Ziia Buniiatov and the invention of an Azerbaijani past

This dissertation is devoted to the Soviet post-World War II discourse on Azerbaijani history, which is studied through the life and works of Ziia Musaevich Buniiatov, Hero of the Soviet Union, historian and orientalist, born in Baku in 1923, and assassinated in 1997. I explore Buniiatov’s publications and his role in the development of an Azerbaijani national identity. By analyzing his historical writings from the late 1950s to the Perestroika period, and into the 1990s, when Azerbaijani nationalism culminated in the escalation of the territorial conflict with Armenia over Nagornyi Karabakh, I attempted to establish in how far Buniiatov provided the basis for this escalation.
Next to studying his publications, I also explored Buniiatov’s biography and his political role in society. The construction of what I call the “Buniiatov myth” is of crucial importance with regard to both his personal image and the perception of his work as a scholar.
The first chapter focuses on the biography and personality of Ziia Buniiatov and how he became one of the founding fathers of Azerbaijani historiography.
In the second chapter I analyzed the major works that Buniiatov wrote between 1958 (when his first article was published) and 1987, when the political situation rapidly changed due to Gorbachev’s Perestroika.
The third chapter investigates Buniiatov’s role in the political turbulence of Azerbaijan from the start of Perestroika to his violent death in 1997.