18. Armenophobia in textbooks
A textbook is a book that systematically lays down fundamental knowledge in a specific domain at the current level of the scientific and cultural achievements and represents the main and leading type of academic literature.520
A school textbook plays an important role in securing the personal and intellectual development of students. The ultimate mission of a textbook is to aid the shaping of a personal attitude of the student to the course of study.521
The education underlies the raising of future generations and communication of accumulated ancestral knowledge. In the modern world, where the system of education is overall standardized and controlled by the state, its function consists not only in counteracting illiteracy, but also in instilling and indoctrinating the values and ideologies intrinsic to the society in question.
In this context, the study of didactic materials gives an insight into the ideological constituent of the society and a rough forecast of its future.
Following the attainment of independence, the Azerbaijani textbooks draw both domestic and international criticism. Most of the critical voices raised domestically refer to errors, typos, inaccurate translation, etc.
Yana Madatova, journalist: Not only parents do sound the alarm, but also specialists in linguistics, pedagogues and independent experts. Thus, Aydin Aslanov, an associate professor at the Chair of Social Disciplines of the Baku Institute for Advanced Training and Retraining for Teachers, stated that the history textbooks for secondary schools in the Azerbaijani and Russian languages teemed with semantic, scientific and technical errors. <…> I could understand if this was limited to textbooks in Russian as today, the language, as it were, is no longer native. But after all, the textbooks in the Azerbaijani also contain colossal blunders!522
Slava Sapunov, the editor-in-chief of the Boutique Travel magazine: Misprints, awkward bombast, clumsy style and sometimes unabashed misinformation.523
Milana Zhuchkova, journalist: There have been many reports about the poor work of proofreaders in compiling the national textbooks; sometimes it is about a huge number of grammar errors, sometimes it is about missing words and sometimes it is about impossibility of solving a math problem because figures are misprinted. There are many other examples of malpractice in the work of educational professionals. The reputation of the domestic products has long been marred, with children laughing at the errors of intelligent adults, and it is very sad when schoolchildren think they have the right to consider themselves smarter than the specialists who have compiled the textbook. As I recently ploughed the social networks, I stumbled across a very interesting photograph from a page of a literature textbook for the 7th grade indicating the lifespan of L. N. Tolstoy as 1928–1910. The photograph sported a commentary: “Only in our textbooks, the great Russian writer died before he was born.524
However, if blunders of grammar and style are acknowledged by the compilers (scholars, pedagogues, Ministry of Education) and can be corrected, the ideological constituent of the academic literature remains unchanged as testified by the authors themselves.
The author of the History textbook for the 10th grade, which portrays Armenians as “the eternal enemies” of the Azerbaijanis, the department head of the History of Slavic Countries of the Baku State University, Tofik Veliyev acknowledges that he used “negative language” but in his opinion “it was necessary to tell the truth”. “These phrases give an accurate picture of Armenians”, thinks Veliyev.525
It can be claimed that the educational process in Azerbaijan is made contingent on the ideology that cultivates armenophobia.
Arif Yunusov, conflictologist, in his publication entitled The myths and the images of the ‘enemy’ in historical science and in the history textbooks of the independent Azerbaijan notes that “amid the Karabakh conflict, the schoolbooks in Azerbaijan had the mission of “breeding patriots who know how to distinguish friend from foe and are prepared to take part in another conflict if need be”.526
Arif Yunusov: The image of the ‘enemy’ is formed starting from the textbook for the fifth grade, i.e. since the very first year of teaching the subject of history. It is true that it is still not a textbook on the history of Azerbaijan; it is called Fatherland (‘Ana yurdu’), but written in a very emotional way, especially pronounced in the description of Azerbaijan’s confrontation with “others”, much more so when dealing with the subject of its “historical” enemies.
Incidentally, one of the central if not the principal points covered in the textbook refers to sacrificing oneself in the name and for the benefit of the motherland. Thus, in the section entitled “Those Who Live For The Motherland Elevate It”, only a small portion is dedicated to the figures of culture and art. The narrative mostly covers heroes (Babek, Kerogly and Shah Ismail) who dedicate their lives to the motherland fighting in the name of its independence.527
According to Yunusov, the patriotic education holds a significant place in the Azerbaijani textbooks and directly ensues from the doctrine of “fighting the enemies”, represented by the Armenians, as well as the willingness to sacrifice own lives for the motherland and in the “heroic struggle” against the enemies.
In subsequent sections of the textbook, its authors pay increasing attention to Armenians who begin to be perceived as “the main infidels clad in black”. Also, a variety of negative epithets (“bandits”, “aggressors”, “perfidious”, “hypocritical” etc.) are used in respect of the Armenians. It were the “perfidious” Armenians who helped Russia in conquering Azerbaijan, it was the result of the “insurrection of Armenian bandits” in Karabakh in 1920 that the main forces of the Azerbaijani army were pulled back from the northern borders, a chance that was exploited by the 11th Red Army which invaded Azerbaijan. Thus, the “black-clad infidels” once again committed their black deed”. In the final part of the textbook, its authors decisively shape the image of the enemy represented by Armenians who have waged for centuries a struggle against the Azerbaijani people and continue to do so in our days: “Armenians, the black-clad infidels and their patrons resort to every treacherous and base scheme to weaken and isolate our state”.528
In what follows, the Turkic origin of some persons is constantly underscored. The authors get so carried away with their love for Turkization that they contrive to make preposterous and absurd statements: In 337, the Albanian ruler Sanatruk (Sanaturk of Turkic origin, according to the version advanced by the authors of the textbook) led a campaign against Armenia and “protected the local Turkic population from the encroachments of the Christian preachers!” In the following year, the Armenian military leader, Vache Mamikonyan, launched a retaliation campaign against Albania and defeated Sanatruk’s army. However, the pupils who read about this event will find out that the Armenian military leader Mamikonyan was actually of… Turkic rather than Armenian origin. And, in general, Turkic people played a prominent role in spreading and strengthening Christianity in Armenia! This means we have an absurd picture: First, Turkic people spread Christianity in Armenia. In response to that, another Turk from the territory of Albania leads an incursion into Armenia in order to protect the local Turkic people from Christians. This is followed by a retaliation campaign by another Turk, but a Christian this time, who defeated the army of a non-Christian Turk!529