The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and its Parliament came to the scene in a very difficult and complicated historical period. The special governing committee for the Transcaucasia made of the elected members of the Transcaucasian State Duma was formed after the February 1917 revolution in Russia. The Transcaucasian Commissariat was established in November. Those Transcaucasian delegates who had been elected to the Russian Constituent Assembly but could not join its proceedings after the Bolshevik coup of October were gathered in Tiflis on 14 February 1918. There, they founded the Transcaucasian Sejm as the supreme power in the Transcaucasia.

Any individual representative of each of the three peoples of the region who served either on the Transcaucasian Sejm or the government put the interests of his people before the common Transcaucasian interests. There was no common platform of any kind. In a word, the disintegration that followed was to be expected. Lastly, the Transcaucasian Sejm held its last meeting on 25 May 1918. Georgia left the Transcaucasian Sejm and declared its independence on 26 May.

A day after the collapse of the Transcaucasian Sejm, namely, on 27 May, the 44 Muslim Sejm delegates are assembled in Tiflis to incept the first Azerbaijani government. Having come to the decision to assume the control of the country, they declare themselves the National Council of Azerbaijan and M. A. Rasulzade is elected its chairman.

The National Council of Azerbaijan passes the Declaration of Independence of Azerbaijan at a meeting chaired by Hasan bey Agayev on 28 May 1918.

The Declaration of Independence

A political order has set in the course of the Great Russian revolution that entailed the disintegration of the individual members of the body of state and the departure of the Russian troops from the Transcaucasia.

Left to their devices, the peoples of the Transcaucasia took it upon themselves to arrange their own fates and established the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. However, the Georgian people thought it best to separate itself from the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic and form the independent Georgian Democratic Republic. The current political situation of Azerbaijan related to the end to the war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire as well as the unprecedented anarchy within the country dictate to Azerbaijan that consists of the Eastern and the Southern Transcaucasia imperatively the necessity of incepting a state organisation of its own so as to lead the peoples of Azerbaijan out of the difficult internal and external position in which they have found themselves. Therefore, the Muslim National Council of Azerbaijan elected by popular vote now declares publicly:

1. From this day onwards, the people of Azerbaijan are the bearers of sovereign rights whilst Azerbaijan is henceforth a rightful independent state that encompasses the Southeast Transcaucasia.

2. The Democratic Republic is now set as a form of political organisation of the independent Azerbaijan.
 
3. The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic seeks to establish good neighbourly relations with all the members of the international community and, in particular, with the neighbouring nations and states.
 
4.  The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic guarantees, within its boundaries, the civil and political rights to all the citizens indiscriminately of ethnicities, religion, social status and sex.
 
5. The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic provides an ample scope for development to all the peoples that populate its territory.
 
6. The National Council elected by popular vote and the Provisional Government accountable to the National Council shall remain the supreme authority of Azerbaijan as a whole until such time as the Constituent Assembly is convened.

The National Council and the Government moved from Tbilisi to Ganja on 16 June 1918.

The real power in Ganja was in the hands of the commander-in-chief of Turkey’s Caucasian Army Nuri Pasha at the time. Under the influence of certain powers disgruntled by ‘the extraneously democratic vector’ of the efforts of both the National Council and the Government of Azerbaijan, Nuri Pasha met them with suspicion. An accord was only achieved after long negotiations and mutual compromises. It was then suggested that the National Council be disbanded, and all the power would go to the new government to be formed yet. The National Council held another (the seventh) meeting under the chairmanship of M. A. Rasulzade to discuss those matters on 17 June 1918.

The two crucial decisions that they made at that meeting were to disband the National Council of Azerbaijan and to transfer all the legislative and executive power to the Provisional Government of Azerbaijan presided over by F Kh Khoyski. Speaking there, F Kh Khoyski pointed out that the struggle for the freedom and independence of Azerbaijan would be the paramount task of the new government he had formed.

At the same time, the Government of Azerbaijan continues the work on organising the state administration body in Ganja. The Azerbaijani language is declared the state one. Another most important move was to pass the decision on 15 July 1918 to set up the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry. Overall, the Government of Azerbaijan in Ganja had done a number of essential jobs in various national areas prior to the move to Baku. Purging Baku of the Central Caspian Dictatorship made up of the Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries and Dashnaks who had captured the city after the demise of the Baku Commune in late July 1918 was one of the topmost missions that the Government of Azerbaijan had ahead of it.

The Caucasian Islamic Army liberated Baku after bitter fighting on 15 September 1918 and the F Kh Khoyski government moved in from Ganja as soon as on the 17^th. Baku was declared the capital of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. The Azerbaijan National Council that stopped its work in Ganja on 17 June 1918 resumed it on 16 November that year. At the first meeting then, the National Council accepted the job of convening the Constituent Assembly upon the request of F Kh Khoyski.  It was said at the meeting of the National Council chaired by M. A. Rasulzade on 19 November that the National Council of Azerbaijan had to represent all the peoples living in the territory of the country.

Thus, it is decided to form a Parliament of Azerbaijan that was to consist of 120 members going by 1 delegate per 24,000 people – 80 Muslims, 21 Armenians, 10 Russians, 1 German and 1 Jew. The law that the National Council passed in this connection stipulated that all the ethnic minority representatives would be included. As regards the Muslims, 44 members of the National Council elected by popular vote would join the new Parliament as its members while more people would be brought in to occupy the remaining 36 seats. The law also determined the number of additional delegates per town and district.

The proclamation ‘To the Whole of the Population of Azerbaijan!’ was issued on 29 November 1918 on behalf of the National Council of Azerbaijan and as signed by its Chairman M. A. Rasulzade.

The parliamentary session was set to start on 3 December 1918 but the Russian and Armenian national councils active around Baku and disposed against the Azerbaijani Parliament tried to use the recently-arrived Allied Force Commander General Thomson to obstruct the opening of the Parliament in every way. The first sitting of the Parliament was shifted to 7 December in view of the negotiations with General Thomson and given that not all the district delegates had been able to reach Baku.

The first sitting of the first parliament in the Muslim East was opened at the former H Z Taghiyev School for Girls in Nikolayev Street (Istiglaliyat nowadays) on 7 December 1918. The National Council Chairman M. A. Rasulzade who had opened the Parliament delivered a great congratulatory speech, too.

A Topchubashev was elected Chairman of the Parliament and Hasanbey Agayev his First Deputy.

Besides, they elected the 3-strong Secretariat of the Parliament with Mehdi bey Hajinsky elected as the Secretary General.

Then, the Provisional Government Chairman F Kh Khoyski tables a performance report and petitions to the Parliament for the resignation of the Government.

The Government accepts the resignation of the Khoyski Government – only to commission him to form a new one. F Kh Khoyski reports in the Parliament on the government programme and make-up on 26 December. The programme is approved, and the new Government is given a vote of confidence.

The Parliament of Azerbaijan was building its work along the organisational principles inherent in democratic republics from the very day of inception. The Parliament had 96 members representing 11 various party fractions and groups by as soon as the end of 1919.

All the party fractions and groups declared their activity programmes. All those declarations had as their shared goals the preservation of the independence and territorial integrity, and the national as well as political rights of the young Azerbaijan Republic, creation and reinforcement of friendly ties of the Azerbaijani people and government with other nations and states, in particular, with the neighbouring states and building up a legal democratic state order, implementing extensive social reforms and building a strong army capable of protecting the country.

Though only active for 17 months, the Parliament of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was able to prove its viability and a high working capacity. It demonstrated that, indeed, the people of Azerbaijan had graduated to the level of parliamentary governance. The Azerbaijan Republic was the sole parliamentary republic in the Muslim East at that time.

The Parliament of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic held 145 sessions in that period; the first one was on 7 December 1918 and the last on 27 April 1920.

More than 270 draft laws were tabled in the Parliament of the Azerbaijan Republic and approximately 230 of them were passed whilst the Parliament remained active.

The Parliament’s work was regulated by ‘the admonishment (instruction) of the Parliament of Azerbaijan’, which played the immediate role as its Charter.

There were 11 functioning commissions in the Parliament. Those were the financial and budgetary commission, the commission for legislative initiatives and conducting elections to the Constituent Assembly, the mandate commission, the military commission, the commissions for agrarian affairs, for economic administration affairs, for the control over the use of national productive powers, for editorial affairs and for working matters.

The division of power into the legislative, executive and judicial branches to establish a law-bound state was premeditated in the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, too.

As for the work done by the Parliament of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, it was generally concentrated on addressing the social, economic and financial problems of the country, maintaining its political and territorial integrity, protecting the citizens’ rights, reinforcing the democratic and legal foundations of the state, providing for the recognition of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic by other states and establishing political, economic and trading ties with other countries and, particularly, with the immediate neighbours. At the same time, the Parliament deliberated upon and enacted in that period the documents on citizenship, compulsory universal military service, press, the establishment of the National Bank and of Baku State University, streamlining the customs and the post and telegraph services, on judicial legislation and so forth.

Besides, achieving the international recognition of the national independence was another of the crucial tasks of the parliament and government of Azerbaijan.

The first foreign political step was to inform the foreign affairs ministries of the countries of the world of the emergence of the Azerbaijan Republic. The difficulties posed by the capital being in Ganja and with setting up missions abroad brought about the relevant appeal of the ministry of foreign affairs of the Azerbaijan Republic to the Ottoman State.

The negotiations held in Batumi – important in the relationship with Turkey built by the South Caucasian Government – came as a milestone in the foreign policies of the now independent republics.

The Treaty of Friendship between the Ottoman Empire Government and the Azerbaijan Republic that was concluded on 4 June 1918 is deemed the first official document for the Azerbaijan Republic ever to sign with another state. In the critically important Article 4 of the 11-article document contains the stipulation that ‘the Ottoman Government shall take it upon itself to extend military assistance should same prove necessary for the reinforcement of peace and order for the maintenance of the security of the country.’ Beside this treaty were signed the agreements and the protocols about the Baku-Batumi oil pipeline and the South Caucasian Railway. Georgia, Turkey and Azerbaijan agreed in the Baku-Batumi oil-line agreement to keep it functioning within their respective territories. In the second agreement, the one about the railway, the Caucasus and the Ottoman State consented to dividing amongst themselves the railway transport means formerly in the Russian possession.

Two more agreements were signed in Batumi on 14 June in addition to the peace and friendship treaty. Namely, the first of those two held that the 4^th of June Treaty also applied to Germany and Austro-Hungary and that Turkey assumed the obligation to have its allies recognise the independence of Azerbaijan.

The Azerbaijani governmental delegates at the Istanbul Conference attended by Germany, Austro-Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria and the Caucasian states had been authorised to sign political, economic and military documents with the participating powers. The secret negotiations between Germany and the Soviet Russia resulted in the signing of the agreement of the 27^th of August apart from the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Chapter IV of that agreement was concerned with the Caucasus. In Article 13, Russia expressed its consent to Germany recognising the independence of Georgia. It was stipulated in  Article 14 concerning Azerbaijan that Germany would in no way help Azerbaijan and would not agree to the deployment of a third force in the said territories and that, at the same time, a certain portion of the Baku oil would be handed over to Germany. That part of the agreement was directed against the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, wherefore the Government of Azerbaijan handed the German delegate Graf von Waldburg a note. The international situation changing in favour of the Entente and certain diplomatic endeavours resulted in Germany denouncing the agreement of the 27^th of August officially. At the same time, Germany let it be known that it intended to build diplomatic relations with Azerbaijan and recognise it officially. Further, Germany promised that Azerbaijan would be recognised by the Soviet Russia.

The Armistice of Mudros signed on 30 October 1918 had very grave political consequences for Azerbaijan, amongst others: the Item 11 of the Armistice Treaty envisaged Turkey’s departure from South Azerbaijan and the South Caucasus alike.

On 10 November 1918 followed an appeal of the Azerbaijani Government to the US President for a worldwide recognition of the independence of Azerbaijan. Simultaneously, the Azerbaijani delegation began negotiations with the British Command in Anzali. The complications that sprang from the Allied troops’ entry in Baku and the subsequent diplomatic efforts made certain that the Allied Command recognised Azerbaijan de facto.

The victorious countries decided at the end of the Great War to call a peace conference in Paris in order to accommodate and consolidate their victory as well as to address the problems that had arisen in the international arena. The representatives of the Government of Azerbaijan had had their attendance of the international peace conference warranted at the talks they held with the Allied Command’s General Thomson in Anzali. They wanted to achieve the following four important goals by taking part in the peace conference: 1) to meet with the delegates of the Allies – the USA, France, Great Britain and Italy as well as with the delegates of the Netherlands and Switzerland and have Azerbaijan recognised as a sovereign state; 2) form a public opinion of Azerbaijan; 3) present the information about Azerbaijan at meetings with public and political luminaries as well as leaders of various organisations; and 4) enter commercial relations with the trade and industrial circles of other countries and collect the materials required for the future of Azerbaijan.

The leader of the delegation going to the Paris Peace Conference A. M. Topchubashev met with the US diplomat in Istanbul Naesk and asked him for assistance in applying the US President W Wilson’s Fourteen Points to Azerbaijan and in having the USA recognise Azerbaijan’s independence. A memorandum about the current situation of Azerbaijan was put forth at a meeting with the representatives of the Netherlands, Switzerland and Great Britain in Istanbul; also there, they agreed that those states would inform accordingly the appropriate diplomatic missions in their respective territories. At a meeting with the envoy of Denikin’s government Sazonov, A. M. Topchubashev tried to persuade the latter to desist from the struggle for ‘the whole and indivisible Russia’ while at a conversation with the Iranian foreign minister Aligulu khan Ansari, who was hostile to the independence of Azerbaijan, A. M. Topchubashev was able to ease Ansari’s attitude. The Iranian representatives at the Peace Conference gave their word to protect the independence of Azerbaijan – except that a word only that remained, too.

Wilson made an address to all the opposed forces in Russia during the Paris Peace Conference that had started on 18 January. He proceeded to propose on 15 February a conference on the Prinkepos (Büyükada) Island in the Sea of Marmara. Azerbaijan, absorbed in the struggle for the recognition of its independence, declined. Differently from the Azerbaijani delegates, the representatives of Armenia and Iran at the Paris Conference voiced territorial claims to Azerbaijan.

The Azerbaijani delegation only made it to Paris in early May. The Azerbaijani issue was first discussed at a meeting of the Big Four – the leaders of the USA, France, Italy and Great Britain – at the suggestion of the US President W Wilson. There, they consented to A. M. Topchubashev being recognised as the leader of the Azerbaijan delegation.

Lifting the occupation regime in Baku starting in 1919 was discussed with the British representative Sir Mallet on 23 May. The deliberations about the mandates for the Straits and in the Caucasus aroused the interest of the USA and Wilson received the Azeri delegation in late May. The memorandum that was tabled before the president told of Azerbaijan; in addition, the further six-item requests were put forth. The latter included the recognition of the independence of Azerbaijan, the application of the Wilson Principles to Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan’s admission to the League of Nations, military help to Azerbaijan from the US Department of Defence and establishment of diplomatic relations between the USA and Azerbaijan. However, Wilson, without letting his opinion about the independence be known, firstly witnessed his dedication to resolving the Russian issue.

Azerbaijan and Georgia signed a military defence pact in Tiflis in June 1919. The pact envisaged mutual military assistance in case of an aggression jeopardising the territorial integrity and independence of either party, and precluded them from entering into separate peace accords.

The interests of the major powers clashed in the struggle over the mandate of the region. Specifically, the USA was backing the territorial claims of Armenia to Azerbaijan and driving for creation of the Nakhchivan and Sharur-Dereleyez governorate general. The Azerbaijani delegation emphasised at their meetings as well as in notes of protest that such encroachments were ineligible. The Azerbaijani Government would only accept the provisions of the Haskell Project on condition that the said territory would remain a part of Azerbaijan.

The Azerbaijani-Armenian agreement secured with the mediation by the US mission in Tiflis was a landmark. The Article 3 of the document secured the consent of the parties to the US arbitration with regards to matters that they themselves would not be able to settle. However, that agreement became null with the departure of the American Army from the Caucasus.

The leader of the delegation in Paris A. M. Topchubashev signed an agreement with Chandler, a member of the US Congress’ House of Representatives, in September 1919 to the effect that a legal counsel would be appointed to defend the interests and independence of Azerbaijan in the USA.

In October, the head of the foreign political department of the French Colonial League advocated the factual and juridical recognition of Azerbaijan and made it clear that he had appealed to the government of Clemenceau to post an envoy to the country.

The four-article alliance agreement that was signed between Iran and Azerbaijan came to exemplify the diplomatic successes of the Azerbaijani delegation in their efforts to make Iran change its hard-line attitude: the agreement was about the recognition of Azerbaijan as an independent state.

A memorandum declaring the independence of Azerbaijan was drawn up at a meeting of the Supreme Council in Paris in January 1920. That document also covered the issues related to the Caspian Sea defence and sending financial, military and food aid to Azerbaijan. Thus, the Azerbaijani delegation had fulfilled the goals set before it good and proper – especially, inasmuch as the recognition of the national independence was concerned. The agreement that Azerbaijan and Iran signed in March declared the de jure recognition of Azerbaijan’s independence.

The subjects of oil, the Batumi issue, the Russian issue and the Turkish-Armenian borders that interested Azerbaijan were discussed at the Sanremo conference in April.

Azerbaijan discontinued its work done to strengthen the independent state with the occupation of 28 April 1920. Azerbaijan, a country that had gained the actual international recognition as a result of the long and hard efforts, had only been able to remain independent for 23 months.