Nationalism in history of the South Caucasus

Kirill Popov, exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza

The presentation of the wide-scale history research devoted to tragic events in Azerbaijan's Shemakha and the surroudning area in March-April 1918. The work by Solmaz Ali kyzy Rustamova-Togidi became her historic contribution to knowledge of the whole problem of a nation and nationalism.

The destruction of the united power center in the Russian Empire in 1917 left provinces to sink or swim. As a result, a struggle between forces which represented two urgent problems of tsarist Russia, social and ethnic problems, began. I mean revolutionary and Marxist groups, on the one hand, and movements for an ethnic autonomy, on the other hand. Socialist and nationalist ideologies mingled and mixed, giving birth to unnatural political coalitions. Was it a unique phenomenon? Can we compare it with socialists in Austria-Hungary where two parties (Austrian and Hungarian) threatened to split into smaller parties, according to ethnic belonging? Or with the Czech party of national socialists by Vazlav Klofach?

The parallels seem to be obvious. Peculiarities of the events happened on debris of the Russian Empire, precisely in the South Caucasus, make us think about deep reasons for variety of expressions of one and the same process. However, it is impossible to analyze this without certain scientific works and historic sources. And Rustamova-Togidi’s work lays the foundation stone of future studies.

Not only the book presented in Moscow, but also all works by Rustamova-Togidi on the Armenian-Azerbaijani clashes in 1918 play several roles. First of all, they tells a reader about previously unknown materials; secondly, they present data of the sources in the historic context; thirdly, they contain an analysis of the described events. We hope that further studies of the topic will contribute to withdrawal of the ethnic issue from the sphere of political populism and taking it to the sphere of rational analysis.