Shaumyan, Lenin's deputy in the Caucasus and one of the organizers of bloody mas-
sacre in Baku in March 1918, had insolently called the establishment of such a state a
“chimera of local nationalists” and had declared inconceivability of aspirations “of
those who wish to turn Baku into the capital of Azerbaijani khanate”.
However, the 23-month existence of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the
conducting of successful domestic and foreign policy had curbed the radicalism prone
Bolsheviks' appetite to completely ignore the de-facto existing state and to once again
split up Azerbaijan into provinces and districts. Should the Republic of Azerbaijan
have been unable to achieve its partial recognition by the international community in
1918-1920's, the establishment of Socialist Azerbaijan would be questionable.
Azerbaijan SSR was in reality a successor of the independent Republic of Azerbaijan.
The Bolsheviks who had violently seized political power in Azerbaijan should have
been grateful to their ideological adversaries.
Certainly, it had been impossible to establish Soviet Azerbaijan within the
borders of 1918-1920's. Historical territories either controlled by the national
government or that were pending the settlement at the Peace Conference, due to their
disputed nature had been given to other “fraternal Soviet republics” based on
voluntarist decrees of the Bolshevik leadership. Policy of terror had been commenced
against the staff and high-ranking officers of the National Army of Azerbaijan. The
activity of the fledgling democratic institutions had been ceased. National symbols of
the Republic of Azerbaijan - tricolor banner and national anthem had been outlawed.
Persecution had started against the high-ranking officials of the national government
and political party activists. Nevertheless, regardless of all repressive measures that
had commenced in April 1920 and had lasted for over 70 years the Bolsheviks had
failed to erase the idea of Azerbaijan's state independence from hearts and minds of
Azerbaijanis.
Bringing the idea of Azerbaijan's statehood into agenda and achievement of
its at least de-facto recognition had been an arduous task. The threat had been exerted
not just by Russia that had never concealed its neo imperialist ambitions. Serious
problems had existed with other neighboring countries. At the time Armenia was
explicitly claiming some historical Azerbaijani territories and benefiting from the
perplexity of the situation was conducting brutal ethnic cleansing throughout those
territories. Although relations with Georgia were relatively normal, certain
outstanding problems of disputed territories had existed. Finally, Iran claiming
historical Azerbaijan of being one of its provinces had opposed the newly established
state of South Caucasus to bear the name of Azerbaijan. For this very reason
delegation of Azerbaijan had to indicate the name of their country as “Caucasian
Azerbaijan” within the correspondence with the Peace Conference, as well as in
published books, articles, etc.
For historical justice it's worthy to stress that the Ottoman Empire, living its
last days, had been the sole power that had granted military, political and legal
support to Azerbaijan, had played significant role in liberating the natural and
historical capital - Baku from Dashnaks and Bolsheviks and ultimately had prevented
the genocide of Azerbaijanis perpetrated by the Armenians. Delegation had highly
appreciated the noble mission of the Ottoman Empire and brotherly Turkish people
and without fearing the accusations of pan-Turkism and pan-Islamism had
acknowledged the assistance in their “Claims”.
Presented to specialists and wide reader audience the book “Claims of the
delegation of the Republic of Caucasian Azerbaijan to the Paris Peace Conference”
may be regarded as the first official introduction of the Republic of Azerbaijan that
had emerged in 1918 on the global scale.
Although not quite extensive in terms of the covered issues this book had
served as an introduction, providing European readers and politicians in particular
with general information regarding Azerbaijani people's ethnogeny, historical roots,
ethnographic peculiarities, religion, language, culture, relations with neighboring
nations, traditions of statehood, country's state and legislative apparatus, economic
potential, natural resources, financial sources, etc.
Authors had attached special attention to factors contributing to the
establishment of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Political struggle with Bolsheviks and
Armenian nationalist-dashnaks opposing the idea of Azerbaijan's independence had
also been placed in the forefront. Those books published by the delegation in English
and French had also contained the information regarding the terrible genocide
committed by the Bolshevik-Dashnak alliance against Azerbaijani Turks in Baku and
country's other provinces in 1918 (approximately 10-12 thousand people had been
killed only in Baku).
Another valuable aspect of the “Claims” is the fact that it had been the first
historical and diplomatic document providing precise and detailed description of the
borders of the Republic of Azerbaijan. But of course border parameters had contained
certain arguable aspects. Some territories had been the subjects of claims of other
newly independent states. However, underlying this borderline delimitation by the
delegation of Azerbaijan was the historical existence of Azerbaijani cthnos on these
lands, presence of great number of historical and cultural monuments belonging to
our people and finally, a desire of predominantly Azerbaijani population of those
territories to exist under the jurisdiction of Azerbaijan. On the issue of the settlement
of such complicated problems as disputed areas, similar to other delegations
Azerbaijani diplomats had expected the answers from the Paris Peace Conference that
at the time had taken upon itself the arbitrary function.
However, since the Peace Conference had not interfered into the ongoing
political processes in other parts of the world and on the outskirts of Europe, and had
held indifferent position to the fate of number of newly independent states, the
Bolsheviks had fulfilled the arbitrary function on the Caucasus. As a result instead of
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