The Turkic Language and Azerbaijan

 

Alik Bakhshi

 

The Turkic Language and Azerbaijan

 

     The Moldovan Parliament made a bold decision to rename the state language from "Moldovan" to "Romanian." "Those who for decades have been telling us that we, citizens of the Republic of Moldova, speak the 'Moldovan' language, not Romanian, have only one goal: to divide us," wrote President Maia Sandu. Russia, having annexed part of Romania, gave it the name Moldova, thus creating the Moldovan people and the Moldovan language. Although, in fact, the population of so-called Moldova is Romanians and their language is Romanian. A similar, and even, I would say, more complicated, situation has developed in Azerbaijan, a full understanding of which requires looking back to the distant past of the two most numerous peoples of the Middle East, namely the Turks and Persians (Iranians).

 

    The Iranians are credited with the powerful Persian Empire (Achaemenid Empire), which existed from 646 to 329 BC, and the Parthian Empire, which was revived after the empire of Alexander the Great and the Seleucid Empire. The Sassanid Empire (250 BC – 227 AD), which halted the Roman Empire's advance eastward, and the last Sassanid Empire (227 – 651 AD), which fell as a result of Arab conquests and the formation of the Arab Caliphate. It should be noted that from then on, the Iranians lost power within their own state for many centuries until the Islamic Revolution and the expulsion of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, from the country.

 

    The infiltration of the Seljuk Turks, which began particularly actively in 1036, ultimately led to the collapse of the Arab Caliphate. In 1055, Toghrul Beg deposed the Caliph of Baghdad and became Sultan of Baghdad, and the Ottoman Empire began to emerge in Asia Minor. In 1256, the Middle East was invaded by the Mongols, establishing the Turco-Mongol Empire. The Hulagunid Empire (1256–1335) with its capital in Tabriz. An important point for understanding the future situation discussed in this article is that the official languages ​​of the Hulagunid Empire were Turkic and Farsi (Persian). However, traditionally, Farsi continued to be used exclusively in Eastern poetry.

 

   The Hulagunid dynasty was later replaced by the Timurids. A talented military leader of Turco-Mongol origin, Timur (demir, meaning "iron" in Turkic), known in Europe as Tamerlane, created the empire of "Great Turan" (1370–1507) with its capital in Samarkand.

 

 

    Timur became ruler of the entire East. He defeated the army of the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid, and his campaign against Khan Tokhtamysh ended with the complete defeat of the Golden Horde and Tokhtamysh's pursuit to the borders of Moscow. After this campaign, the Golden Horde never recovered and subsequently became easy prey for the Moscow Principality. In my opinion, the main problem of the Turks, and this can be traced throughout their history, is their constant internecine strife, which ultimately resulted in their inability to confront their enemies.

    After Timur's death, his empire disintegrated, and two warring Turkic alliances emerged: the Ak Koyunlu and the Kara Koyunlu. The former were Sunni, while the latter were Shia. The internecine war ended with the victory of the Ak Koyunlu, who turned their attention to the by then-strengthened Ottoman Empire, but suffered defeat. Over time, as a result of internal struggle, power in the Ak Koyunlu state passed to the Turkic Safavid dynasty, who professed Shia Islam. The Safavid Empire (1501-1736), also known in history as The Qizilbash State.

 

   Two powerful, eternally opposing Turkic states emerged in the Middle East: the Sunni Ottoman Empire and the Shiite Safavid Empire, in which the official languages ​​were Turkic and Farsi.

 

 

    It is important to note that the Turkic-speaking population in the Safavid Empire was largely concentrated in its northwestern region, which in ancient times was called Antropatena, preserved but transformed over the millennia into the name Azerbaijan. The Turkic population of this historical and geographical area became known as Azeri, or, in Russian, Azerbaijanis.

 

    While power in the Ottoman Empire remained in the hands of the Ottoman dynasty throughout its history, the same cannot be said of the territory located to the east. Power of the Safavid dynasty passed to the vizier and regent of the last Safavid shah, Nader Shah, from a Turkic family. Afsharov, who proved to be a mad despot, known for his bloody repressions against his subordinates, brought Persia to a political and economic crisis due to continuous wars with its neighbors. As a result of a conspiracy by the court khans, Nadir Shah was assassinated in 1747, followed by a reshuffle of the Afshar dynasty's shahs. This disastrous political crisis for the country lasted until 1795.

 

     The situation in Persia stabilized with the accession of the new Turkic dynasty of the Qajars (1795-1925). However, this dynasty suffered the misfortune of having to confront the Russian Empire's plans to conquer the Caucasus. Russia, while seizing lands, dealt harshly with the indigenous peoples. The conquest of Kuban was accompanied by the complete expulsion of the Nogais, some of whom fled to Dagestan, while others found refuge in Turkey. Lands were distributed to Cossacks serving in the Russian army. Thus, the Kuban Cossacks and the Terek Cossacks, with their numerous villages, emerged on the seized lands. Having conquered the North Caucasus, the Russians invaded Persia. As a result of the Russo-Persian War of 1804-1813, the Russian Empire and Persia signed the Treaty of Gulistan (the village of Gulistan in Karabakh). According to the Treaty, Russia ceded Georgia, Dagestan, and the following khanates: Baku, Karabakh, Ganja, Shirvan, Sheki, Derbent, Quba, and Talysh.

    Russia's military successes in the wars with Persia were facilitated by the constant hostility between the Azerbaijani khanates. It should be noted that although the central power in Persia was exercised by the Shah, a Turkic ethnic group, the Turkic khanates of Azerbaijan, while formally subordinate to the Shah, waged endless wars among themselves. I have already noted that constant rivalry is the scourge of the Turks, haunting them throughout their history. There were, however, attempts by individual khans to unite them, but all ended in failure. Thus, the last and most significant of these, undertaken by Fatali Khan, also failed. The only remaining Turkic state with a strong central authority is the Ottoman Empire, which lasted for over six centuries.

 

   Russia did not stop there and in 1826 renewed the war with Persia, which ended in 1828 with the Treaty of Turkmenchay, according to which the Yerevan and Nakhichevan khanates were ceded to Russia, and a new border was established along the Araks River. The remaining 12 Azerbaijani khanates remained in Persia. Thus, the Azerbaijani khanates and their people found themselves in separate states.

 

   The Russians called the local population of the captured territory Caucasian Tatars, due to the similarity of their language to the Kazan Tatars. The local population, however, identified themselves as Turks or Azeri (Azerbaijan is a historical and geographical region), and their language as Turkic (Türk Dili), or Turkish in Russian. There was no state of Azerbaijan, no nationality of Azerbaijani, and no definition of language as Azerbaijani. Moscow, for political reasons, to conceal the close affinity of the Turkic population of the occupied territory with the Turkic people living in Turkey and Iran, named the newly formed Soviet republic Azerbaijan. The people became Azerbaijani, and accordingly, the language became Azerbaijani, although the local population had called it Turkic for centuries.

 

   The slogan "One people, two states," voiced by Presidents Erdogan and Aliyev, means one thing: the Turkic people live in both Turkey and Azerbaijan, and their language is Turkic. Incidentally, the Arabs also have several states, and their language is Arabic; there is no separate Egyptian or Jordanian language.

 

  In my opinion, it would be a good idea to restore historical justice and return the Turkic people of Azerbaijan to their Turkic language, as was done in Moldova, which restored the Romanian language.

 

   Restoring the status of the Turkic language to the people of Azerbaijan will be an important step for the Union of Turkic States.(1)

 

1. One language, one homeland.

https://alikbahshi.livejournal.com/16879.html,   ,  https://alikbahshi.blogspot.com/2026/09/one-language-one-homeland.html

 

 1.04.2023