The First Republic: The Republic of Azerbaijan (1918-1920)

The First Republic: The Republic of Azerbaijan (1918-1920)

After the 1917 revolution in Russia, the processes of weakening and disintegration of the Empire became more pronounced and conditions were ripe in outlying ethnic regions of the former Russian Empire for the formation of independent States. And so, on May 28, 1918 the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic was proclaimed in the territory of the eastern part of the southern Caucasus - the first parliamentary democracy in the Islamic east - and which was to play a historic role in the renaissance and formation of the sense of ethnic identity and statehood of the Azerbaijani nation. At that time, leader of Azerbaijan fraction was Mammad Amin Rasulzade.
The development of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic, both as a nation and a State, was based on the idea of "Azerbaijanism", which hinged on the principles of modernism, Islamism and Turkism, symbolizing the Azerbaijani people's aspiration for progress based on preservation of their adherence to Islamic civilization and Turkic culture and on their separate ethnic identity.
In its brief existence of less than two years, the multi-party Azerbaijani parliament and the coalition government managed to take a number of important steps in the process of nation-building and the development of statehood, in such areas as education, formation of an army, development of independent financial and economic systems and securing international recognition for the young republic as a full member of the international community of nations. On January 11, 1920 the Paris Peace Conference, with the Treaty of Versailles, accorded de facto recognition of the independence of the Azerbaijani Republic, with its capital.
In late 1919 and early 1920, however, the political situation of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic - both at home and abroad - worsened considerably. The country found itself caught up in a ferocious tug-of-war between the countries of the Entente, Russia and Persia, each pursuing its own geopolitical goals in this strategically important and oil-rich area.