Russians in Azerbaijan

The emergence of the Russian population

The first Russian settlements in Azerbaijan began to appear only in the 1830-50s, after the conclusion of the Turkmenchay Treaty . According to N. Shavrov , “the first Russian settlements arose due to the need to place sectarians. Their installation began in 1838 (and until the mid-60s) ” ^[2] . The first legislative act authorizing the resettlement was the publication on October 20, 1830 of a government decree on the resettlement of schismatics and sectarians in the "Transcaucasian provinces". Russians moved from the inner provinces. According to Senator Kuzminsky, the first voluntary resettlement from Russians was the resettlement of Molokans from the Orenburg province in 1830 ^[3] . Among the first Russian villages were Vel, Privolnoe , Prishib , Nikolaevka, Ivanovka ^[4] . Beginning in mid-1833, Russian sectarians moved to Shemakhinsky and Shushinsky districts, then to Lankaran district . For some time, "sectarians" were forbidden to settle in cities. A little later they founded settlements in Shemakha and Lankaran, and only in 1859 they were allowed to settle in a settlement in Baku ^[5] . For 1841-1847 in the province of Elisavetpol, the villages of Slavyanka, Novo-Gorely, Novo-Troitsk and Novo-Spassk were formed, consisting exclusively of Dukhobors ^[2] . According to archival information, in 1852, when settlers were settled in the Elizabethpol province, they were given more land for smoke than local residents: 60 dessiatins. ^[6] In April 1899, the Committee of Ministers of the Russian Empire issued a law authorizing the transfer of free state land in the Caucasus only to peasants of indigenous Russian origin ^[7] .

The next wave of migration of the Russian population occurs at the end of the XIX - beginning of XX centuries. and is primarily associated with the development of industry, especially oil , and the growth of cities ^[8] . The number of Russian migrants in Baku from 1897 to 1913 increased from 38.975 to 76.288 people ^[9] . The Russian workers predominantly settled in Black and White City, an industrial belt on the north-eastern outskirts of Baku ^[9] . The number of Russians in the oil industry of Baku in 1902 amounted to 29.4% of all registered workers ^[10] . The Russians dominated the administrative apparatus. According to the data for 1910, 107 lawyers and their assistants practiced in Baku, of which 38 were Russian, giving way to Armenians (48 people), while there were only four Muslims ^[11] .

The first single Russian settlements on Mugan appeared in the 1860s. ^[12] . By order of the chief civilian in the Caucasus, A. M. Dondukov-Korsakov , the county town of Jevat was abolished in 1887. In its place was allowed to settle the party of immigrants. So the first Russian village on Mugani appeared - Petropavlovka ^[13] . However, the active settlement of Mugani began at the turn of the 20th century. According to N. Volkova, Russian settlement of Mugani dates back to 1897, where 48 villages appeared before 1917 ^[5] . According to O. D. Komarova, for only 15 years, from 1902 to 1917, about 55 Russian villages with a total population of over 20 thousand people were formed in Mugani ^[14] . In the same years, several dozen Russian settlements formed along the Caspian coast: in the northern part - on the territory of the Cuban district, and also in the south - in the Lenkoran district. At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. in total, more than one hundred Russian Orthodox villages appeared in Azerbaijan ^[14] . According to the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary , published in the late XIX - early XX centuries, in Lankaran district

Russian Molokans and other sectarians who were exiled here under Emperor Nicholas I live; they live in great contentment and, in addition to tilling, are engaged in carriage. In the Shamakhy district there is also a settled Russian population of sectarians. Between them, the Judaic sect is very widespread. In addition to sectarians in these counties, Russians in large numbers live only in Baku , in the oil fields and at the regimental headquarters, but usually do not stay long in the province ^[15] .

According to the 1897 census, there were 73,632 Russian-speaking residents in the Baku province ^[16] , and 14,146 people in the Elizavetpol province ^[17] . Throughout 1901-1904 new Russian settlements arose: in Emanolovo and Kozlyakovo in Mugan, Alekseyevka, Pokrovka in the Lenkoran district , Grigoryevskoe, Novo-Golitsyno, Novo-Yermolovka; in the Cuban district - Shirvan; in Dzhevatsk district - Nikolaevka, Aleksandrovka , Mikhailovka ^[18] .

The tsarist administration paid special attention to the colonization of the Mil and Mugan steppes ^[18] . A major event was the irrigation and development of Mugani, which the authorities hoped to turn into a base for industrial cotton growing. By 1916, it was planned to complete the irrigation of its entire territory and ensure the resettlement in this zone of up to 100 thousand people. The work carried out by the government, as well as the special law “On the Allocation of Treasury Irrigated Plots in the Mugan Steppe” adopted in 1912, were clearly protectionist in nature, providing immigrants with significant benefits in terms of land use and property rights ^[14] .

However, here the economic interests of the tsarist government were closely intertwined with the political. When the news came to the office of the chief civilian in the Caucasus about the intention of some wealthy Muslims to “turn their capital (in millions of rubles), instead of the oil industry, to the establishment of cotton mills so that the cotton production could be concentrated on the Mugan steppe,” the office did not bakinsogo slowed to inform the governor, "that the population of the aforesaid neighboring Iran steppes Muslim population is from the political point of view, totally unacceptable and that the political forms of this steppe etc. lzhna be settled ... Russian people ... " ^[18] . It was the same with the Mil steppe. The report on the state of the Elizabethpol province for 1901 indicated that the settlement of the Milky Steppe by Russians, “meeting modern state-economic demands, will also have serious political significance, for there will be a wide strip between the Transcaucasian provinces inhabited by Mohammedans of the Shiite religion and Persia faithful to them , populated by an indigenous Russian element ... ” ^[18] .

Pursuing a resettlement policy, the authorities sometimes ignored local land use conditions built on customary law , and thus invaded the land relations of the local peasantry, which provoked a conflict between Russian migrants and Azerbaijani nomadic peasants. So, within the Eastern Transcaucasia, the economic basis of nomadic cattle breeding was pasture land, which was in the public use of nomadic peasants. The absence of allotted land use in the nomadic economy did not prevent the tsarist administration from conducting the allocation of pasture land to create new resettlement sites. One of the results of such events is the case that took place in the province of Baku, when Russian immigrants were placed on lands belonging to the nomadic Alar society in Lankaran district, and the peasants themselves were forcibly evicted without providing land, which could not but lead to a clash between local peasants and immigrants. And there were many such cases ^[19] . Even V. I. Lenin wrote about what happened to the Alar society in his work “Migration Issue” ^[20] .

During ADR

At the opening in December 1918 of the parliament of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, one of its leaders M.E. Rasulzadeh proclaimed that "our separation from Russia is not an act of hostility towards Russia. We do not feel hostility towards the Russian people, who suffered more from despotism than us ” ^[21] . The parliament included three deputies from the "Russian Slavic Society" ^[22] . After the ADR government established control over Baku in September 1918, the Russians, along with the Armenians, continued to occupy key positions in the administrative apparatus and judicial authorities. Russians predominated among judges and prosecutors, and the Russian lawyer corps maintained a dominant position in cities ^[23] . As subsequently wrote one of the Russian officials of that time, a real state adviser K. D. Kafafov : “A significant part of the employees in the Azerbaijani state institutions consisted of Russians. The relations of the local authorities and the population were the most friendly, and it is not necessary to compare these relations with the relations of Georgians and Armenians ” ^[24] . Despite the fact that the Azerbaijani language was given the status of the state language, the official body of the government, the newspaper Azerbaijan, was published only in Russian. Russian prisoners of war made up the officer corps of the Azerbaijani army, and the Caspian newspaper instructed its readers to treat Russian officers with “love and respect” ^[23] . The Musavat government has guaranteed the preservation of the rights of the Russian population to their lands ^[25] .

At the same time, the collapse of the Russian Empire and the emergence in 1918 of independent Georgia , Armenia and Azerbaijan , was accompanied by a large population displacement in the region. The economic devastation caused by the First World War , the agricultural crisis, lack of bread, and ethnic clashes forced almost half of the recent Russian settlers to leave their places and return to their former place of residence in Russia ^[26] . A significant part of the Russian population of Mugan in 1918 went to the North Caucasus ^[27] . Less than half of them (2.8 thousand people) returned in 1921 ^[28] . It is noteworthy that the reverse migration covered mainly the immigrants of the second wave and practically did not affect the sectarian villages (including those located in the Mugan zone) ^[26] .

In some cases, such ethnic movements were also associated with the internal politics of the Musavat government. In particular, being unable to resolve the then agrarian crisis, central and local authorities tried to overcome the severity of the issue at the expense of the Russian population. As B. L. Baykov wrote, “in the northeastern part of the Shamakhy district, populated mainly by Molokans, the Russian population was subjected to total robbery by the Tatar (i.e., Azerbaijani - approx.) Population led by home-grown administrators from the Tatars, but the population was taken bread, livestock, agricultural implements, household property. ... With the obvious blessing of the Azerbaijani government, every effort was made to force the indigenous Russian population to rise from their homes ... and leave Azerbaijan altogether . ” The lands vacated after this were leased by specially created commissions from government representatives to Azerbaijani rural societies. However, this did not solve the agrarian question, since income was minimal, and Muslim peasants continued to demand a general redistribution of land ^[29] .

Soviet period

In the 1920s Russians along with Armenians and Jews completely dominated the administration of Azerbaijan ^[30] . In the summer of 1923, 13 Russians were in the Central Committee of the AzKP, slightly inferior to Azerbaijanis, of whom 16 were ^[31] . Even in 1925, Russians made up 38% of the Azerbaijan party apparatus (for comparison, in Georgia during this period 73% of the party apparatus were Georgians , in Armenia 93% were Armenians) ^[32] . As of 1927, Russians dominated (43%) in the Baku Party organization ^[31] . Gradually, local national cadres began to replace them, which was also facilitated by the policy of indigenousization . Nevertheless, in Azerbaijan until the very end, in contrast to Armenia and Georgia, the percentage of Russians and Armenians in the bureaucracy remained significantly higher than their share in the population ^[30] . In the post-war years, lower-level leadership positions in the party administrative system continued to remain with persons of Russian nationality. For example, the post of second secretary of the Baku City Party Committee was constantly replaced by persons of Russian nationality (Vorobyov, A. Malyutin, Y. Kirsanov, Sergeyev). Until 1950, the post of head of the executive committee of the Baku Council of Workers' Deputies was also replaced by persons of Russian nationality (Kozlov, Buzdakov, Sergeyev) ^[33] . Immigrants from the Russian ethnic environment often led the Azerbaijani MGB-MVD-KGB.

In 1938, 36 Russians were elected to the Supreme Council of the Azerbaijan SSR of the I convocation ^[34] . Among the deputies of the Supreme Council of the Azerbaijan SSR of the 7th convocation (1967-1970) there were 41 Russians ^[35] . As of January 1, 1979, 30,118 Russians were members of the Communist Party of the Azerbaijan SSR making up 9.6% of the total number ^[36] .

According to the agricultural census of 1921, there were approximately 80 Russian villages in Azerbaijan, of which 30 were sectarian (about 30 thousand inhabitants), and the rest were Orthodox (about 12 thousand people) ^[37] . Migration trends continued in the Soviet era, when skilled specialists from other parts of the Soviet Union moved to Azerbaijan (mainly to cities). From October 1928 to January 1933, the number of Russian workers employed in the oil industry grew from 21.883 to 40.721 people, accounting for 58.5% of all employees at Azneft ^[38] . The Russians continued to be Baku’s largest ethnic element, according to the 1926 and 1939 censuses. In Ganja, Russians made up 8.2% of the population in 1926. In total, 26.6% of the total urban population of Azerbaijan in 1926 and 35.7% in 1939 were Russians. The last mass wave of Russian migration to Azerbaijan was observed in 1949 , in connection with the construction of an industrial city of all-Union significance Sumgait a few kilometers north of Baku. In the 1950s the number of villages in which the Russian population lived exceeded 120 ^[39] . However, a decade later, the reverse trend begins, a sharp and steady decline in the Russian rural population. Started in the 1960s. the outflow of Russians from Azerbaijan, which has intensified since the early 1980s, was mainly from rural areas of the republic ^[40] . This was due to the faster urbanization of the Russian population. During the 1970-1990s, such ancient villages as Pavlovka and Alekseevka of the Khachmas region , Vladimirovka of the Kubinsky district , Astrakhanovka and Khilmili of the Shemakhinsky district , etc. almost completely left without the Russian population ^[41] .

After 1991

The collapse of the USSR and the sharp territorial conflict between Nagorno-Karabakh between the two Transcaucasian republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia caused another massive ethnic migration of the population. According to the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan, by early February 1990, 3.5 thousand Russians (mostly sectarians) had fled from Armenia to Azerbaijan, the vast majority of which later moved to Russia ^[40] . Экономический кризис, события Чёрного января в Баку, внутриполитическая нестабильность, резкое ограничение сферы применения русского языка, возрастание психологического дискомфорта, вывод с территории Азербайджана советских вооружённых сил (лишь по некоторым оценкам их общая численность, вместе членами семей, достигала 70—80 тысяч человек) и т.д., всё это обусловило значительный отток русского населения из республики и привело к тому, что в первые годы независимости Азербайджана русские в значительной степени оказались отчуждены от пол тической жизни страны ^{[41] [42]} . Самый большой отток русских из Азербайджана в Россию был отмечен после событий Чёрного января 1990 года, а также в 1992 году, после чего он заметно сократился ^[40] .

Русское население в целом с недоверием встретило активизацию и последующий приход к власти в 1992 году национал-демократического Народного Фронта Азербайджана (НФА), хотя с началом армяно-азербайджанского конфликта местные русские общественные организации единогласно поддержали позицию Азербайджана в отношении Нагорного Карабаха ^[43] . Так, в 1989 году жители с. Ивановка направили обращение к народным депутатам СССР, в котором они обращались с просьбой «обуздать экстремистские силы из Нагорного Карабаха и Армении» ^[44] . Первоначально основной боевой силой, действовавшей в Карабахе, был азербайджанский ОМОН , состоявший на 80 % из русских ^[45] . В дальнейшем на стороне Азербайджана сражалось немало русских добровольцев и наёмников, представленных как местными уроженцами, так и выходцами из других республик Советского Союза. Некоторые русские были удостоены звания Национального героя Азербайджана , как местные уроженцы ( И. В. Макеев , Ю. П. Ковалёв ), так и выходцы из других советских республик ( Е. Н. Карлов , В. В. Серёгин и.т.д.). Русские/российские военные также воевали в качестве механиков-водителей танков, причём в июне 1992 года они возглавили наступление азербайджанской армии , которое было остановлено российскими военными, но уже с армянской стороны ^[46] .

Ухудшение азербайджано-российских отношений и последовавшая за этим антироссийская пропаганда Народного фронта сыграли непоследнюю роль в беспокойстве русского населения за своё будущее в Азербайджане. И хотя, по сообщению тогдашнего посла России в Азербайджане Вальтера Шонии, новая власть не вела политику выживания русского населения, в прессе и в устах некоторых партийных деятелей поддерживались националистические чувства путём упоминания России как союзницы Армении в армяно-азербайджанском конфликте и силы, стремившийся лишить Азербайджан его новообретённой независимости ^[43] . После прекращения войны к выезжающим из страны добавились русскоязычные азербайджанцы, в основном жители Баку ^[40] .

В настоящий момент русские продолжают играть заметную роль в жизни Азербайджана. С мая 1993 года в стране действует официально зарегистрированная русская община Азербайджана , чей председатель Михаил Забелин с 2000 года является депутатом Милли Меджлиса Азербайджана .

Наибольшее количество русских (около 2/3 от общего числа) проживают в городах. По состоянию на 1999 год 84,3 % всех русских проживали в Баку, где они составляли 6,7 % населения столицы, являясь второй по численности этнической группой города ^[42] . Они также проживают в Исмаиллинском (с. Ивановка ), Хачмазском , а также в Кедабекском (с. Славянка , Горельск и Новоивановка), Джалилабадском и Геранбойском районах Азербайджана.

Динамика численности русского населения в Азербайджане

Education

Before the establishment of Soviet power, Russian was the dominant teaching language in Azerbaijani schools ^[54] . In Tsarist time, a network of Russian educational institutions was actively developing. Primary school education was conducted in Russian for a long time, but even so, the network of Russian schools remained rather limited. A certain role in the increase in the number of Russian schools, which fell on the 1870s, was facilitated by the adoption of the "Regulation on primary schools", which authorized the creation of primary schools in rural areas and allowed the admission of peasant children. At the end of the 19th century, Russian-Tatar (i.e., Russian-Azerbaijani) schools arose, where teaching was conducted in two languages. The emergence and development of a network of Russian educational institutions contributed to the expansion of the population’s acquaintance with Russian science and culture. Prominent representatives of Azerbaijani culture ( M.F. Akhundov , S.A. Shirvani ) attached great importance to Russian schools and identified their children there. The poet Seyid Azim Shirvani, who opened a school in Shemakha in 1870, was the first in Azerbaijan to introduce the teaching of the Russian language ^[55] .

In the first year of Soviet power (the academic year 1921/1922), the number of schools teaching Russian was sharply reduced. Gradually, it increased and by the 1940/1941 school year it reached 178 schools ^[56] . Since 1926, the Russian language also began to be studied in non-Russian schools from the third grade ^[57] . No less attention was paid to the study of the Russian language in universities. In 1929, the State Scientific Council under the People’s Commissariat of Education of the Azerbaijan SSR adopted the "Regulation on the Rules for the Training of Scientists", in which it recommended that graduate students, along with scientific work, also study the Russian language ^[58] . However, until 1938, many educational institutions were not provided with teachers of the Russian language. In the 1937–38 school year, slightly more than 440 Russian language teachers worked in 2,995 non-Russian schools in Azerbaijan ^[59] .

March 13, 1938 issued a decree of the Council of People 's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks "On the compulsory study of the Russian language in schools of national republics and regions." Following him, on March 23, the Central Committee of the AKP (b) and the Council of People's Commissars of the Azerbaijan SSR adopted a resolution "On compulsory study of the Russian language in non-Russian schools of the republic." At the Azerbaijan State Pedagogical Institute named after V.I. Lenin created a department for the training of teachers of the Russian language, as well as teacher training schools in Baku, Kirovabad, Lenkoran and other regional centers; special courses were organized that trained about 2 thousand teachers of the Russian language for non-Russian schools in rural areas. Nevertheless, with all this, it was not possible to solve the problem of the shortage of teachers of the Russian language for non-Russian schools ^[59] . Education in Russian along with was fully introduced at the Azerbaijan Pedagogical Institute of Russian Language and Literature. M.F. Akhundov and in the pedagogical college named after Sabira. S. Agamalioglu Azerbaijan Agricultural Institute had a Russian sector specializing in mechanization and electrification of agriculture ^[60] .

Currently, in more than 300 secondary schools throughout the country, 18 local universities and 38 secondary specialized educational institutions, teaching is conducted in Russian in Azerbaijan. On June 13, 2000, Baku Slavic University was founded in Baku on the basis of the Azerbaijan Pedagogical Institute of Russian Language and Literature named after M. F. Akhundov ^[61] . The Association of Teachers of Russian-speaking educational institutions of Azerbaijan is functioning. On November 24, 2009, the first in the post-Soviet space “House of the Russian Book” was opened, at the opening ceremony of which was attended by the head of the Presidential Administration of Russia Sergey Naryshkin . ^[62] .

Culture

In Baku, the Azerbaijan State Russian Drama Theater named after Samed Vurgun .

In 1994, the Association of Cossacks of Azerbaijan was registered. In 1996, in order to establish closer ties with Russian state and public organizations related to the support of compatriots abroad, a Coordinating Council of public organizations of Russian compatriots in Azerbaijan was created ^[63] . In 2009, the Russian Information and Cultural Center was founded.

Language

Russians in Azerbaijan speak Russian as a mother tongue. Nevertheless, spoken Russian speech in Baku (both among Russians and Russian-speaking Azerbaijanis) reveals a number of characteristic features in phonetics , prosody and vocabulary , considered as the influence of the Azerbaijani language ^{[64] [65]} . In addition, the South Russian root dialect of the descendants of Russian "sectarians" living in the interior of Azerbaijan to this day contains many archaic Old Russian forms lost in literary Russian ^[66] . Part of the Russian population also speaks the Azerbaijani language. According to the 1989 census, only 15.7% of the number of local Russians stated that they owned the Azerbaijani language ^[41] .

In 1939, 46 newspapers were published in Russian in the republic ^[67] . According to 1968, 38% of the printed matter in the Azerbaijan SSR was published in Russian ^[68] . In 1972, 343 books, 47 magazines, newsletters and other periodicals were published in Russian in Azerbaijan. Since 1989, the organ of the Central Committee of the republic, the journal “Communist of Azerbaijan” ^[68] , began to appear in ^Russian . Despite the significantly strengthened position of the Azerbaijani language in the post-Soviet era, the Russian language continues to be common in Baku; it publishes periodicals (the newspapers Zerkalo, Echo, Baku Worker , HSE, New Time, Azerbaijan News, Baku magazine, etc.) and other literature. There is an association of Russian-language writers "Ray". In independent Azerbaijan, unlike the republics of Central Asia , Russians are much more inclined to learn the Azerbaijani language , many speak it well.

Religion

The Russian population of the republic traditionally adheres to Orthodoxy , although the number of atheists is also significant. The dean of the churches of Baku province, Archpriest Alexander Yunitsky in 1906 as follows described the lifestyle of Orthodox Russians:

The simplicity of manners, piety, combined with some patriarchalism of the first Orthodox residents of Baku, were amazing. They lived quietly, modestly and strictly guarded their family hearth. With genuine reverence, they tried to decorate their houses with icons and sacred historical paintings ... Every Sunday, every great holiday, the head of the family, before going with all the household to the church of God for mass, said a common prayer in the morning ^[69] .

There are five Orthodox churches in Azerbaijan subordinate to the Baku and Caspian dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church : three in Baku, one in Ganja, and one in Khachmas. In Baku, Sumgait and Shemakha, Molokans communities are officially registered ^[70] .

• Ivanovka is one of the largest Russian villages in Azerbaijan.
• Azerbaijani-Russian relations

• Cossacks of Azerbaijan
• Russian community of Azerbaijan
• Russian village of Ivanovka, Azerbaijan Republic (Russian)
• Coordinating Council of Public Organizations of Russian Compatriots of the Republic of Azerbaijan
• List of Russian settlements on the territory of Azerbaijan in the 30s. 19 century - beginning of the 20th century (русский)

Видеоматериалы

• Русские азербайджанцы , сюжет программы «Городские истории»
• Русские в Азербайджане , репортаж программы «Время»
• «Тетя Маруся из Гедабека» , док. фильм про жизнь русских староверов, молокан и духоборов, в Азербайджане. МГТРК «Мир» , 2007 год.
• Молокане в Азербайджане , репортаж итоговой программы «Вместе» телерадиокомпании «Мир»
• «Духоборы или молокане: история и традиции» , Документальный фильм
• Русский язык в Азербайджане

• Асланов А. М. Азербайджанский язык в орбите языкового взаимодействия (Социально-лингвистическое исследование). — Баку: Элм, 1989. — ISBN 5-8066-0213-3 .
• Багиров Ф. А. Переселенческая политика царизма в Азербайджане (1830—1914 гг.). — М. : Маросейка, 2009.
• Мурадов Г. Л., Полоскова Т. В., Затулин К. Ф. и др. Справочник российского соотечественника // М.: Русский мир, 2006. 2-е издание — стр. 11-14
• Заплетин Г., Ширин-заде Г. Русские в истории Азербайджана. — Баку, 2008