COLLECTIVE VICTIMHOOD AND MEMORY IN AZERBAIJAN: THE CONSTRUCTION OF NATIONAL IDENTITY THROUGH THE NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT AND ITS POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS

Abstract

The present thesis examines the transmission of memory and political implications of victimized identity in Azerbaijan. It focuses on the strategies of victimization that shape society’s discourse of Nagorno-Karabakh, which in turn underpins national identity. Collective remembrance strategies place Azerbaijanis at a point of impasse in relation to the conflict and pose a further obstacle to post-war peace negotiation, thus contributing to the intractability of the conflict. Using ethnographic interviews and incorporating evidence from official government bodies, this study demonstrates that the Azerbaijani discourse on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been articulated through strategies of self-victimization that are transmitted through collective memory. These strategies function in two directions: selective and biased information-processing, justification and rationalization of negative group behavior, self-pity, and denial are directed at the in-group; whereas attribution of blame, moral superiority and paternalism, and moral disengagement are addressed to the out-group. By analyzing the disparate treatment of the Sumgait pogroms and the Khojaly massacre in collective memory, this study offers empirical evidence that the Azerbaijani discourse selectively focuses on particular events and builds on the memory narrative in a way that fits its self-victimization framework. The institutionalization and widespread remembrance of the Khojaly massacre further solidifies this aspect. This paper further argues that the government instrumentalizes victimized memory abroad as a political currency and domestically to divert attention from its own wrongdoings, such as lack of freedoms. Finally, it points out the importance of memory in conflict resolution and that a young society becoming more and more disaffected by protracted conflict can lead to disengagement, instead of the active participation of civil society needed to work towards a stable and lasting peace.