KYIV (FNI) – Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijani President, stated on February 8 that the capital of Armenia, Yerevan, is the historical territory of his country. This statement has got reactions in Armenia, Georgia and the European Union. Honorable Ambassador of Armenia to Ukraine Andranik Manukyan told Front News how such statements could affect Nagorno-Karabakh and the goals pursued by Aliyev, saying this during the presidential race in Azerbaijan and in general.
Front News: Is it pre-election realities or intentional desire to escalate the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia?
Andranik Manukyan: Commenting on the frankly absurd statements of the Azerbaijani authorities is ungrateful. Especially when it comes to the historical belonging of certain territories in the region. Probably, Mr. Aliyev was deceived by his historians and advisers, in another way it is difficult to explain such ignorance.
Undoubtedly, the anti-Armenian statements of the leader of Azerbaijan are pursued first of all by the goal to throw loud, hooray-nationalistic theses into the Azerbaijani society. Political problems Azerbaijan facing today do not leave the authorities of this country a choice, except spreading loud theses in order to distract their people from real problems.
FNI: President Aliyev in his statement operated on information from his historians.
AM: The key word in your question is “his”. Let’s just do a comparative analysis. The mention of Armenia in foreign sources suggests that the history of Armenians and Armenia in a broad sense has at least 5000 years. It is impossible to refute the existence of Ancient Armenia or Armenian statehood a priori. Here are just a few facts: Armenians in 301 were the first in the world adopted Christianity as the State religion, then at that time the Armenian state already existed and, by the way, most recently the entire Christian world celebrated the 1700th anniversary of this date with a grand scale. In the world archives, millions of documents about Armenians are kept, about the history of Ancient Armenia with its capitals, including Yerevan. It is also important that the data on Ancient Armenia cannot be considered in isolation from the history of Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, Byzantium, Persia, Parthia, etc. Now let’s try to find at least one mention of ‘ancient Azerbaijan’ until the twentieth century. I assure you, you will not find because the state itself did not exist and everything attributed to the mythical ‘ancient Azerbaijan’ was trivially appropriated or forged by the false historians of this country.
FNI: So, according to your words, Azerbaijan cannot claim and be called an ancient nation?
AM: How can the Azerbaijani nation which was artificially created in the beginning of the twentieth century from the motley nomad tribes that came to our region several centuries ago claim the antiquity? What the so-called Azerbaijani historians operate is the ‘pieces’ of the cultural heritage of the Iranians, Armenians, Georgians, Lezgins, Avars, Talyshes, Kurds, and not ‘Azerbaijanis’ that were torn from the world history in the wake of world history.
Or here is another outstanding example. The Armenian alphabet has a one and a half thousand-year history, while ‘Azerbaijan’ first officially received its alphabet in the early twentieth century, which, by the way, for a half-century has managed to change from Latin to Cyrillic and then back into Latin alphabet. If the basis of national self-identification is changed so often, as an alphabet, then what an ‘ancient history’ can be there in general? Try to find in any sources, no matter – Greek, Roman, Persian, and even in Chinese, at least one mention or a book about the ‘Azerbaijani nation’ until the 19-20th centuries. My advice – do not look, you will not find, because it does not exist in nature. And in contrast to this, in any historical sources relating to the history of the region you will surely find references to the Armenian people our language and our culture.
FNI: It is often possible to find in media an information that the Azerbaijani authorities directly declare the adjustment of history. Is President Aliyev’s statement another confirmation?
AM: The Azerbaijani authorities have been artificially ‘tweaking’ the history of their young people for twenty-five years, moreover, the politicians of this country do not hide that the falsification of history is a state program. This ungrateful business is spent hundreds of millions of dollars, books are being written, films are being made, and this array of lies is called upon to give legitimacy to the constant claims of Azerbaijani politicians in the territory originally belonging to Armenians.
By the way, what history of ‘ancient Azerbaijan’ can there be, when even the name of this country first appeared in the early twenties of the last century. And you do not need to be a historian to know that the very name ‘Azerbaijan’ has Iranian roots. The falsifications of historical facts reach such marasmus that in Azerbaijan, for example, quite seriously, they say that the Moscow Kremlin built by ‘great Azerbaijani architects’ or that Christopher Columbus was obliged by the discovery of America to ‘the ancient Azerbaijani scientist’.
FNI: Armenians are indeed one of the oldest nations in the world but during the Middle Ages Yerevan passed more than 10 times from the hands of various rulers, including the Ismail I, Shahanshah of Iran, who was born in the Iranian region, called the Ishmael Safari, Azerbaijan. Could this fact become President Aliyev’s motivation for such statements?
AM: A bit of historical education for Azerbaijani historians and diplomats. In autumn of 2018 the capital of Armenia, the city of Yerevan, will celebrate its 2800th anniversary. The history of Yerevan is directly connected with the one built in 782 BC Urartian fortress of Erebuni. According to many authoritative historians, the name of Yerevan is directly related to Armenian etymology and was based on the biblical legend of Noah’s landing on Mount Ararat.
The Azerbaijani side bases its claims on just one of the episodes of the history of the ancient city of Yerevan, namely, the conquest of Persian and Ottoman conquerors in the 15th and 16th centuries of our city. Then, according to the flawed logic of Azerbaijani politicians, one can say, for example, that the city of Kyiv is an ancient Mongol-Tatar city only because in 1240 Kyiv was stormed by the troops of Khan Baty and the Mongol-Tatars built in Kyiv say some fortification.
Naturally, Azerbaijani politicians cannot deceive anyone except themselves. To understand the worthlessness of historical fraud we simply recall that the Azerbaijani ‘historians’ denies the very existence of Armenians as an ethno-historical element and in this case the history of Ukraine is also falsified. After all, according to Ukrainian historical facts, Armenians settled in Ukraine exactly one thousand years before the appearance of the name ‘Azerbaijan’ in nature. Facts about the presence of Armenians in Ukraine a colossal amount starting with the Byzantine princess Anna Porphyrogenita baptized Kievan Rus with her husband, Grand Prince Vladimir the Great, and ending with the most ancient Armenian churches, for example, in the city of Lviv or Kamenetz-Podolsky. Or here is another example. Most recently we celebrated the 400th anniversary of Armenian printing in Lviv.
Tens of thousands of examples of the Armenian historical heritage in Ukraine alone. And, taking this opportunity, I would like to say that we are grateful to the fraternal Ukrainian people for their cherished attitude towards our common heritage.
FNI: How can President Aliyev’s statement be related to Karabakh?
AM: The leader of Azerbaijan with his claims to the historically original territories of Armenia actually revealed the essence of the Artsakh (Karabakh) – Azerbaijani conflict is the aggressive policy of the Azerbaijani authorities aimed at destroying the indigenous peoples of the region of Armenians. By the way, this is not the first statement of this kind. Just a few years ago Aliyev declared the whole world Armenians as the enemy of Azerbaijanis. No comment. Targeted anti-Armenian propaganda in Azerbaijan, lies and falsifications leave no doubt among the sane people that this is not a conflict over land, territory, the root cause of the conflict is only in the right of Armenians to live in their historical homeland – in Armenia and Artsakh.
And in conclusion: Azerbaijani politicians are well aware that even if they manage to bribe some corrupt foreign politicians or euro parliamentarians with their petrodollars or caviar diplomacy to call us ‘invaders’ attempts to rewrite the world history for their immediate tasks are just pathetic attempts fit in the ‘antiquity’, because until the 20th century, Azerbaijanis were not actually participants in world history.
