Ministry of Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan Baku International Multiculturalism Centre Azerbaijani Multiculturalism Textbook for Higher Education
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Russians
The first mention of Azerbaijan’s relations with the eastern Slavs goes back to the early Middle Ages. According to the sources, a settlement of Russian merchants in the town of Itil on the Lower Volga (in the Khazar Khaganate) traded with the Caucasian countries in the 5th century. According to the journals of the medieval Arab travellers Ibn Fadlan, Ibn Khordadbeh and Al-Masudi, in the 9th and 10th centuries Slav merchants sailed down
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the Volga to the Caspian coastal states and crossed them to reach Baghdad and Constantinople. Russian merchants and sailors started to travel to the Caspian Sea in the 9th century. Russian travellers reached Azerbaijan later; the first of them was Afanasy Nikitin, who made interesting notes about the people of Azerbaijan and their traditions in his journals. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Russian Empire’s conquest of the Caucasus led to demographic changes in the region. In order to consolidate its political power in Azerbaijan, the Russian Empire pursued a policy of Russification and Christianization, settling Russians from remote, barren areas to Azerbaijan. In 1914 Russians settled not only in all the provinces of Baku and Yelizavetpol, but also in the provinces bordering on Irevan. The largest group of Russians were settled in the provinces of Goychay, Shamakhi and Lankaran. The Russians settled together in various parts of Northern Azerbaijan, preserving their customs and cultural traditions. During the Soviet era the number of Russians in Azerbaijan increased steadily, because of the development of oil production and the oil industry in the capital Baku and the surrounding areas. Professionals from the Soviet republics, first of all, from the Russian Federation, were involved in this industrial sector. Besides, the famine raging in the territories along the Volga and industrialization in the USSR also influenced migration, leading to demographic change. The wave of Russian migration continued during the Great Patriotic War (1941-45) when the inhabitants of Ukraine, Belarus and other areas fled fascism to safer territories, including Azerbaijan, where many of them settled permanently. The last mass migration of Russians to Azerbaijan took place when the industrial town of Sumqayit was founded. As a result, in the 1960s, 344
the number of Russians reached approximately one million in Azerbaijan, or 12 per cent of the population of the republic. From the 1970s the number of Russians in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic began to fall. According to the 1989 census, there were 392,300 Russians in Azerbaijan or 6 per cent of the population. After independence, Azerbaijan paid attention to the development of national diasporas. In the early 1990s, the first organization to protect the interests of Russians was set up, the Republican Volunteers; the Sodruzhestvo (Solidarity) Society was set up for all the peoples living in Azerbaijan and in 1992 a Russian Community Centre was created. The same year the Cultural Centre of Slavs Living in Azerbaijan opened. In 1993 the Russian Community of the Republic of Azerbaijan was created. The Community now has 28 branches in the Republic of Azerbaijan, ten of which are in the districts of Baku. The Brotherhood of Cossacks Living in Azerbaijan was created in 1994 and the Resource Centre for National Minorities in 2000. There is also a network of Russian bookshops in Baku – Dom Ruskkoy Knigi or the Russian Book House. Education is conducted in Russian in 18 higher educational institutions and 38 specialized secondary schools. Some 90,000 pupils are currently studying in Russian in 340 general schools in Azerbaijan. Baku Slavic University was founded in 2000 and has an association of teachers in Russian. In 2008 a branch of Lomonosov Moscow State University opened in Baku. Publications in Russian are of great importance in the media structure of the Republic of Azerbaijan. There are 50 publications in Russian, including the newspapers Zerkalo, Ekho, Vyshka, Novoye Vremya and the magazine Baku. In parallel, the Association of Writers Creating in Russian and the Russian Drama Theatre are also
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functioning. The first Congress of the Russian Community was held in Baku in 1998, the second in 2004 and the third in November 2009. The Russian population of the republic is able to attend the Russian Orthodox Church. There are five Russian Orthodox churches in Azerbaijan, all part of the Baku and Caspian Eparchy; three churches are in Baku, one in Ganja and one in Khachmaz. Tatars* From the end of the 19th century, Tatars moved from other parts of the Russian Empire to Baku. The Tatars were involved in the oil industry in Baku and were attracted by the moderate climate, the well developed food industry, the similar language and religion and the tolerance of Azerbaijani society. A substantial stratum of Tatar intellectuals formed in Baku before the revolution. Newspapers and books were published in the Tatar language and public opinion took shape. In the 20th century during the Soviet era, the number of Tatars in Azerbaijan increased as they fled famine in the Volga region or came to work in the oil industry. The oil and petrochemical complexes of Azerbaijan and Tatarstan were interconnected during the Soviet era. After the opening of the ‘Second Baku’ on the Volga, Azerbaijani oilmen helped their Tatar colleagues explore for new oil fields and supplied oil and gas equipment. Hundreds of young Tatar oil workers trained in the Caspian oil fields. There was close collaboration between Tatars and Azerbaijanis in the medical, pharmaceutical, food and tobacco industries too. There were also rich, traditional cultural ties. In the mid-16th century, when Russian Tsar Ivan Grozny occupied the khanates of Kazan (1552) and Astrakhan (1556), these khanates’ native population of Turkic ori-gin began to be called Tatars in Russian sources and literature. Some 25,900 Tatars live in Azerbaijan today, of whom 15,000 are from the Volga area. Most of the Tatars in Azerbaijan live in Baku. The Permanent Representative Office of the Tatarstan Republic to Azerbaijan organizes the Tukay Tatar Cultural Centre, the Tuqan Tel republican Tatar society and the Tatar song contest. The first organizational meeting of the Tatar community took place in 1996. Branches of the community were opened in Baku and in the regions of the republic. The main purpose of the community is to consolidate all the Tatars living in Azerbaijan and to strengthen the friendship between the Azerbaijani and Tatar peoples. The Tatar diaspora in Azerbaijan is in touch with the World Tatar Congress Committee, and representatives of the diaspora attend the congresses. Yüklə 2,25 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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