Caucasian Albania

[egeli]

Re: Caucasian Albania

Many ethnic Armenian nationalists seem to be proud of their "pure" genetic stock. As if the collective memory and culture of ancient Armenians is genetically passed down rather than socially learned.

Azerbaijan like Turkey has followed the 20th paradigm where every emerging nation-state must have historical legitimacy. I do not doubt the current Armenian nation's historical bond with ancient Armenians. It is much less contrived than Turkish identity.

However, this does make the Armenian nation-state any more legitimate than Turkey or Azerbaijan. Does Israel have territorial rights to Palestine just because of historical claims?

History is already biased enough at the academic level. With political influence, historical interpretation is nothing but arbitrary.

[SevSpitak]

Re: Caucasian Albania

It's my understanding that the Scythian tribes where to the North of Armenia, so it's likely that they interacted with Urartu.

The Cimmerians, entering Asia Minor through the Caucasus while fleeing Scythians, played a role in the demise of Phrygia/Phrygian kingdoms, while Medians & Scythians worked together to destroy Urartu.

Scythians were the main concern in the North to the Urartians, while Assyria was their concern to the South. Yet, there were many occasions where Urartians and Scythians had good relations as well.

[retro]

Re: Caucasian Albania

Sakhs were Scythian tribes who had settled in the region during Urartu (but they were not part of Urartu), which was succeeded by the Satrapy of Armina (Armenia).

It's my understanding that the Scythian tribes where to the North of Armenia, so it's likely that they interacted with Urartu. Ossetic like Tajikistani are the only know remnants of the Scytho-Sarmatian dialect. The Scythians (Alanic) ancestry is of intrest to me as. As according to Celtic mythology, Celtic noblity are said to be in part decended from the Scythian kings.

It's worth noting that in the Caucasus, haplogroup R1b is found in 43% of Ossetian males. Which I could well be the legacy of Celtic/Scytho interaction/conflict. As the Celts and Thracians expanded eastward eventually displacing the Scythians in the Balkans and Celtic culture was clearly influenced by the Scyths.

[SevSpitak]

Re: Caucasian Albania

Yes, very good, both of you! Though it may have not been obvious but my question in the beginning had a rhetorical side to it. Azeris CANNOT claim Albanian or Atropatenian heritage.



What you basically mean is that they got eventually assimilated with Armenians.

Pretty much, but it happened even before the formation of Caucasian Albania.

Ashot, that's what I call a failed attempt to reproduce Ararat on their seal. So not only are they not creative enough to rename Nakhichevan which is in fact an Armenian name (Ichevan is a resting place for travellers), but they also claim Ararat as theirs! I thought that Muslims believe that Noah's Ark did not land on Ararat, but on Judi. Though I guess that Azeris are able to distort their religion as easily as they would change their culture, alphabet, homeland, history, wives, and so on.

Don't forget that "nakh" means "first" or "previous" in Armenian. Nakh-Ichevan means "first resting place," a direct reference to Noah's first home. In fact, Armenian tradition, from Khorenatsi's history, claims that Noah built his new (first) village in Nakhichevan (if I'm not mistaken).

[Davo88]

Re: Caucasian Albania

Yes, very good, both of you! Though it may have not been obvious but my question in the beginning had a rhetorical side to it. Azeris CANNOT claim Albanian or Atropatenian heritage.

Sakhs were definitely a different entity, but that was 2600 years ago. In short, (my dumbed down explanation), 2500 years ago, they stopped calling themselves Sakh, and began to call themselves Armenian, just like all other originally non-Armenian tribes, because they ALL lived in a kingdom called Armenia.

What you basically mean is that they got eventually assimilated with Armenians.

Also something I wanted to add, have anyone of you guys ever seen the seal of the city of Nakhichevan? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...akhchivan2.png

It seems Azeries also claim Ararat as theirs, it is already an offence to know our Ararat is on Turkish territory, and it gets worse when you see not only a symbol of our faith but a symbol of our people next to the crescent star and in territory stolen from us.

Ashot, that's what I call a failed attempt to reproduce Ararat on their seal. So not only are they not creative enough to rename Nakhichevan which is in fact an Armenian name (Ichevan is a resting place for travellers), but they also claim Ararat as theirs! I thought that Muslims believe that Noah's Ark did not land on Ararat, but on Judi. Though I guess that Azeris are able to distort their religion as easily as they would change their culture, alphabet, homeland, history, wives, and so on.

[ashot24]

Re: Caucasian Albania

Indeed a good research Sev jan, Azeries have an identity disorder not even Freud could manage

Also something I wanted to add, have anyone of you guys ever seen the seal of the city of Nakhichevan? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...akhchivan2.png

It seems Azeries also claim Ararat as theirs, it is already an offence to know our Ararat is on Turkish territory, and it gets worse when you see not only a symbol of our faith but a symbol of our people next to the crescent star and in territory stolen from us.

[SevSpitak]

Re: Caucasian Albania

As for Scythians, they are an Indo-European people, not Turkic, and to my knowledge, they claim Sakh were Scythians.

If you check on historical maps, you will see Sacasene (or something like that) where Artsakh is.

Here's a historical background. Sakhs were Scythian tribes who had settled in the region during Urartu (but they were not part of Urartu), which was succeeded by the Satrapy of Armina (Armenia). Under the Kingdom of Armenia (successor of Satrapy of Armina, and by now they were part of Armenia), the local ethnic groups were all already amalgamated (a process which had already begun since the times of Urartu) to become a unified people of Armenia. Urartu, itself, was a federative kingdom in that it wasn't homogenous at all. Armenia is the the kingdom in which all the Urartian minorities had become one.

-ene was a hellenix suffix, therefore, you can infer the root name of Sacasene is Saca/Saka -- compare Atrpat-akan & Atropat-ene. They refer to these people when they say Sakhs, but they forget one important thing. These Scythians were part of Armena, and are part of the ethnogenesis of Artsakh Armenians, which had already been amalgamated and Armenianized LONG before Caucasian Albania took over the territory.

Armenia didn't begin as a homogenous nation (neither did ANY other nation in history). Armenia is the result of the amalgamation of possibly HUNDREDS of local ethnic tribes. As I mentioned earlier, the Sakhs had already been absorbed into the Armenian nation long before Caucasian Albania took over the territory due to the weakening of the Armenian Kingdom. Artsakh is no different than Gyumri (which, as opposed to Artsakh, was a Cimmerian settlement in Urartu, which later became part of the Gyumri Armenian ethnogenesis).

Sakhs were definitely a different entity, but that was 2600 years ago. In short, (my dumbed down explanation), 2500 years ago, they stopped calling themselves Sakh, and began to call themselves Armenian, just like all other originally non-Armenian tribes, because they ALL lived in a kingdom called Armenia.

Therefore, you can easily conclude that they distort the truth to their liking. Sakhs had nothing to do with Caucasian Albanians and even less Azerbaijanis. In baby language, Scythians and Armenians got married to create Artsakh

Of course, "Sakh" is not their real name, I'm only using that name to explain. I don't know what their real name was, all I know is that the region of Artsakh was indeed settled by Scythians, at the time when "Armenia" didn't even exist. By the time "Armenia" came into existence, those Scythians became part of it, and they are, to this day, part of it.

(I'd like to mention that this is the information I have gathered thus far through my personal research. I don't have many sources to back it up, but I invite people to refute this, or better inform me about it.)

Here are some quickly-found sources that don't exactly explain this, but help reinforce my claims/statements (click CTRL+F or CMD+F and type "Armenia"):

http://www.ensignmessage.com/archives/scythianancestors.html

http://www.britam.org/now/now422.html

[SevSpitak]

Re: Caucasian Albania

There is a very easy way to explain Azerbaijanis:

Their identity changes to their benefit. To have a legitimate history, they claim to be Caucasian Albanians. To have a legitimate reason to expand and have a pitiful fable of separation (and to justify their name), they claim to be Iranian Azerbaijanis. To have a legitimate brotherly union they refer to themselves as Turkic Peoples. But everyone knows they cannot be all three, and that's why the only way they can be taken seriously is through their oily bribery. An Azerbaijani claiming those three identities is like a Chinese man claiming to be Russian, Chinese and African at the same time. Or, it's like if Turkey, today, included Hittites in their history. The thing they don't understand is that Caucasian Albania had vanished by the time Arabs had invaded the region, long before Oghuz Turkic tribes entered the region.

There is only one truth. They are not Iranian Azerbaijanis and they are not Caucasian Albanians. They are an amalgamated, mixed muslim people. They are Turks who have absorbed the blood of Caucasians, and Iranians, and even Armenians and Georgians, just like Turkey absorbed Balkan and Anatolian peoples. If they are to carry an identity, it would be Shirvani Turks (or Arrani Turks, or something on that line) and then they would have a legitimate history.

I personally think their best bet would be to be part of Turkey, because after all, they are remnants of Kara/Ak Koyunlu, which had its western portion absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, and are today part of the country Eastern Turks of Turkey. Turkey, as I mentioned, is the amalgamation of Turkified Devsirme (turncoat) Christians, Persians, Arabs, and Turkic tribes, pretty much like the "Azerbaijanis."

[ashot24]

Re: Caucasian Albania

However I did not know that Georgians have such an important role in trivializing Armenian history in the Caucasus. Georgia does not even recognize the Armenian genocide. They may not comprehend this for the moment, but it is in their best interests to support us against Azerbaijan and Turkey because in the end, we are Christians and they are Muslims. Ani is a Georgian city? Right...

The Georgians are as cynical as the Azerbaijanis and the Turks, claiming half of Armenia is theirs. As I said, they celebrated their "1700 years of Christianity" in 2000, exactly one year before we did, although it is worldwide known that Armenia was the first Christian nation, they publicly spread that that is a lie, and that Georgia was the first. My cousin was going to Batumi in 2000, and he passed through Tiflis and he found this http://i045.radikal.ru/1004/dc/5581b93f3936.jpg


In Georgia, as well as in Azerbaijan, they claim our land, our culture and our history as theirs...in resume, everything Armenia is stolen from the Georgians. According to the Georgians, Lorri, Tavush, and Shirak belong to them, which clashes to the Azerbaijani version, which also claims all of Armenia. Georgian claims all of the churches and territories in Northern Armenia and half of the ones in Western Armenia are Georgian culture territory under the great Bagratid monarchs.

In Medieval times, Armenians and Georgians had a strong union on Christianity against the Muslim invaders that were becoming each time larger in the region. For example, the Zakarid-Mxargrzeli family ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakarid-Mxargrzeli), a prominent and noble family in medieval times which gained fame as military commanders, and to whom Queen Tamara (or Tamar) of Georgia (who was of Armenian descent) asked Sargis Zaqaryan's sons Ivan and Zaqare to protect Armenian and Georgian lands from Muslims, both sons took went ways with Ivan converting to the Georgian church and Zaqare to the Armenian church. We know the family as the noble Zaqaryans, under whom during Mets Hayq proclaimed the city of Ani as the capital in 1199. Georgians know them as the Mkhargrdzelebi family.

I think it was during the arise of Georgian nationalism back the days of the first Georgian republic, that all mention of Armenians in Georgia in history was erased, and it was changed instead with the popular version of the "Armenian invaders and thiefes" Tartars and Turks were spreading. You tell one Georgian about any of the things I mentioned previously, they will disown you as a friend, and come up with the "you came from India to invade our lands"...

And not only that since they are also pretty anti-Armenian, not only treating Armenians from Javakhq as second-class citizens, prohibiting them to be Armenians, but also deny the Armenian genocide and sided with the Azeries and Turks in their campaign against Armenia...that's why when Azeries want to have some not Azerbaijani sources where Armenians are portrayed as monsters, as invaders, as killers and as thiefes, they come to the Georgians...who are more than happy to provide them with them.

Do you think that this refers to the Scythians? From what I understood in Wikipedia, Scythians have more to do with Persians than with Turks, so no relation at all with Azerbaijanis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythians

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saka

I have also questioned myself about this. And it's kind of confusing, some Azeri sources call them Sakhs, others Sak's. The most common version is this, as Azeri sources claim:

Caucasian Albanians were a nation, which, according to the ancient geographer Strabo, consisted of 26 tribes, ethnic groups, such as Albans themselves, as well as Gargars, Udis, etc. Some of them were of Turkic descent, while majority were indigenous authohontous Caucasian tribes, speaking in Caucasian languages. The Artsakh area was also inhabited by Sakhs from which the name "Artsakh" means "Land of manly Sakhs." They lived in the region already in IV century B.C.

That version clashes with another version of these "Sakhs". They are mentioned as one of the tribes that left their trace in the ethnogenesis of today's Turkmens, Scythians are also mentioned (http://www.turkmenistan.ru/?page_id=...sort=date_desc).

Both sources (Turkic sources) claim that Schythians tribes (i.e the Sakhas/Sak's/Sakas) took part in the ethnogenesis of Turkic, but each underline their role in the ethnogenesis of their particular variation of Turks. And both versions do not even make reference to the Iranian origions of these tribues...both calling them Turkic tribes.

Funny isn't it?

[Davo88]

Re: Caucasian Albania

What you say may or may not be true, but note that Azerbaijanis do not justify their claims because of their blood composition and what not...