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The Wilsonian Moment of the Azerbaijani Delegation in Paris (1919-20) Daniel Pommier Vincelli Sapienza Università Di Roma, Italia

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The Wilsonian Moment of the Azerbaijani Delegation in Paris (1919-20) Daniel Pommier Vincelli Sapienza Università Di Roma, Italia Armenia, Caucaso e Asia Centrale Ricerche 2020 a cura di Carlo Frappi e Paolo Sorbello The Wilsonian Moment of the Azerbaijani Delegation in Paris (1919-20) Daniel Pommier Vincelli Sapienza Università di Roma, Italia Abstract The delegation of the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference fought for the international recognition of its country and for admis- sion to the League of Nations. The analysis of mostly unpublished archival documents from the personal archives of head of delegation Əlimərdan Ələkbər oğlu sheds new light on the history of Azerbaijani diplomacy. Topçubaşov could rely above all on the tools of influence of public opinion, such as books, publications and magazines which were written in large numbers in Paris. The adoption, in Azerbaijani political communication, of languages and contents adapted to the Wilsonian culture was meant to justify the aspiration to self-determination, as other anti-colonial non-European elites attempted to do during the Paris Peace Conference. Keywords Azerbaijan. Wilsonianism. Self-determination. Paris Peace Conference. Summary 1 Introduction. – 2 An Anti-Colonial Struggle. – 3 The Road to Public Diplomacy. – 4 Armenia and Azerbaijan Between Confrontation and Cooperation. – 5 Conclusion. Eurasiatica 15 e-ISSN 2610-9433 | ISSN 2610-8879 ISBN [ebook] 978-88-6969-453-0 | ISBN [print] 978-88-6969-454-7 Edizioni Ca’Foscari Peer review | Open access 121 Submitted 2020-03-16 | Accepted 2020-06-18 | Published 2020-10-22 © 2020 | cb Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License DOI 10.30687/978-88-6969-453-0/006 Daniel Pommier Vincelli The Wilsonian Moment of the Azerbaijani Delegation in Paris (1919-20) 1 Introduction The year 1919 marked a revolutionary short-lived moment for many nationalities once subject to the multinational empires dissolved as result of World War I, as well as for colonized territories by the vic- tors of the Great War. As the term ‘revolutionary’ should be under- stood as a nationalistic and anticolonial upheaval aimed to obtain na- tional self-determination, find a place within the future international order and establish links of solidarity with other emerging national communities. Historian Eretz Manela focused on the Asian perspec- tive (India, China, Korea) noting that the consequences of the Great War propelled an unprecedented political mobilization towards the principles embodied by Woodrow Wilson’s fourteen points: [t]hese [mobilisations] were all propelled by the accumulated ma- terial and ideological transformations of the years of war, trans- formation that imbued the moment with revolutionary potential and gave contemporaries a sense that the international order, its power structures and its norms of legitimacy were uniquely mal- leable, amenable to concerted action. (Manela 2019, 409) The main hypothesis of this article is that this analytical framework could be adapted to the ephemeral experience of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic lasting from 1918 to 1920 and built on the ash- es of the Russian Empire. Acting as an independent state – although not recognised by the Great Powers nor by the international com- munity – the Azerbaijani Republic was able to dispatch a diplomatic mission to the Paris Peace Conference, seeking international recog- nition, admission to the League of Nations and military protection by the factions fighting in the Russian civil war. The outcome of the Paris mission was mixed: after months of relentless pressures the Azerbaijanis were able to obtain a de facto recognition on January 1920, whilst failed to achieve full de jure recognition of sovereign- ty before the invasion of the Red Army in April that same year. Af- ter the Bolshevik takeover of 27 April 1920, the Republic ceased to exist and Azerbaijan was incorporated within the Soviet Union. As noted by prominent historian Jamil Hasanli (2016) the main cause of the collapse of Azerbaijani independence should be found in exter- nal rather than internal factors. The victors of World War I were am- biguous towards the fate of the former Russian Empire and were not ready to recognize the new republics which emerged from the ruins of the Tsarist state. Woodrow Wilson, the US president and architect of the postwar concept of national self-determination, was very cau- tious towards the claims of non-Russian groups from the former em- pire. Nevertheless, the small group of amateur diplomats who repre- sented Azerbaijan in Paris in 1919-20 counted on Wilson’s message Eurasiatica 15 122 Armenia, Caucaso e Asia Centrale. Ricerche 2020, 121-138 Daniel Pommier Vincelli The Wilsonian Moment of the Azerbaijani Delegation in Paris (1919-20) as a tool of legitimacy. Azerbaijan did not only sought recognition but represented itself as a flourishing liberal democracy. The claims to self-determination were remarked with a political narrative repre- senting Azerbaijan like a modern, secular, multi-ethnic state eager to integrate within the international community and to strengthen its ties with Western powers. Hasanli’s judgement on the Azerbaija- ni foreign policy could be partially agreed-upon: Taking into consideration the complicated historical conditions of the time, the builders of the Azerbaijani republic who originated its foreign policy and defined the place of Azerbaijanis in world politics and geography, strove to create a modern republic based on democratic principles and the values of a secular state. Not did they manage to reshape the world outlook of their countrymen, they managed to change the opinion of the world about Azerbai- jan. (Hasanli 2016, 3) This emphatic perspective should be contextualized. The partial rec- ognition of January 1920 by Western powers was due more to the im- peding victory of Bolsheviks in Russian civil war – and the need to counteract Soviet Russia with pro-Western buffer states like Azerbai- jan and Georgia – than to the Azerbaijan's internal conditions. The de facto recognition was a shallow success and the Great Powers re- tained from sending troops to help the Caucasian republics. After three months an informal alliance between the new Nationalist Tur- key and Bolshevik Russia paved the way to Soviet invasion of Baku and forced Western powers like Great Britain to renounce to any in- fluence in Caucasus (Gokay 1997). Nevertheless, during the months in Paris the Azerbaijani delegation tried to replace the weakness of the newborn State with a political and ideological challenge to the postwar international environment. The fate of Azerbaijan was de- pendent on the changing attitudes of the Great Powers towards Rus- sia and Caucasus rather than on the merits of the Caucasian delega- tion. But the Paris conference opened a window of opportunity for non-European and postcolonial elites to be projected into the inter- national context. 2 An Anti-Colonial Struggle The prominent Azerbaijani politician Əlimərdan bəy Ələkbər oğlu Topçubaşov (Topçubaşı) and the young Vietnamese nationalist known as Nguyen-Ai-Quoc, who would later assume the pseudonym of Ho Chi Minh, were in Paris in 1919. They were both galvanized by Woodrow Wilson’s ideas and attempted to gain Peace Conference support for their national cause. This process fell within the political climate of Eurasiatica 15 123 Armenia, Caucaso e Asia Centrale. Ricerche 2020, 121-138 Daniel Pommier Vincelli The Wilsonian Moment of the Azerbaijani Delegation in Paris (1919-20) the Paris Peace Conference and its influence on anticolonial move- ments. After the end of World War I groups from newly independent non-European and unrecognized States, as well as representatives of peoples subjected to colonial rule, converged in Paris, attract- ed by Wilson’s message of national self-determination. Erez Manela (2001) defines this season as the “Wilsonian moment”. The echo of Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points raised the hopes of nationalists and anticolonial activists from Africa, Asia, the former Russian Em- pire and the Middle East: Chinese and Vietnamese, Arabs and Zionists, Armenians and Af- ricans and many others, rushed invited or uninvited to stake their claims in the emerging new world. To these representations of na- tional aspirations Wilson was often a symbol and a saviour, com- mitted to the establishment of a new world order, which would au- gur an era of self-determination for all. They adopted Wilsonian rhetoric in formulating and justifying their goals, and they count- ed on the president’s support in attaining them. Most of these as- pirations, however, were quickly met with bitter disappointment. The treaty signed at Versailles not only left the colonial system intact, it expanded its scope to unprecedented proportions. As the nature of the emerging peace settlement became clear in the spring of 1919 frustrated expectations and deep disillusionment fuelled a series of popular and often violent upheavals across the colonized world. (Manela 2001, 117)1 According to Manela, the roots of 20th-century anticolonialism have international origins. Anticolonial leaders found in Wilson and not in Lenin an ideological and legitimizing point of reference. Post-World War I nationalism should be considered an international ideology and Wilsonian ideas circulated worldwide. Once the delegations present- ed their claims in Paris the demands from anticolonial movements were met with hostility, mostly for a racial prejudice. For Wilson and his advisers self-determination was hardly applicable to non-Euro- pean nationalities. Secretary of State Robert Lansing warned of “the danger of putting such ideas into the minds of certain races,” since they were bound to lead to “impossible demands” and “breed discon- tent, disorder and rebellion” (Manela 2005, 1117). Events occurring between the dissolution of the Tsarist Empire in Transcaucasia and the independence of the three states were ex- tremely complex. Caucasus was a battlefront since 1914 and had been 1 Manela focused specifically his study (2001) on nationalist movements in Egypt, India, China, and Korea. The framework of the Wilsonian moment could be applied to other countries as well.
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