[lg policy] Nation-Building and Language Policy in post-Soviet Azerbaijan

Tue Oct 12 13:24:10 UTC 2010

ADA Biweekly :: Vol. III, No. 19 (October 1, 2010)
Nation-Building and Language Policy in post-Soviet Azerbaijan

Kyle L. Marquardt
PhD Student, Political Science
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Note: A more detailed article on this topic will be published in a
forthcoming issue of Central Asian Survey

Social-scientific literature has long accepted the fact that a
national language can play an essential role in nation-building (for
examples, see Fishman 1968, Anderson 2006).  This role can be positive
in terms of state-building: revitalizing a formerly oppressed national
language can help a state find a new, independent identity.  However,
the role can also be divisive: a state can come into conflict with
local minorities by attempting linguistic rationalization—that is,
unifying the state under one language (Laitin 1988).

In Azerbaijan, language could have potentially played either role.  On
one hand, Azerbaijan was—and remains—largely ethnically Azerbaijani
(90.6 percent in 1999, according to The World Factbook) and its
titular population evinced a relatively high degree of Azerbaijani
linguistic knowledge. [1] Such a situation would appear ideal for
linguistic revitalization and unification of the state under
Azerbaijani.  On the other hand, Azerbaijan’s urban centers had
significant Russophone populations (Fierman 2009) and moreover its
post-Soviet history was marred by ethnic conflict: aside from the
Karabakh conflict, members of both the Lazgi and Talysh populations of
Azerbaijan had engaged in secessionist activities. [2] As a result,
attempts to use ethnic Azerbaijanis’ demographic dominance to force
the Azerbaijani language on the entire population could have led to
greater unrest.

On the whole, the policy adopted by Azerbaijan’s government mainly has
avoided potential problems by emphasizing the symbolic aspects of
language, not mandating changes in linguistic behavior: while the
government framed the Azerbaijani language as a symbol of the
independent Azerbaijani state and nation, it also made significant
allowances to speakers of other languages.  In practice, such a policy
has meant that while usage of the Azerbaijani language was certainly
encouraged, this encouragement has not been overtly coercive.  Indeed,
the government has taken great pains to portray itself as a supporter
of Azerbaijan’s ethnic communities.  At the same time, the demographic
dominance of Azerbaijanis in Azerbaijan has meant that more extreme
language policies were unnecessary: even without greater pressure from
the government, Azerbaijani has gradually become essential for most
citizens of Azerbaijan de facto if not de jure.

 To understand how this situation developed, it is necessary to
describe the years immediately following Azerbaijan’s independence,
all of which occurred in the context of the chaos surrounding the
Karabakh war.  In 1992, Abulfaz Elchibay, the leader of the
Azerbaijani Popular Front (APF), became president of Azerbaijan.  In
terms of language policy, the tone of the Elchibay government was both
nationalistic and pan-Turkic. [3] Most controversially, the government
officially designated the Azerbaijani language as simply being
“Turkish.” [4] Many Azerbaijani citizens perceived such a pro-Turkish
stance as impinging on Azerbaijan’s national uniqueness, and the
resulting widespread disapproval resulted in the government backing
down from its initial stance, renaming Azerbaijani “Azerbaijani
Turkish.”

In addition to unease surrounding the APF government’s policy toward
Azerbaijani, the APF’s nationalist tone may have influenced the
development of minority separatist movements in both northern and
southern Azerbaijan.  In southern Azerbaijan, Talysh military officers
attempted to create an independent Talysh state (Matveeva 2002);
though this act garnered little popular support, concerns about Talysh
separatism remained.  Meanwhile, members of the Lazgi minority formed
the organization “Sadval,” which was committed to the unification of
predominantly Lazgi territories in Azerbaijan and Russia (Matveeva and
Mccartney 1998).  All the while, the emigration of ethnic Russians and
other minorities continued (Zayonchkovskaya 2002).

Whether or not these difficulties were actually a result of the APF
government’s nationalist and pan-Turkic policies or merely a function
of the chaos produced by the Karabakh war is difficult to determine.
Former members of the APF steadfastly claim that their policies were
intended to promote the revitalization of all local cultures in
Azerbaijan.  In contrast, the government of Heydar Aliyev (1993-2003),
which succeeded that of the APF, portrayed the APS’s political
positions as having exacerbated ethnic instability in the country.

In any event, it is clear that Aliyev’s government reached out to
Russophones a great deal more than the APF, with Aliyev himself
commenting often on the importance of the Russian language to the
Azerbaijani people (Landau and Kellner-Heinkele 2001, p. 179).
Aliyev’s government also made overtures to speakers of other language
in Azerbaijan, instituting provisions for the protection of minority
languages in Azerbaijan.  For example, Article 21.2 of the 1995
Azerbaijani Constitution states that the state “ensures the free use
and development of other languages spoken by the people” of
Azerbaijan.  Though such measures were mainly symbolic, they signified
a tonal shift from that of the APF.

Aliyev was able to avoid accusations that such policies were overly
pro-Russian and/or insufficiently nationalist because he also worked
to outflank the APF on the nationalist front: Aliyev framed his
policies as a remedy not just for the ethnic divisiveness of the APF’s
time in power, but also its pan-Turkic leanings.  For example, under
Aliyev, “Azerbaijani Turkish” became “Azerbaijani” (Garibova and
Asgarova 2009, p. 195), signaling an emphasis on the language’s
distance from Turkish. [5] Additionally, Aliyev took the step of
enshrining Azerbaijani as Azerbaijan’s state language in the country’s
1995 constitution.  This maneuver was especially politically
beneficial in that it allowed him to highlight his Soviet-era support
of the Azerbaijani language: the 1978 Constitution of the Azerbaijan
Soviet Socialist Republic, written while Aliyev was First Secretary of
the Central Committee of the Azerbaijan Communist Party, also had
enshrined the Azerbaijani language as an official language of the
republic.

Finally, Aliyev was even able to co-opt a long-planned script change
from Cyrillic to Latin by having his government actually mandate the
change in 2001. [6] Consistent with the government’s overall policies,
propaganda accompanying the script change emphasized Azerbaijan’s
uniqueness: instead of emphasizing the language’s common letters with
Turkish, unique letters such as the schwa (“Ə”) are the focus.

All of these acts of symbolic nationalism served to insulate Aliyev
from criticism as he pursued a less superficially nationalist course
than his predecessors (and that which was desired by his opponents).
Aliyev’s successor as president of Azerbaijan, his son Ilham Aliyev
(2003-present) has largely continued such policies.  Insofar as the
Russian language is concerned, with the exception of recent
restrictions on foreign Russian-language broadcasting in Azerbaijan,
Russian-language media has encountered little government interference,
and government officials often boast that they have not closed down a
single Russian-language school.  However, the importance of Russian in
Azerbaijan has unquestionably diminished.  Almost all domestic
government affairs are conducted in Azerbaijani, and demand for
Russian-language education has decreased (while interest in other
foreign languages, especially English, has increased) (Garibova and
Asgarova 2009, p. 206).

Consequently, it is unsurprising that no government official whom I
interviewed during field research in 2005-2006 considered Russian to
be a threat to the development and spread of the Azerbaijani language.
 Instead, they emphasized the positive aspects of the Russian
language’s continued role in Azerbaijani society, arguing that the
Russian language will have continued value given the Russian
Federation’s proximity and its long-standing economic and political
ties to Azerbaijan.  Even opposition leaders with whom I spoke
believed that the government should not drastically change its
position toward Russian; their main criticism was that the
government’s ties to Russia were slowing the transition to English.

In terms of the other languages spoken in Azerbaijan, the government’s
position was best stated in an essay by the former State Counsellor of
the National Politics of the Azerbaijan Republic, Hidayat Orudzhev,
wherein he comments that “the preservation of its unique historical
wealth [is] a top priority of the life of the Azerbaijani
multinational society, which constitutes the diverse and rich tapestry
of the country’s centuries-long heritage.”  Azerbaijan is thus able to
show “the whole world its attitude toward its national minorities, and
they [the minorities] in turn can demonstrate to the world community
their true status in a democratic state, which keeps a constant and
careful watch on them” (2003, p. 141).  Protection of national
minorities is thus portrayed as a means by which Azerbaijan proves its
burgeoning democracy to the world, as well as a moral necessity.

Furthermore, Orudzhev confronts past minority-related problems in
Azerbaijan, arguing that national minorities pose little threat to
Azerbaijan’s security: after acknowledging that there have been
“attempts” to instigate separatist movements within Azerbaijan by
unspecified outside actors, “to the credit of national minorities in
our republic they understood on time the threat they were creating
primarily to themselves by such behaviour” (2003, p. 142).  Separatism
thus is framed as an issue that lies in Azerbaijan’s past; minorities
are therefore deserving of the state’s protection.  In fact, the
Azerbaijani government does provide funding for the development of
minority-language textbooks and media, as well as rent-free usage of
government facilities for cultural activities; it also allows for
education in various local languages.

At the same time, Azerbaijani politicians whom I interviewed also
largely consider it self-evident that success in Azerbaijan requires
proficiency in the Azerbaijani language; learning Azerbaijani must
therefore be a top priority for minorities.  The resulting tension has
meant that the continued existence of many minority languages in
Azerbaijan remains an open question: while some minorities appear to
be maintaining their level of linguistic knowledge (such as the Udin,
the Mountain Jews and the Avars), other ethnic groups appear to be
losing ground to linguistic assimilation (Clifton et al. 2005a,
Clifton et al. 2005b, Clifton et al. 2005c, Clifton 2009a, Clifton
2009b).  Azerbaijani officials with whom I spoke were aware of these
concerns, but noted that although they could encourage individuals to
speak “their” language, the final choice to actually do so remains up
to the individual.

In any event, the end results appear to be largely positive, at least
in terms of unifying the state peacefully.  After the Nagorno-Karabakh
war there has been minimal ethnic conflict in Azerbaijan, and
minorities are perceived to be learning the state language.

The final aspect of Azerbaijan’s language policy vis-a-vis language
policy that remains for discussion is the government’s policy toward
the Azerbaijani language itself.  In this regard, the government’s
approach has been largely hands-off: it has shown little inclination
for removing Russian words from the language or mandating corpus
reform in general, arguing instead that necessary changes will occur
naturally.  Indeed, New Azerbaijan Party Deputy Executive Chairman
Mubariz Gurbanly told me explicitly that any program regarding
language development should not be performed in a “primitive” manner
(e.g. purification). [7]

Such an approach is consistent with the rest of Azerbaijan’s language
policy: the government has largely avoided inserting itself into
matters of everyday language use.  The glaring exception to this
rule—adoption of the Latin script—was itself almost entirely
superficial and symbolic, designed to show a clear break with the
Soviet past.  Such a symbolic policy has allowed the Azerbaijani
government to portray itself as being a supporter of both Azerbaijani
nationalism and the minority languages of Azerbaijan, while ethnic
Azerbaijani’s demographic dominance has ensured a gradual shift toward
the national language.  As a result, Azerbaijan has avoided conflicts
while beginning the process of unifying the state under the
Azerbaijani language.

References

Altstadt, Audrey L. (1997) "Azerbaijan's Struggle Toward Democracy",
in Dawisha, K. & B. Parrott, eds. (1997) Conflict, Cleavage, and
Change in Central Asia and the Caucasus, New York: Cambridge
University Press.

Anderson, Benedict (2006) Imagined Communities, New York: Verso.

Clifton, John (2009a) "Do the Talysh and Tat Languages Have a Future
in Azerbaijan?" Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics,
University of North Dakota.

Clifton, John (2009b) "The Future of the Shahdagh Languages",
International Journal of the Sociology of Language, Vol. 2009, Issue
198, July, pp. 33-45.

Clifton, John, Deborah Clifton, Peter Kirk, & Roar Ljøkjell (2005a)
"The Sociolinguistic Situation of the Udi in Azerbaijan", SIL
Electronic Survey Reports, available at
http://www.sil.org/silesr/2005/silesr2005-014.pdf (accessed 10
September 2010).

Clifton, John, Laura Lucht, Gabriela Deckinga, Janfer Mak, & Calvin
Tiessen (2005b) "The Sociolinguistic Situation of the L[a]zgi in
Azerbaijan", SIL Electronic Survey Reports, available at
http://www.sil.org/silesr/2005/silesr2005-012.pdf (accessed 10
September 2010).

Clifton, John, Janfer Mak, Gabriela Deckinga, Laura Lucht, & Calvin
Tiessen (2005c) "The Sociolinguistic Situation of the Avar in
Azerbaijan", SIL Electronic Survey Reports, available at
http://www.sil.org/silesr/2005/silesr2005-015.pdf (accessed 10
September 2010).

Fierman, William (2009) "Language Vitality and Paths to Revival:
Contrasting Cases of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan", International Journal
of the Sociology of Language, Vol. 2009, Issue 198, July, pp. 75-104.

Fishman, Joshua (1968) "Nationality-Nationalism and Nation-Nationism",
in Fishman, J., C. Ferguson & J. Gupta, eds. (1968) Language Problems
of Developing Nations, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Garibova, Jala (2009) "Language Policy in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan:
Political Aspects", International Journal of the Sociology of
Language, Vol. 2009, Issue 198, July, pp. 7-32.

Garibova, Jala & Asgarova, Matanat (2009) "Language Policy and
Legislation in post-Soviet Azerbaijan", Language Problems & Language
Planning, Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 191-217.

Hatcher, Lynley (2008) "Script Change in Azerbaijan: Acts of
Identity", International Journal of the Sociology of Language, Vol.
2008, Issue 192, July, pp. 105-116.

Hunter, Shireen (1994) "Azerbaijan: Search for Identity and
Independence", in Hunter, Sh., ed. (1994) The Transcaucasus in
Transition, Washington, D.C.: The Center for Strategic & International
Studies.

Laitin, David (1988) "Language Games", Comparative Politics, Vol. 20,
pp. 289-302.

Landau, Jacob & Barbara Kellner-Heinkele (2001) Politics of Language
in the Ex-Soviet Muslim States, London: Hurst and Company.

Matveeva, Anna (2002) The South Caucasus: Nationalism, Conflict and
Minorities, Minority Rights Group International.

Matveeva, Anna & Clem Mccartney (1998) "Policy Responses to an Ethnic
Community Division: Lezgins in Azerbaijan", International Journal on
Minority and Group Rights, Vol. 5, pp. 213-252.

Orudzhev, Hidayat (2003) "Azerbaijan's National Minorities Today",
Central Asia and the Caucasus, Vol. 4, pp. 139-144.

The World Factbook (2009) The World Factbook, Central Intelligence
Agency, available at
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/aj.html,
accessed 10 September 2010.

Zayonchkovskaya, Zhanna (2002) "Recent Migration Trends in the
Commonwealth of Independent States", International Social Science
Journal, Vol. 52, pp. 343-355.

Notes

[1] For a detailed account of the relative status of the Azerbaijani
language in the years preceding the disintegration of the Soviet
Union, as well as the importance of demographics in determining
sociolinguistic outcomes, see Fierman (2009).

[2] Neither the Talysh nor the Lazgi language is related to
Azerbaijani.  The Lazgi population of Azerbaijan is predominantly
located along the Russian border, whereas the Talysh population is
mainly located along the Azerbaijan-Iran border.

[3] My account of the APF’s language policy and the popular reaction
is largely based on those contained in Hunter (1994), Altstadt (1997)
and Landau and Kellner-Heinkele (2001, p. 69).

[4] For a description of the controversy regarding the correct name
for the Azerbaijani language, see Hunter (1994), Garibova (2009, p.
16) and Garibova and Asgarova (2009, p. 194).

[5] It should be noted that the Aliyev government did not deny the
language’s close relation to Turkish, and has in fact shown
willingness to strategically deploy pan-Turkic rhetoric in support of
some policy objectives.

[6] For a more detailed analysis of the script change, see Hatcher (2008).

[7] Interview with the author, Baku, Azerbaijan, February 2006.

http://ada.edu.az/biweekly/issues/vol3no19/20101010010545114.html

http://ada.edu.az/bwprint.php?item_id=20101010010545114&sec_id=367

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