The Baku 2015 European Games as a national milestone of post-Soviet Azerbaijan

Abstract

The Baku European Games, the first multi-sport mega-event held at a European level, was a major public relations undertaking by Azerbaijan. The games were framed by a trend involving large-scale sports events promoted by the Ilham Aliyev government, based on the profits of the second oil boom in the twenty-first century. The sports event served to internationally portray Azerbaijan as a rapidly developing country and in this way to increase national consciousness within the society, which was lacking a collective narrative in the post-Soviet era. Nonetheless, the downturn due to the fall of international oil prices negatively affected the impact of the sports mega-event. Moreover, the sports competition symbolized the government’s commitment to impose reasons of state and nation-building over social needs and political freedoms in Azerbaijan. This article is based on empirical fieldwork carried out in Baku in the months following the multi-sports event.

Keywords:

• megaevent
• post-Soviet
• Azerbaijan
• nation-building
• image boosting

Acknowledgements

I am immensely grateful to Carmen Juncal of the Spanish National Olympic Committee for the support provided. I would like also to express my gratitude to all the respondents and everybody who supported the fieldwork in Baku, whom research confidentiality and security reasons do not permit me to cite.

Additional information

Funding

This research was done under the European Union Framework Programme Erasmus Mundus BACKIS (2012-2741/001-001-EMA2). This research was also supported by the Department of Education, Linguistic Policy and Culture of the Basque Government (IT-881-16).