Some Findings About refugees, emigrants and slaves in Turkey-Azerbaijan Relations in Ataturk's Period

In this paper, a notable contribution was made to the subject of refugees, emigrants and slaves which sometimes came into prominence in Turkish-Azerbaijani relations from the inauguration of Turkish Grand National Assembly to the late 1920s with new information and documents gathered from especially the Prime Ministry Republic Archive and the Red Crescent Archive in addition to the present studies on the subject. In the abovementioned years, the government of Ankara behaved in a friendly way to political refugees who had come from Azerbaijan and helped them without ruining the relations with Soviet Russia and Azerbaijan. On the other hand, the young Turkish Republic, which had just ended the war, tried hard to bring the captives and emigrants left in Azerbaijan geography to the country in spite of limited possibilities. It was seen that the Azerbaijani government provided facilities for the work of Turkish Consulate in Baku in this subject. These relations, of course, resulted in the consolidation of the brotherhood of Anatolian and Azerbaijani Turks. The issue of bringing Turkish war prisoners and warriors to their homeland preserved its importance in the foreign policy of young Turkish Republic afterwards. In this research, detailed information was obtained about the areas of Azerbaijan where the Turkish prisoners and refugees had been concentrated; the fare and other expenses incurred to bring them to Turkey; the problems confronted in captivity and travelling; and the age, gender, and marital status of the prisoners and refugees. It was seen that Turkish prisoners and refugees; majority of whom had been born in Erzurum, Kars and Igdir; were mostly concentrated in the Baku, Gence and, Culfa regions in the Baku Consulate area. Railroads were generally preferred for bringing prisoners to Anatolia and the daily cost of 1 rouble and other expenses were taken on. It can be said that these developments contributing to the understanding of Ataturk period Turkey-Azerbaijani relations present important information in terms of military, social and local history.