[2] At the beginning of the 18th century, a movement was launched among the ethnic groups of this part of the Caucasus against Persian rule in the region.

It currently appears less likely than ever that the Lezgins will resort to any sustained collective action to address their grievances, although isolated incidents do occur.

In the past eight years, they have not engaged in any serious protests and only two incidents of violence; they have also shown a willingness to negotiate and compromise on their most intractable demands.

The Lezgin nationalist movements do not receive wide support among the Lezgin people who are not well-organized at the grass-roots levelAccording to Thomas de Waal:[5] Although there are no discriminatory policies against them on the personal level, the Lezghins* campaign for national-cultural autonomy is vehemently rejected by the Azerbaijani authorities.

Daghestani Lezghins fear that the continued existence of their ethnic kin in Azerbaijan as a distinct community is threatened by what they consider Turkic nationalistic policies of forceful assimilation.