SUMMARY:

In the Russian-speaking post-Soviet space the myth of the Southern City still exists. Baku was hailed as a positive example of internationalism by stars of Soviet music, such as Müslüm Maqomayev and Polad Bülbüloğlu. The multinational character of Baku was stressed by the Azeri émigrés in Paris, Ankara, and Warsaw in the 1920s–1930s, although different aspects of it were highlighted. What explains the fascination and disillusionment with Baku of these different people and how did intellectuals who resided in Baku conceive of the city’s multiculturalism? In his article, Zaur Gasimov provides the answers to these questions. The article traces multiple historical legacies that shaped Baku as the multicultural and multilingual periphery of the Persian, Russian, and Soviet empires. In the twentieth century Baku was mapped as the city of the Baku commune and the twenty-six Baku commissars, the capital of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic (1918–20), the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialistic Republic, and the Republic of Azerbaijan since 1990. The author analyzes the role of the Russian language and Russian culture in Baku and the phenomenon of identification with Baku among the educated layer of Azeri, Russians, and Armenians. At the same time, the author traces the emergence of Baku as the center of the Azeri national movement that distanced itself from the Soviet-Azeri intelligentsia and oriented itself toward Pan-Turanian ideas and the modular case of Istanbul. The discursive reality of the nation-building project was connected to the changing demographic balance in the city in which the Azeri started to dominate the urban landscape numerically and culturally. The resilient multicultural character of the city, even though it has declined since the late Soviet period, became a point of contention in the perception of the Russian-speaking intelligentsia and professed Azeri national activists: for the latter it signifies the failure of Azeri nation-building and the postcolonial condition of post-Soviet Azerbaijan.