IRANIAN NATIONALISM AND THE ISSUE OF AZERBAIJAN AND THE TURKISH LANGUAGE (EMPHASIZING ON PERIODICALS OF TRANSITION ERA FROM QAJAR TO PAHLAVI)

Abstract

In the history of modern Iran, the situation of various minority elements living in this country in the process of nation-state building has been a common subject of discussion and research. Until the beginning of the 20th century, in the Iranian geography, where various communities such as Kurds, Baluç and Lor, especially Turks and Arabs, lived, an administrative system, which was expressed as "Memaliki Mahruse" and had a kind of state system, was dominant. Within this system, each community was protecting and maintaining its own cultural existence. Nation building, whose intellectual foundation started to be laid with the period of Reza Shah, especially with the post-constitutional period, was put into the implementation process from the design process. Although the intellectual background was started to be discarded in previous periods, the definition of the "other" in the face of the exemplary identity designed in this period, which can be characterized as a sharp transition period, brought along many discussions and problems. In this article, which we have translated, the situation of the Turks, who have been pushed to the "other" position in Iranian nationalist thought, is examined within the framework of the articles written by some of the important intellectual leaders of Iranian nationalism, who came to the fore in the nation-building process. In this period, the Iranian national identity, which was desired to be built on the axis of "Aryan Nationalism" and "Persian Language", embraced the pre-Islamic Iranian history as its content, while the Islamic period was questioned from various perspectives. In this context, the Turks, who were in a dominant position administratively and militarily, especially during the last millennium of Iran's history, were brought forward as the cause of the country's backwardness. This issue, which was handled by Iranian nationalists with ideological concerns and a reductionist understanding, was considered as an existential problem, especially as a result of the First World War and various developments in the region. In this respect, events such as the activities of the Union and Progress in the region in the last period of the Ottoman Empire and the independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan from Russia worried Iranian nationalists and prompted them to produce new arguments with the concern of preserving the integrity of Iran against these two political structures. In this context, it was based on an understanding of Iranian nationalists to ignore and assimilate approaches to the issue. According to them, the Turks in Iran had no ties with the Turks of Turkey and the Republic of Azerbaijan. The Turkish language, on the other hand, was imposed on Iran later by looters. Everything had to be returned to the original, and the Persian language and Aryan civilization had to be popularized in these lands again. These and similar ideas were among the topics that were constantly covered by Iranian nationalists in magazines such as "Ayendeh", "Iranshahr", "Kaveh" and "Name-i Ferengistan". This study, which was written by the faculty members of Tabriz University under the responsible authorship of Nasır Sıdkî, deals with the approaches of Iranian nationalist intellectuals to issues such as Turks, Turkishness and the Turkish language in Azerbaijan, and also reveals the reasons for their approach. Accordingly, the activities of the Ottomans in the region and the establishment of the Azerbaijan Republic led Iranian nationalists to have a sensitive approach towards Iranian Azerbaijan.