Nubar Huseynli

Meaning of Karabakh and Its Early History Karabakh is a geographic region extending from highlands of the Lesser Caucasus down to the lowlands between the Kura and Aras rivers. Karabakh was also the name of a Turkic Khanate founded in the middle of the 18th century upon the demise of the Safavid Empire. This de-facto independent state lasted until the Russian conquest of the South Caucasus in the first quarter of the 19th century. The term Karabakh (spelled Karabağ in Turkish), which is an amalgamation of terms kara (“black” in Turkish) and bağ (“garden” in Persian or “vine” in Turkish), literally means “Black Garden”. The contemporary “bakh” ending stems from the Russification of the word “bagh”. Moreover, Nagorno simply means “mountainous” in Russian. The region is referred to as Yuxarı or Dağlıq Qarabağ in Azerbaijani, and Lernayın Gharabagh or Artsakh in Armenian.1 There is a bitter dispute over the ownership of the Karabakh region between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Since 4th century B.C., the area of present-day Azerbaijan Republic was known as the kingdom of Caucasian Albania2 (unrelated to modern Albania in the Balkans), while southern parts of historical Azerbaijan were known as the Ancient Media.

During the rise of

Cyrus the Great (also known as Cyrus the Mede), Media became a province of the Achaemenid Empire that he founded. When Alexander the Great overran the Achaemenids in the 4th century B.C., he kept the satrap (governor) of Media, by the name of Atropates, in control of the province. Upon Alexander's death in 323 B.C. and disintegration of his empire, the province of Media was divided into northwestern (Media Minor) and eastern (Greater Media) parts. Atropates remained an autonomous governor of Media Minor, which later became known as Atropatene (Āturpātakān in Parthian). The name of Azerbaijan derived from Atropatene in the later Arabic spelling. In the north, the Caucasian Albania (known as lovan-k or lvank or Aghvank in the Armenian historical texts) remained autonomous throughout most of its history, though was briefly invaded by Romans in the first century A.D. and became a vassal of Sassanid Persia in the later times. While ancient Romans and Greeks used to refer to this region as Albania,after invading and capturing the Caucasus in the 8th century, Arabs called the area al-Ran or Arran possibly in reference to peoples called Arran or Arianoi living the region in the Hellenistic period. Initially practicing pagan religions and Zoroastrianism, the Caucasian Albanian tribes, who spoke indigenous Caucasian and Turkic languages, became among the first peoples to adopt Christianity in the 4th century A.D. The territory of presentday Mountainous Karabakh (Artsakh) belonged to Caucasian Albania by the first century A.D. After the Arab conquest of the Caucasus, Artsakh was ruled by the Christian Albanian princes, while the Albanians in the eastern plain of Karabakh mixed with the Turkish speaking population and eventually embraced Islam. Thus, the “Canons of Aghvan”, composed in the 5th century A.D., were also part of the Caucasian Albanian historical heritage shared by present-day Azerbaijanis. Caucasian Albania was first conquered by the Muslim Arabs during the reign of the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan. Although the area was briefly recovered by the Turkic Khazars, Arabs regained the region in the next century. In the course of the first Arab rule, the Arran territory included Derbent, Shamakhi and Tbilisi. Later, the majority of Christian Albanians accepted Islam, so by the time of the Great Seljuk conquest in the middle of 11th century, when the Caucasus witnessed a major wave of Oghuz Turkic migration, local populations easily blended with incoming Muslim Turkic nomads. After his Georgian campaign of 1064 A.D., renowned Seljukid Sultan Alp Arslan selected Arran as a shelter for his Turkic nomads to take refuge during the winter months. Under Alp Arslan's command, in 1064, the Seljuks took control of Ani which, throughout the reign of Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos, remained a buffer zone between the Byzantium and the Great Seljuks. Less than a decade later, on August 26, 1071, Alp Arslan decisively defeated the Byzantine Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes at the Battle of Manzikert. It is worth noting that the Armenians, who fought in the Byzantine army, had fled the battlefield13 to protest the Byzantine repressions based on sectarian differences. After Alp Arslan's victory at Manzikert, the Seljuk Turks expanded their empire into all of Armenia and South Caucasus. Alp Arslan‟s son and successor Malik Shah I settled the area completely in 1076 for the benefit of the Turcoman (Turkmen) tribes. Malik Shah appointed Kutbettin İsmail, his uncle, Yakuti‟s son, as the governor of Arran. Meanwhile, Yakuti became a governor general of all of Azerbaijan under the Seljuks.15 After the death of Malik Shah, his son Muhammad Tapar took the area as iqta16 from his brother, Barkiyaruq, and captured all of Arran.The period between 1220 and 1232 was marked by several Mongol invasions. In 1236, unable to fend off Mongol attacks, Armenians and Georgians accepted the Mongol domination. Upon the death of the great emperor Mongke Khan in 1259, the Mongol Empire fell apart and Genghis Khan's grandson, Hulagu, founded the Ilkhanate on the southwestern flank of the former empire. Hulagu's Ilkhanate encompassed the territory of historical Azerbaijan, including Arran. Ilkhanid rulers set up their summer capital in Arran and generally spent the winter months in the same region as well. Throughout the Ilkhanid era, the Eastern Caucasus also experienced an influx of Kipchak Turkic tribes from Central Asia. During this time, the Artsakh region of Arran also became known under its Turkic name Karabakh.