Swabian Population in Azerbaijan

Abstract

In my study, I present the economic, social and cultural situation of the Swabian population settled in the first half of the 19th century in the South Caucasus region of the Russian Empire, in the north-western part of present-day Azerbaijan, in the 19th and 20th centuries. The majority of the Swabian population emigrated from the German Kingdom of Württemberg, which was suffering from the Napoleonic Wars, due to poor economic conditions, as well as religious discrimination and persecution. The Swabians were attracted to the area in the hope of a better life and livelihood, as well as religious freedom, and the promise of economic benefits from the Russian Tsar Alexander I. Sailing down the Danube River and along the Black Sea, they reached the western parts of the South Caucasus, where they established settlements. After very serious difficulties at the beginning, the Swabian population, as in other parts of Eastern Europe, such as the Banat and Bacska regions of the Kingdom of Hungary, Bessarabia and various regions of the Russian Empire (Black Sea coast, Volga valley), established a flourishing agricultural and wine-producing culture, a high-quality craft industry and important commercial centres. The post-1920 Soviet communist regime nationalised the former German agricultural and industrial production and trade enterprises. After Germany had attacked the Soviet Union, Germans living in the South Caucasus, including those in the Socialist Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan, were deported to Kazakhstan and Siberia in the 1940s on the basis of collective guilt. This ended the flourishing Swabian history and culture in the South Caucasus, which had lasted for more than one hundred and twenty years.