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Simultaneous attempts by Azerbaijan to draft 1,500 Lezgin youths into the army for deployment in
Nagorno-Karabakh resulted in additional protests by 70,000 Lezgins in the region and strengthened
the calls for an independent Lezgin republic.
The situation was eased somewhat, later in the spring of 1993, by the decision of the Russian
Federation and Azerbaijan to maintain an open border along the Samur river. The Russian
government also allocated to the Lezgins an economic assistance package of one billion rubles in
government credits for the development of infrastructure, agriculture and industry and the
construction of additional bridges across the Samur to Azerbaijan. However, the governments of the
Russian Federation, Dagestan and Azerbaijan were not prepared to negotiate mutual territorial
change and refused to create either an independent Lezgistan or a new autonomous Lezgin republic
within Russia or Azerbaijan.
Since 1993, political conflict between Russian and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, the
patrolling of Azerbaijan’s international border with Iran and natural resource exploitation in the
Caspian Sea, 92 and the war in Chechnya have increased tension on the Azerbaijani-Russian border.
The Russian government has frequently threatened to introduce control and customs posts along the
entire stretch of the border, and has restricted travel between Dagestan and Azerbaijan ostensibly to
halt a flow of weapons from Turkey and Iran to Chechen rebels. These actions have been met with
protests organized by Sadval to demand freedom of movement for Lezgins and have provoked
clashes with local authorities and police.
Moscow has also come to see the “Lezgin problem” as a political tool in its thorny
relationship with Azerbaijan, which greatly complicates any resolution of the fundamental issue of
the Lezgin division. For example, while Abulfez Elchibey, the pro-Turkish, anti-Russian President
of Azerbaijan was in power, Russia provided a home for the Lezgin political front in Moscow and
turned a blind eye to Lezgin protests in Azerbaijan. In June 1993, after Elchibey was overthrown in
a coup, and Gaidar Aliev, the former Communist boss of Azerbaijan, was brought into power, the
Russian government abruptly abolished the Lezgin front.
The cooperation of both the federal government in Moscow and the Azerbaijani government
in Baku are essential to Dagestan’s continued management of the Lezgin problem. The difficult
relationship between Moscow and Baku, however, and the tensions on the new international border
preclude success in the short-term. As a result, the Ministry of Nationalities and External Relations
in Dagestan views the Lezgins as the most likely candidate for secession in the republic. 93
Nogais:
92 For a discussion of the political conflicts between Russia and Azerbaijan see Fiona Hill and Pamela Jewett,
Back in the USSR: Russia’s Intervention in the Internal Affairs of the Former Soviet Republics and the
Implications for United States Policy Toward Russia, Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project (John F.
Kennedy School of Government, January 1994) pp. 10-17.
93 This information was obtained from Nicholas and Ruth Daniloffs’ interview with the Dagestani Minister of
Nationalities and External Relations in August 1995.
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