Soviet rule, Islam and Azerbaijan. Interview with Altay Goyushow
Professor of history at Baku State University, specialist in political Islam, Altay Goyushow joined CERI as a visiting scholar, in September 2024. A fine observer of the Azerbaijani regime, he answers our questions about the ruling elite’s attitude toward religion, and Islam in particular, and why we need to look back at the Soviet period. Read our interview!
Can you briefly present your research path, career, and interests?
I started working at the History Faculty of Baku State University before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. My department was then called the Department of the History of the USSR. However, it was the last years of the Soviet era, and the ruling regime was extremely weakened in our region. People started showing interest in everything suppressed during the 70 years of Communist one-party rule. Among these suppressed topics was the brief, two-year period of the independence of Azerbaijan just before the Red Army’s invasion of the republic in 1920. I graduated from a history faculty with honours, yet my knowledge about the first republic was extremely scarce because Soviet orthodoxy in teaching history gave as little information about this period as possible. When I had to decide on a topic for my PhD, I made the choice to concentrate on that period of Azerbaijani history. By then, many young graduates who chose to become researchers were showing interest in that period, yet the vast majority focused their work on the activities of the then-ruling party, Müsavat, which dominated the politics of the republic during those two years of independence. However, that early republic was a parliamentary democracy with a multi-party system, and I decided to study the main opposition, which was an Islamic opposition to a ruling secular nationalist government. The Islamic opposition was represented in parliament and formed the second largest group. Although many famous public figures, writers, and other representatives of the Azerbaijani intelligentsia were on the ruling board of the Islamic Party, we at that time, had very little knowledge about its policies and activities.
There was one more reason this party caught my attention. As you know, under Soviet rule, religion was suppressed to varying degrees throughout the country’s 70-year history. Immediately upon the fall of the Soviet Union, a religious revival began in post-Soviet Azerbaijan. This impressive rise of religion in a society we long perceived as a bastion of secularism encouraged my interest in the past of religious movements in Azerbaijan. Azeris have had a strong Muslim identity for many centuries now; however, their knowledge about Islam was almost eradicated during Soviet rule. In the 1990s they were showing enormous interest in that kind of knowledge. As soon as I finished my PhD and subsequently published two books concentrated on the tumultuous period of the First World War and the Russian Revolution in the wider Caucasus region, I focused my primary research on the various aspects of the revival of Islam in post-Soviet Azerbaijan.
You have been a close analyst of the resemblance between state policies toward Islam in the early Soviet and post-Soviet periods in Azerbaijan. Can you remind us what Soviet anti-religious efforts were and why we should compare them to the current Azerbaijani government’s so-called religious enlightenment activities?
In the 2000s I was involved in a grand international research project about Islamic education in the post-Soviet countries led by such scholars as Anke von Kügelgen, Stefan Reichmuth, Michael Kemper, Raoul Motika, and others. Within this project, apart from contributing to this collective endeavour with a co-authored research article about Islamic education in Azerbaijan, I also wrote a separate paper about Soviet policies toward Islam in Azerbaijan during the early decades of Soviet rule. While studying these two separate periods of history—that is, the early decades of Soviet rule and post-Soviet developments—I was stunned by the similarities in the methods used by state authorities to deal with religion during both phases of the country’s history. The thing that struck my curiosity was that, while the ultimate goals of the religious policies of the Soviet state and independent Azerbaijani republic were not the same, the methods employed to achieve those goals were spectacularly similar. So, I decided to research and do a comparative analysis of religious policies during those two periods .
You know the Soviet system was based on an aetheist Communist ideology that declared that religion was the “opiate of the masses”. Yet in the beginning, the Soviets did not show open hostility toward Islam in particular, because they regarded Muslim people as an ally in their declared rivalry with Western imperialism. When Stalin visited the North Caucasus, he made a speech in which he declared that Bolsheviks did not come to destroy religion; on the contrary, he promised that they came to allow local Muslims to live according to their traditions and beliefs. In contrast, in the late 1920s, Soviet policies toward Islam took a drastic turn, and prosecuted an almost undeclared war against many local traditions, regarding Islam as a primary source of these traditions. However, as we know, these policies of militant aetheism greatly subsided after the Second World War, and the Islamic revival after the collapse of the Soviet Union showed that, overall, the religious policies of the Soviet Union failed to achieve their goals. Unfortunately, the post-Soviet revival of religion was also accompanied by a resurgence of religious radicalism. The relative success of this radicalism was also to some extent connected to the fact that while Soviet policies aimed at the eradication of religion managed to weaken local religious traditions, they completely failed to suppress strong Muslim identity. So, after the collapse of Soviet rule, this vacuum was successfully filled with radical ideas penetrating the life of local communities and disguised as the revival of local traditions suppressed by Soviet rule.
This topic is relevant today as well, because now we know the failed results of Soviet religious policies; however, post-Soviet Azerbaijan has been repeating various methods of those failed policies while expecting a different result. It is crucial to note that the government extended the term radicalism to include individuals and communities who reject the secular state's interference in pure religious matters.
What is the aim of the current Azerbaijani ruling elite’s policies in the field of religion?
Azerbaijan is a secular state. A genuine secularist movement was started in Azerbaijan in the mid-nineteenth century by the local Russian and European-educated intelligentsia. The greatest success of this movement was the creation of the first secular republic during the First World War and the Russian Revolution. In 1920, the Red Army put an end to this republic. However, during Soviet rule the secularist traditions of Azerbaijani society strengthened further, even though, as I said earlier, the collapse of the Soviet Union was accompanied by the impressive revival of religion. Soviet rule eradicated local sources of religious knowledge and because of this, in the 1990s, the revival was led primarily by foreign actors. Then, in the late 1990s, local clerics educated abroad took the leading role in religious proselytism. This situation was unacceptable to Azerbaijani authorities, as they wanted religious learning to be concentrated in the hands of locally educated Muslim clerics. The authorities have been pursuing a policy of domesticating Islam. Unlike the Soviets, the current Azerbaijani government does not intend to get rid of religion; they instead want to make Islamic elites into loyal supporters of the secular system and ruling elite. This policy has given birth to a complex religious situation in the country. On the one hand, there is an official Islam loyal to the government. On the other hand, there are Islamic communities that aim to exist without the secular state’s interference. The constitution says that the state and religion are separate; however, the real situation is much more complicated. Both the government and independent Islamic communities complain about interference from their counterparts. Islamic communities complain that the state infringes on their freedom of conscience, while the government complains that independent communities are a threat to the secular nature of the state.
How does the current Azerbaijani regime define what they call radical and non-traditional forms of religion?
In the Azerbaijani case these are evolving notions. Since the Russian conquest of the region’s Muslim communities, the state has tried to establish so-called spiritual boards and obliged local Muslim communities to accept the authority of these boards. These types of boards were established for Azerbaijani Muslims too. In the beginning, there were separate Sunni and Shi’i boards as the majority of Azerbaijanis are Shi’i, while Sunnis are a larger community worldwide and in the Russian Empire. In the twentieth century, Sunni and Shi'i boards were combined into a single entity, with a Shi'i cleric serving as its leader. Although these boards were created by the Russian imperial authorities after the empire conquered the region in the nineteenth century, the current Azerbaijani government calls the board a traditional Muslim authority in the country and demands that all Azerbaijani Muslim communities accept both its organisational and spiritual authority. This demand creates serious tensions between the state and some Islamic communities, which insist that the board and its leader do not possess the required Islamic theological credentials to claim either spiritual or organisational leadership over Muslim communities. These communities continue to accept the religious authority of historic theological centres based in countries like Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and others.
So, the government, in creating the State Committee for Work with Religious Associations (SCWRA), in adapting multiple restrictive measures such as outlawing the majority of preachers who were educated abroad, in prohibiting any kind of religious activity without compulsory state registration, which requires formal acceptance of the board as a supreme spiritual authority, has created the following situation: those who accept and obey the religious regulations of the secular government are called traditionalists, while those who refuse them are non-traditionalists. And the latter include most Azerbaijani Muslim clerics, because they received their religious education abroad without prior government permission. Furthermore, the government has recently implemented a new set of procedures that has made the SCWRA the sole authority to appoint clerics to mosques and other Muslim prayer houses.
You mention that the current ruling elite of Azerbaijan is particularly concerned by Muharram traditions, partly because these do not correspond to so-called civilised religion according to the government. Can you tell us why?
The Azerbaijani government aims to create distinct characteristics of local Islam which it describes as a “civilised” Islam. The methods used to achieve this goal include the implementation of a unique education programme for training Muslim clerics in the newly established Theological Institute, the adaptation of distinct uniforms for Azerbaijani Muslim clerics, the promotion of joint Sunni-Shi’i prayers, among other things. “Correcting” rituals of Muharram commemorations are among the planned reforms. It should be noted that Muharram is the most popular religious commemoration in Azerbaijan. It has been for centuries. However, beginning in the early twentieth century, some practices of Muharram commemorations, such as self-flagellation or striking oneself with swords and knives, have been heavily criticised by the local secular intelligentsia as “uncivilised” rituals. The Soviets launched multiple campaigns against Muharram observations like these and others. In the post-Soviet era, this approach has been continued, and some practices have been replaced with novelties, such as making blood donations instead of striking themselves with knives or self-flagellation with metal chains. During the last decade another government concern has been the increased pilgrimage of Azerbaijani believers to Shi’i shrines in Iraq and Iran at the end of annual Muharram commemorations. The government considers the rising number of pilgrims to those places as a security risk. So, by implementing various measures and restrictions, the authorities are trying to curb the number of pilgrims.
Does the Azerbaijani population support the ruling elite’s policies toward religion? What is the position of secular youth movements in the face of the government’s attitude toward independent Muslim communities?
It is an interesting question. Azerbaijan, despite the impressive religious revival in the post-Soviet period, remains a largely secular country. So, most Azerbaijanis cherish their society’s secular characteristics and do not appreciate the interference of religion or religious communities in state affairs. However, state institutions’ deep interference with the life of religious communities in many instances infringes on people’s freedom of conscience. And in this particular matter, there is a generational disruption within society. While the older Soviet-trained and educated part of the society, especially the urbanised part, is not particularly critical of the excesses of the government’s religious policies, the younger population, especially its quite vocal liberal and progressive representatives, despite appreciating and praising the secular fundamentals of the society, is frequently critical of the tough measures implemented by the government in the promotion of religious conformity.
It should also be added that ethnic nationalism is a strong feature of Azerbaijani society. And traditionally, secular nationalists have been critical of Islamic movements, and on this issue, they tend to align more with the government than Islamic communities.
Finally, one last question about your stay at CERI and your current research focus and projects…
During my current stay at CERI, I am working on a project that is largely unrelated to the research topics that were the main focus of my past decades. For quite some time I have been working on an overall history of post-Soviet Azerbaijan. I consider this book to be the most significant contribution I am going to make as a researcher to the field. This project is significant because, apart from being a trained historian, I am writing this book as a witness who observed the developments in the country directly during the last three decades. The lack of first-hand literature about our past has always been a source of complaint for us in Azerbaijan. And I am currently witnessing this truth during my lifetime, as I observe how the younger generation complains about the lack of information about recent events in history. From my perspective, my work will make a small contribution to this urgency. At CERI, I will work on a variety of chapters in the book, but my main focus will be on the international relations between Azerbaijan and the world during the post-Soviet period.
Interview by Miriam Périer, CERI.
Pictures description and copyright
- Baku, Taza-Pir mosque, the seat of the Sheikh-ul-Islam, the head of the Caucasus Muslim Board. Photo by Altay Goyushow
- Baku, Soviet monument to the Muslim women throwing her chador (veil). Photo by Altay Goyushow
