Removal of Azerbaijani Turks from their historical homeland

After Azerbaijan was divided between Russia and Iran on the basis of the “Gulistan” (1813) and Turkmenchay (1828) treaties, 600,000 Armenians immigrated from Iran and Turkey to the territory of the South Caucasus, mainly to present-day Armenia and Azerbaijan, until 1920.

In fact, the process of expelling Azerbaijanis from Armenia from their homeland since the 20s of the last century started. It is estimated that from 1828 to 1920, more than two million Muslims were expelled from Russia, most of them were Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia. This process ended in 1988. The last 160,000 Azerbaijanis living in Armenia were expelled from there by looting all their properties. After that, Armenian nationalists started an open armed war, putting forward a territorial claim against Azerbaijan.

The policy of expelling Azerbaijanis from Armenia is based on the dominant point of view in Armenian historiography, that the Azerbaijanis there are the descendants of nomadic Turko-Tatars who occupied the territory of Armenians in the Middle Ages, and historical justice is restored by expelling them. This false concept has been widely propagated in Armenia and abroad by the Armenian diaspora for decades.

According to the dominant concept in Armenian historiography, Armenians are the autochthonous, i.e., rooted population of the territory of Armenia, and the Azerbaijanis there are the later generations of nomadic Turks and Tatar-Mongols who came from Central Asia from the 19th century. This is the policy of expelling Azerbaijanis from Armenia based on the concept. Armenian researchers, ignoring the historical facts, not only during the times of the Albanian state (from the 4th century BC to the 8th century AD), which were integral parts of our motherland throughout history, but only in the 20s of our century, the Zangezur zone was given to Armenia, ancient Sisakan), Nagorno-Karabakh (ancient Arsak) and They consider the Khakhaz-Aghstafa zone (ancient Girdiman) to be Armenian land, and write that the Kura-Araz lowland was supposedly the territory of Great Armenia from the II century BC to the IV century AD, and in the following centuries it was called “Eastern Armenia”.

Even in books published in foreign countries, Armenian authors write that Nakhchivan and Karabakh as a whole are Armenian lands and try to justify them historically. It is on the basis of this concept that the strict nationalistic attitude towards the Azerbaijanis living in Armenia, which has been expanding since the beginning of our century, has turned into a conflict and has finally resulted in the end planned by the Armenian nationalists in recent years: the Azerbaijanis were completely expelled from their homeland in Armenia.

In order to solve the problem, it is necessary to proceed from such a historical reality that the Azerbaijanis of Armenia are generally a part of the single Azerbaijani people living in South and North Azerbaijan (of course, taking into account the Azerbaijanis of Georgia and Dagestan). Also, it has a common origin due to the characteristics of language, spiritual and material culture, traditional economic fields.

This means that the zones where Azerbaijanis live in Armenia are geographically included in the area where the Azerbaijani people were born. This also means that those zones are not inhabited by those with the ethnic name Hay, that is, Armenians. So, historically, the area inhabited by our people included the territory of South and North Azerbaijan, along with the border zones of present-day Armenia and Azerbaijan. A characteristic feature of the ethnogenetic process in this area is the participation of the same ethnic components – different ancient tribes. This is confirmed by the identity of a number of ethnotoponyms of ancient Turkic origin that exist both in both parts of Azerbaijan and in Armenia.

The logical conclusion drawn from this is that Zangezur, which belongs to Armenia and forms the border with Azerbaijan (most of Zangezur – Sisyan, Gorus, Gafan and Megri districts now belongs to Armenia, and a small part – Lachin, Gubadli and Zangilan districts – belongs to Azerbaijan), Darelayaz and Goyche zones. Historically, it cannot be considered Armenian land because it belongs to the area where the Azerbaijani people were born. Indeed, Zangezur and Goyche zones, where Armenian Azerbaijanis live, were the territory of the Albanian country in ancient times. Mass settlement of Armenians in those zones began at the beginning of the 19th century.