Scholars consider
Azerbaijan to include "the land populated today by the Azerbaijan
Turks, the people who inhabit the region stretching from the
northern slopes of the Caucuses Mountains along the Caspian Sea to
the Iranian plateau". Azerbaijan is among the areas of earliest
human settlement, with evidence of human habitation since the
Palaeolithic age. Settlements engaging in agriculture and
livestock-raising were widely distributed about this area in the
seventh and sixth millennia BC. Rock paintings in Gobustan near are
dated by scholars to the XIII millennia BC.
The well-known Norwegian
explorer Thor Heyerdal, who made special trips to in 1979 and 1994
to study these rock paintings, believes that the shores of the
Caspian Sea were the cradle of a civilization that then spread over
water, southward and northward. Heyerdal found support for his
hypothesis not only in the Gobustan petroglyphs of reed boats,
remarkably similar to those depicted centuries later by the Vikings
on the walls of caves in Norway, but also in sagas written down in
the middle ages. The Gobustan rock paintings of boats surmounted by
an image of the sun also attest irrefutably to the ties between the
early settlements of Azerbaijan and the Sumero/Akkadian civilization
of Mesopotamia, whose cultural legacy includes very similar
depictions.
In the end of IV millennium BC and the early years of the III
millennium BC, signs appear of the emergence of the first class
societies, with a proto-urban civilization and embryonic state
structures. It is at this time that the tribal alliances were formed
of the Aratta, the Gutians and the Lullubites. According to Sumerian
cuneiform sources, the first State to arise on the territory of
historical Azerbaijan was the state of Aratta, which came into being
in the first half of the third millennium BC in the area to the
south and south-east of Lake Urmia. From about 2300 BC, the second
State of ancient Azerbaijan sprang up in the area south of Lake
Urmia - the state of Lullubum. The Gutian state was formed later in
the second half of the third millennium BC in the area west and
south-west of Lake Urmia. In 2175 BC, the Gutians conquered Sumer
and Akkad and ruled over them for the next 100 years. The ancient
states of Azerbaijan, which maintained political, economic and
cultural ties with Sumer and Akkad and formed part of the wider
civilization of Mesopotamia, were governed by dynasties of Turkic
descent. The Turkophone peoples that have inhabited the area of
Azerbaijan since ancient times were fire-worshippers and adherents
of one of the world's oldest religions - Zoroastrianism. Over the
period from the mid ninth to the seventh centuries BC, the Mannaean
kingdom held sway in the area of Lake Urmia. The
Cimmerian-Scythian-Saka kingdom flourished in the seventh and sixth
centuries BC in the south-west of Azerbaijan. In the mid-sixth
century B.C the Mannean kingdom was overthrown
A vital role was played in Azerbaijani history by the kingdom of
Atropaten, which came into existence in the southern part of the
country in the 520s BC and which was heavily influenced by
Hellenism.
The Caucasian Albanian state was created in the north of Azerbaijan
in the end of IV and the early years of III millennium BC, with the
river Araz as its southern frontier. The people of Albania included
a number of different nationalities, most of which spoke Turkic
languages. Christianity was adopted in Albania since 313.
Over the period from the
first to the fourth centuries, when the entire Caucasus area was
under the Roman yoke, Albania remained the only independent state
and with its political independence came a flowering of Albanian
learning, language and literature. This same period say the growing
strength and influence of the autocephalous Albanian Catholicosate
and of the Albanian Church in general, which was independent of
other Christian churches and even propagated Christianity among the
north Caucasian and Turkophone peoples.
2. Azerbaijan in the Middle Ages
Following invasion by the Arabs, the dominant religion from the
early eighth century in Azerbaijan became Islam. Most of the
Albanians also accepted the Islam and only a minority retained their
former religion. Bowing to the influence of the Byzantine Empire in
the southern Caucasus, the Albanian Church, together with the
Georgian Church, had accepted the dyophysite doctrine shortly before
the Arab invasion. To create a barrier to the influence of
Byzantine, the Caliphate - enlisting the help of the Armenian Church
- steered the Albanian Church towards monophysitism and brought it
under the dominion of the monophysite Armenian Gregorian Church,
opening the way for the subsequent gradual Gregorianization of the
Albanians living in the mountainous areas of Karabakh.
The cohabitation of the populations of Albania and Atropatene within
the confines of a single state, and their profession of one and the
same religion, helped ensure the consolidation of the people of
Azerbaijan. The notions of freedom, independence and universal
equality nurtured the Hurramite movement, led by Babak, which
flourished in Azerbaijan in the early ninth century. Following the
anti-Caliphate rising by the local population, several new states
arose in the territory of Azerbaijan in the ninth century, the most
powerful of which was the State of Shirvan, with its capital at
Shemakha, which was ruled by the Mezyedi dynasty. This endured until
the sixteenth century and played an enormous role in the history of
medieval Azerbaijan. The independent states of the Sajids, Salarids,
Ravvadids (with their capital at Maragha, Ardabil and Tabriz) and
Shaddadids (with their capital at Ganja) arose from the ninth to the
eleventh centuries in the territory of Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan was ruled by the Seljuk dynasty from the end of the
eleventh century. Over the period 1136-1225, the Atabek Eldegiz
state held sway in Azerbaijan.
The sharing by the
country's indigenous population of a common Turkic language and
Turkic provenance and their adherence to the same Islamic faith made
possible a process of consolidation of the Azerbaijani nation that
reached its culmination in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. This
same period saw the greatest flowering of the culture of Azerbaijan,
which bequeathed to the world an array of illustrious philosophers,
architects, poets and scholars. The crowning achievement of
Azerbaijani social and cultural thought of that period was the work
of Nizami Ganjavi (1141-1209), poet and philosopher, now one of the
treasures of the world's cultural heritage.
The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw the rise to prominence, in
the mountainous regions of Karabakh, of the Khachen principality,
ruled by the Albanian kings. The rule of Hasan Jalal (1215-1262)
ushered in an Albanian renaissance and saw the completion of the
construction of Gandzasar monastery complex, whose cathedral was to
become the centre of the early church and whose consecration was
presided over by the Catholicos of Albania.
From the mid-thirteenth century, the Azerbaijani states became
vassals of the Mongol Hulagid dynasty (1258-1356). In the
mid-fourteenth century, following an uprising by the local
population to cast off the yoke of the invaders, the local Jalairid
feudal lords took up the reins of power in Azerbaijan and, with the
support of the Azerbaijani nobility, established the Jalairid state
(1359-1410).
From the end of the fourteenth century, Azerbaijan was repeatedly
invaded by Tamerlan and served as the theater for his battles with
the Golden Horde.
The Azerbaijani dynasties
of Qara-Qoyunlu and Aq-Qoyunlu ruled over Azerbaijan in 1410-1468
and 1468-1501 and under them Azerbaijan grew significantly in power.
In 1501, the Safavid state was formed in Azerbaijan, which was named
after the ruling Azerbaijani dynasty, with its capital in Tabriz.
Under this dynasty, all the lands of Azerbaijan were united, for the
first time in their history, into a single Azerbaijani state. The
territory of the Safavid state stretched from the Amu Darya River to
the Euphrates and from Derbent to the shores of the Persian Gulf.
This polity was created and developed as an essentially Azerbaijani
state and all political power remained in the hands of the
Azerbaijani feudal nobility. Senior court officials, military
generals and provincial governors were all appointed from among the
Azerbaijani nobility. The army was made up from the militia of the
most powerful Azerbaijani clans. Azerbaijani was the official
language of the Safavid state. By the end of the sixteenth century,
the capital of the Safavid state had been transferred to Isfahan and
its shah now drew his support primarily from the Persian nobility.
The State, while ruled by an Azerbaijan dynasty, took on an
increasingly Persian aspect.
3. The independent Azerbaijani khanate States.
Division of Azerbaijan between Russia and Iran
In the mid XVIII century, with the weakening of the power exercised
by the Persian shahs over the territory of Azerbaijan, the country
disintegrated into some 20 khanates, namely, Ardabil, Ganja,
Derbent, Erivan, Javad, Karabakh, Karadakh, Khoi, Maku, Maragin,
Nakhchivan, Quba, Baku, Sarab, Shirvan, Sheki, Tabriz, Talysh and
Urumi. In addition to these khanates, the country was further
subdivided into the sultanates of Kazah-Samshadil, Ilisu, Arash,
Gutgashen and Nagorno-Karabakh, which was inhabited by Azerbaijani
Muslims and Albanian Christians, formed an integral part of the
Azerbaijani khanate of Karabakh, which covered the territories lying
between the Kura and Araxes rivers. The local duchies - or
"melikdoms" - of Dizak, Varanda, Khachen, and Gulistan, all of which
lay within the mountainous regions of Karabakh, also formed part of
this khanate, to which their inhabitants owed allegiance as vassals.
At the end of the eighteenth and in the first third of the
nineteenth centuries, Azerbaijan was fought over by the Persian,
Russian and Ottoman empires, each eager to secure hegemony over this
country whose geopolitical situation lent it significant strategic
advantages. A number of the khanates rose in arms to defend their
sovereignty, while others were forced, in an effort to defend their
own interests, to conclude agreements reducing them to the status of
vassaldom.
Thus, on May 14, 1805, a treaty was signed on the banks of the river
Kura with the Azerbaijani khan Ibrahim Khalil, under which the
independent Azerbaijani khanate of Karabakh was placed under Russian
over lordship. This treaty has particular resonance today, since it
demonstrates that Karabakh historically formed part of Azerbaijan.
The first Russo-Persian war of 1804-1813, fought to establish
dominance over the Azerbaijani khanates, resulted in the first
division of Azerbaijani territories between Russia and Persia. The
peace treaty of Gulistan, signed on October 12, 1813 by Russia and
Persia, gave legal recognition to the effective annexation by Russia
of the khanates of northern Azerbaijan, with the exception of
Nakhchivan and Erivan. The second Russo-Persian war of 1826-1828
led, on February 10, 1828, to the signing of the Turkmanchai peace
treaty, under which Persia officially renounced its claims to
northern Azerbaijan and finally recognized its annexation, with the
inclusion of the Nakhchivan and Erivan khanates, by Russia.
It is important to stress that all the khanates listed above,
including Karabakh, were annexed to Russia as purely Azerbaijani
possessions. They were Azerbaijani by virtue of their predominantly
Azerbaijani populations and the ethnic composition of their dominant
feudal elite (the khans themselves, the major landowners, the clergy
etc.).
4. The resettlement of Armenians to the territory of
Azerbaijan
Under the Treaty of Turkmanchai and the peace treaty concluded in
Edirne in 1829, the Armenians then inhabiting Persia and the Ottoman
Empire were relocated to Azerbaijan, primarily to the khanates of
Nakhchivan, Erivan and Karabakh. Thus, the Russian scholar K.
Shavrov records that, over the period 1828-1830 alone, some 40,000
Persian and 84,000 Turkish Armenians were relocated in the
Trans-Caucasus, where they were settled in the best indigenous lands
of the Yelisavetpol (Karabakh) and Erivan provinces, where the
Armenian population had previously been negligible and where they
were allocated 200,000 dessiatines (225,000 hectares) of State land.
In his notebooks, the Russian diplomat and playwright Alexander
Griboedov wrote: "For the most part, the Armenians were settled on
the estates of Mohammedan landowners (…). These new settlers are
crowding out the Mohammedans (…). We have also given careful thought
to the council which must be given to the Mohammedans, so as to
reconcile them to this aggravation, which will not be long in
duration, and to dispel any apprehensions which they may have that
the Armenians will take permanent possession of the lands where they
have been initially settled."
The American academician Justin McCarthy adduces the following facts
on the settlement of the Southern Caucasus and, in particular,
Azerbaijan, by Armenians. Between 1828 and 1920, in pursuance of a
policy aimed at changing the entire demographic make-up of
Azerbaijan so that Armenians would outnumber Azerbaijanis, more than
2 million Muslims were forcibly expelled and an unknown number
killed. On two occasions, in 1828 and 1854, the Russians invaded
eastern Anatolia and on both occasions they left, taking with them
100,000 Armenian sympathizers to the Caucasus, where they took the
place of Turks - i.e. Azerbaijanis - who emigrated or died. In the
war of 1877-1878, Russia seized the district of Kars-Ardahan,
driving out the Muslim population and settling 70,000 Armenians in
their homes. Some 60,000 Armenians resettled in the Russian Caucasus
during the troubles of 1895-1896. Finally, the migrations of the
First World War resulted in an almost even exchange of 400,000
Armenians from eastern Anatolia for 400,000 Muslims from the
Caucasus.
According to McCarthy's
information, between 1828 and 1920 some 560,000 Armenians were
resettled in Azerbaijan. In other words, it was actually after the
conquest of the southern Caucasus by Russia that the Armenian
population of the Azerbaijani lands north of the river Araxes
increased so dramatically.
When we look at Karabakh, we see from official records for 1810 - in
other words, shortly before its annexation by Russia - that the
khanate of Karabakh had some 12,000 households, of which 9,500 were
Azerbaijani and a mere 2,500 Armenian. According to data for 1823,
there was one town in the Karabakh khanate - Shusha - and some 600
villages, 450 of which were Azerbaijani and about 150 Armenian, with
a total population of some 90,000. The relative figures for
Azerbaijani and Armenian households in Shusha were 1,048 and 474,
and in the countryside, 12,902 and 4,331, respectively.
Under a decree promulgated by Tsar Nicholas I on March 21, 1828, the
Azerbaijani khanates of Nakhchivan and Erivan were dissolved and
replaced by a new administrative entity known as the "Armenian
oblast", administered by Russian officials; in 1849, the Armenian
oblast was renamed the province ("guberniya") of Erivan.
In pursuit of their ultimate goals, the Armenians persuaded the
Russian authorities to abolish the Albanian Christian patriarchate,
which had been in operation in Azerbaijan, and to transfer its
property to the Armenian Church. Following the loss of their state
sovereignty and distinct confessional identity, the local Albanian
population in the western regions of the former Albania - the
Karabakh region - into which Armenian settlers continued to pour,
gradually started to undergo a process of Gregorianization, or
Armenianization.
5. Azerbaijan in the XIX - beginning of the XX century
Since the mid-XIX
century, the oil industry had been flourishing in northern
Azerbaijan. The first ever industrial oil well was drilled in 1848.
In the late XIX th-early XX th centuries was producing 95% of
Russia's and about 50% of the world's oil production. The Nobels and
Rothschilds were among the oil magnates of, and earned a
considerable income. The fortune of the Nobels was largely derived
from the profit on Azerbaijani oil.
The second half of the XIX th - early XX th century was also a
progressive period for the national culture of Azerbaijan. In 1908,
Uzeyir Hajibayov, famous Azerbaijani composer, wrote his "Leyli and
Majnun", the first opera in the Muslim world. In general, the
country's musical culture was so highly developed that Azerbaijan
was known as the ''East's Conservatoire'' or the ''East's Italy''.
A national social and cultural awakening was to be found in other
spheres too. From the mid-XIX th century the concept of mass
enlightenment actively spread and, to that end, the "Azerbaijan"
newspaper was published through the efforts of Azerbaijani
intelligentsia in 1858 in Tabriz, southern Azerbaijan. It was the
first newspaper in Azerbaijani language and was published under
different names over several years.
In North Azerbaijan, between 1875-1877, the newspaper "Akinchi"
(Ploughman) was published under the guidance of the visionary Hasan
bay Zardabi. One of the main achievements of "Akinchi" was to lead
the challenge of enriching the native language and to broaden its
usage.
At the same time, a
number of prominent literary figures emerged to provide further
impetus to the nation's cultural development: Mirza Fatali Akhundov,
Mirza Alakbar Sabir, Jalil Mammadguluzadah, Jafar Jabbarli, Firudun
bay Kocharli, Ahmad Javad, are some that deserve special mention.
Similar progress was made at that time in the spheres of fine arts,
architecture, the theater and cinematography.
This rapid cultural-ideological movement also made a great influence
on political institutionalization and consolidation of Azerbaijani
society. Azerbaijanis living within Russia were among the pioneers
of the Empire Muslims' democratic movement for the protection of
rights. Alimardan bay Topchubashov, a distinguished Azerbaijani
statesman, became one of the founders of "Ittifaqi Muslimin" (Union
of Muslims). It was established in 1905 in order to represent and
pursue the Turkic-Muslim peoples' interests with the Empire's
authorities. In general, the Azerbaijani representatives took an
active part in this movement, striving for the common aims of
oppressed Muslims in Czarist Russia.
When considering progress in the sphere of political consciousness
in the early XX th century, it would be wrong not to highlight the
vision of Ahmad bay Agaoglu, and Ali bay Huseynzadeh, who shaped the
idea of Azerbaijanism, consolidating the nation at a moral level, as
a synthesis of traditional Islamic and Turkic priorities with those
of the modern era.
The period from the late XIX th century throughout the first half of
the XX th century also witnessed activation of the political
consciousness of Azerbaijanis living in Southern Azerbaijan.
Movements of 1905-1911 for the limitation of Shah's absolutism -
headed by such Azerbaijani national heroes as Sattar khan and Baghir
khan - for the first time brought the democratic forms of political
culture and institutionalization to Persia, then under the rule of
the Gajar dynasty.
One direct consequence of the 1905-1911 socio-political developments
was the establishment of a movement in Tabriz in 1920 under the
guidance of Sheikh Khiyabani. Later, the establishment of a
parliament and government in Southern Azerbaijan in 1945 indicates
the significant rise of political culture of Azerbaijanis living in
the Shah's Iran. Indeed, South Azerbaijan became the heart of all
democratic processes in Iran during the late XIX th century and the
first half of the XX th century.
6. The First Republic: The Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan
(1918-1920)
After the 1917
revolution in Russia, the processes of weakening and disintegration
of the Empire became more pronounced and conditions were ripe in
outlying ethnic regions of the former Russian Empire for the
formation of independent States. And so, on May 28, 1918 the
Azerbaijani Democratic Republic was proclaimed in the territory of
the eastern part of the southern Caucasus - the first parliamentary
democracy in the Islamic east - and which was to play a historic
role in the renaissance and formation of the sense of ethnic
identity and statehood of the Azerbaijani nation. At that time,
leader of Azerbaijan fraction was Mammad Amin Rasulzade.
The development of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic, both as a
nation and a State, was based on the idea of "Azerbaijanism", which
hinged on the principles of modernism, Islamism and Turkism,
symbolizing the Azerbaijani people's aspiration for progress based
on preservation of their adherence to Islamic civilization and
Turkic culture and on their separate ethnic identity.
In its brief existence of less than two years, the multi-party
Azerbaijani parliament and the coalition government managed to take
a number of important steps in the process of nation-building and
the development of statehood, in such areas as education, formation
of an army, development of independent financial and economic
systems and securing international recognition for the young
republic as a full member of the international community of nations.
On January 11, 1920 the Paris Peace Conference, with the Treaty of
Versailles, accorded de facto recognition of the independence of the
Azerbaijani Republic, with its capital. In late 1919 and early 1920,
however, the political situation of the Azerbaijani Democratic
Republic - both at home and abroad - worsened considerably. The
country found itself caught up in a ferocious tug-of-war between the
countries of the Entente, Russia and Persia, each pursuing its own
geopolitical goals in this strategically important and oil-rich
area.
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
The National Council of Azerbaijan, consisting of the Deputy
Chairman Hasan-bey Agayev, the Secretary Mustafa Mahmudov, Fatali
Khan Khoyski, Khalil-bey Khas-Mammadov, Nasib-bey Usubbeyov, Mir
Hidayat Seidov, Nariman-bey Narimanbeyov, Heybat-Gulu Mammadbeyov,
Mehti-bey Hajinski, Ali Asker-bey Mahmudbeyov, Aslan-bey Gardashev,
Sultan Majid Ganizadeh, Akber-Aga Sheykh-Ul-Islamov, Mehdi-bey
Hajibababeyov, Mammad Yusif Jafarov, Khudadad-bey Melik-Aslanov,
Rahim-bey Vekilov, Hamid-bey Shahtahtinskiy, Fridun-bey
Kocharlinski, Jamo-bey Hajinski, Shafi-bey Rustambeyov,
Hosrov-Pashabey Sultanov, Jafar Akhundov, Mahammad Maherramov, Javad
Melik-Yeganov and Haji Molla Akhund-zadeh adopts the following Act
of Independence of Azerbaijan on May 28, 1918 in the city of Tiflis.
The political regime established in Russia during the Great Russian
Revolution has caused the collapse of the different parts of the
state structure and the abandonment of Transcaucasus by the Russian
troops.
Left on their own, the Transcaucasian peoples took over the decision
on their fate and established the Transcaucasian Democratic Federal
Republic. However, in the subsequent political development, the
Georgian people expressed their will to separate from the
Transcaucasian Democratic Federal Republic and to create the
Independent Georgian Democratic Republic.
Generated by the cessation of hostilities between Russia and the
Ottoman Empire, the current political situation of Azerbaijan and in
particular the intolerable anarchy within the country, call for the
need of creating a separate State in Azerbaijan in order to deliver
its people from the constraints that result from the present
difficult internal and external situation. This State shall consist
of Eastern and Southern Transcaucasus.
Consequently, the National Council of Azerbaijan, issued from a
nation-wide election, now declares to the nation:
I. Henceforth, the people of Azerbaijan is sovereign and
Azerbaijan, consisting of Eastern and Southern Transcaucasus, is an
independent state with all rights pertaining to statehood.
II. The form of political organization of independent Azerbaijan is
a Democratic Republic.
III. The Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan aims to establish
relations of good neighbourhood with all countries, in particular
with friendly nations and states.
IV. The Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan guarantees on its
territory, the civil and political rights to all citizens,
irrespective of their nationality, religion, social status and
gender.
V. The Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan provides widest
possibilities to all ethnic groups living on its territory, for
their free development.
VI. Pending the first session of the Constitutive Assembly,
governmental authority in Azerbaijan is entrusted to the Provisional
Government, which reports to both the National Council and the
National Assembly, issued from a nation-wide election.
The Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan
1918 - 1920
Area: 114,000 sq. km
7. The Second Republic: The Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist
Republic (1920-1991)
The political decision by the Bolshevist Government of the Russian
Socialist Federative Republic (RSFSR) not to recognize the
Azerbaijani Democratic Republic, the deployment of the Eleventh Red
Army on the frontiers of the Azerbaijani Republic in Spring 1920,
the aggression waged by Dashnak-ruled Armenia against Azerbaijan in
Karabakh and Zangezur, terrorist strikes by Armenian groups and the
Bolsheviks against the peaceful Azerbaijani population inside
Azerbaijan and the social and economic crisis gripping the country -
were all factors that combined to bring about a weakening of the
Azerbaijani Democratic Republic and which led to the occupation of
its capital by the Eleventh Army on April 27-28, 1920. As stated in
a telegram from the general staff of the Caucasian front to the
Eleventh Army command, dated May 1, 1920, the RSFSR troops had been
instructed to take possession of the entire territory of Azerbaijan
lying within the confines of the former Russian Empire, but without
crossing the Persian border. The next 70 years, during which it
formed part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR),
marked a new, important stage in the development of the Azerbaijani
statehood, during which the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic
forged ahead in its social, economic and cultural development. At
the same time, however, the Soviet period also saw many negative
trends emerge in Azerbaijan, as elsewhere throughout the USSR.
At the economic level, the country became a reservoir of fuel, raw
materials and agricultural produce for the Soviet economy. At the
cultural level, the imposition of the Cyrillic alphabet in place of
the Latin alphabet severed the country's ties with the fountainhead
of Azerbaijani literature and culture. The Soviet regime was at
pains to suppress any efforts by the Azerbaijani intelligentsia to
manifest their separate ethnic identity and to study the true
history of their country.
During the Soviet period, the territories of Zangezur, Goycha, part
of Nakhchivan and other districts were hived off from Azerbaijan and
attached to neighbouring Armenia. As a result, the country's area,
which in the period of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic in 1920
was 114,000 square kilometers, was reduced in 1920-1921 to 86,600
square kilometers. In addition, on July 7, 1923 at the initiative of
the Moscow leaders of the Bolshevists, the so-called
Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region, with a predominantly Armenian
population, was artificially carved out of a part of the territory
of historical Karabakh, the majority of population of which
constituted Azerbaijanis. That decision marked the first step in the
political campaign to amputate Nagorno-Karabakh from the rest of
Azerbaijan.
8. The Third Republic: The Republic of Azerbaijan
In 1988-1990, the national democratic movement in Azerbaijan
campaigned vigorously for the restoration of the country's
independence. On September 23, 1989 Azerbaijan was among the first
Soviet republics to adopt its own decision on Sovereignty. With a
view to suppressing this movement, on January 20, 1990, with the
approval of the Soviet leadership under Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet
army units were dispatched to. Their reprisals, which were conducted
with uncommon savagery, left hundreds of innocent Azerbaijani
citizens dead and wounded. A state of emergency was declared in the
country and this remained in force until mid-1991. Notwithstanding
these setbacks, the untiring struggle for independence by patriotic
forces within the Azerbaijani people culminated in the adoption of a
declaration of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Azerbaijan on
August 31, 1991 on restoration of the State independence of the
Republic of Azerbaijan.
The act establishing the
State independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan, which completed
its passage on October 18, 1991, set out the foundations for the
statehood of an independent Azerbaijan and determined the principles
of its political and economic structure. With that act the Republic
of Azerbaijan once again, after an interval of 71 years, became an
independent subject of international law.
In 1992 Azerbaijan became a member of the United Nations and the
Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), now known
as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Embassy of The Republic of Azerbaijan to the Republic of Korea
Scholars consider
Azerbaijan to include "the land populated today by the Azerbaijan
Turks, the people who inhabit the region stretching from the
northern slopes of the Caucuses Mountains along the Caspian Sea to
the Iranian plateau". Azerbaijan is among the areas of earliest
human settlement, with evidence of human habitation since the
Palaeolithic age. Settlements engaging in agriculture and
livestock-raising were widely distributed about this area in the
seventh and sixth millennia BC. Rock paintings in Gobustan near are
dated by scholars to the XIII millennia BC.
The well-known Norwegian
explorer Thor Heyerdal, who made special trips to in 1979 and 1994
to study these rock paintings, believes that the shores of the
Caspian Sea were the cradle of a civilization that then spread over
water, southward and northward. Heyerdal found support for his
hypothesis not only in the Gobustan petroglyphs of reed boats,
remarkably similar to those depicted centuries later by the Vikings
on the walls of caves in Norway, but also in sagas written down in
the middle ages. The Gobustan rock paintings of boats surmounted by
an image of the sun also attest irrefutably to the ties between the
early settlements of Azerbaijan and the Sumero/Akkadian civilization
of Mesopotamia, whose cultural legacy includes very similar
depictions.
Over the period from the
first to the fourth centuries, when the entire Caucasus area was
under the Roman yoke, Albania remained the only independent state
and with its political independence came a flowering of Albanian
learning, language and literature. This same period say the growing
strength and influence of the autocephalous Albanian Catholicosate
and of the Albanian Church in general, which was independent of
other Christian churches and even propagated Christianity among the
north Caucasian and Turkophone peoples.
The sharing by the
country's indigenous population of a common Turkic language and
Turkic provenance and their adherence to the same Islamic faith made
possible a process of consolidation of the Azerbaijani nation that
reached its culmination in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. This
same period saw the greatest flowering of the culture of Azerbaijan,
which bequeathed to the world an array of illustrious philosophers,
architects, poets and scholars. The crowning achievement of
Azerbaijani social and cultural thought of that period was the work
of Nizami Ganjavi (1141-1209), poet and philosopher, now one of the
treasures of the world's cultural heritage.
The Azerbaijani dynasties
of Qara-Qoyunlu and Aq-Qoyunlu ruled over Azerbaijan in 1410-1468
and 1468-1501 and under them Azerbaijan grew significantly in power.
In 1501, the Safavid state was formed in Azerbaijan, which was named
after the ruling Azerbaijani dynasty, with its capital in Tabriz.
Under this dynasty, all the lands of Azerbaijan were united, for the
first time in their history, into a single Azerbaijani state. The
territory of the Safavid state stretched from the Amu Darya River to
the Euphrates and from Derbent to the shores of the Persian Gulf.
This polity was created and developed as an essentially Azerbaijani
state and all political power remained in the hands of the
Azerbaijani feudal nobility. Senior court officials, military
generals and provincial governors were all appointed from among the
Azerbaijani nobility. The army was made up from the militia of the
most powerful Azerbaijani clans. Azerbaijani was the official
language of the Safavid state. By the end of the sixteenth century,
the capital of the Safavid state had been transferred to Isfahan and
its shah now drew his support primarily from the Persian nobility.
The State, while ruled by an Azerbaijan dynasty, took on an
increasingly Persian aspect.
According to McCarthy's
information, between 1828 and 1920 some 560,000 Armenians were
resettled in Azerbaijan. In other words, it was actually after the
conquest of the southern Caucasus by Russia that the Armenian
population of the Azerbaijani lands north of the river Araxes
increased so dramatically.
Since the mid-XIX
century, the oil industry had been flourishing in northern
Azerbaijan. The first ever industrial oil well was drilled in 1848.
In the late XIX th-early XX th centuries was producing 95% of
Russia's and about 50% of the world's oil production. The Nobels and
Rothschilds were among the oil magnates of, and earned a
considerable income. The fortune of the Nobels was largely derived
from the profit on Azerbaijani oil.
At the same time, a
number of prominent literary figures emerged to provide further
impetus to the nation's cultural development: Mirza Fatali Akhundov,
Mirza Alakbar Sabir, Jalil Mammadguluzadah, Jafar Jabbarli, Firudun
bay Kocharli, Ahmad Javad, are some that deserve special mention.
Similar progress was made at that time in the spheres of fine arts,
architecture, the theater and cinematography.
After the 1917
revolution in Russia, the processes of weakening and disintegration
of the Empire became more pronounced and conditions were ripe in
outlying ethnic regions of the former Russian Empire for the
formation of independent States. And so, on May 28, 1918 the
Azerbaijani Democratic Republic was proclaimed in the territory of
the eastern part of the southern Caucasus - the first parliamentary
democracy in the Islamic east - and which was to play a historic
role in the renaissance and formation of the sense of ethnic
identity and statehood of the Azerbaijani nation. At that time,
leader of Azerbaijan fraction was Mammad Amin Rasulzade.
The act establishing the
State independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan, which completed
its passage on October 18, 1991, set out the foundations for the
statehood of an independent Azerbaijan and determined the principles
of its political and economic structure. With that act the Republic
of Azerbaijan once again, after an interval of 71 years, became an
independent subject of international law.
.jpg)