Assessment for Russians in Azerbaijan

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Risk Assessment | Analytic Summary | References

Risk Assessment

Russians in Azerbaijan are very unlikely to engage in violent collective action against the Baku government. Their group identity is weak, they have few collective grievances, little political organization, are overwhelmingly urban, and have no history of collective political action. However, the political and economic influence of the Russian minority has declined over the past 15 years and this could lead to increased tensions. While the group has not experienced any direct repression, some forms of political discrimination have been noted; it is also possible that such discrimination may increase in the future, as indicated by recent laws passed to augment Azeri influence at the expense of Russian influence. Further, with a resurgent Russia, much will depend on how Moscow supports the minority.

During the 1990s Azeri elite and public opinion was often hostile to Russia for seeming to take Armenia’s side in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, which nominally remains part of Azerbaijan. If warfare breaks out again over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, which remains a distinct possibility, the status of ethnic Russians may be adversely affected.

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Analytic Summary

The presence of Russians in Azerbaijan dates back to the Treaty of Turkmenchai in the early 19th century. Russian immigration came mainly in two distinct waves. The first came in the wake of the Treaty in 1828 when tsarist bureaucrats and religious minorities moved there. The second wave of immigration came in response to the discovery and subsequent development of large oil fields in Azerbaijan during the latter half of the 19th century and throughout the Soviet period. The development of these oil fields and the general industrialization of Azerbaijan brought Slavic peoples and other non-Azeris from throughout the empire.

During the Soviet period, Russians (as well as Jews, Armenians and other Slavs) enjoyed an advantaged position in Azerbaijan. Armenians and Russians occupied the key industrial and financial positions in Azerbaijan and considerable resentment was generated towards both groups as a result. Ethnic Azeris in Azerbaijan quickly became an economically disadvantaged majority group. Azeris have resented the policies of russification and imperial control which they claim have damaged Azeri culture. This russification was especially destructive during the Stalinist period, when the Azeri intelligentsia was decimated and the Russian language came to dominate Azeri politics and society. These issues contributed to general frustration with Russia and Russians, as well as resentment of Russia’s role in their crisis with the Armenians.

Today, the Russians in Azerbaijan share many traits with Russian minorities in other post-Soviet states: they are clustered predominantly in urban areas (GROUPCON = 1); they are not highly organized around their ethnicity (GOJPA06 = 1); and they have not experienced communal conflict. The outflow of Russians has ended (EMIG04-06 = 0), and there is some evidence of Russian families returning to Baku, probably due to the recent oil boom. While Russians are still represented in parliament (LEGISREP04-06 = 1; POLDIS06 = 0) and spent most of the 1990s as an economically and socially advantaged group, they now find themselves to some extent in a disadvantaged position regarding official positions, although they face no overt economic discrimination (ECDIS06 = 0). Nevertheless, there were no instances of grievances voiced by members of the Russian community in recent years (POLGR06 = 0; ECGR06 = 0; CULGR06 = 0).

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References

Bremmer, Ian and Ray Taras, eds. Nations and Politics in the Soviet Successor States (NY: Cambridge University Press) 1993.

Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press.

Inter Press Service.

King, Charles (2008) The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus (New York: Oxford University Press).

Lexis-Nexis. Various reports. 1990-2006

Olson, James S. ed. An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press) 1994.

Open Media Research Institute. Daily Reports.

Prism. A weekly electronic journal published by the Jamestown Foundation.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Daily Reports (1993-2006).

United Nations Information Service release on Azerbaijan. Accessed via the United Nations Home Page on the World Wide Web.

U. S. State Department. Human Rights Report: Azerbaijan. 1993, 1994, 2001-2006.

Young, Stephen, Ronald J. Bee and Bruce Seymore II. One Nation Becomes Many: The ACCESS Guide to the Former Soviet Union (Washington, DC: ACCESS) 1992.

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