آذربائیجان (Azerbaijan) (فارسی: آذربایجان; آزربائیجانی: آذربایجان) جسے ایرانی آذربائیجان اور فارسی آذربائیجان بھی کہا جاتا ہے شمال مغربی ایران میں ایک علاقہ ہے۔[1]
علاقے کو جنوبی آذربائیجان بھی کہا جاتا ہے۔
تاہم بعض اہل علم اور ذرائع کے مطابق یہ رجوعی اور سیاست طور پر ہے۔[2][3][4]
Michael P. Croissant, "The Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict: Causes and Implications", Praeger/Greenwood, 1998. excerpt from pg 61: "During the Soviet-era historical revisionism and myth-building intended to denounce imperialism, the notion of a "northern" and "southern" Azerbaijan was created and propagated throughout USSR. It was charged that the "two Azerbaijanis" once united were separated artificially by conspiracy between imperial Russia and Iran".
Bert G. Fragner, ‘Soviet Nationalism’: An Ideological Legacy to the Independent Republics of Central Asia ’ in” in Van Schendel, Willem(Editor) . Identity Politics in Central Asia and the Muslim World: Nationalism, Ethnicity and Labour in the Twentieth Century. London , GBR: I. B. Tauris & Company, Limited, 2001. Excerpt from pg 24: "Under Soviet auspices and in accordance with Soviet nationalism, historical Azerbaijan proper was reinterpreted as 'Southern Azerbaijan', with demands for liberation and, eventually, for 're'-unification with Northern (Soviet) Azerbaijan a breathtaking manipulation. No need to point to concrete Soviet political activities in this direction, as in 1945–46 etc. The really interesting point is that in the independent former Soviet republics this typically Soviet ideological pattern has long outlasted the Soviet Union."
