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**SevSpitak** · 12-29-2011, 10:07 PM

Re: Translator needed for YouTube video.

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This video presents a lecture by Dr. George A. Bournoutian, a renown Armenian-American professor of history.

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Dr. Bournoutian is recognized as one of the top experts on Iranian and Caucasus studies by academics and organizations, such as the famous Encyclopaedia Iranica.

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The topic discussed is the falsification of modern publications of manuscripts and other primary sources by the Azerbaijani Republic.

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His sources are fully verifiable, and most importantly, contemporary to key dates that are essential to the accurate understanding of Nagorno-Karabakh's history.

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Lecture by Dr. Bournoutian
[...] "Tarikh-e Qarabagh" written by Mirza Jamal Javanshir,

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the official scribe and secretary of the last khan of Karabakh;

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"Qarabagh-name" by Mirza Adigezal bey printed in Baku in 1950;

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"Golestan-i Iram" by Bakikhanov printed in Baku in 1970;

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and "Tarikh-e Safi" by by Mirza Yusef

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Not only were the Armenian meliks mentioned in these works,

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but the large presence of Armenians in the five mahals and in Zangezur

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were noted as well in these books.

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However, it changed after this.

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In 1988 following the demands of the Karabakh Armenians

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to secede from Azerbaijan and to join Armenia,

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suddenly a number of Azeri academics, led by Mr. B�nyadov,

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in order to justify their government's claims regarding Karabakh,

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rushed to prove that the Armenian population of Karabakh

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had arrived there only after 1828, after the treaty of Turkmenchai,

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and thus had no historical claim to the region of Karabakh.

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Lacking many sources written in Azeri,

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because as I said the Azeri alphabet was created only in the 20th century,

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they had to rely on Persian, Arabic or Russian sources.

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To their horror, they found that not only had ancient and medieval Greek,

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Roman, Arab, Persian sources,

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I have them here if you're interested,

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Ptolemy, Strabo, Dio Casius, Estakhri, Mostofi, ..., Muqaddasi, ...

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I can go on and on.

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All of these, not only, as well as modern Russian, German and English historians,

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geographer and travellers placed Karabakh in historic Armenia,

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but that the Armenians had formed a large part of the population of Karabakh, centuries prior to 1828,

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Even more irritating was the fact that local muslim historians,

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the ones that I just mentioned before,

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living on the territory of what later became the Azerbaijan Republic,

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had clearly indicated a strong Armenian presence in Karabakh prior to 1828,

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or had place the region within the territory of historic Armenia.

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Therefore, in order to substantiate their political claim, B�nyadov and his fellow academics

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chose to set aside all scholarly objectivity and printed new versions of "Tarikh-e Qarabagh" of Mirza Jamal,

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"Taikh-e Safi," etcetera, etcetera, deleting all references to the Armenians.

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It's very simple, these are primary sources and these are academic and historic.

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I understand if politicians or journalists do something like that, that's common,

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but generally we do not see serious historians to do this.

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So I'll give you just a few examples.

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in the 1989 edition of "Tarikh-e Qarabagh," the lines

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"Va ahl an shahr dar qadim Armani budeand"

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which means the population of that city in ancient times were Armenians.

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Completely deleted.

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Now, the original Persian and Russian edition of Bakikhanov, now that's important,

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Reads, the borders of Shirvan province are:

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in the East, the Caspian sea;

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in the North-West, the Kur river

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which separates Shirvan from Armenia and the Mugan steppe.

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Bakikhanov, who the Azeris call the father of their history,

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the Institute of History is named after him,

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squarely places the lands south of the Kur, that is Karabakh, within Armenia!

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But of course the new edition, 1991, the word "Armenia" is removed.

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Instead it says, "separates Shirvan and the Mugan steppe."

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Armenia doesn't exist.

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In the new edition of Hasan-Jalalyan, all references to Armenia is absent,

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the word "Armenian" is replaced by "Albanian."

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All references to the Armenians in the 15th century German traveller's account,

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four chapters are completely removed...

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Comments by other experts

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Victor Schnirelmann. Russian historian, ethnologist and anthropologist; Member of Academia Europaea

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"Azerbaijani academics have been renaming prominent medieval Armenian political leaders, historians and writers, who lived in Karabakh and Armenia into 'Albanians.'

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These efforts were first launched in the 1950s and were directed towards ripping the population

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of early medieval Karabakh off from their Armenian heritage and cleansing Azerbaijan of Armenian history.

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Another way is to underestimate the presence of Armenians in ancient and medieval Transcaucasia

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and to belittle their role by reprinting antique and medieval sources

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with denominations and replacements of the 'Armenian state' term to 'the Albanian state'

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or with other distortions of original texts.

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In the 1960s to 1990s there were many such reprints of primary sources in Baku, where academician Z. M. B�nyadov was actively engaged."

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Victor Schnirelmann. Russian historian, ethnologist and anthropologist; Member of Academia Europaea

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Willem Floor and Hasan Javadi. Historians.

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(referring to B�nyadov's translation of one of Bakikhanov's works)

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"This is in particular disturbing because he suppresses the mention of territory inhabited by Armenians, thus not only falsifying history,

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but also not respecting Bakikhanov's dictum that a historian should write without prejudice, whether religious, ethnic, political or otherwise."

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Willem Floor and Hasan Javadi. Historians.

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Igor Mikhailovich Diakonov. Russian historian, linguist, translator; Renown expert of the Middle East

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"B�nyadov became infamous for a scientific edition of a historical source from where all mentions on Armenians have been carefully eliminated."

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Robert H. Hewsen. American historian of Armenian ancestry.

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"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.

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These have been edited to remove references to Armenians and have been distributed in large numbers in recent years.

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When utilizing such sources, the researchers should seek out pre-Soviet editions wherever possible."

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Thomas de Waal. British expert on the Caucasus.

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"Farida Mammadova, a disciple of B�nyadov, has taken the Albanian theory and used it to push Armenians out of the Caucasus altogether.

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She had relocated Caucasian Albania into what is now the present-day Republic of Armenia.

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All those lands, churches, and monasteries in the Republic of Armenia -- all had been Albanian.

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No sacred Armenian fact was left un-attacked.

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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.

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B�nyadov was Azerbaijan's foremost Armenophobe."

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Thomas de Waal. British expert on the Caucasus.

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Other falsifications

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From "Tarikh-e Qarabagh" by Mirza Jamal Javanshir, 1853. Translated and published in the Azerbaijani language by F. Babev in 1959.

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(brackets indicate passages removed from Nazim Akhundov's recent editions)

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"The first city built in the province of Karabakh was the fortress and city of Barda,

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which is situated by the Tartar River some three farsakhs from the Kur River.

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[In ancient times it was populated by Armenians or other non-Muslims.]"

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"Panah Khan, he decided to subject to his authority the five [Armenian] Khamsa principalities."

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Account of the German traveler Johann Shiltberger, early 15th century.

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"I have also been a great deal in Armenia. After Tamerlane died, I came to his son, who has two kingdoms in Armenia.

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He was named Shahrokh; he liked to be in Armenia, because there is a very beautiful plain.

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He remained there in winter with his people, because there was good pasturage.

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A great river runs through the plain; it is called the Kur, ....; and near this river, in the same country is the best silk.

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[The infidels call the plain, in the infidel tongue, Karabakh. The infidels possess it all, and yet it stands in Armenia.]

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[There are also Armenians in the villages, but they must pay tribute to the infidels.]"

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Conclusion

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Head of the Intitude of History of Azerbaijani Academu of Sciences, Ziya M. B�nyadov has blatantly

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and systematically replaced the noun Armenian with Albanian in many of his works,

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including his edition of the Russian translation of an 18th century History of Karabakh,

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by the Armenian patriarch of the Holy See of Gandzasar in Karabakh.

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Today these falsifications are the foundation of the Azerbaijani government's political stance against the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic,

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"legitimized" by Azerbaijani "historians" and journalists who promote these sources as primary evidence to justify their government's claims.

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Having confidence in their nation's government, most Azerbaijani patriots are unaware of the truth behind the perversion of the history written by their own forefathers.

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Unfortunately, these falsifications are no longer limited to confusing the people of Azerbaijan, as western scholars have also begun to adopt the tampered material as legitimate research material.

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Crippling historians by deliberately distorting publications of source material they hold in their own archives,

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Azerbaijan has decided to commit a disgraceful act of falsification to a chapter of human history,

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which should be condemned not only by Armenians, but by the entire international community.

**bell-the-cat** · 12-30-2011, 09:21 AM

Re: Translator needed for YouTube video.

Originally posted by SevSpitak View Post

There's a new video on YouTube which I believe is an important addition to the Armenian cause on internet media. To provide access to this video around the world, we need to translate the subtitles.

I am somewhat amused that you request this here. This forum has a nest of rabid hard-core followers of moron-in-chief and pseudo-historian Armen Aivasyan, who considers credible historians like George Bournoutian to be worse than the devil.

**bell-the-cat** · 12-30-2011, 12:18 PM

Re: Translator needed for YouTube video.

BTW, I consider that video to be an amateurish work of propaganda, and one that prof. Bournoutian would NOT approve of.

This is unfortunate because some of the video's presentation methods, those used to display the various Azeri censoring of primary sources, would be very useful in clarifying and illustrating Bournoutian's points. If only the infantile propaganda, the ghastly music, and the thuggish/menacing tone that pervades the whole video were removed.

I'm not sure exactly what the copyright implications are if prof. Bournoutian were to want it pulled from youtube. Does a lecturer have copyright over video material of his lectures, even if filmed by a third party?

**SevSpitak** · 01-06-2012, 10:06 AM

Re: Translator needed for YouTube video.

Originally posted by bell-the-cat View Post

BTW, I consider that video to be an amateurish work of propaganda, and one that prof. Bournoutian would NOT approve of.

This is unfortunate because some of the video's presentation methods, those used to display the various Azeri censoring of primary sources, would be very useful in clarifying and illustrating Bournoutian's points. If only the infantile propaganda, the ghastly music, and the thuggish/menacing tone that pervades the whole video were removed.

I'm not sure exactly what the copyright implications are if prof. Bournoutian were to want it pulled from youtube. Does a lecturer have copyright over video material of his lectures, even if filmed by a third party?

From what I understand, the major problem with the video, according to you, is the music. I did feel that the music did give it a propaganda-like feel, which might undermine the information intended to pass on, even though it's just a remix of "Artsakh" by Ara Gevorgyan. The video is young enough to be updated and re-uploaded, and considering you're the first to give it a negative criticism, I welcome your comment (even an Azerbaijani, who dismissed it on grounds that it's made by an Armenian, said the video's presentation was good). What type of music would you have used? And what parts of it would you remove/modify? Feel free to shoot the video down, we'll make sure to keep those details in mind. We're working on other videos to present Dr. Bournoutian's research (population figures of the NK region before 1828, resettlement of Armenians in the Caucasus after 1828, etc), so now's a good time to be set straight before too much work is done. Our goal is not to make propaganda, but to make Dr. Bournoutian's research more accessible and enjoyable.

Originally posted by bell-the-cat View Post

I am somewhat amused that you request this here. This forum has a nest of rabid hard-core followers of moron-in-chief and pseudo-historian Armen Aivasyan, who considers credible historians like George Bournoutian to be worse than the devil.

Well... I can't add much to that comment lol. I guess I'm just fishing for help, though I am not yet experienced enough with this forum to know what kind of fish lie in it.

**bell-the-cat** · 01-07-2012, 10:12 AM

Re: Translator needed for YouTube video.

The "This video contains a lot of text" message is condescending. And I think everyone knows how to pause a video.

The tiny Google Earth-inspired maps seem pointless: they are far too small and look like they are showing either a "Greater Azerbaijan" that includes all of Armenia, or a "Greater Armenia" which includes all of Azerbaijan. They need to be edited for the resolution of videos seen by viewers on YouTube – and not edited as if it were for full resolution on a high-definition TV.

At 0:40 It should be "encyclopaedia" not "excyclopaedia", "the falsification in modern publications" not "the falsification of modern publications", the "Republic of Azerbaijan" not "the Azerbaijani Republic", and "the primary sources are fully verifiable", not "his sources are fully verifiable".

Text at 1.00 should say that these are books.

Text at 1:15 should be "Kingdom of Albania ("Aghuank" in Armenian)"

Text at 1:40 should have the words "Official claim by the Azerbaijani government" placed ABOVE the actual claim, abd in the same font size as the claim, and it should be "government of Azerbaijan".

Why is Bournoutian’s lecture abruptly faded out at 5:10?

It is followed by the opinions of other academics – the sources of these opinions should be given.

I think the section starting at 8:16 would be better incorporated into the section containing Bournoutian’s lecture, or, if not, then immediately following it.

At 10:20 replace "historians" with "pseudo-historians".

At 10:28 replace "perversion" with "censorship".

At 10:37 remove the word "unfortunately". And some of the errors in Altstadt’s book need to be stated.

I think the 10:48 conclusion needs to be rewritten.

**SevSpitak** · 01-07-2012, 11:59 AM

Re: Translator needed for YouTube video.

Sounds like reasonable edits to me. I'll see what I can do to. Those edits are easy; finding an audio track that will compliment and fit the video without having the video banned/pulled down due to copyright is the harder part.