Borders and Brethren: Iran and the Challenge of Azerbaijani Identity

Front Cover
MIT Press, 2002 M10 2 - 268 pages
The Azerbaijani people have been divided between Iran and the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan for more than 150 years, yet they have retained their ethnic identity. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of an independent Azerbaijan have only served to reinforce their collective identity. In Borders and Brethren, Brenda Shaffer examines trends in Azerbaijani collective identity from the period of the Islamic Revolution in Iran through the Soviet breakup and the beginnings of the Republic of Azerbaijan (1979-2000). Challenging the mainstream view in contemporary Iranian studies, Shaffer argues that a distinctive Azerbaijani identity exists in Iran and that Azerbaijani ethnicity must be a part of studies of Iranian society and assessments of regime stability in Iran. She analyzes how Azerbaijanis have maintained their identity and how that identity has assumed different forms in the former Soviet Union and Iran. In addition to contributing to the study of ethnic identity, the book reveals the dilemmas of ethnic politics in Iran.
 

Contents

The Azerbaijanis until 1920
15
The Azerbaijanis under the Soviet and Pahlavi Regimes
47
The Islamic Revolution and the Azerbayanis
77
Between Two Revolutions
117
The Republic of Azerbaijans Independence
155
Lessons on Iran and Identity Theory
205
Appendix The Azerbaijani Population
221
Selected Bibliography
227
About the Author
237
Index
239
About the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 9 - All that I can find to say is that a nation exists when a significant number of people in a community consider themselves to form a nation, or behave as if they formed one.
Page 3 - Charles King and Neil J. Melvin, "Diaspora Politics: Ethnic Linkages, Foreign Policy, and Security in Eurasia,
Page 2 - Walker Connor, Ethnonationalism: The Quest for Understanding (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994).

References to this book

About the author (2002)

Brenda Shaffer is Research Director of the Caspian Studies Program at Harvard University. She is the author of Borders and Brethren: Iran and the Challenge of Azerbaijani Identity (MIT Press, 2002).

Bibliographic information