Talk:Azerbaijan People's Government

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:
Map needed
 It is requested that a map or maps be included in this article to improve its quality.
Wikipedians in Iran or the Middle East may be able to help!

[edit] The name

The name is certainly incorrect. None of them had called their short-lived government Democratic Republic of South Azerbaijan. Where did you find this term? Bidabadi 20:58, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes you are right. In theirofficial documents they called their government, Azerbaijan People's Government.
    • Now! and whoever was calling it, and it remained in the history,

[edit] Persianization

Quote:

The steps that the Teheran regime took in the 1930s with the aim of Persianization of the Azeris and other minorities appeared to take a leaf from the writings of the reformist-minded intellectuals in the previous decade. In the quest of imposing national homogeneity on the country where half of the population consisted of ethnic minorities, the Pahlavi regime issued in quick succession bans on the use of Azeri on the premises of schools, in theatrical performances, religious ceremonies, and, finally, in the publication of books. Azeri was reduced to the status of a language that only could be spoken and hardly ever written. As the Persianization campaign gained momentum, it drew inspiration from the revivalist spirit of Zoroastrian national glories. There followed even more invasive official practices, such as changing Turkic-sounding geographic names and interference with giving children names other than Persian ones.

Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russia and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition. ISBN 0231070683, page 122

Grandmaster 04:53, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Azerbaijani leterary language was completely banned by the Shah. Check the above source: Azeri was reduced to the status of a language that only could be spoken and hardly ever written. Grandmaster 06:14, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

That doesn't mean the literary language was completely banned, you're interpreting the source in an WP:OR fashion. Trust me on this, there was no official ban on all literary work. Writing in Persian was encouraged at the expense of Azerbaijani, but there was no official ban on Azerbaijani, there are many Azerbaijani poems from that period, there were local papers with a page or two in Azerbaijani at that time. --Mardavich 06:57, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
If the books and other publications were banned, and the language could only be spoken on the streets, it was banned in a literary form. How could literary language develop, if it was not allowed to publish anything in it? Grandmaster 07:19, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Publication of books that were written entirely in Azerbaijani was banned under Reza Shah for a period of time, but literary work in Azerbaijani was not banned altogether. --Mardavich 07:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
One could create a literary work, but could not publish it. It was a ban, wasn't it? If you were unable to publish your work, who could read it? Grandmaster 07:33, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually Behzadi's Azerbaijani dictionary and Shahryar's Heydar Baba were both published. --alidoostzadeh 07:33, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Was it before or after 1945? Grandmaster 07:35, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Shahryar's poems, some of which were in Azeri, were regularly published in 1930's. --Mardavich 07:40, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Any quotes from reliable sourses to support that claim? As far as I know, Shahriyar's poems in Azeri were published later, after the World War II. Grandmaster 07:43, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Another quote:

If Pishevari's movement capitalized on Azerbaijani resentments that had accumulated during the years of Reza Shah's attempts at Persianization, Teheran's reactions to efforts at upgrading the status of the Azeri language could only inflame these feelings.

I added that line to the article. Grandmaster 07:42, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Reza Shah's own wife had poetry in Turkish as she was an Azerbaijani. --alidoostzadeh 07:57, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
That’s interesting, because the shah was known for referring to Azerbaijanis as “donkeys”. [1] That actually shows that he was a very chauvinist person despite his relation to Azeris and his Persianization campaign was not a coincidence. Grandmaster 09:59, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
The source is not reliable. The actual use of donkeys goes at least back to the Qajar era and it is usually in Tehran (the capital) where there is a joke about each minority. Esfahanis are considered greedy. Qazvinis are considered homosexuals. Rashti's aldulterous. Mashhadi's as thiefs. So this is kind of like popular culture pretty much like the Irish are considered drunks and Poles considered dumb in popular american joke culture. There is a joke about every group who has migrated to the capital. Indeed the same jokes are made about Kurds by Azerbaijanis in Urumiyeh and I am sure there are ethnic jokes about some groups being this or that in the republic of Azerbaijan. It is pretty much like the Laz in Turkey who are joked about. Although I do not agree with such a popular culture, but it is centered around the capital which sees itself as better than other cities and it is not even remotely related to Rezashah whose mothers background is actually from the Caucus. --alidoostzadeh 10:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I read that in many Azeri sources, including Chehragani. [2] I know what you are talking about, there are similar jokes in Azerbaijan about people from various regions, but the sources connect that statement personally to shah. I’m not going to include any such claims into the article, I just think that the fact demonstrates the attitude of Pahlavi regime towards Azerbaijani people. Grandmaster 10:25, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Well it is not fact to begin with because the term Donkey Turk like Homosexual Qazvini" and Mashhadi Thief".. goes back to at least the Qajar era when Tehran became capital. Besides Rezashah who was actually half Azerbaijani and his wife was Azerbaijani, Mohammad Reza Shah was 3/4 Azerbaijani and his wife Farah was an Azerbaijani. Also most of the people that called for the Persianization of the language of Azerbaijan were Azerbaijanis even if they were opposed in other ideas(Kasravi and Khiyabani who were opposed but both were for spread of Persian at the cost of Turkish) or Taqi Arani who died opposing Rezashah yet was for removing of Turkish. So this sort of mentality was a reaction to the claims of young Turks and other groups for the secession of Iranian Azerbaijan.. Azerbaijanis are heavily represented in the clergy, economy of Iran and are part of the creme of the crop of Iranian society. Tehran is the biggest Azerbaijani city in the world as well as the biggest Persian one. Unfortunately the government of the republic of Azerbaijan likes to paint a distorted view but this only hurts the republic of Azerbaijan in creating distrust and naturally other countries of the region will take advantage to further their interest. I hope both governments realize that a policy of non-interference is to their best interest. --alidoostzadeh 10:34, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
A Rightist Azerbaijani republic newspaper did a recent interview with Farrah Pahlavi (herself an Azerbaijani). [3]. --alidoostzadeh 10:37, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
That’s an interesting interview. Still it’s hard to understand why ¾ Azerbaijani shah was trying to ban Azerbaijani language. I think the government of Azerbaijan tries to do its best to avoid any confrontation with Iran, while some nationalistic oppositional groups do otherwise. I think many people in Azerbaijan are suspicious that Iran is trying to spread radical Islam to our country. But that’s an unrelated to the article issue. Grandmaster 10:53, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I do not think Iran is trying to spread radical Islam.. But there are Saudi Wahabites and also Turkish government who are trying to Sunnify Azerbaijan. As per the Shah, his current son Reza Pahlavi is at least more than 80% Azerbaijani and his wife is from Zanjan and so their Kids are pretty much Azerbaijani. Either way going back to the article, the statement attributed to Reza Shah is false. Atually Reza Shah knew Azeri-Turkish well. --alidoostzadeh 11:23, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I think what GM needs to understand is that the majority of the people in Iran's history who were against the Turkic langauge spoken by the Azari, and preached going back to the pre Turkification language of the Azari's, were Azari's themselves, a fact left out when politicians and "academics" from the R. of Azerbaijan always fail to mention to their own people. GM himself calls Kasravi a "Persian chauvanist". When did Kasravi become Persian GM?Khosrow II 20:25, 16 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] New references

Added some factual references, these should not cause disputes as they're mostly references to events and dates. Thanks. Atabek 16:24, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Why are you trying to use outdated sources? One of them is from 1947...Azerbaijani 17:59, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
Bringing personal views from a book , such as calling Pishevari an "enlightened and respectable leader" can't be called "adding facts" ! and that's against the NPOV.If we are going to quote from the books, then the similar opposite views can be quoted here .--Alborz Fallah 11:23, 19 May 2007 (UTC)