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A Family Quarrel: Azerbaijani Historians against Soviet Iranologists

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Harun Yilmaz
Harun Yilmaz*
Affiliation:
Queen Mary University of London
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Abstract

Azerbaijani national history theory poses a challenge to the conventional history writing of Iran. Since 1937, Azerbaijani Soviet historians in Baku have constructed an Azerbaijani national history and identity based on the territorial definition of the nation. This approach was supported by Joseph Stalin. By the 1940s, this narrative incorporated various components hitherto exclusively known as “Iranian,” such as the Medes. Meanwhile, Soviet Iranologists and Orientalists, followers of the conventional Iranian narrative, tried to avoid controversy with the Azerbaijani claims, which secured political support at the highest level. When Stalin died in 1953, the Iranologists raised their voices, which caused controversy with political connotations. Using primary source materials, this article sheds light on the first round of discussions between Azerbaijani historians, constructors of their national history, and the Soviet Iranologists, the proponents of conventional Iranian history. The article also shows the limits of the Communist Party's control over history writing and the hardships of accommodating contradictory interpretations of history within a multinational communist state.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 5: Russian Orientalism to Soviet Iranology: The Persian-speaking World and its History through Russian Eyes , September 2015 , pp. 769 - 783
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2015

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Footnotes

I would like to present this work to Yasar Yilmaz.

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