User:Գարիկ Ավագյան/FalsificationofhistoryinAzerbaijan

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Falsification of history in Azerbaijan (Russian: Фальсификация истории в Азербайджане) is an evaluative definition, which, according to a number of authors, should characterize the historical research carried out in Azerbaijan with state support. The purpose of these studies, according to critics, is to exalt the Caucasian Albanians as the alleged ancestors of Azerbaijanis and to provide a historical basis for territorial disputes with Armenia. At the same time, the task is, firstly, to root Azerbaijanis in the territory of Azerbaijan, and secondly, to cleanse the latter of the Armenian heritage.[1][2]. In the sharpest and most detailed form, these accusations are made by specialists from Armenia, but the same is said, for example, by Russian historians Victor Schnirelmann[3], Anatoly Yakobson[4], Vladimir Zakharov[5], Mikhail Meltyukhov and others, Iranian historian Hasan Javadi[6], American historians Philip Kohl[7] и George Bournoutian[8].

Medieval Armenian monastery Gandzasar in the historically Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh. The monastery was built by Hasan-Jalal and until the 19th century. was the center of the Aghvan (Albanian) Catholicosate of the Armenian Church. According to Azerbaijani scientists, this means the Albanian ethnicity of its builders.[Комм 1]

According to the researcher Shirin Hunter, the distorted understanding by many Azerbaijanis of the true nature of cultural, ethnic and historical ties between Iran and Azerbaijan is associated with the legacy inherited by the modern Azerbaijan Republic from the "Soviet practice of historical falsifications" - she refers to such historical myths, in particular, the idea of the existence in ancient times of a unified Azerbaijani state, which included most of the territory of present-day northern Iran, which was divided into two parts as a result of the Russian-Iranian conspiracy.[9]

The concept of "Albanian Khachdash"[edit]

The Armenian khachkars of Julfa, declared in Azerbaijan "Albanian khachdash", and destroyed in 2003.

One of the most typical and widespread medieval Armenian monuments are khachkars[Комм 2] (Armenian: խաչքար, literally “cross-stone”[10]) - stone steles with a cross and carvings used as gravestones and objects of worship. Khachkars remained in large numbers on all lands where Armenians lived. Therefore, an important manifestation of the "Albanization" of the Armenian cultural heritage was the theory proclaiming the Armenian khachkars of Nagorno-Karabakh, Nakhichevan and (separating them) the Armenian Syunik as Albanian artifacts under the name "khachdashi" ). According to the Azerbaijani architectural historian Davud Aga-oglu Akhundov [az], khachdashi are distinguished by the fact that they bear in their decor signs of a fusion of Christianity with pre-Christian Albanian beliefs and contain symbols of Mithraism and Zoroastrianism.

In 1985, at the All-Union Archaeological Congress in Baku, Davud Aga-oglu Akhundov made a report in which he expressed these ideas, which provoked a scandal. The Armenian delegation announced its readiness to leave the conference, Leningrad scientists assessed Akhundov's report as a pseudoscientific political action. Philip L. Kohl, an American archaeologist, believes that this report was a deliberate political provocation and was intended to create a deliberately false cultural myth.[7] As Russian and Armenian critics later noted, Akhundov simply either did not know or deliberately ignored the well-known features of Christian iconography, declaring these plots to be Mithraistic, and also looked through the Armenian inscriptions on the "khachdash" he studied. In the words of the Russian specialist A. L. Yakobson, “Mithraist fog envelops almost all the monuments that the authors of D. A. Akhundov with co-author M. D. Akhundov, not to mention their generalizations”. So, describing the Djulfa khachkars of the 16th-17th centuries, Akhundov sees in the images of a lion, a bull and a bird "the eternal companions of the god Mithra", while, according to experts, these are undoubted symbols of the Evangelists. The concept of "khachdash" was finally completed in Akhundov's book "Architecture of Ancient and Early Medieval Azerbaijan", which was reviewed by Academician Ziya Buniyatov, Doctor of Historical Sciences V. G. Aliev and Doctor of Art History, Professor N. A Sarkisov.

This theory is now officially accepted in Azerbaijani science and propaganda. Thus, the chairman of the Azerbaijan Copyright Agency, Kamran Imanov, denounces the "Armenian tradition of appropriating our cultural values" as follows: These "scientists" at one time stole practically all the wonderful examples of our Christian past - memorials, churches, steles, gravestones, our khachdash, announced "Khachkars". According to the latest theories of Azerbaijani scholars, the custom of erecting stone khachdash crosses was brought to the Caucasus by the Turks back in the "pre-Albanian era".

Accusations in falsifications[edit]

Accusations of falsification of sources[edit]

According to the point of view prevailing in Azerbaijani historiography, Armenians appeared in Transcaucasia only after 1828, when these territories were ceded to Russia (see also Historical Migration of the Armenian Population). Nevertheless, there are a large number of Persian, Russian, Arab and other primary sources that record a significant presence of Armenians in the Transcaucasus and, especially, in the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. According to George Burnutyan, the greatest irritation among Azerbaijani historians was caused by the fact that Muslim primary sources on Transcaucasia living in the territory of present Azerbaijan, such as Abbas Quli Bakikhanov, after whom the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan is named, and Mirza Adigezal-bey, also clearly note a strong Armenian presence in Karabakh before 1828. To neutralize this fact, Buniyatov and his colleagues, neglecting academic conscientiousness, began to republish medieval primary sources, in which information about the Armenians was removed. George Burnutyan also cites similar examples of falsification by the Azerbaijani historian Nazim Akhundov in the 1989 reprint (according to Akhundov's statement) of Mirza Jamal Jamal Javanshir's book Tarikh-e Qarabagh (History of Karabakh), in places where the manuscript talks about the Armenian possessions of Karabakh the word "Armenian" is systematically omitted.

The distortion of the translation of Bakikhanov's book "Gulistan i-Irem" by Buniyatov was noted by historians Willem Flor and Hasan Javadi.

Именно так и обстоит дело в случае Зии Буниятова, который подготовил неполный и ущербный перевод сочинения Бакиханова. Он не только не перевёл ни одно из имеющихся в тексте стихотворений, но даже не упоминает об этом; подобным же образом он оставляет непереведёнными некоторые другие фрагменты текста, не указывая ни самого этого факта, ни причины. Это особенно тревожно, поскольку он замалчивает, например, упоминание территорий, населённых армянами, тем самым не только фальсифицируя историю, но и не уважая высказывание Бакиханова о том, что историк должен работать без предубеждений: религиозных, этнических, политических и прочих.[11]

This certainly is the case with Zia Bunyatov, who has made an incomplete and defective Russian translation of Bakikhanov's text. Not only has he not translated any of the poems in the text, but he does not even mention that he has not done so, while he does not translate certain other prose parts of the text without indicating this and why. This is in particular disturbing because he suppresses, for example, the mention of territory inhabited by Armenians, thus not only falsifying history, but also not respecting Bakikhanov's dictum that a historian should write without prejudice, whether religious, ethnic, political or otherwise.


This is exactly the case in the case of Ziya Buniyatov, who prepared an incomplete and flawed translation of Bakikhanov's work. He not only did not translate any of the poems in the text, but he does not even mention it; likewise he leaves some other passages untranslated, without indicating either the fact itself or the reason. This is especially alarming, since he silences, for example, the mention of territories inhabited by Armenians, thereby not only falsifying history, but also not respecting Bakikhanov's statement that a historian should work without prejudices: religious, ethnic, political and others.

Viktor Shnirelman also notes that for Azerbaijani historians headed by Buniyatov, “the way to underestimate the presence of Armenians in the ancient and medieval Transcaucasia and belittle their role is to re-publish ancient and medieval sources with cuts, replacing the term“ Armenian state ”with“ Albanian state ”or other distortions of the original texts ”, the fact of reprinting with cuts was also noted by the Russian orientalist IM Dyakonov, the Armenian historian Muradyan and the American professor Burnutyan.Историки Mikhail Meltyukhov, Alla Ter-Sarkisiants и Георгий Трапезников отмечают, что в этом издании при переводе с фарси на русский и азербайджанский «в тексте появилось немало слов и географических терминов („Азербайджан“, „азербайджанский“), которые, как это понятно любому историку, отсутствовали в фарсидском оригинале».[12] В предисловии к книге «Two chronicles on the history of Karabagh» профессор Калифорнийского университета, Барлоу Тер-Мурдечиан, также отмечает многочисленные искажения Буниятовым исходных текстов историков Мирзы Джамала и Мирзы Адигозал-Бека.[8] По мнению Джорджа Бурнутяна, подобные действия означают, что без публикации факсимильной копии оригинала азербайджанские издания источников, касающихся Карабаха, недостоверны:

В архивах Азербайджана всё ещё хранятся много персидских рукописей о Карабахе, которые не подвергались критическому анализу. Часть этих источников уже издавалась в отредактированном азербайджанскими переводчиками виде, следует ожидать и другие переводы. К сожалению, если издание не включает гарантированную факсимильную копию оригинала, приведенные выше примеры тенденциозности позволяют подвергнуть сомнению перевод и счесть его непригодным для историков. Столь вопиющие фальсификации источников ставят под сомнение саму суть научной деятельности. Международное научное сообщество не должно допустить, чтобы подобные нарушения интеллектуальной честности смогли остаться незамеченными и без осуждения.

— [13]

The archives of Azerbaijan still contain many Persian manuscripts about Karabakh, which have not been subjected to critical analysis. Some of these sources have already been published in a form edited by Azerbaijani translators, and other translations are to be expected. Unfortunately, if the publication does not include a guaranteed facsimile copy of the original, the above examples of bias might cast doubt on the translation and consider it unsuitable for historians. Such blatant falsifications of sources call into question the very essence of scientific activity. The international scientific community must not allow such violations of intellectual integrity to go unnoticed and without judgment.
Robert Hewsen in the Historical Atlas of Armenia, in a special note, warns about numerous distortions of the original texts of primary sources published in Soviet and post-Soviet Azerbaijan, the edition of which does not contain any mention of the Armenians present in the original work.

Sh. V. Smbatyan finds numerous distortions of sources in Geyushev's work “Christianity in Caucasian Albania”. For example, the book by Ya. A. Manandyan "Feudalism in ancient Armenia" by Geyushev is cited as "Feudalism in ancient Albania" The words of the "Albanian prince Varaz-Trdat" are given to "Albania", the facts described with references to the "History of the country of Aluank" by Movses Kagankatvatsi are absent in this source. Armenian historian A. A. Demoyan, analyzing a photograph of a historical monument from the "Historical Geography of Western Azerbaijan", comes to the conclusion that it was falsified from one of the three famous khachkars of the Goshavank monastery, created by the master Pogos in 1291. Goshavank khachkar is considered one of the best examples of Armenian khachkar art of the 13th century.

Viktor Shnirelman also notes that inscriptions on khachkars are falsified in Azerbaijan. Philip Kohl, Mara Kozelski and Nakhman Ben-Yehuda point to the falsification of the Mingachevir inscriptions by the Azerbaijani historian Mustafayev, who tried to read them in Azerbaijani (Turkic).

The Armenian historian P. Muradyan, analyzing the translation by Z. Buniyatov of the "Armenian Anonymous Chronicle" of the 18th century, reveals numerous distortions and "corrections" of the original text. For example, Buniyatov replaced the mentioned Armenian toponyms with Turkic ones, and in a number of places the academician completely removed the word “Armenia” (“Ottoman troops attacked Armenia” became “the land where Armenians lived”.) Muradyan and other historians point out another example falsification of the source by Buniyatov, in particular, "Journey" of the 15th century by Johann Schilberger.

Original text by Hans Schildberger Falsified text by Hans Schildberger
Я также провел много времени в Армении. По смерти Тамерлана, попал я к сыну его, владевшему двумя королевствами в Армении. Этот сын, по имени Шах-Рох, имел обыкновение зимовать на большой равнине, именуемой Карабаг и отличающейся хорошими пастбищами. Её орошает река Кур, называемая Тигр, и возле берегов сей реки собирается самый лучший шелк. Хотя эта равнина лежит в Армении, тем не менее она принадлежит язычникам, которым армянские селения принуждены платить дань. Армяне всегда обходились со мною хорошо, потому что я был немец, а они вообще очень расположены в пользу немцев (нимиц), как они нас называют. Они обучали меня своему языку и передали мне свой "Патер ностер Я провел много времени в Армении. После смерти Тамерлана я попал к его сыну, владевшему двумя королевствами. Этот сын, по имени Шах-Рох, имел обыкновение зимовать на большой равнине, именуемой Карабаг, которая отличалась хорошими пастбищами. Её орошает река Кур, называемая также Тигр и возле берегов этой реки собирается самый лучший шелк.

Books of medieval sources were republished in Azerbaijan with the replacement of the term “Armenian state” with “Albanian state”. Muradyan points to a similar distortion in the 1989 “Brief History of the Country of Aluank” by the Armenian historian Yesai Hasan-Jalalyan.

Original text by Yesai Hasan-Jalalyan Falsified text by Yesai Hasan-Jalalyan
собрав до 10000 отборных и вооруженных мужей, а с ними сонм священников и служителей наших, с великой пышностью и торжеством, считая армянское государство (զիշխանութիւն հայոց) вновь восстановленным, мы двинулись и через три дня остановились близ города Гянджи в местности Чолак собрав до 10000 отборных и вооруженных мужей, а с ними сонм священников и слушателей наших, с великой пышностью и торжеством, считая албанское государство восстановленным, мы двинулись и через три дня остановились близ города Гянджи в местности Чолак

Accusations of misrepresentation of quotes and references[edit]

Historians A. A. Akopyan, P. M. Muradyan, and K. N. Yuzbashyan in their work "On the Study of the History of Caucasian Albania" note that the Azerbaijani historian F. Mamedova in the book "Political History and Historical Geography of Caucasian Albania" the concept of the Armenian-Albanian border distorts the quotation of S.V. Yushkov, refers to books that do not contain such information (the authors find a similar reference in Buniyatov's work). The authors also give an example where Mamedova, referring to Stephen of Syuni, distorts his message about the presence of several dialects, directly called by Stephen of Syuni Armenian dialects, presenting it as a message about the existence of various languages. The authors note that Mamedova criticizes the Armenian author of the late 5th century Pavstos Buzand for his tendentious attempt to prepare the population for the anti-Persian uprising that took place before Pavstos Buzand wrote the work. A. A. Akopyan, P. M. Muradyan, and K. N. Yuzbashyan summarize Mamedova's work:

voluntarism in the study of antiquity, falsification of the very concept of historicism, already the result of unhealthy tendencies, cannot be characterized otherwise than as an attempt to deceive one's own people, instill unworthy ideas in them, and tune in to wrong decisions.

Doctor of Philology E. Pivazyan gives an example of falsification by F. Mamedova in her work "Political History and Historical Geography of Caucasian Albania", which, on pages 24–25, attributed the translator's notes, which were not in the original, to the author of the medieval code of law, Mkhitar Gosh.

Historians K. A. Melik-Ogadzhanyan and S. T. Melik-Bakhshyan also give examples of distortion of quotations and references to nonexistent statements. A.V. Mushegyan discovers false references to authoritative authors by academician Z. Buniyatov.

Shnirelman gives another example of distortion of links in the works of Mamedova and Buniyatov:

Later, some Azerbaijani scholars began to completely reject the participation of Mesrop Mashtots in the creation of the Albanian written language and tried to find an ally in this in the person of A.G. Perikhanyan (Mamedova, 1986, p. 7; Buniyatov, 1987c. P. 118). Meanwhile, in the work of Perikhanyan, only a hypothesis was expressed that Mesrop Mashtots attracted the Albanian Benjamin as his assistant, passing him the experience of creating writing. Perikhanyan clearly demonstrated that the Albanian alphabet was created under the absolute influence of the Armenian one. Consequently, she did not in the least question the fact of Mesrop Mashtots' participation in his invention (Perikhanyan, 1966, pp. 127-133).

Leningrad historian D.I. n. A. Yakobson, criticizing the attempts of Azerbaijani historians to record the Gandzasar Monastery as a monument of Albanian (according to Yakobson, thus Azerbaijani) architecture, also finds examples of distortion of quotations from the Azerbaijani historian Geyushev. Analyzing the report of D. A. and M. D. Akhundov "Cult symbols and the picture of the world, captured on the temples and steles of Caucasian Albania", Jacobson comes to the conclusion that the definitions given by the authors are "fake", and the report itself "distorts the semantic and artistic content and origins of Armenian medieval decorative arts."

State support for falsification of history[edit]

V. A. Shnirelman notes that there is a direct state order for publications with distortions of the source texts in Azerbaijan, designed to "clear" history of Armenians:

Another way to underestimate the presence of Armenians in ancient and medieval Transcaucasia and diminish their role is to reissue ancient and medieval sources with cuts, replacing the term “Armenian state” with “Albanian state” or with other distortions of the original texts. In the 1960-1990s. Many such reprints of primary sources were published in Baku, which was actively pursued by Academician Z. M. Buniyatov. In the most recent years, describing ethnic processes and their role in the history of Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani authors sometimes generally avoid discussing the issue of the appearance of the Azerbaijani language and Azerbaijanis there, thereby making the reader understand that they have existed there from time immemorial.

It is unlikely that Azerbaijani historians did all this exclusively of their own free will; they were dominated by the order of the party and government structures of Azerbaijan.

Ilham Aliyev: “… present-day Armenia, the territory referred to on the map as the Republic of Armenia, is the primordially Azerbaijani land. It is truth. Of course, Zangezur, the Iravan Khanate are our lands! ... Our children should know all this, they should know that today's Armenia is located on the ancestral Azerbaijani lands ”

According to J. Burnutyan, propaganda "historical" books are published in Azerbaijan by order of the government, in which Azerbaijani historians try to prove that Armenians appeared in the Caucasus after 1828.

At the ceremonial meeting dedicated to the anniversary of the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic (1999), the then President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev directly called on historians to "create substantiated documents" and "prove that Azerbaijan belongs to the lands where Armenia is now located." Thus, according to Shnirelman, the Azerbaijani authorities gave direct instructions to historians to rewrite the history of Transcaucasia. Farida Mammadova confesses that Heydar Aliyev personally demanded from her scientific criticism of every book about the history of Albania published in Armenia.

The existence of the state program of falsification of the history of the Transcaucasus in Azerbaijan is also noted by the historian Meltyukhov, Ter-Sarkisyants and Trapeznikov.

Historian Vladimir Zakharov, deputy director of the MGIMO Center for Caucasian Studies, commenting on Ilham Aliyev's words that Armenia was created on primordially Azerbaijani lands, notes that "historical research in Azerbaijan serves not science, but the political ambitions of leaders," and Azerbaijani historians are deceiving their own people ...

On December 14, 2005, Ilham Aliyev, President of Azerbaijan, in a speech on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan, called on Azerbaijani scientists to get involved in the program of justifying the lack of historical rights of the Karabakh Armenians to Nagorno Karabakh before the world community. President Aliyev promised to subsidize the program of uniting the efforts of Azerbaijani specialists in the development and propaganda of his thesis that “the Armenians came to Nagorno-Karabakh - an integral part of Azerbaijan, as guests”, arguing that “In the 70s of the last century a monument was erected there. reflecting their settlement, the 150th anniversary of the settlement of Armenians in Karabakh was celebrated "and therefore" the Armenians have absolutely no right to assert that Nagorno-Karabakh in the past belonged to them. " On April 26, 2011, at the annual general meeting of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev repeated these theses and stated:

our scientists, having responded positively to my call, in a short time have created excellent and based on real facts work related to the history of this region

De Baets of Wesleyan University notes that historians are persecuted in Azerbaijan for "incorrect" interpretation of historical concepts. Thus, in December 1994, the historian Movsum Aliyev was arrested for publishing the article "Answer to the falsifiers of history."

Sergei Rumyantsev (Baku), Ph.D. in Sociology, Director of the Novator Center for Social Research, writes about the falsification of history "as a result of a state political order carried out by historians". According to the author, “basically all the appeals to the text of the epic in the textbooks were intended to serve as the basis for the constructed image of the“ historical enemy ”. The events of recent years ... have led to the fact that this “honorable” place was taken first of all by the Armenians ”. Sergei Rumyantsev illustrates this with the example of a school textbook on Azerbaijani history (Ya. Mahmudlu, R. Khalilov, S. Agayev. Fatherland. Textbook for grade V. Third edition. Baku, 2003). It contains a literary work of the Turkic world of the XI-XII centuries. "Kitabi Dede Gorgud" is not only presented as a "historical chronicle of our fatherland", that is, Azerbaijan, aged thirteen centuries, but also the replacement of the Kipchak tribes (which served in the Turkic epic as an authentic image of the "infidels" with whom the Oghuzes fought) by Armenians and Georgians ...

Counter accusations of Azerbaijani historians for distorting the facts of the history of Transcaucasia[edit]

In turn, Azerbaijani politicians and scientists believe that it is the historians of other countries who invent the facts of the history of Transcaucasia. Thus, the Great Russian Encyclopedia was accused of distorting facts. The Azerbaijani Embassy in Russia announced a note and demanded to withdraw the circulation of the encyclopedia. The Russian authorities did not react in any way to the note of the Azerbaijani authorities. Khazar Ibrahim, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, said:

There are fictional facts that do not correspond to history and insult the Azerbaijani people. First of all, we insist on the withdrawal of the circulation so that a negative image of the Azerbaijani public is not created, as well as for the Russian public, reading this book, to get an idea based on real facts, and not on innuendo that took place in this circulation.

Big Russian Encyclopedia, accused of "falsifying" the history of Azerbaijan

Director of the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan, Yagub Mahmudov, also believes that the historical presence of Armenians in the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh is "a strong distortion of history" and offers Russian historians assistance in presenting "historical truth":

I am familiar with this article, which was inserted into the 31st volume of the 62-volume Great Russian Encyclopedia. It greatly distorts the history of Nagorno-Karabakh, says that this is an ancient Armenian land, although on the basis of historical documents it is known that the resettlement of Armenians to Karabakh began in the 19th century, they were resettled from the Ottoman Empire and Iran. Other serious distortions have also been committed, one of which, for example, is the presentation of Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state.

<…>

We can and are ready to help the Russian side provide historical data based on archival materials that will represent the historical truth.

Makhmudov also spoke out against the atlas "Turan on ancient maps" published jointly by Russian and Kazakh scientists. According to the director of the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan, this publication is one of the results of the activities of Armenian nationalists, who are concerned about the huge successes of Azerbaijan in the international arena. Mahmudov characterizes this atlas as “an unthinkable anti-scientific, deliberate attack on Azerbaijan”, in which there was no place for “the powerful states of Azerbaijan, which has a 5000-year history of statehood,” while the map, according to Mahmudov, is fictional and is a falsification of Great Armenia. is presented in the atlas several times.

Head of the Department of Karabakh History of the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan (ANAS), Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Gasim Hajiyev accuses Russians, Armenian and those Azerbaijani historians who "serving the Armenians and Russians, also refuse to recognize the Turkic origin of Azerbaijanis of falsification of the ancient history of Transcaucasia." He noted that Turkic states existed on the territory of Azerbaijan even before the creation of the ancient states of Atropatena and Caucasian Albania. Speaking about 26 tribes, according to Strabo living in the territory of Caucasian Albania, Hajiyev notes that in the historical literature “the Turkic origin of such tribes as Saki, Gutii, Cimmerians, Gargars was completely denied. The Turkic origin of the Albanians themselves was also denied ”.

At the event on the topic "The problem of Nagorno-Karabakh - 20 years: The causes and results of defeats at the first stage", the former Minister of Education of Azerbaijan, Professor Firuddin Jalilov said:

It's time to stop conducting a historical discussion with Armenians at an amateurish level, and to involve specialists who know the history and characteristics of this people in the study of the Armenian problem. ... Immediately I note that you cannot call them Armenians, since they call themselves Khays, the Khay people, whose language is divided into Grabar (Balkan dialect) and Syrian. ... All the arguments that Armenia is an ancient country of Hays immediately become groundless and abstract, since there is no such nation, Armenians, there is a very ancient historical region of Armin in Asia Minor, where Turkic-speaking peoples lived ...

<…>

Our main problem and weakness, in my opinion, lies precisely in ignorance of these historical basics, confirmed by world science, but not advertised and hushed up everywhere due to the geopolitical interests of large countries. For the same political reasons, the Hays, who migrated and settled in the Arminu region in the Middle Ages, today also do not advertise their real self-name, although in their own language they continue to call themselves Hays, and the country Hayastan.

Azerbaijani architects D.A. and M.D. Akhundov believe that the accusations of the Russian historian and art critic D.I. n. Anatoly Yakobson is that their work about the Gandzasar Monastery (in which they argued that Gandzasar is an “Albanian” monastery, and the khachkars are in fact “Azerbaijani” cultural monuments) “distorts the semantic and artistic content and origin of Armenian medieval decorative art "Are incorrect, and in Jacobson's work" it is impossible to find at least one proposition that would correspond to historical reality. It is only unclear whether we are dealing with a deliberate falsification of history or the fruits of unprofessional creativity before us. "

Senior Researcher of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of ANAS, Doctor of Historical Sciences Abbas Seyidov, commenting on the accusations against Azerbaijan regarding the destruction of khachkars in Julfa, claims that it is the Armenians themselves who are "total falsification of the history and culture of Azerbaijan", and in this they were helped in leadership USSR and "scientists like Piotrovsky" (M. Piotrovsky - Doctor of History, Director of the Hermitage; protested against the destruction of khachkars).

According to the director of the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan Yagub Mahmudov, "Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who has deep and comprehensive historical knowledge," calls on "to go on the offensive in the information war against Armenian falsifiers". Mahmudov notes that the path outlined by Aliyev is the only one for "bringing historical reality to the attention of the world community."

Aydin Balayev in his book "Ethno-linguistic processes in Azerbaijan in the 19th-20th centuries" claims that the main falsifier of the history of Azerbaijan was the founder of the scientific school on the ancient history of Azerbaijan, director of the Institute of History named after A. A. Bakikhanov of the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences Igrar Aliyev:

The dubious fame of the founder of this "scientific" trend in national historiography rightfully belongs to Igrar Aliyev. For more than half a century, it was he who led the "crusade" against the national memory of Azerbaijanis. It should be admitted that during this period he single-handedly achieved much greater achievements in falsifying the ethno-linguistic history of Azerbaijanis than all anti-Azerbaijani centers abroad taken together. Suffering from a pathological form of Turkophobia, I. Aliyev, starting from the 40s. XX century, in his numerous works with perseverance worthy of better application, preached the "idea" according to which the leading role in the formation of the Azerbaijani people was played by the Iranian and Caucasian-speaking tribes and nationalities that inhabited the ancient Media and Atropatena, as well as Caucasian Albania.

Wikipedia is also accused of falsifying the historical facts of Azerbaijani history. Director of the Institute of Information Technologies of ANAS Rasim Alguliyev believes that "by placing distorted information on the pages of this encyclopedia in different languages, the enemies of the Islamic world are waging an information war."

On December 7, 2012, a meeting was held at the Presidium of ANAS, at which various information about the history of Azerbaijan was discussed, including publications in Wikipedia, which were regarded as falsification of the history of Azerbaijan. Solmaz Tovhidi, PhD, noted “the importance of creating a structure at the Institute of Cybernetics for the correct use and management of Wikipedia.”

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ В годы Карабахской войны монастырь был подвергнут преднамеренной бомбардировке азербайджанской дальнобойной артиллерией и военной авиацией. См. Отчёт лорда Хилтона о посещении Нагорного Карабаха
  2. ^ В ноябре 2010 года искусство создания хачкаров с формулировкой «Символика и мастерство хачкаров, армянские каменные кресты» было внесено в репрезентативный список ЮНЕСКО по нематериальному культурному наследию человечества (См.:UNESCO: Armenian cross-stones art. Symbolism and craftsmanship of Khachkars

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ A Brief History of the Aghuank Region. pp. 9–10.

    In 1988, following the demands of the Karabagh Armenians to secede from Azerbaijan and join Armenia, a number of Azeri academics, led by Zia Bunyatov, in order to justify their government’s claims regarding the Armenian populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh, rushed to prove that the Armenian population of Karabagh had only arrived there after 1828 and thus had no historical claims to the region. Lacking any sources written in Azeri-since the Azeri alphabet was created in the twentieth century, and refusing, for obvious reasons, to cite Armenian sources, they had to rely on sources written in Persian, Arabic, and Russian, among others.

    Therefore, in order to substantiate their political claims, Bunyatov and his fellow academics chose to set aside all scholarly integrity and print large numbers of re-edited versions of these not easily accessible primary sources on Karabagh, while deleting or altering references to the Armenians.

  2. ^ Шнирельман: Войны памяти [Shnirelman: Wars of Memory]. p. 210.

    <…>

    Здесь-то на помощь политикам и приходят историки, археологи, этнографы и лингвисты, которые всеми силами стремятся, во-первых, укоренить азербайджанцев на территории Азербайджана, а во-вторых, очистить последнюю от армянского наследия. Эта деятельность не просто встречает благожелательный приём у местных властей, но, как мы видели, санкционируется президентом республики.

  3. ^ "Албанский миф". Шнирельман: Войны памяти. pp. 216–222.
  4. ^ Якобсон А. Л. [in Russian] (1991). "К освещению проблем истории и культуры Кавказской Албании и восточных провинций Армении". Гандзасарский монастырь и хачкары: факты и вымыслы [Gandzasar Monastery and khachkars: facts and fiction]. Yerevan University. pp. 448–456. ISBN 5808401151.
  5. ^ ИА REGNUM. 08.01.2010. Владимир Захаров. Историческая безграмотность, или Агрессивные устремления. Захаров Владимир Александрович — старший научный сотрудник, заместитель директора Центра Кавказских исследований МГИМО.
  6. ^ The Heavenly Rose-Garden: A History of Shirvan & Daghestan. pp. xvi, 5.

    This certainly is the case with Zia Bunyatov, who has made an incomplete and defective Russian translation of Bakikhanov’s text. Not only has he not translated any of the poems in the text, but he does not even mention that he has not done so, while he does not translate certain other prose parts of the text without indicating this and why. This is in particular disturbing because he suppresses, for example, the mention of territory inhabited by Armenians, thus not only falsifying history, but also not respecting Bakikhanov’s dictum that a historian should write without prejudice, whether religious, ethnic, political or otherwise. <…> Guilistam-i Iram translated with commentary by Ziya M. Bunyatov (Baku. 1991), p.11, where the translator has deleted the words `and Armenia` from the text, which shows, as indicated in the introduction, that his translation should be used with circumspection, because this is not the only example of omissions from Bakikhanov’s text.

    Флор и Джавади — иранисты, авторы множества статье в авторитетной энциклопедии Ираника
  7. ^ a b Philip L. Kohl:Nationalism, politics, and the practice of archaeology. pp. 154.

    The young Azeri’s seemingly innocuous, abstract archaeological paper was a deliberate political provocation: all the crosses on today’s territory of Azerbaijan, including significantly Nagorno-Karabagh and Nakhichevan, were defined as Albanian, a people who in turn were seen as the direct ancestors of today’s Azeris. // The rest, as they say, is history. The Armenian archaeologists were upset and threatened to walk out en bloc. Protests were filed, and even Russian scholars from Leningrad objected to this blatantly political appropriation, posing as scholarship. <…> // Thus, minimally, two points must be made. Patently false cultural origin myths are not always harmless.

  8. ^ a b Two chronicles on the history of Karabagh by G. Bournoutian. Mazda Academic Press, 2004. Communicated by Barlow Der Murgdechian to Society of Armenian Studies List. «George Bournoutian’s new book, „Two Chronicles on the History of Karabagh“ has been published by Mazda Academic Press. The study is an annotated English translation of two Muslim historians, Mirza Jamal and Mirza Adigozal Beg, who in the first half of the 19th century wrote histories of Karabagh. Contrary to current Azeri claims, both sources detail a strong Armenian presence in Karabagh centuries before the Russian conquest of the region. Azeri academics, led by the late Ziya Buniatov, have removed most references of an Armenian presence in Karabagh in new editions of these and other primary sources. Bournoutian has used the original manuscripts in Baku and has indicated the expunged material. In addition, the book contains various other primary non-Armeian sourcesand, for the sake of objectivity, is practically devoid of works by Armenian historians. The 300 page book includes an introduction, glossary, five maps, and an index. It can be obtained from NAASR or form Mazda Press in early October.»
  9. ^ Shireen Hunter:Iran and Transcaucasia in the Post-Soviet Era. pp. 106.

    In the Republic of Azerbaijan, the long Soviet practice of historic falsification has left a legacy which has distorted both the views of many Azerbaijanis of Iran and the true nature of their cultural, ethnic and historic connections. The following are some examples of this process of falsification, which, incidentally, in the last few years, has been picked up and given new credence by a number of Western commentators. Several myths with significant policy implications shape the Azerbaijanis' views of their country, its origins, and its relations to Iran.

  10. ^ The Grove Encyclopedia of Medieval Art and Architecture. Vol. 2. Oxford University Press. 2012. p. 222.
  11. ^ The Heavenly Rose-Garden: A History of Shirvan & Daghestan. Abbas-Kuli-Aga Bakikhanov, Willem Floor, Hasan Javadi. — Mage Publishers, 2009 — ISBN 1-933823-27-5. Стр. xvi. Флор и Джавади — иранисты, авторы множества статей в авторитетной энциклопедии Ираника
  12. ^ Михаил МЕЛЬТЮХОВ, кандидат исторических наук, Алла ТЕР-САРКИСЯНЦ, доктор исторических наук, Георгий ТРАПЕЗНИКОВ, доктор исторических наук, профессор, академик МАИ ООН. Исторические фальсификации с политической подоплёкой
  13. ^ Rewriting History: Recent Azeri Alterations of Primary Sources Dealing with Karabakh George A. Bournoutian Archived 2001-11-10 at the Library of Congress Web Archives. Автор — старший профессор истории и политологии в Iona College, США [1] Один из авторов авторитетной энциклопедии Iranica [2] Archived 2007-10-09 at the Wayback Machine [dead link]: «There are still a number of Persian manuscripts on Karabakh in the archives of Azerbaijan which have yet to be examined critically. Some of this primary material has already appeared in edited Azeri translations and others will undoubtedly follow. Unfortunately, unless they include a certified facsimile of the original manuscript, the tententious scholarship demonstrated above will render all these translations highly suspect and unusable by scholars. // Such blatant tampering with primary source material strikes at the very heart of scholarly integrity. The international academic community must not allow such breaches of intellectual honesty to go unnoticed and uncensured.»

Literature[edit]

Category:Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic Category:Nagorno-Karabakh Category:History of Azerbaijan