Azerbaijan declares independence

On 28 May 1918 in Tiflis, in the former palace of the Viceroy of the Caucasus, the Azerbaijani National Council proclaimed the independence of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. It is often called the first democratic republic in the Muslim world. Two days earlier, after Georgia declared independence, the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic had ceased to exist, and the Muslim deputies of the dissolved Sejm had to decide what to do with the lands of eastern Transcaucasia. The British chronology of the war records Azerbaijan’s independence under 26 May, but all studies give 28 May.

From faction to National Council

As early as the evening of 25 May the Georgian leaders warned the Muslim faction of the Sejm that the next day they would declare the federation dissolved. Fatali Khan Khoyski replied that the Azerbaijanis had no right to stand in the Georgians’ way, but would draw their own conclusions. On 27 May the deputies of the faction met in an extraordinary session and declared themselves the Provisional National Council of Azerbaijan. They elected as chairman the leader of the Musavat party, Mammad Amin Rasulzade, and the non-party Khoyski was placed at the head of its executive body.

Rasulzade was at that time at the Batum conference as a member of the Transcaucasian delegation, so on 28 May the session of the Council’s 26 members was chaired by his deputy, Hasan bey Aghayev. According to the surviving minutes, Khoyski proposed that instead of proclaiming independence at once, a government should first be formed to negotiate with the powers. Most of the speakers, however, were for an immediate decision. By 24 votes with two abstentions the Council voted to proclaim Azerbaijan an “independent democratic republic” within the borders of eastern and southern Transcaucasia, and the declaration was read out and heard standing.

The declaration and the government

The six points of the declaration announced that Azerbaijan was a fully sovereign state and a republic, that it wished for good relations with all nations, especially its neighbours, and that it guaranteed civil rights to all its inhabitants regardless of nationality, religion, class and sex, and freedom of development to minorities. Until a Constituent Assembly was convened, power was to be exercised by the National Council and a provisional government responsible to it. After an hour’s break Khoyski presented the composition of the government. He became its prime minister and minister of the interior, and foreign affairs went to the Musavatist Mammad Hasan Hajinski.

For the time being the new state existed mainly on paper. Baku, the largest city and oil centre of Transcaucasia, had been ruled since April by the Baku Commune (PL) of the Bolshevik Stepan Shaumian, supported by the Armenian Dashnaks. In the March Days thousands of Muslims had been killed there. From the start, therefore, the Azerbaijani leaders counted on help from the Turks. On 4 June at Batum Azerbaijan concluded a treaty of peace and friendship with the Ottoman Empire, and in June the government moved to Ganja, formerly Elisavetpol. Turkish troops and Azerbaijani volunteers, united in the Caucasian Army of Islam, did not take Baku until September 1918.

The republic lasted 23 months, until the country was occupied by the Red Army in April 1920. Today 28 May is celebrated in Azerbaijan as Independence Day.