The Caucasian Émigré in Iran: The case of Azerbaijani refugees (1920s-1940s)

In 1920, when the Red Army conquered the Republic of Azerbaijan, many political and military elements fled to Iran. The appropriate treatment of Iranians with immigrants, the Iranian government's resistance to the extradite of refugees, the employment of many immigrants in Iranian civil and military sections, as well as Turkey's chaotic conditions at that time, indicate the importance of Iran in the process of migration of Caucasian Azerbaijanis after the Bolshevik invasion. However, for various reasons, the aforementioned issue has not been paid much attention in the researches conducted so far, and the presence and activities of Azerbaijani immigrants in Turkey and Europe have been mostly discussed.During the decades of 1920-1940, the community of Azerbaijani émigrés in Iran was plagued by internal rivalries, anticommunist activities by foreign states, and Soviet intelligence penetration. In Iran, the Azerbaijani community's political life was heavily influenced by Reza Shah's government's security approach, the priority Iran placed on de-escalating tensions with Soviet Union and Turkey, the memories of ups and downs between Tehran and Baku between 1918 and 1920, as well as the Turkist discourse that dominates Azerbaijani political circles, especially among the Musavat party. In the aftermath of the Second World War, developments complicated the issue of Azerbaijani émigrés and the obstacles to their cooperation with Iranian authorities.