The Oil Deal

Nariman Narimanov and the Sovietization of Azerbaijan

Bibliographic Data

ID4919330
AuthorsSara Brinegar, Sara G Brinegar (corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume76
Issue2
Pages372-394
Publication date2017-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSlavic Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0037-6779 • E-ISSN: 2325-7784
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/slr.2017.83
OpenAlexW2731153746
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited19

This essay, with a focus on Baku, Azerbaijan, demonstrates that the need to secure and hold energy resources-and the infrastructures that support them-was critical to the formation of the Soviet Union. The Azerbaijani statesman Nariman Narimanov played a pivotal role in the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan by attempting to use Baku's oil to secure prerogatives for the Azerbaijan SSR. In part, Narimanov gained his position by striking a deal with Vladimir Lenin in 1920, an arrangement that I am calling the oil deal. This deal lay the foundations of Soviet power in the south Caucasus. Lenin charged Narimanov with facilitating connections between the industrial stronghold of Baku and the rural countryside of Azerbaijan and Narimanov agreed to do what he could to help supply Soviet Russia with oil. Lenin put Narimanov in charge of the Soviet government of Azerbaijan, with the understanding that he would be granted significant leeway in cultural policies. Understanding the role of the south Caucasus in Soviet history, then, is also understanding how the extraction and use of oil and other natural resources were entangled with more familiar questions of nationalities policy and identity politics

Business · Government (linguistics · Natural resource · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Position (finance · Power (physics · Sociology · Soviet union · Law · Natural Resources and Economic Development · Russia and Soviet political economy · Soviet and Russian History

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