The Rise of Red Kurdistan

Abstract

Current literature on twentieth century Kurdish history overwhelmingly covers Kurdish populations and national movements within the borders of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. This article, hoin Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan,ever, focuses on Soviet Kurdistan and Kurdish policy in Azerbaijan between 1920 and 1937 through the broader question of national minorities within the republic. It is claimed here that the Soviet policy on Azerbaijani Kurds was part of a multilayered issue. First of vnall, the Kurds of Azerbaijan were semi-nomadic mountain dwellers transformed by the modernization policies implemented in Soviet territories. Azerbaijani Kurds were a national identity within the Soviet Union and thus subject to ethnophilic All-Union policies in those years. Finally, Kurds were one of the numerous national minorities in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan who were exposed to the national minority policies executed within the republic by the administration in Baku. The national minority policy in Azerbaijan was often contested and limited by local conditions and obstacles. Therefore, the granting of cultural rights in the 1920s to national minorities, which included the Kurds of Azerbaijan, the promotion of these rights in the 1920s and 1930s, and opposition to these policies can only be examined with regard to these three layers.

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The Rise of Red Kurdistan
Harun Yilmaz
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Harun Yilmaz
The Rise of Red Kurdistan
Current literature on twentieth century Kurdish history overwhelmingly covers Kurdish
populations and national movements within the borders of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.
This article, hoin Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan,ever, focuses on Soviet Kurdistan
and Kurdish policy in Azerbaijan between 1920 and 1937 through the broader
question of national minorities within the republic. It is claimed here that the Soviet
policy on Azerbaijani Kurds was part of a multilayered issue. First of vnall, the Kurds
of Azerbaijan were semi-nomadic mountain dwellers transformed by the
modernization policies implemented in Soviet territories. Azerbaijani Kurds were a
national identity within the Soviet Union and thus subject to ethnophilic All-Union
policies in those years. Finally, Kurds were one of the numerous national minorities in
the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan who were exposed to the national minority
policies executed within the republic by the administration in Baku. The national
minority policy in Azerbaijan was often contested and limited by local conditions and
obstacles. Therefore, the granting of cultural rights in the 1920s to national minorities,
which included the Kurds of Azerbaijan, the promotion of these rights in the 1920s
and 1930s, and opposition to these policies can only be examined with regard to these
three layers.
Introduction
Current literature does not give a clear presentation of the situation between titular
nationality and national minorities, including the Kurds in Azerbaijan, who were
one of the numerous minorities in the republic.
1
According to Bennigsen and Lemer-
cier-Quelquejay, for instance, there was already an assimilation policy in Azerbaijan
and this policy aimed at the unification of all nationalities under a single Azerbaijani
identity starting in the 1920s. They argue that, in 1926, the national minorities were
deprived of their national languages and absorbed into the Azerbaijani nation.
2
Harun Yilmaz holds a MSc. and D.Phil from the University of Oxford. He was a post-doctoral
research fellow at Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute in 2012 and is currently the British Academy
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Queen Mary University of London. I am profoundly grateful to
Sevgi Yilmaz and Yasar Yilmaz for their constant support. I would like to present this work to them.
1
D. Muller, “The Kurds of Soviet Azerbaijan, 1920–91,”Central Asian Survey 19, no. 1 (2000): 41–7.
2
Alexandre Bennigsen and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, Islam in the Soviet Union (London, 1967),
130.
Iranian Studies, 2014
Vol. 47, No. 5, 799–822, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00210862.2014.934153
© 2014 The International Society for Iranian Studies
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Stephen Blank also repeats these claims by referring to Bennigsen and Lemercier-
Quelquejay.
3
Considering the developments in Ukraine and in the European part
of the USSR, it has been suggested that the nationalities policy on national minorities
in each republic of the Soviet Union was altered after 1932.
4
In fact, these claims are
far from the reality of the 1920s and 1930s in Azerbaijan as they are merely extrapol-
ations of the reality in Russia proper and the western territories (such as Ukraine after
1932) to the rest of the Union. As this article demonstrates, the reality on the ground
was far more complex than the Azerbaijani Turkic nationalists’termination of min-
ority rights as early as the 1920s. This complexity is illustrated by the following situ-
ation. Between 1923 and 1930, the Kurds of Azerbaijan were the only minority
(except Armenians) that had an administrative territorial division bearing their
name. The period when the Kurdish population experienced the benefits of the
national minority policies, however, was the years from 1931 to 1936.
The aim of this article is to understand this complexity through both the broader
Soviet nationalities policy and developmentalist goals and factors on the republican
level. At the All-Union level Soviet nationalities policy promoted titular identities
of each republic, including the titular identity of Azerbaijan, providing it with a mod-
ernization program that focused on education. Soviet republics did not have hom-
ogenous populations and included various national minorities. The promotion of
titular national identity did not mean an assimilation of these minorities. On the con-
trary, until 1937, the Soviet central administration did its best to avoid the assimila-
tion of national minorities within each republic by the titular nationalities.
The Azerbaijani Soviet administration and the Azerbaijan Communist Party (Bol-
sheviks) (AKP(b)) aimed at the rapid modernization of this underdeveloped corner
of the Union. This modernization attempt included transforming illiterate peasants,
who made up nearly 90 percent of the population, into literate citizens. Education
and literacy campaigns were not only about the Turkic majority of the republic but tar-
geted minorities like the Kurds. Moreover, the national minorities policy aimed to
provide a utopic target of primary school education in minority languages. The
Kurds of Azerbaijan were one of the numerous national and ethnic minorities within
Soviet Azerbaijan who were supposed to benefit from this policy. The administration
in Azerbaijan, in addition to these literacy and education campaigns for modernization,
had political reasons for supporting the cultural rights of national minorities. By sup-
porting the national minorities, they wanted to keep the titular (Turkic) nationalism
under control and prevent any enmity between the Turkic majority and the various
minorities of the republic. In the 1920s, the Soviet regime considered Azerbaijan a
model of modernization and development that could be presented to the peoples of
Iran and Turkey. The administration saw the fact that the main body of the Kurdish
population lived in Turkey, Iran, and Iraq as an opportunity. The policy implemented
3
Stephen Blank, The Sorcerer as Apprentice, Stalin as Commissar of Nationalities, 1917–1924 (West-
port, CT, 1994), 138.
4
T. Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939
(Ithaca, NY, 2001).
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over the Kurdish minority of Azerbaijan could be an example of the socialist national-
ities policy’s superiority for the Middle East, a region dominated by either nation
builders who aimed to assimilate the Kurds or European colonial powers that saw
Kurds a pawn ro be used. Finally, the Soviet Kurds could compare their favored position
with their kin in other countries and this would guarantee their allegiance to the Soviet
state.
On the ground, however, campaigns to educate and spread literacy among the Kurdish
population met with serious obstacles, notably the lack of an alphabet, the extensive Tur-
kification of Kurds before Soviet rule, and the absence of language homogeneity. The
absence of language homogeneity among different Kurdish regions, divided and isolated
by mountainous terrain, is attributed to the fact that the Kurdish people lived across
different countries, spoke different versions of Kurdish, and were exposed to different
levels of Turkification. Perhaps the most important obstacle was the strong resistance
from pro-Turkish and pro-Russian factions in the AKP(b) and the republican apparatus
in Azerbaijan to the All-Union national minorities policy of the Bolshevik regime. This
internal opposition considerably delayed their works. These impediments delayed the
creation of a Kurdish alphabet based on the Latin script and furthermore hindered
the development of primary education in Kurdish and their efforts to replace an oral
nomadic-tribal culture with a sedentary written culture. The Kurdistan Uezd and
Okrug, established in 1920–30, had already been erased from the administrative map
of Azerbaijan.
5
Yet in 1930–31, as a result of the Bolsheviks’strong advocacy, national
minorities policy achieved preliminary and limited success. This period ended in 1937–
38 and is marked by a change in the policies pursued towards the national minorities.
However, this period is beyond the scope of this paper.
Red Kurdistan: A Soviet Administrative District
In Transcaucasia of the 1920s and 1930s, major Kurdish settlements were in Armenia
and Azerbaijan. There were also smaller settlements in Georgia.
6
The Kurds of Azerbai-
jan were predominantly Shi’ite Muslims, while the Kurds of Armenia and Georgia were
Yezidis with a small minority of Sunni Muslims. There has been a Kurdish presence in
the Caucasus since the Shaddadid dynasty in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and the
existence of some Kurdish tribes in Karabakh (or Karabagh) highlands was recorded at
5
Uezd is a Russian term at secondary or district level administrative subdivision within the borders of
Imperial governorates. This subdivision was used by the Russian Empire and in the early years of the
Soviet Union. Okrug is also an administrative term at primary or regional level but denoted a larger ter-
ritory than uezds.
6
Despite current knowledge of the Yezidis’s distinct identity, this group was considered to be part of
the Kurdish population of the Soviet Union during the 1920s. In Armenia, the Yezidi Kurdish popu-
lation was in Leninakan (Gumri) and Echmiadzin Uezds. According to 1924 figures, the Yezidi
Kurdish population numbered 15,000–20,000. Except three villages, all of them were semi-nomadic
and the literacy rate among Yezidi Kurds was 1 percent; “Partrabota sredi ezidov,”Zaria Vostoka, June
25, 1924, 4; “Ezidskaia Derevnia,”Zaria Vostoka,April 8, 1925, 4; “Zak. soveshchanie po rabote sredi
natsmen’shinstv,”Zaria Vostoka, July 2, 1926, 3.
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the end of the sixteenth century. However, nearly all the contemporary Kurdish popu-
lation of Azerbaijan migrated in the nineteenth century from Iran.
7
Their language was
Kurmanji, and they named themselves Kurmanji.
8
Nearly all Kurds of the Soviet Azer-
baijan lived at the western end of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. In terms
of Soviet republican borders, they were located in the east of the Zangazur mountain
range of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (hereafter SSR) and west of the
Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast in Azerbaijan SSR (Figure 1).
From July 1923 until 1929, there was a Kurdistan uezd (administrative div-
ision) or Kurduezd, which included the districts of Kel’bajar, Lachin, Kubatli
and part of Jebrail.
9
The administrative center of this uezd, which was also
Figure 1. Kurdish Population in the South Caucasus before 1937 and the Adminis-
trative Borders of Azerbaijan SSR in 1929–30.
7
A. Bukshpan, Azerbaidzhanskie Kurdy, Lachin, Kel’badzhary, Nakhkrai (Baku, 1932), 57–9; Tat’iana
Aristova, Kurdy zakavkaz’ia: Istoriko-etnograficheskii ocherk (Moscow, 1966), 21, 37–9.
8
Cherkez Bakaev, Iazyk azerbaidzhanskikh kurdov (Moscow, 1965), 6.
9
Bukshpan, Azerbaidzhanskie Kurdy, 10; Bakaev, Iazyk,6.
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called “Red Kurdistan”or “Soviet Kurdistan,”was Lachin. The town of Lachin
was built next to an older village-size settlement Abdallar (or Abdaliar), as a dem-
onstration of Soviet power.
10
Apparently the establishment of the Kurdistan Uezd
was an ambiguous compromise between two different groups within the adminis-
trationinBaku,towhichwewillreturninthefollowingsections.Thepro-
Kurdish group supported the idea of establishing a Kurdish region and aimed
at real autonomy as this was planned for the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Another group, which can be defined as pro-Turkic or centralist, aimed for an
ordinary uezd which would be named Kurdistan simply because it encompassed
nearly all the Kurdish population of Azerbaijan. Both sides had prolonged discus-
sions over establishing Kurdistan Uezd at the Presidium of the Central Executive
Committee of the Azerbaijan SSR (TsIK AzSSR) in October–December 1922.
11
When Kurdistan Uezd was declared on the same day as Nagorno-Karabakh
Autonomous Okrug, it presented a strange picture. Although the uezd had
“Kurdistan”in its name, it was not an autonomous territory based on a national
identity. It did not enjoy the same juridical and practical autonomy of the
Nagorno-Karabakh oblast’in Azerbaijan (both founded on the same day). The
uezd did not bear an ethnic name of Kurdish (Russian: Kurdskii), it had a geo-
graphical definition of Kurdistani (Russian: Kurdistanskii)anditwasplaced
among other uezds of Azerbaijan, without having a special rank. This ambiguous
situation was a result of differences within the Azerbaijani administration. The
pro-Kurdish group read this as an expression of Kurdish autonomy, which they
desired to achieve just as the Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh had. However, the
pro-Turkic group treated the uezd as an ordinary administrative division with
an unusual name.
In April 1929, the Sixth Azerbaijani Congress of Soviets approved a reform of the
administrative structure, abolishing all uezds, including the Kurdistan uezd. Uezds
were replaced with okrugs, which were bigger administrative units than uezds.
The former territories of Kurdistan uezd were placed within Nagorno-Karabakh
Okrug. The abolition of the Kurdistan Uezd was part of an All-Union policy of
the dissolution of all uezds in the Soviet Union. However, in May 1930 Kurdistan
Okrug was carved out of Nagorno-Karabakh Okrug by the decision of the TsIK
AzSSR.
12
Kel’bajar, Katurl’in, Lachin, Kubatli, Zangelan districts and part of
Jebrail district constituted this new okrug. The center of Kurdistan Okrug was
again Lachin. Zangelan district, which was not part of the previous Kurdistan
Uezd, was added to Kurdistan Okrug; thus the territories of the latter extended
to the Soviet–Iranian border.
13
The Kurdistan Okrug did not exist for more than a few months because the
Council of People’s Commissars and the Central Executive Committee of the
10
“Iz poezdki v Kurdistan,”Zaria Vostoka, September 12, 1925, 3.
11
Bukshpan, Azerbaidzhanskie Kurdy,50–51.
12
Muller, “The Kurds,”53.
13
“Obrazovan Kurdistanskii okrug,”Zaria Vostoka, June 2, 1930, 5.
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USSR abolished the okrug system on 23 July 1930 in all territories of the Soviet
Union. Long after the abolition of the uezd and okrug there were still some organiz-
ations named Kurdistan (Sovhoz, newspaper, etc.).
14
Turning Illiterate Peasants into Literate Citizens
The nationality policy in the Soviet Union waspartofSovietmodernizationplans
that aimed to create a literate society. In 1921, the literacy rate in Azerbaijan was
far from satisfactory (7.4 percent of the whole population, 10.4 percent of the male
population and 4.2 percent of the female population).
15
There were pre-revolu-
tionary traditional primary schools for the Turkic population in the Caucasus
but these schools were not secular. TherewerealsoafewRussian-Tatarschools
(Russko-tatarskie shkoly), where courses were conducted in Russian. In these
schools, Turkic was limited to a language course. Although Turkic speakers were
the second biggest group in Transcaucasia, the number and coverage of these
schools was extremely limited.
16
After the collapse of the Russian Empire, the
Republic of Azerbaijan (1918–20) initiated an education reform and Turkification
of the education system, but the republic existed less than two years and economic
conditions were not favorable for large-scale change. Consequently, when the Bol-
sheviks arrived in 1920, proper textbooks or curricula in the Turkic language did
not exist.
The Soviets had a policy of korenizatsiia (nativization or indigenization), which
meant training local technical, academic, managerial and administrative personnel
from indigenous nationalities in each republic. In addition, all correspondence for
administration and production had to be done in the local tongue. The korenizatsiia
campaign announced the numerous aims they shared with the local intelligentsia,
such as combating backwardness and illiteracy, promoting education, and develop-
ing a literary language based on local speech.
17
The Party inspectors prioritized kor-
enizatsiia and periodically reported on the success of the policy. According to these
reports,theTurkicpercentagewithinAzerbaijani personnel was much lower than
Armenians and Georgians in their republics. The lower representation of Turkic
speakers in their own republic was a concern for Party officials, because it could
engender nationalist anger. Azerbaijan had to catch up with the necessary level of
14
Azərbaycan RespublikasıPrezidentinin İşlərİdaresinin Siyasi Partiyalar vəİctimai Hərəkatlar Dövlət
Arxivi [The State Archive of Political Parties and Public Movements of the Executive Office of the Pre-
sident of the Republic of Azerbaijan] (hereafter ARPİİSPİHDA) (fond) 1-(opis) 74-(delo) 408, “Protocol
of Politburo of the AKP(b), no.101,”January 2, 1936. The newspaper Sovetskii Kurdistan (Soviet Kurdi-
stan) continued to be published until 1960. See Cherkez Bakaev, Iazyk azerbaidzhanskikh kurdov
(Moscow, 1965), 7.
15
Azərbaycan RespublikasıDövlət Arxivi [The State Archive of the Republic of Azerbaijan] (hereafter
ARDA) (fond) 57-(opis) 1-(delo) 228-(listi) 2–5, 31 (1921).
16
ARDA 57-1-864-2 (1931). On the Turkic course: Itogi vypolneniia pervogo piatiletnego plana razvi-
tiia narodnogo khoziaistva ZSFSR (Tbilisi, 1934), 185; ARDA 57-1-1294-131, November 1938.
17
L.A. Grenoble, Language Policy in the Soviet Union (Dordrecht, 2003), 124.
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developing national cadres in the party and state, and also a proletariat from the
titular nationality.
18
Extremely low literacy rates in the republic were a major obstacle to achieving the
goals of korenizatsiia. Thus, in the 1920s and 1930s, schools sprang up in all regions of
the republic, some textbooks in the Turkic language were published, and the number
of Turkic students skyrocketed. This was a time when enthusiastic revolutionaries of
various nationalities and hopeful national intellectuals all aimed at a single goal: to
educate their illiterate fellow citizens and develop the republic. The following
figures demonstrate the expansion of the education system and the increase in the
number Turkic students in Azerbaijan.
19
Parallel to these schooling rates, a rapid increase in the literacy rates among the
population of Azerbaijan can also be observed: 1897 (9.2 percent), 1926 (28.2
percent) and 1939 (82.8 percent).
20
According to the data for the end of 1927, the
Turkic language was used in most of the vocational schools that provided special
skills.
21
Increasing the percentage of Turkic students and lecturers in higher education
(Russian: Tiurkizattsia) was supported in Azerbaijan. Accordingly, cadres had to be
Quantity of 1914/15 1919/20 1928/29 1932/33
All students in the schools 72,423 50,962 187,475 426,549
Turkic students 23,238 16,621 104,680 239,795
18
Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial’no-politicheskoi istorii [Russian State Archive of Socio-Politi-
cal History] (hereafter RGASPI) (fond) 558-(opis) 1-(delo) 2195-(listy) 1/6, after October 10, 1920;
RGASPI 17-112-715-23-26/29, 32–6, September 30, 1925; RGASPI 17-69-59-27/55 and RGASPI
17-113-336-109/137, September 16, 1927; RGASPI 17-114-265-36/38, October 15, 1931; RGASPI
17-114-265-236, not later than October 19, 1931; ARDA 57-1-697-1/5, June 23, 1929.
19
Itogi vypolneniia pervogo piatiletnego, 184.
20
These figures cover the 9–49 age range. Itogi vsesoiuznoi perepisi naseleniia 1959 goda, Azerbaidz-
hanskaia SSR (Moscow, 1963), 43.
21
In 1924/25, the ratios of Turkic speakers to all students were: in industrial-technical tekhnikums,
497 students out of 652; in agriculture tekhnikums, 168 students out of 299; in agricultural-industrial
tekhnikums, all students out of 587; in pedagogical tekhnikums, all students out of 1,704 students
were Turkic. In all tekhnikums of Azerbaijan, 3,517 students out of 5,006 were Turkic. In 1925/26,
in industrial-technical tekhnikums, 644 students out of 833; in agriculture tekhnikums 226 out of
485; in agriculture-industrial tekhnikums, 646 students out of 685; in pedagogical tekhnikums, 1796 stu-
dents out of 1998; in pharmaceutical tekhnikum 53 students out of 66 were Turkic. In all tekhnikums of
Azerbaijan, 4,057 students out of 5,979 were Turkic. See ARDA 57-1-456-56 (1926). In 1927, the ratios
of students of tekhnikums at which Turkic was the only language of education to all tekhnikums in Azer-
baijan was: in agricultural tekhnikums, 816 out of 1,625; in industrial-technical tekhnikums, 896 out of
1,126; in medical tekhnikums, 296 out of 575; in pedagogical tekhnikums, 2,178 out of 2,373. However,
we should also underline that in some areas such as socio-economic or art courses, the students in Russian-
only tekhnikums were in the majority. See ARDA 57-1-422-20, December 15, 1927.
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ethno-linguistically Turkic with a good knowledge of the Turkic language, and, enjoy-
ing open support, these members were trained in other parts of the USSR in order to
improve their qualifications.
22
Education of National Minorities of Azerbaijan in their Native Tongues
The education and korenizatsiia campaigns were not limited to the titular nations of
union-republics. The Bolsheviks also aimed to bring up local cadres from national
minorities within each republic and to give these minorities their cultural rights.
The education of minority nationalities in their native tongues was an essential
part of these cultural rights. In 1920, few months after the establishment of Soviet
rule in Azerbaijan, the Commissar of the People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment
of Azerbaijan SSR (hereafter, AzNarkompros) Buniatzade underlined at the First
All-Azerbaijan Congress of Workers of Enlightenment and Culture that the new
Soviet regime wanted to add the language and literature of minority nations into
the education system.
23
When compared with the Russian Imperial period, the recog-
nition of various languages and adding them into school curricula was a dramatic
change. In Azerbaijan, Armenians and Russians were the biggest minorities in terms
of population. However, there were other minorities such as Talish, Tats and
Kurds. In time the number of separate identities increased. In 1932, there were
twenty-eight nationalities or ethnic groups (natsional’nost) in Azerbaijan. This list
of nationalities or ethnic groups (natsional’nost) in Azerbaijan included even those
peoples with population figures of only a few hundred, such as Budukhs and Khyna-
lugs.
24
In the 1920s, the Soviet education policies aimed to introduce minority language
classes in the school curricula. At the same time, they had an even higher goal.
They wanted to raise literacy among national minorities providing primary education
in their native tongues. Soviet policymakers considered this a natural consequence of
recognizing the minorities’cultural rights, something absent in the Russian Empire.
However, they faced a complex situation. The national minorities of Azerbaijan dif-
fered in terms of literacy levels. For example, those nationalities with a higher percen-
tage of literacy included Jews (76.9 percent), Germans (73.3 percent) and Eastern Slavs
(Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians) (62.4 percent). The second group consisted of
medium levels of literacy: Volga Tatars (44.3 percent), Georgians (37.1 percent)
and Armenians (24.5 percent). The third group had the lowest rates: Mountain
22
ARDA 57-1-414-55, 56, 64, April 20, 1927.
23
Kommunist, no. 64, September 30, 1920; no. 66, October 3, 1920; no. 73, October 11, 1920. In the
districts where national minorities lived, the language of education was to be decided according to the
expression of the wishes of the parents of students, and to the daily language that was used in their
homes; see “Resolution of the 3rd session of the 5th convocation of AzTsIK on the general primary edu-
cation, May 29, 1928,”in Sobranie Uzakonenii AzSSR (Baku, 1928), 9: 173.
24
These lists changed in time. For a list produced in 1932 see: ARDA 57-1-1002-71, August 20, 1932.
For changing list of nationalities at the All-Union level: F. Hirsch, Empire of Nations, Ethnographic
Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union (Ithaca, NY, 2005), chapters 3 and 6.
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Jews (15.2 percent) and Turks (8.6 percent).
25
In some cases minority languages (such
as those of Kurds, Tats, Avars, Talish) did not have a written form. Moreover, they
had different dialects, which sometimes prevented a proper conversation among
members of the same ethno-linguistic group from different regions. Specialists and lin-
guists had to be trained for the purpose of creating a homogenous written language
from these different tongues. In each case, a dialect as the written form of the language
had to be chosen; an alphabet and grammar system had to be built; and a terminology
to answer the needs of a modern society and economy had to be created. Then the
whole population had to become literate by receiving primary education in this
written homogenous language. Ideally, they also had to have access to vocational edu-
cation in their own language, in order to be active agents in the development of the
country. However, in some cases, the language of education in this final step was still a
question. Finally, all these steps had to be hastily accomplished parallel to the break-
neck speed of the first and second five-year development and industrialization plans in
1929–37. These were overreaching objectives, especially the creation of a standardized
language for small ethno-linguistic groups that lived in remote areas far from the
dynamics of a modern society and who spoke variations of the same language, most
notably the Kurds.
26
Nevertheless, the Bolsheviks were intent on following this policy and had various
political reasons for pursuing it. Firstly, the Soviet administration was convinced
that creating a literate society was the first step in turning the semi-nomadic
Kurdish peasants into modern citizens. As had occurred in other parts of the republic,
the regional Soviet managers who followed the policy of modernization among the
Kurds of Azerbaijan and Armenia fought against traditional practices such as blood
feuds, kalym (payment for brides), underage marriages, the torture of women and
“active opposition to the emancipation of women.”
27
(Figure 2). Despite the official
policy, the emancipation of Kurdish women and the prevention of polygamy or kid-
napping girls for marriage were distant targets for the women’s organization of the
AKP(b).
28
For the Soviet regime, Kurds were also far from being city dwellers or
factory workers capable of producing a Kurdish proletarian culture. Before the collec-
tivization campaign, nearly all Kurdish tribes led a semi-nomadic life.
29
In the summer
they would move to Zangazur Mountains in Armenian SSR.
30
The authorities defined
25
Here Turk refers to the former Ottoman subjects or Turkic speakers who had vernacular closer to
the Anatolian Turkic than Azerbaijani Turkic language. ARDA 57-1-777-59, March 21, 1929; ARDA
57-1-777-161 (1929).
26
ARPİİSPİHDA 1-14-83-61 (1936). The boundaries between language and dialect are determined by
a number of linguistic and non-linguistic factors. This made the task extremely difficult. Grenoble,
Language Policy, 20.
27
These issues were raised at local party meetings by party officials: A. Shamilev, “Sredi Ezidov,”Zaria
Vostoka, June 14, 1924, 3; for an All-Union report covering eastern republics including Azerbaijan:
RGASPI 78-6-86-71/83, October 15, 1935; RGASPI 17-114-734-91/105, December 11, 1935.
28
“Vse takzhe,”Zaria Vostoka, November 25, 1925, 4; “Sredi rabotnits i krest’ianok bol’she vnimaniia
kurdianke,”Zaria Vostoka, January 6, 1926, 4.
29
Bukshpan, Azerbaidzhanskie Kurdy, 11.
30
“Eilagi: ot nashikh spetsial’nykh korrespondentov,”Zaria Vostoka, August 2, 1925, 5.
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this traditional, rural, tribal and semi-nomadic life as the remnants of feudalism, which
had to be erased from the Soviet Union. That is why, at the Kurdish party meeting in
Armenia, Aleksandr Shakhsuvarian, the secretary of the Central Committee of the
Armenian Communist Party (KP(b)A), declared that, the “Soviet government has
been the gravedigger of Kurdish feudalism.”
31
The first step in solving these problems
was considered to be the pursuit of an intensive literacy and education campaign. This
could be done easier in native languages.
From the internationalist standpoint of the Soviet regime, “nationalist”leaders
(Musavvatists in Azerbaijan, Mensheviks in Georgia and Dashnaks in Armenia)
wanted to build nation-states while keeping their eyes closed to the demands of
national minorities in their republics.
32
The Soviet attempt at giving the ethnic and
national minorities their rights regardless of their minority position was simply
reversing this policy. In other words, the success of the national minorities policy
was seen as a sign of success in the struggle against both Russian and titular
nations’nationalisms. Thereby, the government promoted the Azerbaijani Turkic
Figure 2. Kurdish woman of Milli village
Source: A. Bukshpan, Azerbaidzhanskie Kurdy, Lachin, Kel’badzhary, Nakhkrai (Baku,
1932), 73.
31
“Soveshchanie kurdskogo aktiva,”Zaria Vostoka, April 22, 1926, 3.
32
This is not to say that it was always so. For example, in 1919, the Azerbaijani national government
organized Kurdish cavalry divisions against Armenians and opened a Kurdish department at the military
academy in Baku to train twenty cadets. See Bukshpan, Azerbaidzhanskie Kurdy, 69; Muller, “The
Kurds,”45–6.
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national identity against Russian nationalism and in this way also reinforced the
ethnic identity of the national minorities in Azerbaijan against Turkic nationalism.
It was also expected that providing cultural rights would prevent the enmity of a
national minority against the titular nation of each republic and establish peace
between different identities.
33
For instance, they anticipated eliminating Kurdish antag-
onism against the Azerbaijani Turkic majority by giving the Kurds of Azerbaijan their
cultural rights. The Bolsheviks had to maintain peace in the region in order to
implement their modernist projects and this was a difficult task. Since 1905 repeated
ethno-religious clashes between Turkic-speaking Muslim populations and Armenians
tore apart the entire region and an unbridgeable gulf emerged between different
communities. The Kurds also suffered from this conflict, especially the Yezidis who
were attacked during the Ottoman Army’s march to the east in 1918. In 1919,
Armenian attacks on the Kurdish population in the Republic of Armenia forced the
latter to escape to Iran and Turkey. Many of them settled in the compact settlements
of the Kurdish population in the north of Nakhchivan exclave after leaving Turkey
and Iran in 1926.
34
The bloody memories of the recent past were quite fresh in
people’s minds. For the Bolsheviks, this was the least desirable situation. Indeed,
various Bolshevik leaders emphasized the importance of stability and inter-ethnic
peace in the region.
35
Transcaucasia was in the process of a Bolshevik reconciliation fol-
lowing ethnic cleansing efforts, massacres and deportations in the first two decades of
the twentieth century.
36
Providing cultural rights and primary education for every
single identity was seen as leverage to achieve peace and stability in the region.
Finally, the Party was keener on developing the Kurdish language and culture
because Kurdish ethno-linguistic groups inhabited a region divided among Turkey,
Iran, Iraq and Syria. The Soviet regime treated this as an opportunity to teach the min-
orities’kinfolk in these countries how socialism promoted the culture and language of
minorities as opposed to policies of repression and assimilation. At the same time, the
Soviet regime was still anxious about the possibility of Kurdish tribal uprisings with
British support. In effect, the Soviets had reasons to be worried. In 1925, an uprising
led by the Kurdish religious leader Sheikh Said seriously threatened the Turkish gov-
ernment and this at a time when Turkey and Britain were negotiating the borders
33
RGASPI 17-114-265-237, not later than October 19, 1931; “O rabote sredi natsmen’shinstv (post-
anovlenie ZAKK raikoma VKP(b)),”Zaria Vostoka, July 13, 1926, 3.
34
Bukshpan, Azerbaidzhanskie Kurdy, 67.
35
V.M. Molotov, “Rech’tov. V.M. Molotova na prieme delegatsii trudiashchikhsiia Sovetskoi Armenii,
30 Dekabria 1935 goda,”Pravda, January 6, 1936, 3. L. Beria, the head of the Transcaucasian Soviet
Socialist Federation, always emphasized this brotherhood in his speeches. He underlined that the broth-
erhood of three nations (Azerbaijanis, Armenians and Georgians) was an essential condition for the devel-
opment of the region. See L. Beriia, Pobeda Leninsko-Stalinskoi natsional’noi politiki (Tbilisi, 1936);
L. Beriia, Novaia Konstitutsiia SSR i Zakavkazskaia Federatsiia (Tbilisi, 1936); L. Beriia, Edinaia
sem’ia narodov (Tbilisi, 1937).
36
The enmity between Armenian and Azerbaijani members of the AKP(b) was an impediment.
RGASPI 17-84-75-38/43 (before February 11, 1922); V. Shklovsky and R. Sheldon, “The End of the
Caucasian Front,”Russian Review 27, no. 1 (January 1968), 17–68; A.L. Altstadt, The Azerbaijani
Turks: Power and Identity under Russian Rule (Stanford, CA, 1992), 39–44.
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dividing Turkish regions from the British Mandate of Mesopotamia. Although
Turkish forces managed to suppress the rebellion, the situation diminished
Turkey’s negotiating powers. The British were successful in including the Ottoman
province of Mosul in their mandate. In the Soviet Union, Sheikh Said was considered
to be an agent of imperialism.
37
At a meeting, after pointing out the alleged
cooperation of British imperialists with Armenian nationalists and Kurds abroad,
Aleksandr Shakhsuvarian underlined that, “the Soviet Kurd of Armenia learned a
lot in the past five years [of Soviet rule]. He knows well about the differences
between the nationalities policy of the Soviet rule and the adventurous policy of
imperialism.”
38
In short, it would be better to be loyal to the Soviet regime, which
aimed to provide cultural rights to the Kurds, than being fooled by the adventurous
promises of British agents.
When Azerbaijan was integrated into the Soviet system in 1920, the AzNarkom-
pros became fully responsible for the education of the entire population, including
national minorities.
39
In 1921, the Section of National Minorities in the AzNar-
kompros was founded for all cultural–educational activities among the national min-
orities in the republic.
40
In the districts where national minorities lived, the language
of education was decided according to the preferences of parents, and to the daily
language that was used in their homes.
41
However, the pace of executing such a
policy was too slow. In September 1925, the Section of National Minorities was
reorganized into the Council of National Minorities (SNM) within the same Com-
missariat. This Council was founded to coordinate activities in the sphere of edu-
cation in minority languages.
42
The SNM worked with the State Publishing
House of Azerbaijan (AzGIZ) to publish and distribute textbooks in minority
languages.
43
From the beginning, the case of national minorities having a regional or union
republic was relatively better, because textbooks in their native languages were
printed there. The SNM of Azerbaijan had contacts with the SNMs in Armenia,
Georgia, North Caucasus, Crimea, Tataristan, Uzbekistan and central SNM in
Moscow in order to receive necessary publications in minority languages of Azerbai-
jan.
44
This aim was obvious in the Armenian, Georgian and Russian cases. They were
in constant correspondence with their comrades in Tbilisi, Erevan and Moscow, visit-
ing them in order to provide textbooks in native languages and recruit teachers who
37
Bukshpan, Azerbaidzhanskie Kurdy, 91.
38
“Soveshchanie kurdskogo aktiva,”Zaria Vostoka, April 22, 1926, 3.
39
In 1920, the People’s Commissariat of Nationalities (Narkomnats) in Moscow had already lost its
role in educational activities. Grenoble, Language Policy, 38.
40
ARDA 57-1-222-2 (1921).
41
Resolution of the 3rd session of the 5th convocation of AzTsIK on the general primary education,
May 29, 1928, Sobranie Uzakonenii AzSSR (Baku, 1928), 9:173.
42
Biulleten’ofitsial’nykh rasporiazdenii i soobshenii Narkomprosa Azerbaidzdanskoi SSR (Baku, 1926),
1:8, March 6, 1926; ARDA 57-1-453-196, March 15, 1927.
43
ARDA 57-1-452-6, 20, 20ob, December 8, 1927.
44
ARDA 57-1-453-197, March 15, 1927.
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could conduct courses in these languages.
45
In the Armenian case, for instance, the aim
was to send books in Turkic to the Turkic population in the Armenian SSR, and
receive textbooks in Armenian for the Armenian minority in Azerbaijan.
46
They pub-
lished books in the Tat language in 1926–27 for the Mountain Jews and ordered
books from Uzbekistan for the Persian schools. Textbooks in German and Volga
Tatar came from German and Tatar republics within the Russian Federation.
47
The North Caucasian Kraikom in Rostov was the center for providing educational
and cultural materials in Greek for the Greek minorities scattered in Georgia, Azerbai-
jan and Armenia.
48
As a consequence of these efforts, the availability of textbooks and
teachers for the courses in Russian, Armenian, German and Volga Tatar gradually
increased.
49
The plans of the SNM moved further to increase national minority sec-
tions in the seven-year schools and in tekhnikums (institutes of vocational education)
in regions of diverse nationalities.
50
In summary, the Soviet regime saw the primary
education of national minorities in their own languages, including Kurdish, as necess-
ary for political reasons. In the case of major minorities who had their own republics in
other parts of the Soviet Union, education in native languages improved significantly
in the 1920s.
The Reality on the Ground
The above picture suggests that in the 1920s Kurds also experienced considerable
development. However, primary education as well as publications in Kurdish
remained an unfulfilled project until 1931. There were economic factors that miti-
gated the implementation of the Soviet minorities policy on the ground. In the first
half of the 1920s, the Kurdish population was deprived of food and other basic
needs.
51
In 1924, for example, around 20,000 inhabitants of the Kurdish Uezd
(nearly half of the population) temporarily migrated to the Nagorno-Karabakh
region because of a local famine.
52
The lack of mountain roads and transportation
was another major problem.
53
Epidemic diseases were frequent and hygiene was
absent in all stages of daily life. More importantly, the infrastructure for education
was almost entirely absent.
The literacy rates were close to zero in Kurdish territories and the Kurdish language
had a negative reputation among Kurdish literates. The literacy rate of the Kurdish
45
ARDA 57-1-453-125, August 23, 1927.
46
ARDA 57-1-228-215, December 9, 1922.
47
ARDA 57-1-664-4ob, June 12, 1928.
48
ARDA 57-1-452-2, December 28, 1926. Greek language was also modified in 1927, see ARDA 57-1-
453-115, 119, January 1, 1927.
49
ARDA 57-1-453-197, March 15, 1927; ARDA 57-1-452-6, 20, 20ob, December 8, 1927; ARDA 57-
1-777-56ob, March 21, 1929.
50
ARDA 57-1-453-197, 199, March 15, 1927; ARDA 57-1-452-7, 8, 9, 17, December 8, 1927.
51
Muller, “The Kurds,”47–8.
52
“Po uezdam Azerbaidzhana,”Zaria Vostoka, April 25, 1924, 3.
53
Zaria Vostoka, April 12, 1925, 1.
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population was extremely low. According to an Azerbaijani report in 1931, literate
people among Kurds constituted only 4.3 percent of the entire Kurdish population
and these were educated in Russian-Turkic schools.
54
According to an Soviet secret
police (Ob”edinennoe gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie pri SNK SSSR,
OGPU) report in 1931, at the border territories of Azerbaijan with Iran, the rate
of illiteracy was as high as 95–99 percent. In the territories where Talish and Kurds
were located—Lenkoran and further south of Nagorno-Karabakh—illiteracy was
100 percent.
55
The literate minority considered speaking Kurdish as a shameful act
(Russian: schitalsia pozorom). The graduates of these schools disdainfully rejected
Kurdish .
56
Many Kurdish intellectuals believed the Kurdish language to be a moun-
tainous dialect of the Persian language lacking an alphabet. It would be a useless tool
for the cultural development of their people.
There was no Kurdish alphabet with separate letters for each main sound in
Kurdish. In the 1920s, the preparation of a Kurdish alphabet was an extremely impor-
tant task set for scholars and was considered an essential step for the success of the
literacy campaign. In 1921, an Armenian Kurdologist Agop Kazarian (Lazo) prepared
an alphabet based on the Armenian script. The Armenian language had been used
alongside Arabic on official documents of the Ottoman Empire; most of the
Ottoman elite read Armeno-Turkish and many Turkish language books had been
published in the Armenian script since the early eighteenth century. Thus many
party members deemed it appropriate to assign the Armenian script to the Kurdish
language. In practice, this alphabet was not broadly accepted. An official at the Com-
munist Party meeting in 1926 explained what needed to be gradually done in the case
of languages like Kurdish without a literature and alphabet of its own:
The People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment of Armenian SSR (hereafter, ArNar-
kompros) Armenian Narkompros prepared an alphabet for [Kurds], however there
is only one person who knows this alphabet—the one who prepared this [ …] First
of all, few circles of literate and competent individuals should be organized, who
know also this alphabet; second, it is necessary that these people, who are literate
in this [Kurdish] alphabet, create a volume of literature by translating fiction, text-
books, communist [ideological] programs, [communist] party literature, and laws.
In this way, [these efforts] create some kind of cultural atmosphere and enable
the establishment of schools with this alphabet. In 5–10 years, we will be at the pos-
ition of moving all Kurdish intelligentsia to this alphabet and we will have the right
to talk about unimpeded nationalization of schools.
57
The highly Turkified Kurdish population in Azerbaijan posed another problem. As
a consequence of Turkification, there were two different figures given on the
54
ARDA 57-1-864-12, 13 (1931).
55
RGASPI 17-114-265-236, 242–3, October 7, 1931.
56
ARDA 57-1-864-12, 13 (1931).
57
“Rech’t. Vaganiana,”Zaria Vostoka, June 9, 1926, 3.
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Kurdish population during this period. The higher figures were based on descent
and the lower figures on the population’s daily language. According to the census
of 1926, the total number of the Kurds in the Kurdistan Uezd of Azerbaijan
was 37,182 (72.2 percent of the Uezd population) and 3,123 of them could
speak Kurdish (excluding Nakhchivan).
58
The Kurdish population in the Nakhchi-
van exclave of Azerbaijan in 1925 was recorded to be around 3,000.
59
In 1929, only
17.8 percent of the Kurds (7,355 out of 41,193) could speak their native tongue.
However, a report written in 1931 provides a higher percentage, estimating that
only 12,000 out of 42,216 of the Kurdish minority spoke their native tongue.
The 1936 figures showed that the population of Kurdish speakers among Kurds
was lower than that reported in 1931 (around 5–6,000).
60
These figures indicate
that the majority of Kurds living in Azerbaijan had been linguistically Turkified
or were at least bi-lingual. In 1931, an expedition group of five experts led by Pro-
fessor S. Bukshpan was sent to study the Kurdish population of Azerbaijan.
61
Bukshpan, who was far from being a Turkic nationalist, confirmed the widespread
practice of inter-ethnic marriages and underlined the spread of the Turkic language
in place of Kurdish.
62
Those Kurds who did not know Turkic either lived in small
remote mountain settlements far from Shusha’s town market and artisan pro-
duction, or they were female members of the communities who had no contact
with Turkic speakers.
63
The process of Turkification of the Kurds in Azerbaijan
had started long before the Soviet regime began administering the region. The
Russian Imperial records referred to this phenomenon as Tatarization (Russian:
tatarizatsiia) because the imperial administration named all the Turkic populations
of the region as Tatars. The Turkification of the Kurds was not the only case. A
high level of Turkification was taking place prior to the Soviet period, especially
among other Muslim peoples, such as Talish and Tsakhur. The similarities in
religion, customs, lifestyle and history allowed this pre-Soviet process of
assimilation to take a natural course.
64
If the Soviet administration wanted to
establish primary education in Kurdish by developing a homogenous Kurdish
written language, they also had to teach Kurdish to the majority of the Kurds of
Azerbaijan.
58
Bukshpan, Azerbaidzhanskie Kurdy, 61.
59
“Sredi nakhichevanskikh kurdov,”Zaria Vostoka, February 4, 1925, 3.
60
ARPIISPIHDA 1-14-83-37, October 28, 1936.
61
Bukshpan, Azerbaidzhanskie Kurdy,5.
62
Ibid., 72–4.
63
ARDA 57-1-864-115, 116, February 15, 1931.
64
On the Turkification of Talish prior to the Soviet rule, see ARPİİSPİHDA 1/14/83/30, 31, 33,
October 28, 1936; also for the account of Talish expedition B.V. Miller, Predvaritel’nyi Otchet o
Poezdke v Talysh Letom 1925 g. (Baku, 1926), 4–5; on the Turkification of Kurdish population prior
to the Soviet rule, see Muller, “The Kurds,”42–5; ARDA 57-1-777-54, March 21, 1929; ARDA 57-1-
864-115, 116, February 15, 1931; Bukshpan, Azerbaidzhanskie Kurdy, 61, 72–4; ARPİİSPİHDA 1-14-
83-37, October 28, 1936; on the Turkification of Tsakhurs see ARDA 57-1-777-54, March 21, 1929.
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The homogeneity of the Kurdish language remained a serious issue. Books in
Kurdish were published in Armenia immediately following the development of the
alphabet. Kurds living in Armenia and Azerbaijan however could not use these
books because of the differences in the dialects they spoke. These linguistic differences
were influenced by the different degrees of Turkification among the Kurdish popu-
lation living in different geographical areas. Azerbaijani Turkic had a strong influence
on the Kurdish language in Azerbaijan while such circumstances did not exist in
Armenia. The two regional dialects in Azerbaijan were the Lachin-Kel’bajar and
Nakhchivani spoken in the Nakhchivan exclave and differed considerably. The
impact of the Turkic language on Kurdish lexicon and phonetics in different localities
varies. According to the published results of the 1931 expedition led by Bukshpan, this
influence created up to 25 percent of the dissimilarities among the different Kurdish
dialects.
65
Three Groups in Azerbaijani Bureaucracy
Beyond the aforementioned obstacles, the rifts within and between the Party and state
bureaucracy in Azerbaijan also had an impact on the implementation of national min-
orities policy. Three different groups can be identified in the AzNarkompros and in
the AKP(b). The internationalists wanted to avoid any ethnic or national antagonisms
and were keen to support all ethno-linguistic identities. They were ready to recognize
and support any kind of ethno-linguistic difference in the republic. They wanted to
accelerate the formation of these national identities by supporting and transforming
regional dialects into national languages, introducing an alphabet and systematized
grammar to those tongues without a written form, devoting resources to translation
and education, and finding necessary terminology to enrich these neglected but
worthy dialects. They believed that by providing all individuals the means to realize
a native ethnic culture they would prevent discontent and ethnic conflict. The indi-
genous intellectuals of the region’s ethno-linguistic minorities belonged to this group
and contributed to these efforts. To them the work of AzNarkompros progressed “at
the pace of a tortoise”and was not satisfactory at all.
66
This group argued that these
languages were underdeveloped because of imperial-colonial forces such as those of the
Russians, Ottomans and Persians. Accordingly, the language of the shepherd could
develop with an unexpected speed into the language of an administrator or technocrat
if the Soviet government in Baku pursued affirmative policies and created favorable
conditions. In most cases, however, the existence of very small and isolated groups
or entirely Turkified groups presented a problem. This issue was brought up at a
national minorities meeting in 1931 by Isakhanian, an Armenian who was head of
65
ARPİİSPİHDA 1-14-83-38/42, December 1, 1931; ARPİİSPİHDA 1-14-83-37, October 28, 1936;
Bukshpan, Azerbaidzhanskie Kurdy, 65, 67.
66
ARDA 57-1-864-125, February 15, 1931. The case of Khakass in RSFSR is a concurring example, see
F. Hirsch, “Toward an Empire of Nations: Border-Making and the Formation of Soviet National Iden-
tities,”Russian Review 59, no. 2 (2000): 212, 213.
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both the National Minorities Section of the Central Committee of the AKP(b) and
the nationalities committee of the AzNarkompros. He complained about the pro-
blems associated with having such a small and isolated group by using the small
Udi population and already Turkicified Kurds as two vivid examples:
At one of the meetings in Vartashen, one of the party members declared that a lit-
erature in Udi language has to be published. That member is a literate accountant.
But for 2,000 people we need to create alphabet, we need to have authors. I stated at
that time that, there are only 2,000 [people] who understand this language, this is a
dying language. [ …] For example, it would be funny if a Kurdish school were
opened in Gubatli in Kurdistan region or in the Kurdish settlement of Zabukh
[because] they lost their language long time ago. [ …] If a nationality still preserves
its tongue, or it has lost it for various reasons, this doesn’t mean that we must dig
out and revive this language.
67
The second group can broadly be defined as pro-Russian and supported the priority of
the Russian language above minority languages. There were Russians within this group
with nationalist tendencies who ridiculed the regime’s efforts to promote the cultures
and languages of national minorities. They believed that the promotion of cultural and
linguistic diversity could consolidate loyalties to minority identities and would only
lead to problems in managing a society. In fact, according to this group, the
problem was that assimilation was left incomplete. They justified this by recounting
the recent disastrous collapse of the Russian Empire and the territories that remained
in Turkey and Romania, and the independence of Finland, the Baltic States and
Poland. Using Lenin’s formula, if the surface these Russian communists had been
scratched a Great Russian chauvinist would have been found. The beliefs of these
pro-Russian bureaucrats reflected those of a section within society. Nationalism, reli-
gious conservatism and “great nation chauvinism”still existed among segments of the
Russian population in Azerbaijan. These tendencies were especially strong in the rural
settlements and in villages of the Orthodox sects such as Molokans.
68
Even though
Turkic language classes were compulsory, in most of the Russian schools they were
considered unnecessary and were not conducted at all.
69
Some genuine internationalist Bolsheviks belonged to this pro-Russian group and
supported the promotion of the Russian language for the sake of economic rationality.
67
ARDA 57-1-864-118, 119, February 15, 1931. Vartashen was a district where the Udi population is
settled. The contemporary name of this region is Oguz. Actually, Kurds were not the only ethno-linguistic
group that lost their native tongue in the previous episodes of history. Isolated Armenians and Greeks in
Georgia also had similar problems. ARDA 57-1-873-8, April 29, 1932.
68
ARDA 57-1-864-135 (1931). The resistance of the Russian population to nativization campaigns
and even nationalist attitudes to the native peoples was not confined to Azerbaijan. For the Kazakh
case, see Matt Payne, “The Forge of the Kazakh Proletariat? The Turksib, Nativization, and Industrial-
ization during Stalin’s First Five-Year Plan,”in A State of Nations, Empire and Nation-Making in the Age
of Lenin and Stalin, ed. R. Suny and T. Martin (Oxford, 2001), 223–52.
69
ARDA 57-1-864-5 (1931).
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Russian culture had the highest level of development within the borders of the USSR
and Russian had been the lingua franca among many of the different territories of the
Soviet Union. They believed a socialist country allowed all cultures and languages to
develop without any oppression and in time they would merge with the higher culture.
This would be a proletarian culture, using the language of its most advanced constitu-
ents. Accordingly, if Germany had been included in a socialist federation, then
German would have been the official language of this state.
70
However, there was
no sign of a German, French or English revolution that would replace Russia with
its cultural and linguistic dominance. In this case, instead of waiting for 100 years,
it would save limited resources and time to declare victory for the more progressive
Russian culture. For example, Semen Dimanshtein, an important figure in the All-
Union People’s Commissariat of Nationalities (Narkomnats) the People’s Commis-
sariat of Nationalities in Moscow, was an internationalist who opposed promoting
the cultures and languages of national minorities. His opposition derived from an
internationalist view. These pro-Russian internationalists believed that the danger
of the Great Russian chauvinism was eliminated and Russian nationalism would no
longer have the potential of assimilating other identities. Thus supporting national
languages and cultures was unnecessary, and would only consolidate national divisions
and further weaken the international solidarity.
71
Moreover, these internationalists
feared that local nationalist groups would hijack the Bolshevik revolution. Similarly,
Anatoly Lunacharskii, the famous commissar of the All-Union People’s Commissariat
of Enlightenment in Moscow, also favored a uniformed and centralized education in
all republics of the Soviet Union.
72
However, it was not always easy to understand if
the person who supported the policy of giving priority to Russian was a Russian chau-
vinist or a pragmatic Bolshevik. It is likely that some of the internationalists were at
the same time disguised Russian nationalists who promoted the Russian language as
the medium of the international class of proletariat. Lenin was alarmed by this
veiled nationalism long time ago and voiced his concerns earlier at the Eighth Party
Congress (18–23 March 1919) “Scratch some communists, and you will find Great
Russian chauvinists”[footnote] V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, volume:29 (Moscow:
Progress Publishers, 1974), 194.
The last group within the Party and state bureaucracy was pro-Turkic. This group
found itself between the two pro-Russian and pro-minorities fronts. On the one side
they attempted to refute pro-Russian arguments, and on the other side they resisted
national minorities policies, which they felt created divisions among the dominant
Turkic identity and culture in Azerbaijan. They also emphasized that available
resources were hardly sufficient to support every minority aspiring to promote its
own small and underdeveloped cultural and linguistic identity in the midst of
Turkic majority of Azerbaijan. There were many practical problems with sustaining
the educational policies concerning the national minorities. The republican and
70
Robert Service, Stalin: A Biography (London, 2005), 78.
71
Jeremy Smith, The Bolsheviks and the National Question, 1917–23 (London, 1999), 146–7.
72
Blank, The Sorcerer as Apprentice, 113.
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party administration needed to train cadres to fulfill the aims of the korenizatsiia cam-
paign while being under constant pressure to also provide a qualified Turkic labor
force. Resources were scarce and not always available even for the Turkic students.
And even though the number of schools and teachers increased rapidly each year,
the quality of education and its printed materials was so low that the stage of crisis
continued for more than a decade. The Commissariat was mostly behind in the
annual school construction plans and the existing school buildings still did not
have the necessary facilities after nine years of Sovietization. Some did not have
libraries, blackboards, desks, heating units or even window glass. Most schools did
not have enough cupboards, tables, desks, chairs, clocks, thermometers, geography
maps, diagrams and globes to conduct lessons. Rural schools became centers of epi-
demics such as trachoma. Most primary schools were located far from the villages.
Other practical problems included the fact that half of the teachers did not graduate
from a specialized school and only 18 percent of students were female.
73
In the midst
of this catastrophic picture, the pro-Turkic group considered supporting minorities to
be a mere fantasy or even a conspiracy against Turkic identity. According to one of the
representatives of this pro-Turkic group, the “Turkic language is more and more con-
quering the obsolete languages, like Tat, Talish, Lezgin, Kurdish, etc.”
74
Naturally,
there was a conflict between the pro-Russian and pro-Turkic groups. In his
speech, Isakhanian provided a wonderful example for both pro-Russian and pro-
Turkic sides:
Recently, at a meeting a young worker stood up and said: down with tara,kaman-
cha, long live European, Russian music [ …]. Beside him, sat another comrade, who
declared that, for him, there is nothing dearer than zurna.
75
However, the pro-Turkic and pro-Russian parties had one common goal: impeding
the implementation of the national minority policy. According to Isakhanian, the
planning department in the AzNarkompros resisted the Party’s national minority pol-
icies:
Until last year [1930], our planning department knew only three nations—Turkic,
Armenian and Russian; and they did not know anybody else. There was a bureau-
crat at the [Az]Narkompros. When they told him that, [“]you must do these things
for those [other] nationalities[”], he replied [“but] this is absurd, this cannot be
[done]. Is it really so that the supplies for Mountainous Jews, Talish, etc. are
[also] included into production plans?[”].
76
73
ARDA 57-1-777-54ob, March 21, 1929; also see the presentation of the commissar of the AzNar-
kompros, M.Z. Kuliev, at the sixth congress of All Azerbaijan Soviets, on the tasks of cultural construction
in the Republic, April 6, 1929; Kommunist, no. 81, April 9, 1929.
74
M.G. Veliyev (Bakharly), Azerbaidzhan (Fiziko-geograficheskii, etnograficheskii i ekonomicheskii
ocherk) (Baku, 1921), 50; cited by Bukshpan, Azerbaidzhanskie Kurdy, 76.
75
ARDA 57-1-864-120, February 15, 1931. Tara,kamancha and zurna are local musical instruments.
76
ARDA 57-1-864-122, February 15, 1931.
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Isakhanian’s comments on the AzNarkompros bureaucrat illustrates that, despite the All-
Union policies and the AKP(b) directives, the bureaucrats at the AzNarkompros prevented
further work on developing the Kurdish languageastheyconsidereditunnecessary.
77
At the Conference of National Minorities in Baku in June 1931, Il’iasov, the
former director of public education in Kurdistan Uezd, complained about the case
of the Kurdish alphabet in Azerbaijan. He reminded the audience that seven years
before, when the committee on the Latinization of Turkic script actively worked
on the matter, a Kurdish alphabet based on the Latin script was developed. His
team had worked on the first Kurdish alphabet and ABC-book and sent the finalized
versions of their project to the AzNarkompros in 1924. Il’iasov continued: “However,
unfortunately, the alphabet and the ABC-book did not find any sympathy [at the
AzNarkompros] and died right there. The issue [of Kurdish written language] was
temporarily halted at that point.”
78
Professor Bukshpan also complained that the
bureaucrats at the AzNarkompros held back educational and cultural works in the
minority languages. The local nationalism (Turkic-Azerbaijani), he argued, did not
die out after the fall of the Musavvat Party’s national regime in April of 1920. On
the contrary, according to Bukshpan, in the 1920s the representatives of local nation-
alism (pro-Turkic group) tried to assimilate the national minorities of Azerbaijan by
using the Soviet administrative structure.
79
Finally, when the establishment of Kurdi-
stan Uezd was discussed in 1922–23, the internationalist group supported a real
autonomous territory, as it was planned for the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh,
while pro-Turkic and pro-Russian groups strongly opposed this. For this reason the
committee charged with the delimitation and design of these territories could not
agree on a single solution. Ultimately they established a Kurdistan Uezd with a
national name but without any autonomous powers from the center in Baku.
In the 1920s, Soviet authorities in the Caucasus organized research expeditions to the
Kurdish territories more than once in order to understand the local culture, despite
being far from solving the region’s problems.
80
Primary education and cultural develop-
ments in Kurdish remained merely a project on the drawing board. In the 1929/30 aca-
demic year the schooling rate of Kurdish children was 40.1 percent, and they were
educated in Turkic schools.
81
In remote mountainous regions the schooling rate was
considerably lower. When the Kurdistan Okrug was abolished together with all
okrugs in the Soviet Union in 1930, there was not even a single textbook in Kurdish
in Azerbaijan, let alone primary school education in the Kurdish language.
77
ARDA 57-1-864-124, February 15, 1931.
78
Bukshpan, Azerbaidzhanskie Kurdy, 77.
79
Ibid., 75–7.
80
The first expedition was led by G. Chursin, an ethnographer from Tbilisi, in 1924. G. Chursin,
“Azerbaidzhanskie kurdy,”Izvestiia Kavkazskogo istorki-arkheologicheskogo instituta 3 (1925): 1–16;
E. Pchelina, “Po Kurdistanskomu uezdu Azerbaidzhana,”Sovetskaia etnografiia 4 (1932): 108–21;
V. Sysoev, “Kurdistan,”Izvestiia Azerbaidzhanskogo komiteta okhrany pamiatnikov stariny, iskusstva i
prirody 3 (1927): 25–44; V. Sysoev, “Lachin”,Izvestiia Azerbaidzhanskogo komiteta okhrany pamiatnikov
stariny, iskusstva i prirody 3 (1927): 45–53.
81
ARDA 57-1-864-12, 13 (1931).
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Renewed Push in the 1930s
In 1930, AKP(b) defined providing compulsory primary education in the native
languages of all nationalities in Azerbaijan as a task for the AzNarkompros that
had to be fulfilled by the 1932/33 academic year.
82
This demand for teaching in
minority languages was a result of a push by All-Union authorities in 1929–30.
83
Following this directive, intensive work on primary education increased the number
of native languages as the medium of education.
84
A scientific council was established
at the AzNarkompros, which had to “study the methodical questions of the edu-
cational activities among the national minorities.”
85
Both state and party organs
were keen on education in the languages of national minorities. The Council of
Peoples’Commissars of Azerbaijan SSR issued a resolution underlining the failure
of education in native languages for “culturally backward national minorities”such
as Tats, Kurds, Avars and Lezgins. The resolution ordered that the pedagogical
cadres had to be provided for national minority schools. In order to train necessary
cadres, Lezgin, Tat, Avar, Talish and Kurdish sections had to be opened in various
pedtekhnikums (pedagogical institutes) in the regions where these minorities were
settled.
86
The AKP(b) continued to put emphasis on this issue in the following
year. The closing resolution of the ninth congress of the AKP(b) in 1932 demanded
the ending of illiteracy and the intensification of work on the education of national
minorities in their native tongues.
87
A week later, central organs in Moscow asked
the union republics to translate essential juridical texts and laws into minority
languages. Moreover, Moscow asked republican capitals to correspond with their dis-
tricts of national minorities in the language of the latter, and avoid using the language
of the titular nation or Russian. Finally, the Central Committee of the Republic of
Transcaucasia Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, which was an additional adminis-
trative body above Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia until its abolishment in 1936,
also urged these three republics to improve the primary education of their national
minorities.
88
As a first step in 1930, the All-Union Academy of Sciences in Moscow, with the
cooperation of ArNarkompros in Erevan, prepared a Kurdish alphabet based on the
82
Decree of the Central Committee of the AKP(b) on the execution of the universal compulsory edu-
cation in AzSSR, August 28, 1930; Bakinskii Rabochii, no. 201, August 28, 1930.
83
For this mobilization in 1929 and 1930, and consequences, see Terry Martin, The Affirmative Action
Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939 (Ithaca, NY, 2001), 163–5.
84
Resolution of the congress of the All Azerbaijan Soviets on the report of the Commissar of the
AzNarkompros on the introduction of universal compulsory primary education in Azerbaijan, February
16, 1931, Sobranie uzakonenii AzSSR (Baku, 1931), 20: 378.
85
ARDA 57-1-878-12 (1931).
86
Sobranie Uzakonenii AzSSR (Baku, 1931), 38: 607; Bakinskii Rabochii no. 243 and 244, October
18–19, 1931.
87
The resolution of the ninth congress of AKP(b) on the report of the Central Committee of the
AKP(b), Bakinskii Rabochii, no. 28, February 1, 1932.
88
ARDA 57-1-873-6/9, February 29, 1932.
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Latin script in 1930. After the creation of the alphabet, the union-republics in
Transcaucasia were urged to publish textbooks and books in Kurdish. In June
1931, The Central Committee of the AKP(b), the Cultural-Propaganda section
oftheAKP(b)andtheAzNarkomprosorganizedaconferenceofnationalmin-
orities in Baku to emphasize the importance of the national minorities policy and
discuss its implementation. Following the conference, the AzNarkompros and Azer-
baijan State Scientific-Research Institute (AGNII) organized the above-mentioned
expedition of Professor Bukshpan to the Kurdish settlements in the former Kurdi-
stan Okrug and Nakhchivan. The aim of the expedition was to clarify the difference
between the Kurdish language used by the Kurds of Azerbaijan and those of
Armenia, and to investigate if publications for education could be produced using
a common written language. The results of the expedition were published as a
book.
89
The Conference in 1931 set a number of tasks for the AzNarkompros to
accomplish. In order to fulfill these tasks further steps were taken for running the
primary education of national minorities including Kurdish in their own language.
In the academic year of 1933/34, the first classes of the primary schools and centers
for literacy (Russian: likpunkty) started to provide education in Kurdish (Figure 3).
Summer courses were organized in 1931 at the Shusha pedagogical high school in
order to prepare Kurdish teachers to run lessons in Kurdish. A permanent
Kurdish section was opened at the same high school and three textbooks in
Figure 3. School construction in the village of Minkend
Source: A. Bukshpan, Azerbaidzhanskie Kurdy, Lachin, Kel’badzhary, Nakhkrai (Baku,
1932), 85.
89
Bukshpan, Azerbaidzhanskie Kurdy.
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Kurdish were printed by 1933.
90
In 1933 another expedition was organized. This
time, the Institute of Nationalities at the Scholar Committee of the Central Execu-
tive Committee of the USSR sent a group of scholars led by Arab Shamilov (or Ereb
Shemo, 1897–1978), a Kurdish Bolshevik revolutionary since 1917, writer, and a
promising Kurdologist at the Leningrad Institute of Literature and History. The
aim of the expedition was to study the economic and social conditions of the
Kurdish population in Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, and to understand the
possibility of creating a Kurdish written language that could be understood and
used by all Kurds within the USSR.
91
These efforts were followed by limited success however. Kurdish textbooks were
published in Azerbaijan in 1934 and 1936 with an interruption in 1935. In 1936,
textbooks were available but only for the first and second grades.
92
Most of the tea-
chers were graduates of Shusha pedagogical high school, where there was a Kurdish
section. In this high school, except for Kurdish language and literature, all courses
were conducted in Azerbaijani. In practice, Kurdish literature was not taught at
all because there was no textbook for this course. In these courses, teachers simply
tried to translate literature texts written by Russian or Azerbaijani authors (such
as Pushkin, Lermontov, Samad Vurgun and Sabir) into Kurdish during school
hours. It was obvious that these translations were far from providing the students
with the necessary knowledge of the literature. In fact, some of the students were
still illiterate after three years of education. The level of teachers’qualifications
were very low and most Kurdish textbooks were simply not available. Moreover,
the chosen dialect for the written form was not understood by all regions and
tribes. There was still a long way to go towards the creation of a uniform language.
It is true that in 1938, primary education in Kurdish did exist in some schools;
however its success was very limited. There were only 808 students educated in
twelve Kurdish schools and the language of education was Kurdish only until the
third or fourth grades.
93
Finally, it should be added that this unsatisfactory level
of development was not limited to Azerbaijan. Although there were publications
in Kurdish in Armenia, the use of these publications was limited to Armenia,
Georgia and Nakhchivan. If one reason for this was regional differences in dialects,
another reason was that the elaborated written form of the Kurdish language was
not comprehensible to the majority of Kurds. In 1934, the difficulties of creating
a Kurdish literary language and literature, and their relationship with the Kurds
living beyond Soviet borders were discussed at a conference in Erevan, Armenian
SSR. As the conference resolution stated that the lack of a homogenous language,
standard grammar, terminology and orthography were still serious problems
waiting to be solved.
94
90
Ibid., 82.
91
“Izuchenie kul’tury kurdov,”Zaria Vostoka, August 11, 1933, 4.
92
ARPİİSPİHDA 1-14-83-77 (1936); ARPİİSPİHDA 1-14-7-122 (1937).
93
ARDA 57-1-1291-94/96 (Spring 1938).
94
Basile Nikitine, Les Kurdes: Étude Sociologique et Historique (Paris, 1956), 287–92.
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Conclusions
The policy on the Kurds of Azerbaijan was a complex issue and it was subject to both
modernization policies and the nationalities policy of the Soviet Union. The edu-
cation and literacy campaign in Azerbaijan covered both Turkic and non-Turkic
populations. The non-Turkic identities or national minorities were officially encour-
aged to develop their own languages and cultures and to bring up cadres for the new
Soviet state. The policy of korenizatsiia demanded local cadres from all identities
without any exclusion or discrimination. It was obvious that society could not
develop if part of it was isolated from the rapid development plans. In the 1920s
and 1930s, the AKP(b) at the republican level, and the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union at the All-Union level pushed for the primary education and cultural
development in the native languages of national minorities, including Kurds. More-
over, Kurdistan Uezd and Kurdistan Okrug were established in 1923–30. However,
neither the Party resolutions nor the declaration of “Red Kurdistan”in the first
decade of Soviet rule in Azerbaijan brought any tangible results for the Kurds. It
was only after the renewed wave of All-Union attempt on the national minorities
in 1930–31 that initial results appeared, albeit on a small scale.
If All-Union plans and policies were a factor, the situation on the ground in Azer-
baijan should be added as another important dimension. There were issues on the
ground which mitigated successful implementation of Soviet minorities policy and
modernization process. For instance, it is not a surprise that in the first years of
Soviet rule, there was no serious work on education or cultural activities in Kurdish
because the regional administration had to struggle against other vital issues such as
local famine, which continued for a few years. Different dialects as a result of moun-
tainous terrain and various levels of Turkification of Kurdish, lack of an alphabet and a
tradition of written literature, extremely low rates of literacy and the economic situ-
ation, but more importantly perhaps their nomadic lifestyle made schooling difficult.
These conditions prevented the successful implementation of the minorities policy.
Finally, the opposing groups within the local communist party and state bureaucracy
in Azerbaijan hindered the execution of official policies. Remarkably, neither the Kur-
distan Uezd nor Okrug facilitated education in the Kurdish language as Soviet
national minorities policy prescribed. This suggests that Moscow’s impact in the
republic or Baku’s presence in its regions was not always omnipotent and omnipresent.
In addition, focusing on the Russian case or extrapolating from one Soviet region (for
instance Ukraine) to another republic cannot always be helpful in understanding
other regions of the Union. As the Kurdish case demonstrates, the Soviet minority
policies can only be understood through All-Union, republican and regional levels.
Because the cadres, practices, conditions and competing ideologies at the republican
and local levels allowed or hindered the execution of the official plans.
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