Azerbaijanians was still more important in the present war. Almost at the beginning
of the war, two regiments exclusively composed of Azerbaijanian volunteers were
formed by them and included in the famous “division of the brave” which, especially
in Galicia made wonders of daring. Beside this, important responsible posts were
occupied in the Russian army before the Revolution by Azerbaijanian generals of
high valour, for instance general Khan of Nakhichevan, who, at the head of the
cavalry, invaded East Prussia. General Mekhmandarov, at present general in chief of
the Azerbaijanian army, commanded an army corps sent against the Germans at Riga;
general Shikhlinski attached to the Staff of the generalissimo of all the Russian army,
was afterwards appointed chief of the 9th army by the provisional Government. Then
come brigadier general Oussoubov and more than two hundred officers of various
ranks and arms, several of whom have fallen heroically, others were decorated with
the war cross and have received swords of honour for their deeds of valour and
daring.
The population of Azerbaijan on its side never ceased collecting money and
everything wanted by wounded or sick soldiers, organising field hospitals, orphanages
especially numerous at Baku and Gandja (Elizabethpol).
All this was only the love offering, which the Azerbaijanians made
themselves a duty to offer to the common cause of the great war of liberty.
Full of enthousiasm for the liberation of oppressed people and the idea of
organising a new life according to the principles of self disposal, all the peoples of
former Russia were embued with that hope and the Azerbaijanians did not lag behind.
During the late war they remained loyal to the Russian State, although it looked upon
them as allies, who had to pay the taxes and to submit to the Government without
having a right to the confidence and respect due to the nationality, religion and
cultural needs of their masses.
The people would put up with that way of acting towards the soul of a
nation, that way of suppressing its national physionomy, of ignoring its daily and
primordial needs, a method as offensive as it was unmerited, but it never could be
forgotten.
Remembering with indignation the Russian power now fallen, and its fatal
Government, the Azerbaijanians care all the more lor their social and political
autonomy. And this is, in the ideas of the masses, the only means of preventing the
individuality of the Azerbaijanians from being completely swept away, with their
nationality under conditions that arc quite repulsive to their mind. As is proved by
their existence of nearly one century under the yoke of Russia, the turn of minds
ideals, political and cultural, the aspirations of the Russians, a Slavonic race, are quite
different from those of the Azerbaijanians and are often quite opposed to them. It was
this difference of genius that was the source of misunderstanding and mutual
ignorance. They did not understand each other and that very incompatibility proves
that the ways of the two nations are quite opposed.
The Azerbaijanian looks upon the human progress as the logical evolution of
already existing bases, without any leaps, without any striking contrasts, contrary to
the normal advance of the events of moral, social and political life. It is in this that
lies the paramount difference between the ideas, way of living, national genius of the
Russians and Azerbaijanians, a necessary result of climatic, geographical, ethnical
and historical conditions of manners and religion.
Azerbaijan andfuture Russia
What we have just saw shows sufficiently the relations that we might have
with the future Russian State. Notwithstanding the painful remembrance of this
common life of one century, we wish the Russian nation luck in its future State on its
own territory, of which Azerbaijan, which only knows its own Parliament and
Government, can no longer be a part.
We shall say, about this, that the Azerbaijanians have proved their good
feelings towards the properly so called Russian People, and that during a period of
restoration of the Russian power in Transcaucasia, the Russian inhabitants of the
country, even the tchinovniks, found a welcome in Azerbaijan, good cares and
attentions of all sorts, and saw nothing but respect towards the orthodox clergy.
Part o f Azerbaijan in the public debt o f old Russia
However, the Azerbaijanians, wish to declare, as the Peace Delegation to the
Peace Congress have done at the time when they were received by President Wilson,
on the 28th of may last, that the young Azerbaijanian Republic undertakes to pay a
part of the debt of former Russia, in the proportion that will befall her after a just
repartition and according to the conditions drawn up by the financial commission of
the Peace Conference.
Relation with neighbouring Republics
The point of view of Azerbaijan about the relations with the neighbouring
Caucasian Republics were already explained in November 1918, when our diplomatic
representative
presented
a
special
memorandum
to
the
plenipotentiary
Commissionary of the Entente at Constantinople.
This memorandum contained amongs others the wish of the Azerbaijanian
Republic “to entertain friendly relations with her ancient neighbours, the Georgians,
Armenians and mountaineers of Northern Caucasus, who had founded their Republic,
based on the same point of view; the Peace Delegation of Azerbaijan maintains the
fact that all these native Caucasian peoples arc jointed together by many different
interests, particularly important in the domain of economics.
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