Azerbaijan – Federal state of the USSR

Federal state of the USSR. – The population grew from 2.3 to 3.2 million residents between 1926 and 1939; the proportion of the urban population went from 28 to 36%, that of illiterate people fell from 74.8 to 26.7% in the same period. The development of national culture, which goes hand in hand with that of educational institutions, reflects the progress of the economic situation, attributable no less to the modernization (mechanization) and intensification (irrigation) of specialized crops (cotton), than to the impulse given to extractive industries (oil, iron, coal, aluminum, silver, lead). The capital Baku is, today, with its 800,000 residents (450,000 in 1926), the fifth city by population in the entire USSR.

Persian province. – During the Second World War the region was crossed by convoys bringing allied supplies to the USSR; communications are therefore greatly improved, and regular railway lines thus unite it with Teherān as well as with the Russian network. The provincial capital Tabrīz had more than 200,000 residents in 1940.

History. – According to The Religion FAQs, Persian Azerbaijan was occupied by Soviet troops, during the Second World War, on the basis of the Anglo-Russian-Persian treaty of January 27, 1942, which defined the respective areas of influence in the Iranian region. The term for this occupation was foreseen, according to the treaty, at the expiration of six months from the end of the hostilities (March 6, 1946). However, already in 1945 the USSR’s policy of penetration, favored by the creation of the pro-communist party Tudeh in Persia, started a series of autonomist agitations in Azerbaijan, accompanied by Soviet opposition to any intervention by the government of Teherān. On November 20, 1945, a “National Congress of Azerbaijan”, in Tabrīz,

After the establishment of an autonomist government of Azerbaijan headed by Pishevari, and after the exchange of a series of diplomatic notes between Great Britain, the USSR and the United States, the matter was referred, on January 19, 1946, by the Persian government to the UN, the whose general assembly was in session in London; but it was postponed to direct negotiations between the two parties with a resolution of the Security Council of 29 March.

The treaty between Persia and the USSR between Persia and the USSR on 4 April 1946 implicitly resolved the question of Azerbaijan, with the recognition by the USSR of the internal nature of the problem. Subsequent negotiations opened on April 28 in Teherain between the governments of Persia and Azerbaijan led to the signing of an agreement on June 13 under which Azerbaijan obtained an autonomous statute, but accepted a governor general appointed by Teherān. The Soviet troops meanwhile, on 9 May, had abandoned the territory of Azerbaijan.

From that moment the situation progressively evolved in a direction favorable to the central government of Teherān until the latter could proceed with the military occupation of the territory, in December 1946, with the officially declared purpose of allowing the free conduct of elections. Pishevari took refuge in the USSR.

LITERATURE

Azeri Turkish, or Azerbaijani dialect, was already in literary use alongside osmanli in the classical era of Turkish literature: in it not only illustrious Turkish authors such as Fuẓūlī, but also Persians such as the Shah Ismā-‛īl, the founder of Safawid dynasty. In the second half of the century. 19 ° there was a first revival by Ākhondzāde (MF Achundov), whose comedies of character and environment had considerable resonance and were translated into Persian. In the 20th century. Azeri literature gained new impetus, in the forms and spirits of the ‘resurgence of nationalities’ within the Soviet system.

ARCHITECTURE AND ART

The Arab conquest led to the erection of the main regional centers (such as Derbent or Bāb al-Abwāb, Shamākhā e Baku, Tabriz, Marāgha, Ardabil) of the buildings necessary for the new needs of religious and civil life (mosque, school, caravanserai, bathroom). With the conquest of the Seljuks in the 11th century. a new phase began, characterized by monuments in square blocks of limestone in the north and in baked bricks covered with glazed majolica in the south of the country; among the most important, the mosque of Friday and the mausoleum of Urmiya, the mausoleums of Marāgha and those of the region of Nahičevan´. With the advent of the Ilkhanids (1256), the capital was first established in Marāgha, then, in 1295, in Tabriz, radically renovated (Friday mosque of the citadel or of ‛Alī Shāh, new urban the princely suburbs of Rashīdyya and Ghāzāniyya. Between the end of the 13th and that of the 14th century. some miniaturist workshops flourished, active above all in the court environments of the capital (school of Tabriz), who developed an original figurative language, heir to local and imported pictorial traditions, Islamic and external to Islam.

Azerbaijan - Federal state of the USSR