Whole Azerbaijan is an irredentist concept of uniting presumed historically Azerbaijani-inhabited territories into the Republic of Azerbaijan.

History

The idea of "Whole Azerbaijan" was formulated by Piruz Dilanchi in 1991 and defined in 1992 by Azerbaijani president Abulfaz Elchibey (s. 1992-93). In 1991, Dilanchi founded the SANLM nationalist organization and in 1997 Elchibey founded the "Whole Azerbaijan Union" (Bütöv Azərbaycan Birliyi) organization. Elchibey published his book on the idea, Bütöv Azərbaycan yolunda, in Turkey in 1998. It claimed that the borders of Azerbaijan should extend from Derbent to the Persian Gulf. Elchibey claimed that this was a territory of Azerbaijani historical ethnic presence. He proposed that Azerbaijan had right to rule it, under a proposed system of governance called "United Azerbaijani Lands" (Birləşmiş Azərbaycan Yurdları). After his death in 2002, it was published postmortem. He opposed the idea of a separate and independent South Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani historiography portrays the early to mid 1800s as the "ideal" and "normative" situation with Azeri sovereignty over Karabakh and Southern Azerbaijan (Iran), despite that a "united Azerbaijan" was never, in fact, independent but always part of the Persian empires. The concept of Whole Azerbaijan has been Azerbaijani state policy since the September 2022 Armenia–Azerbaijan clashes.

Political initiatives

The term Whole Azerbaijan continued in political initiatives including the SANLM (CAMAH) and Whole Azerbaijan Popular Front Party.

Boundaries

Although the boundaries of Whole Azerbaijan are not strictly defined, some proponents portray them as encompassing the following areas:

Sources