So did Azerbaijan exist or not? (MP against vox populi). How old are the Azerbaijani people: once again about the identity of Absheron Muslims

In the last few days, the entire Azerbaijani-language Facebook has attacked Milli Majlis deputy and oppositionist Fazil Mustafa with accusations, however, Russian-language Facebook also contributed. The parliamentarian was defamed with all sorts of words, but all because he wrote on his page on this social network that in history there was no state called “Azerbaijan”...

He made a similar statement on the air of one of the Azerbaijani TV channels. “I know only one truth. The state of Azerbaijan was formed only in 1918. Today's Azerbaijan is the heir of this very state. I said this on television,” the deputy claims, adding that everyone who objects should give examples or try to convince him.

There, on FB, he expresses the idea that in Azerbaijan many people invent history and exploits so that the people believe in their heroic past. “However, our society needs the truth, and even if some consider it revisionism or blasphemy, I don’t care!” - he writes. The lawyer especially emphasizes that quite a lot of time has passed since his speeches in the media on this topic, but no counterarguments appeared anywhere to cross out his statements, and there were no more or less objective objections as such. That is, no one dared to argue with him on the basis of facts and concrete evidence.

A little history

Let us, however, before being indignant or agreeing with Fazil Mustafa, try to analyze his stunning declarations for many. So, according to all written sources, the traceable history of Azerbaijan dates back to the 1st millennium BC, when the state of Manna was formed on the territory of northern Iran. Having significantly expanded its borders by the 7th century. BC, in alliance with Babylonia, it conquered Assyria and Urartu. Thus, a new state appeared - Media. Under the Iranian ruler Atropate, Manna received the name Median Atropatene. According to some versions, it was from this word that the modern name “Azerbaijan” was subsequently derived.

“Azer” in Arabic means fire, and “Azerbaijan” thus means “land of fires or fire worshipers.” During the formation of the Arab states, Azerbaijan came under their influence, and Islam began to spread on its territory (7th century AD). After Arab conquest the territory was called Aderbaijan, combining North and South Azerbaijan. With the invasion of the Seljuk Turks and Mongol-Tatars, the process of Turkization began (XI-XIV centuries), and the states of the Atabeks, Gara-Goyunlu and Aggoyunlu appeared here. Later, the Safavid state appeared on these lands, in the 16th-18th centuries, and its territory became the object of struggle between Persia and the Ottoman Empire.

Before the annexation of Azerbaijan to Russia (1813-1828), it consisted of several feudal states (khanates), the largest of which were Kuba, Baku, Karabakh and Shirvan. After joining Russia, the territory of modern Azerbaijan began to be called the Baku province. On May 28, 1918, the first parliamentary democratic republic in the Muslim East - the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic - ADR) with its capital in the city of Ganja was proclaimed in the eastern part of the South Caucasus. After the occupation of the ADR by the Red Army, the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic was created, and in December 1922, the entire Transcaucasia, which territorially included Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia, formed the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (TSFSR). Later, in 1922, it became part of the USSR, and in 1936 it was dissolved, thereby forming three separate republics that became part of the USSR.

As you can see, the name "Azerbaijan" our country received it only in 1918. No matter what anyone says, history is as stubborn a thing as facts, and in fact F. Mustafa told the truth.

Friendly neighbors - Baku Tatars

Azerbaijanis are one of those peoples who, due to their origin, in some respects stand apart. One of the reasons is that the past is practically closed to us: over the course of less than a century, only the alphabet was forced to change three times, that is, the whole people had to re-study the written heritage three times. It was especially difficult during the transition from Arabic to Latin script.

Before the October Revolution, when there was no particular smell of atheism, Azerbaijani intellectuals, as true Muslims were supposed to, began their works with the Koranic saying “Bismillah Rahmani-rahim,” that is, “in the name of Allah I begin.” And for representatives of the new government, all books beginning with “the name of Allah” were naturally subject to immediate destruction, by the way, just like those individuals, who was educated in some Istanbul, Najaf or Damascus.

In addition, people who could read and write using the Arabic alphabet were considered illiterate, and in post-revolutionary conditions they turned out to be so - their knowledge was not suitable for the new government. In pre-tsarist times, when the Azerbaijanis were subjects of the Persian Shah, they were treated as wayward and restless people, and were not very favored. Although among those who at different times occupied the throne or were very close to it, there were also Azerbaijanis. Looking ahead, I will note that to this day - now in modern Iran - the attitude of the authorities towards the Azerbaijanis is approximately the same, and for good reason. The Azerbaijanis were at the origins of all the revolutions that took place in Iran in the 20th century. The nation, which makes up almost half of the country's population, still does not have the opportunity to educate children in their native language.

Oil and gas fields located on the territory of Iranian Azerbaijan are not developed in order to avoid the concentration of a critical mass of people capable of organizing there. Until recently, Tabriz, the capital of southern Azerbaijanis, was completely inaccessible to “Soviet” Azerbaijanis.

For those who, as a result of the division of Azerbaijan, found themselves on this side of the Araz (Araks) River, that is, within the Russian Empire, little has changed. In tsarist times, Azerbaijanis, as unreliable people (non-Christians), had special “privileges”. They were not taken into the army (except perhaps the sons of some highly distinguished aristocrats). They were so distrusted that Russian or Armenian settlers were settled along the state borders in Azerbaijan just in case. Azerbaijanis were even denied a self-name (which was and still is the case in Iran), perhaps with the aim of dissolving into the mass of other nationalities. They were called, at best, with light hand“benevolent” neighbors, Muslims, Caucasian Turks, Caucasian or Baku Tatars, who pleased the imperial authorities with their religious affiliation.

The phenomenon of a young nation

Despite the abundance of historical material on ancient and medieval Azerbaijan, the essence and criteria of the “Azerbaijani state” phenomenon have not been fully explored. The question is: which of the countries that existed in antiquity and the Middle Ages can be called “Azerbaijani” and which cannot? The complexity of the problem is due to the fact that the lands of Azerbaijan were not always part of a single state, and not all states created by our ancestors were called “Azerbaijan”. In particular, the states that existed on its modern territory bore alternately different names - Manna, Media, Caucasian Albania, Shirvan, Arran, the states of the Eldenizids, Elkhanids, Safavids, etc. In general, the nation state is a phenomenon of late times. In the Middle Ages, throughout the world, states were tribal, dynastic, but not national, in the modern sense of the word, in character. This was the case in Europe and Asia, and Azerbaijan is no exception in this sense.

The culmination of nation-state building in Azerbaijan was the proclamation on May 28, 1918 of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR) - the first republic in the entire Muslim world. Unlike medieval state formations, the ADR was nation state, which does not protect the rights of this or that feudal dynasty to own this or that part of the country, but realizes the right of the Azerbaijani people to national self-determination.

Leader of the national movement M.E. Rasulzade, at a meeting of the ADR parliament in 1919, dedicated to the anniversary of the independence of Azerbaijan, said the following in this regard: “All other states of Turkic origin in their emergence were based mainly on a religious basis, while the Republic of Azerbaijan is based on the modern basis of national-cultural self-determination , on the basis of Turkic national democratic statehood.” For the first time in the Islamic world, the ADR introduced a multi-party parliamentary system, a republican system, separated church and state, adopted a law on the national language, ensured the rights of national minorities and granted women the right to vote. From this date, the countdown of a new era in the history of state building in Azerbaijan began.

Answering the bewildered question of Baku students back in 1918, the famous historian and orientalist Vasily Bartold wrote: “... the term Azerbaijan was chosen because when the Republic of Azerbaijan was established, it was assumed that Persian and this Azerbaijan would form one whole... On this basis it was the name Azerbaijan was adopted.” Later, after the fall of the ADR, the Azerbaijan SSR from a non-national republic, according to the plan of the “father of nations,” was to become a national republic and cease to be an exception among other republics created on a national basis.

The political aim of this project, which for obvious reasons was not advertised, was to create an independent nation from a local ethno-conglomeration, equidistant from the Turkish and Persian identities. This was the underlying idea behind the project. Again, personally M.E. Rasulzadeh was responsible for resolving the issue of the historical name of the northwestern province of Iran, which, despite the protests of Iran, was assigned as the name of the first proclaimed statehood.

Both in 1918-1920, and after the establishment of Soviet power in Baku, the name “Azerbaijan” had no geographical meaning in relation to the east of Transcaucasia, since it was introduced as the name of a state entity. Eastern Transcaucasia had never been called Azerbaijan before. There was no such concept as “Azerbaijanis” in the lists of the First All-Union Census; it did not exist. There is hardly any doubt that, given even the most minimal prerequisites for uniting the disparate Turkic unions into a nation, the leaders of the Soviet state would not fail to take advantage of this opportunity.

In the questionnaires of the All-Union Census, the Turkic Muslim population of Transcaucasia was included under the collective column “Turks”, since the Soviet authorities (as of the mid-twenties) could not offer anything more substantive - the people did not emerge in any way and the name “Azerbaijanis” appeared only after Stalin's decisions.

So Fazil Mustafa did not reveal anything unusual, he simply presented historical realities. We should not be like the Armenians and build myths - oh, they say, how ancient we are. Yes, we are a young state and a young nation, and we should be proud of this no less than Americans are proud of the United States.

Haykaram Nahapetyan
Correspondent for the Public Television of Armenia in the USA

Today’s Azerbaijan, by analogy with “caviar diplomacy”, is developing “caviar science”, not only in Azerbaijan, but also abroad, ordering “research” in which the territory of the modern Republic of Azerbaijan, as well as Artsakh, Zangezur and Yerevan, are presented as the millennia-old homeland of Azerbaijanis . Baku retroactively declares Christian monuments in the designated territories or in other Armenian settlements to be Albanian. Even if they were Albanian, even then Azerbaijan has no advantages over Armenia in terms of claiming the role of heir to the historically Christian territories of Aluanq. On the contrary, the Albanian/Aluan civilization was very close to the Armenian, having nothing in common with the Turkic-Tatar appearance of Azerbaijan.

As much as today's Egyptian Arabs can claim to be the historical owners of the pyramids, today's residents of Azerbaijan can claim that they have rights in relation to the Christian monuments of Aluanq. The only difference is that in Egypt no one makes such ridiculous statements.

However, there is something that Baku is no longer physically able to change - studies about our region already published in past centuries or decades. In those years, Azerbaijan was either not independent or did not exist at all, so neither “caviar diplomacy” nor the Heydar Aliyev Foundation operated at that time, and foreign specialists were free to conduct their research as objectively as possible.

The study of these particular studies can shed another ray of light on the Armenian-Azerbaijani contradictions both in Artsakh and on the topic of history in general.

At the same time, a significant part of these studies did not actually have any anti-Azerbaijani or pro-Armenian orientation. They simply stated objective reality.

What did the world's encyclopedias write?

The first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica dates back to the 18th century (1768-1771). The Brockhaus and Efron encyclopedia published in the Russian Empire began publication in 1890. and was completed in 1907. The first encyclopedia on the topic of Islam was published in 1913, when the first volume was published. Groups consisting of dozens of specialists from the best worked on the encyclopedias. scientific institutions. What did they say about Armenia and Azerbaijan?

Particularly noteworthy seems to be the Encyclopedia of Islam, the first edition of which was published in the Dutch city of Leiden under the title The Encyclopedia of Islam: A dictionary of the Geography, Ethnography and Biography of the Muhammadan peoples in 1913-1930 In 1960 publication of the updated edition has begun The Encyclopedia of Islam: new edition. The Azerbaijan section is presented differently in the two publications. Their comparison allows us to see the dynamics of the international perception of Azerbaijani identity.

In the first edition (1913), the name “Azerbaijan” referred exclusively to Iranian Atropatene. There is not a word about any Caucasian Azerbaijan in the encyclopedia. According to the encyclopedia, “modern Azerbaijan (talking about 1913. – Note A.N. ) in the north borders the Caucasus." That is, according to the encyclopedia, there is no Azerbaijan in the Caucasus, it exists only to the south of the Caucasus.

The encyclopedia presents Armenia in detail as a country in contact with the Muslim world and a geographically close country. Moreover, if the section of Azerbaijan takes up one and a half pages in the book, then Armenia is given 14 pages.

The publication calls Gandzak - Elisavetpol province and the city of Ordubad - part of Eastern Armenia. About Nakhichevan and Artsakh we read: “Nakhichevan, like Yerevan, played a key role in the history of Armenia. Shushi, part of the Karabakh region, was previously the capital of a separate khanate."

The existence of the Karabakh Khanate is not denied in Armenian historiography. Another thing is how it is connected with Azerbaijan. The Khanate was not called Azerbaijani, was not part of independent Azerbaijan, and before the conclusion of the Treaty of Gulistan it was under the control of Persia, not Azerbaijan. Otherwise, the tsarist general Rtishchev in October 1813. in Gulistan would have signed an agreement with Azerbaijan, and not with the Persian authorities. Modern Iran has never made any territorial claims to the Caucasus, citing its long-standing rule. But the Baku scribblers, for some unknown reason, “privatized” part of the Persian rule, and at the same time, as we will see, also the Persian poet.

The context of the medieval history of Karabakh includes five local melikates, providing Artsakh with a semi-independent position.

In the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Islam (1960) the picture is somewhat different. Here Azerbaijan is again presented as one of the regions of Persia. Nevertheless, three paragraphs were added that fit on half a page, which talk about the already existing Caucasian non-sovereign Azerbaijan. It is noteworthy what the authors wrote about the newly-minted “Azerbaijan-2”: “Turkish troops led by Nuri Pasha occupied Baku on September 15, 1918. and reorganized the former region, calling it Azerbaijan, explaining this by its similarity with the Turkic-speaking population of the Azerbaijan region in northern Persia."

In this edition, the encyclopedia also devotes 4 pages to the “Azerbaijan” section, and 16 pages talk about Armenia. It is quite obvious that there is nothing special to tell about Azerbaijan, and in general it is not yet entirely clear what to do with “Azerbaijan-2”. The Stalinist dictatorship could invent a new ethnic group, and then invent a history and poets for this ethnic group and impose it all within the framework of a totalitarian system. But in foreign academic circles, for which Soviet decrees were not a basis, confusion arose for a time with Azerbaijan.

In the section on Armenia in connection with the regrettable Alexandropol Treaty of 1920. in the new edition of the encyclopedia we read: “Turkey recaptured Kars and Ardahan, annexed the Igdir region lying southwest of Yerevan, and also demanded that Nakhichevan be established as an autonomous Tatar republic.”

We are talking about an encyclopedia published in 1960, that is, only 54 years ago, in which the authors define current Azerbaijanis as Tatars. And regarding Karabakh, it is noted that previously it was part of the Artsakh province of Armenia, “which in 1918-1920. was free from foreign domination." And it was not at all part of Musavatist Azerbaijan, as Azerbaijani propagandists claim.

In the 1940s The first edition of the encyclopedia, with some changes, was published in Turkey. As historian Ruben Galchyan noted, one of the changes concerned the paragraph about Azerbaijan, which received a curious appearance: “The name Azerbaijan was used in relation to the northwestern regions of Iran, occasionally to Aran and Shirvan. After May 28, 1918 The state of Caucasian Azerbaijan was officially named Azerbaijan."

The last sentence may cause laughter due to its absurdity. In fact, in this paragraph, official Ankara tried to help its younger brother through falsification, distorting the original text of the Leiden Encyclopedia. But in Azerbaijan of the 21st century, this paragraph is unlikely to be perceived unambiguously positively, based on the fact that only 70 years ago, even for fraternal Turkey, the regions north of the Araks River were, at best, “occasionally called Azerbaijan” (and not constantly, as it wanted Baku), and modern Azerbaijan, according to a Turkish source, received this name, if not a nickname, only 97 years ago.

The Encyclopedia Britannica does not mention Caucasian Azerbaijan until the 14th edition. In the second volume released in April 1930. In the 14th edition we read that “the northwestern province of Persia, Azerbaijan, borders Soviet Azerbaijan in the north across the Araks River.” 85 years ago, the Encyclopedia Britannica simply did not write any other details about the Absheron country.

By the way, among the inhabitants of Iranian Atropatene, Britannica notes Turks, Armenians, Persians and Kurds, but not Azerbaijanis. According to the same source, “Iranian Atropatene borders on the Talysh country in the east.” We are talking about the modern Lenkoran region. It turns out that, according to perhaps the most authoritative encyclopedia of its time, there is no Azerbaijan and Azerbaijanis, but there are Talysh and the Talysh country.

The same 7-page encyclopedia talks about the history, literature, culture and language of Armenia, provides illustrations and maps.

The publication of the 14th reprint of the Encyclopedia Britannica was completed in 1973, and a year later the 15th reissue began to be printed under the title New Encyclopedia Britannica. This time it was written about Azerbaijanis that they are a people of mixed ethnic origin. The encyclopedia does not even hint that the southeastern part of the Caucasus historically belonged to the Azerbaijani people.

According to the Russian Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron, Azerbaijan is the northwestern part of Persia, separated from Russian Armenia by the Araks River. From which it follows that the imperial encyclopedia also considered all of Karabakh as part of Russian Armenia.

In the Azeri section published in 1984. in the US encyclopedia “Muslims” we read: “Azeri Turks sometimes call themselves Azerbaijanis. They are divided into two groups, being under the dominion of the Persians and the Russians."

From Alexandre Dumas to Joseph Stalin: following the transformation of Tatars into Azerbaijanis

Author of "The Three Musketeers", "The Count of Monte Cristo" and other bestsellers of his time, Alexandre Dumas since June 1858. to February 1859 lived in the Russian Empire, and for the last three months - in the Caucasus, in particular in Tiflis, Dagestan settlements and Baku. Caucasian memories are summarized in Dumas’s book “The Caucasus,” published in the spring of 1859. in France, and in 1861 republished in Russia (with abbreviations).

The Russian gendarmerie kept an eye on Dumas, and from different parts of the country telegraphed to St. Petersburg about the movements of the French writer. Neither Dumas' memoirs nor the reports of the vigilant tsarist gendarmes mention Azerbaijan or Azerbaijanis. For example, the police report that on October 14, 1858. Dumas visited the house Astrakhan governor Struve, where he saw “Armenians, Tatars and Persians, in their home life and in national costumes.”

Dumas' Caucasian notes have put current researchers of Azerbaijan in a difficult position. The world fame of the writer is attractive, and it would be desirable for Azerbaijani writers to convey to the current generation the warm memories of the famous novelist about Azerbaijan. It is not clear what to do with such a small inconvenience: just 170 years ago, Dumas did not see either Azerbaijan or Azerbaijanis in the Caucasus (unlike Armenians, Georgians or, say, Lezgins). Doctor living in France historical sciences Aygun Eyubova in her article “Dumas’s book “Caucasus” and his impressions of Azerbaijan” decided to ignore this inconvenience. Even more than that: Eyubova writes on her own behalf that Dumas fell in love with Azerbaijan very much and called upon the Azerbaijanis to be especially trusted among all the Caucasian peoples. Eyubova’s task was somewhat complicated by the need to directly quote the French writer himself. What to do if in Dumas’s quotes he talks about the Tatars and Persians living in Absheron or, say, characterizes Baku as “a city with a Persian appearance”? In such cases, next to the quote there is an editor's note that Dumas, it turns out, when speaking about the Persians or Tatars, did not actually mean what he wrote. And by what miracle Azerbaijani researchers of the 21st century managed to figure out these subtleties is not indicated in the article.

“We remind the reader that Dumas meant Azerbaijanis by “Tatars”, and by the adjective “Tatar” he meant “Azerbaijani” - ed.,” we read in Eyubova’s article, published in the Azerbaijani magazine “Irs-Heritage”. The same article contains the following quote from Dumas: “We came to Mahmud Bek. His house is one of the most charming Persian buildings that I have seen from Derbent to Tiflis (In Dumas’s novel, Azerbaijanis and the term “Azerbaijani” are sometimes also called Persians and “Persian”, respectively - ed.).”

Considering that the abbreviation “ed.” is indicated, and not the initials of the author of the article, one must assume that Dr. Eyubova, nevertheless, did not risk “correcting the mistakes” of the great novelist; this was done later - in the editorial office IRS-Heritage.

Dumas did not come to Armenia. However, the German traveler August von Haxthausen (1792-1866), who visited Yerevan and the northeastern regions of Armenia, visited us.

“The Shamshada region of the Elisavetpol province is inhabited by Armenians and Tatars. Armenians live in the mountains, the Tatars, who are more numerous, on rich plains. Armenians are engaged in agriculture, goat breeding and viticulture. The Tatars are engaged in animal husbandry, horse breeding... The Tatars are rich and lazy, the Armenians, on the contrary, are very hardworking,” wrote a German traveler.

None of the encyclopedias of the late 19th and early 20th centuries presented at the beginning of the article contain any mention of any version of the ethnonym Azerbaijani ( Azeri, Azerbaijani, Azerbaijani).

In 1913 In the article “Marxism and the National Question,” Joseph Dzhugashvili-Stalin mentions the Caucasian Tatars 11 times, but nowhere does he write the word “Azerbaijani.” After the October Revolution, on November 20, 1917, in his appeal to the Muslims of the East, Vladimir Lenin also did not mention the Azerbaijanis, but wrote about “the Turks and Tatars of the Caucasus.” In the American press of the same period, Muslims were called “Tartars”: the New York Times newspaper in the article “The Armenians of Baku are being destroyed” uses the variant “harar”. White Guard General Anton Denikin in his memoirs calls Musavatist Azerbaijan an artificial country - starting with its name.

In 1926 The first population census was conducted in the Soviet Union. Among the registered nationalities, there are again no “Azerbaijanis”. The census results mention such peoples as the Yakuts, Mordovians, Buryats, Vainakhs, Permyaks, but not the Azerbaijanis. The list contains the ethnonym “Turks”, under which what was later called “Azerbaijani” was partially included. Published in 1929 in the Tbilisi official statistical directory “Transcaucasia in Figures” the ethnonym “Azerbaijani” is again missing. On January 21, 1936, receiving the delegation of Soviet Azerbaijan in the Kremlin, Vyacheslav Molotov spoke about the peoples inhabiting Azerbaijan: “Russians, Armenians and Turks.” The then Prime Minister of the Soviet Union (Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars) did not know the word “Azerbaijani”.

Ethnically, Stalin's Gulag was as diverse as the Soviet Union, and since 1934. The People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) of the USSR prepared annual reports for the authorities on the ethnicity of prisoners. Up to 1940 (!) there are no “Azerbaijanis” in the NKVD reports. You can even find Japanese or Koreans on the list, but not Azerbaijanis.

Published in 1991 The series of articles by Russian historian Viktor Zemskov, “The Gulag: Historical and Sociological Aspect,” presents the ethnic composition of prisoners. The attached table, taken from the researcher’s article, clearly shows that for the first time the term “Azerbaijani” was used only in 1940, and regarding previous years, Zemskov noted: “there is no information about Azerbaijanis,” adding that before 1939. Azerbaijanis were registered in the column “other peoples”.

In 1939 The ethnonym “Azerbaijani” was absent from the NKVD lists, but in the population census for the same year, unlike the 1926 census, Azerbaijanis were already mentioned. This contradictory situation continues for about another decade.

In particular, noting the 1944 census. and 1947, Zemskov writes that the number of Azerbaijanis in the Gulag is several times smaller than the number of Armenians and Georgians. “In our opinion, the answer lies in the fact that in the list of nationalities certain “Turks” are mentioned, and Azerbaijanis and Turks are Turkic-speaking peoples, and the Gulag statisticians apparently included a significant part of the prisoners of these two nationalities among them,” he writes.

The collapse of the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Republic in 1937 gave a special impetus to the formation of the new ethnic group. Thus, Azerbaijan became a union republic, which, unlike Georgia and Armenia, had no history and for which it was urgently necessary to come up with a separate history.

The phrase of the author of the book “Azerbaijan from Independence and Beyond,” Svante Cornell, uttered on January 13, 2011, is typical. at Johns Hopkins University of Washington. Addressing the then Ambassador of Azerbaijan Yashar Aliyev, he exclaimed: “Who are you? Azerbaijanis, Azeri, Turks?..” After some confusion, the ambassador answered: Azerbaijanis.

Who is the first famous Azerbaijani?

The Azerbaijani side often accuses Armenians of attributing Armenian origin to various celebrities with non-Armenian surnames. It must be admitted that such a phenomenon actually occurs. We often look for something Armenian outside of Armenia. But is it unreasonable? For centuries, Armenia was characterized by mass emigration, and Armenians leaving for all four corners of the world gradually assimilated into the societies that received them, be it Poland or Singapore, Hungary or the USA. But if in the past painstaking work was required from Armenian specialists to substantiate the Armenian origin of our foreign compatriots with non-Armenian surnames, then modern DNA tests ( DNA) greatly facilitate the matter, allowing non-Armenian specialists to clarify how significant the presence of Armenian genes is in other societies. The latest example of this is information about the Armenian origin of the English Princess Diana and Crown Prince William. It can be assumed that new high-profile discoveries are ahead, especially in connection with the development of DNA tests.

A more thorough analysis shows that the tendency to appropriate someone else’s property is more typical for today’s Azerbaijan. The reason is obvious: in addition to self-promotion, this is also part of attributing the history of centuries and millennia to one’s own ethnic group. As evidenced by many of the examples given, until modern times the Azerbaijani nation did not exist. Moreover, attempts to detect Azerbaijanis in any historical period inevitably contain elements of disinformation.

Let us turn to some of the names presented by Baku as outstanding Azerbaijanis - from Nizami to Muslim Magomayev.

The only “argument” for misleading incompetent people regarding the Azerbaijani origin of the poet Nizami Ganjavi (1141-1209) can be the fact that he was born in Ganja-Gandzak, a city now located on the territory of Azerbaijan. But by the same logic, the Armenian historian Kirakos Gandzaketsi (1203-1271), who was born in the same place and at about the same time, can also be considered Azerbaijanis, even if his work is called “History of Armenia”.

Of course, Nizami was not Azerbaijani. This did not stop Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to the USA Elin Suleymanov in January 2013. at the international forum on cultural diplomacy to make an epoch-making statement, saying, “scientists still have not figured out: did Shakespeare influence the Azerbaijani poet Nizami, or did Nizami influence Shakespeare?” This again confirms that in the course of our own falsifications, our neighbor may find himself, to put it mildly, in a ridiculous position. The fact is that Shakespeare lived almost four centuries later than Nizami, so the latter could not have been familiar with the work of the English playwright. And Shakespeare’s acquaintance with Nizami’s works is also very unlikely: Shakespeare could hardly have been impressed by Nizami’s poetry, since he did not speak oriental languages ​​to even read them. During Shakespeare's lifetime, Nizami had not yet been translated into English, and computer programs like Google translator It hasn't happened yet. To make its own falsification of Nizami’s appropriation more convincing, Baku is trying to make sensational statements, achieving the opposite result.

About 120 years before Suleymanov's speech, the Hungarian Jewish scholar Wilhelm Backer (1850-1913) published an extensive study on Nizami. In 1870, graduating from the University of Leipzig, Backer defended his thesis on Nizami’s work, which was later published as a separate book and translated into English in 1873. In this book, Nizami is considered a Persian poet whose mother was Kurdish. “His mother was of Kurdish origin, and the poet dedicated several lines to her,” writes Baker.

My mother, of distinguished Kurdish lineage,
My mother, in like manner, died before me.
To whom can I make my sorrowing supplication?
To bring her before me to answer my lament?

This is what Nizami himself writes. The poet’s lines about his Kurdish origin do not at all prevent the Absheronians from continuing to claim that he is Azerbaijani.

The appropriation of Nizami occurred in the late 1930s. On behalf of Stalin, Iranist Evgeniy Bartels took up the matter. Moreover, earlier, during the tsarist period, he published works in which Nizami was still called a Persian. This historical episode was examined in detail by researcher and journalist Aris Ghazinyan.

Let us note that Nizami is considered a Persian in the Encyclopedia of Islam, and in the Encyclopedia Britannica you can read that the Persian Nizami, according to one version, was born not in Ganja, but in Persia itself - in the city of Qom, 125 km southwest of Tehran, and then moved to Ganja.

“The place of his birth, or at least his father’s house, was on the heights of Qom, but he lived almost his entire life in Ganja, in Aran, which is why he became famous under the name Nizami Ganjavi,” notes the encyclopedia.

It is also noteworthy that Ganja, according to the encyclopedia, is not in Azerbaijan, but in Aran.

At the already mentioned forum, Azerbaijani Ambassador Elin Suleymanov introduced another writer, Kurban Said, as an Azerbaijani. If in the case of Nizami the Azerbaijani people are unanimous on the issue of his alleged Azerbaijani origin, then in the case of Kurban Said there are isolated exceptions, when even in Azerbaijan they admit that Kurban Said, nevertheless, was not an Azerbaijani.

For some time, mystery reigned around the name of Kurban Said. In 1935 the manuscript of his most famous work - the story "Ali and Nino" - mysteriously ended up in an Austrian publishing house E.P. Tal, which published the story in 1937. The book became a bestseller. The following year, the publishing house published the second and last work of Kurban Said, “The Girl from the Golden Horn.”

In the work of the American researcher Tom Reis, “The Orientalist: Unraveling the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life,” it is revealed that the author of the book is Lev Nussimbaum.

Lev Nussimbaum was born in 1905. in Kyiv in a Jewish family, although, according to Reis, he may have been born during the Nussimbaums' move from Zurich to Tiflis and the exact place of his birth is unknown. But it is known that Lev Nussimbaum’s father, businessman Abraham Nussimbaum, was from Tiflis, and his mother, Berta Slutskin-Nusimbaum, was a Belarusian Jew and a revolutionary.

When Lev was one year old, his parents moved to Baku to start the oil business. In 1918, during the reign of 26 Baku commissars, they moved to the other side of the Caspian Sea, then to Persia and returned to Azerbaijan again. In 1920, after the establishment of the Bolshevik system, 14-year-old Lev Nussimbaum and his father finally left Baku - first to Menshevik Georgia, then through Istanbul to Germany, where Lev developed literary activities.

The Azerbaijani propaganda machine claims that under the pseudonym Kurban Said it was not Nussimbaum who worked, but the Azerbaijani writer and diplomat Yusif Vezir Chemenzeminli. The latter was the ambassador of Musavatist Azerbaijan in Istanbul, and after Sovietization he moved to Paris, then in 1926. turned to the then head of Soviet Azerbaijan, Sergei Kirov, with a request to return to Baku. The request was granted and he returned to Baku. In 2011, a magazine published in the USA Azerbaijan International dedicated an entire issue to proving Chemenzeminli’s copyright on “Ali and Nino.” In 1994 The Institute of Literature of Azerbaijan (by the way, named after Nizami) decided to publish the story “Ali and Nino” authored not by Kurban Said, but by Yusif Chemenzeminli.

As much as Nizami is an Azerbaijani, Chemenzeminli is the author of this book. The Azerbaijani “arguments” cited as evidence of his authorship are presented below, with comments in parentheses.

A. Yusif Vezir Chemenzeminli was a writer, the author of a number of artistic and literary works (Like Lev Nussimbaum. According to various estimates, he wrote about 40 books over the years of his life in Europe under the pseudonym Esad Bey).

B. Chemenzeminli, like the main character of the book, Ali Shirvanshir, received a diplomatic appointment in Paris (it’s not true, he worked in Istanbul, and after Sovietization he moved to Paris to live).

V. Chemenzeminli’s daughter studied in the same real gymnasium as the heroine of the book Nino (Kurban Said, living in Baku, studied in the same gymnasium as the hero of the book Ali).

G. Chemenzeminli, like the hero of the book, watched the opera “Eugene Onegin” in Baku (we will leave this “extremely logical” argument without comment).

Let us present a few simple judgments that simply exclude the authorship of Chemenzeminli. Firstly, the manuscript of the book was submitted to the publishing house in 1935, when the Musavat activist had already been living in Azerbaijan for ten years. As noted, the story was written in German. The Azerbaijani writer-diplomat did not speak German. True, Azerprop claims that he took German at school. But is school knowledge really enough to write a book in twenty years?

The book contains a number of factual inaccuracies about Baku that Baku resident Chemenzeminli could not make, but for Nussimbaum, who left this city at the age of 14, they are quite acceptable.

In the story “Ali and Nino” there are formulations that make it very unlikely, if not impossible, that their author could be a Muslim. Let's give a few examples.

The father of the main character Ali Shirvanshir, addressing him, says: “Don’t give mercy to the enemy, son, we are not Christians.”

“The Karabakh people call [their land] Sunyuk, and even earlier they called it Agvar.”

“It’s stupid to hate Armenians so much,” etc.

It is difficult to imagine that a Musavatist official would call Karabakh Sunyuk - probably a corruption of the Armenian toponym "Syunik", and then Agvar - probably dating back to the Armenian Agvank. Tom Reis, having familiarized himself with the arguments of the Azeri prop, said: “It’s amazing that someone can take this theory seriously. The vizier was simply a fanatical nationalist."

The Jew Lev Nussimbaum lived in Germany and Austria during the period of the spread of fascism. At first, he signed his literary works with the pseudonym Esad Bey, hiding his Jewish origin. In 1935, however, it turned out that Essad Bey was a Nussimbaum Jew. Therefore, he chose a new literary pseudonym - Kurban Said.

Let us note that Tom Reis, during his research, discovered an autobiography written by Lev Nussimbaum, signed by Kurban Said. “Why is it that the author of a novel first published in German in 1937 in Austria<…>declared Chemenzeminli remains a mystery to me today.<…>When I got acquainted with the biography of Chemenzeminli, I was not left with doubts about his authorship (but I remember that I really wanted it to be that way, and there was hope that sooner or later the Azerbaijani original would be found).”

The Soviet generation is well aware of the name of Muslim Magomayev. He collaborated particularly successfully with one of the famous Armenian composers - Arno Babajanyan, as well as with Alexander Ekimyan, Alexander Dolukhanyan. Magomayev was born in Baku in 1942 and dedicated songs to this city. But is he Azerbaijani?

"Mother's striking appearance<…>, apparently, to a large extent because she has a lot of blood mixed in her: her father was a Turk, her mother was half Adyghe, half Russian... She herself is from Maykop,” writes Magomayev.

About his paternal grandmother, Baidigul, Magomayev writes that she was a Tatar. Since the singer wrote his memoirs in the Soviet period, when the word “Azerbaijani” already existed, one must assume that when he said “Tatar,” he meant the Tatars. Tatars still live in Azerbaijan as a national minority - approximately 25,000 people. They speak Tatar, some of them come from Crimea. Baidigul is a Tatar, not an Azerbaijani name.

Let's turn to Magomayev's paternal grandfather, that is, to the Magomayev family. It was his paternal grandfather, Abdul-Muslim Magomayev, who played a decisive role in Muslim becoming a singer. He was a composer and directed the Baku Philharmonic. Naturally, in Azerbaijan they claim that he was Azerbaijani by nationality. However, they cannot ignore the fact that Abdul-Muslim Magomayev, who is considered an “Azerbaijani,” was born... in Grozny.

On the official website of the Ministry of Culture of the Chechen Republic we read: “The Magomayev family originates from the ancient Chechen village of Starye Atagi.” Abdul-Muslim Magomayev was born on September 6, 1885. in Grozny in the family of the blacksmith-gunsmith Magomet, from whom, apparently, the surname Magomayev came. Moreover, Abdul-Muslim’s brother, Malik Magomayev, was also a musician, continued to live in Chechnya and was never called an Azerbaijani. Malik Magomayev owns the melody of the famous dance in Chechnya “Lezginka Shamilya”.

In the 1960s, young Muslim Magomayev even lived in Grozny for some time. Moreover, he moved to Baku again by accident: during his vacation he went to Azerbaijan, and there he was called to the Central Committee of the Komsomol and offered to go to Helsinki for the International Youth Festival as a delegate from Azerbaijan. The young singer first won the main prize in Helsinki, and then performed very successfully at the Palace of Congresses of the Moscow Kremlin. Of course, after all this, the communist leaders of Azerbaijan could not return Magomayev to Chechnya. Through material incentives - in particular, by deciding housing problem- he is being transported to Baku.

During his years in Chechnya, Muslim Magomayev was close to the Chechen singer Magomet Asaev, whom, according to him, Magomayev inspired. Asaev also notes that Muslim Magomayev’s grandfather was born in Chechnya, at one time he studied music in the city of Gori, but when he returned to Grozny, the authorities of the Russian Empire did not allow him to teach music, since at that time only Christians in Chechnya had the right to work as teachers. So Abdul-Muslim Magomayev decided to move to Baku, where it was relatively freer. By the way, on Azerbaijani websites, among the works of Abdul-Muslim Magomayev, they prefer to mention the works “On the Fields of Azerbaijan” or “Dance of the Liberated Azerbaijani Woman” written in the Soviet years, but in no case his symphonic works on Chechen themes. On Apshero websites it is impossible to find out about the “Chechen Dance” or “Songs and Dances of Chechnya” written by Magomayev Sr.

The famous Chechen dancer Makhmud Esambaev once asked Muslim Magomayev why he introduced himself as an Azerbaijani (although not always. - A.N. ).

“I was born and lived my whole life in Azerbaijan,” the singer answered.

So what? And I was born in a garage, but because of this I didn’t become a machine,” Esambaev joked.

But these facts have no meaning for the Azerbaijani propagandist, who once and for all defined Magomayev as “Azerbaijanis” - some difficult-to-understand ethnic group with which Magomayev does not have any genetic connection.

During the Great Patriotic War Before each battle, the commander of the 35th Tank Guards Brigade, Azi Aslanov, liked to loudly repeat “shimon.” Many did not understand what this meant, including Major Stepan Milyutin, who was under his command. Aslanov died a few months before the end of the Great Patriotic War - on January 25, 1945, and Milyutin found out the meaning of this word many years later. He learned from Talysh community activist Davlat Gahramanov that “shimon” translated from Talysh means “forward!” .

Born in the Talysh-Mugan region, in particular in the village of Gamyatuk near Lankaran, Azi Aslanov (1910-1945) was also appropriated by Baku, turning him into an Azerbaijani. After the war, a soldier from the same brigade, Ivan Ogulchansky, wrote a book about Major General, Hero of the Soviet Union Aslanov. It is quite obvious that the writer in his biographical book avoided details related to the nationality of Azi Aslanov. After 1937 the identity of the Talysh was banned in the USSR, and the author, in fact, did not want to write “Azerbaijani”. Theoretically, it is not excluded that Ogulchansky wrote “Talysh,” but censorship edited these passages. The book contains several noteworthy episodes related to Aslanov's nationality.

“The broad-shouldered elderly man asked loudly:

What is your nationality?

Aslanov answered."

Ogulchansky does not note what exactly Aslanov answered.

And one of the Ukrainian heroes of the book, addressing Aslanov, says: “Long live the friendship between Ukrainians and Azerbaijan.” The fact that Azerbaijan is indicated, and not “Azerbaijanis,” which would be more logical, again testifies to Ogulchansky’s dual position.

In 1985 Soviet Azerbaijan filmed about Aslanov Feature Film“I loved you more than life itself.” The hero of the film speaks Azerbaijani along with Russian, but also mentions his native Lenkoran, leaving the question of his nationality unclear. One must assume that the filmmakers chose to avoid a sensitive topic. But the word “shimon” in the film was replaced by the Azerbaijani “gyattik”.

Today Azerbaijan is acting more decisively. Just two years ago, in an article about Azi Aslanov on Wikipedia, one could still see a mention that Aslanov was Talysh. But through the efforts of Azerbaijani propaganda, this “addition” was removed, and now Aslanov is presented exclusively as an Azerbaijani in the electronic directory. By the way, in order to substantiate this statement for Wikipedia, Azeri scribblers refer to Ogulchansky’s book, and even indicate a page on which, however, such wording is absent.

All these famous people were not Azerbaijanis. All attempts to find a famous Azeri in ancient times are obviously doomed to failure. The famous Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Khadzhibekov is a Dagestani, his brother even worked under the pseudonym Dagestani.

The apotheosis of stealing other people's artists and ending up in a ridiculous situation can perhaps be considered the sensational statement that Sayat-Nova is an Azerbaijani. The new nationality of the medieval lyricist Harutyun Sayadyan was discovered by the Azerbaijani journalist and culturologist Elchin Alibeyli. True, he did not specify how it happened that the “Azerbaijani” was buried in the courtyard of the Armenian Church of St. Gevorg in Tbilisi, where Sayat-Nova’s grave is located to this day.

It seems that the first more or less famous Azerbaijani in the world can be considered... Heydar Aliyev.

Despite all the tricks, there is simply no other famous Azerbaijani (even a notorious one) who lived earlier.

Summary

Let's return to the question posed in the title: how old are the Azerbaijani people? Based on the year of the Soviet census - 75, and according to NKVD documentation - 74.

Of course, one census cannot create a new ethnic group. But, perhaps, it was Stalin’s and Beria’s documentation of 1939-1940. can be considered a “birth certificate” of the Azerbaijani people. After all, the same Stalin insisted on donating Artsakh to Azerbaijan (the majority of the Caucasian Bureau was against it); it was by Stalin’s decision that Nizami “became” an Azerbaijani. In 1937-38 The repressive apparatus of the NKVD suppressed the ethnic identity of national minorities, exiling and shooting intellectuals of the Talysh, Lezgins, Uds and other small peoples, closing their schools and newspapers and “optimizing” hundreds of thousands of people as Azerbaijanis. With the dissolution of the Transcaucasian Federation in 1936. and according to the Stalinist constitution adopted in the same year, the artificial and inflated formation of the Azerbaijani nation began. And finally, in the system of the same NKVD, Heydar Aliyev took the first steps of his rapid career, whom Zardusht Alizadeh considers “the last representative of Stalin’s political legacy.”

So, why not record this particular period as the year of birth of Azerbaijanis?

During his lifetime, Joseph Stalin was called the “father of nations.” At least one nation can still consider this to be the case today.

P.S. In 1764 German researcher Carsten Niebuhr rewrote and brought to Germany cuneiform from the Persian Mount Behistuni. When it was deciphered, in paragraph 26 they read: “I sent an Armenian named Dadarshish, my slave, to Armenia.”

The Behistun cuneiform was carved more than 2500 BC.

Today this is the oldest known mention of the Armenians...

There, p. 22.

There, p. 23.

Stalin I.V., Marxism and the national question, Enlightenment, 1913, No. 3, 4, 5, http://www.marxists.org/russkij/stalin/t2/marxism_nationalism.htm

8. Alexandre Dumas, “The Caucasus”, preface by Mikhail Buyanov “About Dumas’s Caucasus”.

9. Haxthausen Baron August Fon, Transcaucasian region, Zemtki, St. Petersburg, 1857.

10. Anton Denikin, Essays on Russian Troubles.

11. V.N. Zemskov, “GULAG: Historical and Sociological Aspect”, 1991.

12. Aris Ghazinyan, “Polygon Azerbaijan”. – Yerevan, 2011.

13. William Bacher, Nizâmî"s Leben und Werke, und der Zweite Theil des Nizâmî"schen Alexanderbuches, 1871.

14. The Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition. – New York, 1911.

15. Tom Reiss, “The Orientalist: solving the mystery of a strange and dangerous life”, 2006.

16. Azerbaijan International, Chamanzaminli’s son Orkhan Vezirov counters Reiss’s tale, p. 140, 2011.

17. Ivan Ogulchansky, “Azi Aslanov”. – M.: Military Publishing House of the Moscow Region, 1960.

• HOW TO CREATE A PEOPLE: THE TASK OF FORMING AN AZERBAIJANI IDENTITY IN THE XX CENTURY
• WHICH PARLIAMENT FIRST RECOGNIZED THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE?
• HAYKARAM NAHAPETYAN: KRUGER’S BOOK AND BAKHMANOV’S SIGNATURE - COSTS OF AZERBAIJANI PROPAGANDA

The historical lands of Azerbaijan, surrounded from the north by the Greater Caucasus Mountains, from the west by the Alagyoz mountain ranges, including the basin of Lake Goyja and East Anadolu, from the east by the Caspian Sea, and from the south by the expanses of Sultaniat-Zanjan-Hamadan, are one of the centers ancient culture, which stood at the origins of modern civilization.

On this territory - the historical lands of Azerbaijan - the Azerbaijani people created a rich and unique culture and traditions of statehood.

The historical pronunciation of the name "Azerbaijan" has varied. Since ancient times, from the origins of civilization, this name has sounded like Andirpatian, Atropatena, Adirbijan, Azirbijan and, finally, Azerbaijan.

Writing in modern form- "Azerbaijan", based on ancient historical, anthropological, ethnographic and written sources.

Items discovered during archaeological excavations made it possible to study the history of life and culture of Azerbaijan. Based on ethnographic materials collected during the expeditions, traditions, everyday and moral culture, ancient forms of government, family relationships, etc. were studied.

As a result of archaeological research carried out on the territory of Azerbaijan, valuable samples related to the everyday life and cultural objects of the first inhabitants who inhabited it were discovered, which served as the key to including the territory of our Republic in the list of territories where the formation of man took place.

The most ancient archaeological and paleontological materials were found on the territory of Azerbaijan, confirming the beginning of life here primitive people 1.7-1.8 million years ago.

The territory of Azerbaijan is extremely rich in archaeological monuments, confirming that this country is one of the most ancient places of human settlement in the world.

Archaeological finds discovered in the caves of Azykh, Taglar, Damdzhily, Dashsalakhly, Gazma (Nakhichevan) and other ancient monuments, including the jaw of the Azykh man (Azykhanthropus) - an ancient man of the Acheulian period who lived here 300-400 thousand years ago, indicate that Azerbaijan to the territories where the formation of primitive people took place.

Thanks to this ancient find, the territory of Azerbaijan is included in the map “The Most Ancient Inhabitants of Europe.” The Azerbaijani people, at the same time, are one of the peoples with the traditions of ancient statehood. The history of Azerbaijan's statehood dates back approximately 5 thousand years.

The first state formations or ethnopolitical associations on the territory of Azerbaijan were created starting from the end of the 4th, beginning of the 3rd millennium BC in the Urmia basin. The ancient Azerbaijani states that appeared here played an important role in the military-political history of the entire region. It was during this period in the history of Azerbaijan that there was a close relationship between the ancient states of Sumer, Akkard and Ashur (Assyria), located in the Dejla and Ferat valleys, which left a deep mark on world history, as well as the state of Hittite, located in Asia Minor.

In the 1st millennium BC - the beginning of the 1st millennium AD, such state formations as Manna, Iskim, Skit, Scythian and such strong states as Albania and Atropatene existed on the territory of Azerbaijan. These states played a big role in improving the culture of public administration, in history economic culture country, as well as in the process of forming a single people.

At the beginning of our era, the country faced one of the most difficult trials in its history - in the 3rd century, Azerbaijan was occupied by the Iranian Sassanid Empire, and in the 7th century by the Arab Caliphate. The occupiers resettled a large population of Iranian and Arab origin into the country.

In the first centuries of our era, Turkish ethnic groups, which made up the bulk of the country's population and were more organized and strong from a military-political point of view, played a crucial role in the process of forming a single people. Among the Turkish ethnic groups, Turkish Oguzes predominated.

Since the first centuries of our era, the Turkish language has also been the main means of communication between small peoples (minorities) and ethnic groups living on the territory of Azerbaijan, and also played a connecting role between the north and south. At that time, this factor played a very important role in the formation of a single people, since in the period being described there was still no single religious worldview - monotheism, covering the entire territory of Azerbaijan. The worship of Tanra - the main god of the ancient Turks - tanryism - has not yet sufficiently oppressed other religious worldviews and has not completely supplanted them. There was also Zarduism, fire worship, worship of the Sun, Moon, sky, stars, and so on. In the north of the country, in some parts of Albania, especially in its western regions, Christianity spread. However, the independent Albanian church operated in conditions of intense rivalry with neighboring Christian concessions.

With the adoption of the Islamic religion in the 7th century, a radical change occurred in the historical predestination of Azerbaijan. The Islamic religion gave a strong impetus to the formation of a single people and its language, and played a decisive role in accelerating this process.

The existence of a single religion between Turkic and non-Turkic ethnic groups throughout the territory of their distribution in Azerbaijan was the reason for the formation of common customs, the expansion of family relations between them, and their interaction.

The Islamic religion united under a single Turkic-Islamic banner all the Turkic and non-Turkic ethnic groups that accepted it, the entire Greater Caucasus and opposed it Byzantine Empire and to the Georgian and Armenian feudal lords under her tutelage, who tried to subjugate them to Christianity. Since the middle of the 9th century, the traditions of the ancient statehood of Azerbaijan have been revived again.

A new political upsurge began in Azerbaijan: on the lands of Azerbaijan, where Islam was widespread, the states of the Sajids, Shirvanshahs, Salarids, Ravvadids and Shaddadids were created. As a result of the creation of independent states, there was a revival in all areas of political, economic and cultural life. The Renaissance era began in Azerbaijani history.

The creation of their own states (Sajids, Shirvanshahs, Salarids, Ravvadids, Sheddadids, Sheki rule) after enslavement by the Sassanids and Arabs for about 600 years, as well as the transformation of Islam throughout the country into a single state religion, played an important role in the ethnic development of the Azerbaijani people, in the formation of its culture.

At the same time, during that historical period, when individual feudal dynasties often replaced each other, the Islamic religion played a progressive role in uniting the entire Azerbaijani population - both the various Turkic tribes that played a major role in the formation of our people, and the non-Turkic ethnic groups that mixed with them , in the form of a united force against foreign invaders.

After the fall of the Arab Caliphate, starting from the middle of the 9th century, the role of Turkic-Islamic states increased, both in the Caucasus and throughout the Near and Middle East.

The states ruled by the Sajids, Shirvanshahs, Salarids, Ravvadids, Shaddadids, Sheki rulers, Seljuks, Eldaniz, Mongols, Elkhanid-Khilakuds, Timurids, Ottomanids, Garagoyunids, Aggoyunids, Safavids, Afshanids, Gajars and other Turko-Islamic dynasties left deep trace in history statehood not only of Azerbaijan, but also of the entire Near and Middle East.

From the XV-XVIII centuries and in the subsequent period, the culture of Azerbaijan's statehood was further enriched. During this period, the empires of Garagoyunlu, Aggoyunlu, Safavids, Afshars and Gajars were ruled directly by Azerbaijani dynasties.

This important factor had positive influence on the internal and international relations of Azerbaijan, expanded the sphere of military-political influence of our country and people, the sphere of use of the Azerbaijani language, and created favorable conditions for even greater moral and material development of the Azerbaijani people.

During the period described, along with the fact that the Azerbaijani states played an important role in international relations and the military-political life of the Near and Middle East, they took a very active part in Europe-East relations.

During the reign of the great statesman of Azerbaijan Uzun Hasan (1468-1478), the Aggoyunlu Empire turned into a powerful military-political factor throughout the Near and Middle East.

The culture of Azerbaijani statehood has received even greater development. Uzun Hasan introduced a policy of creating a powerful, centralized state, covering all lands of Azerbaijan. For this purpose, a special “Legislation” was published. At the direction of the great ruler, “Korani-Kerim” was translated into Azerbaijani, and the outstanding scientist of his time, Abu-Bakr al-Tehrani, was entrusted with writing the Oguzname under the name “Kitabi-Diyarbekname”.

At the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th centuries, Azerbaijani statehood entered a new stage of its historical development. The grandson of Uzun Hasan, the outstanding statesman Shah Ismail Khatai (1501-1524), completed the work begun by his grandfather and managed to unite all the northern and southern lands of Azerbaijan under his leadership.

A single Safavid state was formed, the capital of which was Tabriz. During the reign of the Safavids, the culture of Azerbaijani government grew even more. The Azerbaijani language became the state language.

As a result of successful reforms of internal and foreign policy carried out by Shahs Ismail, Tahmasib, Abbas and other Safavid rulers, the Safavid state turned into one of the most powerful empires Near and Middle East.

The outstanding Azerbaijani commander Nadir Shah Afshar (1736-1747), who came to power after the fall of the Safavid state, further expanded the borders of the former Safavid empire. This great ruler of Azerbaijan, a native of the Afshar-Turkic tribe, conquered Northern India, including Delhi, in 1739. However, the plans of the great ruler to create a powerful, centralized state in this territory did not materialize. After the death of Nadir Shah, the wide-territorial empire he ruled fell.

Local states appeared on the soil of Azerbaijan, which, even during the life of Nadir Shah, made attempts to rise up to fight for their freedom and independence. Thus, in the second half of the 18th century, Azerbaijan broke up into small states - khanates and sultanates.

At the end of the 18th century, the Gajars (1796-1925), an Azerbaijani dynasty, came to power in Iran. The Gajars again began to implement the policy begun by their great-grandfathers of subordinating the Garagoyun, Aggoyun, Safavid and all other territories that were under the rule of Nadir Shah, including the Azerbaijani khanates, to centralized rule.

Thus began the era of many years of wars between the Gajars and Russia, which was trying to seize the South Caucasus. Azerbaijan has become a springboard for bloody wars between two great states.

Based on the Gulustan (1813) and Turkmenchay (1828) treaties, Azerbaijan was divided between two empires: Northern Azerbaijan was annexed to Russia, and Southern Azerbaijan was annexed to the Gajar-ruled Iranian Shah. Thus, in the subsequent history of Azerbaijan, new concepts appeared: “Northern (or Russian) Azerbaijan” and “Southern (or Iranian) Azerbaijan”.

To create support for itself in the South Caucasus, Russia began to massively resettle the Armenian population from neighboring regions to the occupied Azerbaijani lands, in particular, the mountainous regions of Karabakh, the territories of the former Erivan and Nakhichevan khanates. On the lands of Western Azerbaijan - the former territories of the Erivan and Nakhichevan khanates, bordering Turkey, the so-called "Armenian region" was urgently created and for a specific purpose. This is how the foundation for the creation of the future Armenian state was laid on the soil of Azerbaijan.

In addition, in 1836, Russia liquidated the independent Albanian Christian Church and placed it under the control of the Armenian Gregorian Church. Thus, even more favorable conditions were created for the Gregorianization and Armenianization of Christian Albanians, who are the oldest population of Azerbaijan. The foundation was laid for new territorial claims of Armenians against Azerbaijanis. Not satisfied with all this, royal Russia resorted to an even more dirty policy: having armed the Armenians, it incited them against the Turkic-Muslim population, which resulted in massacres of Azerbaijanis in almost the entire territory occupied by the Russians. Thus began the era of genocide of Azerbaijanis and the entire Turkic-Muslim people of the South Caucasus.

The struggle for freedom in Northern Azerbaijan ended in unprecedented tragedies. In March 1918, the Dashnak-Bolshevik government of S. Shaumyan, which seized power, carried out a ruthless genocide against the Azerbaijani people. Brotherly Türkiye extended a helping hand to Azerbaijan and saved the Azerbaijani population from the wholesale massacre carried out by the Armenians. The liberation movement won and on May 28, 1918, the first democratic republic in the East was created in Northern Azerbaijan - the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, being the first parliamentary republic in the history of Azerbaijan, was, at the same time, an example of a democratic, legal and world state in the entire East, including the Turkic-Islamic world.

During the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, the history of parliament was divided into two periods. The first period lasted from May 28, 1918 to November 19, 1918. During these 6 months, the first parliament in Azerbaijan - the Azerbaijan National Council, consisting of 44 Muslim-Turkic representatives, made extremely important historical decisions. On May 28, 1918, the Parliament declared the Independence of Azerbaijan, took over the issues of government and adopted the historic Declaration of Independence. The second period in the history of the parliament of Azerbaijan lasted 17 months - from December 7, 1918 to April 27, 1920. During this period, among others, it is necessary to note the Law on the establishment of the Baku State University adopted by Parliament on September 1, 1919. The opening of the national university was a very important service of the leaders of the Republic to their native people. Although the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic subsequently fell, the Baku State University played a vital role in implementing its ideas and in achieving a new level of independence for our people.

In general, during the existence of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, 155 parliamentary meetings were held, of which 10 took place during the period of the Azerbaijan National Council (May 27 - November 19, 1918), and 145 during the period of the Azerbaijan Parliament (December 19, 1918 - April 27, 1920).

270 bills were submitted for discussion in Parliament, of which about 230 were adopted. Laws were discussed in a heated and business-like exchange of opinions and were rarely adopted before the third reading.

Despite the fact that the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic existed for only 23 months, it proved that even the most brutal regimes of colonies and repression are not able to destroy the ideals of freedom and traditions of independent statehood of the Azerbaijani people.

As a result of military aggression Soviet Russia The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic has fallen. The independence of Azerbaijani statehood in Northern Azerbaijan has come to an end. On April 28, 1920, the creation of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (Azerbaijan SSR) was announced on the territory of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.

Immediately after the Soviet occupation, the process of destroying the system of independent government created during the existence of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic began. The "Red Terror" reigned throughout the country. Anyone who could resist the strengthening of the Bolshevik regime was immediately destroyed as an “enemy of the people,” “counter-revolutionary,” or “saboteur.”

Thus, after the March genocide of 1918, a new round of genocide of the Azerbaijani people began. The difference was that this time the chosen people of the nation were destroyed - outstanding statesmen of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, generals and officers of the National Army, advanced intelligentsia, religious figures, party leaders, politicians, famous scientists. This time the Bolshevik-Dashnak regime deliberately destroyed the entire advanced part of the people in order to leave the people without leaders. In reality, this genocide was even more terrible than the one carried out in March 1918.

The convening of the first Congress of Soviets of the Azerbaijan SSR on March 6, 1921 completed the Sovietization of Northern Azerbaijan. On May 19 of the same year, the first Constitution of the Azerbaijan SSR was adopted.

After the Azerbaijani people lost their independent government, the plunder of their wealth began. Private ownership of land was abolished. Everyone was nationalized natural resources countries, or rather, they began to be considered state property. In particular, for management oil industry, the Azerbaijan Oil Committee was created, and the management of this committee was entrusted to A.P. Serebrovsky, sent to Baku personally by V.I. Lenin. Thus, Lenin, who sent a telegram on March 17, 1920 to the Military Revolutionary Council of the Caucasian Front, which said: “It is extremely important for us to conquer Baku” and gave the order to capture Northern Azerbaijan, achieved his dream - Baku oil passed into the hands of Soviet Russia.

In the 30s, large-scale repressions were carried out against the entire Azerbaijani people. In 1937 alone, 29 thousand people were subjected to repression. And all of them were the most worthy sons of Azerbaijan. During this period, the Azerbaijani people lost tens and hundreds of their thinkers and intellectuals such as Huseyn Javid, Mikail Mushfig, Ahmed Javad, Salman Mumtaz, Ali Nazmi, Taghi Shahbazi and others. The intellectual potential of the people, its best representatives, was destroyed. The Azerbaijani people could not recover from this terrible blow over the next decades.

In 1948-1953, a new stage of mass expulsion of Azerbaijanis began from their ancient homeland - Western Azerbaijan (the so-called territory of the Armenian SSR). The Armenians, supported and encouraged by the Russians, became even more entrenched in the lands of Western Azerbaijan. They were provided with a numerical advantage in this territory. Despite the great successes achieved as a result of the creative activities of the Azerbaijani people, for a number of objective and subjective reasons, negative trends began to appear in many areas of the Azerbaijani economy - both in industry and in agriculture.

In the difficult situation in which the Republic found itself, significant changes took place in the leadership of Azerbaijan. In 1969, the first period of Heydar Aliyev’s leadership of Azerbaijan began. In the difficult historical situation of the rule of the totalitarian regime, the great patron of his native people, Heydar Aliyev, began to implement extensive reform programs to transform Azerbaijan into one of the most advanced republics of the USSR.

The great politician first achieved the adoption of beneficial resolutions at the level of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR, plenums of the Central Committee, congresses of the Communist Party to solve the most important tasks necessary for the development of their Motherland, their people in various spheres of the economy (including agriculture), and culture. Then he mobilized the entire people to implement these resolutions and tirelessly fought for the prosperity of his native Azerbaijan. The task of transforming Azerbaijan into a country capable of living independently, self-sufficient and highly developed from a scientific and technical point of view (in the terminology of that time - into an administrative-territorial unit) was at the forefront of his plans. In a word, the path leading to independence was started back then by Heydar Aliyev.

In 1970-1985, during a historically short time, hundreds of plants, factories, and industries were created on the territory of the Republic. 213 large industrial enterprises were built and started working. In many industries, Azerbaijan occupied leading positions in the USSR. 350 types of products produced in Azerbaijan were exported to 65 countries. Huge historical meaning All these creative works carried out by Heydar Aliyev in the first period of his leadership consisted in the fact that feelings of freedom and independence reawakened among the people. This, in fact, was the entry of the Azerbaijani people into a new stage in the rise of the liberation movement in the 70s of the 20th century.

The last, currently, stage in the history of statehood of Azerbaijan, which began on the eve of the fall of the USSR on October 18, 1991 with the adoption of the Constitution Act “On State Independence of the Azerbaijan Republic,” continues successfully to this day.

Throughout their history, the Azerbaijani states went through periods of rise and decline, were subjected to internal disintegration and external occupation. But, despite this, Azerbaijan has always maintained peaceful and calm relations with its neighbors. However, the “peace-loving” neighbors, especially the Armenians who settled in Western Azerbaijan, always looked at the Azerbaijani lands with envy and, at any opportunity, seized certain territories.

In 1988, separatist terrorist groups of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region, together with the armed forces of Armenia, began to carry out military operations with the aim of appropriating Nagorno-Karabakh. They were joined by units of the USSR armed forces located in Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region. At the beginning, the places of residence of Azerbaijanis in Karabakh were seized. On January 19, 1992, Kerkijahan was captured, and on February 10, the villages of Malybeyli and Gushchular. The peaceful unarmed population was subjected to forcible eviction. The blockade of Khojaly and Shushi has narrowed. In mid-February, Armenian and Soviet military units captured the village of Garadaghly. On the night of February 25-26, the most tragic event in the modern history of Azerbaijan took place. Armenian military formations, together with soldiers of the 366th motorized rifle regiment of Russia, committed a terrible massacre of the Azerbaijani civilian population in the village of Khojaly.

In March 1992, while the popular movement was getting stronger, the head of the Republic, A. Mutallibov, resigned. The resulting void in governance further weakened the defense capacity of the Republic of Azerbaijan. As a result, in May 1992, Armenian and Soviet military units captured Shusha. Thus, the entire territory of Nagorno-Karabakh was almost completely captured. The next step was the capture of the Lachin region, dividing Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh. The ongoing infighting of the new government during the reign of the Popular Front of Azerbaijan dealt a heavy blow to the defense capability of the Republic. In April 1993, Kalbajar was captured. At the request of the people, Heydar Aliyev came to power again.

With the return to power of Heydar Aliyev, a decisive turn took place in the life of Azerbaijan. After several political steps, a wise politician eliminated the danger of civil war. The national leader, Heydar Aliyev, took the correct position on issues of war. As a wise strategist, he calculated the real situation in the country, took into account the forces and plans of our insidious enemies and their international patrons, as well as the entire danger of the bloody whirlpool in which Azerbaijan found itself, and correctly assessed the situation. Based on the real situation, he achieved a ceasefire.

The national leader of the Azerbaijani people, Heydar Aliyev, saved the people and the Motherland from national and moral decay and the possibility of collapse. He suspended the implementation of erroneous decisions of previous “leaders”, which they adopted based not on the instructive lessons of the historical past, not on the realities of the changed world, not on the truth of domestic and international life, but on emotions. The true meaning of the concept of "Azerbaijan" was restored and returned to our land, our people, our language. Thus, the Islamic-Turkic past of our people, love for the Motherland and the language of our people, which are the basis of our power and unity, were restored. The real possibility of an ethnic clash was prevented. The arrows of our enemies missed us in this matter as well.

Today, the authority and influence of independent Azerbaijan in the international arena is constantly growing. The Republic of Azerbaijan has gained democratic, legal and state authority throughout the world. Our fundamental law, which is the creation of the mind of Heydar Aliyev, is one of the most democratic and perfect Constitutions in the world. She aroused respect for our Motherland in international society. The calm that reigns in our country and the internal reforms being implemented have a positive impact on the expansion of mutual relations with foreign countries. The Republic of Azerbaijan, building its foreign policy based on the principles of equality and mutual benefit, has become an open country for all countries of the world.

IN last days Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev repeats the same words at every corner: “Nagorno-Karabakh is the historical territory of Azerbaijan.” Meanwhile, the Republic of Azerbaijan itself first appeared on the world map only in 1918. At that time, taking advantage of the collapse Russian Empire, the Turkish regular army that invaded Transcaucasia created a Turkic state called Azerbaijan in the east of the region. 56 years later, by the way, in 1974, Turkey will repeat the successful experience of creating a Turkic state, as a result of which Europe will receive another hotbed of tension - Northern Cyprus.

But maybe the state of Azerbaijan existed before 1918, and simply had a different name? History shows: no. The territory now perceived under the artificial name of the Azerbaijan Republic has never constituted a single administrative unit and in different periods history, in whole or in part, belonged to or was divided between different states: Media, Caucasian Albania, Iran, Turkey, Armenia, Russia, USSR...

Or maybe Ilham Aliyev means that a single ethnic monolith of Transcaucasian Turks historically compactly inhabited the territory of modern Azerbaijan? Does he mean that the Transcaucasian Turks did not have a state, but they had a homeland? And again the answer will be negative.

The very concept of Motherland is absent in the language of the Transcaucasian Turks. “Mother's yurt” - this is how the Turkic word Anayurdu is translated, this is literally the translation of the word that Transcaucasian Turks use to denote the word Motherland. And their close and distant ancestors had to sew these yurts in the vast expanses from Transbaikalia to Constantinople.

In the process of centuries-long nomadism, the first waves of Turks arrived in the Caucasus in the 13th - 14th centuries, and this process continued until the 18th century inclusive. They managed to exterminate, destroy, and evict many indigenous peoples known from ancient times from the region and gain a foothold on their land. The relict remnants of these peoples: Kryz, Khinaluk, Udin, Budukh and others, part of the single Lezgin ethnic group, still live in the most mountainous regions of Azerbaijan, because it was there that they once found salvation from warlike nomads.

A new wave of annexation occurred after the proclamation of the Azerbaijan Republic in 1918, when this political entity with the help Turkish army conquered the territories of the indigenous Talysh, Lezgins, Avars, Tsakhurs in the region... All these peoples defended themselves to the best of their ability from the aggression of Azerbaijan: the Talysh even proclaimed their own state, which existed for over a year, but eventually fell under the blows of the Azerbaijani-Turkish army. Azerbaijan then tried to conquer Nagorno-Karabakh, where the first nomadic Turks, later called Azerbaijanis, appeared only in the 17th century, but the Armenians of the region managed to defend themselves from aggression.

In the fall of 1920, units of the Soviet Red Army entered Artsakh. And on July 5, 1921, the ancient Armenian region was included within the borders of Soviet Azerbaijan. For the current reader this may seem incredible, but such were the realities of Bolshevism, the decision to include the Armenian region within the boundaries of Soviet Azerbaijan was made by the party body of a third state: the Caucasian Bureau of the Russian communist party(Bolsheviks). Imagine if the Socialist Party of France decided to transfer, for example, German Bavaria to, say, the Czech Republic! Absurd, of course, but it is precisely this absurd and voluntaristic decision of a third party party body that to this day is the only document with which Azerbaijan and its President Aliyev “justify” their territorial claims to the primordially Armenian region.

During the years of Soviet power, the territory of Artsakh was under the jurisdiction of the Soviet Union, residents of the Armenian autonomy underwent mandatory military service in the ranks of the USSR army, state supervision on the territory of Artsakh was carried out by the NKAO prosecutor appointed by the Prosecutor General of the USSR. Residents of Artsakh were citizens of the USSR (there was a single citizenship in the Soviet Union). The interests of the autonomous region in the highest legislative body of the USSR - the Supreme Council of the USSR - were represented by deputies of the Supreme Council of the USSR elected in Artsakh. They were elected precisely as representatives of a national-state entity in a federal state, which, according to the Constitution, was the USSR. Thus, we have the right to state that the Armenian Autonomous Region, located within the Azerbaijan SSR, was part of the Soviet Union.

On August 30, 1991, the Azerbaijan SSR announced the start of the process of secession from the USSR. On October 18, 1991, Azerbaijan adopted the Constitutional Act “On Independence”. However, Artsakh no longer existed within Azerbaijan. On September 2, 1991, based on international law and the laws of the USSR, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic declared its sovereignty.

The legislative body of Azerbaijan declared the country's independence without taking into account the opinion of the population, that is, without a referendum. International law qualifies such actions as usurpation of power. The usurpation of power in Azerbaijan took place not only in regions densely populated by indigenous peoples (the south and north of the Azerbaijan Republic are inhabited mainly by Talysh, Lezgins, Avars, Tsakhurs), but also throughout the entire territory of the republic.

On the contrary, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic self-determined in full compliance with international law and the laws of the USSR, completing the sovereignization process with a popular referendum on December 10, 1991.

Artsakh was not part of the Azerbaijan Republic in 1918-20: Azerbaijan then failed to conquer the Armenian region.

Artsakh was not part of the Azerbaijani USSR: the Armenian region was part of a federal entity called the Soviet Union.

Artsakh is not and will not be part of the Azerbaijan Republic illegally proclaimed in 1991. Both of these public education spun off from the Soviet Union. The difference is that, unlike Azerbaijan, the NKR declared its statehood in full accordance with the law.

However, Azerbaijan attempted to annex the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic by launching large-scale aggression against it. The results of this aggression are well known: tens of thousands of dead, hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people, broken destinies, lost hopes...

Stating that “Azerbaijan is much stronger than Armenia” and, if the Republic of Artsakh does not agree to join Azerbaijan, the latter “will have to think about other ways to resolve the conflict,” Ilham Aliyev is simply blackmailing the world community. The President of Azerbaijan is not at all confident in the military superiority of the entity he heads over the Armenian states; rather, on the contrary, otherwise he would not fail to commit aggression, as was the case in 1988-94. However, Aliyev is convinced of Europe's sincere desire to see the Caucasus peaceful and prosperous. Aliyev also understands, and all his interviews confirm this, that the Caspian Sea basin is one of alternative sources supplies of hydrocarbons to Europe. The resumption of hostilities will certainly become an almost insurmountable obstacle to the transportation of energy resources to Europe, which is what Aliyev is trying to blackmail in search of allies for political pressure on the Republic of Artsakh.

Well, I admit, Ilham Aliyev is right: in the event of renewed aggression against the Republic of Artsakh, oil and gas from Azerbaijan will indeed stop flowing anywhere. The Armenian side simply cannot allow the country at war with it to freely increase its economic capabilities. Even the President of Azerbaijan, who is still counting the number of losses in the ranks of the Askerni in recent days, has no doubt about the capabilities and high moral combat readiness of the Republic Defense Army. He has no doubts, that’s why he blackmails. But not us, but the world community.

Ilham Aliyev is well aware of the presence of a significant Armenian community in the world, the emergence of which became possible as a result of the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey. Hence his demagogic cry-question: “Imagine what will happen if Armenians try to self-determinate in all the countries of the world where they live. How many new Armenian states can be formed?” This poorly hidden, and even more stupid provocation can only be answered with mocking irony towards its author: “No more than Turkic.”

However, after today’s meetings in Sochi, the question of the continued existence of one of the Turkic states can be called into very serious doubt.

Levon MELIK-SHAHNAZARYAN

When the great Russian poet Sergei Yesenin left Baku in 1925, he wrote that he felt “sadness,” i.e. It is difficult for him to part with hospitable Azerbaijan. Since then, Azerbaijan has changed a lot, but the people have remained the same – very hospitable. Beautiful mountains await tourists in Azerbaijan, delicious cuisine, Caspian Sea, ancient cities, and, of course, hot and mineral springs.

Azerbaijan is located in the Transcaucasus, where Western Asia meets Eastern Europe. Azerbaijan borders on Russia in the north, Georgia in the northwest, Armenia in the west, and Iran in the south. In the east, Azerbaijan is washed by the waters of the Caspian Sea. The total area of ​​this country, including the Nakhchivan enclave, is 86,600 square meters. km., and the total length state border– 2,648 km.

In the north of Azerbaijan there is the Greater Caucasus Range, in the center of the country there are vast plains, and in the southeast there are the Talysh Mountains. In general, mountains occupy about 50% of the territory of all Azerbaijan. The highest point is Bazarduzu Peak, whose height reaches 4,466 meters.

There are more than 8 thousand rivers in Azerbaijan, and all of them flow into the Caspian Sea. The most long river– Kura (1,515 km), and the largest lake is Sarysu (67 sq. km.).

The capital of Azerbaijan is Baku, which is now home to more than 2.1 million people. Archaeologists believe that people lived on the territory of modern Baku already in the 5th century AD.

The official language in Azerbaijan is Azerbaijani, which belongs to the Oghuz subgroup of Turkic languages.

About 95% of the population of Azerbaijan consider themselves Muslims (85% are Shia Muslims, and 15% are Sunni Muslims).

According to the current Constitution of 1995, Azerbaijan is a presidential republic. Its head is the President, elected for 5 years.

In Azerbaijan, the local unicameral Parliament is called the National Assembly (Milli Məclis), it consists of 125 deputies. Members of the National Assembly are elected by popular vote for a 5-year term.

Basic political parties in Azerbaijan – “New Party of Azerbaijan”, “Party of Equality” and “National Unity”.

The climate in Azerbaijan is very diverse, which is due to its geographical location. The climate is greatly influenced by the mountains and the Caspian Sea. On the foothills and plains of Azerbaijan the climate is subtropical. In Baku in July and August, daytime air temperatures often reach +38C, and at night drop to +18C.

The best time to visit Azerbaijan is mid-April - late August.

In the east, Azerbaijan is washed by the waters of the Caspian Sea, the coastline is 800 km. Azerbaijan owns three large islands in the Caspian Sea. By the way, the peoples who lived in the Caspian Sea region at different times gave it a total of about 70 names. This sea has been called the Caspian Sea since the 16th century.

More than 8 thousand rivers flow through the territory of Azerbaijan, but the length of only 24 of them exceeds 100 km. Some mountain rivers have very beautiful waterfalls. There are many lakes in the mountains of Azerbaijan. The most beautiful of them are Maral-Gel and Gey-Gel.

The first archaeological evidence of human life on the territory of modern Azerbaijan dates back to the end of the Stone Age. Azerbaijan was conquered by Armenians, Persians, Romans, Arabs, and Turks in different historical eras. The history of Azerbaijan is very rich in interesting events.

I millennium BC - formation of the state of Manna with the capital Izirtu.

I-IV centuries AD - Azerbaijan is part of the Caucasian Albania tribal association, which was subordinate to Ancient Rome.

III-IV centuries AD - Caucasian Albania becomes Christian.

XIII-VIV centuries - Azerbaijan is in vassal dependence on the Hulaguid state.

The end of the 14th century - the state of Shirvan appeared in the north of modern Azerbaijan.

The beginning of the 16th century - almost all the lands of Azerbaijan were united into one state - the Safavid state.

First half of the 16th century – Shiism, a branch of Islam, becomes the state religion in Azerbaijan.

1724 – the territory of Azerbaijan is divided between Russia and the Ottoman Empire.

1920 – The Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic was formed.

1922-1936 – Azerbaijan becomes part of the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. 1936-1991 – Azerbaijan becomes part of the USSR.

1991 - Azerbaijan's independence is declared.

Azerbaijan became an independent state only in 1991. Before this, for many centuries the territory of Azerbaijan was divided between neighboring empires - Russian and Ottoman. As a result, now the culture of Azerbaijan is multi-ethnic in nature, but the decisive influence on it is exerted by religion - Shiism, one of the branches of Islam.

Every year, for four weeks during the Novruz holiday, interesting religious events and festivals, and folk celebrations take place in Azerbaijan. A mandatory element of such festivities is jumping over a fire.

In addition, other holidays are celebrated in Azerbaijan on a grand scale - Ramadan Bayram (November-February) and Gurban Bayram.

Azerbaijani cuisine has been greatly influenced by Turkish and Central Asian culinary traditions. The main Azerbaijani dish is pilaf with rice, to which various “fillings” are added (meat, fish, fruits, spices, etc.). A special place in Azerbaijani cuisine belongs to salads from fresh vegetables. Salads are usually served along with the main dish (by the way, there are more than 30 types of soups in Azerbaijan).

In Azerbaijan, we recommend trying local soups (“shorba with chicken”, okroshka “ovduh”, lamb soup “piti”), salads (“green kyukyu”, “soyutma”, “bahar”), kebabs (lamb, chicken, liver), pilaf (more than 30 types), dolma, baklava, halva.

The majority of Azerbaijanis are Shiite Muslims. But for some reason religion does not stop them from drinking alcohol. Apparently due to the fact that good wines and cognacs are made in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijanis love tea very much. In the teahouse, men drink sweet black tea from small bowls. Tea is usually served with jam (from quince, figs, apricots, cherries and plums).

Another popular non-alcoholic drink in Azerbaijan is sherbet (sugar, lemon, mint, saffron, basil, cumin, etc. are added to boiled water).

According to official data, there are now more than 6 thousand historical and architectural monuments in Azerbaijan. In our opinion, the Top 10 best Azerbaijani attractions may include the following:

1. Palace of the Shirvanshahs in Baku
2. Mardakan Fortress
3. Mausoleum of Seyid Yahya Bakuvi in ​​Baku
4. Mosque of Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr in Baku
5. Rock paintings of Gobustan
6. Temple complex "Ateshgah" in the village of Surakhani
7. Palace of Sheki Khans
8. "Maiden Tower" in Baku
9. Gyz-Galasy fortress in Shamakhi
10. Mausoleum of Yusuf ibn-Kuseyir in Nakhichevan

The biggest Azerbaijani cities- Ganja, Sumgayit, Lankaran, Mingachevir, Nakhichevan, Khirdalan, Khankendi, and, of course, Baku.

There are a lot of hot and mineral springs in Azerbaijan, which are concentrated in the mountainous part of the country. Thus, in Kelbajar alone there are about 200 mineral springs. The best mineral springs in Azerbaijan are Istisu (in Kelbajar), Badamli, Sirab (in Nakhichevan), as well as Darrydag, Turshsu, Arkivan, and Surakhani.

On the plains of Azerbaijan, in particular in the Goranboy region, there is medicinal oil (it is called “naftalan”). Medicinal oil is widely used in medicine. Moreover, neftalane was found only in one place in the world - in the Goranboy region of Azerbaijan.

Tourists from Azerbaijan usually bring folk art, carpets, ceramics, cognac, and wine. Remember that to export any piece of art from Azerbaijan, even if it does not have artistic value, you must obtain permission from the Azerbaijani Ministry of Culture.