethinking of well-known events and new attention to almost unknown and largely forgotten events which one might call "the blank spots" of history. 

A similar process has been going on in all former Soviet republics, but what makes the situation in Azerbaijan unique is that up to now almost all of these "blank spots" being filled in concern the complicated history of Armenian-Azerbaijani conflicts.  And there are at least two, in many respects mutually reinforcing, reasons why there has continued to be no lessening in the interest of society in precisely these questions.

On the one hand, it was precisely during the Gorbachev period that Armenians demanded the transfer of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast of the Azerbaijan to the neighboring Armenian SSR even though Azerbaijanis have always viewed Karabakh as an inalienable part of their own cultural-historical inheritance.  Not surprisingly, Armenian claims to the contrary sparked an interest in the history of this district and the region as a whole among Azerbaijanis.

And on the other, many historical events, with the closest causal connection with the Karabakh conflict, had to a large degree been forgotten or distorted in favor of the ideological requirements of the communist regime.  In particular, the treatment of such themes as the history of the Caucasus of the 19th century, of the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan or of the Armenian-Azerbaijani clashes of the beginning of the 20th century was so reduced or distorted as to constitute "blank spots" in the historical memory of the Azerbaijani people.   

Consequently, it should come as no surprise that a book, published in Baku in 1990 and devoted to the history of Armenian-Azerbaijani conflicts of the beginning and end of the 20th century, bore the highly symbolic title Blank Spots of History and Perestroika.  Many historical events of the 19th and early 20th century had been subject to a taboo in Soviet times and thus were kept out of the collective memory of Azerbaijanis.  The result was that the outburst of Armenian expansionism and territorial claims against Azerbaijan at the end of the 20th century was something completely unexpected for a large part of Azerbaijani society and shocked many people.

Initially, the Armenian side turned out to be ideologically better prepared for the conflict: Thanks to the efforts of Armenian propagandists and assorted experts allied with them, Armenian explanations predominated.  The Azerbaijani position on all this for a long time was not even heard not only because the Armenians were so ready with answers but also because the Azerbaijanis were to a large extent not prepared to express their own views with precision.

The reasons for that difference lie in the very different historical consciousnesses of the two peoples and, even more, in the differences between the nature of the collective memories of Armenians and Azerbaijanis.

  

French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs (1992), a founder of the academic study of collective memory, noted that individual memories in order to survive for any length of time must correspond to certain "social frameworks," within whose space they can be placed.  From this flow two important consequences relevant to our story here.  It can mean that these frameworks distort personal memories in a way that Lowenthal (2001, p. xiii) says leads to "the syndrome of false collective identity."  Or it can, when these social frameworks are lacking, lead to a situation in which individual memories are condemned to disappear.  The first variant is what has been the case for Armenian collective memory; the second, for the Azerbaijani.  

          

The Armenian framework for a long time has been well-developed, and its narrative centers on the belief that Armenians are a people surrounded by enemies who will triumph if they remain true to their faith and their people.  Initially, these narratives were written for powerful clans but increasingly they reflected the views of the Armenian Church.  And then with the rise of modern nationalism, the people or nation replaced the faith at the center, but the basic storyline remained unchanged, as Marc Ferro (2003) has shown in his study of the informal histories Armenians have passed down within their families.

The situation with regard to Azerbaijani collective memories has been entirely different, reflecting heroic tales and epic storytelling.  These stories talk mostly about individual heroism or unrequited love rather than about the people as such.  And consequently they do not contain many of the features most typical of what Smith (1995) calls "ethno-histories."  That absence in turn puts many historical events at risk of being discarded as historical memory is formed, something that puts Azerbaijanis at a disadvantage.  

            

Thus, for example, Azerbaijanis have practically forgotten as a nation the loss of territories like Zangezur and the experiences of conflicts they had with the Armenians in the first half of the 19th century.  Indeed, it is worth noting, that if there did not exist historical texts and documents compiled by such Russian historians and political figures as Shavrov (1911), Griboyedov (1971), and Glinka (1831), Azerbaijanis now would find it even more difficult to reconstitute their historical memory.

These characteristic features of Azerbaijani collective memory, which have given birth to remarkable lacunae in their collective images about their past, gave great opportunities for all kinds of historical "innovations" and "constructions" which distorted the historical record in the last century.  And thus it was no accident that in the Soviet period, Azerbaijani historiography was far more fabricated than were the historiographies of neighboring nationalities.  

Since 1991, Azerbaijanis have made a valiant effort to overcome this past, and we can observe a qualitatively new level in the formation of an Azerbaijani collective memory, one that seeks to compensate for this past.  And consequently, many things which were blank spaces only a few years ago are now at the center of discussions as the nation seeks to include them as an inalienable part of Azerbaijani collective memory and identity. 

References

Ferro, Marc (2003). The Use and Abuse of History: or How the Past is Taught to Children, Routledge. 

Halbwachs, Maurice (1992). On Collective Memory, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.   

Lowenthal, D. (2001). “Preface”, in Forty, Adrian & Susanne Kuchler, edt. (2001). The Art of Forgetting, Berg Publishers. 

Smith, Anthony (1995). Nations and Nationalism in a Global Era, Cambridge: Polity Press.  

Глинка, С. (1831). Описание переселения армян азербайджанских в пределы России, Москва.  

Грибоедов, А. С. (1971). “Записка о переселении армян из Персии в наши области,” Сочинения в двух томах, том 2, Москва: Правда.

Мансуров, Ариф (1990). Белые пятна истории и перестройка, Баку: “Язычы.”  

Шавров, Н. Н. (1911). Новая угроза русскому делу в Закавказье, Санкт Петербург.