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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 November 2009
Writing systems are used as, and considered to be, important tools and symbols of political discourses of their time. This article presents a historical overview of the alphabet changes in Azerbaijan and shows how the alphabets were associated with the discourses of modernisation, nationalism and national identity construction. In the early twentieth century, the discussion on the need to shift from the Arabic alphabet to the Roman was actually an extension of the wider debate on national identity and language coupled with the will to modernise and progress. In 1940, the Soviet regime imposed the shift from the Roman alphabet to the Cyrillic in a top-down manner. This change was neither negotiated nor discussed among the intellectuals and there was almost no room for the expression of critical views. With the introduction of glasnost and perestroika in the late 1980s, intellectuals started to question to what extent the Cyrillic alphabet and the Russian language could represent the Azerbaijani language, civilisation, and national identity. In 1991, Azerbaijan adopted the Roman alphabet. The case of Azerbaijan shows that alphabet changes are symbolic acts to deny and/or reject the previous political and cultural heritage and its legitimacy and tools for undermining its prominence in the new processes of transformation and change.
1 I would like to thank İlker Aytürk for his comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this article and his encouragement to work on this topic. My thanks also go to Audrey L. Altstadt who generously offered her comments while I was trying to understand the dynamics behind the alphabet change in the 1920s. I appreciate the help extended by Alper Ataşer, Kamil Veli Nerimanoğlu and librarians of the Azerbaijan National Library who provided generous help and assistance during my fieldwork in Azerbaijan. I would also like to thank the Scientific Research Fund of the Middle East Technical University which provided my funding for the fieldwork and archive research for this article.
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62 Ibid., p. 208.
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