Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment,Azerophobia,Azerbaijanophobia, oranti-Azerbaijanism has been mainly rooted in several countries, most notably inRussia,Armenia, andIran, where anti-Azerbaijani sentiment has sometimes led to violent ethnic incidents.
According to a 2012 opinion poll, 63% of Armenians perceiveAzerbaijan as "the biggest enemy of Armenia" while 94% of Azerbaijanis consider Armenia to be "the biggest enemy of Azerbaijan".[1] The root of the hostility against Azerbaijanis can be traced from theNagorno-Karabakh conflict.
In the early 20th century, theTranscaucasian Armenians began to equate the Azerbaijanis (then called Caucasian Tatars) with the perpetrators of anti-Armenian policies such as theArmenian genocide in theOttoman Empire, due to theArmenian–Tatar massacres of 1905–1907.[2][3]
On March 30, 1918,[4] during aBolshevik takeover orchestrated byStepan Shahumyan, an estimate of 3,000 to 10,000Azerbaijanis were killed by Bolshevik troops and ethnic Armenian militias, while up to 2,500 Armenians were killed by ethnic Azerbaijani militias.[5][6]
In another estimate 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed[4] and another 16,000 ethnic azeris killed by armenians[4]
According toFiruz Kazemzadeh,
The brutalities continued for weeks. No quarter was given by either side: neither age nor sex was respected. Enormous crowds roamed the streets, burning houses, killing every pass-by who was identified as an enemy, many innocent persons suffering death at the hands of both the Armenians and the Azerbaijanis. The struggle which had begun as a political contest between Musavat and the Soviet assumed the character of a gigantic race riot.[7]
After theFirst Nagorno-Karabakh War, anti-Azerbaijani sentiment grew in Armenia, leading to harassment of Azerbaijanis there.[8] In the beginning of 1988 the first refugee waves from Armenia reachedBaku. In 1988, Azerbaijanis andKurds (around 167,000 people) were expelled from theArmenian SSR.[9] Following theKarabakh movement, initial violence erupted in the form of the murder of both Armenians and Azerbaijanis and border skirmishes.[10] As a result of these skirmishes, 214 Azerbaijanis were killed.[11]
On June 7, 1988, Azerbaijanis were evicted from the town ofMasis near the Armenian–Turkish border, and on June 20, five villages that were mostly populated by Azerbaijanis were emptied in theArarat Province.[12] Henrik Pogosian was ultimately forced to retire, blamed for letting nationalism develop freely.[12] Although purges of the Armenian and Azerbaijani party structures were made against those who had fanned or not sought to prevent ethnic strife, as a whole, the measures taken are believed to be meager.[12]
1993 was marked by the highest wave ofrefugees in Azerbaijan, when theArtsakh Defence Army occupied territories beyond the borders ofNagorno-Karabakh.[13]
On January 16, 2003Robert Kocharian said that Azerbaijanis and Armenians were "ethnically incompatible"[14] and it was impossible for the Armenian population of Karabakh to live within an Azerbaijani state.[15] Speaking on 30 January inStrasbourg,Council of Europe Secretary-GeneralWalter Schwimmer said Kocharian's comment was tantamount to warmongering. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe PresidentPeter Schieder said he hopes Kocharian's remark was incorrectly translated, adding that "since its creation, the Council of Europe has never heard the phrase "ethnic incompatibility".[15]
In 2010, an initiative to hold a festival of Azerbaijani films inYerevan was blocked due to popular opposition. Similarly, in 2012 a festival of Azerbaijani short films, organized by the Armenia-based Caucasus Center for Peace-Making Initiatives and supported by the U.S. and British embassies, which was scheduled to open on April 12, was canceled inGyumri after protesters blocked the festival venue.[16][17]
On September 2, 2015, the Minister of JusticeArpine Hovhannisyan shared an article link on her personalFacebook page featuring her interview with the Armenian news websiteTert.am where she condemned the sentencing of an Azerbaijani journalist and called the human rights situation in Azerbaijan "appalling". Subsequently, the minister came under criticism for liking a racist comment on the aforementioned Facebook post by Hovhannes Galajyan, editor-in-chief of local Armenian newspaper Iravunk; On the post, Galajyan had commented in Armenian: "What human rights when even purely biologically a Turk cannot be considered a human".[18]
TheBlue Mosque is the only functioning Persian mosque and one of the two remaining mosques in present-day Yerevan. In the opinion of the journalistThomas de Waal, writing out Azerbaijanis of Armenia from history was made easier by a linguistic sleight of hand, as the name "Azeri" or "Azerbaijani" was not in common usage before the twentieth century, and these people were referred to as "Tartars", "Turks" or simply "Muslims". De Waal adds that "Yet they were neither Persians nor Turks; they were Turkic-speaking Shiite subjects of the Safavid Dynasty of the Iranian Empire". According to De Waal, when the Blue Mosque is referred to as Persian it "obscures the fact that most of the worshippers there, when it was built in the 1760s, would have been, in effect, Azerbaijanis".[19]
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The other remaining mosque in Yerevan, the Tapabashy Mosque, was likely built in 1687 during theSafavid dynasty in the historicKond district. Today, only the 1.5 meter-thick walls and sections of its outer perimeter roof still stand. The main dome collapsed in the 1960s (1980's according to residents and neighbors), though a smaller dome still stands. The mosque was used as by Armenian refugees following theArmenian genocide, and their descendants still live inside the mosque today. According to residents, the Azerbaijanis of Yerevan held prayer services until they left forBaku in 1988 due to the tensions surrounding the war.[20] The remnants of the mosque are protected by the Armenian state as a historical monument.[21] In 2021, Armenia issued a tender to restore and reconstruct the historic Kond district including the mosque.[22]
In theSyunik Province of Armenia, the remaining mosques in the towns ofKapan,Sisian, andMeghri are maintained by the state under theNon-Armenian historical and cultural Monuments in Syunik designation.[23]
Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Iran is rooted in the hostility of the 1990s, during which Iran was blamed by Azerbaijan for supporting Armenia in theFirst Nagorno-Karabakh War, despite the Iranian government claiming to have helped Azerbaijan.[24][25] A sense of hostility against Azerbaijan developed in Iran as a result, fostering an alliance between Iran and Armenia.[citation needed]
In 2006, acartoon controversy with regard to Azerbaijani people had led to unrest, as the cartoon had compared the Azerbaijanis to cockroaches.[26][27] During 2012, fans ofTractor Sazi, an Azerbaijani-dominated football club, chanted anti-Iranian rhetorics, raising their voice against oppression of ethnic Azerbaijanis by the Iranian government and their neglect after theEast Azerbaijan earthquakes; the Iranian police force responded violently, arresting dozens.[28] Azerbaijani activists have also increasingly faced harassment by the Iranian government for their effort to protect the Azerbaijani minority in Iran.[29]
DuringGeorgia's movement toward independence from theSoviet Union, the Azeri population expressed fear for its fate in an independent Georgia. In the late 1980s, most ethnic Azeris occupying local government positions in the Azeri-populated areas were removed from their positions.[30] In 1989, there were changes in the ethnic composition of the local authorities and the resettlement of thousands of migrants who had suffered from landslides in the mountainous region ofSvaneti. The local Azeri population, accepting the migrants at first, demanded only to resolve the problem of Azeri representation on the municipal level. The demands were ignored; later the migrants, culturally different from the local population and facing social hardships, were accused of attacks and robbery against the Azeris,[31] which in turn led to demonstrations, ethnic clashes betweenSvans and Azeris, demands for Azeri autonomy in Borchali, and for the expulsion of Svan immigrants from Kvemo-Kartli.[32][33] The antagonism reached its peak during the presidency ofZviad Gamsakhurdia (1991–1992), when hundreds of Azeri families were forcibly evicted from their homes in Dmanisi and Bolnisi bynationalist paramilitaries. Thousands of Azeris emigrated to Azerbaijan in fear of nationalist policies.[33] In his speech inKvareli, Gamsakhurdia accused the Azeri population of Kakheti of "holding up their heads and measuring swords with Kakheti".[34] The Georgian nationalist press expressed concern with regard to the fast natural growth of the Azeri population.[35]
Although ethnic oppression in the 1990s did not take place on a wide scale, minorities in Georgia, especially Azeris,Abkhazians, andOssetians, encountered the problem of dealing with nationalist organisations established in some parts of the country. Previously not prone to migrating, Azeris became the second-largest emigrating ethnic community in Georgia in the early 1990s, with three-quarters of these mainly rural emigrants leaving for Azerbaijan and the rest for Russia. Unlike other minority groups, many remaining Azeris cited attachment to their home communities and unwillingness to leave behind well-developed farms as their reason to stay.[35] Furthermore, Georgian-born Azeris who immigrated to Azerbaijan at various times, including 50,000 Georgian-born spouses of Azerbaijani citizens, reported bureaucratic problems faced in Azerbaijan, with some unable to acquire Azerbaijani citizenship for nearly 20 years.[36]
The results of the March events were immediate and total for the Musavat. Several hundreds of its members were killed in the fighting; up to 12,000 Muslim civilians perished; thousands of others fled Baku in a mass exodus
Dating back to 1687, the Thapha Bashi mosque, the remnants of which only remain in Kond is listed as a historical monument and is protected by the Armenian state. When Muslims left Armenia at the beginning of the 20th century, the mosque became a residence for many survivors of the Armenian genocide. One can still see the influence of Persian architecture that fortunately remain intact. As the residents recall, the "huge dome" of the mosque collapsed more than two decades ago, several years after the Spitak Earthquake.
The non-Armenian historical and cultural monuments in Syunik Province of Armenia are located near the towns of Kapan, Meghri, Sisian, including Muslim (six sites) cemeteries, mausoleums, mosques, and an Orthodox church. The "Historical Environment and Historical-Cultural Museum Preserves Protection Service" NCSO of the Ministry of Culture of Armenia is responsible for the maintenance of the monuments, which are regarded as state property.
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