Caucasian Albania in Azerbaijani Historiography
The history of Caucasian Albania has been a major topic of Azerbaijani revisionist theories, which came under criticism in Western and Russian academic and analytical circles, and were often characterized as “bizarre” and “futile.”
In his article “The Albanian Myth” Russian historian and anthropologist Victor Schnirelmann demonstrated that Azerbaijani academics have been “renaming prominent medieval Armenian political leaders, historians and writers, who lived in Karabakh and Armenia into “Albanians.” Victor Schnirelmann argues that these efforts were first launched in the 1950s and were directed towards “ripping the population of early medieval Karabakh off from their Armenian heritage” and “cleansing Azerbaijan of Armenian history.” In the 1970s, Azerbaijan made a transition from ignoring, discounting or concealing Armenian historical heritage in Soviet Azerbaijan to misattributing and mischaracterizing it as examples of Azerbaijani culture by arbitrarily declaring “Caucasian Albanians” as ancestors of modern Azerbaijanis. In this regard, Thomas de Waal, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes about the political context of Azerbaijan’s historical revisionism:
"This rather bizarre argument has the strong political subtext that Nagorno Karabakh had in fact been Caucasian Albanian and that Armenians had no claim to it"
A key revisionist method used by Azerbaijani scholars mentioned by Victor Schnirelmann and others was ”re-publishing of ancient and medieval sources, where the term “Armenian state” was routinely and systematically removed and replaced with “Albanian state.” American author George Bournoutian gives examples of how that was done by Ziya Bunyadov, vice-chairman of Azerbaijani Academy of Sciences, who earned the nickname of “Azerbaijan’s foremost Armenophobe.”
According to Thomas de Waal:
"Buniatov’s scholarly credentials were dubious. It later transpired that the two articles he published in 1960 and 1965 on Caucasian Albania were direct plagiarism. Under his own name, he had simply published, unattributed, translations of two articles, originally written in English by Western scholars C.F.J. Dowsett and Robert Hewsen."
Robert Hewsen, a historian from Rowan College and the acknowledged authority in this field, wrote in his volume Armenia: A Historical Atlas, published by Chicago University Press:
Scholars should be on guard when using Soviet and post-Soviet Azeri editions of Azeri, Persian, and even Russian and Western European sources printed in Baku. These have been edited to remove references to Armenians and have been distributed in large numbers in recent years. When utilizing such sources, the researchers should seek out pre-Soviet editions wherever possible. Robert Hewsen. “Armenia: A Historical Atlas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001, p. 291
According to Thomas de Waal, a disciple of Ziya Bunyadov, Farida Mammadova, has “taken the Albanian theory and used it to push Armenians out of the Caucasus altogether. She had relocated Caucasian Albania into what is now the present-day Republic of Armenia. All those lands, churches, and monasteries in the Republic of Armenia—all had been Albanian. No sacred Armenian fact was left un-attacked.” Thomas de Waal describes Mammadova as a sophisticated end of what “in Azerbaijan has become a very blunt instrument indeed.” Both Ziya Bunyadov and Farida Mammadova are known for their anti-Armenian public pronouncements and pamphlets.
Historical revisionism in Azerbaijan supported a number of policies on the ground, including cultural vandalism directed against Armenian monuments in Soviet and post-Soviet Azerbaijan. Armenian memorial stone crosses known as “khachkars” on the territory of Azerbaijan were regularly misrepresented as “Caucasian Albanian” both before and after Azerbaijan’s independence. Furthermore, mischaracterization of Armenian khachkars as supposedly non-Armenian monuments of Caucasian Albania was associated with acts of cultural vandalism against Armenian historical monuments in Nakhichevan. The events in Nakhichevan refer to the systematic campaign by the government of Azerbaijan to completely demolish the large cemetery with thousands of Armenian khachkars near the town of Julfa (known as Jugha in Armenian), Nakhchivan. Claims by Armenians that Azerbaijan was undertaking a systematic campaign to destroy and remove the monuments first arose in late 1998 and those charges were renewed in 2002 and 2005. In reaction to the charges brought forward by Armenia and international organizations, Azerbaijan has asserted, falsely, that Armenians had never existed in those territories. In December 2005, an Azerbaijani official stated in a BBC interview that Armenians “never lived in Nakhchivan, which has been Azerbaijani land from time immemorial, and that's why there are no Armenian cemeteries and monuments and have never been any.” Adam T. Smith, an anthropologist and associate professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago, called the removal of the khachkars "a shameful episode in humanity's relation to its past, a deplorable act on the part of the government of Azerbaijan which requires both explanation and repair." Smith and other scholars, as well as several United States Senators, signed a letter to the UNESCO and other organizations condemning Azerbaijan's government. Azerbaijan instead contends that the monuments were not of Armenian, but of Caucasian Albanian, origin, which, per Thomas De Waal, did not protect “the graveyard from an act in the history wars.”
Armenian cultural heritage on lands that were temporary associated with Caucasian Albania in medieval times also became targets of Azerbaijani nationalists during the Nagorno-Karabakh War. Robert Bevan writes: “The Azeri campaign against the Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabakh which began in 1988 was accompanied by cultural cleansing that destroyed the Egheazar monastery and 21 other churches.”
Anti-Armenian cultural vandalism in Azerbaijan perpetrated with the use of revisionist theories on Caucasian Albania was also noted in northern Azerbaijan, where Norwegian archeologists were involved in the restoration of an Armenian-Georgian church in the village of Kish near the city of Shaki. Azerbaijanis erased Armenian inscriptions on the church’s walls, which led to by an official complaint by Norwegian foreign ministry.
Armenian heritage was the main but not the only target of attacks of Azerbaijani historians and politicians. Revisionist theories about Caucasian Albania have been used by Azerbaijani statesmen in the ongoing Azerbaijani-Georgian dispute over the territorial status of David Gareja monastery complex, a Georgian spiritual and historical monument partially located on the territory of Azerbaijani Republic. David Gareja is a rock-hewn Georgian Orthodox monastery complex in the Kakheti region of Eastern Georgia, on the semi-desert slopes of Mount Gareja, some 60–70 km southeast of Georgia's capital Tbilisi. Giorgi Manjgaladze, Georgia's deputy foreign minister proposed that Georgia would be willing to exchange other territory for the remainder of David Gareja because of its historical and cultural significance to the Georgians. Baku disapproves of this land swap, and in April 2007, Azerbaijan's deputy foreign minister Khalaf Khalafov told a press conference in Baku that it was "out of the question" for Azerbaijan to "give up its claims to the borderlands" including David Gareja. Khalafov then stated that the monastery "was home to the Caucasian Albanians, who are believed to have been the earliest inhabitants of Azerbaijan." Georgian art historian Dimitri Tumanishvili dismissed this claim and stated that the complex "is covered in the work of Georgian masters." "There are Georgian inscriptions everywhere dating back to the sixth century," he said "There are no traces of another culture there. After that, I don’t think you need any further proof."
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