Talk:Mahammad Amin Rasulzade/Archive 1

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Rasulzadeh quote

There is a real problem with this statement: "According to Touraj Atabaki, it was in his exile that Rasulzade admitted in an article that he wrote that Albania (referring to Caucasian Azerbaijan) was different than Azerbaijan (referring to Iranian Azerbaijan) and declared his eagerness to do "whatever is in his power to avoid any further discontent among Iranians".[4]"

The problem is, that it is clearly taken out of context and leads us to believe smth, which Rasulzadeh did not say or meant.

Here's the fuller quote, with context, from prof. Touraj Atabaki's book, page 25:

"Adopting the name of Azerbaijan for the area of southern and eastern Transcaucasia soon caused concern in Iran and Azerbaijan [presumably, by "Azerbaijan" Atabaki means only South Azerbaijan - the Azerbaijan in Iran -- A.B.]. Mohammad Amin Rasulzadeh, the founder of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Transcaucasia, understood -- during these early days -- the territory of this new Azerbaijan to consist of "the Baku and Elisavetpol gubernias, the southern districts of the Tiflis and Yerevan gubernias, and the country of Zakatal". [endnote 58] Later, when the republic had been toppled by the Bolsheviks and Rasulzadeh had been forced to seek asylum abroad, he admitted that this choice of a name for the new republic had been a mistake. In an article which he wrote on the history of the short-lived Republic of Azerbaijan, Rasulzadeh acknowledges that: "Albania (the former Soviet Azerbaijan) is different from Azerbaijan (Iranian Azerbaijan)." [endnote 59] Moreover, in a letter to Taqizadeh, he declared his eagerness to do "whatever is in his power to avoid any further discontent among Iranians". [endnote 60] However, if the Republic of Azerbaijan, was the name adopted by the Muslim Musavatists, when the bolsheviks established their rule over the region, they did not hesitate to retain the same name. On 28 April 1920, the government of Musavatists was overthrown b ythe revolutionary Bolsheviks, and an independent Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan was proclaimed. [endnote 61]"

So, what do we get from this fuller quote? First of, Touraj Atabaki is an Iranian nationalist, and is somewhat partial and sensitive -- he also appears to have a favorable view of Reza Shah, which for a book published in Europe and US in the year 2000, is rather revealing of whom his loyalties are to.

Second, and most importantly, despite discussing such an important and contentious point as naming of a whole country and nation, Prof. Atabaki cites only one source -- both endnotes 59 and 60 are referring to a 1966 book by R.Ramazani -- and he quotes very briefly, with those quotes being clearly taken out of context and misunderstood.

For example, in order to understand what is meant by the offer to do "whatever is in his [?! Rasulzadeh wrote about himself from a position of third-person?! Hard to believe! So here we already have a case of mistranslation or liberal quotation - A.B.] power to avoid any further discontent among Iranians", we absolutely must have the context. 1) Did Rasulzadeh offer any solutions to choose from? 2) When did he do so, which are the dates, that Atabaki conveniently ignores? 3) Also, what POWER did Rasulzadeh have if he was never a president (this post didn't even exist in ADR), Prime-Minister, minister or judge in ADR? He was only Musavat party chairman -- and the Azerbaijani Parliament had several numerous fractions and parties, including Dashnaks, Mensheviks, etc. 4) Moreover, was this quote even relevant to the name of "Azerbaijan" -- or was it just a normal diplomatic note between two old friends, who wanted to normalize or improve relations between their countries, and thus had some, however limited, tools at their disposal -- like writing letters to someone, and other acts, commonly referred to as "lobbying"? Forgive me, but for lack of context and basic details like dates, which prof. Atabaki for some reason did not supply, I argue that the quote should be removed altogether due to it being misleading, inconclusive and out of context.

The very same concerns are eminating from the former quote, "Albania (the former Soviet Azerbaijan) is different from Azerbaijan (Iranian Azerbaijan)". Well, of course Caucasian Albania was different from (South) Azerbaijan! Caucasian Albania is a generally accepted name by which the North Azerbaijan went from IV century BC until VII century AD, albeit at times lands north of Araxes river were included into the geographic and political notion of Azerbaijan. However, since the fall of Caucasian Albania to Arabs in 705 AD, and it being generally named by Arabs as "Arran" (which is a derivative of "Albania" - "Aluank" - "Alpan", although the name of mythical king Aran, founder of Caucasian Albania, is featured prominently in local mythology), mostly only towards the lands between Kura and Araxes river (that is, not including Shirvan, some Mughan, Talish and North Daghestan). As multiple medieval and later sources prove, the name "Azerbaijan" applied well north of Araxes river (e.g., see academician Iqrar Aliyev, prof. Yampolsky, Dr. Sisoyev, Great soviet Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Iranica, and a host of Arab and other scholars).

Hence, by this quote, what is obvious is Rasulzadeh's brief explanation of ancient history of his nation and country, and that for longest times it was not the name of Azerbaijan, but Caucasian Albania that was prevalent. However, after the demise of Albania, everything started to change, most notably in 12th-13th centuries, when a powerful Azerbaijan Atabek State of Ildezids (Ildegoz) was founded and whose powerbase was in Naxcivan (north of Araxes), with capital being in Barda and Naxcivan, and an additional residence in Ganja -- all north of Araxes. It's possible that Rasulzadeh might have not know many of these facts -- he was not a specialist on ancient history.

Thus, I argue that this quote too should be removed altogether due to it being misleading, inconclusive and out of context. --AdilBaguirov 17:57, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

No POV. Everything you said was POV, especially your claim that we can tell Atabaki is a nationalist from that quote...thats just laughable...Also, from the quote you posted, it does not show that anything has been taken out of context.Azerbaijani 18:54, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

But you have not provide the whole context of Rasulzade's quote. It is just a line taken out of some apparently large text. Can you quote the whole paragraph where the quote was taken from? Grandmaster 19:24, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

How is it taken out of context? The quote is exactly the way Atabaki has it, that Rasulzadeh said that Albania is different from Azerbaijan. I'm putting it back in. You have to discuss things first before making unilateral decisions.Azerbaijani 19:32, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

How is this taken out of context: In an article which he wrote on the history of the short-lived Republic of Azerbaijan, Rasulzadeh acknowledges that: "Albania (the former Soviet Azerbaijan) is different from Azerbaijan (Iranian Azerbaijan)."? Please elaborate. Nothing is taken out of context here. Secondly, why do you keep removing the Goltz quote? He is a reliable third party source. Plus, Adil's long essay is all POV and original research, it is no basis for argument.Azerbaijani 19:35, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

user:Azerbaijani, the quotes from Rasulzadeh prove absolutely nothing -- they are taken out of context and misinterpreted by Atabaki, and misused by you. Likewise, Goltz's quote is irrelevant, as he is not a historian, but a great journalist and contemporary witness, chronicler. What happened in 1918-1920, is not his specialty. I wrote everything correctly and logically, and you have been unable or unwilling to offer any proof that these quotes are not taken out of context and not misused. This is why we have this Talk page, and this is why before removing anything, I have provided all the arguments and research. Please follow the Wikipedia's format and be constructive. --AdilBaguirov 22:39, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

A) Goltz is a very reliable source, and B) The quote was not taken out of context. I already caught you in one lie (regarding the Barthold quote) and now you are trying to say this quote was taken out of context. It was not, the quote is put in straight from the book exactly, there is no possibility of it being taken out of context.Azerbaijani 23:12, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, here's the full quote from Goltz, which perhaps should be quoted more precisely:

"Rasulzade, meanwhile, was politically long gone. Declining Stalin's invitation to play Quisling in the new order, he was thrown in a Moscow prison for two years before managing to escape (or being allowed to escape) via Finland to Germany. There he remained throughout World War II--another aspect of his career the new nationalists did not like to talk about much -- before retiring to Turkey, where he became involved in the politics of the marginal pan-Turkic movement. He died in Ankara in 1955, a broken man."

As you can see, Goltz's info about, for example, 2 years imprisonment, diverges SIGNIFICANTLY from the info of our Wiki page, as edited by user:Azerbaijani. So why such selective quoting?

Lower on the same page 18, his most important phrase is quoted by Goltz, which must become part of the Wikipedia page: "'Bir Kere Yukselen Bayrak Bir Daha Inmez!' or 'The Flag Raised Once Cannot Be Lowered!' was the phrase written beneath Rasulzade's portrait."

As we see, Goltz makes it clear that not only was this towards the end of Rasulzade's life, but the unspecified "movement" was MARGINAL, and was pan-Turkic, not pan-Turkist. Pan-Turkic movement is like pan-European movement -- works towards greater cultural, social, humanitarian, perhaps economic and political, links. Yet in the way user:Azerbaijani misuses it, it sounds different. In any case, the quote must be quoted and cited properly, and in a more appropriate way --AdilBaguirov 22:49, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I have no quarrel by putting that he spent two years in a Moscow prison (when was he put in prison so I could put in in the correct place of the paragraph). I'll put that in myself. Also, Golts clearly said that Rasulzadeh involved himself in the Pan Turkist movement, and our article here says participated in pan Turkist politics, which is the same thing (we can change "politics" to "movement" if that pleases you). Secondly, pan Turkists is the same as Pan Turkic, but again, if you want to change specific words that dont really make a difference, go ahead. Infact, I'll do it myself.Azerbaijani 23:12, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I put in exactly what Goltz says, and again, we can add the imprisonment thing also when we figure out what time of his life that happened in (1920 or later?). Also, I did not selectively quote anything, most of the article was not written by mean, I merely sourced Goltz over the subject matter that needed sourcings, likewise, instead of blaming me, you could blame the number of people who also edited the article yet did not put that he was imprisoned for two years.Azerbaijani 23:21, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, I didn't mean to blame you, user:Azerbaijani, for the article. However, Goltz's whole paragraph is incorrect -- not only does he diverge on 2 year imprisonment with current Wiki page, but also omits to mention Romania, for example, as a country in which Rasulzade lived. There is nothing on his wife either -- and thus special connection to Poland. Hence, Goltz's quote is not well-placed -- please find a more authoritative and correct quote.

Likewise, there is a difference between Pan-Turkist (dominated by Turkey) and Pan-Turkic (equality for all Turkic people). And there is difference between a marginal movement, and more loud and authoritative "politics". For example, I participate in the MoveOn.org movement, but does that mean I am Democrat or otherwise participate in US politics? No. --AdilBaguirov 23:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

You have unilaterally removed sourced information and deleted a well referenced article. I just changed all that to what you said and you reverted me!Azerbaijani 23:29, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

First off, you have contributed very poorly sourced information -- I had to go and verify them all, make the quotes exact. Secondly, it is not enough to bring quotes -- they have to relevant and correct. Goltz's is not - his info diverges with Wikipedia's page, and omits other important info. Moreover, there is no proof of "broken man" -- seems more like a slang, journalistic jargon, not actually attesting to the financial situation of Rasulzade at the end of his life.

Third, the Atabaki quote is discussed AT LENGTH above, see there.

Fourth, both sections "Exile" and previous "Azerbaijan Democratic Republic" have clear repetitions. I have removed the repetition, whilst you keep on including it -- along with other spelling mistakes of yours. Compare the following:

FROM: Azerbaijan Democratic Republic "but in August 1920, after soviet army crashed the rebellions of Ganja, Karabakh, Zagatala and Lankaran, lead by ex-officers of Azerbaijani army, Rasulzade was arrested and brought to Baku. It was only due to his earlier rescue of Joseph Stalin in 1905 that Rasulzade was released and taken from Baku. For the next two years, Rasulzade worked as the press representative at the Commissariat on Nations in Moscow. He was seconded to St.Petersbourg in 1922 from where escaped to Finland and never returned."

FROM: Exile "In August 1920, Rasulzade was arrested by the Soviets. It was only due to his old friendship with Joseph Stalin, dating back to their revolutionary activity in tsarist Russia that Rasulzade was released and taken from Baku. For the next two years, Rasulzade worked as the press representative at the Commissioner on Nations in Moscow. He was seconded to Finland in 1922 and never returned." --AdilBaguirov 23:37, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Dear Adil, I can explain why this repetitions happened. if you remember, the article about Rasulzade was very poor, and it was me that prepared a new one, but accidentally at the time when i was updating the article, this azerbaijani was also there and he spoiled my article several times and at the end moderators banned me because of a 3rr rule and then he returned and spoiled the article but he did not notiv=ced the repetition that he made! this is actually his fault! Elsanaturk 20:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I did not write these portions of the article! Why are you blaming everything on me? And no, you did not delete the repition, you deleted the whole last paragraph! Also, as I said above, your comment about the Atabaki quote is pure POV and OR, please read Wiki rules regarding these issues.Azerbaijani 23:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Summary of the above arguments against the Goltz and Atabaki quotes in their present shape and form:

1) The Atabaki quotes lack dates -- this is unacceptable and contrary to citation requirements. It is a basic requirement that date should be given when did Rasulzade write anything. At least the year, although month and day would give the full citation.

2) The Atabaki quotes appear to be out of context and misleading. Prof. Atabaki leads Rasulzade's quotes to make his own conclusions -- nowhere does Rasulzade mention he regrets the choice of naming of his nation (?!) and he never did it officially anywhere in his speeches or publications. This is discussed in more details above. This raises serious questions about the validity of the quotes in the context of Wikipedia's page on Rasulzade and elsewhere.

3) Neither Atabaki, nor the Wiki page clearly state who Taqizadeh was, nor that Rasulzadeh had no power to adopt or change name of a nation. This brings about the importance of the date of letters even more.

4) Goltz's quote -- not being an expert on history, Prof. Goltz gives more simplistic assessments than scholars and experts on that timeframe and such political leaders as Rasulzade (which I will cite below). Also, prof. Goltz makes several inconsistent, with Wiki page, statement on the same page, such as about 2 year imprisonment of M.E.Rasulzade in Moscow.

Now, to clarify many of the moments and show how wrong much of the information already present on the Wikipedia page and advocated for by user:Azerbaijani, here are several scholarly quotes dealing with the period and persons which I collected:

I) On Taqizadeh:

"The radicals, meanwhile, were demoralized and leaderless. Taqizadeh, Haydar Khan, and Rasulzadeh had been forced into exile [by 1914 from Iran]." Ervand Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions, Princeton University Press, 1982, p. 110.

"The prominent left-wing delegate from Azarbaijan, Sayyid Hasan Taqizadeh, then helped form the influential Democrat Party, a coalition of liberals and social democrats, which gained a minority representation of between twenty and thirty delegates in the Second Majlis, out of 111 delegates." John Foran (ed.), A Century of Revolution: Social movements in Iran, University of Minnesota Press, 1994, p. 36.

The relevance of this quote is that both Rasulzade and Taqizadeh were Azerbaijani, both were intellectuals and party activists, both were important, yet both lacked top authority and real power. In other words, even if Atabaki's conclusion, based on incomplete and undated quotes is correct, it is essential to note that 1) nowhere did Rasulzade voice such thought in public and officially, and 2) that he and Taqizade's were either politically unimportant or lacked any real authority, power and position to speak for their nation or change anything.

II) On Rasulzade's and Musavat(ists) orientation -- whether Pan-Turkist, Pan-Turkic, Pan-Islamist, Pan-Slavic, or Pan-Iranian or Pan-Persian:

"All this was much to the anger of the Mussavat ministers, even though it was rumoured that Hajjinsky had the tacit support of Rasulzadeh who cherished bad memories of both Iran and Turkey."(Charles van der Leeuw, Azerbaijan: A Quest for Identity, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000, p. 121. This quote describes the formation of the last cabinet of ADR, on December 22, 1919.

"The Ottoman authorities removed a few political figures from the Azerbaijani scene, among them Rasulzada, by inviting them for prolonged visits to Turkey. Ottoman interference strengthened the tendencies toward Azerbaijani nationalism whithin the political elite. Azerbaijan's relations with Turkey would henceforth be tainted with uneasiness bordering on distrust, and Pan-Turkism would gradually be reduced from a political program to a cultural doctrine". Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russian and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition, Columbia University Press, 1995, p. 71.

"The 1931 suppression of the emigre publications coincided with Rasulzada's expulsion from Turkey, and some saw it all as the result of caving in to the Soviet pressure. In reality, the reason went deep into the complex relationship between Turkey and Azerbaijan, a love story with its ups and downs amidst stormy episodes. Tensions had been growing toward the end of the decade, and by 1930, they had reached a boiling point. In reply to Turkish criticism that the Musavat was neglecting the cause of Turkic unity, Rasulzada published a pamphlet titled O Pantiurkizme v sviazii s kavkazskoi problemoi (Pan-Turkism with regard to the caucasian problem). Among the references to the experience of the 1918 Ottoman occupation, he firmly stated his view: Pan-Turkism was a cultural movement rather that [sic!] a political program." Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russian and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition, Columbia University Press, 1995, p. 130.

"For the Azeris, notably Rasulzada and his associates, the Polish connection was a welcome circumstance after the expulsion from Turkey. Amin bay took up residence in Warsaw, where he found a group of Azeri students and officers on contract with the Polish army. Here he found also his Polish wife." Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russian and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition, Columbia University Press, 1995, p. 132.

“Musavat had announced its birth [October 1911] with a manifesto that -- despite the radical past of its authors -- ignored social issues. Moreover, the party that would eventually be the main force of Azeri nationalism couched its first proclamation entirely in terms of the 'umma consciousness by appealing to Pan-Islamic rather than Pan-Turkic sentiments. Recalling that "the noble people of Islam had once reached with one hand to Peking...and with other built at the far end of Europe the Alhambra palace," the manifesto deplored the Islamic world's current weakness. In 1912 the Musavat put forward the program of political action that recalled for the unity of all Muslims, regardless of nationality or sectarian affiliation, restoration of the lost independence of Muslim countries, and moral and material assistance to Muslim peoples struggling for the preservation of their independence." Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russian and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition, Columbia University Press, 1995, p. 52.

As you can see, it is very hard to put a convenient "label" on Rasulzade -- he changed affiliations often, like many politicians, was a Hummet leader first, and then, only in 1913 joined Musavat, which at first was Pan-Islamic, then Pan-Iranian, then Pan-Turkic (I argue that Pan-Turkist and Pan-Turkic are different for the reasons I've already stated), and again Pan-Iranian, then Pan-Turkic -- but all the time remaining true to only one Pan -- Pan-Azerbaijanist. As you clearly see, he was banned and exiled from Turkey in the 1930s and 1940s, and even before that, had a dislike to Ottoman and later Turkish policies. Likewise, he was no fan of Iranian central government, shah. Likewise with Russia -- although Musavat before 1917 did see itself as an autonomous part of reformed Russia. Anyhow, as is clear from Prof. Swietochowski, and as I said yesterday, "Pan-Turkism was a cultural movement rather than a political program (Rasulzade's admission)".

III) On the name Azerbaijan for ADR:

"Although the proclamation [of ADR] restricted its claim to the territory north of the Araxes, the use of the name Azerbaijan would soon bring objections from Iran. In Tehran, suspicions were aroused that the Republic of Azerbaijan served as an Ottoman device for detaching the Tabriz province from Iran. Likewise, the national revolutionary Jangali movement in Gilan, while welcoming the independence of every Muslim land as a "source of joy," asked in its newspaper if the choice of the name Azerbaijan implied the new republic's desire to join Iran. If so, they said, it should be stated clearly, otherwise Iranians would be opposed to calling that republic Azerbaijan. Consequently, to allay Iranian fears, the Azerbaijani government would accommodatingly use the term Caucasian Azerbaijan in its documents for circulation abroad." Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russian and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition, Columbia University Press, 1995, p. 69.

This quote shows the MAXIMUM extent of ADR's concession (and thus Rasulzade's, as he and Musavat were at the peak of their authority, however limited) to "please" Iran/Persia was to call Azerbaijan as "Caucasian Azerbaijan" -- which is consistent with what some Russian scholars called it before anyway, and consistent with more modern description of North Azerbaijan vs. South Azerbaijan. Hence, the quote above strengthens my position that Atabaki's quote is misinterpreted and out of context. It also shows that neither Swietochowski -- a top scholar in the field -- nor others I've looked for, have made anything as Atabaki's assessment.

IV) On Iranian claims to ADR and subsequent official recognition of ADR by Iran (actually, Persia, or, dowlat-e Qajar):

“In Paris, the Azerbaijani delegation has done a great job on the question of relations with Iran. As is known, after the founding of ADR, Iran has made territorial claims to Azerbaijan, demanding it to be unified with Iranian state. After the adoption, in London on August 19, 1919, of the British-Iranian Treaty, Iran has relinquished is territorial claims to Azerbaijan. On November 1, 1919, in Paris, Azerbaijan and Iran have reached an agreement on established of diplomatic relations between them. Signing of this agreement was a big success of the Azerbaijani diplomacy on the international arena, which solidified the status of Azerbaijan as an independent state.” Igrar Aliyev (ed.), “History of Azerbaijan”, Part IV “Azerbaijan in modern times”, Chapter XXIII, “Founding of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic”, sub-title: “Azerbaijan on international arena. Paris Peace Conference”, Baku: Elm Publishing House of the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences, 1995 (in Russian). http://www.azerbembassy.org.cn/rus/historical23.html

The original citation in Russian: ИСТОРИЯ АЗЕРБАЙДЖАНА, (ред.Играр Алиев, изд."ЕЛМ", 1995г.), Раздел IV. Азербайджан в новое время, Глава XXIII, ПРОВОЗГЛАШЕНИЕ АЗЕРБАЙДЖАНСКОЙ ДЕМОКРАТИЧЕСКОЙ РЕСПУБЛИКИ. Азербайджан на международной арене. Парижская мирная конференция. http://www.azerbembassy.org.cn/rus/historical23.html “В Париже азербайджанской делегацией была проведена большая работа по вопросу об отношении с Ираном. Как известно, после образования АДР Иран выдвигал территориальные притязания к Азербайджану, требуя присоединения его к Иранскому государству. После заключения в Лондоне 19 августа 1919 г. англо-иранского договора Иран отказался от территориальных притязаний к Азербайджану. 1 ноября 1919 г. в Париже между Азербайджаном и Ираном был заключен договор о признании независимости Азербайджана и было достигнуто соглашение об установлении дипломатических отношений между ними. Подписание этого договора явилось большим успехом азербайджанской дипломатии на международной арене, закрепляло статус Азербайджана как независимого государства.”

Another book by the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan (see its full citation, link and original text in Russian below), also cites several archival documents about the signing of a Treaty of Peace and Friendship, signed on March 20, 1920, between Azerbaijan and Iran, and opening of respective embassies. Simultaneously, agreements on customs, trade, postal-telegraph and consular relations was also signed. A short while later, the embassy of ADR was opened in Tehran and Consulate General was opened in Tabriz.

The original citation in Russian: Азербайджанская Демократическая Республика (1918-1920), ГОСУДАРСТВЕННАЯ КОМИССИЯ ПО ПРОВЕДЕНИЮ 80-й ГОДОВЩИНЫ АЗЕРБАЙДЖАНСКОЙ ДЕМОКРАТИЧЕСКОЙ РЕСПУБЛИКИ. ИНСТИТУТ ИСТОРИИ АН АЗЕРБАЙДЖАНА им. А. А. БАКИХАНОВА, http://www.karabakh-doc.azerall.info/ru/azerpeople/ap045-6.php "20 марта 1920 года между Азербайджаном и Ираном был подписан договор о мире и дружбе, по которому иранское правительство признавало де-юре независимость Азербайджана. Стороны принимали на себя обязательства по созданию и укреплению дружественных и экономических отношений, а также по открытию азербайджанского посольства в Тегеране и иранского - в Баку31. Кроме того, в тот же день между Азербайджаном и Ираном были подписаны соглашения о таможне, торговле, почтово-телеграфных и консульских отношениях32. Спустя некоторое время в Тегеране было открыто посольство Азербайджана, а в Тебризе начало действовать генеральное консульство Азербайджана33."

This quotes' are simply a reminder that Iran had territorial claims to ADR, but later relinquished them and fully recognized ADR under its name.

Thus, once more -- 1) Goltz's assessment is problematic and trivial, and misplaced. Likewise, 2) Atabaki's quotes must be removed since they contain neither the dates, nor the full citation, nor are consistent with any other findings, nor with any public and official speeches of Rasulzade. If one persists on keeping them -- then 1) dates MUST be provided, 2) position of authority of both Rasulzade and Taqizade must be provided, and 3) I will include then my quotes as well, which will clarify everything. --AdilBaguirov 18:41, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

why this user calling himself Azerbaijani is trying to blame and abuse Rasulzade? why if this user is an azerbaijani and why if he is not an azerbaijani? why you are afraid of the memory of rasulzade? why to be so hostile to that man who is dead for more than 50 years? i could believe in Azerbaijani's academism if he added a single neutral(i do not ask for a good sentence) sentence and even a word in this article, but instead he brings mess from everywhere he can find. what is the reason of your hostility, Azerbaijani? Elsanaturk 20:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

user Azerbaijani is just an ordinary vandal, who removes everything -- my citation for one of the Rasulzade's books, Rasulzade's famous quote, the repetitive sentences in the EXILE, and many, many other things. All while also ignoring exhaustive other evidence presented -- I guess he has a vain hope that people will just forget it, and allow him to vandalize and use socket puppets, to break the 3RR rule. --AdilBaguirov 05:24, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

request

hello can we change first paraghraph in Azerbaijan democratic republic section "from"

On May 28, 1918, the Azerbaijani National Council, headed by Rasulzade, declared an independent Azerbaijan Republic. And even though Rasulzade never held any governmental post in either of the Cabinets of Ministers, as an active member of the Parliament he remained a kind of ideological leader of the newly-formed state until its collapse in May 1920. Rasulzade was also involved in the establishment of the State University in Baku in 1919.

to

On May 28 1918, the Azerbaijani National Council declared an independent Azerbaijan Republic. Even though Rasulzade never held any governmental post in either of the Cabinets of Ministers, as an active member of the Parliament and head of the Musavat party he remained an ideological leader of the newly-formed state. In 1919 Rasulzade toghether with Rashid Kaplanov, minister for education and Professor Razumovski with a financial aid of Haji Zeynalabdin Tagiyev, oil magnate initiated the foundation of Baku State University. He himself taught Ottoman literature at the department of philology of newly-founded university. Elsanaturk 10:56, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

opposition to Atabaki

hello I think we have a good evidents against Atabaki's "evidence". rasulzade's address to Azerbaijani people in 1953 through VOA.

But there is also facts that he was firm on his believes and principles, particularly his speech to Voice of America in 1953 just two years before his death where he uses Word "Azerbaijan" referring to Azerbaijan Republic and says that one day Azerbaijan will again be independent. can we add this to the text?

and also another evidence: Rasulzade himself wrote in his article Rabi ishtebe that Azerbaijan was divided between Iran and Russia after taking north of the Araz river deleted the name "Azerbaijan" and called the country Zagafgaziya. thanks Elsanaturk 11:06, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Its not Atabaki's evidence, its from an actual letter written by Rasulzadeh in which other scholars have cited also. Rasulzadeh did indeed admit his mistake, but that doesnt mean that in his mind Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was not Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. There is a difference in admitting you are wrong, and still using your mistake because it has already been done and it was still in use. No one denies that Rasulzadeh continued to use the term Azerbaijan, but thats not the point here, the point is that he acknowledged his mistake in choosing the name.Azerbaijani 15:05, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Irrelevant information and other problems

This belongs in the ADR article, not here, as it is about the country and not Rasulzadeh:

However, while being involved with ADR politics as the leader of Musavat Party in 1918-1920, the only concession he and his government made to the Iranian objections and territorial claims were using "the term Caucasian Azerbaijan in its documents for circulation abroad" [12] Successful ADR diplomacy made Iran relinquish its territorial claims, and fully recognize the Musavat government of ADR

This statement seems as if it is copy pasted from the source and is therefore plagiarism and may violate copy right, it needs to be reworded:

However, like all in Rasulzade's life, it was more complex: "The 1931 suppression of the emigre publications coincided with Rasulzada's expulsion from Turkey, and some saw it all as the result of caving in to the Soviet pressure. In reality, the reason went deep into the complex relationship between Turkey and Azerbaijan, a love story with its ups and downs amidst stormy episodes. Tensions had been growing toward the end of the decade, and by 1930, they had reached a boiling point. In reply to Turkish criticism that the Musavat was neglecting the cause of Turkic unity, Rasulzada published a pamphlet titled O Pantiurkizme v sviazii s kavkazskoi problemoi (Pan-Turkism with regard to the caucasian problem). Among the references to the experience of the 1918 Ottoman occupation, he firmly stated his view: Pan-Turkism was a cultural movement rather than a political program."

This statement is totally incorrect, as it is not "according to one scholar" but several that have cited Rasulzadeh's letter and secondly, 'its Rasulzadeh's letter, not anyones opinion therefore, its not "according to one scholar":

According to one scholar, it was in his exile that Rasulzade noted in a....Azerbaijani 15:25, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

There are no copyright violations and no plagiarism -- what makes you level yet another baseless allegation? Copyright violation or plagiarism, while different, would require absence of proper citations, which is not my domain, but yours, since I always properly cite. Meanwhile, all that was inserted in response to your irrelevant edits. And it should stay as long as you will persist on making irrelevant edits and insert in all pages the same information about Pan-Turkism, Atabaki, etc., statements (I can't call them quotes, since you don't even follow basic bibliographic format). --AdilBaguirov 02:54, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

ADR - Rasulzade = Azerbaijani ideology, not Pan-Turkic or Pan-Islamic

OK, here are a few archival and academic references to add about the Pan-Islamist and Pan-Turkic/Pan-Turkism/Pan-Turanism labels that are being recklessly inserted by user Azerbaijani. I will let the sources speak for themselves. All translations from Russian are mine.

First, we should also not forget the role of the "Ittihad" party, the officially Pan-Islamist in ADR, which was in opposition to Musavat, and helped Bolshevik's to invade and occupy Azerbaijan, leading to the demise of ADR.

"However, all of this had nothing in common with the notorious Pan-Islamism, in which the leaders of Azerbaijani national movement have been accused of for decades by some unfaithful researchers. Islamic solidarity the leaders of our national movement understood only as collaboration and mutual assistance in joint struggle for common goals -- national liberation of Muslim nations from colonialism of the European powers." Source: A. Balayev. Azerbaijani National Movement: from "Musavat" to the Popular Front. / Institute of History, Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences. In Russian. Baku: Elm, 1992, p. 5.

The authors of a 1931 book about the Pan-Islamic and Pan-Turkic labels noted: "[i]n the documents signed by Tsarist Minister of Internal Affairs Stolypin, in official decisions of "special councils", in large-volume cases at the gendarmerie [police], in one word, in all cases, when in former Russian empire one was dealing with a movement (agrarian, national-liberation, revolutionary, etc.) of Turkic-Tatar peoples in Russia, one generic prescription and standard form of definition was ready -- Pan-Islamism". Source: A.Arsharuni, Kh.Gabidullin. Sketches of Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turkism in Russia. (In Russian). Moscow: 1931, p. 3.

"This is testified by the actions of some representatives of the clergy after the February revolution [Second Russian in 1917] against "Musavat" and even declaring the party as enemy of Islam. Speaking on this occassion at the I Convention of "Musavat" in October 1917, M.E.Rasulzade stated: "A person, when entering a mosque, should forget politics, the party, the idea, and pray only to God. Moreover, the clergy should not interfere ["zanimatsya"] in politics, and in political struggle the mosque should remain neutral". Source: A. Balayev. Azerbaijani National Movement: from "Musavat" to the Popular Front. / Institute of History, Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences. In Russian. Baku: Elm, 1992, p. 6, citing Central State Archive of Modern History of the Republic of Azerbaijan, f. 894, op. 10, ed.khr. 60, p. 12.

Here's another Rasulzade quote: "The historical experience had shown, that from one side, giving birth to the theocratic-clerical-reactionary movement, and from another side, preventing the appearance of national ideology in Muslim world, the Pan-Islamism is preventing the awakening of national identity of these nations, delays their progress, and, with this, interferes with their becoming independent nations. That is why, in all Muslim countries, the process of awakening of national identity should be strengthened, because the root of all progress, as well as the foundation of national independence, is only the existence of national "I"." Source: Azerbaijan and Russia: the societies and states. D.E.Furman (ed.), in Russian, Moscow: Letniy Sad (Academician Andrey Sakharov Foundation), 2001. URL: http://www.sakharov-center.ru/publications/azrus/az_009.htm

In his own book, Rasulzade differentiated between "romantic Pan-Turanism" -- whose aim is creation of a unified Turkic state -- and simply "Turkism" or Pan-Turanism, which was a cultural, linguistic and humanitarian concept, not geo-political or military. (see: A. Balayev. Azerbaijani National Movement: from "Musavat" to the Popular Front. / Institute of History, Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences. In Russian. Baku: Elm, 1992, p. 7).

And as Rasulzade noted, "Azerbaijani political figures, in particular, members of Musavat, stood in opposition to the romantic Pan-Turanism, which was an utopia, that did not have any real basis." Source: A. Balayev. Azerbaijani National Movement: from "Musavat" to the Popular Front. / Institute of History, Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences. In Russian. Baku: Elm, 1992, p. 6, citing M.E.Rasulzade's article "About Pan-Turanism", Oxford, 1985, p. 71.

He further noted: "Romantic, political Pan-Turanism is no more, there is only "Turkism", which aims to achieve only real and, in particular, -- national goals". Source: A. Balayev. Azerbaijani National Movement: from "Musavat" to the Popular Front. / Institute of History, Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences. In Russian. Baku: Elm, 1992, p. 6, citing M.E.Rasulzade's article "About Pan-Turanism", Oxford, 1985, p. 79.

"In the opinion of M.E.Rasulzade, the idea of "romantic Pan-Turanism" have preserved its value only in the field of cultural issues, in the struggle for preservation of cultural heritage of Turkic people. Therefore, by declining both Pan-Islamism, and Pan-Turkism, the leaders of Azerbaijani national movement aimed for the creation of an independent national-political ideology, which would reflect the originality ["samobitnost'"] of the Azerbaijani nation, in which its interrelations with other Turkic nations would have been formulated too. They aimed to build relations between Turkic nations not on the basis of tribal affinity, but on the basis of the interests of each nation." Source: A. Balayev. Azerbaijani National Movement: from "Musavat" to the Popular Front. / Institute of History, Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences. In Russian. Baku: Elm, 1992, p. 8.

""Pan-Turkism" or "Pan-Turanism" was ostensibly a movement by Turks to establish hegemony over the world, or at least Eurasia. In fact, this "Pan" movement has no historical ideological precedent among Turks and has been documented to be a creation of the Westerners. Around the time of the occupation of Tashkent by Russian troops in 1865, the doctrine called or "Pan-Turkism" appeared in a work by Hungarian Orientalist Arminius Vambery. The premise of this notion was that since the overwhelming majority of the Central Asians spoke (and still speak) dialects of Turkish, share the same historical origins and history, "they could form a political entity stretching from the Altai Mountains in Eastern Asia to the Bosphorus," where the capital of the Ottoman Empire was located.89 This pseudo-doctrine was then attributed to the Turks themselves, and the Russians and Europeans claimed it was a revival of Chinggiz Khan's conquests, a threat not only to Russia, but the whole of Western civilization.90 In this tactic, attributing aggressive designs to the target, seemed to justify any action against Central Asia, a new "crusade" in the name of "self-defense."

After the Germans joined the Great Game, to undermine British control in Central Asia, Germans manipulated both "Pan- Turkism" and "Pan-Islamism."91 The Pan-Islamic Movement was an anti-colonial political movement of the late 19th century, and must be distinguished from the "orthodox" Islamic unity of all believers, the umma. Jamal Ad-Din al-Afghani (1839-1897) established the movement in its political form, striving to achieve the political unity of Muslims to fight against colonialism and the colonial powers. It was popular among Indian Muslims and in north Africa. However, the movement also served the colonial powers well. Painted as a reverse-Crusade --without necessarily using the terminology, but through graphic allusions-- the Colonial powers could mobilize both Western public opinion and secret international alliances to fight the "emerging threat." The Germans, after the death of al-Afghani, sought to make that threat as real as possible for the British in India.92 The manipulation of both "Pan"s would not die with the old century."

Source: H.B.Paksoy, "Nationality or religion?" AACAR Bulletin (Association for the Advancement of Central Asian Research), Vol.VIII no.2, Fall 1995, http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/53/128.html --AdilBaguirov 02:30, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Musavat covenant(1917)

Covenant of the Party of the Turkish Federalists “Musavat” (accepted in the party conference held on 26-31 October, 1917) Source: Balayev A. Azerbaydjanskoye natsional’no-demokraticheskoye dvijeniye. 1917-1920. B, 1990, pp 74-82; “Aydinlig” newspaper, 13 October, 1990.

Article 1: The form of the state of Russia should be a federative democratic republic based on principles of the national autonomy. Article 3: All ethnicities having territories of compact inhabiting n any part of Russia should receive national autonomy. Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkistan and Bashkortostan should receive territorial autonomy, Turks living along the Volga and the Crimean Turks should receive cultural autonomy in the case of impossibility of territorial autonomy. The Party considers as its sacred duty to support any non-Turkic ethnicities’ quests for autonomy and help them. Article 4: Ethnicities having no exact territory of compact inhabiting should receive national cultural autonomy. Elsanaturk 19:10, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Goltz

Goltz is a very reliable source, historian or not. You think he just made it up or did some research? A journalists job is to do research and present the facts, and obviously he has delved deep into Rasulzade's life.Azerbaijani 19:47, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

my latest edit

As you see in new page there are more references as opposite to the former text where it was only two, besides reverting to the one of the previous version of this section, i also ADDED TWO MORE CITATIONS, and NOT REMOVED ATABAKI's biased source although some users showed and prooved its bias, according to wiki formalism, SOURCED INFORMATION CANNOT BE DELETED, and please, user:Azerbaijani DO NOT DELETE CITATIONS THAT I HAVE ADDED! both sources that I have added are reliable ones, one is the homepage of Rasulzade and other is the collection of biographies of ADR leaders PUBLISHED IN SOVIET YEARS so you cannot accuse it being POV. among other sources there are Tadeusz Swietochowski and Igrar Aliyev, both of them are reliable academicians, not less famous and academic than Touraj AtAbaki, and unlike Goltz they are historians and professional ones, AND TO YOUR ATTENTION GOLtz also is not removed, so you cannot accuse me of deleting your sourced information. please consider, and show the same attitude toward our sources Elsanaturk 22:32, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

And also I forgot to mention, I removed repetition, which was on the page. Elsanaturk 22:33, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Are you kidding me? No one proved Atabaki is biased! Also, the sources used in that section are nationalist historical revisionist sources like Azerembassy.com (which claims, amongst other things, that the all of the ancient Mesopotamian civilizations were Turkic!) and Resulzadeh.org (HAHAHA! was that a joke?). Its also funny how you and Adil have to use Azerbaijani sources for your claims, when I am even providing Western sources! This is really getting ridiculous Elsanaturk, you arent even interpreting Wikipedia's rules correctly. Take Grandmasters advice and use third party information! Furthermore, you removed information from GOLTZ, a very credible journalist. Keep your POV and OR out of this, especially when its backed up by nationalist and historical revisionist sources. Also, you keep putting information in the exile section that has nothing to do with his life after exile.Azerbaijani 23:04, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

User Azerbaijani, prof. Atabaki is not really a "Western" source, he is Iranian. Otherwise, all the Azembassy.com sources are also "Western", since they are in English and are located on foreign (non-Azerbaijani) servers. Meanwhile, Rasulzadeh.org deserves to be listed in the external links for obvious reasons. But most importantly, don't be removing the accurately sourced information -- that's right, correctly and fully sourced info, unlike your Atabaki ref's, which are unclear, unspecific date-wise, and out of context. --AdilBaguirov 06:37, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Neither of the sources you are using are reliable or credible. Atabaki is a credible, reliable, fully fledged professor working for a Western University. Secondly, its hilarious that you continuously remove the Goltz source, Goltz is a very very reliable person.Azerbaijani 21:10, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Once again, whilst Goltz is a good source, but not in this case, as he is not a historian, but a journalist and analyst, specializing in contemporary events. Secondly, Atabaki is Iranian, and as such POV, no need to make him "Western". Note that I didn't remove him though -- whilst you remove my sources. This is despite the fact that Atabaki is not only POV, but the date of that obscure private letter is not clear -- and you further complicate it, by making an unreasonable edit. And there are several online articles which expose Atabaki's POV, that I posted previously. Meanwhile, you are removing well-sourced and verifiable info under some weak pretense, such as making irrelevant claims against the azerbembassy website -- if you object to it so much, fine, we can remove that URL or replace it with a different URL, since my source is not dependent on the URL, I provided it only for convenience and verification. Otherwise, it's a major source, a book published by an authoritative publishing house. So it will be restored back. --AdilBaguirov 06:07, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I added additional information about establishment of Baku state university and gave a wiki-link to BSU and also corrected some stylistic errors[in one sentence there was a repetiotion of words Azerbaijani national concill two times and with one two words between them] also added a new fact that he married the niece of Joseph pilsudski and gave a citation for this fact, and mentioned his Voice of America address of 1953 and gave a link where everyone can download/listen to it/it is a mp3. Elsanaturk 21:54, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Adil's edits to the exile section

Using biased sources and calling them "reliable"

Here are where Adil calls his sources "authoritative": [1] and [2]

Here is what Adil considers reliable sources:

Successful ADR diplomacy made Iran relinquish its territorial claims, and fully recognize the Musavat government of ADR.

Here are the sources he has used for that sentence: Azerbembassy.org and Karabakh-doc.azerall.info

Notice how both of them are nationalist and historical revisionist Azerbaijani websites, far from being third party, let alone neutral! Yet these are the "reliable sources" that Adil uses in this section.

Azerbembassy.org.cn is the website of the Azerbaijani embassy in China! Here are some statements which show that it is a historical revisionist site:

• Azerbaijan State system was being formed in the 9th century B.C.: Manna state with high economic and cultural level had emerged. The pantheons of divinities were created.

• It is in Atropatena that the process of formation of Azerbaijan nationality began.

• Azerbaijan was conquered by Arabs at the beginning of the 8th century and made part of the Arab Khalifat as the vilayet Arran. - No mention of Iran, yet it skips all of the Caucasus' Iranian history and goes right to the Arab conquests...Interesting huh? Also no mention of Armenia!

• In the medieval centuries there was a succession of states: Gara-goyunly, Ag-goyunly, Sefevids states were in power in a successive way. Azerbaijani people distinguish among other peoples with its specific image in the world culture. Cultural and literary specimen of this people created for centuries are tanned with love of life, feelings of freedom and independence.

• Grand works of art of our people such as "Kitabi Dada-Gorgud", "Koroghly", coryphaeus who have left indelible traces in the history of world civilization such as Nizami Ganjavi, Afsalladdin Khagany, Khatib Tabrizy. Imadaddin Nasimy, Gatran Tabrizy.

• Mouhammad Fouzuly whose creative activities were devoted to praising world ideas of truth and justice, served to establish human ideals. Art lovers are still admired by the works of Safiyaddin Ourmavy, Ajamy Nakhchivany, Sultan Mouhammad Tabrizy who gave pearls to the treasure of world culture.

• Our people have full right to be proud of the contribution given to world science. Nasraddin Tuisy, Aboul-hassan Bahmanyar, Mirza Fataly Akhundov, Abasgouly Aga Bakikhanov and others are well known to world science. Heroism of such popular leaders as Javanshir and Baback has been turned into a school of patriotism, embodiment of courage and unification of people. - Notice, from the above several excerpts, how they claim several Iranians as well as the Safavids for themselves, and notice the tone of nationalism.

Now, this is pretty long so I'll let whoever wants to read the rest for themselves on the history section of the website: [3]

Now lets check out the karabakh-doc.azerall.info website. One does not need to read its content to know that it has an agenda and is a nationalist site: Notice the small picture on the upper left corner, Armenia is shown as a blood stain. Now look at the picture on the upper right corner, a waving Azerbaijan Republic flag.

Adil's bias in editing

Here is the diff version: [4]

Notice how he puts "according to one source" infront of all the statements that he does not like, yet for his own sources, he presents them as facts!

Here was a sourced statement from Thomas Goltz, who is a very very reliable source (he is also third party!):

• ...in Ankara Turkey in 1947 where he participated in the politics of the marginal Pan Turkic movement.

Here is Adil's edit to that statement:

• When returning to Turkey at the end of his life, according to one source, "he participated in the politics of the marginal Pan Turkic movement".

Now here is where it gets interesting. To try and make that claim by that "one source" look false, he presents another statement right after it as fact:

• However, like all in Rasulzade's life, it was more complex: "The 1931 suppression of the emigre publications coincided with Rasulzada's expulsion from Turkey, and some saw it all as the result of caving in to the Soviet pressure. In reality, the reason went deep into the complex relationship between Turkey and Azerbaijan, a love story with its ups and downs amidst stormy episodes. Tensions had been growing toward the end of the decade, and by 1930, they had reached a boiling point. In reply to Turkish criticism that the Musavat was neglecting the cause of Turkic unity, Rasulzada published a pamphlet titled O Pantiurkizme v sviazii s kavkazskoi problemoi (Pan-Turkism with regard to the caucasian problem). Among the references to the experience of the 1918 Ottoman occupation, he firmly stated his view: Pan-Turkism was a cultural movement rather than a political program."

He does it again, here is the original, note that Touraj Atabaki is a very reliable and credible source (he is a professor at the University of Amsterdam):

• According to Touraj Atabaki, it was in his exile that Rasulzade admitted in an article that he wrote that Albania (referring to Caucasian Azerbaijan) was different than Azerbaijan (referring to Iranian Azerbaijan) and declared his eagerness to do "whatever is in his power to avoid any further discontent among Iranians".

Here is Adil's edit to that statement:

• According to one scholar, it was in his exile that Rasulzade noted in a private letter to a fellow Azerbaijani intellectual in Iran, that Albania (referring to Caucasian Azerbaijan) was different than Azerbaijan (referring to Iranian Azerbaijan) and declared his eagerness to do "whatever is in his power to avoid any further discontent among Iranians". (Notice the clear revision of facts here by Adil. Rasulzade made his comment about Azerbiajan and Caucasus Albania being different in an article, not a letter. It was in a letter that he declared his eagerness to help ease discontent amongst Iranians.)

Again, to try and make that claim by that "one scholar" look false, he adds in another statement afterwards and presents it as fact:

• However, while being involved with ADR politics as the leader of Musavat Party in 1918-1920, the only concession he and his government made to the Iranian objections and territorial claims were using "the term Caucasian Azerbaijan in its documents for circulation abroad"

and

• Successful ADR diplomacy made Iran relinquish its territorial claims, and fully recognize the Musavat government of ADR (which is from Azerbembassy, talked about above)

Adil putting needless material into EXILE section

This section is intended to be about Rasulzade's exile, yet in an attempt to push his POV, Adil continuously adds useless information into this section, some of which doesnt even belong in the article:

• However, like all in Rasulzade's life, it was more complex: "The 1931 suppression of the emigre publications coincided with Rasulzada's expulsion from Turkey, and some saw it all as the result of caving in to the Soviet pressure. In reality, the reason went deep into the complex relationship between Turkey and Azerbaijan, a love story with its ups and downs amidst stormy episodes. Tensions had been growing toward the end of the decade, and by 1930, they had reached a boiling point. In reply to Turkish criticism that the Musavat was neglecting the cause of Turkic unity, Rasulzada published a pamphlet titled O Pantiurkizme v sviazii s kavkazskoi problemoi (Pan-Turkism with regard to the caucasian problem). Among the references to the experience of the 1918 Ottoman occupation, he firmly stated his view: Pan-Turkism was a cultural movement rather than a political program." (Notice how this seems like a copy&paste)

Note, firstly, that this source has nothing to do with his involvement in pan Turkist later in his exile and was written during the time of his first exile from Turkey (1931). This has nothing to do with what Rasulzade did later in his life, especially after he was allowed to live in Turkey once again. This statement is an attempt by Adil to manipulate facts and trick the reader, and make them believe that Rasulzade was not involved in pan Turkism in his exile.

• However, while being involved with ADR politics as the leader of Musavat Party in 1918-1920, the only concession he and his government made to the Iranian objections and territorial claims were using "the term Caucasian Azerbaijan in its documents for circulation abroad". Successful ADR diplomacy made Iran relinquish its territorial claims, and fully recognize the Musavat government of ADR. (Note again the direct copy&paste)

Again, this has nothing to do with his exile. Adil is putting this needless information in to push his POV and trick the reader. This information does not belong in the exile section, as I have told Adil many many times.

Attempt at merging both versions

Ok, I think this is a version we can both accept. I have put the information in chronoligical order and removed the needless weight. The text in bold is information I have kept from Adil's version:

For the rest of his life, Rasulzade lived as an exile first in Turkey. However, the 1931 suppression of the emigre publications coincided with Rasulzade's expulsion from Turkey, and some saw it as the result of caving in to Soviet pressure. In reality, the reason went deep into the complex relationship between Turkey and Azerbaijan. Tensions had been growing toward the end of the decade, and by 1930, they had reached a boiling point. In reply to Turkish criticism that the Musavat was neglecting the cause of Turkic unity, Rasulzade published a pamphlet titled O Pantiurkizme v sviazii s kavkazskoi problemoi (Pan-Turkism with regard to the caucasian problem), in which he firmly stated his view: Pan-Turkism was a cultural movement rather than a political program.[11] Thus, he went to Poland (1938), where he met his wife, Romania (1940) and finally, after World War II, back to Ankara, Turkey in 1947, where he participated in the politics of the marginal Pan Turkic movement.[12] Due to sensitivity of his presence in either Turkey or Iran, and being often exiled, Rasulzade "cherished bad memories of both Iran and Turkey" [13] According to Touraj Atabaki, it was in his exile that Rasulzade admitted in an article that he wrote that Albania (referring to Caucasian Azerbaijan) was different than Azerbaijan (referring to Iranian Azerbaijan) and declared his eagerness, in a private letter to an Iranian intellectual, to do "whatever is in his power to avoid any further discontent among Iranians".[14] He died in 1955 a broken man and was buried in Esri cemetery in Ankara.

Ok, I did a lot of work on this section. I reworded Adil's copy&paste, so it should not longer be a copyright issue. I also made the section flow better.Azerbaijani 17:01, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

What's a broken man? Do you have a reference for that? And for the millionth time, Goltz is not a historian, he is a modern journalist. He is not a specialist on Rasulzade or history of Azerbaijan, so he cannot be used as a reference. Grandmaster 17:30, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Goltz is a very very reliable source! One does NOT have to be a historian to write about such a recent figure. Goltz is a very reliable person and a very well known reporter, he is held to the highest standards, and "broken man" comes directly from Goltz. Also, not even Azeri sources hesitate to use Goltz as a source regarding Khojaly: [5]!Azerbaijani 18:03, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Goltz:

Personal Background Information:

'Thomas Goltz has written news, features and OpEds for most leading US publications, ranging from the New York Times, Los Angles Times, Wall Street Journal and, Washington Post to The Nation on the Left and even Soldier of Fortune on the Right. His Azerbaijan Diary (M.E. Sharpe 1998/99) has been hailed as ‘essential reading for all post-Sovietologists.’ The second book in his post-Soviet triptych on the Caucasus was Chechnya Diary, published by St Martin’s Press/Tom Dunne in September 2003. The third and last book in the series is Georgia Diary, also published by M.E. Sharpe in May 2006. A memoir about his days as an itinerate actor in Africa in the late 1970s will be issued as Assassinating Shakespeare, by Saqi Books, London in 2006. A graduate with an MA in Middle East Studies from New York University in 1985, Goltz is fluent or functional in German, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Russian and Arabic.

He has worked as a lecturer on the Caucasus region at leading universities including Berkeley, Chicago, Georgetown, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Kentucky, London School of Economics, Michigan, Montana, Northwestern, Princeton, Oxford, Kentucky, Tulsa, Washington and Wisconsin; CIA, Department of Defense, US Air Force Special Forces academy and US State Department School as well as speaker at over 20 chapters of American Committees on Foreign Relations and World Affairs Councils throughout the USA. In 2005 he was appointed Visiting Scholar in the newly created Central and Southwest Asia Studies Program at the University of Montana in Missoula, where he is currently teaching a class on the post-Soviet Caucasus through the Geography Department. Born in Japan in 1954, he grew up in the US state of North Dakota, and has been a Montana resident since 1978.

Source: [6]

Also, you can read is biography on his website: [7]

Grandmaster, you cannot deny Goltz. He spent time as a journalist but he is also an academic and a scholar.Azerbaijani 18:05, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

This is so hilarious! Adil constantly kept removing the Goltz information, yet on his own website, Adil is using Goltz regarding Khojaly: [8] If this is not selective quoting then I do not know what is! This is a very very serious matter and I am considering reporting this disruption to the administrators, Adil has been caught red handed.Azerbaijani 18:13, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Goltz can be used as an evidence in Khojaly, he was an eye witness there. But he cannot be used as a source on Rasulzade, as he is not a historian. Enough already. Grandmaster 07:40, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Goltz is a scholar and and academic. Grandmaster, enough is enough, this is getting ridiculous. You know as well as I know that Goltz is a highly reliable source, and his book has been given great reviews.Azerbaijani 14:15, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Goltz is a journalist. Show me his historical works, if there are any. His book received great reviews, because it is indeed a great book, you should read it to understand what it is about. It is about the events he witnessed in 1992 - 1994, during the NK war. You can use it to describe the NK war, but you cannot use it to describe Rasulzade, he is not a specialist on Musavat or history of Azerbaijan. Grandmaster 17:46, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Goltz is a reputable scholar, academic, and an expert on the Caucasus. Grandmaster, you are in no position to be telling anyone what a source is and is not. You yourself dont even know, since you go from one source to another, taking bits and pieces from things that support you, and then criticize those same sources when they dont support you. Goltz is a highly reliable source, especially on Caucasian affairs of the 20th century..Azerbaijani 18:02, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

He is a reliable source for what happened in the late 1980s - present, but he is not a source on what happened in the begining of the century. He did not live back then, he is not a historian who published book on the topic, so he cannot be used here. Grandmaster 18:32, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

user "azerbaijani", don't twist the facts -- while Goltz is an excellent journalist and contemporary events analyst, indeed, a contemporary, modern events historian, but he is not a historian of past events, and is certainly not making any scholarly claims regarding the bank account of MER. Thus, your "broken man" quote is taken out of context, it is not sure it refers to the financial situation of MER, and Goltz certainly didn't claim anywhere to have attempted to verify the financial situation of him.

Meanwhile, your Atabaki quote is Iranian POV, and testified by the fact that Atabaki himself didn't properly quote MER, failing to indicate the year of the PERSONAL LETTERS TO M.E.R.'s ethnically AZERBAIJANI FRIEND Tagizadeh! --AdilBaguirov 20:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

MP3

Azerbaijani, please do not do edit warring, first of all the link that you deleted was not a something written by Rasulzade.org stuff, it is the voice of rasulzade recorded by Voice of America, if you have a real or media player, you can go to that link and listen to that file, where rasulzade himself speaks about 5-10 minutes and appeals to Azerbaijani people. thus, why not to refer to his own speech? as you refer to the Atabaki's citation of his letter[which i am suspicious about existence of, but i do not delete that because that is sourced, and please do not delete my Sourced info also] then why not to refer to his speech recorded by so reliable institution that is VOA? or do you think VOA is biased, or is not reliable? that speech, recorded voice was broadcasted first by VOA, in 2006 it was partly broadcasted by BBC, so do not delete that mp3 file. Elsanaturk 20:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

User "Azerbaijani", stop your bias and POV-pushing, and terminate your removal of correctly written and sourced EXILE section, which you have been damaging with your grammatically incorrect and redundant version, that places emphasis on Iranian scholar Atabaki, who doesn't even quote properly in order to suit his POV, over a real American scholar Swietochowski. Likewise, removal of Rasulzade's MP3 is unacceptable -- just like presenting great modern journalist Goltz's opinion as some fact. --AdilBaguirov 20:57, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

This has been discussed above. You are trying to use non-English non third party sources from biased Azerbaijani websites. The information that you are adding is also not relevant in the Exile section!Azerbaijani 22:31, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

do not remove mp3! it is from voice of america and it is the voice of Rasulzade Elsanaturk 19:55, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The site is not reliable and its not third party. It doesnt matter what your using of it. A site that has Armenia as a blood stain on the Caucasus is definetly not credible.Azerbaijani 21:00, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

If that was the opinion of Rasulzadeh, then who are you to judge? In case you didn't know, Rasulzadeh's country, his brainchild in a way, suffered from a long and bloody war with Armenia and Armenians -- so what are you talking about?! And stop removing the fully sourced, verifiable, and ACADEMIC quotes from the likes of Academician Iqrar Aliyev (who is Talish and is beloved in Iran) and the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan. --AdilBaguirov 08:45, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

The information has no relevance in the EXILE section of the article. The Swietochowski quote is completely irrelevant to the subject, especially the fact that you have it imply that Rasulzade himself made no concession, when Swietochowski says nothing of the sort. The same goes for Aliyev, who isnt even commenting on Rasulzade...Azerbaijani 18:57, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Get a consensus for deletion of info from the article first. The info you deleted is more than relevant. And why you deleted his words about he flag? Grandmaster 20:02, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Wait a second, arent you the same Grandmaster that is always talking about third party reliable sources? Arent you the same Grandmaster that decided the history of the name Azerbaijan should not be included in the Azerbaijan article? The information that Adil is adding has nothing to do with Rasulzade, nor does it have anything to do with his exile. You know this and I know this, you two are attempting to game the system by working together.Azerbaijani 21:11, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Exile Content

Why do you claim that info has nothing to do with the article? Why do you think your poorly cited and taken out of context quotes from Atabaki are relevant, whilst a response from such giants as prof. Swietochowski and academician I.Aliyev are not? Enough of your POV, try to be constructive at least sometimes. --AdilBaguirov 10:13, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

The information is not about Rasulzadeh, so, they are irrelevant in a section that is about Rasulzade's exile.Azerbaijani 00:06, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

That's not so -- exile has nothing to do with it, it's the context, which is set by the Atabaki's out of context, poorly cited quotes, that you insisted upon, and which we compromised to include as long as the other side's quotes are also provided. You can't have Atabaki's very suspicious and poorly cited, out of context quotes, yet not have a far more logical and authoritative information on the actual state of affairs, that was implemented by Rasulzade politically, and not in a personal letter to a friend. --AdilBaguirov 07:18, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Atabaki's quote is in no way out of context. Also, none of the information you are adding is about Rasulzade, yet you keep putting the information in. Swietochowski never even says the underlined portion, which you added yourself! This is manipulation and distortion, as well as your own POV. Swietochowski never even mentions Rasulzade anywhere in the paragraph or even prior:

However, while being involved with ADR politics as the leader of Musavat Party in 1918-1920, the only concession he and his government made to the Iranian objections and territorial claims were using "the term Caucasian Azerbaijan in its documents for circulation abroad"Azerbaijani 14:04, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Again, none of the sources are relevant to Rasulzade or his exile. THe Swietochowski quote doesnt even mention Rasulzade.Azerbaijani 22:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Again, there is no such requirement for him to be "mentioned" -- he was a Parliamentary speaker of ADR, and ADR was a parliamentary democracy. As such, everything that was done in 1918-1920 has relevance to him. Denying this is like saying that just because George W. Bush is not mentioned somewhere, anything that happened in foreign policy of US from the year 2001 till 2009 is not relevant to GWB. Meanwhile, it is your Atabaki quote that is not rellevant -- you can't provide the exact date and context of the letters, it fails the basic academic test. --AdilBaguirov 07:08, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Thats original research, it has no place here.Azerbaijani 13:05, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Original research are your out of context quotes of Atabaki. Remove that, and I won't be inserting a legitimate response to those allegations. --adil 19:01, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Why dont you even bother to read Wikipedia's rules before you make false accusations?!

Since you wont bother to read it, here it is: Original research (OR) is a term used in Wikipedia to refer to unpublished facts, arguments, concepts, statements, or theories, or any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material, which appears to advance a position — or which, in the words of Wikipedia's co-founder Jimmy Wales, would amount to a "novel narrative or historical interpretation."

We do not need your interpretations here.Azerbaijani 20:37, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Added the Swietochowski and I.Aliyev quotes back, since they are important to be seen in conjunction with the quoted out of context Atabaki quote. --adil 04:48, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

a)The Atabaki quote is not taken out of context. You have not shown at all, even when asked, how the Atabaki quotes are taken out of context.

b)None of the quotes you are adding have anything to do with Rasulzade.

c)You are violating Wikipedia's policies of NOR and NPOV, again and again. User:Azerbaijani 13:26, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I have been asked by User:Azerbaijani to revert my revert of this deletion: [9]. I am still reading this section in detail to see if there really is consensus here, but while I do that, I would like someone to point out what was wrong with the prior diff that meant it needed to be deleted? Thanks, John Vandenberg 13:56, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

You based your revert on the reason that we were not discussing the issue, which we clearly are, and since I was discussing the reason of my revert and you had not known about that and though I was blindly reverting, I merely asked for you to revert yourself. Also, I am very glad that you are here, because we need a neutral third party to comment on the debate here. Azerbaijani 14:08, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

No, I reverted your contribution because it looked like a POV pusher. It appears that in your haste to revert back to User:Parishan's last edit, you also undid a maintenance change in the process. Please explain why you "undid" this diff (Please note I'm not yet making a comment on the merits of you reverting these changes by User:AdilBaguirov). John Vandenberg 14:24, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, yea I guess that was my mistake, I apologize for that. I probably didn't notice it.Azerbaijani 14:39, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

No harm done; thankfully there are thousands of contributors monitoring all pages to ensure these accidents dont slip through the cracks. :-) As a bonus, it has meant that I am now going to learn a lot about something completely foreign to me. John Vandenberg 23:57, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

AdilBaguirov (who has a history of using OR and POV (See here for one instance of his OR: [10]) has been using his POV and OR to continuously insert irrelevant information into the exile section.

AdilBaguirov is purposely manipulating quotes to fit his POV. This article is about Rasulzade, yet in the section that is supposed to be about Rasulzade's exile, he addes references and quotes that a) have nothing to do with his exile, and b) dont even mentioned Rasulzade.

AdilBaguirov says that the Atabaki reference in the article is taken out of context, yet he has not brought up any evidence that it is taken out of context, even when asked (I have asked several times).Azerbaijani 14:08, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Here is an example, AdilBaguirov put the following into the section and cited Swietochowski:

However this contrasts with his public activity, since while being involved with ADR politics as the leader of Musavat Party in 1918-1920, the only concession he and his government made to the Iranian objections and territorial claims were using "the term Caucasian Azerbaijan in its documents for circulation abroad"

Here is what Swietochowski really said:

Consequently, to allay Iranian fears, the Azerbaijani government would accommodatingly use the term Caucasus Azerbaijan in its documents for circulation abroud.

As you can see, the entire underlined portion of what Adil put into the article is his own POV (point of view) and OR (original research). Furthermore, on the entire page, and the page preceding it and the one following it, Rasulzade is not even mentioned. This begs the questions, a) why is Adil distorting quotes?, and b) why is he adding information that has nothing to do with Rasulzade, his life, or his exile?Azerbaijani 14:19, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

If that is the only source that was used, then the article text isnt correct. I'm still catching up on this topic, but I can see where you are coming from.

However, I suspect that the source was only used for the quoted part; and some other source was used for the part you have underlined. If that is the case, we have a missing source which needs to be provided (probably by AdilBaguirov), and we have two facts that have been joined together in a way that may not be appropriate.

I'm going to wait until others have had a chance to comment, and do some more reading on the subject. Please leave this block of text in the article, even if you really hate it being there. If it is inappropriate, it will be removed in due course. There is no need to rush. John Vandenberg 14:44, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for reverting, Jayvdb, I was going to revert deletion of info myself. User:Azerbaijani is trying to turn this article about the leader of Azerbaijan’s independence movement into character assassination, removing quotes that he does not like and inserting claims that contradict the sources he refers to. There's no consensus on the edits he makes. Grandmaster 14:52, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Grandmaster, I have shown that AdilBaguirov deliberately distorted a quote to fit his own POV. This is in direct violation of Wikipedia policy, and I have clearly shown it here. I deleted nothing but a quote distortion and POV edits. Thank you for seeing what I have to deal with Jayvdb. I have been here all alone trying to defend Wikipedia's policies from being butchered.

Swietochowski's quote has actually wider context. I will check it myself now. Grandmaster 15:18, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I will be bringing up more evidence soon, and with your help we will settle this issue.Azerbaijani 15:05, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Azerbaijani, more evidence will only cloud the issue. I dont know the subject well enough to deal with multiple pieces of POV at once, and this isnt an ArbCom. Please, lets sort out this one issue first, and then we can move on to the next problem. Remember that deleting content isnt the way to achieve NPOV; NPOV is attained when POV is adjusted (often only slightly) to be meticulously accurate and complete -- that involves expanding the article, not deleting unsavoury parts of it. I have just now created a bunch of redlinks that you can write stubs for until we have sorted out this case of POV. I'm off to bed now; please just ignore any other POV you find for the moment, and get on with expanding Wikipedia's coverage of a region you obviously care about. John Vandenberg 15:20, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Good night, but I hope you will remain involved into this article, it is a very troubled one and became a POV battlefield. Grandmaster 15:26, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I will remain involved in this article provided that all other editors remain civil to me and each other, and provided an edit war doesn't erupt. If either of those two conditions are broken, I will ask for the page to be protected, and will probably provide evidence to the ArbCom if it is still ongoing. I wont have a lot of time in the next two days, but hopefully everyone involved can focus on gathering facts until my Wednesday, when I will try to make sense of it all and hopefully make a recommendation on how to resolve this issue. I will make minor uninformed improvements as I try to wrap my head around it; if my contributions are obviously in gross error, feel free to correct them. If I make minor or contentious errors, I suggest leaving them in the article and disputing them here first, so-as to avoid stepping close to any probation problems. i.e. I am happy to revert my own work if it is shown to be in error. On the other hand, I do not revert reverts without knowing the final result is the correct one; hence I am here. John Vandenberg 23:57, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Here's the full context of the quote:

Although the proclamation (of independence) restricted its claim to the territory north of the Araxes, the use of the name Azerbaijan would soon bring objections from Iran. In Teheran, suspicions were aroused that the Republic of Azerbaijan served as an Ottoman device for detaching the Tabriz province from Iran. Likewise, the national revolutionary Jangali movement in Gilan, while welcoming the independence of every Muslim land as a "source of joy," asked in its newspaper if the choice of the name Azerbaijan implied the new republic's desire to join Iran. If so, they said, it should be stated clearly, otherwise Iranians would be opposed to calling that republic Azerbaijan. Consequently, to allay Iranian fears, the Azerbaijani government would accommodatingly use the term Caucasian Azerbaijan in its documents for circulation abroad.

Swietochowski does not mention particular role of Rasulzade in these events, but since he was one of the leaders of Azerbaijan republic at that time, he obviously had a say in the politics of the country. We can discuss how to cover this issue in compliance with NPOV policy. Grandmaster 15:40, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for further supporting my point! Again, let me remind you what Wikipedia says about original research:

Original research (OR) is a term used in Wikipedia to refer to unpublished facts, arguments, concepts, statements, or theories, or any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material, which appears to advance a position — or which, in the words of Wikipedia's co-founder Jimmy Wales, would amount to a "novel narrative or historical interpretation."[11]

Keep your historical interpretations out of this.Azerbaijani 16:22, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Second sentence

Azerbaijani, you have indicated that you believe that the first sentence is inappropriate. I am also getting the feeling that you think the second sentence is also in error:

"Successful ADR diplomacy, with Rasulzade's leadership, made Iran relinquish its territorial claims, and fully recognize the Musavat government of ADR"

Do you dispute that Iran has accepted Azerbaijan's independence, or do you believe that Rasulzade had no influence on Irans decision to accept Azerbaijan's independence? John Vandenberg 02:36, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Not at all, I dont dispute it. What I dispute is that it has nothing to do with this article, and there is no reason for it to be in this article (like I said, it belongs in the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic article).Azerbaijani 03:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Then by same measure the poorly sourced, out of context quote from Touraj Atabaki also belongs to the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic article. You can't include that one POV of Atabaki, and expect that there will be no other point of view. The quotes and sources I've brought, of Swietochowski and Igrar Aliyev, are exactly per Atabaki's interpretation of the Rasulzade's private letter -- which he never presents in full and rips quote out of context. --adil 04:41, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Lining up the ducks

Ok, having thought about this for a bit, the timeline in this article is the foremost problem. The section "Exile" starts somewhen after he was "seconded to St.Petersburg in 1922", but then the sections jumps to "the 1931 suppression of the emigre publications" with no indication of what he was doing in between. The article text implies 1931 is the year of his "expulsion from Turkey", but then the next marker in the timeline is that he is in Poland in 1938. What was he doing in between.

Further down in the Exile section, we hear he is writing a private letter in 1924. Note that this private letter is mentioned just before the disputed text, and in my opinion is probably the reason the deleted text goes off course a bit. So, here are the first round of facts that we need to nail down before I can make sense of this (indent answers under each bullet as I will probably need to ask more questions):

• When did he leave Finland and arrive in Turkey (hopefully these two dates dovetail closely). Ideally I would like to pinpoint what country he was in when he wrote that 1924 letter. John Vandenberg 23:57, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

• It appears his visit to Finland was extremely brief: "Members of Azerbaijan's Musavat Party, which he had led, had gone underground, but they helped him organize to go to Finland. From there, he escaped to Turkey in 1922." [12] John Vandenberg 06:49, 27 March 2007

Azerbaijani, in your opinion, is this correct? John Vandenberg 20:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Is there some way to confirm that he was in Turkey in 1922? Perhaps he published something whilst in Turkey in 1922? John Vandenberg 20:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

• When did he leave Turkey, and what evidence is there to support "expulsion". i.e. did he leave at the request of the Turkish govt., was he hounded out of the country, or was there a court process involved in this "expulsion". John Vandenberg 23:57, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

• When did "Iran relinquish its territorial claims, and fully recognize the Musavat government of ADR" ? I'm guessing that this might be a controversial fact; please don't bother disputing it here yet. John Vandenberg 23:57, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I will supply the required quotes from Tadeusz Swietochowski. I will do it a little later, when I have an access to the book. Grandmaster 06:21, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

It doesnt matter, this article is about Rasulzade. This information is irrelevant.Azerbaijani 17:11, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

It matters to me. These sentences may be irrelevant, but I'm trying to determine that. Before I can make that assessment, I need to know where in time this fact relates to. It makes a big difference whether it was during the time of the ADF, or soviet rule. If this fact can't be pinned down to a period of time, then I will remove it as being incomplete. John Vandenberg 21:30, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm looking for more general information at the moment to determine when did Iran accept Azerbaijan's independence. In the article, this statement is backed by ref 17 and 18. Any and all assistance appreciated; original research is fine on the talk page. Azerbaijan Democratic Republic says:

• "On 16th of July, 1919, the Council of Ministers [of ADR] appointed Adil Khan Ziatkhan...diplomatic representative of Azerbaijan to the court of the Persian King of Kings",
• "on January 12, 1920, the Allied Supreme Council extended de facto recognition to Azerbaijan, along with Georgia", but
• by April 1920 Azerbaijan was back in the hands of the Soviets

My guess is that Iran must have accepted Azerbaijan's independence sometime between 1918 and 1920; as I doubt they would have bothered saying so when the land was under Soviet rule. It is more likely that it was after July 1919. According to List of Prime Ministers of Iran, this was during the Qajar dynasty and Mirza Hassan Khan would have been the Iranian Prime Minister at the time. Not surprisingly, Turkmanchai Treaty of 1828 meant that Iran had no territorial claim over much of Azerbaijan, so I am left wondering exactly what territorial claim is being referred to. John Vandenberg 21:30, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

You misunderstood. I said this information is irrelevant to this topic, as this is about Rasulzade. I have told Adil and Grandmaster several times that this information should go in other articles, such as the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic article, which is about the nation of Azerbaijan from the period of 1918 to 1920.Azerbaijani 22:59, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

No I don't misunderstand at all. I realise that these two sentences may not belong in this section, but I am not going to delete these two sentences without giving them full consideration; they stay here until we know what we are going to do with them.

You have indicated that a third party opinion is desirable; I am here and trying to help so humour me. In this talk section, I have pointed out that the article does not give an accurate timeline of the exile period. Can you help me fill in the timeline by answering the first two bullet points in this section? I dont mind if you toss in some original or poorly sourced research onto the talk page as any information is better than none. John Vandenberg 02:36, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I did not put that information in, so I think its best if you ask the person who inserted it. Also, I'm just giving you my side of the story, I'm not telling you what to do, or what your decision should be. Sorry.Azerbaijani 03:31, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

This talk section isnt about those two sentences; it is about three questions that I have; two are facts that are clearly missing and clearly belong on this article, and one question is related to the two sentences. I am asking for help. John Vandenberg 04:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

It's always interesting to see how known POV pusher and violator of multiple rules, user Azerbaijani, goes on to accuse me and paint me as the devil. John, Iran recognized ADR at the end of 1919, and in the beginning of 1920 signed a further number of treaties and agreements. I can bring the exact number of agreements, if needed, but since this is a page about Rasulzade and not ADR, I only gave an abridged version.

Again, the only reason I put it in the article, is because user Azerbaijani keeps on inserting his out of context quote from Dr. Atabaki. According to Wikipedia NPOV rules, all prevailing versions and opinions must be presented. In this case, we have basically two main (and only possible) opinions: 1) that Rasulzade "regretted" that ADR called itself like this and was appologetic to Iran, or 2) that no matter his alleged one-minute regret expressed in a personal private letter, in 99% of his life and actions he proved that he was very much for using the name Azerbaijan as the name of the country.

(note that I emphasize the word "alleged" -- we discussed in details the Atabaki quotes before, and if you look at the page from the Atabaki book, you will notice that it looks as if Dr. Atabaki has interpreted them very loosely and has made them fit into his POV. Moreover, aside from ripping them out of context, he fails to even provide the date for that letter! And user Azerbaijani, if you look at the first versions of the article when he inserted those quotes, failed to provide not only the date, but even misrepresented the quote to be not from a private personal letter, but from an "article". He kept on resisting and arguing back and forth, which makes assuming any further good faith hard. He does the same on all other pages).

Anyhow, user Azerbaijani presented his (1) take on the events, and I presented (2) mine. Rasulzade being the President of the Parliament and leader of the ruling party, Musavat, was the highest ranked legislative official -- and ADR was a parliamentary republic, where all governments and Prime-Ministers had to be chosen by the Parliament. Hence, anything that happened DURING the existence of ADR in 1918-1920 -- was of his making too. Moreover, after 1920, he published MANY articles and books with the word "Azerbaijan(i)" in the title, proving that he felt absolutely no regret whatsoever about the name (you can see some of his publications on the article itself).

But most importantly -- it was not really up to him -- ADR had 26 founding fathers, they all signed the Declaration of Independence, and all were independent men, some strongly opposed to Rasulzade. So trying to make it appear as if he even had a choice to give or take away the name, is ridiculous. --adil 04:58, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Adil, what are you talking about? You are in the process of being banned from Wikipedia and your saying that everything is my fault? Several admins and many many usrers are familiar with your editing behavior. Everything you said above is proof of this, you keep pushing your POV and your OR, it wont get you anywhere. You have tried this on many articles, and you have failed every time. You have been asked repeatedly to back up your claims with evidence (such as how Atabaki is taken out of context). Further more, to prove this once and for all, just look at how Adil Baguirov criticizes some of the most reliable sources on the planet (such as Iranica, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Britannica, etc...): [13]. You have to resort to attacking Users for this very reason, because you cannot get away with your OR or POV. This is the last comment I am making with this regard, as I am sure you are trying to bait me into something so that I will get in trouble. I'm just going to focus on this subject, and leave the rest (the decision making) to John Vandenberg.Azerbaijani 19:01, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

user Azerbaijani, you are in the process of getting banned too, keep that in your mind. And no matter how many words you will underline, it won't change the simple fact that you are being unconstructuve and act in bad faith -- even when I give you a chance and don't revert your POV, like I did recently with Gulestan Treaty article, you still persist with pushing your agenda. --adil 06:37, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Adil, you say "Iran recognized ADR at the end of 1919, and in the beginning of 1920 signed a further number of treaties and agreements." I realise this isn't the correct article to include such details on, but I would appreciate it if you could point me towards something that definitively answers my question in bold (when did Iran accept Azerbaijan's independence). It would be useful to compile a list of the treaties and agreements made in this two year period. John Vandenberg 20:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Adil, you mention that ADR had 26 founding fathers. Im curious; is there a list of them on Wikipedia already? Is the list contentious? If not, can you compile a list of them, and maybe put the list on Talk:Azerbaijan Democratic Republic? John Vandenberg 20:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

John, please check these 2 sources: [14] [15] Grandmaster 05:51, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Those are hardly neutral or reliable sources....Azerbaijani 19:02, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

That is fine. I'm not going to trust any source unless both sides of this discussion are in agreement on the facts presented a source. John Vandenberg 20:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

John, when user Azerbaijani makes the comment above "those are hardly neutral or reliable sources", one should keep in mind that the two articles provided by Grandmaster are from the magazine Azerbaijan International, that is published in California, has an American editor (I think of Irish or Anglo-Saxon ancestry) and the magazine has been around since 1993. One of the articles is written by the grandson of Rasulzade. Meanwhile, user Azerbaijani seems to be perfectly OK with Dr. Atabaki as a source, despite him being Iranian. So we have a double standard on hand -- he tries to discredit one source, but favors another -- despite both falling under the same POV category.

Meanwhile, you asked me about the 26 founders -- here they are, from the official Ministry of foreign affairs website, which should not surprize anyone, as country's founders are probably of the utmost interest to its citizens and nationals, and no one else [16]. Their names: Hasan-bey Agayev, the Secretary Mustafa Mahmudov, Fatali Khan Khoyski, Khalil-bey Khas-Mammadov, Nasib-bey Usubbeyov, Mir Hidayat Seidov, Nariman-bey Narimanbeyov, Heybat-Gulu Mammadbeyov, Mehti-bey Hajinski, Ali Asker-bey Mahmudbeyov, Aslan-bey Gardashev, Sultan Majid Ganizadeh, Akber-Aga Sheykh-Ul-Islamov, Mehdi-bey Hajibababeyov, Mammad Yusif Jafarov, Khudadad-bey Melik-Aslanov, Rahim-bey Vekilov, Hamid-bey Shahtahtinskiy, Fridun-bey Kocharlinski, Jamo-bey Hajinski, Shafi-bey Rustambeyov, Hosrov-Pashabey Sultanov, Jafar Akhundov, Mahammad Maherramov, Javad Melik-Yeganov and Haji Molla Akhund-zadeh. --adil 06:33, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for those. I've converted them to links to see how many have articles. My guess is that at least half would easily pass our notability standards. That said, I'm not surprised there are so many red-links for such a short lived govt. John Vandenberg 08:59, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, some of them were notable before and after the ADR government. Because of spelling differences (the MFA website uses Azerbaijani spelling, whilst most sources would use Russian or English standard of transliterating names) some appear red despite having pages in existence. --adil 04:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I expected that some would have articles under different names; I'm not going to bother trying to find the right name.  :-) The link to the ministry describes these people as the National Council of Azerbaijan which I think is recorded on Wikipedia as Azerbaijani National Council#Members of the Azerbaijani National Council. Problem is that the lists of people dont match up. I've left a question on the talk page. John Vandenberg 06:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Going back to your prior paragraph, I am a big fan of having a Wikipedia article for every 'source' that is used in Wikipedia citations. Then the background of the citation can be maintained in the main namespace (rather than talk) and each citation can be judged on its merits. I have just now made some substantial edits to Azerbaijan International; let me know if I erred in any way.

Wow, I didn't know AI magazine had an article. Thanks for letting know. --adil 04:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

No worries. If you know of any other notable Azeri magazines or journals, please add them to WP:LOMJQ#Unsorted and I will undertake to write stubs about them. John Vandenberg 06:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure what Azerbaijani was deeming as "hardly neutral or reliable sources", but I understood Azerbaijani to mean that because one of those articles was written by the grandson, it is most definitely a primary source with regards to his grandfather. That isnt a bad thing, and I am of the opinion that we would be doing the reader an injustice if we didnt include this piece by the grandson, but it does mean that the piece has a POV built into the text, so caution is required. That is why I am taking this slow and making sure that everyone is happy with any facts we take from a source and include here.

You mention that sources written by "Dr. Atabaki" are being used; does he have an article on Wikipedia? Is he notable? John Vandenberg 08:59, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, he is, he is an Iranian scholar living in Amsterdam. He has a page in Wiki too, under his name. --adil 04:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

John, to respond to your question/request above (made on 20:30, 27 March), I have to note that Azerbaijan is a small and in fact, obscure for the West, country, one of 192 independent states that are members of the UN. As such, there will be very little in English for such a specific and exotic request -- exotic, because anything dealing with some timeframe in history is rare by definition, and when dealing with Azerbaijan -- as opposed to Russia, or France, for example -- it will be hard. Plus, I am not in the possession of all the necessary books and materials, and hence am limited in what I can provide. Thus, I can only provide you with two of the Russian-language sources that are cited in the article, i.e., book by 1) Igrar Aliyev (ed.), “History of Azerbaijan”, Part IV “Azerbaijan in modern times”, Chapter XXIII, “Founding of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic”, sub-title: “Azerbaijan on international arena. Paris Peace Conference”, Baku: Elm Publishing House of the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences, 1995 (in Russian); and 2) "Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (1918-1920)", State commission on the 80th anniversary of the ADR, Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan, 1998. Additionally, I have a third book, which is entirely based on archives -- the letters of the leader of Azerbaijani delegation in Paris, Mr. Topchibashev, and his recollections on the dealings with the Iranian delegation, but I am not citing it for now. Here are the relevant passages in Russian from each of the abovementioned books, which cite archival documents as source for their information:

1) В Париже азербайджанской делегацией была проведена большая работа по вопросу об отношении с Ираном. Как известно, после образования АДР Иран выдвигал территориальные притязания к Азербайджану, требуя присоединения его к Иранскому государству.

После заключения в Лондоне 19 августа 1919 г. англо-иранского договора Иран отказался от территориальных притязаний к Азербайджану. 1 ноября 1919 г. в Париже между Азербайджаном и Ираном был заключен договор о признании независимости Азербайджана и было достигнуто соглашение об установлении дипломатических отношений между ними 8. Подписание этого договора явилось большим успехом азербайджанской дипломатии на международной арене, закрепляло статус Азербайджана как независимого государства.

2) Начался процесс налаживания всестороннего сотрудничества с соседними Грузией и Ираном. 20 марта 1920 года между Азербайджаном и Ираном был подписан договор о мире и дружбе, по которому иранское правительство признавало де-юре независимость Азербайджана. Стороны принимали на себя обязательства по созданию и укреплению дружественных и экономических отношений, а также по открытию азербайджанского посольства в Тегеране и иранского - в Баку31. Кроме того, в тот же день между Азербайджаном и Ираном были подписаны соглашения о таможне, торговле, почтово-телеграфных и консульских отношениях32. Спустя некоторое время в Тегеране было открыто посольство Азербайджана, а в Тебризе начало действовать генеральное консульство Азербайджана33.

8. Гасанов Дж. Тени над "белыми пятнами". Баку, 1991, с.89-90. (на азерб.языке)

31. ГААР, ф.894, оп.Ю, д.128, л.7.

32. Там же, л.27-28.

33. Там же, ф.970, оп.1. д.221, л.ЗО.

Summary in English: On 19 August 1919, after British-Iranian agreement, Iran dropped all territorial claims to Azerbaijan. On November 1, 1919, in Paris, Azerbaijan and Iran signed an agreement on the recognition of the independence of Azerbaijan and an agreement on establishing diplomatic relations was reached as well. On 20 March 1920 Azerbaijan and Iran signed a treaty on peace and friendship, under which Iranian government has recognized de jure the independence of Azerbaijan. Under the agreement, both sides agreed to open embassies in respective capitals. Additionally, agreements on customs, trade, postal-telegraph and consular relations were also signed. A few days later Azerbaijani embassy was opened in Tehran, and in Tabriz a Consulate-General of Azerbaijan was opened as well. --adil 07:02, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

These documents should all be on public record, so it shouldnt be difficult to pin them down. Firstly, the "British-Iranian agreement" is probably the Anglo-Persian Agreement.

You are absolutely right -- it is the Anglo-Persian Agreement. I was translating exactly from Russian. --adil 04:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Here are two relevant quotes from embassy websites:

• UK Embassy[17]:

"1919: 8 January – Azerbaijan Democratic Republic’s official delegation participates at the Paris Peace Conference.

15 January –The Paris Peace Conference’s official decision on the recognition of Azerbaijan’s independence is presented to the Azerbaijani delegation in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France. 27 June – Azerbaijani is adopted as the state language.

27 June – In the face of the Bolsheviks’ military advance, Georgia and Azerbaijan sign an Agreement establishing a military union. November-December –Armenian Dashnaks perpetrate massacres of Azerbaijani population in Zangezur.

1920-1921: 11 January 1920 – The Paris Peace Conference recognizes de-facto the Azerbaijan Republic with the capital in Baku. The Conference issues Special Resolution, which confirms Nagorno-Karabakh as an integral part of Azerbaijan. Under this document, the Allied Powers recognize Khosrov-bey Sultanov, appointed by the Government of Azerbaijan, as Karabakh’s Governor-General."

• Canadian embassy[18]:

"On 11 January 1920, the Paris Peace Conference, with the Treaty of Versailles, accorded de facto recognition of the independence of the Azerbaijani Republic, to whose capital - Baku - 20 countries had already sent their diplomatic representatives."

So, we have three articles (Anglo-Persian Agreement, Paris Peace Conference and Treaty of Versailles) that neglect to mention the Azerbaijani Republic.

Also, what I have read so far indicates that Iran officially conceded these territories to other countries, but I've yet to see a decent source that says they recognised/supported the autonomy of Azerbaijan. It would nice to have a reliable english source for the date that the Azerbaijan embassy in Iran was first established. Unfortunately, I've not yet seen anything about the "20 March 1920" treaty; does it have an official name in another language? John Vandenberg 10:39, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

There are many sources that will acknowledge this fact, of de facto recognition of ADR. Grandmaster provided one, I can provide more if needed. But no one doubts it. Meanwhile, there were no 3 treaties, but only 2 -- the Paris Peace Conference was a year long process during which the Treaty of Versailles was signed. --adil 04:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I am now confident that Iran and Azerbaijani were happy bed fellows at that time; no need to provide more sources unless Grandmaster's source is disputed.

Any idea what the treaty of friendship and commerce in March 1920 between Iran and Azerbaijani was called? Any source to back up "20 March 1920" as the date that it was signed? John Vandenberg 06:43, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't have the treaty on friendship, etc., from 1920, and don't know its full title. The reference gives only the archival citation number, which is a standard way to compile bibliography, without naming the treaty. --adil 07:10, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Here are some excerpts from the book by American scholar Tadeusz Swietochowski:

The claims of Persia on Azerbaijani territory [at Versailles] went even further: The Tehran government requested the restoration of the “cities and provinces wrested from Persia after the Russian wars,” which included all of the Azerbaijani republic and a part of Daghestan. As a nonbelligerent during the world war, Persia was refused admission to the conference, and the memorandum of her chief delegate, Ali Qulu Khan, was greeted with ridicule by Western diplomats. Writing to Baku, Topchibashev remarked that the Persian delegation itself did not expect its demands to find satisfaction in Versailles, and added a note on what was, in his view, the real meaning of Persian intentions: "They keep telling us that we should unite with them; they want it very much and talk about our intelligentsia, which does not exist among them”.

As no Western power was now willing to provide protection, the Azerbaijanis, in search of security, attempted to strengthen cooperation with equally weak neighboring states. Their relations with Persia, after a start that boded ill, underwent a dramatic improvement, a proof of the vitality of the ties between the two countries. Diplomatic links had in fact been established soon after Persia presented her territorial claims at Versailles. The Azerbaijani vice-minister of foreign affairs, Adil Ziyatkhanov, took up residence in Tehran as the republic's representative, and from Persia a diplomatic mission under Sayyid Zia al-din Tabatabai traveled to Baku to negotiate agreements on tariffs, postal service, and commerce. An additional aspect of Tabatabai's mission was the talks on the desirability of unification of the Azerbaijani Republic with Persia in some form of a confederation. The project held for both sides the prospect of fulfillment of their boldest ambitions: Persia would recover the territories lost to Russia, and Baku would achieve union with Tabriz. It was the signing of the Anglo-Persian Treaty of August 9, 1919, an act that virtually turned the Qajar kingdom into a British protectorate, that gave the Baku government its strongest stimulus for seeking unification. While many Persians opposed the treaty out of patriotism, the Azerbaijanis, concerned about the survival of their state, saw in it a chance for a roundabout way of slipping back under the British shield. In Paris on November 1, 1919 Topchibashev submitted to the Persians proposals for a pact effecting economic and political union, including a common foreign policy. Details were to be ironed out by the two governments and the union subject to the approval of their parliaments. For the Baku regime the most essential element of these proposals was the stipulation that Azerbaijan receive assistance from Britain in the same form as it was to be provided to Persia. By the same token, the Azerbaijanis hinted that they were disinterested in joining a weak and backward Persia without the benefit of her link to Britain. This back-door attempt at regaining British protection miscarried when the Majlis refused to ratify the Anglo-Persian Treaty. It was doubtful, in any case, if Britain would have been prepared to extend her obligations to the Azerbaijani republic even had the latter been united with Persia. This setback caused no harm to the growth of contacts between the republic and its southern neighbor, however, and the process culminated in the signing of a treaty of friendship and commerce in March 1920.

Tadeusz Swietochowski. Russian Azerbaijan, 1905-1920. ISBN-10: 0521522455

Grandmaster 12:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I am now confident that the quote that sparked this question refers to 1918-1920. John Vandenberg 14:54, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

John, dont listen to Adil, he himself writes articles for the online journal that Grandmaster posted links to. Also, Touraj Atabaki is a world renound scholar. Furthermore, the information Adil and Grandmaster are insisting be in the article has nothing to do with Rasulzade.Azerbaijani 19:28, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Azerbaijani, Im not sure why you mention that Adil works for an online journal, but it sounds like you believe there is a conflict of interest. If so, have you raised that on the ArbCom? It is best not to mention personal details of other contributors on talk pages.

If incorrect facts have being provided here, simply provide the accurate facts or dispute the facts. Thanks for pointing me towards Touraj Atabaki. Adil and Grandmaster have so far been very helpful in answering the three questions I had, simply because I was trying to understand where this man and his article fits into the big picture. As you can see from my comments earlier and suggestion below, I and Grandmaster are in agreement with you: the text in the article about the naming of Azerbaijan and this mans thoughts on the matter (after the fact) are not presented in an encyclopaedic manner (at present), and stripping them out is the best remedy unless we can be sure that other information, necessary to set the stage, is forthcoming. John Vandenberg 21:45, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

John, not sure what user Azerbaijani was trying to say, but the whole "don't listen" part is very revealing. User Azerbaijani by now knows that "Adil" does not say anything that is not sourced. --adil 04:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, everything you say is not sourced, and the things that are sourced have nothing to do with the subject. You also tend to make up a lot of information (such as saying Pahlavi was not Middle Persian when Britannica and every source you yourself mentioned said that Pahlavi was Middle Persian). Adil, I find it amusing that you try to push sources of which you contribute to yourself, such as AI. I know Wikipedia's rules and I know what you are trying to get me to do. You are trying to get me to do something which will get me in trouble, but I'm not going to fall into your trap. John, check out this article Crank (person), and also take into consideration how Adil criticizes every major sources on the planet which disagrees with his POV.Azerbaijani 04:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Your POV is never-ending, as is your bad faith. So you deny that Pahlavi is a Middle Iranian language?! See Wikipedia's own page [19]: "Pahlavi or Pahlevi denotes a particular and exclusively written form of various Middle Iranian languages". You said smth about Brittanica, even though I was the one who cited it -- here it is again for you, in the article Iranian Languages: Middle Iranian: "Middle Persian and Parthian were doubtlessly similar enough to be mutually intelligible" [20] So do you see, Brittannica differentiates between Middle Persian and Parthian (Pahlavi).

Nevertheless, note that I never denied that Pahlavi is also called Middle Persian too, but it is more correct to call it Middle Iranian (as all those sources, including Britannica, call it) as Parthians (the speakers of Pahlavi) were not the same as Persians, and hence, to avoid confusion, it is better to call it Middle Iranian. That's why Parthians are identified as "Iranian-speaking", not "Persian-speaking". The rest of your stuff is not very relevant too. --adil 04:51, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Straight shooting

Wednesday is drawing to a close, so here is my third party opinion that is semi-informed based on the info that has been provided by others and my own bit of ferreting around.

1. Im not keen on the section being titled "Exile"; while it may be a form of exile, it seems unnecessary to use that term as the section title as it provides the reader with a pre-determined POV before they even start reading the section. I prefer "post-ADR" (but that looks a bit odd), "Soviet Azerbaijan", or "Azerbaijan under Soviet control".
2. The article doesnt explain to the reader why it is discussing the naming of "Azerbaijan" at length. All content in the article about the naming of Azerbaijan is appropriate over at History of the name Azerbaijan.
3. The text in the article that discusses Rasulzade's feelings about the name "Azerbaijan" appear to be mostly rooted in the period 1918-1924, yet it is placed in the article after 1947 -- it is out of context.
4. The text 'he used "Azerbaijan" several times', from the Voice of America, is OR when it is being used to indicate what his feelings about the name where towards the end of his life. I can see why it was put there, and this line of reasoning is sensible, but even if God himself whispered in my ear that Rasulzade meant this repetition of the word to indicate that he thought it was the appropriate name for the country, I would have to ask God to write that down so I could use him as my source.
5. Of all the events in this mans life, its hard to imagine that this naming of the country is so important that it takes energy away from expanding the article in other ways.
6. No definitive answer has been given wrt to the duress he was put under to leave Turkey. The date he arrived in Turkey also hasnt been unequivocally determined.

Based on the above, my opinion is that:

• The following should be removed from the "Exile" section:

“ According to Touraj Atabaki, it was in his exile that Rasulzade admitted in an article that he wrote that Albania (referring to Caucasian Azerbaijan) was different than Azerbaijan (referring to Iranian Azerbaijan) and declared his eagerness, in a 1924 private letter to an Iranian-Azeri intellectual, Seyyid Hasan Tagizadeh, to do "whatever is in his power to avoid any further discontent among Iranians". However this contrasts with his public activity, since while being involved with ADR politics as the leader of Musavat Party in 1918-1920, the only concession he and his government made to the Iranian objections and territorial claims were using "the term Caucasian Azerbaijan in its documents for circulation abroad" Successful ADR diplomacy, with Rasulzade's leadership, made Iran relinquish its territorial claims, and fully recognize the Musavat government of ADR. ”

References

• It would be appropriate to rewrite the above into a new section before "Exile" that explains how Rasulzade revived ethnic names, such as "Azeri" and "Azerbaijan."[21] This new section even could go before the section "The Musavat Party and Azerbaijan Democratic Republic" if he was pushing these ethnic names prior to ADR. This new section may be more trouble than it is worth; is it really important to discuss his role in the resurgence of this word? If it is not, perhaps we can leave this sub-topic to the History of the name Azerbaijan article.

• The last sentence, about Iran relinquishing its territorial claims, can be rewritten into the section "The Musavat Party and Azerbaijan Democratic Republic", specifically mentioning the treaties and such that have been mentioned on this talk page. Do this this, I think we need to propose specific wording here for everyone to consider before putting it on the article.

• The sentence about the speech on Voice of America is extremely important to the conclusion of the biography, so I suggest we cut it down to "..., he stressed his hope that one day Azerbaijan will become independent again", and then expand it with any other major points that he made in the address.

In all of the above, I am sure I have erred to some degree; criticism will be appreciated. :-) John Vandenberg 14:54, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that those are helpful recommendations. The part about the name of the country should be removed from the article, it is given an undue weight and is based on a sole Iranian source, that cannot be cross referenced from any other. I understand why some people want it there, but you cannot find such claims in any biography of this person. We need to provide specific dates for his stays in various countries, and the reasons he had move from one country to another. And also positive cooperation with Iran could be briefly mentioned as one of the successes of Azerbaijani government at the time. Grandmaster 19:12, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

In order to justify mentioning the positive cooperation with Iran on this bio, we would need to demonstrate that this was either 1) largely his doing, 2) he considered it a personal objective/achievement, or 3) scholar agree that it is one of his primary achievements in life. If we cant justify mentioning it here at the moment, it is definitely worth including on the ADR article, as it sounds like it was a very interesting/intriguing peace agreement. John Vandenberg 22:26, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

The suggestion to remove the disputed text has now been carried out, as I doubt any other amicable conclusion could be found in the short term. I suggest that for at least a few weeks, nobody adds any scholarly research or inference -- stick to facts and figures that are currently missing from the article; i.e. no quotes, reasoning or deduction -- keep to events that can be reasonably expected to be traced to public records. His involvement in positive cooperation with Iran can be added within those bounds by mentioning specific events he was involved in, such as the treaty that we have yet to find a name for.

A number of other discussions have been launched over the last week or so, and I would love to see those continue here on the talk page until consensus has been reached. John Vandenberg 02:31, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

John, you made a decision without even waiting for me to get to Wiki and make a comment. Rasulzade made the comment about Azerbaijan late in his life, which is why it is placed where it is in the article. Secondly, it shows that Rasulzade acknowledged some of the mistakes he made in his lifetime. Also, Touraj Atabaki is a highly reliable source and he himself cites a Russian scholar regarding Rasulzade's admittance of his mistake.Azerbaijani 19:31, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I havent made any decision, nor do I intend to unilaterally make a decision. The above is only a suggestion made on the information that had been provided by the end of Wednesday my time, which is when I said that I would attempt to make sense of it all (see my comment from three days ago at 23:57, 25 March 2007 when I first asked the three questions in the talk section "Lining up the ducks"). So far you havent provided any relevant opinions on those three questions; if you would like to now, please feel free. Im in no rush, but there is no sense in letting this stretch out indefinitely. Bear in mind that even if/when the suggested block is removed from the section, it can always be restored at a later time when additional information and discussion justifies it. John Vandenberg 20:53, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

The only problem I have with this article is this part of the Exile section:

However this contrasts with his public activity, since while being involved with ADR politics as the leader of Musavat Party in 1918-1920, the only concession he and his government made to the Iranian objections and territorial claims were using "the term Caucasian Azerbaijan in its documents for circulation abroad"[18] Successful ADR diplomacy, with Rasulzade's leadership, made Iran relinquish its territorial claims, and fully recognize the Musavat government of ADR.[19][20]

This part is pure POV and a manipulation of quotes, and is completely irrelevant to the subject of this article. Regarding your questions:

Here are my opinions on two of them:

When did he leave Finland and arrive in Turkey (hopefully these two dates dovetail closely). Ideally I would like to pinpoint what country he was in when he wrote that 1924 letter.

I agree, the letter should be placed in the proper chronological order, although this comment the comment "it was in his exile that Rasulzade admitted in an article that he wrote that Albania (referring to Caucasian Azerbaijan) was different than Azerbaijan (referring to Iranian Azerbaijan) was made later in his lifetime.".

When did "Iran relinquish its territorial claims, and fully recognize the Musavat government of ADR" ? I'm guessing that this might be a controversial fact; please don't bother disputing it here yet.

This is besides the point, as it has nothing to do with this article. Its a waste of time talking about it, it should be removed on the basis that it has nothing to do with this article. It makes the article encyclopedic.Azerbaijani 22:35, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Please, I asked those questions because I thought there were interesting, and wanted to know the answer to be able to make an assessment. I agree that Irans territorial claims have very little to do with this article, but I asked here because I didnt want to split the discussion over many talk pages. You keep on indicating it is irrelevant, and I keep on agreeing; the desired outcome is that I learn a bit along the way so that I know what to do with these titbits of information. As a result of asking that last question, and the responses given by Grandmaster and Adil, I now know where this information should be added to Wikipedia: not here; instead there are three treaties that have articles where it would be more appropriate to discuss this at greater length. John Vandenberg 23:32, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Azerbaijani, my reasoning for excluding all aspects that relate to the naming of Azerbaijan is that so far there is no adequate text that correctly frames the mans reflections: I would love to see this article describe Rasulzade's role in the resurgence of the name "Azerbaijan" prior to 1918 and its use by ADR. Only then would it make sense to describe any recanting he did later in life. What I am saying is that just because one scholar has written about Rasulzade's private letter that gives an indication of his thoughts on the matter, doesnt make those thoughts encyclopaedic. Even 100 scholars isnt sufficient; only with adequate background can we introduce that letter. We need to answer one question: why are his thoughts on this matter relevant? so far the article doesnt explain how important Rasulzade was in choosing the name "Azerbaijan". Our article needs to explain this, otherwise our readers will derive unintended conclusions due to our inclusion of the scholars work.

Whats more, it is certainly not worth including if it is disrupting the building of the bio -- there are so many more important facts and figures that are missing. All those redlinks, especially the newspapers he founded, are more valuable ways to waste our time than a couple of sentences that are borderline-OR. John Vandenberg 22:12, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, on this basis, you should see what Adil is doing on the Ganja article as well as others. Touraj Atabaki is a world famous historian, who has contributed to several major encyclopaedia's, written many books and articles, etc... Azerbaijani 22:35, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Once we have finished here, I'll be happy to take a look at the Ganja article next. John Vandenberg 23:32, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks anyway, but I have already asked someone else in regards to Ganja, but the more the merrier I guess!Azerbaijani 23:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

With regards to "...it was in his exile that Rasulzade admitted in an article..." being written later in his life, do you know when Rasulzade's article was written, and how it was published? The letter and this quote from later in his life are suitable for inclusion if we can paint a complete picture. I've indicated that I think that a new section in this bio could be dedicated to Rasulzade's pivotal role in the history of the name Azerbaijan; what are you thoughts on that? Do you think we can fill in the background (i.e. pre 1920) sufficiently? If so, I am happy to draft up a new section that incorporates the salient points, quotes and citations from the block of text that I have suggested be removed from the "Exile" section, and any other new facts and quotes that can be found. John Vandenberg 23:32, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that section will just make the article unnecessarily long, as there isnt much to say other than he founded a nation and he decided to call it Azerbaijan, and then later he admitted his mistake... So a section just for that is useless and will just make things messy.Azerbaijani 23:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, then is it acceptable to remove all of the sentences as I proposed above? That is by far the easiest remedy. When we have more context to the Touraj Atabaki quotes, we can add them back in a few months after discussing them. John Vandenberg 00:01, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll try to get the entire Touraj Atabaki quote here, however, his information should stay, as it is directly relevant to a major aspect of Rasulzade's life. However, the other irrelevant and distorted information should be removed.Azerbaijani 03:01, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I added more sources regarding the Atabaki information, and also added some new info.Azerbaijani 03:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I am reviewing this diff of your changes now. I'll comment in an hour or two. John Vandenberg 07:23, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Azerbaijani's content changes

Azerbaijani's content changes: [22]

No, you didn't do what you promised: "entire Touraj Atabaki quote" (and once again Atabaki is an Iranian scholar -- it doesn't matter how great he is, he is still POV and should be identified as such, just as Azerbaijani scholars are. In other words, Atabaki represents the Iranian POV).

Consider these additions:

Prior to his going to Turkey and first coming into contact with pan Turkism, Rasulzade expressed in his writing that Iran was the homeland of his people. (Rasulzadeh, Mohammad Amin, 1910, Tanqid-e Ferqeh-e E’tedaliyun ya Ejtema’iyun E’tedaliyun, Tehran, Farus)

What is this OR and POV? This is an Iranian source, and should be identified in the text. Secondly, what does the quote say exactly? Where is the "pan Turkism" from? Thirdly, what year was this published in Tehran? This is an incomplete citation! And of course Iran is the homeland of Azerbaijanis -- once again, this innocent information is being misrepresented, to make it appear as smth it is not.

Then:

It was in his exile that Rasulzade admitted in an article that he wrote that Albania (referring to Caucasian Azerbaijan) was different than Azerbaijan (referring to Iranian Azerbaijan) (Source: Ramazani, R., op. cit. p.115) Source: Atabaki, Touraj (2000). Azerbaijan: Ethnicity and the Struggle for Power in Iran (2nd. edn ed.). London: I.B. Tauris. pp. pages 25-26. ISBN 1860645542. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); |pages= has extra text (help). In a 1924 private letter to an Iranian-Azeri intellectual, Seyyid Hasan Tagizadeh, to do "whatever is in his power to avoid any further discontent among Iranians". (Source: Blucher, W.V., Zeitenwende, Persian Translation: Safar-nameh-e-Blucher, Tehran, Khwarami, 1984, p.37. Tancoigne, A Narrative, p.177. See Ayandeh (1988), vol 4, no.s 1-2, p. 57-59).

again, what is this incomplete "Ramazani, R., op. cit. p. 115" citation? Provide the full biblio reference. But in reality, you have mistaken the reference, it is not from Ramazani at all. Neither is it from Blucher et al -- you are mistaken, Azerbaijani. I have the relevant pages and can send them to John, if needed. Secondly, what is this "admitted" POV? Dr. Atabaki uses "acknowledges" -- even he doesn't go as far as user Azerbaijani with this biased POV. But most importantly -- this is for John -- the quotes are ripped out of context by Dr. Atabaki, perhaps inadvertedly, which is clear to any specialist on the region (I've described this in details before). The quotes themselves are part of larger articles that have nothing in common with the "regret" sentiments attributed to them by ideologically motivated editors like Azerbaijani -- or Dr. Atabaki for that matter (I can post a few critiques of him by other published researchers from Iran, if needed). That's why he quotes them so selectively and only partially -- not even from the beginning of the sentence, not to mention the sentences preceeding or following it. --adil 04:35, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

All I see is more of your original research...Also, I find it amusing how you criticize sources you dont like and make demands, yet on other articles you contradict yourself by using ridiculous sources...at least mine are academic and from well known historians and sources. Adil, you put yourself in a horrible position when you decided that you were going to criticize some of the most reliable sources on the planet, such as Iranica, Britannica, and Encyclopaedia of Islam (along with others). How can you redeem yourself from that? You have shown obvious bias here and an unwillingness to accept the facts for what they are.Azerbaijani 04:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

All I see is your POV and bad faith. As always, you misrepresent things and make them fit your POV. Meanwhile, fix your errors I outlined above -- you made MAJOR mistakes, but improperly citing sources, essentially making false claims to readers, since you mistakenly cite sources that don't have the information it "quotes". And I don't know what you mean by your "academic" sources -- Atabaki is lower than academician Igrar Aliyev, for one, in academic rank, and is definitely below the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan. Since both are POV sources -- one is Iranian, another is Azerbaijani, they should be judged only on the number of publications and academic rank. The Azerbaijanis win hands down, Atabaki looses the comparison. So please stop your unfounded claims. --adil 04:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

There is a lot of false information in what you said above, and I will explain later. For now, I suggest you stop continuously attempting to divert the topic of this discussion into a User attack session.Azerbaijani 05:02, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that to include the Atabaki quote we need to explain first what was the role of Rasulzade in selection of the name for the country. Azerbaijan was declared independent not by Rasulzade alone, but by Azerbaijani fraction of Transcaucasian seim, parliament of Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. It should be proved that Rasulzade proposed or lobbied for selection of this particular name, then his alleged regret might have some context. And I agree with Adil that the Atabaki quote is ripped out of context, it is not clear in what connection Rasulzade said those words. I also object to continuous attempts of Azerbaijani to present Rasulzade and Musavat as pan-Turkists, while they were Azerbaijani nationalists. Pan-Turkism and Pan-Islamism was pursued by them on the initial stage, when Azerbaijan was part of the Russian empire, but after its collapse Musavat and its leader strove for creation of independent Azerbaijani state, and not the Great Turan. Grandmaster 05:53, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. But aside from these good counter points, my post about user Azerbaijani mistakenly identifying the bibliographic sources for his quotes stands too. Because user Azerbaijani does everything in a hurry, and is used more to just reverting, he made the mistake twice, attributing the Rasulzade two (2) quotes to (*) Blucher et al, and to (*) Ramazani -- when those quotes are nowhere to be found there (once again, I have the pages scanned and ready to provide as proof). These two quotes are taken from different sources.

However, the irony doesn't stop here: because user Azerbaijani comes from a non-academic, non-scholarly background, he fails to cite properly and accordingly. Consider this attempt to cite the (false) Ramazani source: he simply writes "Ramazani, R., op. cit. p. 115" What is this?! Which book, publishing house, year of publication, etc?

But it doesn't stop there! User Azerbaijani then tries to use a trick, to pad up his citation index. Instead of honestly and as required by all academic standards of citation, such as MLA and APA standards, to say that the Ramazani's (mistakenly attributed) quote is from Dr. Atabaki's book, he cites them ... separately, as two different sources, to give a (false) impression that he now has TWO sources instead of ONE. Yet, the truth is, all this POV is the product of Dr. Atabaki's work, not the authors he cites. He simply ripped the quotes from the context, and made his POV interpretation. In reality the quotes do not mean what he says, indeed, Dr. Atabaki is making original research by having these quotes fit his POV. --adil 07:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

---

Azerbaijani and AdilBaguirov, you both need to refrain from mentioning each other at all; focus on the topics and use concise arguments that state your reasoning without embellishing it with comments about the other person, and dont mention content disputes on other articles.

What I can see from Azerbaijani's changes, and Grandmaster opinion on those changes, is that we are only now starting to get near the heart of the dispute. Rasulzade's role in the naming of the country, and his careful distinctions between Caucasian and Iranian Azerbaijan are only a part of the greater dispute of whether he changed his tune, recanted large slabs of his previous writings, and regretted some of his actions and the resulting they had on World Events. Azerbaijani edits are extremely bold in expanding this dispute, but it is better out in the open so we can clarify and dispute it.

Sources

adil has pointed out there are problems with the citation, and with some of the sourcing itself wasnt correct when placed on the article. No big deal; the content has been reverted and we can now discuss the changes that were proposed. We need to assume good faith, pinpoint the sources precisely, and check the facts that have been presented. Rather than attack the source, find other sources that contest the facts in the source.

• Chaqueri, Cosroe (2001). Origins of Social Democracy in Modern Iran. Seattle: University of Washington Press. pp. p.209. ISBN 0295980850. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
• Watson, A History. p.26 My guess is that is A history of Persia from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the year 1858. If that is the intended work, it is probably being used to support the sentence. Azerbaijani: please correct me if I am wrong
• Bassett, The Land of Imams, p.266. OCLC 1875737
• US Consular Report, p.294: Azerbaijani: please provide a year here and any other info to help others pin point it
• Ramazani, R., op. cit. p.115: adil indicates that quote is in ISBN 1860645542. Azerbaijani: if this quote is also in another work, provide the full citation data
• Blucher, W.V., Zeitenwende: OCLC 17626276 Zeitenwende. Azerbaijani: correct me if I have picked the wrong edition

John, there is a problem with all of the above sources -- they have nothing to do with the quotes that Atabaki has selectively ripped out of context and that were being pushed in this forum by one user. Again, none of the above sources has anything to do with the quotes about Rasulzadeh's alleged change of heart. --adil 16:06, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Rasulzade change of heart

Azerbaijani's changes expand the disputed content to indicate that Rasulzade recanted some of his writings. If the sources back this up, a more general statement to that effect is warranted. Even with this source checked out, we still need to establish:

1. why? the context to his change of heart is important. Did he change heart due to oppression in Turkey, his submersion into Turkish culture, or some other reason? Note that one of the three questions that I asked a few days ago would have helped us answer this. At present, we dont have a clear citation for the fact that he left Turkey in 1938, and no citation at all for it being an expulsion. It would be very handy to have the names of his writings which he reverses his opinion on later in life.
2. that his change of heart is important to the bio of his life. What impact did it have on him or those around him? Was this a boyhood opinion? Did he use this opinion in his political life? How did others respond when he changed his tune? I am not doubting that a change of tune isnt important; I am merely saying that we need to have secondary sources that explain why it is important.

I'm happy to discuss this new information, and will do some more ferreting around myself, but ultimately Azerbaijani needs to provide multiple sources that unequivocably justify the recanting of earlier writings in order for this to be considered encyclopeadic. John Vandenberg 09:28, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

This is the quote from Atabaki:

Meanwhile, on 27 May, the Muslim National Council met in Tiflis and "resolved to declare the independence of Azerbaijan, a republic that was to encompass southern and eastern Transcaucasia". On the following day, "the governing body of the Transcaucasian Tatars, now Azerbaijan, selected Ganja (later renamed Kirovabad) as the republic's temporary capital".

Adopting the name of Azerbaijan for the area of southern and eastern Transcaucasia soon caused concern in Iran and Azerbaijan. Mohammad Amin Rasulzadeh, the founder of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Transcaucasia, understood - during these early days - the territory of this new Azerbaijan to consist of "the Baku and Elisavetpol gubernias, the southern districts of the Tiflis and Yerevan gubemias, and the country of Zakatal". Later, when the republic had been toppled by the Bolsheviks and Rasulzadeh had been forced to see asylum abroad, he admitted that this choice of a name for the new republic had been a mistake.

In an article which he wrote on the history of the short-lived Republic of Azerbaijan, Rasulzadeh acknowledges that: "Albania (the former Soviet Azerbaijan) is different from Azerbaijan (Iranian Azerbaijan)." Moreover, in a letter to Taqizadeh, he declared his eagerness to do "whatever is in his power to avoid any further discontent among Iranians".

Touraj Atabaki. Azerbaijan: Ethnicity and the Struggle for Power in Iran. ISBN-10: 1860645542

As one can see, the author does not provide the full context of the quotes from Rasulzade, and interprets them as his admission of a mistake. However saying that “Albania (the former Soviet Azerbaijan) is different from Azerbaijan (Iranian Azerbaijan)” does not mean that he considered the choice of the name to be wrong. Neither does the other quote about his eagerness to do “whatever is in his power to avoid any further discontent among Iranians”. These quotes appear to be ripped out of a large context, and cannot be verified from any other source. Grandmaster 10:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

ISBN 1860645542 is not Ramazani, it is Atabaki's book. As for 59. Ramazani, R., op. cit., p. 115., it is impossible to trace such a source. Grandmaster 10:49, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I am up to speed on that. I am merely leaving the door open for this "Ramazani" work to have also included the same original quotes, perhaps with more of the quote than Atabaki included in his work. The work in question could be ISBN 0801833779 or ISBN 0253347963. At this stage only user Azerbaijani knows and I have asked for clarification. John Vandenberg 11:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Guys, you probably didn't understand my above attempt to explain (which is not easy, as making mistakes is by far easier than correcting them) that RAMAZANI has nothing to do with this! His book is irrelevant to our discussion! User Azerbaijani got the wrong citations from Atabaki's book -- he got them from page 204 (covering citations from Chapter 2), whilst they are listed on page 201 (covering citations from Chapter 1). The real citation (#60) for that 15 March 1924 private personal letter is from Ayandeh journal (in Persian), vol. 4, nos. 1-2, 1988, pp. 57-9. Another, preceeding reference (#59 in the book), is from a 1928 book published in Istanbul by Y.Akchuroglu (ed.), p. 483. Since both sources are obscure and cannot be easily verified, they cannot become independent citations, in both cases Atabaki must be cited. However, the problem is not with the obscure sources -- but with Atabaki clearly and without a doubt misinterpreting facts and treating them very liberally. As I said, I have all pages from Atabaki's book, the one with quotes (p. 25) and the one with citations (p. 201, as well as p. 204) in my possession. --adil 15:59, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clarification, it is clear now. Grandmaster 16:08, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate your efforts here...

1. Dont worry about "RAMAZANI"; unless it is introduced on the talk page here with justification and a proper citation, and checked by others, its not going on the article.
2. I agree that Atabaki should be cited if that is the only source that has been seen by a contributor. Citing sources that have not been seen is by definition wrong.
3. I dont have an opinion on whether Atabaki is misinterpreting facts, other than that it is not desirable to include in the article anything about the "Rasulzade change of heart" until the importance of this change of heart is established (as I have said at the top of this "Rasulzade change of heart" section).
4. user Azerbaijani's changes and adil both appear to agree that the personal letter can be traced back to the Ayandeh journal (I've created this stub), vol. 4, nos. 1-2, 1988, pp. 57-9. That citation is odd, as the catalogues say that Ayandeh volume 5 started in 1979. It would be nice to know who wrote this journal article, and I'm also curious as to whether the entire letter was published in the journal article, or if it was merely cited by the journal article.

John Vandenberg 07:36, 7 April 2007 (UTC)