A real detective
Three years ago, customs officers at the Baku airport detained copies of my book “Stalin and the Turkish Crisis in of the Cold War” published in Harvard University in English. The monograph explores the political processes of 1945–1953, it was repeatedly published in different languages and the reason for the delay was not clear to me. A little later, the government-controlled bookstores, on the instructions of their superiors, removed my books from sale. Then they went on. State publishing houses “recommended” authors to remove references to my books. They told the authors not to get them into trouble. Of course, there were also those who did not do this. They forced my PhD students and dissertations to write a statement about the rejection of my scientific supervisor. There were also those who did not write. Then they went even further and started returning books sent to me by international mail, with a false excuse “address not found”. And recently, a more organized tracking of Pegasus has appeared, and the well-known “Modem operation” of the Azerbaijani Security Service at our home has been added to these. A real detective!
Now I see that each of the dissertations written in the United States sometimes contains 30–40 references to those books that were banned by the Aliyev regime in Azerbaijan. I will give only two examples: Florida State University: A dissertation submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Benjamin Harper on titled “The Bridge to Victory: The Iranian Crisis and the Birth of the Cold War” (and his book “The Iranian Crisis and the Birth of the Cold War. Lexington Books, 2018) author wrote that, “An outstanding and bold addition to Cold War peripheral studies is Jamil Hasanli’s “At the Dawn of the Cold War: The Soviet-American Crisis over Iranian Azerbaijan, 1941–1946”. No one has done more than Hasanli to advance the studies of the Iranian Crisis, or to boldly frame it as the true catalyst of the Cold War. Drawing on an outstanding survey of Soviet-era documents that were kept confidential until 1997 and first published in his book in 2006, Hasanli argues that the problem of Azerbaijan was the central issue in Soviet expansion into the region. He reframes the premise of the story by writing that the national movement in Iranian Azerbaijan was primarily an internal issue, and that “Irrespective of Soviet goals in the country, Azerbaijanis pursued their own interests in the process…[and] in some cases those interests coincided.” P.15. In this study, there were no fewer than 33 references to our unwanted book in Azerbaijan. (https://fsu.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/fsu%3A507673)
One more dissertation was written at the Ohio State University by James C. Helicke entitled “‘Armed Minorities’: The Cold War, Human Rights, and Ethnicity in U.S.-Turkish Relations”. In this research, there were more than 35 references to my book “Stalin and the Turkish Crisis in of the Cold War”. For example:
“International historians who have mentioned Turkey’s ethnic questions, have largely approached these issues as a sideshow to other ones — such as the Straits — rather than a main story in itself. Jamil Hasanli’s study presents an important exception to this rule”. P. 13.
“Jamil Hasanli, who offers by far the most comprehensive account of both the Armenian and Kurdish issues, argues “the problem of the Armenian repatriation was initiated by the Soviet government as a justification to its territorial claims to Turkey”. P.84.
“A notable exception to this trend is the work of Hasanli, whose work focuses largely on Soviet foreign policy. Douglas Little has dedicated recent attention to the Kurdish issue in U.S. foreign policy, but only dedicates a few paragraphs to this period”. P. 84–85.
“Regardless if Armenian American petitions were coordinated with the Soviet Union (as Jamil Hasanli contends) or if they were uncoordinated (as Michael Bobelian argues), Armenian and Kurdish petitions reinforced international pressure against Turkey and, in the eye of U.S. policymakers, amounted to de facto Soviet bidding at the United Nations”.(Jamil Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish Crisis of the Cold War, 1945–1953. New York: Lexington Books, 2011, 125, 207; Michael Bobelian, Children of Armenia: A Forgotten Genocide and the Century-long Struggle for Justice. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009, 102, 92.) P. 137.
“According to Hasanli, Soviet and Armenian archival sources highlight Soviet efforts to use the Armenian Diaspora to further Soviet designs on Turkey: The Soviet Union not only sent propagandists to incite the Armenian Diaspora, there is evidence that statements and petitions by Armenian groups at international forums were closely coordinated with Soviet authorities. Bobelian, who largely examines U.S. and Diaspora records, disputes such coordination. Nonetheless, it is clear from the evidence that Hasanli presents that the Soviet Union embraced Armenian activism, which offered continuing pressure for territorial claims on Turkey” and etc. P.139–140.
(https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_etd/send_file/send...)
Exactly our “vigilant” customs officers did not allow these books to enter the country, as Aliyev regime banned their sale in bookstores in Baku. Ignorance and idiocy! What else is there to say?
P.S. By the way, I still don’t personally know these authors and thanks to both of them.
