Azerbaijan Autonomous Republic
| Азербайджанское народное правительство (Russian) آذربایجان میلّی حکومتی (Azerbaijani) |
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Azərbaycan Milli Hökuməti (Azerbaijani) |
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| Azerbaijan Autonomous Republic | |||||
| 1945-1946 | |||||
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| Official language | Azerbaijani | ||||
| Capital | Tabriz | ||||
| Form of government | republic | ||||
| Government system | Social democracy | ||||
| Head of state , also head of government | President Jafar Pischewari | ||||
| population | approx. 30 million | ||||
| founding | December 12, 1945 | ||||
| resolution | December 12, 1946 | ||||
The Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan for short ARA ( Russian Азербайджанское народное правительство , Azerbaijani People's Government ' , Azerbaijani آذربایجان میلّی حکومتی) was a short-lived Soviet- backed republic in northern Iran . Founded in Iranian Azerbaijan , the capital of the ARA was Tabriz . Its creation and dissolution was part of the Iran crisis that preceded the Cold War .
prehistory
As early as after the First World War and the Russian revolutionary turmoil, there was a pro-Soviet autonomous government in Tabriz for the first time in 1920 , and a similar development occurred during and after the Second World War.
On August 25, 1941, British troops marched into the south and Soviet troops into the north of Iran as part of the “ Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran ”. Soviet troops from the Armenian and Azerbaijani SSR and British and Indian troops from Iraq entered Iranian territory and soon took control of the country. In September the British forced Reza Shah Pahlavi to abdicate in favor of his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi . Putting Northern Iran under Soviet occupation was part of Stalin's plan to spread socialism by creating separatist puppet states. The Kurdish Republic of Mahabad was already such a state, and the Soviets decided to establish a separatist state for the Azerbaijanis in northern Iran as well.
founding
After the end of the Second World War, on December 12, 1945, at the first national congress of the Democratic Party in Tabriz, the Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan was proclaimed, with Prime Minister Jafar Pischewari at the head of the government. The Pischevaris party, theفرقه دمکرات, 'Democratic Party', which was founded by direct order of Stalin, rebelled against the central government in Tehran. Stalin's goal was to bring the oil reserves in northern Iran under Soviet control.
Jafar Pischewari, self-proclaimed head of state of the Republic of Azerbaijan, declared that from now on Turkish will be the official language. The government sent reinforcements to the gendarmerie units stationed in Tabriz , but the gendarmes were prevented from advancing to Tabriz at the Firuzkuh Pass by Soviet troops. On September 13, 1945, the Azerbaijani national group of the Tudeh Party declared its self-dissolution and conversion to the Firqeh Demokrat Pischevaris. Prime Minister Mohsen Sadr , who wanted to officially protest against the actions of the Soviet troops, was not received by the Soviet ambassador in Tehran. Sadr resigned on October 21, 1945 and Ebrahim Hakimi became the new Prime Minister.
During this period, a revival of the Azerbaijani literary language, which had been largely supplanted by Persian, was promoted with the help of authors, journalists and teachers from the Azerbaijani SSR. In an effort to achieve national homogeneity in a country whose half of the population consists of ethnic minorities, Reza Shah had previously issued bans on the Azerbaijani language, first in schools, theaters, religious ceremonies and finally also in book publications. It is noteworthy that these directives were issued even though Reza Shah's mother Nooshafarin and his wife Taj-Ol-Moluk Ayrimlu were both of Azerbaijani origin.
On June 13, 1946, a contract was negotiated between the central government in Tehran and the delegates from Azerbaijan under the leadership of Pischevari. According to this treaty, Pischevari agreed to partial autonomy and the connection to Iran. The parliament was transformed into a provincial council, a system recognized and respected by the Iranian constitution.
Firqeh Democrat
The Firqeh Demokratie (Democratic Party) announced its establishment on September 3, 1945 in Tabriz by a group of communist veterans led by Jafar Pischewari. After this announcement, the communist Soviet-backed Tudeh party dissolved its branch in Azerbaijan and ordered its members to join the Firqeh Democrat. The Firqeh Democrat spread across Iranian Azerbaijan and carried out a coup d'état while the Soviet army prevented the Iranian reinforcements from entering the province. During the first week of September 1945, the Firqeh Democrat, now led by a leader of the revolutionary movement in Gilan named Jafar Pishevari, declared that they controlled Iranian Azerbaijan and promised liberal democratic reforms and disbanded the Tudeh Party.
Later in September 1945, the Firqeh Demokrat authorized the formation of a militia at its first congress, which occupied the remaining government positions in the province until mid-November 1945. Thus, Iranian Azerbaijan became an autonomous republic headed by a national executive committee with 39 members. The first and only prime minister of this short-lived republic was Ahmad Kordary.
The End
At the same time, the US increased its military support for the government in Tehran. Under pressure from the Western powers, the Soviet Union withdrew its aid to the newly formed state, and the Iranian military restored Iranian control in November 1946. According to Tadeusz Swietochowski:
“The Soviets realized that their ideas for Iran were not fully developed. The Iranian Azerbaijan affair became one of the initial Cold War clashes, and Soviet forces withdrew, largely under pressure from the Western powers, in 1946. The autonomous republic collapsed soon after, and members of the Democratic Party sought refuge in the Soviet Union to escape Iranian vengeance. In Tabriz, the same crowd that had shortly before applauded the autonomous republic greeted the returning Iranian troops, and Azerbaijani students publicly burned books in their mother tongue. The mass of the population was apparently not even ready for regional self-government as long as it smacked of separatism . "
According to Prof. Gary R. Hess:
“On December 11th, Iranian forces entered Tabriz and the Pischevari government quickly collapsed. However, the Iranians by the population of Azerbaijan, a predominance were Tehran a Moscow preferred, enthusiastically welcomed. The willingness of the Soviets to renounce their influence in Iranian Azerbaijan probably resulted from several factors, including the realization that the propaganda for autonomy had been overdone and that oil concessions were the real long-term goal of the Soviet Union. "
In mid-December 1946 the Iranian army moved into Tabriz and put an end to the ARA after a year.
Many of the leaders sought refuge in the Azerbaijani SSR. Jafar Pischewari, who never had the full confidence of Stalin, died under mysterious circumstances in a car accident. Prime Minister Kordary was imprisoned for many years and was later released due to the efforts of his brother Kazem Kordary.
Documents
An official document with the ARA
The second part of the document
An old postage stamp with the stamp of the Azerbaijani People's Government
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20150402224519/http://www.dak.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=590&Itemid=71
- ^ Kristen Blake: The US-Soviet confrontation in Iran, 1945–1962. A case in the annals of the Cold War. University Press of America, Lanham MD et al. 2009, ISBN 978-0-7618-4491-4 , p. 33.
- ^ Secret Soviet Instructions on Measures to Carry out Special Assignments throughout Southern Azerbaijan and the Northern Provinces of Iran in an attempt to set the basis for a separatist movement in Northern Iran
- ↑ Decree of the CC CPSU Politburo to Mir Bagirov CC Secretary of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan
- ^ Decree of the USSR State Defense Committee No 9168 SS Regarding Geological Prospecting Work for Oil in Northern Iran
- ↑ Gholam Reza Afkhami: The life and times of the Shah. University of California Press, Berkeley CA et al. 2009, ISBN 978-0-520-25328-5 , p. 92.
- ^ Tadeusz Swietochowski: Russia and Azerbaijan. A borderland in transition. Columbia University Press, New York NY 1995, ISBN 0-231-07068-3 .
- ↑ a b A. C. Edwards: Persia Revisited. In: International Affairs. Vol. 23, No. 1, 1947, ISSN 0020-5850 , pp. 52-60, here p. 58, JSTOR 3017739 .
- ↑ Hooshang Talé, Farhad Taleé: Iran in the claws of the bear. The failed Soviet landgrab of 1946. iUniverse, New York NY et al. 2007, ISBN 978-0-595-41345-4 , p. 19.
- ↑ Ervand Abrahamian: Communism and communalism in Iran: The Tudah and the Firqah I Dimukrat. In: International Journal of Middle East Studies. Vol. 1, No. 4, 1970, ISSN 0020-7438 , pp. 291-316, JSTOR 162649 .
- ↑ Sepehr Zabih: The Communist Movement in Iran. University of California Press, Berkeley CA et al. 1966, p. 99.
- ↑ Ervand Abrahamian: Iran between Two Revolutions. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1982, ISBN 0-691-05342-1 , pp. 217-218.
- ↑ Fred H. Lawson: The Iranian Crisis of 1945-1946 and the Spiral Model of International Conflict. In: International Journal of Middle East Studies. Vol. 21, No. 3, 1989, pp. 307-326, here p. 316, JSTOR 163447 .
- ↑ Azerbaijan Crisis (1947–1948)
- ↑ Iran in World War II ( Memento from September 2, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Tadeusz Swietochowski (1989): Islam and the Growth of National Identity in Soviet Azerbaijan. In: Edward Allworth (ed.): Muslim Communities Reemerge. Historical Perspectives on Nationality, Politics, and Opposition in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. English supplemented and translated edition. Duke University Press, Durham et al. 1994, ISBN 0-8223-1490-8 , pp. 46-60.
- ↑ Gary. R. Hess: The Iranian Crisis of 1945-46 and the Cold War. In: Political Science Quarterly. Vol. 89, No. 1, 1974, ISSN 0032-3195 , pp. 117-146, ( digital version (PDF; 2.9 MB) ).
- ↑ George Lenczowski : United States' Support for Iran's Independence and Integrity, 1945-1959. In: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Vol. 401, America and the Middle East, 1972, ISSN 0002-7162 , pp. 45-55, here p. 49, JSTOR 1039111 .