Yefim Pivovar book on Russian-Azerbaijani relations

Yesterday the chairman of the Russian-Azerbaijani Friendship Society, RSUH president Yefim Pivovar presented his new book “Russian-Azerbaijani relations of the end of the 20th to the early 21st centuries.”

“On the one hand, this book is definitely a book dedicated to a concrete topic, which is an integral part of modern history: Russian-Azerbaijani relations of the end of the 20th to the early 21st centuries. The relations are 20 years old, on April 4th 1992 our countries signed a treaty on establishing diplomatic relations, and by April 4th of this year my book has already been published,” Pivovar reminded. “We are sometimes unaware of the magnitude of the political processes that took place in the last decades and how much they influenced the contemporary political developments which are taking place today, how drastically the membership of the international politics has changed. The agenda of each state has also changed, no matter if this is a big, influential state, such as the US, France, GB or the Russian Federation that appeared in a new quality on the global stage 20 years ago, or a small country that has never been an independent state before or has been an independent state for centuries, but then became a part of a greater empire, and then – of another state, and participated in global politics only in this quality. Azerbaijan is such a state: it was independent, and then participated in global politics as a part of bigger empires. I’m not talking about the contribution of a certain ethnos or a civilization to the world’s culture; I’m talking only about states. This major change created a whole series of new processes in international relations; it made the very notion of ‘multi-vectored politics’ sound in a new manner, and those states who implemented this principle became successful, no matter their economic or geopolitical potential, their neighbors and partners. At the same time, ‘multi-vectored politics’ is being challenged by the interference of non-regional players in local politics, players who have certain economic or geopolitical interests in these regions.

The problem we are addressing now – Russian-Azeri relations of the last 20 years – seems to be absolutely concrete, yet it exceeds the limits of bilateral relations. It also exceeds the limits of the topic of modern international relations, as it allows us to re-evaluate many of the ongoing processes. It is a very interesting topic for inter-disciplinary research, as it may interest historians, political and international relations experts, lawyers, etc. But at the same time it is a topic of relations between two countries, of our political and economic contacts, cultural cooperation, of the delimitation of a common border, etc. It also has an economic aspect, trade and social relations, as both states have big diasporas of their respective natives living in each of them (even though the Azerbaijani diaspora in Russia is bigger than the Russian one in Azerbaijan). So it is also personal history, a history of families, socio-cultural ties, education in the respective states, professional orientation, etc. – all these aspects form our relations.”

Andrei Khazin, public figure, High School of Economics professor, stated at the book’s presentation: “The experience of studying the 20-year-long history of Russian-Azerbaijani relations presented in this book is very interesting, as it is described by a contemporary. We all had to live through a stormy epoch and there were far too many important events in this period. Two states that used to form a single whole for two centuries have managed to find a way to establish good-neighborly relations after the disintegration. It is great and it is an interesting topic for research. This book envelopes a very wide range of topics, yet it is scholarly. Apart from the very serious research of serious analysis of the history of the Azerbaijani diaspora in Russia, the author attributes a great deal of attention to the life of the Russian diaspora in Azerbaijan, to their political and social activity. And it is practically the first research in this area, and I think it is a great contribution to our bilateral ties. It is very important.”

Alexei Vlasov, “VK’s” chief editor, said that “the author of this monograph was at the roots of the research-trend promoted in many of our universities. Of course, there are a lot of studies into modern Central Asian or Ukrainian history, but the research of Azerbaijan and Russian-Azerbaijani relations is the most successful. We are witnessing the birth of a whole scientific school of Azerbaijani studies, headed by Yefim Pivovar. This school has a solid basis: there are a lot of theses defended, a lot of graduate students interested in the topics of Russian-Azeri relations and Caspian issues (which is also touched in this book). So we think that this publication opens a whole new era of our research, when we finally have an opportunity to address narrower topics, such as the Karabakh conflict, economic relations between Russia and Azerbaijan, the study of the respective diasporas. So it is a big step for all of us who followed Pivovar's lead in RHUS and in MSU.”

Commenting on relevance of his work, Yefim Pivovar stated: “I address this problematically, so I was interested in collecting materials to help my research. We are very active in our Azerbaijan studies; we have a lot of projects. When I became the head of the Russian-Azerbaijani Friendship society I saw it as my duty to write such a work, as it is my profession and I couldn’t have contributed to our friendship otherwise. So I decided to create such a work and I can tell you it was rather easy. We don’t have archives in the usual sense of the word, but my Azerbaijani colleagues helped me and granted access to some important documents of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry. It also helped me that I found a publication of Russian-Azeri diplomatic documents that was made 10 years ago. It also helped that dozens of dissertations were written on various aspects of our relations, on their legal, economic and social aspects, etc. I would like to thank my colleague Chernyavsky for his book, and Izmozhdeniv for his dissertation that is made on the same topic but envelops only the period till 2000. It all gave me a solid foundation for my work. I had no model, and it was very interesting to create one which could be later used in researching other post-Soviet countries' history. Of course, we actively work in the field, for example, our media agency Vestnik Kavkaza which is present here today. We plan to send our students to Baku in May. They study design, so they will make sketches, paintings and photographs there; they will have workshops, etc. I hope it will be a fine example of our two countries cooperation. We are also preparing for our forums, whether they take place in Astrakhan, Baku or Dagestan, it is an important aspect of our cooperation, and I hope it will develop further. So I hope my book will have to have more than one edition.”