West Azerbaijan Province - History

History

The major known ancient civilization in the region was that of Mannaeans, a buffer state between Urartian and Assyrian sphere of influence. Mannaeans in turn spoke a language related to Urartian. After the fall of Assyria, the region was known as Mantiene (or Matiene) in Greek sources. Matiene bordered on Atropatene situated east of Lake Urmia. The region subsequently was known as Persarmenia from the second century BC. as late as 11th century AD.

In the late 4th century AD Sassanids incorporated the area into the neighbouring Adhurpadaghan satrapy to the east. The name Adhurpatagan, later Arabicized to Azerbaijan, derives from Atropates, an Iranian satrap of Media under the Achaemenid empire, who later was reinstated as the satrap of Media under Alexander of Macedonia.

Around the 10th century when the region of Persarmnia was under rule of Hadhabani Kurds, the medieval geographer Al-Muqaddasi described the area of what is today called West Azerbaijan province as part of Armenia:

The battle of DimDim between Safavids and Kurds took place in this region. After a long and bloody siege led by the Safavid grand vizier Hatem Beg, which lasted from November 1609 to the summer of 1610, the Castle of Dimdim was captured. All the defenders were killed and Shah Abbas I ordered a general massacre in Bradost and Mukriyan (reported by Eskandar Beg, Safavid historian in the book Alam Aray-e Abbasi) and resettled the Turkish Afshar tribe in the region while deporting many Kurdish tribes to Khorasan region.

The Persarmneian districts of Mākū (Artaz), Ḵoy (Her), Salmās (Zarewand), and Arasbārān (Parspatunikʿ), and the region of Urmia (Parskahaykʿ), according to 19th century administrative division became a part of the northwestern Iranian province of Azerbaijan. In 1937 the province was renamed to Shomal-e gharb (northwestern province). Shortly after the province was divided into a western and eastern part which were renamed to Chaharom (fourth province) and sevom (third province), respectively. In 1961 Fourth province was renamed West Azerbaijan by the Iranian authoroties.

Significant events in the 19th and 20th centuries are:

• Shaikh Ubeidullah Revolts, west and south of Lake Urmia in 1880;
• Simko Insurrections, west of Lake Urmia from 1918 to 1922;
• the Soviet occupation in 1946;
• the foundation and destruction of the Republic of Mahabad in 1946; and
• periodic severe fighting from 1979 until 1990s (and even to the present, but on a smaller scale ) between Kurdish (nationalist and communist) forces and the Iranian government. At times, large parts of the province were without government control .

These separatist movements may have many motivations and origins; however, the colonialist policies of the Soviet Union and Imperial Russia encouraged such movements. In a cable sent on July 6, 1945 by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the local Soviet commander in Russian held Azerbaijan (northern Azerbaijan) was instructed:

"Begin preparatory work to form a national autonomous Azerbaijan district with broad powers within the Iranian state and simultaneously develop separatist movements in the provinces of Gilan, Mazandaran, Gorgan, and Khorasan".