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Azeri
The Azerbaijani language. Traditionally Shiite Muslim people of
Azerbaijan and adjacent areas of Armenia and northern Iran; an
Azerbaijani.
The Azerbaijanis are a Turkic ethnic group mainly in northwestern
Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. Commonly referred to as
Azeris/Āzarīs or Azeri Turks, they also live in a wider area from
the Caucasus to the Iranian plateau. The Azeris are predominantly
Shia Muslim and have a mixed cultural heritage of Iranic, Caucasian,
and Turkic elements.
Despite living on two sides of an international border since the
treaties of Gulistan (1813) and Turkmenchay (1828), after which Iran
losts its northern territories to Russia, the Azeris form a single
ethnic group. However, northerners and southerners differ due to
nearly two centuries of separate social evolution in
Russian/Soviet-influenced Azerbaijan and Iranian Azarbaijan. The
Azerbaijani language unifies Azeris, and is mutually intelligible
with Turkmen, Qashqai and Turkish (including the dialects spoken by
the Iraqi Turkmen), all of which belong to Oghuz, or Western, group
of Turkic languages.
Following the Russian-Persian Wars of the 18th and 19th centuries,
Persian territories in the Caucasus were ceded to the Russian
Empire. This included parts of the current Republic of Azerbaijan.
The treaties of Gulistan in 1813 and Turkmenchay in 1828 finalized
the border between Russia and Persia (today known as Iran).
As a result of this separate existence, the Azeris are mainly
secular in Azerbaijan and religious Muslims in Iran. Since
Azerbaijan's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, there has
been renewed interest in religion and cross-border ethnic ties.
By far the largest ethnic group in Azerbaijan (over 90%), the Azeris
generally tend to dominate most aspects of the country. Unlike most
of their ethnic brethren in Iran, the majority of Azeris are
secularized from decades of official Soviet atheism. The literacy
rate is high, another Soviet legacy, and is estimated at 98.8%.
Whereas most urban Azeris are educated, education remains
comparatively lower in rural areas. A similar disparity exists with
healthcare.
Azeri society has been deeply impacted by the war with Armenia over
Nagorno-Karabakh, which has displaced nearly 1 million Azeris and
put strains upon the economy.[88] Azerbaijan has benefited from the
oil industry, but high levels of corruption have prevented greater
prosperity for the masses.[89] Many Azeris have grown frustrated
over the political process in Azerbaijan as the election of current
president Ilham Aliyev has been described as "marred by allegations
of corruption and brutal crackdowns on his political opposition".
Despite these problems, there is a renaissance in Azerbaijan as
positive economic predictions and an active political opposition
appear determined to improve the lives of average Azeris.
Azeris in Iran
Azerbaijanis in Iran are mainly found in the northwest provinces:
East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, Ardabil, Zanjan, Kordestan,
Qazvin, Hamedan, and Markazi. Many others live in Tehran, Fars
Province, and other regions. Generally, Azeris in Iran were regarded
as "a well integrated linguistic minority" by academics prior to
Iran's Islamic Revolution. In fact, until the Pahlavi period in the
twentieth century, "the identity of Iran was not exclusively
Persian, but supra-ethnic", as much of the political leadership,
starting from the eleventh century, had been Turkic. The Iranian and
Turkic groups were integrated until twentieth century nationalism
and communalism began to alter popular perception.[3] Despite
friction, Azerbaijanis in Iran came to be well represented at all
levels of, "political, military, and intellectual hierarchies, as
well as the religious hierarchy."
The Azerbaijanis speak Azerbaijani (sometimes called Azerbaijani
Turkish or Azeri), a Turkic language that is mutually intelligible
with Turkish despite minor variations in accent, vocabulary and
grammar. Other mutually intelligible Turkic languages include
Turkmen and the Turkish spoken by the Turkomans of Iraq and the
Qashqai. The Azerbaijani language is descended from the Western
Oghuz Turkic language that became established in Azerbaijan in the
11th century CE. Early Oghuz was mainly an oral language. It began
to develop as a literary language by the 13th century. Early oral
Azerbaijani, derived from the Oghuz language, began with history
recitations (dastans), including the Book of Dede Korkut and
Koroglu, which contained Turkic mythology. Some of the earliest
Azeri writings of the past are traced back to the poet Nasimi (died
1417) and then decades later Fuzūlī (14831556). Ismail I, Shah of
Safavid Persia wrote Azeri poetry under the pen name Khatā'i. Modern
Azeri literature continued with a traditional emphasis upon,
humanism, as conveyed in the writings of Samad Vurgun, Shahriar, and
many others.
Azeris are generally bilingual, often fluent in either Russian (in
Azerbaijan) or Persian (in Iran). Around 5,000,000 of Azerbaijan's
roughly 8,000,000 population speaks Russian. Moreover, in 1999,
around 2,700 Azeris in the Azerbaijan Republic (0.04% of the total
Azeri population) reported Russian as their mothertongue.[106] An
Iranian survey (2002) revealed that 90.0% of the sample household
population in Iran is able to speak Persian, 4.6% can only
understand it, and 5.4% can neither speak nor understand Persian.
Azeri is the most spoken minority language in an Iranian household
(24%).
Christianity in Azerbaijan
is a minority religion. 3.8% of the population (1998) belong to the
Russian Orthodox Church (1998). The Russian Orthodox Church has the
Eparchy of Baku and the Caspian region with a seat in Azerbaijan.
There are eleven Molokan communities. The Molokans are a Christian
minority which is centered on the Bible and who reject church
hierarchy.
There is only one Roman Catholic congregation. A Roman Catholic
church in Baku has opened in 2007.
The Albanian-Udi church is a minority of 6000 persons in Azerbaijan.
The Armenian Apostolic Church has no communitiy outside
Nagorno-Karabakh.
There likely are less than 7000 Protestants.
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