ABSTRACT
The author investigates the image of Azerbaijanis and Azerbaijan in the context of the Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict in the English language of the West as well as Russian media. The author posits that Western and Russian experts and journalists traditionally, beginning from 1905, viewed the conflict between Azerbaijanis and Armenians through Orientalist perspectives. Orientalism as conceptualized by Edward Said explains certain biases toward Muslims by Western historians, literary experts and journalists.
Furthermore, the author explores the perception of Azerbaijanis, a Turkic-speaking ethnic group, through stereotypes in Western and Russian academia, akin to the notions of “Terrible Turks.” Islam, the Ottoman Empire and related stereotypes played an important role in the coverage of the conflict – ranging from superficial journalistic dispatches to serious scholarly research.
The chapter begins with analysis of the historical discourse related to the history of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Then, the research focuses on the modern stage of the conflict, which broke out in 1988 and continues up through today with a comparative analysis of liberal and right wing media in the West and Russia. Besides the religious and cultural dimensions of the media coverage, the author analyzes the historical and geopolitical background of the conflict and its influence on the expert community and journalists in their dealings with the conflict-related narratives.
