Waves on beach

Sea bird flying

10.00.00

MUSIC

10.00.06

PAUL THEROUX

I knew nothing but Azerbaijan. I'd never heard the word Baku.

10.00.11

NARRATOR

In 1970

MCU Paul Theroux at his desk

the writer Paul Theroux reviewed a book that had been lost to the world for over 30 years..

10.00.19

PAUL THEROUX

I found Baku on the

Map showing Black Sea, Caspian Sea, and Baku

map. In the first paragraph of the review I said, on the hawk nose of a peninsula, Baku in the Caspian.

Book: Ali and Nino by Kurban Said

I was always looking for a book that had dropped through the cracks, and when I found it

MCU Paul Theroux

it was different from all the other books that I'd read.

Mountain scenery

10.00.36

NARRATOR

It was a love story.

B/W archive: solders on horseback in mountain scenery

Tangled up in a war between rival empires.

10.00.45

PAUL THEROUX

It's a story of two cultures,

MCU Paul Theroux

it's a story of Asia and Europe.

Priests and people in church

10.00.50

MUSIC

10.00.53

NARRATOR

On one side is the might of Christian Russia struggling to hold its empire together.

Woman unwrapping Koran

10.00.59

MUSIC

10.00.59

NARRATOR

On the other side, peoples of the Koran, Shi'ite

CU Koran

and Sunni.

View of Baku from stone building

10.01.06

FUAD AKHUNDOV

The whole plot of the book is that the two major characters, the

MCU Fuad Akhundov

Azeri Muslim Khan and the Georgian Christian princess, they seem to live with one and the same geographical concept of Baku, yet

View of Baku from stone building

they live in two different worlds.

10.01.20

MUSIC

10.01.23

NARRATOR

It was the dawn of the

B/W archive: street scene with traffic

20th century, everything was

B/W archive: car in desert

changing.

10.01.27

PAUL THEROUX

I had this strong feeling of identification of a place

B/W archive: soldiers on horses

where the rumbles of empire were reverberating there and the people were where the rumbles of empire were reverberating there and the people were

MCU Paul Theroux

feeling these vibrations of world events.

B/W archive: solders on horses ride past oil derricks

10.01.38

MUSIC

10.01.40

NARRATOR

The fuel of change is

Shots of oil pumps

oil, in vast quantities, beneath the land where the lovers met.

10.01.48

PAUL THEROUX

The novel tells you everything, it fills in this

MCU Paul Theroux

empty place on the map, it suddenly becomes alive and real.

Shots of men playing dominoes on streets of Baku

10.01.54

MUSIC

10.01.56

NARRATOR

Above all, it tells the story of how the people of Ali's city first won their freedom.

People walking along street

10.02.03

PAUL THEROUX

It's local, it’s national,

MCU Paul Theroux

and it's timeless.

High shot Baku, Flame Towers in distance, national flag in foreground

10.02.07

MUSIC

Titles:

Baku

The city of Ali & Nino

10.02.14

NARRATOR

This is Baku today - a

High shot Baku

great city in an independent country. Steeped in history, but embracing modernity.

Low shot Flame towers

A bridgehead between east and west.

Mountainous countryside shots

10.02.33

But it wasn’t always so.

Two hundred years ago, this strange and beautiful landscape lay on the edge of other people's empires. The Russians to the north. The ottomans to the west.

Birds flying over sea

10.02.51

The Persians to the south.

B/W archive: Baku city shots

And the focal point was Baku, then a small city where people from all these three empires converged for trade and travel.

0.03.05

FUAD AKHUNDOV subtitles

The market place was the most lively place in town

MCU Fuad Akhundov standing in patio

This was its

beating heart

Caption: Fuad Akhundov

Baku historian

10.03.16

This small oriental citadel was the hub that linked many trade and caravan routes.

Shots in market

10.03.25

NARRATOR

Baku in those early days

B/W archive: eastern culture in Baku

had been a Persian city, with the culture and customs of the east.

B/W still: building in Baku

And that was the world to which the novel's hero,

B/W archive: views over Baku

Ali Khan, belonged.

Caption: Ali & Nino by Kurban Said

10.03.39

READER

I went up to the flat roof, form there I could see my world.

Fortress wall

Inscriptions on gate

The massive wall of the town's fortress, Arabic inscriptions at the gate.

POV shot going through old city

Inside the old wall, the streets were narrow and curved, like oriental daggers.

B/W archive: people walking in town

Minarets pierced the mild moon.

10.04.03

Through the labyrinth of streets camels were walking,

B/W archive: camel in city

their ankles so delicate

B/W archive: women goes into building

I wanted to caress them.

POV shot walking towards tower

10.04.12

In front of me rose the squat Maidens' Tower,

Narrow street

and behind the tower

View of sea

the sea began, leaden,

B/W archive: view of sea

unfathomable, Caspian Sea.

B/W archive: camel train in desert

10.04.27

NARRATOR

On the other side of the city lay the desert, and beyond it - imperial Christian Russia.

B/W archive: city shots with wind

10.04.35

In the early 19th century the tsar's armies began pushing south, laying claim to the windswept city and bring European modernity to the edge of Asia.

Mud pool, pan up to WS over desert

10.04.48

MUSIC

NARRATOR

But with modernity came an even bigger change - a liquid treasure which had lain for centuries

Oil pumps

beneath the desert itself.

10.05.02

THOMAS DE WAAL

The key date is 1828, when the lands

MCU Thomas de Waal

Caption: Thomas de Waal

Author, The Caucasus: An Introduction

of Azerbaijan are divided into north and south, most of the people actually stay in what's now the Iranian side of the border, but...

B/W stills montage: Baku streets, buildings and people

10.05.14

MUSIC

THOMAS DE WAAL

... the northern side, the Russian side, slowly Europeanises. This is mainly due to Baku, which becomes this huge boom town and the world's first oil capital, and pulls these Azerbaijanis into a completely different world.

Tracking shot past Villa Petrolea

10.05.40

NARRATOR

Half an hour's drive from the elegant city centre stands

EXT shots Villa Petrolea

the Villa Petrolea. In the 1880s, it became home to a family whose enterprise

INT shots Villa Petrolea

helped change the face of Baku - the Nobels.

10.05.57

MUSIC

10.05.57

NARRATOR

Ten years before it was

Paintings: Nobel brothers

built, Ludwig Nobel had given his brother 25,000 roubles to buy exotic hardwood for rifle

INT office in Villa Petrolea

stocks. Instead, the money was spent

B/W still: horse and cart in oilfield

on buying drilling rights and an oil refinery.

B/W stills: oil field shots

10.06.19

They struck gold - black gold. Oil that literally gushed into the air in fountains such as they had never seen before.

10.06.30

AUDREY ALTSTADT

There was so much pressure

MCU Audrey Altstadt

Caption: Audrey Altstadt, University of Massachusetts

from the natural gas that’s down there with the oil that it created a gusher, and the gushers would occasionally flow completely out of control.

B/W still: oilfield

10.06.45

PHILIP NOBEL

They found Klondike, they

MCU Philip Nobel

Caption: Philip Nobel, Ludvig's grandson

found a country filled with possibilities beyond imagination.

B/W still: camels in Baku city

10.06.52

NARRATOR

To begin with, the process was primitive.

B/W stills: laden camels

Oil was poured into sacks make of camel skin and carried to the docks.

B/W still: camels at refinery

But as demand grew, the Nobels and other entrepreneurs like the Rothschilds

B/W still: INT factory with machines

introduced mechanisation and amassed fortunes.

MCU Thomas de Waal

10.07.12

THOMAS DE WAAL

Baku became a k an international city before its time because of this huge oil boom, and people like the Nobels and the Rothschilds and all these international capitalists coming in to develop the oil industry.

Garden seen from house

10.07.27

PHILIP NOBEL

Sitting on this terrace you feel that

MCU Philip Nobel

history don’t stop, you know, it continues, it's a legacy, it is a

B/W still: man in hammock on terrace

fantastic feeling just listen to the birds, to have my coffee there in the morning.

Garden

10.07.40

NARRATOR

Even the garden around the house grew on oil.

B/W still: tanker ship

10.07.44

PHILIP NOBEL

When the tanker ships went out with the oil,

MCU Philip Nobel

they brought back water to irrigate the grounds, I think at one time in total they had brought in maybe like

EXT building

40,000 different species

Pool in garden

of flowers, grasses, er,

B/W still: planting a tree

B/W still: 2 man with tree in garden

trees, shrubs, it was an amazing feat what they did.

10.08.04

MUSIC

B/W still: man in garden

10.08.05

PHILIP NOBEL

It was like a little green paradise

B/W still: family picnic in garden

surrounded by derricks.

B/W archive: shots of oilfields

10.08.11

NARRATOR

At the height of the boom, you could see the derricks growing like a forest beyond the citadel walls. And in that forest were the poor and the hopeful, heading to Baku like gold diggers to California.

MCU Irada Bagirova

Caption: Irada Bagirova

Academy of Sciences, Baku

10.08.26

IRADA BAGIROVA subtitles

Workers came from Russia, Iran - also Azeris -

Slow pan shots over Baku

so the Azeri population grew.

10.08.39

But the numbers of other nationalities grew too - Russians, Armenians, many Jews came here, Poles.

EXT shots mansions at night (undercranked)

10.08.49

MUSIC

10.09.00

NARRATOR

The city you see today began growing from that moment. Not so much to accommodate the influx of poor workers as to accommodate the tastes and ambitions of the newly rich tycoons. Europe was flooding into Asia on a tide of oil.

10.09.19

ALTAY GOYUSHOV

All these oil tycoons - Armenians, Jews, Azerbaijanis, Russians - they are trying to provide some kind of help to their own community, this competition being more philanthropist,

MCU Altay Goyushov

Caption: Altay Goyushov

Baku State University

you know, it's amazing that they are really generous.

Oil pump with Baku city in background

10.09.36

MUSIC

10.09.37

NARRATOR

Each tycoon was generous to his own.

Shots of oil pumps at work

Armenian for the Armenians, Russian for the Russians. And for the Azeris, a champion who surpassed them all.

LS Baku over water

EXT National Museum of the History of Azerbaijan

10.09.57

This building, now the National Museum of the History of Azerbaijan, is the

Painting Haji Zeynalabdin Tagiev.

legacy of the man who did most to help the Azeri people - Haji Zeynalabdin Tagiev.

B/W still: mansion

B/W still: men gathered around desk

10.10.12

When he moved into his mansion at the turn of the century, the great and the good of Baku society gathered around him. Just a few years before,

B/W archive: oilfield shots

this cobbler's son had been a builder, but he could see what others were doing, so he found himself a partner, bought some land, and started digging for himself.

10.10.33

NAILYA ABDULAEVA subtitles

They dug for a long time ... but there was no oil.

MCU Nailya Abdulaeva

His Armenian partner said: 'I am not going to dig any longer'

B/W archive: horse-operated pump

10.10.44

NARRATOR

But Tagiev kept faith and pressed on alone.

MCU Nailya Abdulaeva

Caption: Nailya Abdulaeva

Tagiev's great-granddaughter

10.10.49

NAILYA ABDULAEVA subtitles

Tagiev took a new loan, carried on digging... and struck a fountain!

B/W archive: oil gushing and flowing on the ground, and being collected

10.10.56

MUSIC

10.11.03

NAILYA ABDULAEVA subtitles

The oil gushed with such force right into the sea. They sold it by the bucket until he grew richer.

MCU Nailya Abdulaeva

Then he built factories and produced kerosene. ...and ended up in shipping too, with three oil tankers.

B/W still: Tagiev and family

10.11.23

MUSIC

10.11.27

NARRATOR

That wealth transformed the life of his own family, of course. But Tagiev wanted all Azeris to share his good fortune too. Above all, he wanted them to have

B/W still: Tagiev in office

the sort of education he'd never had.

10.11.41

NAILYA ABDULAEVA subtitles

He gave an education to a

MCU Nailya Abdulaeva

great number of people. They became doctors, engineers, and scientists Even now there are many people who say 'We eat Tagiev's bread'. ... in the sense that Tagiev paid for their education.

EXT shots mansion

10.12..01

MUSIC

10.12.03

NARRATOR

This building just outside the walls of the ancient city was once the first secular school for Muslim girls in the entire orient,

B/W still: Tagiev

built with money from that cobbler's son.

10.12.17

FUAD AKHUNDOV subtitles

He knew the

MCU Fuad Akhundov

only way to raise his people was by education. By educating a boy, he said, you get one educated person, but educate a girl and you get a whole educated family.

POV shot walking along street, Baku

10.12.32

NARRATOR

Tagiev himself was a devout Muslim

B/W still: mansion

but his views on education for women were far ahead of his time.

10.12.41

FUAD AKHUNDOV subtitles

In one of his letters, Tagiev says:

MCU Fuad Akhundov

'The only way to convey to a Muslim woman - this marvellous creation of the Almighty ...what her human rights are

B/W still: girls in queue up stairs in school

10.12.52

is through education, education, education.'

B/W stills: girls at school

The letter is dated 1896. 52 years

MCU Fuad Akhundov

before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The term is used in a letter by a Baku millionaire!

CU letter

His signature scrawled like a chicken's claw...

10.13.15

NARRATOR

Illiterate did not mean

Portrait: Tagiev

uninformed. Every morning

INT shots office in mansion

Tagiev's secretaries read the foreign newspapers to him, to feed his appetite for knowledge of the world.

MCU Irada Bagirova

10.13.27

IRADA BAGIROVA subtitles

At the start of the 20th century, over 40 newspapers were published in Baku.

CU newspaper

They were the forum for a serious debate

MCU Irada Bagirova

... between those who favoured a Western path of development and those who preferred an Eastern path.

EXT mansion

10.13.40

MUSIC

10.13.42

NARRATOR

Over the road from the school

INT mansion

he'd built was the Christian school that Ali's beloved Nino attended.

B/W still: children in classroom

Caption: Ali & Nino by Kurban Said

10.13.55

READER

Professor Sanin addressed our class - it is partly your responsibility as to whether our town should belong to progressive

Shots of teacher teaching class

Europe or to reactionary Asia. We sat silent for a while,

B/W still: children in classroom

overwhelmed by the load of responsibility so suddenly laid upon our shoulders.

Street shot with minaret

10.14.12

MUSIC

CU dome with minaret

10.14.13

NARRATOR

One aspect of belonging to Asia was that daily life would

controlled by the deeply conservative Shi'ite mullahs.

Service in Russian Orthodox church

10.14.23

But quite apart from the large Russian Orthodox population in Baku,

Street shot with car

there were Sunni Muslims too, mainly from the Ottoman

Men sitting outside café

empire next door. The new visionaries

High shot over mosque

believed that the only answer was a secular society.

10.14.41

AUDREY ALTSTADT

By the time you get to the setting of this novel of

Book: Ali & Nino by Kurban Said

Ali and Nino, you have especially in Baku a substantial cohort of people who are interested in a

MCU Audrey Altstadt

kind of reformed Islam, they are not by any means atheists, but they want to come to a kind of modus vivendi

B/W still: group photo

gradually striving to build a larger and larger nationally conscious community.

Mosque gate

Cover of satirical magazine with cartoon

10.15.07

MUSIC

10.15.15

NARRATOR

The mullahs became the target of an iconic

Cartoons from magazine

satirical magazine, filled with cartoons to reach people who couldn't read. The idealists

B/W still: group photo

behind it wanted to free themselves, not from their history,

Cartoons

but from the prejudice and sectarianism that could easily overwhelm such mixed society, and for Ali

Tower and wall

it was personal -

Caption: Ali & Nino by Kurban Said

10.15.39

READER

God let me be born here as a Muslim of the Shi'ite faith.

Narrow Baku street

May he be merciful and let me die here in the same street, in the same house where I was born.

Cat on windowsill

10.15.52

Me and Nino, a

Narrow Baku street

Christian, who eats with a knife and fork, has laughing eyes and wears

Woman's legs walking in street

filmy silk stockings.

10.16.03

CHARLES KING

The key issue

MCU Charles King

Caption: Charles King

Georgetown University

here is not one of geography or ethnicity or religion even, it's one of civilisation and of modernity, they feel that they themselves are bringing their society into the modern world,

B/W still: group photo

and in so many ways they are like the reformist currents

MCU Charles King

that are taking place in Russia proper.

B/W still: EXT opera house

10.16.21

MUSIC

10.16.24

NARRATOR

Another step on the way to modernity was Baku's magnificent opera house, also built

EXT opera house

with Tagiev's money.

INT shots opera house

10.16.33

Opera ran through the veins of Russian culture, but this was the first in a Muslim city, and it became a proving ground for Azeri national identity.

10.16.44

AUDREY ALTSTADT

Opera was such an important vehicle for the articulation

MCU Audrey Altstadt

of national consciousness in Europe, and the most important composers and musicians of

Statue: Uzeyir Hajibeyli

Azerbaijan, Uzeyir Hajibeyli and his circle, were

CU poster for Layla and Mejnun, Saturday 12 January 1908

really inspired by Italian opera and the use of

MCU Audrey Altstadt

historical themes, traditional music, but modern forms, and Azerbaijan is just a leader in this aspect of arts.

Shots at the opera

10.17.13

MUSIC actuality at the opera

10.17.18

NARRATOR

Tonight's opera is a perfect example. European in form, but sounding so different.

10.17.29

Layla and Mejnun - a Persian love story sung in Azeri, and using instruments from east and west.

High shot over Flame towers

10.17.49

MUSIC

10.18.03

NARRATOR

As it does today, the Baku of Ali and Nino thrived on its wealth. Since 1901 its oil fields have been providing more than half the world's oil.

Tracking shot past shops, Baku

10.18.17

Fuelled by the revenue, the population grew at a faster rate than London, Paris, or New York.

10.18.25

SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE

It was an extraordinary place,

MCU Simon Sebag Montefiore

Caption: Simon Sebag Montefiore

Historian

t was cosmopolitan, its millionaires were the oligarchs of the turn of the century.

Tracking shots through Baku streets at night

10.18.32

MUSIC

10.18.33

SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE

It was like a mixture between sort of medieval Baghdad, er, Al Capone's Chicago, and the sort of Paris of the east..

INT shots restaurant

10.18.43

It was literally the most extraordinary place and irrepressible, exciting, fascinating, cosmopolitan kaleidoscope.

MCU Simon Sebag Montefiore

This was a totally thrilling place to be.

B/W still: people in car

B/W still: man and woman

B/W still: 2 children

B/W still: woman on chair

10.18.54

MUSIC

EXT shots buildings in Baku

10.19.07

NARRATOR

Not all these newly wealthy oilmen were philanthropists like Tagiev. They adorned the city with

INT shots building

French-style chateaux and Venetian palaces. Frescoes of nymphs alongside heroes of Islam.

Wisteria growing up wall

10.19.24

But the dazzling facades and secluded gardens couldn't

High shot courtyard

shut out reality.

Low shot outside staircases with Wisteria

10.19.31

Beyond the city walls a growing population of the angry and the poor was taking root.

10.1937

SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE

Everything there was excessive, flamboyant, but also ferocious, because

MCU Simon Sebag Montefiore

at the top you had these sudden new millionaires and their new palaces, but at the bottom you had a huge workforce of 50,000, 60,000 people, who were Azeris, Turks, Persians, mountain Jews, Georgians, Armenians,

B/W stills: oilfield

10.19.58

all of them at war with each other, and along with them was a criminal underclass, led by vicious organised criminals, gangsters.

LS Baku city

10.20.10

MUSIC

10.20.11

NARRATOR

The ancient city seemed to shrink as the gangsters and developers poured into the new town around it.

LS Baku

Caption: Ali & Nino by Kurban Said

10.20.18

READER

There were really two towns, one inside the other. Like a kernel in a nut. Outside the old wall was the outer town, its people noisy and greedy for money.

10.20.31

There were theatres, schools, hospitals, libraries,

High shot sea and city at sunset

policemen and...

10.20.35

MUSIC

10.20.35

READER

... woman with naked shoulders. If there was shooting in the outer town it was always about money.

Oilfields and pumps

10.20.47

NARRATOR

Beyond the outer town were the oil fields and the shanty towns where the workers lived. There too the issue was

B/W archive: oil pumps and workers

money. But in their case - lack of it.

10.20.59

As discontent grew, a singularly interested

B/W still: mugshots - Stalin

outsider began visiting Baku, a political organiser from Georgia called Joseph Stalin.

Fade to black

GVs Baku environs

10.21.12

MUSIC

10.21.15

NARRATOR

They called the oil workers' shacks the black city. To Stalin, it was the perfect

B/W still: Stalin

canvas for his own black arts.

10.21.25

SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE

Stalin was the expert, he was the guy you

MCU Simon Sebag Montefiore

went to if you wanted to organise a bank robbery, if you wanted to execute a double agent or a traitor...

Bes plotters

10.21.32

MUSIC

SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE

...or if you wanted to kidnap someone, he could arrange all of this.

Oilfield with pumps

MCU Fuad Akhundov

10.21.40

FUAD AKHUNDOV subtitles

The mass of Azeri workers lived in appalling conditions ... but were rather

Oilfield with pumps

passive, mainly because of the mullahs.

Stalin saw these

MCU Fuad Akhundov

Azeri workers as his target audience ...an untilled field which he began to cultivate

B/W still: Lenin

10.22.02

MUSIC

10.22.05

NARRATOR

Lenin needed money for the revolution

B/W archive: oil workers

he was planning and Stalin's job was to collect it.

10.22.11

SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE

The only way to do it was

MCU Simon Sebag Montefiore

so-called expropriations, which was a, a sort of euphemism for gangsterism,

B/W still: Stalin

and this sort of group was really hardened, tempered, trained

MCU Simon Sebag Montefiore

in Baku, in the Caucasus, where clan loyalties really mattered, where vengeance was part of daily life, where multiethnic groups fought each other.

B/W still: Stalin

10.22.34

So it was a mixture of sort of gangsterism,

MCU Simon Sebag Montefiore

piracy, and revolutionary enthusiasm.

B/W archive: the Baku strike of December 1904

10.22.40

MUSIC

10.22.43

FUAD AKHUNDOV subtitles

This kind of agitation resulted in the all-out strike of December 1904. Baku

MCU Fuad Akhundov

produced half the world's oil and 96 per cent of Russia's. The strike threatened to paralyse Russian industry and the economy. So the participation of Azeri workers in the strike was... an alarm signal for the Russian authorities.

B/W archive: workers demonstrating at oilfield

10.23.12

MUSIC

10.23.15

NARRATOR

It was a triumph for the Russian

B/W archive: revolution scenes

revolutionary labour movement. The order came from St. Petersburg to buy off the strikers before labour unrest spread any further.

Oilfield with pump

10.23.26

IRADA BAGIROVA subtitles

The oil industrialists were made to sign a collective agreement ... the first in the Russian Empire.

MCU Irada Bagirova

10.23.35

Many regulations were introduced to meet the workers' demands.

B/W archive: oilfield workers

It was amazing for the time.

10.23.42

MUSIC

10.23.43

IRADA BAGIROVA subtitles

Cutting the working day from 14 hours to 9 was a huge achievement.

Building seen across the Neva river

GVs St. Petersburg

10.23.57

NARRATOR

Two thousand miles away in the cold of St. Petersburg, reverberations of the strike shook the imperial government.

B/W archive: Bloody Sunday

Caption: 9th January 1905

10.24.14

In January 1905, on what became known as Bloody Sunday, an unarmed crowd of petitioners was gunned down by the Imperial Guard outside the Winter Palace.

10.24.32

DOMINIC LEVEN

The revolution of 1904 to 5

B/W archive: revolution in Baku oilfield

hit Baku very hard indeed, because there you have the emergence of an

MCU Dominic Leven

Caption: Dominic Leven

Cambridge University

anti-Tsarist and to a great extent anti-capitalist movement, which, there, as in many other parts of the world, gets entangled In a nationalist movement.

Shots in Russian Orthodox church

10.24.50

MUSIC

10.24.50

DOMINIC LEVEN

So you have a situation which is tailor-made for national conflict.

Procession comes out of the church and along street

10.24.59

NARRATOR

Above all, it opened the possibility in the Caucasus that autocratic Russian power under which they had lived for nearly a hundred years might be losing its grip.

Shot over Baku city at night

10.25.10

CHARLES KING

Certainly the thing that develops is this rising sense that you could be Muslim in the Russian Empire,

MCU Charles King

that there was a kind of core national identity that you needed to develop in contradistinction to being Russian

Mountain scenery shots, Azerbaijan

Caption: 1st August 1914

10.25.23

MUSIC

10.25.25

NARRATOR

In 1914, a faraway war broke out between the great European powers. But by pitting Russia against turkey, it forced young

Shepherd with sheep, Azerbaijan

men in Baku to confront an uncomfortable question -

Mountain scenery shot

was it a war they wished to fight in? And if so, on whose side?

B/W archive: solders marching in countryside

10.25.42

MUSIC

10.25.48

THOMAS de WAAL

If you're an Azerbaijani Muslim in 1914 you have a very mixed reaction to what's going on in the world.

MCU Thomas de Waal

Caption: Thomas de Waal

Author, The Caucasus: An Introduction

Where do we belong, er, are we, you know, Russian subjects, Russian citizens, or are we Turks, are we Muslims, or are we a bit of both? And in time of war you have to choose.

EXT opera house, Baku

10.26.06

MUSIC

Shots in opera house

10.26.11

NARRATOR

While the troops were mobilising for battle, Ali and Nino went to the opera.

EXT garden

Afterwards, they met an Armenian friend for a drink in what was then the Baku City Club.

10.26.24

Nino is amazed to find that neither of them want to fight.

MCU Fuad Akhundov

10.26.29

FUAD AKHUNDOV subtitles:

Nachararyan looks at her condescendingly. "We want to fight, Princess, but not against each other. There is a great wall between us and the Russians - the Caucasus Mountains. If the Russians are victorious, we well be completely Russified, lose our religion and our language. We'll become Eurasian mongrels. No! Whoever fights with Russia and the Tsar fights against the Caucasus!"

B/W archive: solders on horseback

10.26.58

READER

My father was surprised and worried. You really do not want to go to war? Most of our ancestors have fallen on the battlefield. It is the natural death of our family.

Man smoking outside building

10.27.09

MUSIC

Caption: Ali & Nino by Kurban Said

10.27.12

READER

I was sitting on the carpet, leaning against the cushions.

Blacksmith at work

I will draw my sword when I want to. Our country will

Men sitting on bench outside building

need my sword later.

Shepherd in mountain pasture

10.27.28

NARRATOR

Europe's war soon spread to Asia.

Oilfield with pumps

It was about resources, but it was about imperial power too.

10.27.37

CHARLES KING

One of the places that this came together was on the frontier between the Ottomans and the Russians.

MCU Charles King

Here you had oil resources, here you had mixed cultures being pulled apart by these empires that were

Map showing Black Sea, Caspian Sea, Russian Empire, Ottoman Empire, Persia, and Baku

clashing over the future of the imperial system.

10.27.54

ALTAY GOYUSHOV

If you look at map you will see the Caspian Sea and you will see the Black Sea. On the north you have

MCU Altay Goyushov

Russian Empire, on the south you have Iran and Turkey. Big countries and between these

Map showing areas occupied by Georgians, Azeris, and Armenians

two countries you have this small nations who are trying to, you know, to establish their own

MCU Altay Goyushov

countries, their own nations, independent nations. And for them, the...

B/W archive: soldiers on horseback

10.28.16

MUSIC

ALTAY GOYUSHOV

...change which this war can bring to the world is kind of opportunity.

10.28.25

NARRATOR

As Russian losses

Mounted solders in retreat with casualties

mounted, disaffection throughout its empire turned into outright revolution. In 1917, the Tsar abdicated and the Caucasus

10.28.40

DOMINIC LEVEN

The basic impact of the Russian revolution

MCU Dominic Leven

on the Transcaucasus in general and what we now call Azerbaijan in particular is that it destroys Russian power.

B/W archive: Baku scenes with life and demonstrations

10.28.49

MUSIC

10.28.52

NARRATOR

It left a vacuum in which subject nationalities throughout the Caucasus all made bids for freedom. But in what form and under which faction was much harder to resolve.

10.29.04

IRADA BAGIROVA

Power change hands literally every couple of months. It was the same all over Russia.

MCU Irada Bagirova

Sometimes they didn’t even manage to change the flags. They flew one flag; a month later, someone else came to power and they'd raise another flag

B/W archive: oilfield with gusher

10.29.20

MUSIC

10.29.20

NARRATOR

The Azeris' bid

B/W archive: soldiers enter Baku

was complicated by their wealth. The Bolsheviks were interested in power, not freedom, and in particular they wanted Baku's oil

B/W archive: Bolsheviks in Baku overlaid with a b/w still of Shaumian in 1917

10.29.31

On orders from Lenin, a man called Stepan Shaumian seized power. Shaumian's allies were Christian Armenians, Dashnaks, as they were called. But he knew that the leaders of the

B/W still: politicians

Muslim Azeri party...

10.29.45

MUSIC

10.29.45

NARRATOR

...actually had far more popular support.

B/W archive: demonstration

He needed to find a way of to neutralise them, and in a

B/W still: Tagiev

tragic twist of fate it was the son of the Azeris' great benefactor Tagiev who gave them the opportunity.

B/W archive: soldiers on horseback

10.30.00

MUSIC

10.30.00

NARRATOR

Tagiev's son was an officer in a Muslim division of what had been the Imperial Army, and at this critical moment he was killed - not in a battle, but a game of Russian roulette.

MCU Altay Goyushov

Caption: Altay Goyushov

Baku State University

10.30.12

ALTAY GOYUSHOV

And funeral for this guy is held in Baku. And according to tradition, all of his, you know, friends from his regiment...

B/W stills: soldiers on horseback

10.30.22

MUSIC

10.30.22

ALTAY GOYUSHOV

...officers, wants to come to Baku to participate in his funeral.

10.30.29

NARRATOR

The friends know they cannot

B/W still: solders - group photo

enter the city bearing weapons, but regimental honour demands that they do.

10.30.36

ALTAY GOYUSHOV

The situation was

MCU Altay Goyushov

used by Shaumian as a pretext, to launch his crackdown on the national forces.

EXT building in Baku with door

10.30.50

READER

Then the telephone rang.

B/W archive: POV shot going through door

Caption: Ali & Nino by Kurban Said

Ilyas Beg's voice came through the receiver. The Armenians have joined the Russians.

B/W archive: tower in Baku

They demand that all Mohammedans give up their weapons not later

B/W still: Muslims in yard

than 3 o'clock tomorrow afternoon. We refuse, of course.

B/W still: Zizianishvili's Gate

10.31.05

You will be at the machine gun at the wall, left of Zizianishvili's Gate.

LS Fuad Akhundov on wall above Zizianishvili's Gate

Caption: Fuad Akhundov

Baku historian

MCU Fuad Akhundov by building

10.31.10

FUAD AKHUNDOV subtitles

It was the last time these defensive walls saw action… March 1918. When the Bolshevik-Dashnak regime unleashed the most vicious slaughter on the town

B/W stills: Dashnak slaughter in Baku

10.31.24

MUSIC

10.31.28

FUAD AKHUNDOV subtitles

Entire Muslim quarters were cut down Around 10,000 people were killed

10.31.50

THOMAS DE WAAL

There was a British intelligence officer who said, when you talk about the streets running with blood, this is usually a bit of a

MCU Thomas de Waal

metaphor and exaggeration, but when you talk about

B/W archive: burning building in Baku

Baku in 1918 this was the literal truth.

B/W stills: Dashnak slaughter in Baku

Mountain scenery shots

10.32.26

NARRATOR

But it was not the end of Azeri freedom.

10.32.29

MUSIC

10.32.29

NARRATOR

It was the beginning. The survivors of the massacre fled to safety in the mountains, and on the 28th of May 1918 their leaders announced the creation

B/W still: mosque with minarets, Ganja

of the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan.

10.32.47

The city of Ganja became their temporary capital, while they

Waves on beach near Baku

planned their return to Baku.

Fade to black

B/W stills: ships at pier

10.32.59

MUSIC

10.33.04

NARRATOR

By now the Bolsheviks had

B/W stills: oilfields and related equipment

taken Russia out of the war. What mattered to the powers still fighting was who controlled the oil wells. Hitherto they'd been protected by the Russian army. Now they were open to all comers.

10.33.20

THOMAS DE WAAL

You have Germans and the British popping up and sailing across the Caspian Sea, an

MCU Thomas de Waal

incredibly complicated theatre of war in,

B/W archive: Baku port and oilfield

in this region, and really the kind of pivotal place is the city of Baku, a huge prize for the oil claimed by the Ottomans, claimed by the British, claimed by the Germans.

10.33.39

MUSIC

Mountain scenery

10.33.45

NARRATOR

The fledgling Azeri government in the mountains sided

B/W archive: soldiers on camels

with Turkey. Ottoman Sunnis and Azeri Shi'ites marched together on Baku.

B/W archive: oilfield

10.33.58

In Baku, there was

Solders on horses in Baku

chaos. The local Bolsheviks had been ousted. Armenians were now in charge.

10.34.08

Ali's hope of returning from exile...

10.34.10

MUSIC

10.34.10

NARRATOR

...hung on a Muslim victory.

Tower in Baku and POV walking in the city

Caption: Ali & Nino by Kurban Said

10.34.14

READER

I called to my homeland as a child calls to his mother. Never, never should I have left this town where God let me be born. I was

High shot Baku street

chained to the old wall like a dog to his kennel. Only a refugee

B/W still: Baku street

knows what his homeland means to him.

B/W stills: British soldiers in Baku

10.34.44

MUSIC

Caption: August 1918

10.34.44

NARRATOR

Fearful of defeat, the new administration invited the British in to help them defend the city. But the British completely misjudged the crisis, sending just a small detachment to assist what they assumed was a viable local army.

10.35.03

ANGUS HAY

They were absolutely horrified to discover that the local peoples of the various different