Photo on the cover: Shahidlyar Khiyabany (Alley of Martyrs), Baku, 2015. Photo by Sevil Huseynova

A Tool Of Propaganda: Thirty Years Of Memory Politics In Independent Azerbaijan

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In the “Sculptor’s Notes” published in the year of Stalin’s death, Dmitry Merkurov, who, for many years firmly held the title of “Outstanding Master of Soviet Monumental Sculpture”, claimed that: “The monument is a powerful instrument of propaganda and ideological education of the people. Its importance in our state is particularly great” (Merkurov 1950: 50). Of course, Merkurov was referring to the Soviet Union, but this sentence is also relevant for modern Azerbaijan. Revenues from the oil and gas trade are not only spent on large-scale construction and reconstruction of infrastructure, the maintenance of a huge bureaucratic apparatus, the police, and the army. This same revenue source is used to finance the installation of numerous monuments throughout the country. After a short pause in the 1990s, when more monuments were dismantled than were opened, by the 2000s, the country experienced a new wave of memorial construction. This was undertaken in the context of a new stage in the nationalization of public spaces and the legitimization of the Aliyev political regime. As a result, numerous public political monuments again became “propaganda tools” and visual symbols of power (Michalski1998: 107).

Product details
Date of Publication
2022
Publisher
Heinrich Boell Foundation South Caucasus
Number of Pages
16
Licence
All rights reserved
Language of publication
English
Table of contents

Introduction 4
1990-2020: Key Events And Images 5
Commemoration Of The First Republic In The Muslim East 6
March Genocide Of 1918 And Black January Of 1990 8
Commemoration Of The Long‑lasting
Conflict:
Before And After The Second Karabakh War 10
The Birth Of A Great Leader 12
Future Perspectives On The Past 13
References 14