The Study of Influential External Factors on Pan-Turkism in Iranian Azerbaijan

Ethnocentrism amongst ethnic groups in Iran is one of the most important factors that endanger the social and cultural solidarity of our country. Pan-Turkism is a kind of ethnocentrism. Pan-Turkism emerged in the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century. In order to eliminate the Persian from previous Persian territories in the Caucasus, the Russian supported the idea of pan-Turkism. After the Russians, the Ottoman Empire advertised this idea to save its empire in the First World War. That is why they attacked Iranian Azerbaijan in 1918. Then the Soviet Union helped the Democratic Party to form a pan-Turkic state in Iran. Generally speaking, three factors of external forces, the Azeri elites, and the political system influence Pan-Turkism. In the present study, we attempted to examine the external forces and factors influencing Pan-Turkism in Iranian Azerbaijan through conducting a survey. For this purpose, we chose 400 respondents from East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, Ardabil, and Zanjan provinces, using the clustering sample method. Then we interviewed the respondents. Finally, we analysed the data by the SPSS software. The regression analysis revealed that the independent variables explained 33 percent of the changes of Pan-Turkism as the dependent variable.