Ministry of Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan Baku International Multiculturalism Centre Azerbaijani Multiculturalism Textbook for Higher Education
The History of Multiculturalism in Azerbaijan Up to the
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3.3. The History of Multiculturalism in Azerbaijan Up to the
19th Century From the outset Azerbaijan with its multi-layered, varied cultural strata has occupied a special place in the Caucasus region. The ancient inhabitants of the country formed a poly-ethnic and poly-confessional structure and cross-cultural communication took place among groups of different backgrounds residing in neighbouring
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areas. All this created favourable conditions for the establishment of modern multiculturalism in Azerbaijan. In ancient times the ancestors of the Azerbaijani people professed primordial faiths, Zoroastrianism and later adopted monotheism, i.e., belief in a single God. Zoroastrianism occupies a particular place in Azerbaijani multiculturalism prior to monotheism. According to this doctrine, in the battle between Good and Evil, Good wins. Man has a special place in this struggle and should strive for the victory of Good over Evil. Man should win the victory over Evil not through rituals and prayers, but through his way of life. Fire-worship was an important part of the rituals of this doctrine. Following Zoroaster’s death, the doctrine underwent changes over several centuries. It flourished as a new religion and spread more widely in western Iran and the territories of Azerbaijan the south of the River Aras. The Avesta was the sacred canon of Zoroastrianism. It consists of the Gathas of Zoroaster addressed to the Almighty – Ahura Mazda. It was the holy book of Median and later Achaemenid priests. Under the Sassanid dynasty Zoroastrianism became the official religion of the country after a new codification of the Avestan texts. However, followers of the Avesta were not accepted as ‘people of the book’ in the Muslim world and were persecuted by the Caliphate. Christianity marked a new stage in the history of Azerbaijani multiculturalism. The spread of Christianity in Caucasian Albania is associated with Apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew. After Albanian King Urnair declared Christianity the state religion in the early 4th century, the Albanian Apostolic Church had a close-knit network covering the territory of Azerbaijan. From the early 5th century new doctrines within the Christian world divided the Christian church. The Albanian Apostolic Church, which was dyophysite* until the end of the 5th century, had to adapt to the
religious policy pursued by the Sassanid kings in the region. This led to its alienation from dyophysitism and a struggle among the different sects for over a century. Though the Sassanid influence in society and politics was beginning to wane by 625 CE, adherents of Zoroastrianism, idolatry and Maniism* remained. This situation formed one of the earliest pages of the history of Azerbaijani multiculturalism. From the mid-7th century the improved ideology of monotheism – Islam – entered Azerbaijani society. Under the Arab Caliphate the spread of Islam became a new page in the history of Azerbaijani multiculturalism. The spread of Islam did not take place simultaneously in all the regions of the country. Islam spread rapidly in the areas where Zoroastrianism and idolatry had been widespread, i.e. in the southern territories of Azerbaijan, the Mil-Mughan plain, the Caspian coast and the territories along the Kura and Aras rivers. But the Albanians in the provinces of Arsakh, Uti, and Cambysena did not give up Christianity. The Arabs were tolerant of the religion of the population in this territory, though they gave preference to the monophysite** branch of Christianity. In order to weaken the position of Byzantium in the region, they used the socio-political conditions of the late 7th century to shift the Albanian Apostolic Church to monophysitism. In the early 8th century the Albanian Apostolic Church saw the Byzantine Empire as able to rescue it from the dominance of the Arab Caliphate. The Church lost its autocephaly, and began to function on the basis of an equal union under the supervision of the Armenian Catholicos. Following 704 the population of the Maniism is a teaching founded in the Sassanid Empire by Mani (216-277). Ac-cording to this doctrine, the world exists on two planes – Good and Evil, Light and Darkness. Mani opposed Zoroastrianiam and called on the people to revolt against the shahs, officials and feudal rulers. Maniism was widespread in different forms and with different names from China to Spain.. According to monophysitism, Jesus Christ had only one nature (divine or di-vine-human), unlike the Orthodox doctrine that Christ had two natures (one wholly divine, the other wholly human).
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Caucasian Albanian regions of Arsakh and Uti underwent religious and cultural assimilation or Gregorianization. The Ingiloys, who formed the population of the north-western regions of the country, the Ereti-Cambysena provinces, turned towards the neighbouring Georgian Orthodox Church and became Georgianized. Thus, in a tragic turn of history the religious factor alienated people of the same root, background, and the aphorism ‘brother of a different faith’ entered the vocabulary. The Albanian Apostolic Church, which was waging a struggle against the Armenian Gregorian Church, on the one hand, and the Georgian Orthodox Church, on the other, restored its autocephaly in the mid-13th century, and Gandzasar Monastery* became the residence of the Albanian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. The temple was built in 1216-38 on the orders of the representative of the Mihranid dynasty, Prince Hasan Jalal**, one of the rulers of Lower Khach. Unable to accept the functioning of the Albanian Apostolic Church, the Armenian Gregorian Church managed to enter the court of the Romanovs in the late 18th century in order to influence Russian policy in the Caucasus in their favour. By the 1830s the Russian Empire had occupied the northern territories of Azerbaijan. Giving preference to ‘the Armenian card’, Russia decided to place the Albanian Apostolic Church under the authority of the Armenian Gregorian Church, thereby striking a heavy blow to the historical heritage and memory of Azerbaijan. Though the position of Christianity weakened after the spread of Islam in the country, for many centuries Christianity remained the moral compass of the indigenous peoples. According to the Albanian chronicler Mkhitar Gosh, some of the Albanian population of the country remained loyal to Christianity in the 12th century. This shows that the history of Azerbaijani multiculturalism has specific cultural layers. Gandzasar Monastery is a gem of medieval Albanian architecture. It lies in the vil-lage of Vangli in Nagorno-Karabakh.
To maintain the historical traditions of Azerbaijani multiculturalism the monuments of Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam are protected by the state. The path taken by the forefathers of the Azerbaijanis has over history shaped a culture of tolerance towards different religions amongst the Azerbaijani people. The history of Azerbaijani multiculturalism is associated with the ethnic diversity of Azerbaijan. In the early 20th century the outstanding ethnographer Valiyev (Baharli) declared that Azerbaijan was an ethnographic museum. Alongside the Azerbaijanis, the Azerbaijani people included the Udis, Ingiloy, Khinaliq, Qriz, Budugs, Tats, Talysh, Russians, Lezghi, Jews and others. These minorities are from Caucasian-, Persian- or Turkic-speaking groups. Some form part of the original Azerbaijani population, others settled in the country for socio-political reasons in different periods of history. According to the 2009 census, minorities form 8.4 per cent of the population of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The Udis of Albanian origin are a minority classified as part of the original indigenous population of Azerbaijan. In the 5th century BCE the Greek scholar Herodotus (484-422 BCE) wrote in his History that the Udi language belongs to the Nakh-Daghestani language group. Strabo wrote in his Geography in the 1st century BCE that the Udis were one of the indigenous Albanian tribes who lived in Caucasian Albania. He found 26 languages amongst the tribes. The Udis mainly lived in Uti and Arsakh provinces of Caucasian Albania. The famous French writer Alexandre Dumas, who travelled to Azerbaijan in the second half of the 19th century, also mentioned the Udis in his travelogue Tale of the Caucasus. The Udis had survived difficult periods of history and were registered in the province of Yelizavetpol (Ganja) in the second half of the 19th century. Though they had preserved their identity, there was a period of rapid, artificial Armenianization after the signature of the treaties of Turkmenchay (1828) and Edirna (1829). This process was accelerated by the Decree of the Russian
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Tsar Nicholas I of 11 March 1836 and the Senate’s ratification of the ‘Regulations on the Management of the Activities of the Armenian-Gregorian Churches in Russia’. The Armenian-Gregorian Church deliberately perpetuated the myth of ‘Great Armenia’ and sought to assimilate the Udis, taking ownership of the cultural and material heritage of Caucasian Albania. The Armenianization of the Udis in the province of Yelizavetpol (modern-day Ganja) proceeded rapidly in the early 19th century because of socio-political developments in the region. Under the Soviet regime some of the Udis residing in the territory of Ganja scattered to different parts of the USSR, while those who remained in the territory of Armenia became assimilated.
At present some 4,000 Udis live in the town of Oghuz and the settlement of Nij in Gabala District in the Republic of Azerbaijan. Their language consists of two dialects: the Nij and Vartashen dialects. The Udis are the bearers of the historical memory of Azerbaijan. They have gone through all the evolutionary stages of cultural strata in the history of the country: they followed polytheistic religions, then adopted Christianity in the early Middle Ages. Their church, the Albanian Autocephalous Apostolic Church, is one of the oldest churches in the Caucasus and in Christendom as a whole. The Ingiloys are also Albanian descendants. They were one of the tribes in Cambysena province of Caucasian Albania amongst whom 26 languages were found. Greek authors mentioned the Gel tribes, the ancient ancestors of the Ingiloy. Though the language of the Ingiloy living in the districts of Qakh, Zaqatala and Balakan in the Republic of Azerbaijan has yet to be studied phonetically, the outstanding Academician N.Y. Marr compared the Ingiloy and Georgian languages: ‘What is known about the Ingiloy so far is the opinion of the Georgians, but not that of the Ingiloy.’ In the early Middle Ages, when Christianity was disseminated in Caucasian Albania, the Ingiloy accepted Christianity, like the Udis. At present, unlike the Udis, the Ingiloy profess both Christianity and Islam. That is, Shah Abbas I consolidated support for Islam in the Azerbaijani lands bordering on Kartli-Kakheti and made the Christian population in this area adopt Islam. Russia, which invaded the northern territories of Azerbaijan in the first 30 years of the 19th century, pursued a policy of Christianization in order to consolidate its power in the Muslim country, now absorbed into the empire, and began to disseminate Christianity by force among the Ingiloy living in Zaqatala District in the 1850s. The Ingiloy protested against the Christianization policy pursued by the Russian Empire, which was one of the reasons for the revolt of 1863 in Zaqatala. Consequently, the Russian Empire stopped the Christianization of the Ingiloy and declared freedom to all those who wished to return to Islam. Thus, only two parishes out of nine remained in Zaqatala District. As a result, the Ingiloy were divided into Muslims and Christians. Though exposed to a policy of Georgianization from the 1930s, the Ingiloy remained a part of Azerbaijani history and its socio-cultural legacy. The Persian-speaking Talysh, another minority in the Republic of Azerbaijan, have been recognized in Azerbaijani historiography as descendants of the Cadusii. They belong to the indigenous group in the classification of minorities. The Talysh language belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. The Talysh profess Islam. At present they live in the south-east of the Republic of Azerbaijan, mainly in the districts of Lankaran and Astara and partially in Masalli and Lerik. According to the census of 2009, 111,996 citizens of Azerbaijan are Talysh. Another Persian-speaking minority is the Tats, who belong to the non-indigenous (allochthonous) group of minorities. They settled in Azerbaijan in the early Middle Ages, as the Sassanid rulers pursued a settlement policy in order to subdue Caucasian Albania in the 3rd and 4th centuries. In his work Gulustani-Irem (Garden of Eden) A.A. Bakikhanov writes that the Sassanid rulers placed Persian-speaking tribes in
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the strategically important areas of the country, including the coast from the Absheron Peninsula up to Derbent. These tribes were known in history as the Tats and they formed a social base for the Sassanid rulers.
According to Russian scholars of the Caucasus, Ilya Berezin and P. Zeydlis, the migration of the Tats continued during the rule of Khosrow Anushirvan I, who settled the Persian-speaking tribes in the strategically important areas of the country. Early 20th-century sources say that before the revolution 34 out of 37 villages on the Absheron Peninsula were Tat villages. Three religious affiliations are found among the Tats: Islam, the Armenian-Gregorian sect of Christianity and Judaism. Muslim Tats now live on the Absheron Peninsula and in the districts of Quba and Davachi, while Jewish Tats live in Krasnaya Sloboda (the Red Settlement) in Quba District, the village of Vartashen in Oghuz District and Baku, as well as in Dagestan. The Armenian-Gregorian Tats used to live in the villages of Madrasa, Karkanj, Dara-Karkanj, Kalahana, Masari, and Sagiyan in Shamakhi District, in the districts of Goychay, Ismayilli and Absheron, and Gilvar village in Davachi District. They spoke their own languages among themselves. The tangible and spiritual culture of the Muslim Tats has some similarities with that of the Azerbaijanis. The Tats are Persian-speaking people belonging to the Iranian group of the Indo-European language family. There are now some 10,000 Tats in the Republic of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan also has a Jewish minority who are also a non-indigenous group. There is great interest in Azerbaijan’s Jews both ethnically and linguistically. At present there are three Jewish communities in Azerbaijan: the Mountain Jews, the European Jews (Ashkenazi) and the Georgian Jews. The oldest among them is the Mountain Jews who settled in Azerbaijan in ancient times and lived mainly in Quba and Derbent districts. Since the end of the 19th century European Jews (the Ashkenazi) began to settle in Baku. According to the census of 1913, there were 9,690 European Jews in Baku. The Georgian Jews also arrived later and 700 Georgian Jews now live in the Republic of Azerbaijan. In all, 9,100 Jews live in the Republic of Azerbaijan. The Mountain Jews speak a Tat dialect, while the Ashkenazi speak Yiddish, which belongs to the German branch of the Indo-European language group. The Kurds are another non-indigenous ethnic minority in Azerbaijan. In the distant past Persian-speaking Kurds of the Maday tribes crossed from Central Asia to Western Asia and in the Middle Ages settled in Azerbaijan. In the early 19th century the Kurds lived mainly in the territory of the Irevan Khanate and there were 10,737 of them. In terms of religion, the Kurds were divided into Muslim, Yazidi and Nestorian Kurds. On the eve of World War I there were over 114,000 in the Baku, Yelizavetpol and Irevan provinces of Azerbaijan. In 1918-20 the Dashnaks murdered 43,000 Muslim Kurds and 7,000 Yazidi Kurds in the territory of Irevan as part of the policy of genocide pursued by the Republic of Ararat. In 1988 Armenian nationalists pursued a policy of ethnic cleansing in the Armenian SSR; they began a new stage in the invented ‘Nagorno-Karabakh’ problem, driving out Kurds and Azerbaijanis. Some 18,000 Kurds found refuge in the Azerbaijan SSR. Azerbaijan’s history up to 1900 created the colourful culture of multiculturalism and the multi-ethnic and multi-faith composition of the population. Yüklə 2,25 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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