CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2017
| Author | Hodaei, Alireza |
|---|---|
| Title | The Voice Of a Periphery Lost In The Cold War; Firqe-yi Demokrat And Its Official Newspaper Azerbaijan |
| Summary | The rise and fall of the Firqey-i Demokrat (The Democrat Party) and the establishment of the Azerbaijan People’s Government in the winter of 1945 has been a matter of scholarly interest for decades. The Azerbaijan People’s Government (APG) was a self-declared autonomous Government in northwest Iran, Iranian Azerbaijan, headed by Seyyed Jafar Pishavari in December of 1945, which lasted only for a year. The life of the short-lived government and of its leader, Pishavari, is contested among scholars with different ideological orientations. While many see the APG as nothing but a Soviet designed plan, others describe it as a mass mobilization against the injustices of the central government in Tehran. The result of the near half-century battle was the production of reductionist histories in Farsi, Azerbaijani Turkish, and English, the primary concern of which was to prove or disprove Soviet support for the APG and thus discredit or legitimize it. Whether a Soviet plan or a spontaneous mass movement, the story of the Azerbaijan People’s Government has many other understudied aspects. Considering the necessity of going beyond this narrow focus, this thesis will consider the regional dynamics and narrate a history through the official newspaper of the Firqey-i Demokrat as the voice of a periphery stuck amid a great war. To do so, first, this research will define the Iranian Azerbaijan as a peripherialized center that was gradually losing its impact within Iranian society. After an overview of the historiography in the introduction, the first chapter will discuss the process of peripherialization in which Azerbaijan gradually lost its importance as a center during the early decades of the twentieth century by focusing on a few cultural, legal and economic examples. The second chapter is devoted to the legacy of Azerbaijan newspaper and its origins.Theiii final chapter, will use the official newspaper of the Azerbaijan People’s Government to exclusively investigate problems and concerns of a periphery within Iranian society which were among the claims of legitimization for the APG officials. |
| Supervisor | Shaw, Charles David |
| Department | History MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2017/hodaei_alireza.pdf |
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