XIX Century

 
During the first years of the 19th century Russia re-awoke her expansionist dreams in the caucasus. First the tsar's armies occupied Georgia and during 1806 and 1807 conquered most of Azerbaijan. By 1807 Nakhchivan was the only khanate to remain independent.

The Russians attacked Persia in 1813, with Persia in decline under Shah Fath Ali, the Azeri khanate was ceded to the Russian Tzar Alexander I, bringing the northern part of Azerbaijan to the European sphere of influence. In the treaty of Gulistan Persia and Russia agreed that Azerbaijan would be divided along the Araz River, with Russian Azerbaijan north of the river, and Iranian Azerbaijan to the South.

In 1826 Persia again challenged Russian hold over the region, but was defeated in the decisive battle of Ganja, and soon Russian troops seized Tabriz. The arrangements that define today's borders were made in 1828 in the treaty of Turkmanchay, between Russia and Persia. The Azeri land south of the Araz River remained part of Persia and now integrates the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In the nineteenth century, Russian influence over daily life in Azerbaijan was less pervasive than that of indigenous religious and political elites and the cultural and intellectual influences of Persia and Turkey. During most of the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire extracted commodities from Azerbaijan and invested little in the economy. However, the exploitation of oil in Azerbaijan at the end of the nineteenth century brought an influx of Russians into Baku, increasing Russian influence and expanding the local economy.
 
 

 
XXth Century

Although ethnic Russians came to dominate the oil business and government administration in the late 1800s, many Azeris became prominent in particular sectors of oil production, such as oil transport on the Caspian Sea. Armenians also became important as merchants and local officials of the Russian monarchy.

The population of Baku increased from about 13,000 in the 1860s to 112,000 in 1897 and 215,000 in 1913, making Baku the largest city in the Caucasus region. At this point, more than one-third of Baku's population consisted of ethnic Russians. In 1905 social tensions erupted in riots and other forms of death and destruction as Azeris and Armenians struggled for local control and Azeris resisted Russian sovereignty.

The oil boom, transformed the capital of the northern part of Azerbaijan, Baku, into a cosmopolitan, industrial centre, with a large proletariat living and working in appalling conditions and Russian control. As such, the city was a receptive target for both nationalist groups and the early Bolshevik movement: activists, including the young Joseph Stalin, cut their political teeth fomenting discontent among Baku oil workers.

A leftist party calling itself Himmat (Equality), composed mainly of Azeri intellectuals, was formed in 1903-4 to champion Azeri culture and language against Russian and other foreign influences. A small Social Democratic Party (which later split into Bolshevik and Menshevik factions) also existed, but that party was largely dominated by Russians and Armenians. Some members of Himmat broke away and formed the Musavat (Equality Party) in 1912. This organization aimed at establishing an independent Azeri state, and its progressive and nationalist slogans gained wide appeal. Himmat's Marxist coloration involved it in wider ideological squabbles in the period leading up to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. After several further splits, the remainder of Himmat was later absorbed into the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) .

Oil wealth precipitated a prolonged power struggle in Baku following the 1917 revolution. The nationalists initially seized control and enlisted the support of the British, who allegedly authorised the execution, in 1918, of 26 leading local communists (the 'Baku Commissars'), in an unsuccessful attempt to destroy the Bolshevik power base in the oil industry.