Kurds in Azerbaijan
Yezidism[3] | |
Related ethnic groups | |
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Iranian peoples |
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The Kurds in Azerbaijan form a part of the historically significant Kurdish population in the post-Soviet space. Kurds established a presence in the Caucasus with the establishment of the Kurdish Shaddadid dynasty in the 10th and 11th centuries.[4] Some Kurdish tribes were recorded in Karabakh by the end of the sixteenth century.[4] However, virtually the entire contemporary Kurdish population in the modern Azerbaijan descends from migrants from 19th-century Qajar Iran.[4]
History
Early history
According to Russian and later Soviet ethnographer Grigory Chursin, another wave of Kurdish immigration in western parts of modern Azerbaijan may have taken place in 1589, at the time of the
In 1807, amidst the
Common religion (unlike the majority of Kurds, Kurds of Azerbaijan are predominantly
A well-integrated community, Kurds were represented in the government of the shortly independent Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan in 1918–1920, among them Nurmammad bey Shahsuvarov who served as Minister of Education and Religious Affairs and Khosrov bey Sultanov, Minister of the Military and Governor General of Karabakh and Zangezur.[13]
Red Kurdistan
After the establishment of the Soviet rule in Azerbaijan, the Central Executive Committee of the
Kurds continued to assimilate into the dominant culture of the neighbouring Azeris.[18] Historically mixed Azeri-Kurdish marriages were commonplace; however the Kurdish language was rarely passed on to the children in such marriages.[10]
Later Soviet period
Starting from 1961, when the First Iraqi–Kurdish War started, there were efforts by the deportees for the restoration of their rights - spearheaded by Mehmet Babayev; these proved to be futile.[19]
During the perestroika era in the 1980s, there was a resurgence in the nationalist aspirations of Soviet Kurds, leading to the formation of the Yekbûn organization in 1989, which aimed to reestablish Kurdish autonomy. The government of the USSR under Gorbachev attempted to help the Kurds, but aspirations for an autonomous Kurdish state within the Soviet Union failed after the 1991 collapse of the USSR and significant hostility to the plan by Turkey.[20]
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and "Kurdish Republic of Lachin"
The First Nagorno-Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan spilled across the region of Nagorno-Karabakh into the traditionally Kurdish populated areas in both of these countries.In the late 1980s 18,000 Kurds left from Armenia to Azerbaijan.[21] In 1992–1993, Armenian troops advanced into Kalbajar, Lachin, Qubadli and Zangilan, forcing the non-Armenian civilian population out.[22] As much as 80% of the Kurdish population of those regions settled in IDP camps in Aghjabadi.[23]
Nonetheless, in 1992, after the capture of Lachin by Armenian forces during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, a new organization, the "Caucasian Kurdistan Freedom Movement", led by Wekîl Mustafayev, declared the establishment of the Kurdish Republic of Lachin on the former territory of Red Kurdistan. However, by then the vast majority of the Kurdish population had fled on account of the war, hence this attempt failed and the ephemeral state dissolved itself the same year.[24] Mustafayev later took refuge in Italy.[25] Lachin then came under the administration of the Armenian-backed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.
As a result of the
Demographics
Estimates from the 1920s put the population of the Kurds in Azerbaijan at around 40 thousand.[28] Estimates in the 1990s varied from as low as 10 thousand[29] to as high as 200 thousand.[28]
1926[30] | 1939[31] | 1959[32] | 1970[33] | 1979[34] | 1989[35] | 1999[36] | 2009[37] |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
41,193 | 6,005 | 1,487 | 5,488 | 5,676 | 12,226 | 13,100 | 6,100 |
Influential Kurds from Azerbaijan
- Azerbaijan Supreme Soviet
- Nadir Nadirov, professor, member of the Kazakhstan Academy of Science and one of the leaders of the Kurdish community in Kazakhstan
- Shamil Asgarov, poet and folklorist
- Wekil Mustafayev, former leader of short-lived Kurdish Republic of Lachin in today‘s western Azerbaijan[38]
- Firudin Shamoyev, Azerbaijani soldier
- Kamil Nasibov, Azerbaijani soldier
- Vazir Orujov, Azerbaijani soldier
- Khosrow Mustafayev, Azerbaijani police officer and participant in the 1995 Azerbaijani coup d'état attempt
References
- ^ "Population of Azerbaijan by ethnic groups". azstat.org. Archived from the original on 23 October 2012. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
- ^ "Azerbaijan's Kurds Fear Loss of National Identity". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 1 July 2011.
- ^ a b Расим Мусабеков. Становление независимого азербайджанского государства и этнические меньшинства Archived 2012-03-02 at the Wayback Machine. Sakharov Centre.
- ^ S2CID 163144462.
- ^ a b c d Аристова Т.Ф. Из истории возникновения современных курдских селений в Закавказье // Советская этнография. — М., 1962. — № № 2.
- ISBN 5-94628-118-6
- ^ И.П. Петрушевский. Очерки по истории феодальных отношений в Азербайджане и Армении в XVI — начале XIX вв // Восточный Научно-Исследовательский Институт. — Ленинград: ЛГУ им. Жданова, 1949. — С. 135-136.
- ^ В.Н. Левиатов Очерки из истории Азербайджана в XVIII веке. — Баку: Изд-во АН Азербайджанской ССР, 1948. — С. 91.
- ^ Елизаветпольская губерния // Энциклопедический словарь Брокгауза и Ефрона: В 86 томах (82 т. и 4 доп.). — СПб., 1890—1907.
- ^ a b c Н. Г. Волкова, Этнические процессы в Закавказье в XIX-XX вв., "Кавказский этнографический сборник", IV, М., 1969.
- ^ Дмитрий Пирбари. Курды – исконные обитатели Ближнего и Среднего Востока Archived 2012-09-11 at archive.today. Kurdishcenter.ru.
- ^ Encyclopedia of World Cultures, David Levinson, G.K. Hall & Co. (1991), p.225
- ^ Аламдар Шахвердиев Азербайджанские курды (рус.) // Международный Азербайджанский Журнал IRS-Наследие. — С. 40-41.
- ISBN 0-415-07265-4, p.201
- ^ "Курдистанский уезд 1926".
- ISBN 0-8147-1945-7, p.133
- ^ (in Russian) Партизаны на поводке.
- ISBN 1850434166, 9781850434160
- ^ (in Turkish) Kurdistana Sor
- ^ "Özerk Kızıl Kürdistan'a Türkiye nasıl engel oldu?". 2019-12-18. Archived from the original on 2019-12-18. Retrieved 2023-10-16.
- ISBN 0-8147-1944-9, 0-8147-1945-7
- ISBN 1-56432-142-8
- ^ Юнусов А. Этнический состав Азербайджана (по переписи 1999 года) Archived 2011-07-28 at the Wayback Machine. «Демоскоп».
- ^ "Reviving a Forgotten Threat: The PKK in Nagorno-Karabakh". Jamestown. Retrieved 2023-10-17.
- ^ Lachin Kurdish Republic is declared Archived October 4, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "İşğaldan azad edilmiş şəhər və kəndlərimiz". Azerbaijan State News Agency (in Azerbaijani). 1 December 2020. Archived from the original on 1 December 2020. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
- ^ "Statement by President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia and President of the Russian Federation". Kremlin.ru. 10 November 2020.
- ^ a b "Azerbaycan: Kürtler". refworld. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires, James Stuart Olson, Lee Brigance Pappas, Nicholas Charles Pappas, Greenwood Publishing Group, (1994), ISBN 0313274975, p.409
- ^ "Всесоюзная перепись населения 1926 года. Национальный состав населения по регионам республик СССР". «Демоскоп». Archived from the original on 2012-02-10.
- ^ "Всесоюзная перепись населения 1939 года. Национальный состав населения по республикам СССР". «Демоскоп». Archived from the original on 2012-01-03.
- ^ "Всесоюзная перепись населения 1959 года. Национальный состав населения по республикам СССР". «Демоскоп». Archived from the original on 2012-01-03.
- ^ "Всесоюзная перепись населения 1970 года. Национальный состав населения по республикам СССР". «Демоскоп». Archived from the original on 2012-01-03.
- ^ "Всесоюзная перепись населения 1979 года. Национальный состав населения по республикам СССР". «Демоскоп». Archived from the original on 2011-06-29.
- ^ "Всесоюзная перепись населения 1989 года. Национальный состав населения по республикам СССР". «Демоскоп». Archived from the original on 2011-07-28.
- ^ "Этнический состав Азербайджана (по переписи 1999 года)publisher="Демоскоп"". Archived from the original on 2011-07-28.
- ^ "Ethnic composition of Azerbaijan: 2009 census". Archived from the original on 2012-02-07.
- ^ https://www.rudaw.net/turkish/interview/23082014-amp [bare URL]