Contents
History of Azerbaijan
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History of Azerbaijan
This article is part of a series
Antiquity
Ancient history and Roman era
First Persian Empire
and Alexander's conquests
Roman-Parthian rivalry
and Sassanian conquest
Middle Ages
Islamic period
Seljuk dynasty
Atabegs of Azerbaijan
Khwarezmian, Mongol and Ilkhanid rule
Qara Qoyunlu
Aq Qoyunlu
Shirvanshahs
Classical history
Safavid dynasty
Khanates
Qajar dynasty
Russian rule
Early independence
Azerbaijan Democratic Republic
March Days
Soviet Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic
Black January
Modern Azerbaijan
Republic of Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan Portal
Azerbaijan or Azarbaijan (Azerbaijani: آذربایجان Azərbaycan) is a historical and geographic region on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It's bounded by Caspian Sea to the east, Russia's Daghestan region to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia and Turkey to the southwest, and other parts of Iran to the south. Azerbaijan is a home to various ethnicities, majority of which are Turks, an ethnic group which numbers close to 8 million in the independent Republic of Azerbaijan.
During Median and Persian rule, many Albanians adopted Zoroastrianism and then switched to Christianity prior to coming of Muslim Arabs and more important Muslim Turks. The Turkic tribes are believed to have arrived as small bands of ghazis whose conquests led to the Turkification of the population as largely native Caucasian and Iranian tribes adopted the Turkic language of the Oghuz and converted to Islam over a period of several hundred years.[1]
After more than 80 years of colonization under the Russian empire in the Caucasus, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was established in 1918. The state was invaded by Soviet forces in 1920, and remained under Soviet rule until the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
Prehistory
Paleolithic
The cave of Azykh in the territory of the Fizuli district in the Republic of Azerbaijan is considered to be the site of one of the most ancient proto-human habitations in Eurasia. Remnants of the pre-Acheulean culture were found in the lowest layers of the Azykh cave. This culture is one of the oldest, and in many ways similar to the Olduvai culture in Tanzania, and Walloon culture in the southeast of France.
The Paleolithic (Homo Sapiens) period in what is now Azerbaijan is represented by finds at Aveidag, Taglar, Damjily, Yatagery, Dash Salakhly and some other sites. Carved drawings etched on rocks in Qobustan, south of Baku, demonstrate scenes of hunting, fishing, labor and dancing, and are dated to the Mesolithic period.
Neolithic
The Neolithic period (ca. 6th - 4th millennia BC) was the period of transition from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age. Many Neolithic settlements have been discovered in Azerbaijan, and carbon-dated artifacts show that during this period, people built homes, made copper weapons, and were familiar with irrigated agriculture.
Bronze to Iron Age
The influence of ancient peoples and civilizations including the Sumerians and Elamites came to a crossroads in the territory of Azerbaijan. A variety of Caucasian peoples appear to be the earliest inhabitants of the South Caucasus with the notable Caucasian Albanians being their most prominently known representative.
In the 8th century BC, the semi-nomadic Cimmerians and Scythians settled in the territory of kingdom of Mannai. The Assyrians also had a civilization that flourished to the west of Lake Urmia in the centuries prior to creation of Media and Albania. Most of the ancient documents and inscriptions used for historical analysis of the area come from the Assyrians and from the kingdom of Urartu. In dealing with the history of Azerbaijan, most western scholars refer to Greek, Arab, Roman, and Persian sources.
Caucasian Albanians are believed to be the earliest inhabitants of Azerbaijan.[2] Early invaders included the Scythians in the ninth century BCE.[3] The South Caucasus was eventually conquered by the Achaemenids around 550 BCE. During this period, Zoroastrianism spread in Azerbaijan. The Achaemenids in turn were defeated by Alexander the Great in 330 BCE. Following the decline of the Seleucids in Persia in 247 BCE, an Armenian Kingdom exercised control over parts of modern Azerbaijan between 190 BCE to 428 CE.[4][5] Caucasian Albanians established a kingdom in the 1st century BCE and largely remained independent until the Sassanids made the kingdom a province in 252 CE.[2][6][7] Caucasian Albania's ruler, King Urnayr, officially adopted Christianity as the state religion in the fourth century CE, and Albania would remain a Christian state until the 8th century.[8][9] Sassanid control ended with their defeat by Muslim Arabs in 642 CE.[10]
The successive migration and settlement of Eurasian and Central Asian nomads continued to be a familiar pattern in the history of the Caucasus since ancient times, from the era of Sassanid-Persian empire to emergence of Azerbaijani Turks by the 20th century CE. Among the Iranian nomads who made incursion into and from Azerbaijan are the Scythians, Alans and Cimmerians. Altaic Nomads such as Khazars and Huns made incursions during the Hunnic and Khazar era. The walls and fortification of Darband were built during the Sassanid era in order to block nomads coming from the caucus pass. However, they did not make permanent settlements.[11]
Antiquity
Achaemenid and Seleucid rule
Following the overthrow of the Median Empire, all of what is today Azerbaijan was invaded by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in the 6th century BCE. This earliest Persian Empire had a profound impact upon local population as the religion of Zoroastrianism became ascendant as did various early Persian cultural influences. Many of the local peoples of Caucasian Albania came to be known as fire worshipers, which may be a sign of their Zoroastrian faith.
This empire was also quite short-lived and was conquered barely two centuries later by Alexander the Great and led to the rise of Hellenistic culture throughout the former Persian Empire. The Seleucid Greeks inherited the Caucasus following Alexander's death in 323 BCE, but were ultimately beset by pressures from Rome, secessionist Greeks in Bactria, and most adversely the Parthians (Parni), another nomadic Iranian tribe from Central Asia, which made serious inroads into the northern eastern Seleucid domains from the late 4th century BCE to the 3rd century BCE and this ultimately allowed local Caucasian tribes to establish an independent kingdom for the first time since the Median invasion.
Caucasian Albania, Roman-Parthian rivalry, and Sassanian conquest
This Albanian kingdom coalesced around a native Caucasian identity and a Zoroastrian religious background to forge a unique state in a region of vast empire-states. However in the 2nd or 1st century B.C. the Armenians considerably curtailed the Albanian territories to the south and conquered the territories of Artsakh and Utik, populated by various Albanian tribes, such as Utians, Gargarians and Caspians.[12][13] During this time the border between Albania and Armenia was along the river of Kura.[14][15]