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Autumn 2001 (9.3)
Editorial
10 Years
After The Collapse of the Soviet Union - Visionaries
by
Betty Blair
  Just as we were putting the final touches
on this editorial, all set "to put this issue to bed",
as they say, the tragic news of the terrorist attacks on New
York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon intruded upon our
busy, but quite predictable, lives. Like hundreds of millions
of people the world over, we were glued to the TV watching the
horror of the appalling devastation, which left some of the world's
tallest buildings reduced to a heap of debris and dust. As I
write, there are still thousands of victims unaccounted for and
presumed dead. Even more unsettling are the big question marks
about what the future might hold, since U.S. Administration has
threatened to retaliate. No doubt when September 11, 2011 rolls
around, the media will be writing analyses entitled, "Ten
Years After" as it relates to this deplorable attack on
human life.
Azerbaijan declared its independence-as did many of the other
14 Soviet republics-in August 1991. But it really wasn't until
the USSR was officially dissolved in December, four months later,
that these new nations gained their freedom. On December 7 and
8th, leaders of three Soviet republics-Boris Yeltsin of Russia,
Leonid Kravchuk of Ukraine and Stanislav Shushkevich of Belarus-met
secretly at a dacha in the Belovezhsky Woods near Minsk, Belarus,
to sign an agreement to abolish the Soviet Union and form what
they called the Commonwealth of Independent States. By December
17th, Yeltsin had forced Mikhail Gorbachev to sign an agreement
that the USSR would cease to exist by January 1, 1992. In reality,
the end came sooner. On December 25th, 1991, the Soviet flag
with its familiar hammer and sickle no longer flew over the Kremlin
in Moscow. In its place was the tri-colored Russian flag with
its stripes of white, blue and red.
No matter how gargantuan the task will
be for Americans to rebuild after the recent terrorist attack,
it is dwarfed by the efforts of people who have been trying to
reshape their lives since the Soviet Union collapsed ten years
ago.
Historians identify the disintegration of the Soviet Union as
one of the three most monumental events of the 20th century,
on a par with the two world wars (1914-1918 and 1939-1945). Nothing
has redefined territorial bound" on such a large scale as
these cataclysmic events. The downfall of the Soviet Union also
signified the end of the 500-year reign of the Russian Empire,
one of the most long-lived empires in history. In truth, it was
not external forces that brought about the demise of this world
superpower. The USSR collapsed in upon itself due to inherent
faults in its philosophical understanding of economics and human
nature.
There has been no road map to guide the former Republics on their
journey from a centralized system to a market economy and from
totalitarianism to democracy. Unlike America, with billions of
dollars at its disposal, the Republics of the former Soviet Union
were left bankrupt. That's why the journey has been so difficult
and painstakingly slow. There has been no big Sugar Daddy to
bail them out or tell them how to do it. Abandoned to the world
like orphans, they've had to forge new friendships and alliances-politically,
economically and militarily-entirely on their own initiative.
In addition, countries like Azerbaijan have had to cope with
the devastating effects of war and the accompanying tragic loss
of life and displacement of hundreds of thousands of refugees.
Despite new hopes and new opportunities, it's been a long, difficult
decade. The collapse of the Soviet system has meant restructuring
the government, setting up new electoral processes, organizing
new banking systems, new educational and judicial practices,
and rethinking new concepts like private ownership and the role
of the media. New currency has printed (manats now, not rubles),
as have new identification cards, new passports, new postage
stamps, new licenses and permits.
As if that weren't enough to deal with, Azerbaijan chose to revert
to the modified Latin alphabet that it was using before Stalin
imposed the Cyrillic script in 1939. The repercussions of this
symbolic act to throw off the yoke of Russian imperialism and
signal a closer identification with the West have been enormous
and unprecedented.
In this issue, we've featured some of the visionaries of this
transition process. No summary would be complete without an interview
with President Heydar Aliyev [page 14-18], Azerbaijan's most
experienced leader from the Soviet period, who has been a pioneer
in forging so many fundamental changes for a new Azerbaijan.
According to the President, the greatest misconception that the
West has about this transition is the period of time that it
requires. Mental and psychological changes must precede overt,
physical changes, he says. "You cannot impose democracy
by force, nor by revolution. Democracy is an evolutionary process,
not a revolutionary one. Different countries require different
time frames."
Italian Paolo Lembo [pages 20-30], one of the first foreigners
to set foot in Baku in mid-1992, carried the UN flag with him
in his suitcase and set up the first UN mission in the country.
His vignettes of those early days offer poignant, often humorous,
glimpses of Azerbaijan as it was just beginning to break out
of its isolation. Written from an Internet café in Paris
while he was cramming for French exams and preparing for his
new assignment to Algeria (his third since leaving Azerbaijan
in 1997), Paolo's memoirs read more like a page out of a playwright's
diary than an official diplomatic briefing.
Historians, too, have had to re-examine their approach to analyzing
the past. Farid Alakbarov's article, "Writing Azerbaijan's
History-Digging for the Truth" [pages 40-49] shows how every
"historical fact" had its own Soviet imprint on it.
Now historians are trying to strip off the layers of ideology
to determine the actual reality of Azerbaijan's past.
Gulnar Aydamirova, now 18, reflects on what it has been like
to probe into her past and learn that her great-grandparents
were branded as "Enemies of the Nation" for their resistance
to the Bolshevik invasion in 1920. They did not live to tell
their story. She tells it now [pages 64-67]. Hers is a story
that is not confined to Azerbaijan. Tens of thousands living
in the former Soviet Union could tell a similar story.
One of the most delightful consequences of the collapse of the
Soviet system is that the international community is now getting
acquainted with some of their talented artists. Azerbaijan International
magazine is immensely proud that, together with Statoil, we have
reproduced 7 CDs of some of the finest works by Azerbaijani composer
Uzeyir Hajibeyov. No composer was more committed to breaking
the fetters of political, religious, social and gender oppression.
For this we say, Thank you and Happy Birthday, Uzeyir Hajibeyov!
He would have been 116 this September. To purchase or listen
to music samples, visit AZER.com
and click on AI
Store.
____
From Azerbaijan
International
(9.3) Autumn 2001.
© Azerbaijan International 2001. All rights reserved.
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