Nation-building process in Azerbaijan during the Tsarist Period: 1850-1920

The main aim of this thesis study is considering the first process of the formation of contemporary Azerbaijan identity. Since the researches were generally not put into a certain theoretical framework, they have evoked a particular narrative impression. For this reason, the care has been taken to ensure that a chronological historical narrative does not evoke the impression. The thesis study has been designed in the context of nationalism. In the thesis study, the Small Nation model/theory of Miroslav Hroch has been used to reveal that the nationalization process has followed a different course in Tsarist Azerbaijan. In the theoretical part, modernity, individualism, birth of nationalism, nationalism theories and the Small Nation model/theory are included. In this regard, as an example for the processes of nationalization, three intellectuals - Mirzah Fetali Ahundzadeh, Ali Bey Hüseyinzadeh and Mehmet Emin Resulzadeh - have been identified. Ahundzadeh appears as a starting point of Azerbaijan modernization. The tsarist officer Ahundzadeh had a belief in the ideal of reason and progress which are the main implications of Enlightenment. However, rather than making a philosophical assessment of the Enlightenment, he had performed his job as an enlightener to save Muslims from "darkness." In other words, he had introduced Muslims to "Yeni Dünya" in the context of "colonial modernization". In this regard, he even developed an alphabet, however Ahundzadeh could not go beyond "academic interest". Hüseyinzadeh appears as an intellectual who needs identity during the nationalization process. He had found his need for identity in an organic, pre-given Turkishness under the influence of romanticism. The elements that made it possible to imagine the nation in phase B - printing, school, etc. - took place and the process of national revival started. However, it is possible in the C phase to focus the national movement on the political goal. Resulzadeh determined the ideological tendency of a nation-state in the context of Azerbaijanism in the C phase. In this context, the Declaration of Independence announced on May 28 1918 became the legal source of the establishment of the first Azerbaijan Republic. It is possible to say that the national movement is successful starting from the declaration of the Republic/nation- state. However, politics can be defined as an incomplete nation-state since it cannot legally create its nation. Therefore, this thesis study examined the process of nationalization in Tsarist Azerbaijan in a context of small nation model/theory and concluded that the nation-state could not build its nation.