A NATIONAL ISSUE IN THE ACTIVITY OF SOUTHERN AZERBAIJANI INTELLECTUALS IN IRAN AFTER THE IRANIAN ISLAMIC REVOLUTION

Abstract

After the Islamic Revolution of Iran, Southern intellectuals for the first time began to perform high-level theoretical studies on the people, language and culture of Azerbaijan. Although the Iran-Iraq war pushed the unresolved national issue into the background, at the same time, the problem deepened the process of national self-awareness. After the war, in the conditions of the reform atmosphere in Iran, the struggle of the Azerbaijani intellectuals began to take on a mass character, became centralized and took an organized form. The impact of the processes taking place in North Azerbaijan (gained independence) can be clearly seen here. In the 1990s, the national intelligentsia, including students, showed an emotional reaction to the events that took place in Northern Azerbaijan, and against the background of these events, within the framework of Iranian legislation, the extension of the rights of the mother tongue, the cessation of the assimilation of the Azerbaijani language on Iranian radio and television, the protection of national-cultural monuments, etc. such demands were made.