Object structure

Caucasus Heritage and Identity Studies (CHIS) is an international, peer-reviewed open-access journal devoted to the historical, cultural, linguistic, religious, and social heritage of the Caucasus and the adjacent regions from antiquity to the present day

This article examines a contradiction at the heart of the constitutional-legal construction of the Republic of Azerbaijan: while proclaiming itself the legal successor of the People’s Republic of Azerbaijan of 1918–1920 and declaring the Soviet period an occupation, it simultaneously relies on borders that were established precisely by Soviet acts of 1921–1923. Drawing on the documents of the Paris Peace Conference, the materials of the League of Nations, the decisions of the Kavbiuro of the Russian Communist Party (the regional decision-making organ of the Russian Communist Party- Bolsheviks), and the Treaties of Moscow and Kars, the article shows that the borders of the first republic acquired neither internal definition nor international recognition: the recognition of January 1920 was de facto only, and the application for admission to the League of Nations was rejected in December 1920, among other reasons because of unresolved territorial disputes with neighbouring states. The article concludes that two incompatible sources of legitimation — a national-democratic one (1918–1920) and a Soviet-administrative one (1921) — coexist within the constitutional construction of the modern state, and that the doctrine of ‘restoration’ is irreconcilable with the principle of uti possidetis on which the international recognition of the post-Soviet borders was based. This collision raises a fundamental question about the limits of historical-legal argumentation in the contemporary political and legal debates of the South Caucasus.

International Association for Caucasus Heritage and Identity Studies

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