Azerbaijan in Russian media (1988 – 2000)

One of the Andrei Sakharov ‘Peace, progress, human rights’ Foundation’s publications – ‘Azerbaijan and Russia’, published in 2001 http://www.sakharov-center.ru/publications/azrus/az_sod.htm – contains an article by Azer Mursaliyev headlined ‘Azerbaijan in the Russian media (1988 – 2000)’. This work combines, as the author himself points out, academic analysis and personal observations on the development of Russia’s media policy towards Azerbaijan in general and towards the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, that started in February 1988, in particular.
The article contains a number of sections. The first one is entitled “Censored by CPSU: February 1988 – Autumn 1989”. The Russian media of this period was characterized by two types of publications: non-analytical descriptions of events by journalists from all conflict sides – Baku, Yerevan and Stepanokert – and the so-called ‘authorial addresses’ – emotional articles by Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian members of the intellectual elite that gained access to the papers’ mouthpiece during Perestroika.

The second section ‘Under the Banner of Islam: Autumn 1989 – Autumn 1991’ tells about the first publications in the independent democratic media. The general spirit of the time required them to support the right to the “self-determination” of the Karabakh people. This period is also characterized by increased and inadequate attention paid towards the confessional belonging of the parties involved in the conflict: the separatist Armenians were presented as ‘civilized’ brotherly Christians who have to defend themselves from Islamic ‘barbarians’. Ironically, a similar situation in Chechnya was later described by the same people in quite the opposite manner.

The third chapter of the article is called ‘Conservative Coup: Late 1991 – Summer 1992’. The author demonstrates how, despite all good intentions, the Russian media in general continued to depict Azerbaijan in a somewhat negative light. After the coup by the State Committee on the State of Emergency failed, the press again turned its ‘democratic sympathies’ towards Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh separatists.
The next chapter, ‘At Home among Strangers: May 1992 – Autumn 1993’, describes an interesting paradox: a number of rival political powers were competing for influence in the Russian Federation, but none of them were sympathetic to the newly-formed democratic government of Azerbaijan.
The closing chapter, ‘Foreign state: 1994 – Present Day [i.e. 2000]’ describes the period when Russian officials finally understood that the newly-formed CIS states are actually independent sovereign foreign states. The ‘Contract of the Century’, signed in 1994 by the Azerbaijani government and the world’s most powerful oil corporations, changed the focus of the Russian media as far as Azerbaijan was concerned: from now on Caspian oil and not Nagorno-Karabakh was making the headlines. The attitude towards the conflicting sides became more balanced and adequate.

See article by Azer Mursaliyev http://www.sakharov-center.ru/publications/azrus/az_016.htm