 | Nagorno-Karabakh: Encyclopedia II - Nagorno-Karabakh - From origins to 1917
Nagorno-Karabakh - From origins to 1917
The region of Nagorno-Karabakh falls within the lands occupied by peoples known to modern archaeologists as the Kura-Araxes culture, who lived between the two rivers bearing those names. Little is known of the ancient history of the region, primarily because of the scarcity of historical sources. Local traditions are held by many peoples in the area that those two river valleys were among the first ever to be settled by Noah's descendants [4]. A son of Japheth named Aran is credited with being the first to establish a nation here. Zoroastrian traditions also point to this region as being the earliest sacred homeland of the Medes, their ancestors.
Jewelry has been found within the present confines of Nagorno-Karabakh inscribed with the cuneiform name of Adad-Nirari, King of Assyria (c. 800 BC). This is an indicator that these mountains may have been within the Assyrian sphere of influence at this time, or at least on a trade route.
Also, near the village of Tsovk, an inscription of Sardur II, King of Urartu (763-734 BC), was found, proving that his troops penetrated as far as that land, that the inscription referred to as "Urtekhini".
It seems that the state of Mannae, based in the Urmia region, expanded as far as the Kura, and contested the region with Urartu beginning around 800 BC, until they were destroyed by the Medes in 616 BC. It is uncertain whether the Mannaeans ever penetrated as far as present-day Nagorno-Karabakh.
At various times in antiquity that are difficult to establish with precision at this time, this area was part of Aghbania, or Caucasian Albania, and at others, of Greater Armenia. It was also part of a province of Parthia (ca. 250 BC), called Ardan, and another ancient name is Artsakh. In 95 BC, it was conquered by Tigranes II, ruler of the Kingdom of Armenia.
Following the defeat of Tigranes II at the hands of the Romans in 66 BC, Albanians regained Artsakh. Ancient Albanians and Armenians alternated control over the territory until the early 4th century, when the Albanians managed to reclaim Artsakh; eventually, in 387, it became a part of Aghbania again.
Christianity first came to Aghbania with the mission of St Eliseus in the 1st century. Christianity was widely accepted in the 5th century, after Saint Gregory the Illuminator converted and baptized Albanian king Urnayr. In 488, following a church assembly near Aluan (situated in present-day Karabakh), Christianity become the official religion in Aghbania.
In the 7th and 8th centuries, the region was invaded by Arabs, who pillaged it and converted a portion of the population to Islam. Under the Arabs, the Albanian church was subordinated to the Armenian Church, resulting in the local Albanian population gradually becoming more like Armenians in terms of religion, culture, and language. After the 8th century, Albania diminished in size, and came to exist only as the Khachin principality in Artsakh.
In the 15th century, the territory of Karabakh was part of the states of Kara Koyunlu and then Ak Koyunlu. In the early 16th century, after the fall of the Ak-Koyunlu state, control of the region passed to the Safavid dynasty of Iran, that created a Ganje-Karabakh province (beglarbekdom, bəylərbəyliyi); and in the mid-18th century, the Karabakh khanate was formed. Karabakh passed to Imperial Russia by the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813, before the rest of Transcaucasia was incorporated into the Empire in 1828 by the Treaty of Turkmenchay. In 1822, the Karabakh khanate was dissolved, and the area became part of the Russian province that later formed Azerbaijan.
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 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "From origins to 1917", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
