The Independence Museum of Azerbaijan

In this paper I will examine the curatorial narrative of the Independence Museum of Azerbaijan, founded in January 1991. The museum has an interesting history, invoking in its name and location, the first museum dating back to the pre-Soviet period of the first republic (1919). According to its official website, “[t]he main goal of the museum is to highlight national independence movement of Azerbaijan at different stages of historical development.” In pursuit of this goal, the museum counterpoises Azerbaijan as a nation-state to much of its surrounding region, chiefly, Iran. I shall examine the museum’s construction and representation of being Azeri as both an ethnicity and as nationhood. Inevitably, this examination tends to the often-fraught geopolitics constructed by the museum’s curatorial narrative. The museum deals with an issue of national significance to Azeris, attentive to trace the origin of the nation-state as a geopolitical unit. In so doing, it shares some common devices with many other museums, in terms of designating key figures and golden periods in the history of the nation’s evolution. It does, however, present a significant focus on the nations ‘detractors’ or even enemies, such as Iran and Armenia. Despite its specificities, the curatorial narrative of this museum relates to that of other museums, including the carpet museum in Baku.