POSTCOLONIAL IDENTITY AND LANGUAGE HYBRIDIZATION IN AZERBAIJANI PROSE: FORMS OF SELF-EXPRESSION IN THE POST-SOVIET PERIOD

This article explores postcolonial identity and the processes of linguistic hybridization in Azerbaijani prose following the collapse of the USSR. Amid the post-Soviet transformation of cultural, political, and linguistic structures, literature has become a key space reflecting the tension between the legacy of Soviet imperial policy and the desire to develop one's own forms of self-expression. The study draws on concepts by E. Said, H. Bhabha, and G. Spivak, as well as contemporary theories of bilingualism and code-switching, which allow us to view language as a dynamic field of struggle and self-identification. The article analyzes the artistic strategies of contemporary Azerbaijani writers, manifested in the use of hybrid linguistic forms, a mixture of styles, transitions between Azerbaijani and Russian, and the inclusion of elements of colloquial, dialectal, and global vocabulary. Particular attention is paid to how memory, trauma, cultural multiplicity, and the search for an "individual voice" shape the figure of the hybrid subject in literature. As a result, it is concluded that Azerbaijani prose of the post-Soviet period creates a new model of the self, born in the “third space” between tradition and modernity, between the national and the global, between the colonial past and contemporary experience.