علی کالیراد

In 1920, when the Red Army conquered the Republic of Azerbaijan, many political and military elements fled to Iran. The appropriate treatment of Iranians with immigrants, the Iranian government's resistance to the extradite of refugees, the employment of many immigrants in Iranian civil and military sections, as well as Turkey's chaotic conditions at that time, indicate the importance of Iran in the process of migration of Caucasian Azerbaijanis after the Bolshevik invasion. However, for various reasons, the aforementioned issue has not been paid much attention in the researches conducted so far, and the presence and activities of Azerbaijani immigrants in Turkey and Europe have been mostly discussed.During the decades of 1920-1940, the community of Azerbaijani émigrés in Iran was plagued by internal rivalries, anticommunist activities by foreign states, and Soviet intelligence penetration. In Iran, the Azerbaijani community's political life was heavily influenced by Reza Shah's government's security approach, the priority Iran placed on de-escalating tensions with Soviet Union and Turkey, the memories of ups and downs between Tehran and Baku between 1918 and 1920, as well as the Turkist discourse that dominates Azerbaijani political circles, especially among the Musavat party. In the aftermath of the Second World War, developments complicated the issue of Azerbaijani émigrés and the obstacles to their cooperation with Iranian authorities.

The Alash movement was formed in the early 20th century by a group of Kazakh intellectuals in the Asian territories of the Russian Empire, after the 1917 revolutions, it found a political body, and then the "Alash Orda" government was born from it. The rule of the Russians, especially their land policy and settling immigrants, brought new problems to the Kazakhs. Intelligentsia, as a new political-cultural factor, tried to become the representative of Kazakhs' public demands during the revolution of 1905 and the First World War. After the February and October revolutions of 1917, Kazakh intelligentsia faced unexpected opportunities and challenges and tried to assume the political leadership of Kazakhs and the foundation of a modern nation-state. The Alash Orda was caught between the forces involved in the Russian civil war and had to overcome a series of internal problems and internal rivalries. On the other hand, Kazakh leaders were unable to benefit from the support of foreign powers. The Alash Orda finally surrendered to the Bolsheviks in 1920. Nevertheless, the rereading of their political and intellectual legacy continues in post-independence Kazakhstan.

After the collapse of the Tsarist Empire following the 1917 revolution, non-Russian political activists in different parts of the empire, including the Caucasus and Central Asia, sought autonomy and then independence for their communities. Thus, the three republics of the South Caucasus (Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia) gained their independence one after another in 1918; but the Red Army occupied the republics and forced their leaders to emigrate in the early 1920s. To continue their struggle against the Soviet Union, the Caucasian émigrés, including the Georgian Social Democrats and the Azerbaijani Musavatists, sought the support of anti-Bolshevic states. They found Poland as an enthusiastic supporter. The Prometheus movement was a Polish-backed political organization that weakened the Bolshevik regime by supporting nationalist movements among non-Russian peoples in the Soviet Union. . The task of fighting the Bolsheviks on the southern front fell to the Caucasian activists.The French-language journal Prométhée, published in Paris between 1926 and 1938, was the main tool of the movement's propaganda campaign against the Soviet Union. The journal, edited by the Georgian Georges Gvazava, was introduced as the National Defense Organization of the People of the Caucasus and Ukraine, which was renamed the National Defense Organization of the People of the Caucasus, Ukraine, and Turkestan from issue 8 onwards (June-July 1927). It was succeeded by Revue de Prométhée, edited by the Ukrainian Alexander Shulgin, during 1938-1940. Many prominent Caucasian politicians, from the former republics of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and the North Caucasus along with their Turkestani and Ukrainian counterparts, contributed to the journal Prométhée. One of the notable contributors was Mehmed Emin Resulzade (1884-1955), an influential figure in the Iranian constitutional revolution (1905-1911) and the founding father of the Republic of Azerbaijan (1918-1920), who later organized Azerbaijani émigrés in Turkey and Europe.In this study, we have focused on Resulzade's articles in Prométhée. Accordingly, the main themes of Resulzade's articles were the historical and cultural identity of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the defense of the idea of ​ Pan-Turkism against the propaganda of the Soviet Union, as well as the circles of white Russians and Armenians, the disclosure of Moscow's expansionist policies against the neighboring countries and the attempt to gather the Caucasians around the idea of a confederation. The national history of the Republic of Azerbaijan was the most important subject of Resulzade's articles. He presented a selection of important stages in the history of Azerbaijan. He sought to define an independent and respectable identity for this country and emphasize the importance of the Republic of Azerbaijan for the Western world. Resulzade's goal was to prove the claim that the people of the Republic of Azerbaijan had all the elements of national identity. By stating that the majority of the inhabitants of Azerbaijan are Turkic peoples, he sought to provide historical evidence of the presence of Turks in the southeastern part of the Caucasus.Resulzade was a supporter of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and defended him and the Kemalist regime, even when the policies of Turkey were against the Azerbaijani struggle against Moscow. Pan-Turanism / Pan-Turkism was a major charge promoted by the Soviet Union, according to Rasoulzadeh. Armenians and white Russians also provoked it. Against the allegations about the political allegiance of the Azerbaijani activists to Turkey, Resulzade distinguished between cultural pan-Turkism and political pan-Turkism. He asserted that political pan-Turkism is doomed to failure because it wants to unite all Turkic peoples under one flag, but cultural pan-Turkism seeks to liberate Turkish culture from foreign domination. According to Resulzade, cultural pan-Turkism was able to create a revolutionary movement among Turkic masses and attract them to the struggle for national autonomy and independence against Russian imperialism. He also strongly criticized the White Russians' approach to the rights of ethnic minorities and their emphasis on Russian unity.Resulzade was also trying to show the imperialist attitude of the Soviet Union toward the eastern countries. The Bolsheviks claimed the abolition of the privileges imposed by Tsarist Russia; but, according to Resulzade, this claim was nothing but political propaganda. He referred to Persia, which the Soviet Union mistreated. Referring to Bukharin's remarks at the 15th Congress of the Communist Party on the events of China, Resulzade mentioned it as the real approach of the Bolsheviks to the eastern countries. Bukharin reiterated Lenin's position in support of the independence and nationalist movements as long as they did not become a threat against the Soviet ambitions. He did not expect the collapse of the Soviet Union to be far from expected. Resulzade viewed the Swiss political system as an appropriate model for the Caucasus. He considered the realization of Caucasian unity in full connection with the acceptance of the idea of the Caucasus Confederation by all people of the region and the two key neighboring countries, i.e. Persia and Turkey.

The city of Vladikavkaz, founded during the expansion of the Russian Empire to the Caucasus in the late eighteenth century, gradually attracted immigrants from inside and outside the empire. This city, especially since the second half of the nineteenth century, became one of the destinations for permanent and temporary migrations from Persia. With the increase of the Iranian population in Vladikavkaz and the surrounding areas, the Iranian consulate was established there in 1897. The aim of this study is to provide a general overview of the activities of Iranian officials and immigrants in Vladikavkaz since the establishment of the Iranian consulate in 1897 until the collapse of the Tsarist Empire and the outbreak of civil war in Russia based on the consular records in the archive of Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Through its efforts to establish and maintain a Shia mosque, Nowruz School, and Hemmat Association, the Iranian consulate played an important role in supporting solidarity among the Iranian diaspora in the city and protecting the rights of the Iranian citizens. However, the affairs with the Russian Empire, hostility and rivalry inside the Iranian Foreign Ministry, and financial problems were the main challenges faced by the Persian consul in Vladikavkaz.

Tārikh-i Khayrāt and Aṣaḥḥ al-tawārikh by Muhammad ibn Fazlullah Musavi are less well-known general histories from the ninth century AH/ the fifteenth century AD. The purpose of this essay is to introduce the above-mentioned works and discussing representation of the early history of Islam in Tārikh-i Khayrāt and Aṣahh al-tawārikh. Although Musavi's works are not much significant in terms of historiographical data and literary value, the reflection of his approach as a believer in the religio-political legitimacy of Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib and his descendants and also the influence of Sufi doctrine on Musavi’s narrative of the history of early Islam represents the context of religious thought in Timurid Khorasan. Moreover, the marginal annotations and revisions on the manuscripts of Tārikh-i Khayrāt and Aṣaḥḥ al-tawārikh, which have been made in the following centuries, could be the readers' different perusal of the text and reflecting the transformation of Shiite identity boundaries in Persia during the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries.

Yusuf Akçura (1876-1935) is one of the most important political figures in contemporary history of Turkey and a prominent ideologue of Turkism/ Pan-Turkism. He played a key role in the development of the Turkish nationalism and the idea of Pan-Turkism among the Ottomans and later on became one of the cultural architects of the Kemalist Turkey. This research, while analyzing the roots of Akçura's idea about Turkism, has focused on the importance of Nationalist and Marxist concepts and themes in his view. For Akçura, Turkism was considered as a tool for realizing his cultural, political and social goals for transition of the Muslim traditional societies to the modern world. Akçura was not an ethno-nationalist but an intellectual-activist who sought to present a roadmap for the modernization of the Turkic Muslim societies in accordance with the Eurocentric modernization model.

Salafism as a relatively new phenomenon has obtained an active and growing role in Islamic affairs of the Russian Federation especially in the Northern Caucasus, in various dimensions.The realization of radical salafis’ endeavors in separatist militants’ activities, either in the framework of al-Qaeda linked Emirate of the Caucasus or in IS Caucasus Province are not the whole story. Another aspect of this phenomenon is the efforts of moderate salafis to increasingly open up the areas for public and official activities in the religious sphere of Northern Caucasus republics. There is so much evidence to indicate salafism as the fastest growing Islamic sect in the Northern Caucasus, which given especial Importance to this phenomenon.
According to the internal dynamics of the region, continuation of insecurity in the North Caucasus and the failure of the Russian government to implement its stated policy to eradication of separatist and extremist movements in the region, this phenomenon has been emerged as a crucial problem with national dimension in Russia. In the current situation, there is no doubt about ties between radical salafism in Northern Caucasus and sponsors of radical salafism in regional and international level.
The main problem of this paper is about the historical, cultural and political factors which have been playing role in the emergence and development of salafism in the Northern Caucasus. The problem of the paper has been explained and analyzed by descriptive – analytical method.
To answer the problem of the paper, a series of historical, cultural and political factors of the Northern Caucasus, including the background, and the political - defiant characteristics of Islam in the region, weakening of Islam during soviet period, post – Soviet sphere and the transformation of the roles of religious actors, rejection of Sufi Islam by the salafists, the lack of a coherent and coordinated policy towards Salafism in the North Caucasus, counterproductive rivalry between Muslim scholars of Russia, counterproductive ethnic rivalry in the region, the consequences of Chechnya wars, assassination of scholars and thinkers of traditional Islam and de-Iranization of the Northern Caucasus have been introduced and surveyed as the hypothesis of the paper.

Iran and Turkey witnessed deep and broad social changes in an effort to Modernization in the first half of 20th century. The social changes had wide-ranging consequences, including personal and psychological effects. The purpose of this paper is a psychoanalytic study of two short stories written by two prominent Iranian and Turkish writers, Sadeq Hedayat (1903-1951) and Sait Faik Abasıyanık (1906-1954) for investigating the psychological impact of social changes on their characters. The themes of isolation, reclusiveness and return to womb in the short stories The Dark Room by Hedayat and A Dot on the Map by Abasıyanık examined by means of the defense mechanism of “regression”.

This research work aims at exploring the psychological operations techniques utilized by the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan in the Azarbaijan crisis during the years 1945 – 1946. The main question is, ‘How did the Democratic Party manage to establish and consolidate a self-ruling system in the region in a short period of time (considering the supports of the former Soviet Union)?’ To answer this question, the following hypothesis was developed: To consolidate its ruling system in the Azarbaijan region, the Democratic Party conducted psychological operations against its target audience (the people of the region) using various techniques. The results suggest that the Democratic Party utilized various techniques of psychological operations at various intervals (establishment of the Democratic Party, following separatism and establishment of self-ruling government). The most important techniques they utilized were: scare-mongering, rapid feedback, symbolization, history fabrication and provision of legitimacy/acceptability for aliens which were practiced using the ordinary devices of the time including the media and leaflets. This is a descriptive-analytic study and the required data were collected from library sources and documents.

After the First World War, Iran and the Ottomans were afflicted with vast internal problems and external threats. International great powers’ intentions of redefining the political map of the Middle East, and the attempts of the ethnic and religious groups who didn’t have independent states of their own to take advantage of this opportunity, posed serious challenges to Iran and the Ottomans. The mains burgeoning stage of these challenges were the Northwest Iran and East Anatolia. With Turk nationalist consolidating their position in the Anatolia, Iranian statesmen, headed by Ahmad Qavam, sought to interact with the Ankara government. During the fateful era of 1919 to 1925 which witnessed the establishment of new political systems in Iran and Turkey, the Kurd issues and Iran’s concern over pan Turk activities in Azerbaijan State were the main influential factor in mutual relation. These issues persisted through the time when Reza Khan was the prime minister and into his monarchy.

Bahrain as a trade and crossing key point in the Persian Gulf had been witnessed crucial developments in sixteenth century. The sociopolitical structure of Modern Bahrain has been affected by the sixteen century's development. So it is necessary to recognize Bahrain political context in sixteenth century and the regional conflicts impact on Bahrain social and political developments. This survey first explains conflicts between the regional powers and dynasties on taking control of Bahrain and then explores the Portuguese and Ottoman interference in Bahrain affairs.