Anti-communism Imported? Azeri Emigrant Periodicals in Istanbul and Ankara (1920-1950s)1

Abstract

There were four main milestones in Azeri-Turkish intellectual contacts up to the 1960s. First, Istanbul as the Ottoman capital 'sent out rays' on the Caucasian Shia Muslims at the end of the nineteenth century. The second wave was in the opposite direction and lasted from 1910s until 1920s. In the 1940s, the third wave of the Azeri anti-Communists - mostly graduates from Russian and European high schools and experienced in politics - arrived in Istanbul and Ankara, coming this time from Paris and Warsaw, where they had stayed throughout the 1930s. In the 1950s and 1960s, there is a forth wave. The same network developed an authentic Turkish anti-communist ideology combining elements of the Turanism, Kemalism with its own geopolitical aspirations and visions. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Headnote

GASIMOV, Zaur, Anti-Communism Imported? Azeri Emigrant Periodicals in Istanbul and Ankara (1920-1959s). CTAD, Year 8, Issue 16 (Fall 2012), p. 3-18.

There were four main milestones in Azeri-Turkish intellectual contacts up to the 1960s. First, Istanbul as the Ottoman capital 'sent out rays' on the Caucasian Shia Muslims at the end of the nineteenth century. The second wave was in the opposite direction and lasted from 1910s until 1920s. In the 1940s, the third wave of the Azeri anti-Communists - mostly graduates from Russian and European high schools and experienced in politics - arrived in Istanbul and Ankara, coming this time from Paris and Warsaw, where they had stayed throughout the 1930s. In the 1950s and 1960s, there is a forth wave. The same network developed an authentic Turkish anti-communist ideology combining elements of the Turanism, Kemalism with its own geopolitical aspirations and visions.

Keywords: Anti-Communism, Cold War, Azerbaijan, Emigration, Entangled history

GASIMOV, Zaur, Ithal Antikomunizm? Istanbul ve Ankara'da Muhacir Azeri Süreli Yayinlari (1920-1959). CIAD, Yil 8, Sayi 16 (Güz 2012), s. 3-18.

Azerbaycan ile Türkiye arasindaki entelektüel iliskilerde 1960 yillara kadar dort safhadan söz edilebilir. Ilk olarak, Osmanli'nin baskenti Istanbul, Kafkasya'daki Sii Müslüman aydinlan kendisine çekmistir. Ikinci dalga ise ters yönde olup, 1910'lu ve 1 920'li yillara rastlamistir. 1940'li yillarda Rusya ve Avrupa'daki okullardan mezun olmus Azeri antikomünistlerin ve göcmen politikacilann Istanbul ve Ankara'ya gelmeleri ise bu iliskilerin ücüncü dalgasidir. Son olarak, 1930'lu yillarda Paris ve Varsova'da siyasi göcmen olarak hayatim sürdüren Azeri antikomünistler, kendi görüslerini 1950'li ve 60?? yillarda Turancilik, Kemaüzm ve diger ülkücü unsurlarla sentezleyip hakiki bir Türk antikomünist ülkünün yaratilmasinda etkili olmu^lardir.

Headnote

Anahtar Sö^cükler. Antikomünizm, Soguk Sava§, Azerbaycan, Mühaciret

Introduction

In 1988 two French specialists in German linguistics, Michel Espagne and Michael Werner, published their oeuvre on German-French transfers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They showed how the ways and fluxes - the transfers2 - of information tied Germany and France together within intellectual discourses and how ideas circulated between two countries' intellectual milieus through the centuries. Emerging in France, this approach became extremely popular in Germany in the last decade, even if within 'classical' fields of historical research, such as (Western) European History.3 Elaborated originally for a better understanding of cultural encounters and reciprocal imports and exports of ideas, this approach attempts to assert the cultural transfer and to identify its principal agents, spaces, and medium of dissemination.

The aim of this paper is to analyze how anti- Communist thought imported itself in Turkey before the Cold War began and how evolved during the Cold War on the basis of the transfer approach. Turkish-Azerbaijani historical and intellectual thought is a good example of entangled history, even if scholars have not looked at it from this perspective. At least in Western research, Turkish studies have been conducted in the framework of Middle East & Oriental Studies, while the Caucasus and Azerbaijan have been subjects of research within Eastern European and Russian Studies. A dialogue between both disciplines leaves much to be desired. This article hopes to contribute and to motivate a cross-cultural historical research, which should take the TurkishAzerbaijani interconnected history as a part of Eurasian history into consideration.

In 2005, a historian from Baku, Jamil Hasanly, who is fluent both in Turkish and in Russian, published a book under the tide "Soviet Union - Turkey. A Proof-stone of the Cold War". This monograph was based on a huge amount of archive materials from Baku, Tbilisi and Moscow. It was probably the first work iUiiminating Turkish-Soviet relations from the point of view of Cold War Studies, a specific field within the modern history research (German Zeitgeschichte). An overview by Bülent Gökay4 on the Soviet Eastern Policy and Turkey delivered an interesting description of Turkish-Soviet bilateral relations and Turkish communism. In fact, there are three historiographies on the topic of Turkey as an area and the Cold War as a Soviet- Western antagonism: the Western, the Soviet and Turkish studies. The Western scholars focused much more on the depiction of the geopolitical role of Turkey and less on the evolution of the Turkish-Soviet relations, which are at the center of attention in this article. There were of course some exceptions. Charles Warren Hosder published in 1957 his Turkism and The Sonets, The Turfa oj the World and Their Political Objectives. The book was translated into German and published in 1960 under a shorter tide: Türken und Sowjets. It was based on the propagandist publications of Turkic emigrants in interwar Europe and was devoted more to the analysis of Pan-Turkism than to the issue of the role of Turkey in the Cold War. In 1987, the US-American historians Basil Dmytryshyn and Frederick Cox published documentary record on the Soviet Union and the Middle East in 1 987, with a considerable number of treaties and records between Ankara and Moscow in English translation, albeit with almost no accompanying analysis.5 The Soviet historiography, in contrast, delivered a huge number of publications on Turkey, its relations with the Eastern Block as well as with the West. The majority of them were Marxist in character, using Marxist-Leninist jargon. Nevertheless, some of these publications consisted of rich documentary and detailed description of the political, economic and cultural contacts between the Soviet Union and Turkey in the inter-war period6 and after the Second World War.7 There were a number of publications, memoirs8 and essays on Soviet Russia's policy towards Ankara, Atatiirk's relationship to Moscow and so on, written partially by leftist intellectuals in Turkey.

Kamuran Gürün9 delivered a more thorough analysis of the Turkish-Soviet relations in 1920-53, although he did not use the Soviet archives and the Russian secondary literature on this issue.

This paper focuses on the analysis of the evolution of Anti-Communist thought - one of the main features of the Cold War - within the A2eri émigré periodicals in Turkey in the context of the development of Turkish-Soviet relations. Not only political articles, but also newspaper columns will be incorporated into the analysis.

The Azeri émigré community in Turkey contributed to the Turkish anticommunism heavily by 'importing' their own experience and knowledge on Marxism, Communism and Russia via their periodicals, conferences and other activities. The main feature of the political background of the Azeri intellectuals in exile was obvious: anti-Russian resentments and antipathies became one of the reasons for the vehement anti- communism. Simultaneously, we can see a sort of an entangled history histoire croisée) of the Azeri and Turkish intellectuals' spaces, which produced the anti-communist mood in the 1950-1 960s.10 Maybe, it is even possible to detect a common Azeri-Turkish intellectual space.

When writing on the cultural aspects of the Cold War in Turkey, the aspect of the transfer of ideas assumes a particular meaning. The Cold War was not only an all-spheres antagonism and military rivalry between the USSR-led communist regimes in Eurasia and the US or NATO-led Western countries with their free market economies. The Cold War was also a competition between the ideas, which were promoted by the intellectual milieus in Washington, Berlin and Paris from one side and Moscow - from another side. Turkey, its cultural and intellectual centers was from the very beginning of the Cold War a battlefield of these ideological competitions. The local intellectuals of Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara - the Turkish intelligentsia ajeniar - were torn mainly between post-Ottoman nostalgia, on the one hand, and Turanism, on the other hand, which might deliver a new form of integration or cultural engagement of Turkey in a Turkic (Turkish-speaking) world. The first option was not a specific construct of ideas but more a post-imperial syndrome, a sort of internal dispute over the own national past and search for answers to the question why the Ottoman Empire disappeared.11 The post-Ottoman nostalgia and Turanism had a huge ideological base, which emerged as a result of transfer and circulation of ideas within the late Ottoman Empire (for example, Thessaloniki-Istanbul-Diyarbakir) and from outside, especially from France12 and by 'Russian Turks'. The development of Turkish nationalism was closely tied with ideas from the Russian Tsardom at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. The so-called 'Russian Turks' or 'Russian Muslims' from Ka2an, Baku and Crimea visited and stayed in Istanbul in the 1900s and 1910s.13 In the 1920s, the Azeri political emigrants (Mehmet Emin Resulzade (1884-1955)", AH Bey Hüseyinzade (1854-1940), Ahmet Agaoglu (1869-1939), Ahmet Caferoglu (1899-1975)) - graduates of the high schools and universities of Baku, Paris, Breslau etc. - continued or even revived their activities in Istanbul and later in Ankara by printing and disseminating numerous émigré periodicals in Turkey as well as in Europe. Their main ideological opponent was communism, which had established itself in Azerbaijan in 1920. In these journals, anti-communist ideas together with the Turanist views were mixed with local Turkish nationalism, which was represented by the Turk Ocaklan and Turk Dernekleri institutions all over the country. At the same time, it was a large community of Turkestani, Tatar and particularly Azeri intellectual residents of Istanbul and Ankara, who integrated their worldview and visions of Russia into the emerging Turkish Turanism. Supported by Poles and by the Turkish government, these intellectuals combated the ideological foundation of Soviet Communism and therefore contributed simultaneously to the further development of Turanism, launched by Halide Edip Adivar and Ziya Gökalp and Yusuf Akçura (the intellectual milieu of Türk Yuräu15). In this light, the issue of 'imported communism' can be seen as an example of an entangled history or histoire croisée, because of the very strong ties and almost no borders within the history of ideas in the inter-war period but also after the World War Two Istanbul and Ankara. Their intellectual milieus were forums for the transfer of ideas from the Western European metropolis, as well as from Soviet Russia itself, mosdy from Moscow but also from Baku, which had older ties with Istanbul.16

Turkey of the early 1920s was an emerging state - a newly born republic, which was torn by the war and characterized by a completely fragmented postOttoman society. The ending of the 'Ottoman' foreign policy was a strategic choice of the Kemalist elites, who struggled against the former allies of the Ottomans, against France and England and additionally against the Greeks. The Soviet Union, an heir of the Tsarist Empire, became a new partner for Turkey. From the eleventh century until 1991 Russia and Turkey had never had such a close relationship as in the interwar period, and particularly in the 1920s. The struggle against the 'Western imperialists' became the slogan which was sounded in the both 'new' capitals of the former Empires, in Ankara and in Moscow. However, the relationship between Kemalists and Bolsheviks was not without problems, for several reasons. Kemalism had strong anti-Imperialist and modernist elements but it was not at all communist or even Marxist. Furthermore, in a speech in 1929 Atatiirk criticized Communism heavily. The Turkish Communist Party and its members were persecuted. The leader of the Turkish communist Mustafa Subhi was murdered in 1921. The communist newspapers Aydinhk, Yeni Diinya and others were closed down in 1925. All important meetings of the Turkish communists were held either in Moscow or in Baku, and not in Istanbul or in Ankara.

A further problem was the disharmony of geopolitical interests of Turkey and Soviet Russia. On the one hand, Turkey was interested in Russian military aid to defeat the Greeks, British and French troops on its soil, a goal shared by Moscow, as it did not wish to be encircled by the countries, where London and Paris would be dominant.17 On the other hand, a huge section of the Turkish elite was unhappy to accept that the whole of Turkestan and the Caucasus including Azerbaijan, Batum, the whole region of Muslim Ajara and Dagestan had become a part of the Soviet Union. In September 1918, Turkish troops together with Azerbaijani units took Baku by defeating the local communists, but a year and a half later, in April 1920, Turkey had to accept the capitulation of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic and its occupation by the Red Army.

The ideological cleavage between Russian Communism and Turkish national ideology of the 1920s was huge. Anti-Russian resentments among Turkish intellectuals and elites were traditionally very high. Simultaneously, very little was known in Ankara of the 1920s about what was going on in Russia at that time. In contrast to Germany, France and Poland, the Dariilfiinum of Istanbul had almost no traditions of Slavonic or Russian studies. This situation began to change in the second half of the 1920s and in the 1930s.

The Azeri intellectual and politician Mehmet Emin Resulzade, who was head of the Azerbaijani government in Baku until it was overthrown by the Bolshevik Red Army, which had occupied the city on April 28, 1 920, arrived in Istanbul in 1 922. It was not his first visit to the metropolis at Bosphorus. He had spent his exile in 1909-1913 there, writing for Ottoman and Persian journals about the political and social developments in Tsarist Russia. In Istanbul, just freed of the Entente occupation, Resulzade founded the journal Yeni Kafkasya(TM), which existed until 1927. This journal became an important forum for anti-communist political emigrants from the Soviet Caucasus and Central Asia.

At the same time, it tried to synthesize the anti- communism with elements of the Turanism, which was quite popular among the Istanbul intellectuals at that period.19 The journal was also popular among Turkish intellectuals: the prominent Turkish writer and politician Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoglu (18891 974) was among its readers, for example.20 As a result of pressure from the Soviet embassy on the Turkish authorities Yeni Kafkasya was closed in 1927, but in the same year the same network members founded a new paper called A%eriTurk, which was closed in 1929 as well. The closure of one paper resulted in the emergence of a new one, merely under a different tide. After A^eri-Türk, a paper called Odlu Yurt was founded in Istanbul in 1929. The Turkish authorities accepted the pressure from the Soviet side and tried not to disturb relations with Moscow, but they also unofficially tolerated the existence and activities of the anti-Soviet diaspora groups and exile circles on its soil. Perhaps the ban of the anti-Soviet activities on the Turkish soil was regulated by the SovietTurkish treaties (particularly the treaty of 1925). The Soviets strengthened their struggle against non-Russian anti-communist groups in 1930. One of the leaders of the Georgian Mensheviks abroad, Noe Ramishvili was killed by the Soviet agents in Paris in this year. Turkey had to dispel major leaders of the North and South Caucasian emigrants. In 1930, a group of these leaders (e.g. Mehmet E. Resulzade and his entourage) had left for Poland, which conducted the so-called Promethean policy against the Soviet Union. This policy was based on the financial, logistical and ideological support of the Non-Russian independence movements within the USSR and outside of it. Warsaw backed the cultural activities of the Ukrainian, Caucasian and Tatar exile communities based in Poland itself, as well as in Paris and in Istanbul. Turkey was included by the Polish intellectuals (Wlod2Ìmierz Ba^czkowski and Leon Wasilewski) and politicians Qózef Pilsudski, Roman Knoll and Tadeusz Holówko) in their own geo-cultural and geo-political plans already in the 1930s. This part of Polish intellectuals dreamt of a new geopolitical network (Poland and France, together with Turkey, Hungary and Romania), hoping to hinder Soviet expansion towards the West. In Polish geopolitical thought, which was a combination of federalist and commonwealth ideas, Turkey played an important role. Tied by close cooperation with the Balkans (particularly Romania) and with the Caucasus and with Ukraine, Poland had to become a new regional power (Polish mocarstwò) in post-war Europe after the Versailles Treaty was signed. The Azeri politicians in exile, but also the Crimean Tatars (Seydahmet Kinmer) and Turkestanis (Mustafa Çokay) played an important role in linking Warsaw and Istanbul and tried to use this mutual support for the realization of their own plans.

The anti-communism of Odlu Yurt

Odlu Yurt was according to its self-description, a monthly paper of the Azerbaijani National Party. It declared its goal as a struggle against the "Red Occupiers' Totalitarianism", which was "an enemy of democracy, democratic nationalism..."21. Mehmet Emin Resuluzade was its chief editor and the newspaper can be seen as an heir of a number of exile journals which existed in the 1920s. The main tenet of information and columns here was the propaganda of the decline of communism and the presentation of its brutality to the Turkish(-speaking) community in Turkey and worldwide. One of the editorial articles was "Communist regime is declining"22 in March 1930. The paper reported on the life of the Azeri emigrants (mostly members of the vehement anti- Communist Musavat Party23) in Turkey and Europe, but the main trend was devoted to the analysis of international and regional politics. Among the authors were prominent Azeri and Georgian political emigrants in Berlin and Paris such as Hilal Munschi, 24 Mirza Bala, Mir Yakup25 and Akhmeteli, and also prominent Turkish intellectuals and linguists of Azeri descent such as Ahmet Caferoglu26, as well as Tatar intellectuals from Crimea such as Cafer Seydahmet (Kinmli)27 and Hamdullah Subhi (1 885-1 966)28.

The short comments in the newspaper were devoted to Soviet policy in the Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia 29 : the authors stressed the collectivization, Russificiation and repressions against the non-Communists. A topic which was intensively discussed was the scale and nature of antiCommunist rebellions in the USSR, and also the development of the PolishSoviet relations. In an article entided Lehistan ve Rusya (Poland and Russia) one could see an interesting and relatively profound analysis of Roman Dmowski - Józef Pilsudski debate over Russia and Bolshevism.30 Due to the fact that the Azeri intellectuals collaborating with Odlu Yurt were located in Berlin, Istanbul, Warsaw and Paris, and were socialized and primarily educated in Baku oifin-dusiécle, they were fluent not only in Russian and Turkish, but also in Persian. Therefore, there were numerous articles (mosdy of Cafer Sadik) not only about Soviet policy in Iran31, but also concerning the "Image of Turkey in the Bolshevik press"32.

In May 1930, Odlu Yuri published a short article on the festivity to mark the 12th anniversary of the proclamation of A2erbaijani Independence in 1918. Besides Mehmet E. Resulzade, Ahmet Caferoglu, Mir2a Bala and Mir Yakup also Mehmet Agaoglu, a prominent A2eri-Turkish Art Historian was present at the festivities.33 Odlu Yurfs network is a good example of the entanglement of Azeri-Turkish thought and of the transfer of a particular kind of profound antiCommunism. Mirza Bala published an editorial on the October Revolution, in which he analyzed the discourses of Russian and Georgian social-democrats such as Noe Jordania. Bala's conclusion was in a traditional anti-Communist tone: "Russia remained also after the revolution a country of slaves, a prison of nations. It has the same regime of exploitation and brutality. The hatred against the Russian statehood is still dominant."34

After Odlu Yurt was closed by the Turkish authorities, the Azeri antiCommunist press was transferred to Berlin and Warsaw. The Journal htiklal and a monthly paper Kurfulusch35 were founded in the German capital; the Musavat Bulletin was a press-organ of the Musavat Pary, in effect of the Azerbaijani government in exile. Mirza Bala, Mehmet E. Resulzade, A. Vahab Yurtsever and others as well as the German Orientalists Gotthard Jaeschke, Johannes Benzig, Herbert Duda, Gerhard von Mende, Bertold Spuler and Herbert Janski and the Polish intellectual Wlodzimierz Ba_czkowski 36 were amongst the most active contributors to the reviews. In Turkey itself, where the political activity of Azeri and other anti- communists was no longer possible, the prominent linguist of Azeri descent, Ahmet Caferoglu, founded in 1 932 the popular-scientific journal A^erbajcan Yuri Bilgisi37, which tried to disseminate anti-Soviet thought38 through its articles on Turkology and Oriental Studies, which were the journal's main fields of interest. A^erbajcan Yuri Bilgisi became an influential scientific journal, although it was closed in 1934. The Founder of the modern Turkish historiography Fuat KöprülÜ2ade, Ahmet Zeki Velidi Togan and others were among its contributors.39

The End of Prometheanism

After Poland was occupied by the German and Soviet troops in September 1 939, most of the A2eri émigrés escaped to Romania and Turkey. A section of the A2eri emigrants in Berlin which showed certain sympathies with National Socialism stayed in Germany: they were later engaged in recruiting soldiers for the Wehrmacht among the Soviet- A2erbaijani war captives.

Resukade only obtained permission to enter Turkey in 1 947. A number of periodicals were re-opened in Istanbul, which once again became a center of anti-Communist thought. One of the reasons for this was an absolute deterioration in Soviet-Turkish relations in the second part of the 1 940s. It is known that Stalin launched a number of territorial claims concerning Eastern Anatolia (mainly Kars and Ardahan regions) by arguing that these territories should be 'given back' to Soviet Armenia and Georgia. Therefore, after World War II an atmosphere favorable to anti-Communist activities was created in Turkey. One reason for this was Soviet policy itself, but also the radical change in the US policy as a result of the Truman Doctrine (1947) and the foundation of NATO (1949), which was supported by the Menderes-Bayar government.

New 'Old' transfer: from Poland to Turkey

In 1952, the A2eri emigrants in Turkey founded a new monthly journal in Ankara entitled A^erbaycan, which became a press-organ of the A2erbaijani Cultural Association, which had been founded in 1949. In the first issue of Aerbajcan, which was still printed in Paris, the prominent A2eri intellectual C. Ka2um Bek posted: "Moskovayi merke2 eden BolsevÍ2m, dünyayi tendit eden emperyalÍ2min en müthisi, en tehlikelisidir" (Bolshevism, which turned Moscow to a center of imperialism that endangers the world, is the most terrible and dangerous).40 Anti-Communism and criticism of Soviet policy were again the main themes of the articles and columns of this review. Simultaneously, a stronger integration of modern Turkish discourses took place. Milli Varligi Koruma (The Defence of the National Existence) was the editorial topic in the summer of 1953: "The Turkish nation, which is disseminated in the different parts of the world- with the exception of our Turkey - suffers from the cultural hits from every side."41 According to the editors, Turkishness in the Caucasus and Central Asia was in danger, mainly because of the Russification policy in the Soviet Union.42 Similar to the majority of Polish, Caucasian and Baltic interwar discourses, the Azeri intellectuals saw a direct link between Tsarist policy and Soviet strategy. The policy of the "Communist Russia, its policy towards the elimination of Turkishness (Türklügü imha politikasi) became even more severe and stringent."43

Photos of Atatiirk44 were present in the pages of the journal from the very beginning. In the issue of 1953 one could see a re-print of the portrait of Atatiirk, which had been published in the Berlin-based Azeri journal htiklal Gasatesi in 1933.45 The editors were eager to present the continuity to the interwar period. The editorial of the November 1 955 issue was devoted to Ölmez Atatiirk46 (Immortal Atatiirk), the editorial of September-October 1955 to the 32 anniversary of the Turkish Republic47. In addition, the journal reviewed anticommunist publications issued in other European countries. Of particular interest is the transfer of ideas such as anti-communism from the Munich Institute of Study of the USSR.48

After Mehmet Emin Rasulzade died in Ankara in March 1956,49 Ahmet Yasat became an editor-in-chief of the journal. It is impossible to overlook the continuity of the anti-Soviet and anti- Communist approaches of A^erbaycan; it reproduced the main ideas of the Odlu Yurt, and also of the Warsaw-based Wschód, Paris-based he Prométhée.

The Azeri journals based in Istanbul and Ankara in the 1950s had close ties with the anti-Soviet think tanks in Europe, particularly with the Munich-based Institute for the Soviet Studies. Numerous articles written by Mirza Bala (and also by the German Orientalist Prof. Gotthard Jaeschke) were translated into Turkish and published in Azerbaycan as reprint of the Russian and English publications in the journal "United Caucasia", which were issued in Munich50. At the same time, the journal Azerbaycan was in permanent contact with the Turk Milliyetciler Dernegi, The Society of the Turkish Nationalists, which had been founded in 1951.

The Turkish authorities' policy towards the Azeri emigrant and intellectual activities in the 1950s was entirely different from the situation in the 1920s and 1930s. On June 6 1952 the Azerbaijani Diaspora Community organized a ball in Ankara's Orduevi. Hamdullah Subhi Tanriöver, Sadri Maksudi Arsal, Latif Aküzüm and others joined the dinner.51

In the early 1956 issue of Azerbaycan, one could find a broad article on the Soviet Colonialism,52 written by A. Vahap Yurtsever. The same author had published an article two years before on the "Enslaved nations' Front"53, which was actually a direct transfer of the vocabulary used by Wschod and Le Prométhée in the 1930s. In the early 1955 issue, Mirza Bala published the text of his speech which he had held at the Munich Radio under the tide "There is no freedom in Azerbaijan".54

The articles of the anti-communist Ukrainian intellectual Mykola Abramczyk55 were also reprinted in Azerbaycan regularly. Abramczyk was a chief of the League for the Liberation of the Peoples of the USSR, also known as Paris Block. 56 This organization was founded in 1953 in Paris by the representatives of the Caucasian, Ukrainian and Belarusian emigrants. The booklet of the well-known Polish intellectual and activist of the Promethean movement, Wlodzimierz Ba_czkowski, was reviewed in Azerbaycan, after the 25page booklet was issued under the title Soviet Russia New Colonial Empire. 57 Contact to Polish intellectuals remained close. The Polish writer and dissident Marek Hlasko published his view on the communist regime in Poland and Soviet policy towards the country, criticizing the relationship between the freethinking intellectuals and the party authorities in People's Republic of Poland.58 In 1962, the editors began to translate some articles from the international press devoted to the trials in the Soviet Union. Under the title "Zayif noktalar" (Weak points) an article of Le Figaro journalist André Francois Poncet about Moscow's policy towards the non-Russian peripheries was published, and also an article from the Beirut newspaper EJ Hayat about the Cairo Congress of the Writers from Asia and Africa. The first article was selected for publication because Poncet mentioned explicitly that Azerbaijan, Georgia etc. gained independence from Russia in 1918 and depicted critically the policy of Russification in the Ukraine. The second article was the editors' attempt to show Soviet attempts to present themselves as a new symbolic power among the so-called Third World Countries. A Turkish anti-communist writer Mustafa Zihni Hizal59 published in Yeni Istanbul a longer article on the Paris Bloc, which was re-printed in A^erbaycan. He presented the history of the organization, its structure and stressed its anti-Soviet and anti-communist goals, which he justified as a wish to restore the lost national sovereignty and statehood. Besides Hizal, the professor of history Tahir Çagatay became a regular author for A^erbaycan in the 1960s. Here, he criticized Soviet historiography of Central Asia and reacted to publications in Soviet orientalist journals60, and made proposals for how to organize activities in the Turkish exile.61

A. Vahap Yurtsever, who wrote about the close relationship and significance of Ataturk for the Turks outside of Turkey in 1952,62 became even more active in the second half of the 1960s. Komünizmle Savas (Struggle Against Communism) was the tide of his article in the issue of 1965.63

In 1966, the editors of the journal changed its design proclaiming on the cover page: "Azerbaycan is a monthly review not only of Azerbaijanians but of all Turks. The journal remains the main organ for ideas of independence of Azerbaijan and World Turks (Dünya Türkleri)". The main question of the issue was "What should be the new foundation for the struggle against Communism?" The editors called upon the Ataturk view (Atatürkcü) and welcomed their readers to deliver their opinions and ideas on the problem of the struggle against communism. The ideology of the Musavat Party, which was anti-Marxist from its every foundation in 1911, was presented as genuinely antiCommunist by Tahir Çagatay, who tried to link it with Turanist ideas.64 The article of the Turkish writer and publicist Tekin Erer "Who is a communist?"65 is to be found in the same issue, which presented a broad spectrum of criticism of Communism by various Turkish and A2eri intellectuals. A short essay of the Turkish lawyer Ismet Giritli "The Communist Tactics"66 was reprinted in A^erbajcan'm 1966.

Conclusion

The A2eri intellectuals penetrated into the Turkish discourse of Turan at the very beginning. They became the part of it and the views on Russia were in accord with the Kemalism and Turan idea of Gökalp and Adivar, even if Kemalism and Turanism were to some extent incompatible. The Azéris enriched and instrumentalized the Turan idea to some extent in presenting themselves as being from Turan, together with their anti-Russian and antiCommunist prejudice and views.

The Azeri intellectuals integrated their knowledge of Russia, which was based on the study and experience they could gather during their life and study in the Russian Caucasus, Petersburg or in Crimea, into the Turkish intellectual milieu, which had a negative attitude to Russia because of Russian-Ottoman wars in the past but which did not have much information on Russia, its history, culture, language and literature. The work of the Azeri intellectuals in Istanbul was different than in France or elsewhere, where Russian studies had a longer tradition and Russian culture was known and esteemed.

Chronologically, one had witnessed four main waves in Azeri-Turkish intellectual contacts up to the 1960s. The first one began at the end of the nineteenth century: Istanbul as the Ottoman capital 'sent out rays' on the Muslim Caucasus. The second wave was in the opposite direction and lasted from 1910s until 1920s. In the 1940s, the third wave of the Azeri antiCommunists arrived in Istanbul and Ankara, coming this time from Paris and Warsaw, where they had stayed throughout the 1930. In the 1950s and 1960s, the same network developed an authentic Turkish anti-communist ideology combining elements of the Turanism, Kemalism with its own geopolitical aspirations and visions.

Footnote

1 I would like to thank my colleague Tara T. Windsor, PhD candidate, (University of Birmingham, UK) for improving of my English text.

Footnote

2 1 neglect here the detailed description of the background of transfers and the so called local transfers, which took place in the so called border spaces (German Grenzräume) in the cities like Warsaw (the Polish orientalists, Pilsudski-close intellectuals, intellectual opposition around of National-Democrats etc.) or in Paris (Action Française discourse, Paul Valéry's Europe-debates or the legacy of Ernest Renan's perception of nation, which had a crucial significance for the later views of Ziya Gökalp and Ahmet Agaoglu).

3 The approach of Espagne and Werner was elaborated further in Germany by Hartmut Kaelble (2006) and other historians.

4 Bülent Gökay, Soviet Eastern Policy and Turkey, 1920-1991. Soviet fireign policy, Turkey and communism, Roudedge, London and New York, 2006.

5 It was not a ground-breaking publication at all, as the majority of these documents were published in Moscow in Russian before.

6 Of particular importance is the monograph of the Azerbaijani historian Yusif Bagirov. See, Yusif A. Bagirov, I^istorii sovetsko-turetskikh otnoshenii. 1920-22 gg, Akad., Baku, 1965.

7 In 1982, the Academy of Sciences in Tbilisi, Soviet Georgia, issued a collection of articles under the title "The Great October and Turkey". Among the authors one could find prominent Russian, Georgian, Azerbaijani and Armenian historians and linguists. See, Velikiy oktyabr i Turtsiya (Sbornik statej), Metsniereba, Tbilisi, 1982.

8 The memoirs of some "transfer" intellectuals are of particular importance. See Cafer S. Kinmer, Bang Hatiralar, Emel Turk Kültürünü Arasürma ve Tanitma Vakfi, Istanbul, 1993. The memoirs of the Soviet ambassador to Turkey Semyon Aralov, who served in Ankara in 1922-23, delivers an interesting insight into the Soviet view of the political processes in Turkey. See, Semyon Aralov, Vospominaniya sovetskogo diplomata 1922-1923, Izdatelstvo instituía mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii, Moscow, 1 960.

Footnote

9 Kamuran Gürün was a Turkish politician, diplomat and historian. He did not belong to the leftist intellectuals. His main field of research was the history of Turkish-Armenian relations. Kamuran Gürün, Türk-Sovyet îlifkileri (1920-1953), TTK, Ankara, 1991.

10 The best sample for that was Samet Agaoglu (1909, Baku - 1982, Istanbul), the son of Ahmed Agaoglu, who visited the Soviet Union in the 1960s and described his impressions in the book SovyetRusya Imparatorlugu (1967).

11 The same situation one could witness in Vienna of the 1920s or among the Russian emigrants in Paris and Prague, who were obliged to leave the Bolshevik Russia for Europe. The movement of Eurasianism in 1 920-30s, which was anti-Communist but Russian imperial thought, was actually a reaction on the post-imperial search for a new identity for the former Russian empire. More about the Russian Eurasianism see St Wiederkehr, Die Eurasier-Bewegung, Böhlau, Köln, 2007.

12 Sorbonne was probably the most important place of impulses for the Turkish radical thought at the beginning of the 20th century. Ziya Gökalp, and also the Azeri intellectual Alimerdan Topçibasi, Ahmet Agaoglu, the Crimean Tatar Cafer Seydahmet Kirimer and many others studied here. Renan's idea of a nation and culture was perceived by them and re-thought. At the same rime, their vision was not a mere multiplication of the French discourses but synthesized with their own perspective. Kinmer and Agaoglu were well acquainted with the debates of the Russian social-democrats and had a rich experience of life in Crimea and the Caucasus.

13 See, Volker Adam, Russlandmuslime in Istanbul am Vorabend des Ursten Weltkrieges. Die Berichterstattung osmanischer Periodika über Russland und Zentralasien, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, 2002.

14 Even if the Azerbaijani historiography accepts the form Mshsmmsd Omin Rssulzads, I use here the Turkish version Mehmet Emin Resulzade.

Footnote

15 See Arslan Tekin and îzgoer Ahmet Zeki (ed.), Akçuraoglu, Yusuf: Türk Yih 1928, Türk Tarih Kurumu, Ankara, 2009.

16 It is a paradox but the reciprocal influence could be seen not only in the development of the Turanism but also in the field of the Turkish communism. In the 1 920s, one could see not only Azeri anticommunist in Istanbul and Ankara but also a Soviet Azerbaijani embassy with an ardent communist intellectual Ibrahim Abilov as its ambassador. See, Betiil Asian, TiirkiyeA^erbaycan ilifkileri ve Ibrahim Ebilov (1920-1923), Kaynak Yayinlan, Istanbul, 2004. The memoirs of daughter of Abilov were published in 2003 in Baku. See, Anadolu Abilova, Ibragim Abilov - a^erbajd^hanskij drug Atatiirka, AzAtam, Baku, 2003. Aclan Sayilgan delivered an interesting overview about the Turkish students studied at the Moscow-based high schools and about their carriers after the return to Turkey. See, Aclan Sayilgan, Sovyetlerde egitim ve Türk ögrenäleri: Komintern okullanndan Eumumba Üniversitesine, Mars Matbaasi, Ankara, 1967.

Footnote

17 Neither France nor England accepted the Bolsheviks takeover during the Independence War in Turkey in 1920-23. London offered the diplomatic relations to the Soviet Russia only in February 1924.

18 Detailed about '?e?? Kafkasya" see Adem Can, '?e?? Kafkasya" Mecmuasi, bitig 41, 2007, pp. 109-122.

19 On November 1, 1924 Resulzade together with the whole editor team of Yeni Kafkasya visited the grave of Ziya Gökalp in Istanbul. His speech here was reprinted in Azerbaycan (See, Ziya Gökalp'i Terhim, Azerbaycan 8/32, 1954, 4-5.) In 1930, Resulzade published a book on his vision of Panturanism, which was a reaction on the critics of Turan ideas by the Armenian intellectual in Europe, Zarevand (Nalbandyan) in his book Turcija i Panturanism, Paris, 1930. See, M. Rasulzade, O panturani^me, Comité de l'indépendance du Caucase, Paris, 1930.

20 Yeni Kafkasya, Azerbaycan 1, Eylül, 1952, pp. 12-14.

Footnote

21 Agustos Zaferi Miinasibetile, Odlu Yurt '20, 1930, 329.

Footnote

22 Buhran îçerisinde Çabalayan Komünist Rejimi, Odlu Yurt 13, 1930, 1-4.

23 Musavat Party Musavat old- Azeri for equality) was a nationalist Azerbaijani political party, which was founded in 1911 in Baku. Resulzade joined it in 1913, when he returned to Baku from die exile in die Ottoman Empire and Persia.

24 Hilal Munschi studied at the Humboldt University and stayed in Berlin after die Azerbaijani Democratic Republic was occupied by the Red Army in April 1920. Due to him the analysis of the German dailies flew into Istanbul-based Odlu -Yurt.

25 Mir Yakup (also Mir Yacoub) was an Azeri historian in Paris. He issued a number of booklets and articles on the Caucasian history. Simultaneously he organized several public presentation of the Soviet policy in the Caucasus.

26 Ahmet Caferoglu, Tarihte Azerbaycan-Rus münasebaü, Odlu Yurt 13, 1930, pp. 32-35, further Odlu Yurt 14, 1930, pp. 91 -94.

27 Azerbaycan'in ístiklah, Odlu YurtU, 1930, pp. 152-153.

28 H. Subhi, Subhi beyin mühim bir makalesi, Odlujurt2\, 1930, pp. 376-380.

29 Tiirkistanda Sovyet hakimleri, Odlu Yurt 14, 1930, pp. 102-103.

30 Lehistan ve Rusya, Odlu yurt 18, 1930, pp. 255-259. Interesting also Muhacirler arasinda. Varsovadan mektup, pp. 318-320.

Footnote

31 C. Sadik, "iranda bolsevik nufuzu", Odlu Yurt 13, 1930, pp. 46-47, "íranda: Iran ve Bolsevikler", Odlu Yurt 14, 1930, pp. 105-108. Also by him 'Iran ve Sovyeder", Odlu Yurt 20, 1930, pp. 349-354.

32 A.-T., "Bolsevik matbuatmda Türkiye", Odlu YurtU, 1930, pp. 95-97.

33 Odlu Yurt, 16, 1930, cover page.

34 Mirza-Bala, "Oktobr inküabi", Odlu Yurt 22, 1930, pp. 393-397

35 The official name was Kurtulus. Azerbaycan Mali Kurtulus hareketinin Organi Ayhk mecmua and the place of redaction was Berlin-Charlottenburg. Resulzade was the Basmuharrir, so the editor-in-chief of the journal.

36 Wlodzimierz Ba^czkowski was the editor of one of the most famous anti-Soviet review in inter-war Poland Wscbód (Orient 1930-39); he edited also the Problemy Humpy Wschodniej (The Problems of the Eastern Europe). After the WWI he moved to the Near East, where he continued to write the anti-communist articles and booklets. His book U spódel polskiej idei feredacyjnej (Jerusalem 1945) was the result of his reflections of the Polish traditions of federalism and Polish geopolitical thought, to which he had actively contributed in the interwar period. In 1947, he issued Towards an Understanding of Russia, which was translated into Arabic in 1948 and a year later into Turkish. In 1951, he published in Beirut his book Russia and Asia, which had distinct anti-Russian elements.

Footnote

37 Detailed about A^erbaycan Yurt Bilgisi see Bülent Sen, "Publications and Activities of Azerbaijani Intellectuals in Turkey", Azerbaycan Yurt Bilgisi, lpek Yolu 3-4, 2009, pp. 50-8.

38 See, Dr. A. Caferoglu, "Azeri edebiyatinda ístiklal mücadelesi izleri", Azerbaycan Yurt Bilgisi 11, 1932, pp. 361-371, continuation: 12(1932), pp. 426-434.

39 Prof. Dr. M. Köprülüzade, "Fuzuli'nin yeni eserleri", Azerbaycan Yurt Bilgisi 12, 1932, pp. 447-448.

40 Bir daha Wiesbaden konfransi, Azerbaycan, Mayis 1952, p. 13.

Footnote

41 Milli Varligi Koruma, Azerbaycan 3, 1953, p. 1.

42 Ibid.

43 Milli Varligi Koruma, Azerbaycaii 3, 1953, p. 2.

44 Azerbqycan 8/32, 1954, p. 1, Avgrbaycan l/Kasim/1952, p. 1. But also in Kurtu/uf 49, 1938, cover page.

45 Azerbqycan 7/19, 1953, p. 3.

46 Azerbaycan 8, 1955.

47 Tiirkiye Cumhuriyeti'nin 32nci Yüdönümü, Asgrbaycan 6-7, 1955, p. 1.

48 Dergiler Arasinda: "Dergi", A^erbqycan 8, 1955, pp. 25-30.

49 After Resulzade died, die Asgrbaycan Kiiltiiriinii Tamtma Dernegi organized the mourning festivity in the Hilton Hotel in Istanbul for 500 persons, actually, a really great action. Resulzade worked under semi-official circumstances in Istanbul of the 1 920s, had to leave the city in 1 929 and was allowed to return in 1 947. The mourning action was on a very high level and financed by the Turkish authorities.

Footnote

50 For example, the arride on the history of A2eri Emigré Press of Mirza Bala was published and issued in Turkish in a short version Azerbaycan Muhacirlik MatbuaOrun Otuz Yilligi, Azerbaycan 7/19, 1953, pp. 8-12.

51 Azerbaycan 1, Temmuz 1952, pp. 13-15.

52 Sovyet somiirgeciligi, Azerbaycan 10-1 1, 1956, pp. 3-5.

53 A. V. Y., Mahkum Muletier Cephesi, Azerbaycan 8/32, 1954, p. 3.

54 M. Bala, Azerbaycan'da Azadbk zoktur, Azerbaycan 10-11,1 955, pp. 6-7.

55 "Paris Bloku"nun Mesaji, Azerbaycan 7-8-9, 1960, pp. 19-20.

56 His speech was originally published in Munich-based journal "Problems of the Peoples of the USSR".

57 Soviet Russia New Colonial Empire, Azerbaycan 10-11-12, 1961, pp. 48-50.

Footnote

58 Millet Olmanin Kücük Bir Belgesi, Azerbaycan 1 0-1 1 .1 2, 1 962, pp. 44-45.

59 M. Zihni Hizal, "Rus Mahkumu MÜletlerin Kurtulus Birligi (Paris Bloku)", Azerbaycan, pp. 31-34.

60 T. Çagatay, "Sahte Bir Merasimin Açikladigi Gerçdder", Azerbaycan 7-8-9, 1963, pp. 10-16.

61 T. Çagatay, "Sovyet Rus Eksperimenü Iflas Yolunda", 5-11, and in the same issue of him: "Sevgili Yurddaslanm TurkistanHar", ??-baycan 10-1 1-12, 1964.

62 A. Vahap Yurtsever, "Ataturk ve Dis türkler", Azerbaycan 1, kasim, 1952, pp. 3-5.

63 A. Vahap Yurtsever, "Komünizmle savas", Azerbaycan 4-5-6, 1965, pp. 6-13.

Footnote

64 T. Çagatay, "Müsavat" Partisi ve Türkcülük Mefkuresi", ??-bajcan 1, 1966, pp.14-6.

65 T. Erer, "Komünist kimdir?", ??-bajcan 1 , 1966, 17-8.

66 ismet Giritli, "Komiinis Taktikleri", ??-baycan 167, 1966, 36-7.

References

Bibliography

ABÌLOVA Anadolu (2003) lbragim Abilov - acerba] ?tf ans kij drug Atatürka, AzAtam, Baku.

Academy of Sciences in Tbilisi, Soviet Georgia (ed.) (1982) Velikiy oktyabr i Turtsija (Sbornik statey), Metsniereba, Tbilisi.

ADAM Volker (2002) Russlandmuslime in Istanbul am Vorabend des ersten Weltkrieges. Die Berichterstattung osmanischer Periodika über Russland und Zentralasien, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main.

AGAOGLU Samet (1967) SovyetRusya Imparatorlugu, Baha, Istanbul.

ARALOV Semyon (1960) Vospominaniya sovetskogo diplomata 1922-1923, Izd-vo Instituía mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii, Moscow.

ASLAN Betül (2004) Türkiye-A^erbaycan iliskileri ve Ibrahim Ebilov (1920-1923), Kaynak Yayinlan, Istanbul.

BACZKOWSKI Wlodzimierz (1945) U %ródel polskiej ideiferedacyjnej, Reduta, Jerusalem.

BACZKOWSKI Wlodzimierz (1951) Russia and Asia, Reduta, Beirut.

BAGIROV Yusif A. (1965) 1% istorii sovetsko-tureckich otnosenij ? 1920 - 1922 gg.: (po materialam A%erba/d%ansk. SSR) Akad., Baku.

CAN Adern (2007) "Yeni Kafkasya" Mecmuasi", biligAX, 2007, pp. 109-122.

ESPAGNE Mchel and WERNER Michael (ed.) (1988) Transferts. Us relations interculturelles dans l'espace franco-allemand CKVIUe et XIXe siècle), Editions Recherches sur les Civilisations, Paris.

GASANLY Dzhamil (2008) SSSR-Turcija. Ot nejtraliteta k Kholodnoi Voine, 1939-1953, Tsentr propagandy, Moscow.

GÖKAY Bülent (2006) Soviet Eastern Policy and Turkey, 1920-1991. Soviet foreign policy, Turkey and communism, Routledge , London and New York.

GÜRÜN Kamuran (1991) Türk-Sovy et Iliskileri (1920-1953), TTK, Ankara.

HOSONLI Csmil (2005) S SRI- Turkiyd: Sqyuq müharibdnin sinaq meydani, Adiloglu, Baku.

KAELBLE Hartmut (2006) "Herausforderungen an die Transfergeschichte", COMPARATIVA, Heft 3, pp. 7-12.

KAELBLE Hartmut (2006) Die Debatte über Vergleich und Transfer und was jetzt?, http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/forum/id=574&type=artikel (accessed 15.11.2011).

KIRIMER Cafer Seydahmet (1993) Ba%i hatiralar, Emel Türk Kültürünü Arastirma ve Tanitma Vakfi, Istanbul.

RASULZADE Mamed Emin (1 930) 0 panturani^me ? sviaci s kavka^skoi problemoi; s predisloviem ?. Zhordania, Comité de l'indépendance du Caucase, Paris.

SEN Bülent (2009) "Publications and Activities of Azerbaijani Intellectuals in Turkey: Azerbaycan Yurt Bugisi", Ipdk Yolu 3-4, pp. 50-58.

TEKÎN Arslan and ZEKÌ Izgöer Ahmet (ed.) (2009) Akçuraoglu, Yusuf: Türk ???? 1928, TTK, Ankara.

WIEDERKEHR Stefan (2007) Die Eurasier-Bewegung, Böhlau, Köln.