Ethnic group in Iran
Iranian Azerbaijanis (; ) are the largest ethnic minority of Iran. They are primarily found in and are native to the Iranian Azerbaijan region including provinces of (East Azerbaijan, Ardabil, Zanjan, West Azerbaijan) and in smaller numbers, in other provinces such as Kurdistan, Qazvin, Hamadan, Gilan, Markazi and Kermanshah. Iranian Azerbaijanis also constitute a significant minority in Tehran, Karaj, and other regions. Some also have migrated to the Gulf GCC countries.42 Most Iranian Azerbaijanis are bilingual in Azerbaijani and Persian.
Demographics.
Azerbaijanis comprise the largest minority ethnic group in Iran. Apart from Iranian Azerbaijan (provinces of West Azerbaijan, East Azerbaijan, Ardabil and Zanjan), Azerbaijani populations are found in large numbers in four other provinces: Hamadan (includes other Turkic ethnic groups such as Afshar, Gharehgozloo, Shahsevan, and Baharloo), Qazvin, Markazi, and Kurdistan. Azerbaijani-populated of Markazi province includes some parts and villages of Komijan, Khondab, Saveh, Zarandieh, Shazand, and Farahan. In Kurdistan, Azerbaijanis are mainly found in villages around Qorveh.
Azerbaijanis have also immigrated and resettled in large numbers in Central Iran, mainly Tehran, Qom and Karaj. They have also emigrated and resettled in large numbers in Khorasan. Immigrant Azerbaijani communities have been represented by people prominent not only among urban and industrial working classes but also in commercial, administrative, political, religious, and intellectual circles.
Scholars put the population of Azerbaijanis in Iran between 12 and 23 million. Iranologist Victoria Arakelova believes that political doctrines following the dissolution of the Soviet Union caused the inflation of the Iranian Azerbaijani as almost half of the 60 million Iranian population, which later decreased to 20 million, lingering for a while. She puts the number at 6 to 6.5 million.
Ethnic groups.
Sub-ethnic groups of the Azerbaijanis within the modern-day borders of Iran following the ceding of the Caucasus to Russia in the 19th century, include the Shahsevan, the Qarapapaqs, the Ayrums, the Bayat, the Qajars, the Qaradaghis, and the Gharagozloo.
Background.
The Iranian Azerbaijani culture was produced by centuries of a symbiosis and mixture between native and nomadic elements. According to Richard Frye, Iranian Azerbaijanis are mainly of Iranian descent, while Olivier Roy writes that the Azerbaijani ethnogenesis involved the Turkification of the natives by Turkomans from Anatolia. According to Russian scholar Rostislav Rybakov, Iranian Azerbaijan was almost fully Turkicized by 14th and 15th centuries, though the local population left its mark in the Azerbaijani culture and language and the ethnic border between the Turkish people and Azerbaijanis was established in the 16th century. Scholars note cultural similarities between modern Persians and Azerbaijanis.
Genetics.
A comparative study (2013) on the complete mitochondrial DNA diversity in Iranians has indicated that Iranian Azerbaijanis are more related to the people of Georgia, than they are to other Iranians, as well as to Armenians. There is no significant difference between Iranian Azerbaijanis and other major ethnic groups of Iran.
According to HLA testing, Azerbaijanis of Iran cluster together with the Turkmens of Gorgan and Kurds and constitute an intermediate position between Iranian populations and Western Siberians, specifically Chuvash, Mansi people, and Buryats (subgroups of Turkic peoples, Ugrians, and Mongols respectively). Several genetic studies show that the Azerbaijanis' gene pool largely overlap with that of the native populations in support of language replacement, including elite dominance, scenarios, while also demonstrating significant genetic influence from Siberia and Mongolia.
History.
Background: Dividing of the Azerbaijanis by the Russian Empire.
Following the Russo-Persian Wars of 1804–13 and 1826–28, the Caucasian territories of Qajar Iran were ceded to the Russian Empire. The Treaty of Gulistan in 1813 and the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828 finalized the borders between the Russian Empire and Qajar Iran. The areas to the north of the river Aras, including the territory of the contemporary Republic of Azerbaijan, were Iranian territory until they were occupied by Russia over the course of the 19th century. The Russo-Persian Wars of the 19th century settled the modern-day boundary of Iran, stripping it of all its Caucasian territories and incorporating them into the Russian Empire. The eventual formation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918 established the territory of modern Azerbaijan.
As a direct result of Qajar Iran's forced ceding to Russia, the Azerbaijanis are nowadays parted between two nations: Iran and Azerbaijan. Despite living on two sides of an international border, the Azerbaijanis form a single ethnic group.
Russo-Persian War (1826–28).
The burden of the Russo-Persian War (1826–28) was on the tribes of Qaradağ region, who being in front line, provided human resources and provision of the Iranian army. In the wake of the war, a significant fraction of the inhabitants of this area lived as nomadic tribes (ایلات). The major tribes included; Cilibyanlu 1,500 tents and houses, Karacurlu 2500, Haji Alilu 800, Begdillu 200, and various minor groups 500. At the time Ahar, with 3,500 inhabitants, was the only city of Qaradağ. The Haji-Alilu tribe played major rule in the later political developments.
Persian Constitutional Revolution of early twentieth century.
During the Persian Constitutional Revolution, Tabriz was at the center of battles which followed the ascent to the throne of Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar on 8 January 1907. The revolutionary forces were headed by Sattar Khan who was originally from Arasbaran. Haydar Khan Amo-oghli had significant contribution in the inception and progression of the revolution, and introducing leftist ideas into Iranian mainstream politics. During the following tumultuous years, Amir Arshad, the headman of Haji-Alilu tribe, had a major impact on the subsequent political developments in Iran in relation to the status of Iranian Kurds. He is credited with fending off communism from Iran.
Role of Iranian Azerbaijani intellectuals in modern Iranian ultra-nationalism.
The ill-fated Constitutional Revolution did not bring democracy to Iran. Instead, Rezā Shāh, then Brigadier-General of the Persian Cossack Brigade, deposed Ahmad Shah Qajar, the last Shah of the Qajar dynasty, and founded the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925 and established a despotic monarchy. His insistence on ethnic nationalism and cultural unitarism along with forced detribalization and sedentarization resulted in suppression of several ethnic and social groups, including Azerbaijanis. Ironically, the main architect of this totalitarian policy, which was justified by reference to racial ultra-nationalism, was Mirza Fatali Akhundov, an intellectual from Azerbaijan. In accordance with the Orientalist views of the supremacy of the "Aryan peoples", he idealized pre-Islamic Achaemenid and Sassanid empires, whilst negating the 'Islamization' of Persia by Muslim forces." This idealization of a distant past was put into practice by both the Pahlavi kings, particularly Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who honored himself with the title Āryāmehr, "Light of the Aryans". Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in an interview concisely expressed his views by declaring, "we Iranians are Aryans, and the fact that we are not adjacent to other Aryan nations in Europe is just a geographical anomaly.".
Mirza Fatali Akhundov is not the only Azerbaijani intellectual in framing Iranian ultra-nationalism. Hassan Taqizadeh, the organizer of "Iran Society" in Berlin, has contributed to the development of Iranian nationalism. Since 1916 he published "Kaveh" periodical in Farsi language, which included articles emphasizing the racial unity of Germans and Iranians. Ahmad Kasravi, Taqi Arani, Hossein Kazemzadeh (Iranshahr) and Mahmoud Afshar advocated the suppression of the Azerbaijani language as they supposed that the multilingualism contradicted the racial purity of Iranians. Therefore, It is noteworthy that, contrary to what one might expect, many of the leading agents of the construction of an Iranian bounded territorial entity came from non-Persian-speaking ethnic minorities, and the foremost were the Azerbaijanis, rather than the nation's titular ethnic group, the Persians.
Pan-Turkism.
The most important political development affecting the Middle East at the beginning of the twentieth century was the collapse of the Ottoman and the Russian empires. The idea of a greater homeland for all Turks was propagated by pan-Turkism, which was adopted almost at once as a main ideological pillar by the Committee of Union and Progress and somewhat later by other political caucuses in what remained of the Ottoman Empire. On the eve of World War I, pan-Turkist propaganda focused chiefly on the Turkic-speaking peoples of the southern Caucasus, in Iranian Azerbaijan and Turkistan in Central Asia, with the ultimate purpose of persuading them all to secede from the larger political entities to which they belonged and to join the new pan-Turkic homeland.
It was this latter appeal to Iranian Azerbaijanis which, contrary to pan-Turkist intentions, caused a small group of Azerbaijani intellectuals to become the most vociferous advocates of Iran's territorial integrity and sovereignty. If in Europe "romantic nationalism responded to the damage likely to be caused by modernism by providing a new and larger sense of belonging, an all-encompassing totality, which brought about new social ties, identity and meaning, and a new sense of history from one's origin on to an illustrious future,"(42) in Iran after the Constitutional movement romantic nationalism was adopted by the Azerbaijani Democrats as a reaction to the irredentist policies threatening the country's territorial integrity. In their view, assuring territorial integrity was a necessary first step on the road to establishing the rule of law in society and a competent modern state which would safeguard collective as well as individual rights. It was within this context that their political loyalty outweighed their other ethnic or regional affinities.
The failure of the Democrats in the arena of Iranian politics after the Constitutional movement and the start of modern state-building paved the way for the emergence of the titular ethnic group's cultural nationalism. Whereas the adoption of integrationist policies preserved Iran's geographic integrity and provided the majority of Iranians with a secure and firm national identity, the blatant ignoring of other demands of the Constitutional movement, such as the call for the formation of a society based on law and order, left the country still searching for a political identity. The ultimate purpose was to persuade these populations to secede from the larger political entities to which they belonged and join the new pan-Turkic homeland. It was the latter appeal to Iranian Azerbaijanis, which, contrary to Pan-Turkist intentions, caused a small group of Azerbaijani intellectuals to become the strongest advocates of the territorial integrity of Iran.
After the constitutional revolution in Iran, a romantic nationalism was adopted by Azerbaijani Democrats as a reaction to the pan-Turkist irredentist policies threatening Iran's territorial integrity. It was during this period that Iranism and linguistic homogenization policies were proposed as a defensive nature against all others. Contrary to what one might expect, foremost among innovating this defensive nationalism were Iranian Azerbaijanis. They viewed that assuring the territorial integrity of the country was the first step in building a society based on law and a modern state. Through this framework, their political loyalty outweighed their ethnic and regional affiliations. The adoption of these integrationist policies paved the way for the emergence of the titular ethnic group's cultural nationalism.
World War II and Soviet intervention.
In late 1941 Soviet forces invaded Iran in coordination with British Army under an operation known as Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. Their forces broke through the border and moved from the Azerbaijan SSR into Iranian Azerbaijan. Reza Shah was forced by the invading British to abdicate in favor of his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who replaced his father as Shah on the throne on 16 September 1941. At the aftermath of a four-year-long tumultuous period the Azerbaijan People's Government, a Soviet puppet state, was established in Tabriz, perhaps through direct involvement of the Soviet leadership. This government autonomously ruled the province from November 1945 to November 1946. However, the Soviet soon realized their idea was premature, the mass of the population did not support separatism; under largely Western pressure, the Soviet troops withdrew in 1946, which resulted in the quick collapse of the Azerbaijan People's Government.
Iranian Azerbaijani migration to Azerbaijan.
Beginning in the 1850s, many Iranian Azerbaijanis opted to become work migrants and seek job opportunities in the Russian Empire, primarily in the economically booming Azerbaijani-populated part of the Caucasus. Due to them being Persian subjects, Russian offices often recorded them as "Persians". The migrants referred to one another as "hamshahri" ("compatriot") as an in-group identity. The word was adopted by the Azerbaijani-speaking locals as "həmşəri" and has since been applied by them to Iranian Azerbaijani migrants in general. Already in the nineteenth century, the word also spread to urban varieties of Russian of Baku and Tiflis in the form of "gamshara" ("гамшара") or "amshara" ("амшара"), where it was, however, used with a negative connotation to mean "a raggamuffin". In the Soviet times, the word was borrowed into the