This interdisciplinary research project located at the intersection of cultural history and musicology intends to revise the musical and cultural history of Azerbaijan in the 20th century from a transregional perspective. It examines tensions and interactions between archaic-traditional and modern, as well as religious and secular and Eastern-Eurasia and Western-European tendencies. The significant tension between modernity and the archaic can be seen as expression of Azerbaijan's specific geo-cultural location at the intersection of three empires: the Russian Empire, which transformed itself into a socialist state in the 20th century, the Persian Empire, which, after a period of secularization, experienced a religious turn, and the Ottoman Empire, which went into a nationalistic-secular direction.
Since the 19th century Azerbaijan, as well as Georgia and Armenia, was culturally orientated mainly towards the Russian Empire. With regard to the development of the arts, the Christian-influenced regions of Transcaucasia differed significantly from Azerbaijan, which was closely connected to Persia in religious terms, to Turkey in linguistic terms and above all to Russia in cultural terms. The musical history in particular mirrors the complex references and developments. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the oral music tradition called muğam prevailed in Azerbaijan. With Azerbaijan’s incorporation into the Russian Empire in the 19th century and the rapid urbanization of Azerbaijani culture, which was closely linked to the industrial revolution and the oil boom (around the turn of the 20th century), the development of a secular (music) culture started.