![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Please do not delete info without citing your reasons. I suspect the sock puppetry here. Grandmaster 08:54, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I see no reason why Azeri name of the region was removed. Explanation is needed. And I agree that here can be another case of sock puppetry-- Dacy69 19:25, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Supposingly Nagorno Karabakh is a recognized part of Azerbaijan, so what, Artsakh is a historical part of Caucasian Albania or Armenia and its territory is not exactly what today's Nagorno karabakh is. Oristena and Utrichene included territories of todays Armenian Syunik, some part of Armenian Taush, Azeri Gyanja etc etc. When Caucasian Albania or Artsakh existed, there were no turkic speaking tribes in Caucasus since they came only in the 11th century. Therefore, it was impossible that any Azerbaijani would use the term Artsakh or Ersak,simply, because there were no Azerbaijanis there. There were Azari (not Azeri) speaking Persians in the nearby provinces, later arabs captured the territory in 7th century, and the muslim element started using the name Karabakh. Turkic tribes came later and took the term Karabakh from Persians and Arabs. We do not see any reason why should we mentioned the name of ancient province in the language that appeared centuries after that province ceased to exist. By the same way some people put the version of Battle of Sardarapat in French. Guys, this is the English Wikipedia blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. If everybody come and put the toponim or any georgraphical or historic event in his mother tongue the whole page would be taken just by names. Will it be appropriate if I edit in Gyanja page the name and put Armenian Gandzak because we call the city that way. Or if I go and edit the page of Stambul and put the Armenian verion K.Polis with armenian letters on the top? Or there are some Armenian sources calling Baku Bagu. Sould I mention it on the top? Or may be you want also to write in Erevan page that the Azeri name is Erivan? Where is this going?--armenianNY 21:45, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
This article is about a historical province, not a political entity. Therefore, references to modern Azer. state and its state language are irrelevant. The term Artsakh has been used only by Armenians and has appeared almost exclusively in historical Armenian texts. Based on that, I agree – the Russian world "Арцах" can be removed. As to the Azerb. word Ercek or whatever, it is historically unprecedented and unreferenced, and is a modern fabrication evidently aimed at attributing Artsakh away from its Armenian origin. If participants want to use this term, they should find an NPOV third party source suggesting that Ercek has been in use as an authentic, historical term. Zurbagan 02:18, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
... continued: for instance - Constantinople. Should we include in an article about that city a Turkish version of this name simply because now it is part of Turkey? No - Constantinople is a Byzantine/Greek phenomenon, as Artsakh is an Armenian phenomenon. Zurbagan 03:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
...yeah, now about Ganca/Gianja (i.e. Armenian Gandzak). In the article about Ganca, the Armenian term Gandzak should be mentioned - in contrast to this specific case. This is because Gandzak is the original or at least the earliest recorded name for that settlement. Ganca is likely to be a phonetic distortion of the word Gandzak. Zurbagan 03:47, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I removed the claim that there’s a consensus among Armenian scholars that the region was populated by Armenians. First, not all Armenian scholars believe so. See the article by Ronald Suny:
The Caucasus region has long been the scene of very serious social, religious and ethnic conflicts. Back in the Middle Ages, before the Turkish people migrated here from central Asia, eastern Transcaucasia was known as Caucasian Albania. No relation to the Balkan Albanians, these were a Christianized people quite close to the Armenians. Once the Seljuk Turks began arriving in the 11th century, the Albanians in the mountainous area – Karabagh up to historic Armenia – remained largely Christian and eventually merged with the Armenians. The Albanians in the eastern plain leading down to the Caspian Sea mixed with the Turkish population and eventually became Muslims.
Ronald G. Suny: What Happened in Soviet Armenia? Middle East Report, No. 153, Islam and the State. (Jul. - Aug., 1988), pp. 37-40.
You can check it at JSTOR here: [1]
And second, it is irrelevant whether there’s consensus among Armenian scholars or not, we don’t base the article on the position of the Armenian side only. Grandmaster 11:03, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Doesn't belong here. This article is about a historic province which has nothing to do with Nagorno Karabakh War. VartanM 16:34, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Britannica says nothing like what Merjanov ascribed to it in his recent edit. The article about Azerbaijan written by Ronald Suny says that Albanians came under the cultural influence of Armenians in the 4th century. However the region was politically dominated by many powers, such as Romans, Persians, Arabs, etc. At the same time Albania was an independent state for long periods of time as well, and there was no such independent state as Armenia after the 4th century. Therefore such interpretations are not acceptable. Grandmaster ( talk) 18:54, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
I rewrote my statement Merjanov ( talk) 00:39, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
No "Albanian" culture existed or at least no (or very little) such thing survived after the Armenian dynasties from Artsakh and Utik took over Caucasian Albania. Everything known about Caucasian Albania is about the "Armenian" Albania called Aghvank. Caucasian Albania was "Albanian" as much as the German-ruled Holy Roman Empire was "Roman." Merjanov ( talk) 14:12, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
And the Oscar goes to.... VartanM ( talk) 21:52, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
That "... most of Albanians converted to Islam and became Turkisized, and the Christian minority for the most part mixed with Armenians" - it is just a hypothesis pertaining to the category of original research (OR). We don't have sources from the time confirming the conversions and assimilations. But it was Mesrob Mashtots, and not Meshadi Mamedov or Ziya Buniatov, who invented the "Albanian" alphabet, and it was Mesrob Mashtots who established the first Armenian school in Artsakh in the 5th century (source: National Geographic magazine, March 2004). Later, Stephanos Siunetsi, in the 7th century re-confirms that there was "Artsakhian" dialect of the Armenian language. Arstakh has always been a cradle of Armenian culture, and "Caucasian Albania" was, effectively, an Armenian state. All "Caucasian Albanians" have Armenian names (e.g. Vachagan, Tagui, which are in use by modern Armenians). The historian of "Caucasian Albania" was - coincidentally? - an Armenian, who wrote his text in Armenian. The ruling family of Arranshahiks was said to originate from Hayk, legendary ancestor of Armenians. "Caucasian Albania" was set up by the Armenian king Vagharshak. "Albanian" church was part of the Armenians church. There are 1000s of Armenians inscriptions in Artsakh (dating from the times when St. Mesrob taught at Amaras), and none in "Caucasian Albanian." Christianity was brought to "Albania" by an Armenian, St. Gregory. There was, perhaps, a non-Armenian minority, but we don't know. And, by the way, if you admit that "Albanians" became Armenians, you directly attests to Armenian influence in "Caucasian Albania." There are dozens of books and articles discussing these facts. Your conduct resembles trolling [6]. I saw this in the article " House of Hasan-Jalalyan." Merjanov ( talk) 22:41, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Oscar was not my comment. Suny is not an expert in ancient history, and he later admitted he was wrong. He wrote a new account of Caucasian Albania in the Stone Garden Guide on Armenia and Karabagh. Don't avoid the question of why Mashtots established the Armenian school in Amaras. Vachagan abd Tagui are Armenian names, not Parthian. Yes, Albanians assimilated but not in the 10th century but in the 3rd century AD. "Albanian" is a political term, like "Bohemian," not an ethnic one. There has never been an "Albanian" ethnicity. Merjanov ( talk) 14:08, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Important point here. Suny is not an anthropologist, and an ass like him does not understand that people cannot simply "merge" with other people in the absence of direct cultural influence and direct physical contact. That is why Azerbaijanis remained Turkic, despite their Muslim identity. They have not assimilated and became Arabs, have they? although Islam is much a culture-specific Arabic religion than Christianity. Armenians always lived in Artsakh, and they assimilated "Albanians" because they were a majority and your "Albanian" tribesmen were a minority. "Albanian" could not assimilate by simply becoming Armenian Christian. And why are we talking? you have already admitted that Armenians had a huge impact on "Albanians." Merjanov ( talk) 14:20, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
"Foreign language school"? Are you saying there were as many "Albanian" schools as there are Azerbaijani schools in Baku? any texts? or extensive inscriptions? "cacophonous and barbarous" was the language of the "Albanians" who lived outside of traditional Armenian lands of Artsakh and Utik (like the tribe of Gargareans, mentions of which disappear after the reign of king Vachagan). About the "Arranian" language: well, in Azerbaijan people speak Azerbaijani (not Turkish), and if you invited the same Arabic travelers to Azerbaijan today they would tell you that people in Azerbaijan speak Azerbaijani and people in Turkey speak Turkish. But Turkish and Azerbaijani are the same language, isn't it? So (most likely) was your "Arranian" - just another Armenian dialect (the one mentioned by Stepanos S. in the 7th century?) that was as different from the mainstream Armenian as Azerbaijani is different from Turkish. Or maybe, just to salvage your argument, we may assume that there were remnants of non-Armenian "Albanians" somehow surviving around the city of Barda. Have they left any trace of their civilization? No. Any books they wrote? No. Any churches with "Albanian" letter they built? No. The same Arabic dudes, traveling in South-Eastern Asia, were reporting that there saw people there with serpentine tails and wings. Shall we believe them too? You are sticking to your sole mention of obscure Arabic dudes, disregarding the overwhelming evidence which cries out from the every page of Movses' work. This is highly a selective, revisionist minority position which has been irreversibly discredited. Is this called a POV or what? A huge body of literature is against this stance. The idea that Udis have anything to do with "Albania" is a just a hypothesis, a wrong one I think. Merjanov ( talk) 01:19, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi Grandmaster, All the mentioned references are well-known facts, they are all over the Internet (especially in Armenian-written texts). I reviewed the Archives of the "Caucasian Albania," "Artsakh," "House of Hasan-Jalalyan" and many other articles and perhaps was influenced by some of the arguments made there, which you continues rejecting in a way that is against the Wiki rules. These arguments are valid irrespective of who is making them. However, everyone who reads today's Internet and the original text of Movses Kaghankatvatsi, and the works of R.Hewsen, Dowsett, Ulubabian, Buniatov and others would inevitably come to same conclusions. You should not assume bad faith, or suspect others to be socks, as you recently did in a checkuser case. Merjanov ( talk) 13:52, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Are you saying that it is wrong to repeat ideas that other people have expressed? Everyone who is serious about editing Caucasian Albania, or Artsakh, sooner or later will go to discussion pages and archives, and will bump to the same set of claims that you are apparently trying to suppress. Merjanov ( talk) 16:04, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
"Armenian influenced Caucasian Albania"? What an original research is that, with irrelevant reference provided. Over half of Armenian cuisine is Turkish, does it mean we should call Turkish-influenced Armenia? Atabek ( talk) 18:46, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Your views are identical to those of Grandmaster, word by word. According to Grandmaster's logic, you are his sock. Merjanov ( talk) 18:51, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I removed a reference to the website of some T. Saaryan. It is a self-published source and is not reliable in topics like this. Grandmaster ( talk) 07:20, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
The map by Ulubabyan should be removed. He is known to be a revisionist author. His map clearly contradicts the third party sources such as Iranica. He shows the Mihranids domains to be a separate state from Albania, while it is very well known that this dynasty of Iranian origin actually ruled Albania. Ulubabyan was criticized by the Russian scholar Shnirelman for promoting the revisionist views and creating historical myths. Let's stick to third party sources. Grandmaster ( talk) 12:42, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
Vacio is right here. First, the criticism leveled at a historian is not grounds for his removal. Second, you have still failed to recognize that the Arranshahiks (or Yerranshahiks) were a dyanstic ethnic group in Artsakh and Utik who were supposedly descendants of Hayk, and that that this was far different than the title of Arranshah. The Mihranids slaughtered many of the Yerranshahiks and it was only many years later that their descendants came back and let loosed their revenge against the Mihranids. Do we really have to go down this path again?-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 18:03, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Hewsen criticizes Armenian historian Mnatsakanian for his manipulation with historical facts. Mnatsakanian claimed for example, that the ancient rulers of Siwnik were Armenian, referring to the same Haykid claims in the primary sources.
As for the Armenian origin of the House of Siwnik' asserted by Movses, this is highly dubious, and we have evidence of Siwnian separateness and ethnic particularlism as late as the sixth century A.D.
Actually, all Movses Xorenac'i asserts is that the House of Siwnik' was of Haykid origin which, as Toumanoff has shown (Studies, 108, 216, 218, 222, 469), should be taken as meaning only that it was of immemorial origin; i.e. that it had been sovereign in Siwnik for so long that no one remembered its origin.
Robert H. Hewsen, "Ethno-History and the Armenian Influence upon the Caucasian Albanians," in Thomas J. Samuelian, ed., Classical Armenian Culture: Influences and Creativity. Pennsylvania: Scholars Press, 1982.
From now on, please quote third party sources to support your claims. You won't be happy if I start quoting Igrar Aliyev or other Azerbaijani scholars or use their maps in this article. Grandmaster ( talk) 06:36, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Also note that according to Wikipedia rules the primary sources should be interpreted by the reliable secondary sources, so personal interpretations of Movses Kalankatvatsi or other ancient scholars are not acceptable. They must be interpreted by neutral and authoritative third party scholars. Grandmaster ( talk) 06:49, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Hayk. The Armenians call themselves Hayk' (sing. Hay), and Hayk is regarded as the eponymous progenitor of their race. Originally a divine figure, under the influence of Christianity he was reduced to "one of the giants" and was made out to be a son of Thogarma. If, indeed, the Armenians were of Phrygian origin, and Til-garimmu, immediately to the west of later Armenia, was a Phrygian formation, then Hayk, son of Thogarma, might well have become a personification of the Armenians as offshoots of Til-garimmu.10 Beginning here Moses of Khoren appears to be summarizing, albeit in a highly garbled form, the history of ancient Urartu, the memory of which appears to have survived, however vaguely, in the Armenian historical tradition. His description of how the various sons and grandsons of Hayk expanded from their original homeland in Vayots Tzor and Hark', for example, is parallel to the actual conquest of the Armenian plateau by the Urartians moving out from their center around Lake Van, on the north shore of which lay Hark' and on the south shore Vayots Tzor. Hayk's son Armenak is said to have settled in the plain of Ararat; Armenak's elder grandson, Gegham, along Lake Gegham (now Lake Sevan) further east; Gegham's second son Sisak gave his name to Sisakan (Siwnik'), the region immediately south of the lake; finally, Gegham's son Aram is described as a great conqueror who subjected the entire Armenian plateau to his rule. This account, however streamlined, is a reasonably accurate description of the growth of Urartu as we know it, but it was reduced by the Armenian historical tradition to straightforward genealogical history.
10. Pseudo-Moses (1. 10) referred to Hayk as i mejskayic'n, 'one of the giants,' but, after demonstrating that several of the princely houses of Armenia were descended from him, felt obliged (111.65) to deny that the princes were descended from gods, implying that in pre-Christian times Hayk himself was considered a god. Other traces of his cult as a divinity survived among the Christian Armenians; not only does he appear to have been the subject of religious veneration but he was of astrological significance as well, for Hayk was the name given by the Armenians to the constellation Orion. See Toumanoff, Studies, p. 108n68.
Robert H. Hewsen. "The Primary History of Armenia": An Examination of the Validity of anImmemorially Transmitted Historical Tradition. History in Africa, Vol. 2. (1975), pp. 91-100.
Grandmaster, would you finally stop scorning Armenian historians? This talk page is about Artsakh, not Ulubabian, Mnatsakanian or somebody else. If you have any objection agains a map or something discuss the map self not it's author. It's also not the matter wheither Hayk was a real person or not. If I am a Christian, I believe Christ is the son of God, if you saye He isn't that, you don't change the matter that I'm a Christian.
The epithet "Haykazun" was indeed given to dynasties, which lived since "immemorial" times in Armenia, but it concerned also their ethnicity. I can quote many Armenian chronicles to testify that, but here a fragment of Kalankatvatsi's "History" with the original text in Old Armenian (OTOA). Please note the two words, which are declensions of the same "Haykazun":
Furthermore, Artsakh was part of Armenia from 189 BC, when the Kingdom of Armenia was proclaimed, till 387 (more than 500 years). And it was this period when the Haykazunian Arranshahik dynasty was established as a bransh if Sisakan House. According to Movses Khorenatsi, the borders of Armenia were formed along the Armenian speech:
Thus Armenian sources corroborate the mentioning of Strabo, that everyone in Armenia spoke on language. Furthermore Strabo says about Albanians: They live between the Iberians and the Caspian Sea [13], not "they live between the Iberians and the river Araxes".
Now this is wat we call "generally accepted view" since authors as Svante Cornell confirm the same: According to the Greek Historian Strabo and Armenian chronicles, the population of present-day Azerbaijan was until the fifth century divided between a western third populated by Armenians who to their East had the Caucasian Albanians [14].
Other views have to been compared with historical sources and verified even if there are from a third-party author. The thesis of P. Hewsen as if the ancient habitant of Artsakh were not of Armenian orign is in contradiction with historical sources and the traditional view on the topic. Also it is not verified that Utians, Mycians, Caspians, Gargarians, Sakasenians, Gelians, Sodians, Lupenians, Balas[ak]anians, Parsians and Parrasians have lived in Artsakh. For example, acccording to Kalankatvatsi Gargars lived in the greater Caucasian mountains (1.27), the others are largely equal geographical names on the left bank of Kura. -- Vacio ( talk) 08:53, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
If we have two opinion, then we should reflect both, but not promote only one. And for that matter we should try to use third party sources.-- Dacy69 ( talk) 14:24, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for your opinion Baku. Did you have any luck finding those MiGs coming from Gyumri buzzing around Georgia's airspace?-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 20:06, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
What exactly is the dispute about here? Is it about whether Ulubabyan is a neutral/third party source? I'm not saying he isn't a valid source, but if we're going to add something that is potentially controverisal, why add a map that is most likely disputed by Azerbaijani historians? I'd say there are two options: we either add a map that represents the Azeri POV to go alongside it, or we replace it with a more neutral one. Khoi khoi 05:23, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
The claim of consensus is yours. Artsakh was described in Urartian sources without any Albanians. You claim Armenians came there only ca. 200 BC (which is very unlikelly as the Urartian army penetrated there much earlier). But there is no any record of any Albanian people there in 200 BC. The first time such people were described was by Strabo in the first century BC, while he included Artsakh as part of Armenia. And he used Albania as a geographical region and claimed there was twenty-six languages spoken there. This therefore negates your claim. Until you provide any record before 200 BC that supports your claim that Armenians replaced the native Albanians, this shall remain as OR. And I am sure that such a politically motivated work as Memory Wars is in fact very useful here.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 18:14, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Let us take as a starting point the question of the ethnic composition of the population of Arc�ax and Utik, the regions between the Arax and the Kur which were Armenian territory until 387 and which lie in Azerbaidzhan today. To Mnac'akanyan, this territory was originally Armenian; to Bunjatov, it was Albanian. What do we actually know of its history? Our earliest information is to be found in the History of Herodotus. According to this author, the proto-Armenians were migrants who entered the Armenian plateau from Phrygia in the West, i. e. from Anatolia. The general consensus today is that the Armenians, as we know them, represent a fusion between these incoming tribes-conventionally called "Armens" -- and the diverse natives of the plateau who had previously formed a part of the Urartian federation. For this fusion to have taken place, however, the so-called "Armens" would have had to have spread across the plateau from west to east and, though we know little of the circumstances attending this migration, we do catch glimpses of it taking place. Herodotus, writing ca. 450 B. C., makes it clear that in his time the Armenians inhabited only the western third of the plateau, and that to the east of them lay pre-Armenian peoples-Saspeirians and Alarodians, - who had previously formed components of the Urartian state. Xenophon, who travelled through Armenia in the winter of 401-400 B. C., confirms the data of Herodotus, for when he entered the territory of the Phasians and Taokhians, in what was later called north-central Armenia, it is clear that he had left the Armenians behind.
After the fall of the Persian Empire to Alexander in 330 B. C., the Orontids, who had been the Achaemenian governors of Armenia, were allowed to keep control of their province, but, by the time they assumed the royal title in ca. 190 B. C., we find them residing at Armavir in the Ararat plain. Obviously, the fall of the Persian Empire had provided an opportunity for continued Armenian expansion towards the east, so that in the century between Xenophon's journey and the establishment of the Orontid monarchy, the Armenians, under Orontid leadership, must have secured control over the central Armenian plateau.
From Strabo we learn that under King Artashes (188-ca. 161 B. C.), the Armenians expanded in all directions at the expense of their neighbors. Specifically we are told that a t this time they acquired Caspiane and 'Phaunitis," the second of which can only be a copyist's error for Saunitis, i. e. the principality of Siwnik '.Thus, it was only under Artashes, in the second century B. C., that the Armenians conquered Siwnik' and Caspiane and, obviously, the lands of Arc'ax and Utik', which lay between them. These lands, we are told, were taken from the Medes. Mnac'akanyan's notion that these lands were already Armenian and were re-conquered by the Armenians at this time thus rests on no evidence at all and indeed contradicts what little we do know of Armenian expansion to the east. Since these eastern regions had formed part of the Persian province of Media before the time of Alexander, it seems likely that if they were seized by the Armenians from the Medes a century or so later, then they had probably remained a part of Media throughout that time. To attempt to demonstrate that these eastern territories were always Armenian by quoting Movses Xorenac'i, as Mnac'akanyan does, is hazardous in the extreme. Whoever the enigmatic Xorenac'i may have been, whenever he may have lived, and however valuable his compilation of antiquities may be as the received tradition of the Armenian people, it has been amply demonstrated that his historical knowledge is highly defective even for the most recent periods with which he deals, and that as a source for early Armenian history his book must be used only with the greatest care. The same is true for the other texts which Mnac'akanyan marshals to his cause; all are late and none of them can be used as sources for the extent of Armenian penetration to the east or the boundaries between Armenia and Albania prior to the time of Artashes, let alone the time of Alexander. As for the Armenian origin of the House of Siwnik' asserted by Movses, this is highly dubious, and we have evidence of Siwnian separateness and ethnic particularlism as late as the sixth century A.D.
What do we know of the native population of these regions - Arc'ax and Utik - prior to the Armenian conquest? Unfortunately, not very much. Greek, Roman, and Armenian authors together provide us with the names of several peoples living there, however - Utians, in Otene, Mycians, Caspians, Gargarians, Sakasenians, Gelians, Sodians, Lupenians, Balas[ak]anians, Parsians and Parrasians - and these names are sufficient to tell us that, whatever their origin, they were certainly not Armenian. Moreover, although certain Iranian peoples must have settled here during the long period of Persian and Median rule, most of the natives were not even Indo-Europeans.
Robert H. Hewsen, "Ethno-History and the Armenian Influence upon the Caucasian Albanians," in Thomas J. Samuelian, ed., Classical Armenian Culture: Influences and Creativity. Pennsylvania: Scholars Press, 1982.
Ok.....you do know that is what I am doing, right? You are changing the subject and quoting what I essentially wrote above (see last paragraph). We know nothing about the population there prior to 200 BC, while you claimed they were Albanian (see the last paragraph of the text you have quoted). There was no such people in Xerxes I's army, although they did recruit Armenians. You have no evidence that Artsakh was founded by Albanians when the first recorded existance of Artsakh as an entity never even mentioned any distinct people comming close to those Albanians. Strabo claims it was in Armenia and claims that only one language was spoken there, not twenty-six.
As for Mamedova, she is, quite frankly, a fraud. She claims a certain Jalalid dynasty existed even prior to Jalal's birth and claims it as ethnically Albanian when every scholar you quote has the date right as well as his ethnicity (Armenian). The accusations against Ulubabyan are on a different order. He is accused of making unsubstantiated claims which is much different than fraudulantly changing known individuals' ethnicities as well as changing known dates.
As a matter of fact, Ulubabyan's map is supported even by Hewsen, which is something I am sure you are certain of. The maps of the Artsakh Kingdom are available in Hewsen's work treating just that. This has been already discussed. Before continuing this argument check the date the map covers and you will see that you are writing about a different period.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 18:47, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Marshall: Is the Ulubabyan map supported by any non-Armenian or third-party sources? Khoi khoi 05:11, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
That defies logic, so the Albanians were not an ethnicity. The Urartians were multicultural also, and Armenians were one of the groups as stated in several references. Your assumptions are actually quite bizarre as all this runs against your own argument. Just throw whatever people you can find in the bunch as long as they are not Armenians. As a matter of fact, the only people who live in the area (Artsakh) now and who were living there prior are the Armenians. I have not the slightest idea of what you're trying to convey in the second part of your reply. Can you please demonstrate how both maps are that much different?
That map was used to show Artsakh the subject of this entry, the maps are very similar, and compare this to the later one represented by Hewsen on page 62. How are the names given for dynasties by the author anyway relevent when the date and the delimitations of Artsakh are similar to the one of the other authors and that is all that matters here? I'd advise that you not deviate the topic. There is no reason to draw a new map because it will be a near-replica of Ulubabyan's! This debate is so circular and a total waste of time. If you really want to waste your time, then go for it: change it with the near identical map of Artsakh drawn by Hewsen. It's mind-boggling as to how fanatically you are pursuing this one little change.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 18:02, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
GM, please learn to differentiate the meanings of should and must. If you still cannot jump over so simple a hurdle, then you really have no clue over what you're quoting. -- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 23:15, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
The Arranshahiks are suggested to be the rulers prior to the Mihranids according to Ulubabyan and Movses Kaghakatvatsi's work seems to confirm it. Some scholars such as C. Toumanoff think that the Arranshahiks were your Albanian Arsacids, although it's quite obvious that any Arsacid after the third century A.D. was definitely Armenian.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 23:15, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Well if you keep blindly dismissing Ulubabyan as an "unreliable" source, of course there won't be any reason to believe so! (even Hewsen praises the Principality of Khachen as an "important work"). Keep in mind, the Arranshahiks did not officially adopt their title as a dynastic name until the 7th century but their family did predate the establishment of the Arsacids. Since the Arranshahiks were named after their eponymous founder, Arran, who according to Movses Khorenatsi was a descendant of Hayk, then it's only logical that they claimed Armenian lineage. Movses Kaghankatvatsi even refers to them as the "ancient Armenian line of Erranshahik" (2.17 in the Dowsett translation, p. 108). The dynasties may have had Iranian origins, just like the Artashesyan and Arshakuni kings of Armenia, but they eventually assimilated with the Armenian population, that includes the Mihranids. -- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 21:31, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Shapur I's two raids makes that Arsacid dynasty nothing more than a symbolic name. It was attached to Armenia under Rome (are you going to deny this too?) Paul Erdkamp writes that there is a paucity of sources and a new chaos. You claim that there is no reason to believe that Arranshahs were anyone else other than Arsasids, I hope you will remember this sort of argument and leave us to use it as much as we want. If the Sassanids were considering the Arshakuni (which were Arsacid by Grandmaster's logic) as Armenian nobles (when the Arshakuni dynasty was abolished in 428), didn't they abolish that one at about the same time in so-called Albania (it happened much earlier, when under Rome, Albania was a part of Armenia) to again replace it with other Armenian nobles? Please post Minorsky's map for the 9th century that you keep mentioning (which is of a completely different peroid.
I have two maps of Hewsen, one from the seventh century which places both as losses from Armenia, and another map from the Arab domination, which also extends to the eighth century where the losses were replaced as Armenia II and III. References to maps from the fourth century to late eighth, etc. (also those included in the Kingdom of Artsakh). These all corroborate Ulubabyan's map, by different chronology of the maps, we have a good picture of what happened in that region. On the other hand, your only argument now is a map by Minorsky which we haven't seen and which covers an entirely different period anyways.
GM, please don't fabricate more rules: First, per rules, the map should be removed and replaced with the one from a reliable source. According to which rules? A map is a visual representation, there is the copyright issue here, as long as we have a map which accurately represents the period and the delineations,it's OK to use it. If you really care about accuracy, then maybe you should start focusing on this obviously wrong map, prepared during the Soviet times and which is highly politically motivated, placing Albania in the wrong area. You know the delimitations are obviously wrong. I haven't seen you do anything about this one.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 19:54, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Why are we suddenly shifting our focus from Artsakh, the province, to Armenians were not the original inhabitants? This is tantamount to soapboxing. The map is obviously wrong, and if you are going to sustain such an obviously wrong map, you are dismissing yourself in this discussion. There were no Albanians or Albania before 200 BC, since this is a well-known fabrication dating back to the Soviet era. Neither Hewsen nor anyone worthy of being quoted will ever provide a map preceding 200 BC which would ever include an Albania. Artsakh was not taken from the Albanians, because there was no such people when Artsakh became part of Armenia. It is either Albanians or Media - you can't have it both ways and say, "anyone but not Armenians." Just above, with your discussions with Vacio, you even linked the Urartians with the Albanians. Even Cyril Toumanoff writes that "Albania appears to have been the youngest Caucasian polity, so that the process of its growth from tribe to nation remained within human memory." E. Bretschneider writes in a footnote for clarification in his Medieval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources that "It does not seem, however, that ancient (Caucasian) Albania included also the land between the Kur and the Araxes."
And your battle about Ulubabyan's map still fails to make sense; it's everyone understanding that your problem is with Arranshah as you don't want to associate anything or anyone with the Armenians, but this is what Hewsen is actually saying: you can not only quote or use sources when they please you: "That the so-called Christian or New Albanian culture, which flourished after the transfer of the capital from Kabala, north of the Kur, to Partav, south of the river, in the fifth century, A. D., was essentially Armenian is also beyond question..." From what I see on the date of the map, it say 5-7 century cc. Am I reading it wrong? So, again, what is your problem with this map representing Artsakh for a territory which from Hewsen's own words was culturally essentially Armenian? For how long are you going to keep this going? That aside, Artsakh is the name of the Armenian province, with a definite boundaries, you are essentially doing what you tried with Paytakaran and failed and recently to create a FORK with the same controversial wordings. Can we say we're done yet?-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 17:38, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
The Armenians considerably curtailed the Albanian territories to the south of the Kur and Armenized them. Only after the division of Armenia between Byzantium and Persia in 387 did the provinces of Uti and Artsakh (lying south of the Kur) fall again to the lot of the Albanian ruler.
V. Minorsky, A History of Sharvan and Darband in the 10th-11th centuries, Cambridge (Heffer and Sons), 1958
Relax there GM, there no reason to be so uncouth. We were discussing something about a map before you decided to divert from the subject to demographics. As much as I dislike to dwell on this topic, it would be helpful if you could quote Minorsky in full, instead of cherry-picking what you like:
Of great importance in the life of the area under our consideration were the Armenians who after 190 B.C. incorporated the territory of Siunik and other districts in the highlands near Lake Sevan, and played a conspicuous part in the affairs of the region lying between the Kur and the Araxes, and even north of the Kur (in Shakki). After A.D. 387 these provinces were lost by the Armenians, but we have seen that the conversion of the Albanians to Christianity and the endowing of the Albanians with an alphabet were the work of the Armenians. Armenian settlers and cultural elements contributed to the further absorption of the Albanian nation. The Albanian and Armenian nobility freely intermarried, with the result that there appeared a mixed class of Albano-Armenian aristocracy. The later Armenian kingdoms of Ani and Vaspurakan had little influence in Eastern Transcaucasia but the petty Armenian rulers of Siunik and Artsakh (south of Barda) played a considerable role in the affairs of Albania. (Ibid.)
Nowhere does Minorsky mention that it was previously part of Albania. Albania at that time you refer to was becoming just a geographical term - calling them "Eastern Armenian lands" does in no way negate that. There was no Caucasian Albania prior to 200 BC as all the maps prior to that date label that area as North Eastern, placing it much further away from Artsakh. None of the following maps support your conclusions: [16], [17], [18]; the map you continue to defend is ahistorical and inaccurate as the following maps prove: [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], etc. Nowhere in these maps does Albania correspond to Artsakh's location.
If Ulubabyan's map is nearly the same as Hewsen's, then it's pointless to make another one. I have already cited Hewsen's statements twice, endorsing Ulubabyan's 1975 work on the Principality of Khachen but you ignored it regardless. Just because you say he made a mistake somewhere, doesn't then somehow disqualify him as a source. The admins asked for neutral sources and they were duly provided; by repeating the same thing over again you're not changing anything. Artsakh was an Armenian province, the map shows those lands as obviously being an Armenian province and it will be in a map which includes it as being part of Armenia. Hewsen tells us to check Ulubabyan and Ulubabyan's map doesn't contradict others maps. It takes time to rewrite a map and you have to justify this, and claiming the author is Armenian is not a justification.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 22:07, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
He is not a revisionist author. A revisionist author means someone who is engaged is revisionism, it is not necessarly a wrong thing. Minorsky is a revisionist author, if you check pre-Ulubabyan maps, you will see that prior to Minorsky and other authors alike, there was no mention of the Albanians near Artsakh; it was after the translation of the history of Aluank that historians basing themselves on it changed the world map. So Ulubabyan cannot possibly be labeled as such. As for Minorsky, you are again not reading carefully; when you quoted Minorsky, you left out the first phrase of the paragraph: "One must bear in mind the distinction between the areas occupied by the tribes of Albanian origin and the territories actually controlled by the Albanian kings." So there was no Albania there, please don't change the words when you know we are talking about Albania and not Albanians.
Coming to Albania, there was no Albania (as a Kingdom or anything independent) from the fifth to seventh centuries; Albania became autonomous under the Arabs as Armenia I; from the fifth to seventh centuries the country of Albania was placed in the country of Armenia. "Further the country of Arran in the country of Armenia, with a language of its own, ..." (from The Syriac Chronicle Known as that of Zachariah of Mitylene, Zacharias, Frederick John Hamilton, Ernest Walter Brooks, British Library, 1979, p. 328). Albania as Kingdom didn't survive into the fifth century and wasn't reinstated (only technically, since it became culturally Armenian by then) before the second part of the seventh century, at the very least.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 20:13, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Towards the end of the 5th century, the ancient ruling dynasty of Albania seems to have died out, and in the later 6th century and at the time of the Arab invasions some decades after then, Albania was ruled by princes of the Mihran family, who claimed descent from the Sasanians but were probably of Parthian origin. Their most famous representatives in the 7th century were Varaz-Grigor, his son Juansher (Persian Javanshir) and Varaz-Trdat I. The military exploits of the latter two potentates in the period of the first Arab invasions of Armenia and Arran figure prominently in the 2nd book of Movses Dasxuranci's chronicle. These princes bore the Persian title of Arranshah (in certain of the Arabic sources corruptly written as Liranshah), Armenian Eranshahik or Aranshahik.
Arran remained essentially a frontier province, left to its native princes, who were led by the Mihranids (these last being accorded by the Arabs the title of Batriq or Patricius, cf. Yaqubi, II, p. 562), on condition of the payment of tribute to the Muslim exchequer. In practice, the princes of Arran in the time of Varaz-Trdat I (d. 705) paid tribute simultaneously to the Arabs, the Byzantines and the Khazars, according to Movses Dasxuranci (3.12; in regard to the first two powers, probably as a result of the treaty of 685 between Justinian II and Abd-al-Malek providing for the division between the two empires of the tribute of Armenia and Arran), an indication of the confused state of affairs in eastern Transcaucasia. [29]
Then the king [Tiridates], without delaying, with fear and great happiness cared about gathering of the main nakharars and regents of the country:
1. the Lord of Angegh House,
2. the Lord of Aghdznik, who is a great viceroy,
3. the Lord of Mardpetakan Dominion,
4. the Lord of the Crowning Knight�s Dominion,
5. the Lord of the Strategist�s Dominion: the Commander of Armenia,
6. Lord of Korduk,
7. the Lord of Tsopk,
8. the Lord of Gugark, an other appointed viceroy,
9. the Lord of Rshtunik,
10. the Lord of Mokk,
11. the Lord of Syunik,
12. the Lord of Tsawdek,
13. the Lord of Utik,
14. the Lord-Shahap of the kantons Zarevand and Her,
15. the Lord of Maghkhazate House,
16. the Lord of Artrunik.
These are select Lords [Ishkhan�s], regents, deputies, captains of thousands and captains of ten thousands of the country Armena, the House of Torgomah, who were convened by the King Trdat and sent to Capadocia, the city of Cesarea, which in Armenian is called Mazhak, so that they would convey Grigor and would exalt him to the High Priest of their country. Agathangelos, 795-796 [30]
This discussion needs to be put back on its original track. The facts are not the main issue here. The issue is that this map has been published by a non-third party scholar (moreover, a philologist rather than a historian; that is, not even a specialist in the given field), whose works on this particular historical topic, on top of everything, have been assessed as controversial, unscientific and driven by political agenda. The request to remove the map is more than fair. Parishan ( talk) 06:18, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
Ulubabyan doubled as both a historian and philologist. In either case, charges were raised on his talk page but are hardly insufficient for disqualifying him as a source. The reason we disqualify people like Bunyadov and Mamedova is not because they make a few simple mistakes – it's because they plagiarize works and erase the identities of people and append assertions that aren't otherwise supported by any scholar, third party included.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 22:07, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
lol, by who?
By an author who has written no paper on the subject? Ulubabyan's work was praised by Hewsen (this is what, the hundreth time I'm repeating myself?), who GM likes to quote so much. And I don't think you are following the discussion, since Hewsen's map use a similar word as those for which GM want to remove the map. The question here is not who made the map, but rather if the map is in accordance with others. It it, so what is the problem? Also GM, the author who you quote is strong in sensensionalism to the extreme; it was under another context the Udis were linked with Armenian. There are several works on the influence of Armenian on the Udis, not only reported by Armenian scholars; for example, Udi also shows reflexes of Armenian influence in its morphology and syntax... (Word Order Correlations and Word Order Change, Jasmine Tragut, Lincom Europa, 2002, p. 38). Throwing durt on a scholar for a map supported by those you quote is becoming a waste of time.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 20:13, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
...the Armenian Royal House, which originated from Arran, was called Arranshahik or Erranshahik, and the influance of this house trough centuries, was mainly centred in the hill-country to the north-east and east of Sevan, which included both Gardman and those lands, which later would be known as Khachen.
Arakel Babakhanian (Leo), Collected Works, volume II. ‘’History of Armenia. Middle Ages’’. Yerevan 1967, p. 145.
No, it isn’t. You claim it never happened in the history of the region and yet Khachen was one and so was (as the title of Hewsen's work) the "The Kingdom of Arc'ax." You are very well aware of this as it has been discussed for a long time and you were part of the discussion. As for the Udis, please do quote Ulubabyan; I could care less of what an author who compares the Soviet nationalist Azeri scholars with Armenian ones has to say, when such a comparison is absurd beyond words. This scholar has published no paper on the subject and the title of the work reveals its actual purposes. Fabrication is placing the Azeri script on the Caucasian Albanian article, which, of course, not a single serious work will do; fabrication is placing a wildly anachronistic map on the same article.
The fact is that the only way Artsakh ended up in Aluank, is because of Arran which was considered being Persoarmenia, in a time even incorporating modern Yerevan. I don't need to point to you any material to prove this because it’s common knowledge, but since you seem to require more than is usually requested lately, here’s some sources [31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41]. As you can see, Arran was considered as being part of Persian Armenia, and Barda, as an Armenian city; under the Arabs it was even fixed as the capital of Armenia (i.e., Albania). Arran and Albania were different entities. Albania first referred to the land farther to the east; then, the Persian Arran which included a region more to the South. They not only changed the capital but much of the original Albania wasn't even included in Arran (it far too much to the north).
The day you come up with an alternative to the map representing the Armenian province, don't ask me to waste my time because you don't agree with one or two words which otherwise don't change the overall visual representation of Artsakh.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 19:19, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
Towards the end of the 5th century, the ancient ruling dynasty of Albania seems to have died out, and in the later 6th century and at the time of the Arab invasions some decades after then, Albania was ruled by princes of the Mihran family, who claimed descent from the Sasanians but were probably of Parthian origin.
In 359 the Albanian king Urnayr took part in the siege of Amid by the Sasanian Shapur II. In 461 the rebel king Vach'e lost his throne and the country was apparently taken over by the direct Persian administration. Even under the Sasanians Sharvan, Layzan and other principalities of the northern bank of the Kur were completely separated from Arran. Towards the end of the sixth century a new dynasty, issued from a Mihran sprang up in Arran and was soon converted to Christianity.
What you're doing is still tantamount to OR. You claim it was reduced to the area between Kura and Arax (assuming there was an Albania there in the first place), but all the ancient maps clearly omit any mention of an Albania. Furthermore, your claim that it was reduced to that area is not substantiated as evidenced by the maps provided above. As for Arran, I have provided 11 sources which place Aran as a region of Persian Armenia. Your two quotes are useless and irrelevant.
On to Minorsky: before he was an apolitical scholar, he was a proponent of the Soviet school on Albania and the several disputed regions in the Soviet Union; it was under the same regime that the obviously bogus map of Caucasian Albania which is presented in the Caucasian Albania article was created. Any notable modern scholar specializing on the history of the Caucasus knows the spuriousness of that map. Arran and Albania were not in the same geographic region; I have provided several maps to support that, please stop engaging in any more original research.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 01:21, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Arran, a region of eastern Transcaucasia. It lay essentially within the great triangle of land, lowland in the east but rising to mountains in the west, formed by the junction of the Rivers Kur or Kura and Araxes or Aras.
In pre-Islamic times, Arran formed the heart of the province of Caucasian Albania (to be distinguished of course from the Balkan Albania), which in fact embraced all eastern Transcaucasia, i.e. Arran here was a wider concept than that of post-Islamic Arran, and corresponded grosso modo with the modern Azerbaijan SSR.
That the so-called Christian or New Albanian culture, which flourished after the transfer of the capital from Kabala, north of the Kur, to Partav, south of the river, in the fifth century, A. D., was essentially Armenian is also beyond question, and here the arguments of Manc'akanyan are the strongest. No trace of an Albanian literature in the Albanian language survived, and all of the so-called Albanian literature which has come down to us is certainly written in Armenian. Contrary to Bunjatov, there is no evidence that any of this literature was translated into Armenian from another language and his assertion that the Armenian Church caused the Albanian literature to be translated into Armenian and then had originals destroyed is a flight of facy.
Hewsen, Robert H. Ethno-History and the Armenian Influence upon the Caucasian Albanians, in: Samuelian, Thomas J. (Hg.), Classical Armenian Culture. Influences and Creativity, Chico: 1982, 34.
- Sahl Smbatian Erranshahik Haykazuni, prince of Syunik, Lord of the Castle Khachen
- Atrnerseh
- Grigor
- Sahak-Sevada, prince of Gardman Parrisos
- Grigor II
- Sevada Ishkhan
- Hovhannes-Senekerim, king [of Parrisos]
What tosh! Pre-Islamic means prior to the seventh century, there is nothing here that speaks about BC. As for the relevence of the 11 sources, even the maps uploaded here on Wikipedia, including the expedition of Alexander the Great (which was prior to 190 BC) includes in it Armenia. From those 11 sources, there are encyclopedias which you have used; I sincerely hope you won't have any problems if I remove them in the articles you have used as sources. Persian Arran, from those sources, was in Armenia, Arabic Arran was also in Armenia. Sources were already provided, and this one only helps strenghten my case: [42]. And here are other recent ones: "Further the country 2 of Arran in the country of Armenia, with a language of its own, a believing and baptized people.." (The Syriac Chronicle Known as that of Zachariah of Mitylene, The Syriac Chronicle Known as that of Zachariah, Zacharias, Frederick John Hamilton, Ernest Walter Brooks, British Library, 1979, p. 328), the same quote is found in Red Sea-Black Russia by Jacques Bačić (1995, p. 291). Persian Arran also once included the present city of Yerevan. It's funny you claim those sources as irrelevent to answer my claim of irrelevency. I didn't say the quotes were irrelevent because I was questioning the material, but because they were not addressing my answer. On the other hand, you have claimed those sources which had everything to do with the subject as irrelevent, engaging in OR.
As for Minorsky's reputation, when I have questioned his reputation, I just addressed the issue of his Soviet conception of ancient history which is now believed to be not entirely accurate and is mysteriously in accord with the way they have sliced several pieces to incorporate them in the Union. No Russian scholars at that time were really immune to that, and this is not necessarly a wanted bias but everything to do with the era's bias. Britannica 1911 has several such bias, this does not mean that the reputation of those who wrote the articles has been or is questioned.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 19:29, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Please mind civility, my state of mind is quite fine. Everything you refer to us to read ends up not supporting what you say. You are engaging in OR by questioning their validity without providing the scholars who do so. There was no Albania between Arax and Kura during Alexander the Great's era, so tell me how those maps can therefore be ruled unreliable. For that matter, there was no Albania between Arax and Kura prior to when that territory became part of Armenia. The quotes you keep cutting and pasting don't even support what you say. As for your claim that there was no Armenia back then: you are again discrediting yourself, you have apparently access to JSTOR, and can type Alexander and Armenia which should be sufficient enough to debunk this sort of propaganda which originates from Baku, which essentially rejects Armenia never existed in that territory.
Regarding Minorsky, he certainly had some bias regarding boundaries. He was dispatched to Iran to survey Azerbaijan and Kurdistan during a commission to settle the borders between Iran and the Ottoman Empire. They sent him to the Mount Ararat region for the same purposes. He was involved in practically all such commissions, and while it is true that he never lived in the Soviet Union, his direct connection to England didn't start prior to the 1930's, and even then later with the events which happened during the WWII, he reestablished contact with the scientific circles in the Soviet Union and became even a guest of honor at the Soviet Academy of Sciences to visit Baku, Yerevan and Tbilisi. He was a great scholar, and his research about the history of Iran is impressive to say the least, but in regards to the boundaries in the Caucasus, I have my doubt about the Soviet School, since the obviously erroneous map which was in the article Caucasian Albania was drawn by the same school.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 21:26, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
At this point in time, I'm quite willing to accept any of Hewsen's maps. Even though it essentially is in conformity with Ulubabyan's maps, this ridiculously tiring, asinine and circular complaint by GM has gone on long enough. Armenia (i.e., the Yervanduni kingdom) was very real at the time of Alexander's campaigns in the east ( Xenophon writes about it in great detail) and Azerbaijani attempts to erase any existence of an Armenia is only too obvious and pathetic. Strabo is clear that when Artashes I began his expansion, he did so at the expense of the Medes or Iberians (nothing about the Albanians) – Artsakh and Utik were already part of Armenia. Anything else is just the same garbage that flows out from the Baku School of Revisionism.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 18:35, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Strabo says nothing about population of Artsakh. And Iranica article is self-contradictory, it also says further on:
Armina under Darius and Xerxes had much narrower boundaries than the future Armenia of the Artaxiads and the Arsacids. The "Armenians" with the inhabitants of Paktyike (?) and other peoples of the northwest formed the 13th satrapy, whose tribute was fixed at 400 talents (Herodotus 3.93). The Armenians in the strict sense must then have lived in areas between Cappadocia, the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the lake of Van. They are clearly distinguished from the Alarodians (= Urartians) who occupied the future province of Ayrarat (= Urartu) on the Araxes and with the Saspires (further northeast) and the Matienians (further southeast) formed the 18th satrapy (ibid., 3.94, cf. 7.79). [43]
So it cannot be used to oppose the views of Hewsen, as it actually agrees with them. -- Grandmaster ( talk) 14:47, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
There are two different paragraphs dealing with the same issue ( [44]). They ought to be combined and the repetitive statements removed. Perhaps someone could do that when there is time. Khoi khoi 05:06, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Затем [царь] назначил им вождей и правителей, во главе которых по приказу Валаршака был поставлен некто из рода Сисака, одного из потомков Иафета, по имени Аран, который унаследовал долины и горы страны Алуанк, от реки Ерасх до крепости hЫнаракерт [***]. Из-за его [Арана] мягкого нрава страна эта была названа Алуанк, ибо из-за мягкого нрава звали его Алу. Многие храбрые и знатные из потомков этого Арана, говорят, были назначены Валаршаком Партевом наместниками и тысячниками. От его [Арана] сына, произошли племена [***] Утийского, Гардманского, Цавдейского, Гаргарского княжеств.
"Following this [sic] dirty intrigue [the reaction of the Armenian pontif to the attempted split by the Church of Albania during the Arab periods], the Arabs put an end to the sovereignty of the Albania, and the Albanian Church was subordinated to the Armenian. That was the beginning of a progressive de-ethnicization of the of the Albanian nation. Thus the darkest [a big sic here also] forecasts were realized. The Armenians (for the nth time) began to oppress the Albanians." Caucasian Albania from the First Century BC to the First Century AD, Baku, 1974, p. 62.
The indisputable conclusion follows from everything said above that the so-called Armenians of Karabakh and the Azerbijanis as such (who are the descendants of the Albanian population) of northern Azerbaijan share the same mother. Both of them are completely indisputably former Albanians and therefore the Armenians as such [original emphasis] on the territory of Nagorny Karabakh, into which they sruged in huge numbers after the first quarter of the nineteenth century, have no rights. Black Garden, p. 155.
Глава L
О том, как разрушилось и развалилось армянское царство, как многие из армянских нахараров восстали и протянули руку персидскому царю Шапуху, и как вскоре разбрелись в разные стороны и оскудело армянское царство.
Тридцать четыре года наша армянская страна воевала с персидским царем, после сего обе стороны утомились, устали, потерпели поражение, пали духом. И началось разложение в лагере армянского царя, стали оставлять своего царя Аршака и уходить, и это разложение началось с великих вельмож. Сперва бдэшх Алдзника и бдэшх Ноширакана, и Махкер-туна, и Нихоракана, и Дасна, и все Алдзникское нахарарство, их войска и алдзникский род восстали против армянского царя Аршака... После этого бдэшх Гугарка, а после него владетель гавара Дзора, владетель гавара Колб, с ними также владетель Гардманадзора, и все те, кто находились в этих краях, около и вокруг них, вместе восстали против царя армянского Аршака и поехали и предстали перед персидским царем Шапухом. Против армянского царя Аршака восстали также укрепленный гавар Арцах, укрепленный гавар Тморик и укрепленная страна Кордик; также и владетель гавара Кордик поехал и предстал перед персидским царем. [47]
Show me please the place where Buzand speaks of rebelled people of Artsakh? Can't you see that is was rather the nakharars, who rebelled against Arshak I and that because of thier war-weariness? And can't you see that Pavsos is speeking of rebelled Armenian provinces? In the same way it is unacceptable your remove of the mention that Artsakh was borderd by other provinces of Armenia making them simply "regions". Also your quote of Hewsen is absolute inappropriate here, did you actually read the text above? there is nothing said about Sisak at all! Hewsen hasn't the directly wording "Hayk was not a real person", we have stated that he was a mythical figure and that is completely enough here.
What about Aliev: I it well known how much the Albanians owe to the Armenians, for example:
the fortresses and cities of Albania occupied by the Persians, including the strategical "Caucasian Port" - Derbend, and entrusted them to the Albanians (who according Yeghishe were fleed to the Caucasus mountains), thus assuring for them full sovereignity,
So you think it's a little thing, that after all Armenians have done fore Albanians, Aliev blames them for "de-ethnicization of the Albanian nation"??? Bah! the lowest slander I ever heard! We can't accept such an Anti-Armenian author here. You can't put Igrar Aliyev on a par with Arrakel Babakhanian. You can compare him rather to the Azerbeidzjani hisoriographer Mirza Jamal Jevanshir, widely used in Wikipedia. Babakhanian was a native of Artsakh and most of his historical works concern Artsakh's history. In any case there is no such a source wich can be trustd for 100%, in this case its important that Babakhanian is consistend with sholars as R. Hewsen and Thoumanoff, i.e. they speak of an Haykid-Armenian princely family which existed in Artsakh and Utik. Hewsen even says that the Melikdoms of Karabakh were descendet of this Haykid family. -- Vacio ( talk) 09:52, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
The quote from Buzand:
Глава XII
Об Арцахе.
Он разгромил и страну Арцах в большом сражении, многих жителей взял в плен, у остальных взял заложников и обложил их данью.
He defeated the country of Artsakh in a great battle, took many inhabitants as prisoners, took hostages from the rest and imposed tribute on them. [48]
As for Igrar Aliyev, like I said, he is an internationally respected scholar. By "so-called" he means that many Armenians of Karabakh are descendants of the original inhabitants of the region, i.e. Albanians. This fact is not disputed even by Armenian scholars. I suggested to use only neutral third party sources, you keep on referring on Armenian sources with obvious bias. In that case, I will have every right to refer to Azerbaijani scholars, which is what I'm going to do. Alternatively, we can stick to third part authors, as was discussed many times already. And sneaky removal of the quote from Hewsen by Vacio has no justification, this is not the first time that he is are deleting this line:
Hayk and Sisak are thought to have been just eponyms and not real persons.<ref>Robert H. Hewsen. "The Primary History of Armenia": An Examination of the Validity of an Immemorially Transmitted Historical Tradition. History in Africa, Vol. 2. (1975), pp. 91-100</ref> [49]
I'm expecting a reasonable explanation for deletion, before discussing it elsewhere. Grandmaster ( talk) 06:28, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Here's the Armenian scholar Suny saying that Albanians of Karabakh were assimilated by Armenians:
The Caucasus region has long been the scene of very serious social, religious and ethnic conflicts. Back in the Middle Ages, before the Turkish people migrated here from central Asia, eastern Transcaucasia was known as Caucasian Albania. No relation to the Balkan Albanians, these were a Christianized people quite close to the Armenians. Once the Seljuk Turks began arriving in the 11th century, the Albanians in the mountainous area – Karabagh up to historic Armenia – remained largely Christian and eventually merged with the Armenians. The Albanians in the eastern plain leading down to the Caspian Sea mixed with the Turkish population and eventually became Muslims.
Ronald G. Suny: What Happened in Soviet Armenia? Middle East Report, No. 153, Islam and the State. (Jul. - Aug., 1988), pp. 37-40.
And your idea that Albanians disappeared in the 5th century is wrong, Hewsen says that their state broke up in the 10th century, while Albanians as ethnicity may have existed after that time, this is from T.de Waal, p.156:
In his letter, he (Hewsen) stressed that the amount of evidence on Caucasian Albania was really quite small, but he concurred with the idea that by the tenth century the Albanians had pretty much been broken up: "Since, according to Strabo, the Albanians were a federation of twenty-six tribes, the general consensus is that their state began to disintegrate in the Arab period and was gone by the tenth century; an Albanian ethnic group may have survived longer: we don't know."
Grandmaster ( talk) 05:23, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
He [Mesrop Mashtots] revived the Church and strengthened the Faith and spread the teaching of the gospel to the land of the Utiacik', the Albanians, the Lp'ink', the Kaspk', up to the Chołay Pass, and other foreign tribes whom Alexander of Macedon had captured and settled around the great Mount Caucasus, namely, the Gargark' and the Kamicik Hep't'ałk. (1.27)
CHAPTER 4. VAŁARSHAK APPOINTS A RULER OVER THE ALBANIANS
Here begins the [history of the] government of the Albanians. We cannot say anything definite for the benefit of our readers about the people who inhabited the great Mount Caucasus from the creation of the world down to Vałaršak, king of Armenia. On the establishment of his rule over the northerners, he summoned to him the wild, foreign tribes in the northern plain and round the foot of the Caucasus and the valleys and ravines south thereof down to the entrance to the plain, and commanded them to cease their plundering and murdering and to pay tribute to the king. He appointed over them governor and prefects of whom the chief, by order of Vałaršak, was a certain Arran of the Sisakan family. (1.4)
The History of Caucasian Albanians by Movses Dasxuranci. Translated by C. J. F. Dowsett, London 1961, pp. 3-4.
Raffi refers to this house as the "Orbelians in Sisian" and it would appear, then, that the House of Melik-Tangian was of Orbelid rather than of Haykid origin and that it represented a survival of the Orbelid dynasty of Siwnik' just as the melik houses of Karabagh represented survivals of the earlier Haykid dynasty of the same principality.
Hewsen, Robert H., The Meliks of Eastern Armenia III, Revue des Etudes Arméniennes, Paris 1975-76, p. 224.
This is the quote about Sisak from Hewsen:
Gegham. He is said to have left Armenia and gone to the shore of a great lake which was thence forward called Gegh, and to have settled people in a region called after him — Geghak’unik'. Gegham, then, was probably not a person but an eponym — a personification of the lake (now called Sevan) and district of Geghak’uni, whose names are actually derived from Welikuhi, the name of this region even before the time of Urartu, which conquered it in the late eighth century B.C. Sisak, brother of Harma and son of Gegham, can only be another eponym, and a late one at that. Sisak is said to have been the ancestor of the princes of Siwnik', a province on the southern border of Geghak’uni. It was called Sisakan by the Sasanids (who ruled Persia from 226 to 637 A.D.); this term was unknown to Armenian historiography before the seventh century A.D. and was first used by a Syrian writer only in the sixth century.
Robert H. Hewsen. «The Primary History of Armenia»: An Examination of the Validity of an Immemorially Transmitted Historical Tradition. History in Africa, Vol. 2. (1975), pp. 91-100.
As you can see, the term Sisakan was unknown to Armenian historiography before the seventh century A.D., so it was invented much later after the time Aran was supposed to live. So Sisak was an eponym, and Hubsmann also said that Sisak was an imaginary person.
In the note on p. 194 of his Baladuri edition de Goeje says: "Est populus cujus genealogiae princeps appellatur Sisag," while referring to St. Martin, Memoires sur l'Armenie, Paris, 1818, i, pp. 207-214. Here St. Martin discusses the text of Moses of Khoren's History (book ii, ch. 7) on the province of Sisakan, which is the northwesternmost province of Great Armenia, lying between the Araxes and the Lake of Sewan and bordering on Albania; the older Armenian name is Siounik'. Moses of Khoren derives the name Sisakan from a heros eponymos Sisak ; this Sisak is, however, as Hubschmann also (Idg. Forschungen, xvi, p. 263) thinks, only an imaginary forefather, whose name was deduced from the form Sisakan.
J. H. Kramers. "The Military Colonization of the Caucasus and Armenia under the Sassanids." Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, Vol. 8, No. 2/3.
Movses never mentions Artsakh in connection with Aran, he only mentions Tsavdek, and you showed no reliable sources to support the idea that Tsavdek is the same as Artsakh. -- Grandmaster ( talk) 11:06, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Then we have your source, Movses of Khoren, who writes:
И вот, один из его потомков, упомянутый именитый и доблестный Драя, и был назначен парфянином Валаршаком наместником-десятитысячником. Говорят, что племя утийцев и княжества гардманцев, цавдейцев и гаргарцев происходят от его отпрысков.
So one of his descendants, the aforementioned noble and brave Draya, was appointed by the Parthian Valarshak a governor. It is said that the tribe of utis and principalities of Gardmanians, Tsavdekians and Gargarians descended from his offspring. [51]
So Valarhsak was Parthian, and not Armenian. And descendants of Aran include the udi people, who are not even Indo-European and have no relation to Armenians, they are Caucasian people from Nakho-Dagestani group. How this people could have descended from Aran, if he was an Armenian? It is clearly a legend, invented after the 7th century, and has nothing to do with reality. -- Grandmaster ( talk) 11:18, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
And Moses of Kalankatuyk also writes: От его [Арана] сына, произошли племена Утийского, Гардманского, Цавдейского, Гаргарского княжеств.
I.e. The tribes of the principalities of Uti, Gardman, Tsavdek and Gargar descended from Aran. I provided the full quote above. How all this people could have descended from Armenians, if they spoke languages from a completely different linguistic group? -- Grandmaster ( talk) 11:21, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Btw, even the Armenian author Gagik Sarkisian, who translated the work of Moses of Khoren, says:
Аран — один из случаев персонификации Мовсесом Хоренаци названия местности.
Aran – one of the instances of personification of the name of a region by Movses.
See this footnote. [52] So even Armenian scholars say that Aran was not a real person. So Vacio, please stop POV editing, there’s no way you can prove that Aran was a real person, when even Armenian sources disagree with you. Grandmaster ( talk) 11:30, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
That the so-called Christian or New Albanian culture, which flourished after the transfer of the capital from Kabala, north of the Kur, to Partav, south of the river, in the fifth century, A. D., was essentially Armenian is also beyond question, and here the arguments of Manc'akanyan are the strongest. No trace of an Albanian literature in the Albanian language survived, and all of the so-called Albanian literature which has come down to us is certainly written in Armenian. Contrary to Bunjatov, there is no evidence that any of this literature was translated into Armenian from another language and his assertion that the Armenian Church caused the Albanian literature to be translated into Armenian and then had originals destroyed is a flight of fancy. Ethno-History and the Armenian Influence upon the Caucasian Albanians in Samuelian, Thomas J. (Ed.), Classical Armenian Culture. Influences and Creativity, Chico: 1982, p. 34.
Grandmaster, You seem to be using some original research deductions, like "what language they must have spoke PROVES their ethnicity", to claim that certain ancestral people referenced in Armenian history books never even existed. Even if perhaps they never existed, the wording needs to attribute this POV to the sources explicitly arguing this in clear language, otherwise it is known as "POV pushing", ie, siding with sources of one particular POV, rather than treating them all "neutrally". Also if there are really no sources whatsoever that mention "Aran" in connection with Artsakh, then the whole debate over Aran's existence does not need to fill up this page, and is a complete synthesis here, and probably belongs on some other page. Til Eulenspiegel ( talk) 11:35, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
There's no reason to believe that Arranshahs were anyone other than Arsacids. After all, Mihranids had to kill them to take over the country, and no other dynasty is registered between Arcasids and Mihranids. Both those dynasties were Iranian, it is a well documented fact. Therefore Vacio's edits that he tries to force into the article on Mihranids are clearly OR and POV. [57]
Today this narrative of Khorenatsi says that an Armenian headsman and warrior named Hayk revolted against the Assyro-Babylonian realm, defeated the enemy forces and established an new Armenians state in the neighborhood of the Lake Van. This was the Armenian state of Ararat.
When did occur the events in relationship with Hayk? It’s hard to estimate. Khorenatsi gives no exact date. Some scholars believe Hayk gained the victory about the mid-3th millennium BC.
Raphael Ishkhanian, Patkerazard Patmutyun Hayots), v. I, Yerevan 1989.
Artsakh and the region Sodk of the province of Syunik comprised the Tsavdekian feudal principality (nakharardom) of the Armenian kingdom. [58]
And from among his descendants, they say, famous and valiant men, many governors were appointed by Vałaršak the Parthian; and from his son, they say, descended the inhabitants of the principalities of Uti, Gardman, Covdk', and Gargark'.
Up to here we have shown the (various) genealogies
The History of Caucasian Albanians by Movses Dasxuranci. Translated by C. J. F. Dowsett, London 1961, p. 4.
The royal house of Aranshahik, traditionally descended form the divine eponym of the Albanians, Aran, a descendant, in turn, of Hayk, is the first known royal dynasty of Albania and possibly the one which, through the subordination to itself of the other fellow-dynasts, achieved the unification of the country and gave birth to the Albanian Monarchy. Superseded in the mid-first century by the Arsacids, this dynasty was nearly exterminated in the sixth century by the Mihranids of Gardman, who, in 628, were to acquire the Principate of Albania replacing the Arsacid Monarchy. The Aranshahiks, however, survived in one branch, settled at Gis, in Otene, down to the ninth century and may possibly have continued, down to the tenth, as the Kings of trans-Cyran Albania, in Shak’e or Shakki and Heret’i. (...)
The House of Aranšahik must, thus, have been the pre-Arsacid royal house and its descendants. It was, however, the hostility not of the Arsacids, but of the Mihranids of Gardman that exterminated this family, with the exception of Zarmihr, who was married to a Mihranid princess: Moses Kał. 3.17. In 1.27, Varaz P’erož of the House of Aranšahik is mentioned as settled at Gis; it is there that the House of Varaz P’erož is mentioned (in the seventh century) in 2.32, where it is said to bear the title of lak’nar (...). Vač’agan Eranšahik defended Albania against the Khazars in 714, 3.16; and in the ninth century, Sahl i Smbatian, designated as both an Eranšahik and a Zarmihrakan, played a considerable role in eastern Caucasia (...). In his A history of Sharvan and Darband in the 10th-11th Centuries (Cambridge 1958), Minorsky was inclined to think that it was the Mihranids who entitled themselves Eranšahik and that Sahl merely took over that title from them: 11 n. 2, 13; but cf. 21. This was written before the text of Moses of Kał. became available through Dowsett’s translation.
Cyrille Toumanoff, Studies in Christian Caucasian History, Georgetown University Press, 1963, p. 257-258
Aber Eŕanšahik–k’: das alte Geschlecht der Haikanier (Armenier), die Eŕanšahik Mos.Kal. I,287; Varaz-Perož aus der Aŕanšahik-Familie Mos.Kal. I.192; der Eŕanšahik Vačagan Mos.Kal. II.46 ist nicht mp. = Erānašahrikān 'Iranier' (Salemann, mp. Stud. 222), sondern = mp. *Arrān-šāh-īk von pers, Arrān Provinz zwishen Araxes und Kur Barb. 17, arm. Aŕan Gesch. Georg. 29, 73, 75 (vgl. MX. 77, 78) + pers. šāh 'König' + suff. īk.
Heinrich Hübschmann, Àrmenische Grammatik, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1895, p.38
This article is now under full protection for a month while disputes are worked out. — Rlevse • Talk • 12:18, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Grandmaster is trying to push up in the intro an absolute improper excerpt by means of edit-warring ( [59] [60]). Artsakh has been under Albanian control only after 387, already was mentioned in the intro. Grandmaster was just edit warring in the articles Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhichevan Khanate and he is also known for representing false information as "well known facts" (see Talk:Aghstafa River) I think this is harming WP policy for good faith. -- Vacio ( talk) 07:56, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
I have fact tagged the claim that Artsakh was part of Caucasian Albania. No source is provided for this claim, and it is a dubious claim given that it seems to be contradicted by other sources. And please, don't give that pile of garbage known as Columbia Encyclopedia as a source - it will not be accepted. General encyclopedias are not valid sources. Meowy 03:08, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
The Armenians considerably curtailed the Albanian territories to the south of the Kur and Armenized them. Only after the division of Armenia between Byzantium and Persia in 387 did the provinces of Uti and Artsakh (lying south of the Kur) fall again to the lot of the Albanian ruler. The earlier capital of Albania seems to have lain north of this river, whereas the later capital Perozapat (Partav, Barda'a) was built by the Albanian Vach'e only under the Sasanian king Peroz (457-84).
V. Minorsky, A History of Sharvan and Darband in the 10th-11th centuries, Cambridge (Heffer and Sons), 1958
The quote of Minorsky above is too hazy: I still cant understand what he meant: Armenians curtaild albnian territery in ethnical sense or political? How you can use an excerpt as a source when it is not clear enough? Anyway, this allegation as if Armenians took it from Albania is discounted by modern western scholarship, in the 2nd c BC the Albanian state nor the Albanian nation existed, and Armenins could not curtail their territory. See for example Hewsen:
Although Arrian's mention of the Albanians places them (perhaps anachronisti-cally) in the Persian army against Alexander the Great, Caucasian Albania first appears in history as a vassal state in the empire of Tigranes the Great of Armenia (95-56 B.C.), having arisen as a kingdom in eastern Caucasia and, with the Georgians and the Armenians, forming one of the three nations that held between them that northeasternmost sector of the Mediterranean world. According to Strabo, the kingdom of Albania coalesced in the Hellenistic period as a federation of twenty-six tribes under the leadership of one of their chieftains, essentially as Iberia and Armenia had become unified at an earlier time.
— Robert H. Hewsen. Armenia: A historial Atlas. The University of Chicago Press. 2000, p. 40
Classical sources are unanimous in making the River Kyros / Cyros the frontier between Armenia and Albania. Only in the late 4th century A.D. did the Armenian principalities of Arc'ax, Utik', Gardman, Ŝakaŝen and Kołt pass under permanent Albanian rule.
— Ibid. p. 41
Also it is quite possible that the Armenian did not took this area form Medes:
Strabo’s description of the expansion of Zariadris and Artaxes makes it clear just what lands the Orontids had originally controlled: apparently much of greater Armenia from the Euphrates to the basin of Lake Sevan and possibly beyond to the juncture of the Kur and Araxes rivers (… as depicted here).
— Ibid p. 32
--06:13, 21 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vacio ( talk • contribs)
Quoting Hewsen:
These peoples, all conquered by the Armenians in the second century B. C., must have been subjected to a great deal of Armenicization over the next few centuries, but most of them were still being cited as distinct ethnic entities when these regions passed to Albania in 387, some 500 years later.
Hewsen, Robert H., Ethno-History and the Armenian Influence upon the Caucasian Albanians, in: Samuelian, Thomas J. (Hg.), Classical Armenian Culture. Influences and Creativity, Chico: 1982, 27-40.
Grand master 07:17, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
In sum, according to Hewsen, the region orignally had non-Armenian population, and was conquered by Armenians in the 2nd century A.D. In 387 A.D. it passed to Albania. So it was a part of Albania. I added a reference to Hewsen, I hope this resolves the dispute. Grand master 07:32, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
Arcax was lost to Albania in 387, while Sawdk remained as one of the districts of Siwnik. ... The Arcax of the ASX also contains the principality of Kolt', and it is not impossible that the princes of Kolt' were its original owners, although at the time of the cession of these lands to Albania in the period 363-387, Kolt' and Arc'ax are spoken of as separate entities.
Robert H. Hewsen. Armenia: A historial Atlas. The University of Chicago Press. 2000, p. 102
I have again added the "Disputed" tag in the article in reaction to the last changes in the intro [61] thanks to which we have two more controversial statements there. First, there seem to be no sources that indicate that Artsakh has been "a region" (or something else) before the 2nd C. BC, we have only sources that it was thereafter organized as a province within the Armenian state. Second, in his last work Hewsen makes clear that it is not certain that the region was conquered from Medes (or another state), he says that it is possible that it had been part of Orontid Armenia in the 4th century BC. -- Vacio ( talk) 14:01, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't call in question its pass over to Albania in 387 AD (though its condition as part of Albania needs perhaps more clearance). But what is real controversial is its political condition before 189 BC. I have here another quote from Hewsen which makes it clear that 1) it is uncertain that Artsakh was "conquered" in the 2nd century BC, 2) there are no evidences to believe that there was a land or region called "Artsakh" before 2nd century BC.
The Eastern Frontiers of Armenia
All this part of Armenia was acquired by the Armenians during the early second century B.C, when Strabo (XI.14.5) tells us that they conquered Phauene (sic, read Sauene - Siwnik?), Otene (Utik), and Kaspiane under Artaxias (Artashes) I (c.190 - c.161 B.C.), and possibly the unnamed land of Arcax which lay between the other three.
— Robert H. Hewsen. Armenia: A historial Atlas. The University of Chicago Press. 2000, p. 58
-- Vacio ( talk) 07:36, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
Good. This is the prevailing opinion among scholars that Artsakh was conquered in the 2nd century B.C. Other scholars also say so. The primary sources make no direct mention of Artsakh, but since Siwnik and Kaspiane were conquered at that time, it is obvious that Artsakh was conquered at the same time. -- Grand master 12:56, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Not all of these people were aboriginal, for example Gargaracik were apparently migrants:
Classical sources place the Gargarians in the North Caucasus but Armenian sources place them in this region, possibly as the result of migration.
— Robert H. Hewsen. Armenia: A historial Atlas. The University of Chicago Press. 2000, p. 41
User Grandmaster I strongly recommend you to examine first the relevant sources properly, then edit. -- Vacio ( talk) 07:26, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
Robert H. Hewsen believes that these tribes were "certainly not of Armenian origin", and "although certain Iranian peoples must have settled here during the long period of Persian and Median rule, most of the natives were not even Indo-Europeans". [1]
2. The Ethnogenesis of the Armenian people
There are essentially four theories concerning the origin of the Armenian people, which we may call respectively the Armenian tradition, the Greek tradition, the modern consensus, and the latest hypothesis. Each has its supporters as well as its supporting evidence but it is important to note that none of them can be as yet proved and it is unlikely that firm proof will ever be possible to attain.
(…)
The modern consensus has been that the earliest Armenians were a tribe of Phrygian or related origin, dubbed by scholars as the ‘Armens’ or ‘proto-Armenians’, who moved into the Armenian plateau in the confusion followed by the fail of Urartu. There, they intermarried with the non-Indo-European-speaking natives, already a highly mixed people to form the Armenian people that we know today (Adontz, Toumanoff, Diakonoff, et al).
(…)
Following, for the present, the general consensus, we may note that from earliest times the Armenian highlands have been inhabited by many ethnic elements entering from various directions (as everywhere else), but here geography conspired to preserve the ethnic distinctions for countless centuries. Many clans, tribes, and peoples came to dwell in different valleys. Some clans and tribes held but one of these; others several. These were ruled by clan heads, tribal chiefs, princes, and kinglets. Armenia thus had little cohesion, geographic or ethnic; division was the order of the day. it was a patchwork, a crazy quilt, a mosaic of peoples. Dozens of distinct groups have been identified, many of them, of course, being but tribes or offshoots of others. Twice this ethnic complexity was pulled together in ancient times: first by the kings of Biainele, or Van, that is, the Urartian federation of the ninth to sixth centuries B.C.; and second under the kings of Armenia, which became, in effect, a successor federation to that of Urartu. The Urartian federation was highly mixed ethnically, comprising about a hundred principalities, and many peoples involved In the federation are mentioned in Urartian and Assyrian records. When the Urartian federation collapsed c. 585 B.C., and the so-called Armens, or proto-Armenians, entered from the west, they must have been, at first, merely another new ethnic element entering the mix and mingling with the older ones already there. This was not necessarily an invasion—at least there is no record of any—but appears rather to have been an infiltration.
These proto-Armenians must have been large in numbers, however, given the way that they came to dominate the plateau. Thus, there must have been some conflicts between them and the natives, and there are some records of these. Ultimately, the proto-Armenians spread into nearly every valley large and small, at least in the center of the plateau—absorbing the aboriginal ethnic elements but not always completely and certainly not on the fringes of the country. Generally speaking, the Armenians appear to have avoided the more remote mountains within which some of the early peoples appear to have taken refuge. Thus, numerous pre-Armenian peoples long survived, and, as Adontz (1908) has demonstrated, ethnonyms mentioned in Urartian, Hittite, and Assyrian records survived until far longer into the historic period than has perhaps always been appreciated. Indeed, some of these names are recognizable one thousand years after the fall of Urartu, when the Armenians begin to leave us written records of their own. Most of these peoples were, of course, more or less armenized—many of them doubtless completely so—but many of them, including those quite assimilated, seem to have continued to be governed by the descendants of their own ancestral rulers: the clan heads, tribal chiefs, princes, and kinglets of old. All of these local rulers were eventually incorporated into the complex body of the Armenian nobility—the Armenian princely houses—of which there were some seventy. The names of many of these houses betray either their pre-Armenian or non-Armenian origin: the Sala (one of the pre-Armenian peoples) are represented by the Princes Sghkuni, the Manda by the Princes Mandakuni, the Pala or Bala by the Princes Paluni. In the same way, the names of the various Armenian districts betray the names of their early inhabitants: the Pala by Paghnatun and Balahovit 'Pala House (or tribe)' and 'Bala Valley', the Mardians (Medes?) by Mardastan and Mardaghi, the Mannaians by Mananaghi, the Mushki by Moskikhe and Mukhank' and perhaps by Mokk', the Ainians by Hani, the Drilloi or Driles perhaps by Daranaghi and Derjan, the Udins by Utlk', and so on. All of these names attest to the diversity of pre-Armenian ethnic elements; indeed, the Udins exist today and are not Armenian despite the fact that those Udins who remained Christian rather than converting to Islam are members of the Armenian Church and their language is laced with Armenian vocabulary.— Robert H. Hewsen. Armenia: A historial Atlas. The University of Chicago Press. 2000, p. 10
-- Vacio ( talk) 06:54, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
means that they were not Armenian but later mixed with the proto-Armenians. It is this context that I mean must not left out. -- Vacio ( talk) 07:16, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
I have already cited sufficient reasons for not quoting that excerpt in the article (in particular the Median rule). The fact that it had mostly an non-Indo-European population before the proto-Armenians came is already reflected in the article. However I oppose the way of picking out an just excerpt from a hot scholarly dispute. Imagine yourself if I should do the same, I can find numerous "good" excerpts form Hewsen works and quote them all in this article. I also demand that the earlier statements of Hewsen would be compared with his latest ones.-- Vacio ( talk) 08:11, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Your arguments do not disprove the statement of Hewsen that the original population of Artsakh was non-Armenian. Even if we assume that Arsakh was conquered during Orontid times, still that does not make Armenians the original inhabitants of this land. Someone must have lived there before the Armenians came. Therefore the information of Hewsen that the original population of Artsakh was non-Armenian must be restored. The deletion of this info is unjustified suppression of the sourced info. -- Grand master 13:00, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
A land of high mountains, deep gorges, and rich pastureland, Vaykunik’ was the territory of the Khaghbakid branch of the Siunid princes of Khach’ēn, ancestors of the later meliks of Tsar, the latter holding the area until the coming of the Russian. Though remote, Tsar nevertheless suffered from the deportations of Shah ’Abbās in the early seventeenth century and was almost denuded of its Armenian inhabitants. Eventually, Kurds settled the area, as they did in the district of Kashat’agh across the Karabagh (Arts’akh) Mountains to the south. Only the monasteries, churches, and extensive funeral monuments bore witness to the essential Armenian nature of the original population.
Robert H. Hewsen, Armenia: A Historical Atlas. The University of Chicago Press, 2001, pp. 264-265. ISBN: 978-0-226-33228-4
I restored some of the deleted bits namely: 1. A quote from Hewsen mentioning the definite non-Armenian origin of the region's earliest population. Even if his later work contradicts his original statement with regard to the time the region was absorbed into the Armenian state, that still does not contradict him saying that the earliest population of Artsakh was not Armenian. 2. A quote from Shnirelman clarifying that in Strabo's time, speaking Armenian did not necessarily mean being Armenian. I find it odd that the quote was deleted by someone but the actual reference remained. Parishan ( talk) 08:52, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
From Strabo we learn that under King Artashes (188-ca. 161 B. C.), the Armenians expanded in all directions at the expense of their neighbors. Specifically we are told that a t this time they acquired Caspiane and 'Phaunitis," the second of which can only be a copyist's error for Saunitis, i. e. the principality of Siwnik '.Thus, it was only under Artashes, in the second century B. C., that the Armenians conquered Siwnik' and Caspiane and, obviously, the lands of Arc'ax and Utik', which lay between them. These lands, we are told, were taken from the Medes. (…)
What do we know of the native population of these regions--Ar’cax and Urik’--prior to the Armenian conquest? Unfortunately not very much. Greek, Roman and Armenian authors provide us with the names of several peoples living there, however--Utians, in Otene, Mycians, Capians, Gargarians, Sakasenians, Gelians, Sodians, Lupenians, Balasa[ka]nians, Parsians, Parrasian, --and these names are sufficient to tell us that , whatever their origin, they were certainly not Armenian. (…)
In 387 A. D., the various peoples of Arc’ax and Utik, whether Armenians, Armenicized aborigens, or both, passed under Albanian rule, which under these conditions, would have meant that the various ethnic elements comprising the Albanians north of the Kur a number of others was added to the south. That these people were highly Armenicized and that many were actually Armenians per se cannot bee doubted.
Robert H. Hewsen, "Ethno-History and the Armenian Influence upon the Caucasian Albanians," in Thomas J. Samuelian, ed., Classical Armenian Culture: Influences and Creativity. Pennsylvania: Scholars Press, 1982, pp 32-34.
Strabo’s description of the expansion of Zariadris and Artaxias makes it clear just what lands the Orontids had originally controlled: apparently much of Greater Armenia from the Euphrates to the basin of Lake Sevan and possibly beyond to the juncture of the Kur and Arax Rivers (…)
The Eastern Frontiers of Armenia
All this part of Armenia was acquired by the Armenians during the early second century B.C, when Strabo (Xl.14.5) tells us that they conquered Phauene (sic, read Sauene - Siwnik?), Otene (Utik'), and Kaspiane under Artaxias {Artases) I (c. 190-c 161 B.C.), and possibly the unnamed land of Arc'ax which lay between the other three. (…)
Is seems likely that except of Siwnik, eastern Armenia was not much more than armenized, if that. Sakasen, at least originally, was obviously a Scythian (Saka) enclave in the country, the Utians were almost certainly a Caucasian tribe, the names Gardman and Gargaracik suggest a Georgian connection, but we have no idea to what ethnic group the Kaspians may have belonged. Siwnik, too, had a mixed population that doubtless contained many Armenians but, as Abrahamyan notes, also included such other ethnic groups as Scythians, Balas and Persians and, moreover, evinced a strong tendency to separate from Armenia as late as the seventh century. Arc'ax, a stronghold of Armenian national identity from at least the ninth century, may also have been originally more varied in ethnic character; we cannot be sure, and attempts to build nationalist claims—whether Armenian or Azeri—for this territory on the basis of conditions that may have existed in the ancient period rest upon slim evidence. The population of modern Arc'ax (M. Arm. Arts'akh; Russ. Nagorno Karabakh) is Armenian, as it has been for well over a thousand years, and that is surely sufficient justification for its independence of Azeri rule.
Robert H. Hewsen, Armenia: A Historical Atlas. The University of Chicago Press, 2001, pp. 32, 58. ISBN: 978-0-226-33228-4
Also, why you keep on deleting the statement, supported by the reference to Shnerelman? You did that at least 3 times already. Stop doing it. Here's the quote from Shnirelman:
Ниже мы увидим, что расхожим местом в работах армянских историков стало утверждение о том, что в царстве Арташесидов обитали одни лишь армяне. При этом дается ссылка на Страбона, писавшего, что в конце I тыс. до н.э. население всей территории Армении говорило только на армянском языке. Между тем, вопрос о том, насколько достоверно это сообщение Страбона, даже не ставится. А ведь Страбон не проводил никаких широких лингвистических исследований в Армении, да и трудно было бы ожидать этого от античного автора. Зато хорошо известно, что в те времена в городах Передней Азии всегда встречались, например, кварталы сирийцев и евреев, и нет оснований полагать, что в Армении это было не так. Да и как бы иначе арамейская письменность могла проникнуть в ту эпоху в Закавказье?
Историкам также хорошо известно, что в древности язык бюрократии и письменности иной раз существенно отличался от языка основной массы местного населения. Например, в Древневавилонском царстве, где господствовал аккадский (семитский) язык, сохранялась шумерская клинопись и бюрократия продолжала культивировать шумерский язык; в эллинистических государствах Передней Азии самым популярным письменным языком был греческий, хотя и местное население, и знать принадлежали к совершенно иным культурным традициям; в тот же период арамейский язык служил lingua franca в иранском мире и зоне иранского влияния; аналогичная картина встречалась в средневековой Европе, где господствовала латынь. И совсем уж недавно, на рубеже XVIII-XIX вв., русская аристократия предпочитала говорить на французском языке и пользоваться французской письменностью. Все такие примеры поднимают кардинальную проблему, давно ставящую в тупик профессиональных историков. Действительно, если речь идет о малоизученном древнем государстве, от которого до нас дошли лишь весьма немногочисленные письменные документы, можно ли по ним судить о языке основной массы местного населения или же речь идет лишь о языке, который отличался от общепринятого и обслуживал узкий круг бюрократии? Историки могут давать разные ответы на этот вопрос, но ответ патриотически настроенного историка хорошо предсказуем: если язык письменных документов соответствует языку его этнической группы, то он охотно припишет его основной массе населения; если же такого соответствия не обнаружится, то он отождествит этот язык с узким кругом иноземной бюрократии и противопоставит его языку местных обитателей. Мало того, не исключено, что во втором случае он не избежит соблазна изобразить героическую борьбу местных жителей с "иноземными поработителями".
You know that personal interpretation of a primary source is not acceptable, yet you keep on deleting the interpretation by a secondary source. It is not acceptable. Grand master 08:11, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
1. We can change "original" to population prior to the Armenian conquest". That's fine for me.
2. Armenized does not mean that those people became ethnically Armenian, it just mean that they were under the Armenian cultural influence. Hewsen also says that most of those people "were still being cited as distinct ethnic entities when these regions passed to Albania in 387", which mean that most of the Albanian population of the region was still non-Armenian by 387 A.D. And yes, Hewsen clearly says that the original population was non-Armenian. Armenians could not be original population of the region for a simple reason that they are descendants of the migrant tribes of Armens. They moved to the region from the Balkans, according to Dyakonov and other leading experts on the topic.
3. You can quote Hewsen's latest work too, however it also does not make Armenians the original population of the region. Whether they came in the 4th or 2nd century, someone still lived there before Armenians came. So any attempts to deny the migrant origins of the Armenian population of Artsakh are unscholarly, and POV. The general consensus among the scholars is that Armenians came to the region from other locations, and conquered the region either from the local tribes, Persia or Medes. But 2nd century B.C. is a prevailing point of view among the scholars. Minorsky and Trever also say that Armenians conquered the region, and were not its original inhabitants. Grand master 12:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Here's another quote:
Во II в. до н. э. армянский царь Арташес I (189—160 гг.) присоединил к Армении ряд соседних областей, в том числе и правобережье Куры, где обитали шаки, утии и гаргары-албаны; будучи раздроблены, эти племена не могли воспрепятствовать захвату их земель.8 С той поры пограничной рекой между Албанией и Арменией античные авторы называют Куру.
8. Захваченные области до IV в. н. э. оставались в составе Армении (Шакашен, Утик, Арцах и Пайтакаран), а затем были воссоединены с Албанией.
Тревер К.В. Очерки по истории и культуре Кавказской Албании IV в. до н. э. — VII в. н. э. М. Л. 1959.
Grand master 12:24, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
The underlying substrata, however, were originally much too diversified to enable us to agree with either Bunjatov or Mnac'akanyan that the present day population represents a common ethnic entity, either Albanian or Armenian. Although the present population doubtless contains many true Armenians and many pure Turks, it also comprises many more elements neither Armenian nor Turkish, however totally Armenicized or Turkified they now may be.
There are essentially four theories concerning the origin of the Armenian people, which we may call respectively the Armenian tradition, the Greek tradition, the modern consensus, and the latest hypothesis. Each has its supporters as well as its supporting evidence but it is important to note of them can be as yet proved and it is unlikely that firm proof will ever be possible to attain.
(...)
The most recent theories suggest that the Armenians—and, Indeed, all the Indo-European speaking peoples—were native to the Armenian Plateau (Gamkrelidze and Ivanov), that, not only were the Urartians Armenians themselves, but the pre Urartian Hurrians as well, and that the existence of proto-Armenian states can be traced back to Sumerian times and that these states even had Sumerla n connec-tions (Kavoukjian). The best surveys of these various theories are to be found In the works of Adontz (1946), Diakonoff (D'iakonov), Kapantsian (Ghapanc'yan), Toumanoff (1963) Gamkrelidze and Ivanov (1985), and Kavoukjian (1987). While none of these theories can be proved, it is possible that historians, enamoured of Classical authority, have given more weight to the evidence of Herodotus than Is actually warranted and that a review of the more recent, albeit more nationalistic, theories are worth an objective examination.
In 387 A. D., the various peoples of Arc'ax and Utik', whether Armenians, Armenicized aborigines, or both, passed under Albanian rule, which, under these conditions, would have meant that to the various ethnic elements comprising the Albanians north of the Kur a number of others was added to the south. That these peoples were highly Armenicized and that many were actually Armenians per se cannot be doubted.
Thus, his earlier contention about the ancient population of Artsakh, Hewsen himself has partly refuted. A Quote from his earlier works with such partly refuted statments is objectionable. So is there any other proposal how we can write about the ancient population of Artsakh without that quote? --
Vacio (
talk) 17:27, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Certain words and theories are laden with political significance. Thus, the controversial linguistic theory of T. Gamkrelidze and V. Ivanov (1984), which sees the original Proto-Indo-European developing in direct association with the Proto-Kartvelian (West Caucasian) and ancient Semitic families of languages in an eastern Anatolian homeland, receives an extremely warm reception not on its linguistic merits, but on its locating Proto-Indo-European speakers in the historic Armenian heartland. Proto-Indo-European thus becomes a buzzword for Proto-Armenian. This questionable identification is transparent in tendentious interpretations of Bronze Age and later prehistoric materials from Transcaucasia, as exemplified by V.E. Oganesian's (1992) implausible ethnic interpretation of the fantastically suggestive iconography on a silver goblet recently excavated in the Karashamb cemetery north of Yerevan; or by G. E. Areshian's (1992:27) detailed and ingenious, albeit strained, attempt to weave together historical, mythological, and archaeological materials to demonstrate that "Armeno-Aryans" constituted "the population living in the basins of the Araxes and Kura from the end of the third millennium BC" and "continuously carried out rituals connected with Indo-European cosmogonic mythology."
Philip L. Kohl, Clare Fawcett. Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology (New Directions in Archaeology). ISBN: 0521558395
What the legend of Aran has to do with Artsakh? Artsakh is not even mentioned there. I think that it is off-topic and should be removed, otherwise we should explain that Aran was a legendary person, that did not exist in real life. I can understand the relevance of that story in the article about Albania, but there's no direct connection of Aran with Artsakh. Grand master 08:31, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
Meowy, I have tried to use primary sources as less as possible, therefore I have drawn this passage generally from the Armenian scholars Ghevond Alishan and Arakel Babakhanian, who based on the narratives of medieval Armenian historiographers, believe that Aran Sisakean was the ancestor of the princes of Artsakh, Gardman and Utik. Thus I have two authors who think that Aran was a real person. But I think whether he was a real or not real person is a POV which we better should avoid. Perhaps we may call him a "mythical figure" (Toumanoff styles him a "divine eponym") and permit our readers to have their own beliefs. I agree that the passage is partially off-topic, a good solution would be to make an article about Aran, that would save us from repeating the same stuff numerous times. --Vacio (talk) 08:07, 24 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vacio ( talk • contribs)
Аран — один из случаев персонификации Мовсесом Хоренаци названия местности.
Aran – one of the instances of personification of the name of a region by Movses Khorenatsi.
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Please do not delete info without citing your reasons. I suspect the sock puppetry here. Grandmaster 08:54, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I see no reason why Azeri name of the region was removed. Explanation is needed. And I agree that here can be another case of sock puppetry-- Dacy69 19:25, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Supposingly Nagorno Karabakh is a recognized part of Azerbaijan, so what, Artsakh is a historical part of Caucasian Albania or Armenia and its territory is not exactly what today's Nagorno karabakh is. Oristena and Utrichene included territories of todays Armenian Syunik, some part of Armenian Taush, Azeri Gyanja etc etc. When Caucasian Albania or Artsakh existed, there were no turkic speaking tribes in Caucasus since they came only in the 11th century. Therefore, it was impossible that any Azerbaijani would use the term Artsakh or Ersak,simply, because there were no Azerbaijanis there. There were Azari (not Azeri) speaking Persians in the nearby provinces, later arabs captured the territory in 7th century, and the muslim element started using the name Karabakh. Turkic tribes came later and took the term Karabakh from Persians and Arabs. We do not see any reason why should we mentioned the name of ancient province in the language that appeared centuries after that province ceased to exist. By the same way some people put the version of Battle of Sardarapat in French. Guys, this is the English Wikipedia blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. If everybody come and put the toponim or any georgraphical or historic event in his mother tongue the whole page would be taken just by names. Will it be appropriate if I edit in Gyanja page the name and put Armenian Gandzak because we call the city that way. Or if I go and edit the page of Stambul and put the Armenian verion K.Polis with armenian letters on the top? Or there are some Armenian sources calling Baku Bagu. Sould I mention it on the top? Or may be you want also to write in Erevan page that the Azeri name is Erivan? Where is this going?--armenianNY 21:45, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
This article is about a historical province, not a political entity. Therefore, references to modern Azer. state and its state language are irrelevant. The term Artsakh has been used only by Armenians and has appeared almost exclusively in historical Armenian texts. Based on that, I agree – the Russian world "Арцах" can be removed. As to the Azerb. word Ercek or whatever, it is historically unprecedented and unreferenced, and is a modern fabrication evidently aimed at attributing Artsakh away from its Armenian origin. If participants want to use this term, they should find an NPOV third party source suggesting that Ercek has been in use as an authentic, historical term. Zurbagan 02:18, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
... continued: for instance - Constantinople. Should we include in an article about that city a Turkish version of this name simply because now it is part of Turkey? No - Constantinople is a Byzantine/Greek phenomenon, as Artsakh is an Armenian phenomenon. Zurbagan 03:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
...yeah, now about Ganca/Gianja (i.e. Armenian Gandzak). In the article about Ganca, the Armenian term Gandzak should be mentioned - in contrast to this specific case. This is because Gandzak is the original or at least the earliest recorded name for that settlement. Ganca is likely to be a phonetic distortion of the word Gandzak. Zurbagan 03:47, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I removed the claim that there’s a consensus among Armenian scholars that the region was populated by Armenians. First, not all Armenian scholars believe so. See the article by Ronald Suny:
The Caucasus region has long been the scene of very serious social, religious and ethnic conflicts. Back in the Middle Ages, before the Turkish people migrated here from central Asia, eastern Transcaucasia was known as Caucasian Albania. No relation to the Balkan Albanians, these were a Christianized people quite close to the Armenians. Once the Seljuk Turks began arriving in the 11th century, the Albanians in the mountainous area – Karabagh up to historic Armenia – remained largely Christian and eventually merged with the Armenians. The Albanians in the eastern plain leading down to the Caspian Sea mixed with the Turkish population and eventually became Muslims.
Ronald G. Suny: What Happened in Soviet Armenia? Middle East Report, No. 153, Islam and the State. (Jul. - Aug., 1988), pp. 37-40.
You can check it at JSTOR here: [1]
And second, it is irrelevant whether there’s consensus among Armenian scholars or not, we don’t base the article on the position of the Armenian side only. Grandmaster 11:03, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Doesn't belong here. This article is about a historic province which has nothing to do with Nagorno Karabakh War. VartanM 16:34, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Britannica says nothing like what Merjanov ascribed to it in his recent edit. The article about Azerbaijan written by Ronald Suny says that Albanians came under the cultural influence of Armenians in the 4th century. However the region was politically dominated by many powers, such as Romans, Persians, Arabs, etc. At the same time Albania was an independent state for long periods of time as well, and there was no such independent state as Armenia after the 4th century. Therefore such interpretations are not acceptable. Grandmaster ( talk) 18:54, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
I rewrote my statement Merjanov ( talk) 00:39, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
No "Albanian" culture existed or at least no (or very little) such thing survived after the Armenian dynasties from Artsakh and Utik took over Caucasian Albania. Everything known about Caucasian Albania is about the "Armenian" Albania called Aghvank. Caucasian Albania was "Albanian" as much as the German-ruled Holy Roman Empire was "Roman." Merjanov ( talk) 14:12, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
And the Oscar goes to.... VartanM ( talk) 21:52, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
That "... most of Albanians converted to Islam and became Turkisized, and the Christian minority for the most part mixed with Armenians" - it is just a hypothesis pertaining to the category of original research (OR). We don't have sources from the time confirming the conversions and assimilations. But it was Mesrob Mashtots, and not Meshadi Mamedov or Ziya Buniatov, who invented the "Albanian" alphabet, and it was Mesrob Mashtots who established the first Armenian school in Artsakh in the 5th century (source: National Geographic magazine, March 2004). Later, Stephanos Siunetsi, in the 7th century re-confirms that there was "Artsakhian" dialect of the Armenian language. Arstakh has always been a cradle of Armenian culture, and "Caucasian Albania" was, effectively, an Armenian state. All "Caucasian Albanians" have Armenian names (e.g. Vachagan, Tagui, which are in use by modern Armenians). The historian of "Caucasian Albania" was - coincidentally? - an Armenian, who wrote his text in Armenian. The ruling family of Arranshahiks was said to originate from Hayk, legendary ancestor of Armenians. "Caucasian Albania" was set up by the Armenian king Vagharshak. "Albanian" church was part of the Armenians church. There are 1000s of Armenians inscriptions in Artsakh (dating from the times when St. Mesrob taught at Amaras), and none in "Caucasian Albanian." Christianity was brought to "Albania" by an Armenian, St. Gregory. There was, perhaps, a non-Armenian minority, but we don't know. And, by the way, if you admit that "Albanians" became Armenians, you directly attests to Armenian influence in "Caucasian Albania." There are dozens of books and articles discussing these facts. Your conduct resembles trolling [6]. I saw this in the article " House of Hasan-Jalalyan." Merjanov ( talk) 22:41, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Oscar was not my comment. Suny is not an expert in ancient history, and he later admitted he was wrong. He wrote a new account of Caucasian Albania in the Stone Garden Guide on Armenia and Karabagh. Don't avoid the question of why Mashtots established the Armenian school in Amaras. Vachagan abd Tagui are Armenian names, not Parthian. Yes, Albanians assimilated but not in the 10th century but in the 3rd century AD. "Albanian" is a political term, like "Bohemian," not an ethnic one. There has never been an "Albanian" ethnicity. Merjanov ( talk) 14:08, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Important point here. Suny is not an anthropologist, and an ass like him does not understand that people cannot simply "merge" with other people in the absence of direct cultural influence and direct physical contact. That is why Azerbaijanis remained Turkic, despite their Muslim identity. They have not assimilated and became Arabs, have they? although Islam is much a culture-specific Arabic religion than Christianity. Armenians always lived in Artsakh, and they assimilated "Albanians" because they were a majority and your "Albanian" tribesmen were a minority. "Albanian" could not assimilate by simply becoming Armenian Christian. And why are we talking? you have already admitted that Armenians had a huge impact on "Albanians." Merjanov ( talk) 14:20, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
"Foreign language school"? Are you saying there were as many "Albanian" schools as there are Azerbaijani schools in Baku? any texts? or extensive inscriptions? "cacophonous and barbarous" was the language of the "Albanians" who lived outside of traditional Armenian lands of Artsakh and Utik (like the tribe of Gargareans, mentions of which disappear after the reign of king Vachagan). About the "Arranian" language: well, in Azerbaijan people speak Azerbaijani (not Turkish), and if you invited the same Arabic travelers to Azerbaijan today they would tell you that people in Azerbaijan speak Azerbaijani and people in Turkey speak Turkish. But Turkish and Azerbaijani are the same language, isn't it? So (most likely) was your "Arranian" - just another Armenian dialect (the one mentioned by Stepanos S. in the 7th century?) that was as different from the mainstream Armenian as Azerbaijani is different from Turkish. Or maybe, just to salvage your argument, we may assume that there were remnants of non-Armenian "Albanians" somehow surviving around the city of Barda. Have they left any trace of their civilization? No. Any books they wrote? No. Any churches with "Albanian" letter they built? No. The same Arabic dudes, traveling in South-Eastern Asia, were reporting that there saw people there with serpentine tails and wings. Shall we believe them too? You are sticking to your sole mention of obscure Arabic dudes, disregarding the overwhelming evidence which cries out from the every page of Movses' work. This is highly a selective, revisionist minority position which has been irreversibly discredited. Is this called a POV or what? A huge body of literature is against this stance. The idea that Udis have anything to do with "Albania" is a just a hypothesis, a wrong one I think. Merjanov ( talk) 01:19, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi Grandmaster, All the mentioned references are well-known facts, they are all over the Internet (especially in Armenian-written texts). I reviewed the Archives of the "Caucasian Albania," "Artsakh," "House of Hasan-Jalalyan" and many other articles and perhaps was influenced by some of the arguments made there, which you continues rejecting in a way that is against the Wiki rules. These arguments are valid irrespective of who is making them. However, everyone who reads today's Internet and the original text of Movses Kaghankatvatsi, and the works of R.Hewsen, Dowsett, Ulubabian, Buniatov and others would inevitably come to same conclusions. You should not assume bad faith, or suspect others to be socks, as you recently did in a checkuser case. Merjanov ( talk) 13:52, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Are you saying that it is wrong to repeat ideas that other people have expressed? Everyone who is serious about editing Caucasian Albania, or Artsakh, sooner or later will go to discussion pages and archives, and will bump to the same set of claims that you are apparently trying to suppress. Merjanov ( talk) 16:04, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
"Armenian influenced Caucasian Albania"? What an original research is that, with irrelevant reference provided. Over half of Armenian cuisine is Turkish, does it mean we should call Turkish-influenced Armenia? Atabek ( talk) 18:46, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Your views are identical to those of Grandmaster, word by word. According to Grandmaster's logic, you are his sock. Merjanov ( talk) 18:51, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I removed a reference to the website of some T. Saaryan. It is a self-published source and is not reliable in topics like this. Grandmaster ( talk) 07:20, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
The map by Ulubabyan should be removed. He is known to be a revisionist author. His map clearly contradicts the third party sources such as Iranica. He shows the Mihranids domains to be a separate state from Albania, while it is very well known that this dynasty of Iranian origin actually ruled Albania. Ulubabyan was criticized by the Russian scholar Shnirelman for promoting the revisionist views and creating historical myths. Let's stick to third party sources. Grandmaster ( talk) 12:42, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
Vacio is right here. First, the criticism leveled at a historian is not grounds for his removal. Second, you have still failed to recognize that the Arranshahiks (or Yerranshahiks) were a dyanstic ethnic group in Artsakh and Utik who were supposedly descendants of Hayk, and that that this was far different than the title of Arranshah. The Mihranids slaughtered many of the Yerranshahiks and it was only many years later that their descendants came back and let loosed their revenge against the Mihranids. Do we really have to go down this path again?-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 18:03, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Hewsen criticizes Armenian historian Mnatsakanian for his manipulation with historical facts. Mnatsakanian claimed for example, that the ancient rulers of Siwnik were Armenian, referring to the same Haykid claims in the primary sources.
As for the Armenian origin of the House of Siwnik' asserted by Movses, this is highly dubious, and we have evidence of Siwnian separateness and ethnic particularlism as late as the sixth century A.D.
Actually, all Movses Xorenac'i asserts is that the House of Siwnik' was of Haykid origin which, as Toumanoff has shown (Studies, 108, 216, 218, 222, 469), should be taken as meaning only that it was of immemorial origin; i.e. that it had been sovereign in Siwnik for so long that no one remembered its origin.
Robert H. Hewsen, "Ethno-History and the Armenian Influence upon the Caucasian Albanians," in Thomas J. Samuelian, ed., Classical Armenian Culture: Influences and Creativity. Pennsylvania: Scholars Press, 1982.
From now on, please quote third party sources to support your claims. You won't be happy if I start quoting Igrar Aliyev or other Azerbaijani scholars or use their maps in this article. Grandmaster ( talk) 06:36, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Also note that according to Wikipedia rules the primary sources should be interpreted by the reliable secondary sources, so personal interpretations of Movses Kalankatvatsi or other ancient scholars are not acceptable. They must be interpreted by neutral and authoritative third party scholars. Grandmaster ( talk) 06:49, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Hayk. The Armenians call themselves Hayk' (sing. Hay), and Hayk is regarded as the eponymous progenitor of their race. Originally a divine figure, under the influence of Christianity he was reduced to "one of the giants" and was made out to be a son of Thogarma. If, indeed, the Armenians were of Phrygian origin, and Til-garimmu, immediately to the west of later Armenia, was a Phrygian formation, then Hayk, son of Thogarma, might well have become a personification of the Armenians as offshoots of Til-garimmu.10 Beginning here Moses of Khoren appears to be summarizing, albeit in a highly garbled form, the history of ancient Urartu, the memory of which appears to have survived, however vaguely, in the Armenian historical tradition. His description of how the various sons and grandsons of Hayk expanded from their original homeland in Vayots Tzor and Hark', for example, is parallel to the actual conquest of the Armenian plateau by the Urartians moving out from their center around Lake Van, on the north shore of which lay Hark' and on the south shore Vayots Tzor. Hayk's son Armenak is said to have settled in the plain of Ararat; Armenak's elder grandson, Gegham, along Lake Gegham (now Lake Sevan) further east; Gegham's second son Sisak gave his name to Sisakan (Siwnik'), the region immediately south of the lake; finally, Gegham's son Aram is described as a great conqueror who subjected the entire Armenian plateau to his rule. This account, however streamlined, is a reasonably accurate description of the growth of Urartu as we know it, but it was reduced by the Armenian historical tradition to straightforward genealogical history.
10. Pseudo-Moses (1. 10) referred to Hayk as i mejskayic'n, 'one of the giants,' but, after demonstrating that several of the princely houses of Armenia were descended from him, felt obliged (111.65) to deny that the princes were descended from gods, implying that in pre-Christian times Hayk himself was considered a god. Other traces of his cult as a divinity survived among the Christian Armenians; not only does he appear to have been the subject of religious veneration but he was of astrological significance as well, for Hayk was the name given by the Armenians to the constellation Orion. See Toumanoff, Studies, p. 108n68.
Robert H. Hewsen. "The Primary History of Armenia": An Examination of the Validity of anImmemorially Transmitted Historical Tradition. History in Africa, Vol. 2. (1975), pp. 91-100.
Grandmaster, would you finally stop scorning Armenian historians? This talk page is about Artsakh, not Ulubabian, Mnatsakanian or somebody else. If you have any objection agains a map or something discuss the map self not it's author. It's also not the matter wheither Hayk was a real person or not. If I am a Christian, I believe Christ is the son of God, if you saye He isn't that, you don't change the matter that I'm a Christian.
The epithet "Haykazun" was indeed given to dynasties, which lived since "immemorial" times in Armenia, but it concerned also their ethnicity. I can quote many Armenian chronicles to testify that, but here a fragment of Kalankatvatsi's "History" with the original text in Old Armenian (OTOA). Please note the two words, which are declensions of the same "Haykazun":
Furthermore, Artsakh was part of Armenia from 189 BC, when the Kingdom of Armenia was proclaimed, till 387 (more than 500 years). And it was this period when the Haykazunian Arranshahik dynasty was established as a bransh if Sisakan House. According to Movses Khorenatsi, the borders of Armenia were formed along the Armenian speech:
Thus Armenian sources corroborate the mentioning of Strabo, that everyone in Armenia spoke on language. Furthermore Strabo says about Albanians: They live between the Iberians and the Caspian Sea [13], not "they live between the Iberians and the river Araxes".
Now this is wat we call "generally accepted view" since authors as Svante Cornell confirm the same: According to the Greek Historian Strabo and Armenian chronicles, the population of present-day Azerbaijan was until the fifth century divided between a western third populated by Armenians who to their East had the Caucasian Albanians [14].
Other views have to been compared with historical sources and verified even if there are from a third-party author. The thesis of P. Hewsen as if the ancient habitant of Artsakh were not of Armenian orign is in contradiction with historical sources and the traditional view on the topic. Also it is not verified that Utians, Mycians, Caspians, Gargarians, Sakasenians, Gelians, Sodians, Lupenians, Balas[ak]anians, Parsians and Parrasians have lived in Artsakh. For example, acccording to Kalankatvatsi Gargars lived in the greater Caucasian mountains (1.27), the others are largely equal geographical names on the left bank of Kura. -- Vacio ( talk) 08:53, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
If we have two opinion, then we should reflect both, but not promote only one. And for that matter we should try to use third party sources.-- Dacy69 ( talk) 14:24, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for your opinion Baku. Did you have any luck finding those MiGs coming from Gyumri buzzing around Georgia's airspace?-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 20:06, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
What exactly is the dispute about here? Is it about whether Ulubabyan is a neutral/third party source? I'm not saying he isn't a valid source, but if we're going to add something that is potentially controverisal, why add a map that is most likely disputed by Azerbaijani historians? I'd say there are two options: we either add a map that represents the Azeri POV to go alongside it, or we replace it with a more neutral one. Khoi khoi 05:23, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
The claim of consensus is yours. Artsakh was described in Urartian sources without any Albanians. You claim Armenians came there only ca. 200 BC (which is very unlikelly as the Urartian army penetrated there much earlier). But there is no any record of any Albanian people there in 200 BC. The first time such people were described was by Strabo in the first century BC, while he included Artsakh as part of Armenia. And he used Albania as a geographical region and claimed there was twenty-six languages spoken there. This therefore negates your claim. Until you provide any record before 200 BC that supports your claim that Armenians replaced the native Albanians, this shall remain as OR. And I am sure that such a politically motivated work as Memory Wars is in fact very useful here.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 18:14, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Let us take as a starting point the question of the ethnic composition of the population of Arc�ax and Utik, the regions between the Arax and the Kur which were Armenian territory until 387 and which lie in Azerbaidzhan today. To Mnac'akanyan, this territory was originally Armenian; to Bunjatov, it was Albanian. What do we actually know of its history? Our earliest information is to be found in the History of Herodotus. According to this author, the proto-Armenians were migrants who entered the Armenian plateau from Phrygia in the West, i. e. from Anatolia. The general consensus today is that the Armenians, as we know them, represent a fusion between these incoming tribes-conventionally called "Armens" -- and the diverse natives of the plateau who had previously formed a part of the Urartian federation. For this fusion to have taken place, however, the so-called "Armens" would have had to have spread across the plateau from west to east and, though we know little of the circumstances attending this migration, we do catch glimpses of it taking place. Herodotus, writing ca. 450 B. C., makes it clear that in his time the Armenians inhabited only the western third of the plateau, and that to the east of them lay pre-Armenian peoples-Saspeirians and Alarodians, - who had previously formed components of the Urartian state. Xenophon, who travelled through Armenia in the winter of 401-400 B. C., confirms the data of Herodotus, for when he entered the territory of the Phasians and Taokhians, in what was later called north-central Armenia, it is clear that he had left the Armenians behind.
After the fall of the Persian Empire to Alexander in 330 B. C., the Orontids, who had been the Achaemenian governors of Armenia, were allowed to keep control of their province, but, by the time they assumed the royal title in ca. 190 B. C., we find them residing at Armavir in the Ararat plain. Obviously, the fall of the Persian Empire had provided an opportunity for continued Armenian expansion towards the east, so that in the century between Xenophon's journey and the establishment of the Orontid monarchy, the Armenians, under Orontid leadership, must have secured control over the central Armenian plateau.
From Strabo we learn that under King Artashes (188-ca. 161 B. C.), the Armenians expanded in all directions at the expense of their neighbors. Specifically we are told that a t this time they acquired Caspiane and 'Phaunitis," the second of which can only be a copyist's error for Saunitis, i. e. the principality of Siwnik '.Thus, it was only under Artashes, in the second century B. C., that the Armenians conquered Siwnik' and Caspiane and, obviously, the lands of Arc'ax and Utik', which lay between them. These lands, we are told, were taken from the Medes. Mnac'akanyan's notion that these lands were already Armenian and were re-conquered by the Armenians at this time thus rests on no evidence at all and indeed contradicts what little we do know of Armenian expansion to the east. Since these eastern regions had formed part of the Persian province of Media before the time of Alexander, it seems likely that if they were seized by the Armenians from the Medes a century or so later, then they had probably remained a part of Media throughout that time. To attempt to demonstrate that these eastern territories were always Armenian by quoting Movses Xorenac'i, as Mnac'akanyan does, is hazardous in the extreme. Whoever the enigmatic Xorenac'i may have been, whenever he may have lived, and however valuable his compilation of antiquities may be as the received tradition of the Armenian people, it has been amply demonstrated that his historical knowledge is highly defective even for the most recent periods with which he deals, and that as a source for early Armenian history his book must be used only with the greatest care. The same is true for the other texts which Mnac'akanyan marshals to his cause; all are late and none of them can be used as sources for the extent of Armenian penetration to the east or the boundaries between Armenia and Albania prior to the time of Artashes, let alone the time of Alexander. As for the Armenian origin of the House of Siwnik' asserted by Movses, this is highly dubious, and we have evidence of Siwnian separateness and ethnic particularlism as late as the sixth century A.D.
What do we know of the native population of these regions - Arc'ax and Utik - prior to the Armenian conquest? Unfortunately, not very much. Greek, Roman, and Armenian authors together provide us with the names of several peoples living there, however - Utians, in Otene, Mycians, Caspians, Gargarians, Sakasenians, Gelians, Sodians, Lupenians, Balas[ak]anians, Parsians and Parrasians - and these names are sufficient to tell us that, whatever their origin, they were certainly not Armenian. Moreover, although certain Iranian peoples must have settled here during the long period of Persian and Median rule, most of the natives were not even Indo-Europeans.
Robert H. Hewsen, "Ethno-History and the Armenian Influence upon the Caucasian Albanians," in Thomas J. Samuelian, ed., Classical Armenian Culture: Influences and Creativity. Pennsylvania: Scholars Press, 1982.
Ok.....you do know that is what I am doing, right? You are changing the subject and quoting what I essentially wrote above (see last paragraph). We know nothing about the population there prior to 200 BC, while you claimed they were Albanian (see the last paragraph of the text you have quoted). There was no such people in Xerxes I's army, although they did recruit Armenians. You have no evidence that Artsakh was founded by Albanians when the first recorded existance of Artsakh as an entity never even mentioned any distinct people comming close to those Albanians. Strabo claims it was in Armenia and claims that only one language was spoken there, not twenty-six.
As for Mamedova, she is, quite frankly, a fraud. She claims a certain Jalalid dynasty existed even prior to Jalal's birth and claims it as ethnically Albanian when every scholar you quote has the date right as well as his ethnicity (Armenian). The accusations against Ulubabyan are on a different order. He is accused of making unsubstantiated claims which is much different than fraudulantly changing known individuals' ethnicities as well as changing known dates.
As a matter of fact, Ulubabyan's map is supported even by Hewsen, which is something I am sure you are certain of. The maps of the Artsakh Kingdom are available in Hewsen's work treating just that. This has been already discussed. Before continuing this argument check the date the map covers and you will see that you are writing about a different period.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 18:47, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Marshall: Is the Ulubabyan map supported by any non-Armenian or third-party sources? Khoi khoi 05:11, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
That defies logic, so the Albanians were not an ethnicity. The Urartians were multicultural also, and Armenians were one of the groups as stated in several references. Your assumptions are actually quite bizarre as all this runs against your own argument. Just throw whatever people you can find in the bunch as long as they are not Armenians. As a matter of fact, the only people who live in the area (Artsakh) now and who were living there prior are the Armenians. I have not the slightest idea of what you're trying to convey in the second part of your reply. Can you please demonstrate how both maps are that much different?
That map was used to show Artsakh the subject of this entry, the maps are very similar, and compare this to the later one represented by Hewsen on page 62. How are the names given for dynasties by the author anyway relevent when the date and the delimitations of Artsakh are similar to the one of the other authors and that is all that matters here? I'd advise that you not deviate the topic. There is no reason to draw a new map because it will be a near-replica of Ulubabyan's! This debate is so circular and a total waste of time. If you really want to waste your time, then go for it: change it with the near identical map of Artsakh drawn by Hewsen. It's mind-boggling as to how fanatically you are pursuing this one little change.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 18:02, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
GM, please learn to differentiate the meanings of should and must. If you still cannot jump over so simple a hurdle, then you really have no clue over what you're quoting. -- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 23:15, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
The Arranshahiks are suggested to be the rulers prior to the Mihranids according to Ulubabyan and Movses Kaghakatvatsi's work seems to confirm it. Some scholars such as C. Toumanoff think that the Arranshahiks were your Albanian Arsacids, although it's quite obvious that any Arsacid after the third century A.D. was definitely Armenian.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 23:15, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Well if you keep blindly dismissing Ulubabyan as an "unreliable" source, of course there won't be any reason to believe so! (even Hewsen praises the Principality of Khachen as an "important work"). Keep in mind, the Arranshahiks did not officially adopt their title as a dynastic name until the 7th century but their family did predate the establishment of the Arsacids. Since the Arranshahiks were named after their eponymous founder, Arran, who according to Movses Khorenatsi was a descendant of Hayk, then it's only logical that they claimed Armenian lineage. Movses Kaghankatvatsi even refers to them as the "ancient Armenian line of Erranshahik" (2.17 in the Dowsett translation, p. 108). The dynasties may have had Iranian origins, just like the Artashesyan and Arshakuni kings of Armenia, but they eventually assimilated with the Armenian population, that includes the Mihranids. -- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 21:31, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Shapur I's two raids makes that Arsacid dynasty nothing more than a symbolic name. It was attached to Armenia under Rome (are you going to deny this too?) Paul Erdkamp writes that there is a paucity of sources and a new chaos. You claim that there is no reason to believe that Arranshahs were anyone else other than Arsasids, I hope you will remember this sort of argument and leave us to use it as much as we want. If the Sassanids were considering the Arshakuni (which were Arsacid by Grandmaster's logic) as Armenian nobles (when the Arshakuni dynasty was abolished in 428), didn't they abolish that one at about the same time in so-called Albania (it happened much earlier, when under Rome, Albania was a part of Armenia) to again replace it with other Armenian nobles? Please post Minorsky's map for the 9th century that you keep mentioning (which is of a completely different peroid.
I have two maps of Hewsen, one from the seventh century which places both as losses from Armenia, and another map from the Arab domination, which also extends to the eighth century where the losses were replaced as Armenia II and III. References to maps from the fourth century to late eighth, etc. (also those included in the Kingdom of Artsakh). These all corroborate Ulubabyan's map, by different chronology of the maps, we have a good picture of what happened in that region. On the other hand, your only argument now is a map by Minorsky which we haven't seen and which covers an entirely different period anyways.
GM, please don't fabricate more rules: First, per rules, the map should be removed and replaced with the one from a reliable source. According to which rules? A map is a visual representation, there is the copyright issue here, as long as we have a map which accurately represents the period and the delineations,it's OK to use it. If you really care about accuracy, then maybe you should start focusing on this obviously wrong map, prepared during the Soviet times and which is highly politically motivated, placing Albania in the wrong area. You know the delimitations are obviously wrong. I haven't seen you do anything about this one.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 19:54, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Why are we suddenly shifting our focus from Artsakh, the province, to Armenians were not the original inhabitants? This is tantamount to soapboxing. The map is obviously wrong, and if you are going to sustain such an obviously wrong map, you are dismissing yourself in this discussion. There were no Albanians or Albania before 200 BC, since this is a well-known fabrication dating back to the Soviet era. Neither Hewsen nor anyone worthy of being quoted will ever provide a map preceding 200 BC which would ever include an Albania. Artsakh was not taken from the Albanians, because there was no such people when Artsakh became part of Armenia. It is either Albanians or Media - you can't have it both ways and say, "anyone but not Armenians." Just above, with your discussions with Vacio, you even linked the Urartians with the Albanians. Even Cyril Toumanoff writes that "Albania appears to have been the youngest Caucasian polity, so that the process of its growth from tribe to nation remained within human memory." E. Bretschneider writes in a footnote for clarification in his Medieval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources that "It does not seem, however, that ancient (Caucasian) Albania included also the land between the Kur and the Araxes."
And your battle about Ulubabyan's map still fails to make sense; it's everyone understanding that your problem is with Arranshah as you don't want to associate anything or anyone with the Armenians, but this is what Hewsen is actually saying: you can not only quote or use sources when they please you: "That the so-called Christian or New Albanian culture, which flourished after the transfer of the capital from Kabala, north of the Kur, to Partav, south of the river, in the fifth century, A. D., was essentially Armenian is also beyond question..." From what I see on the date of the map, it say 5-7 century cc. Am I reading it wrong? So, again, what is your problem with this map representing Artsakh for a territory which from Hewsen's own words was culturally essentially Armenian? For how long are you going to keep this going? That aside, Artsakh is the name of the Armenian province, with a definite boundaries, you are essentially doing what you tried with Paytakaran and failed and recently to create a FORK with the same controversial wordings. Can we say we're done yet?-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 17:38, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
The Armenians considerably curtailed the Albanian territories to the south of the Kur and Armenized them. Only after the division of Armenia between Byzantium and Persia in 387 did the provinces of Uti and Artsakh (lying south of the Kur) fall again to the lot of the Albanian ruler.
V. Minorsky, A History of Sharvan and Darband in the 10th-11th centuries, Cambridge (Heffer and Sons), 1958
Relax there GM, there no reason to be so uncouth. We were discussing something about a map before you decided to divert from the subject to demographics. As much as I dislike to dwell on this topic, it would be helpful if you could quote Minorsky in full, instead of cherry-picking what you like:
Of great importance in the life of the area under our consideration were the Armenians who after 190 B.C. incorporated the territory of Siunik and other districts in the highlands near Lake Sevan, and played a conspicuous part in the affairs of the region lying between the Kur and the Araxes, and even north of the Kur (in Shakki). After A.D. 387 these provinces were lost by the Armenians, but we have seen that the conversion of the Albanians to Christianity and the endowing of the Albanians with an alphabet were the work of the Armenians. Armenian settlers and cultural elements contributed to the further absorption of the Albanian nation. The Albanian and Armenian nobility freely intermarried, with the result that there appeared a mixed class of Albano-Armenian aristocracy. The later Armenian kingdoms of Ani and Vaspurakan had little influence in Eastern Transcaucasia but the petty Armenian rulers of Siunik and Artsakh (south of Barda) played a considerable role in the affairs of Albania. (Ibid.)
Nowhere does Minorsky mention that it was previously part of Albania. Albania at that time you refer to was becoming just a geographical term - calling them "Eastern Armenian lands" does in no way negate that. There was no Caucasian Albania prior to 200 BC as all the maps prior to that date label that area as North Eastern, placing it much further away from Artsakh. None of the following maps support your conclusions: [16], [17], [18]; the map you continue to defend is ahistorical and inaccurate as the following maps prove: [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], etc. Nowhere in these maps does Albania correspond to Artsakh's location.
If Ulubabyan's map is nearly the same as Hewsen's, then it's pointless to make another one. I have already cited Hewsen's statements twice, endorsing Ulubabyan's 1975 work on the Principality of Khachen but you ignored it regardless. Just because you say he made a mistake somewhere, doesn't then somehow disqualify him as a source. The admins asked for neutral sources and they were duly provided; by repeating the same thing over again you're not changing anything. Artsakh was an Armenian province, the map shows those lands as obviously being an Armenian province and it will be in a map which includes it as being part of Armenia. Hewsen tells us to check Ulubabyan and Ulubabyan's map doesn't contradict others maps. It takes time to rewrite a map and you have to justify this, and claiming the author is Armenian is not a justification.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 22:07, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
He is not a revisionist author. A revisionist author means someone who is engaged is revisionism, it is not necessarly a wrong thing. Minorsky is a revisionist author, if you check pre-Ulubabyan maps, you will see that prior to Minorsky and other authors alike, there was no mention of the Albanians near Artsakh; it was after the translation of the history of Aluank that historians basing themselves on it changed the world map. So Ulubabyan cannot possibly be labeled as such. As for Minorsky, you are again not reading carefully; when you quoted Minorsky, you left out the first phrase of the paragraph: "One must bear in mind the distinction between the areas occupied by the tribes of Albanian origin and the territories actually controlled by the Albanian kings." So there was no Albania there, please don't change the words when you know we are talking about Albania and not Albanians.
Coming to Albania, there was no Albania (as a Kingdom or anything independent) from the fifth to seventh centuries; Albania became autonomous under the Arabs as Armenia I; from the fifth to seventh centuries the country of Albania was placed in the country of Armenia. "Further the country of Arran in the country of Armenia, with a language of its own, ..." (from The Syriac Chronicle Known as that of Zachariah of Mitylene, Zacharias, Frederick John Hamilton, Ernest Walter Brooks, British Library, 1979, p. 328). Albania as Kingdom didn't survive into the fifth century and wasn't reinstated (only technically, since it became culturally Armenian by then) before the second part of the seventh century, at the very least.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 20:13, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Towards the end of the 5th century, the ancient ruling dynasty of Albania seems to have died out, and in the later 6th century and at the time of the Arab invasions some decades after then, Albania was ruled by princes of the Mihran family, who claimed descent from the Sasanians but were probably of Parthian origin. Their most famous representatives in the 7th century were Varaz-Grigor, his son Juansher (Persian Javanshir) and Varaz-Trdat I. The military exploits of the latter two potentates in the period of the first Arab invasions of Armenia and Arran figure prominently in the 2nd book of Movses Dasxuranci's chronicle. These princes bore the Persian title of Arranshah (in certain of the Arabic sources corruptly written as Liranshah), Armenian Eranshahik or Aranshahik.
Arran remained essentially a frontier province, left to its native princes, who were led by the Mihranids (these last being accorded by the Arabs the title of Batriq or Patricius, cf. Yaqubi, II, p. 562), on condition of the payment of tribute to the Muslim exchequer. In practice, the princes of Arran in the time of Varaz-Trdat I (d. 705) paid tribute simultaneously to the Arabs, the Byzantines and the Khazars, according to Movses Dasxuranci (3.12; in regard to the first two powers, probably as a result of the treaty of 685 between Justinian II and Abd-al-Malek providing for the division between the two empires of the tribute of Armenia and Arran), an indication of the confused state of affairs in eastern Transcaucasia. [29]
Then the king [Tiridates], without delaying, with fear and great happiness cared about gathering of the main nakharars and regents of the country:
1. the Lord of Angegh House,
2. the Lord of Aghdznik, who is a great viceroy,
3. the Lord of Mardpetakan Dominion,
4. the Lord of the Crowning Knight�s Dominion,
5. the Lord of the Strategist�s Dominion: the Commander of Armenia,
6. Lord of Korduk,
7. the Lord of Tsopk,
8. the Lord of Gugark, an other appointed viceroy,
9. the Lord of Rshtunik,
10. the Lord of Mokk,
11. the Lord of Syunik,
12. the Lord of Tsawdek,
13. the Lord of Utik,
14. the Lord-Shahap of the kantons Zarevand and Her,
15. the Lord of Maghkhazate House,
16. the Lord of Artrunik.
These are select Lords [Ishkhan�s], regents, deputies, captains of thousands and captains of ten thousands of the country Armena, the House of Torgomah, who were convened by the King Trdat and sent to Capadocia, the city of Cesarea, which in Armenian is called Mazhak, so that they would convey Grigor and would exalt him to the High Priest of their country. Agathangelos, 795-796 [30]
This discussion needs to be put back on its original track. The facts are not the main issue here. The issue is that this map has been published by a non-third party scholar (moreover, a philologist rather than a historian; that is, not even a specialist in the given field), whose works on this particular historical topic, on top of everything, have been assessed as controversial, unscientific and driven by political agenda. The request to remove the map is more than fair. Parishan ( talk) 06:18, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
Ulubabyan doubled as both a historian and philologist. In either case, charges were raised on his talk page but are hardly insufficient for disqualifying him as a source. The reason we disqualify people like Bunyadov and Mamedova is not because they make a few simple mistakes – it's because they plagiarize works and erase the identities of people and append assertions that aren't otherwise supported by any scholar, third party included.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 22:07, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
lol, by who?
By an author who has written no paper on the subject? Ulubabyan's work was praised by Hewsen (this is what, the hundreth time I'm repeating myself?), who GM likes to quote so much. And I don't think you are following the discussion, since Hewsen's map use a similar word as those for which GM want to remove the map. The question here is not who made the map, but rather if the map is in accordance with others. It it, so what is the problem? Also GM, the author who you quote is strong in sensensionalism to the extreme; it was under another context the Udis were linked with Armenian. There are several works on the influence of Armenian on the Udis, not only reported by Armenian scholars; for example, Udi also shows reflexes of Armenian influence in its morphology and syntax... (Word Order Correlations and Word Order Change, Jasmine Tragut, Lincom Europa, 2002, p. 38). Throwing durt on a scholar for a map supported by those you quote is becoming a waste of time.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 20:13, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
...the Armenian Royal House, which originated from Arran, was called Arranshahik or Erranshahik, and the influance of this house trough centuries, was mainly centred in the hill-country to the north-east and east of Sevan, which included both Gardman and those lands, which later would be known as Khachen.
Arakel Babakhanian (Leo), Collected Works, volume II. ‘’History of Armenia. Middle Ages’’. Yerevan 1967, p. 145.
No, it isn’t. You claim it never happened in the history of the region and yet Khachen was one and so was (as the title of Hewsen's work) the "The Kingdom of Arc'ax." You are very well aware of this as it has been discussed for a long time and you were part of the discussion. As for the Udis, please do quote Ulubabyan; I could care less of what an author who compares the Soviet nationalist Azeri scholars with Armenian ones has to say, when such a comparison is absurd beyond words. This scholar has published no paper on the subject and the title of the work reveals its actual purposes. Fabrication is placing the Azeri script on the Caucasian Albanian article, which, of course, not a single serious work will do; fabrication is placing a wildly anachronistic map on the same article.
The fact is that the only way Artsakh ended up in Aluank, is because of Arran which was considered being Persoarmenia, in a time even incorporating modern Yerevan. I don't need to point to you any material to prove this because it’s common knowledge, but since you seem to require more than is usually requested lately, here’s some sources [31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41]. As you can see, Arran was considered as being part of Persian Armenia, and Barda, as an Armenian city; under the Arabs it was even fixed as the capital of Armenia (i.e., Albania). Arran and Albania were different entities. Albania first referred to the land farther to the east; then, the Persian Arran which included a region more to the South. They not only changed the capital but much of the original Albania wasn't even included in Arran (it far too much to the north).
The day you come up with an alternative to the map representing the Armenian province, don't ask me to waste my time because you don't agree with one or two words which otherwise don't change the overall visual representation of Artsakh.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 19:19, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
Towards the end of the 5th century, the ancient ruling dynasty of Albania seems to have died out, and in the later 6th century and at the time of the Arab invasions some decades after then, Albania was ruled by princes of the Mihran family, who claimed descent from the Sasanians but were probably of Parthian origin.
In 359 the Albanian king Urnayr took part in the siege of Amid by the Sasanian Shapur II. In 461 the rebel king Vach'e lost his throne and the country was apparently taken over by the direct Persian administration. Even under the Sasanians Sharvan, Layzan and other principalities of the northern bank of the Kur were completely separated from Arran. Towards the end of the sixth century a new dynasty, issued from a Mihran sprang up in Arran and was soon converted to Christianity.
What you're doing is still tantamount to OR. You claim it was reduced to the area between Kura and Arax (assuming there was an Albania there in the first place), but all the ancient maps clearly omit any mention of an Albania. Furthermore, your claim that it was reduced to that area is not substantiated as evidenced by the maps provided above. As for Arran, I have provided 11 sources which place Aran as a region of Persian Armenia. Your two quotes are useless and irrelevant.
On to Minorsky: before he was an apolitical scholar, he was a proponent of the Soviet school on Albania and the several disputed regions in the Soviet Union; it was under the same regime that the obviously bogus map of Caucasian Albania which is presented in the Caucasian Albania article was created. Any notable modern scholar specializing on the history of the Caucasus knows the spuriousness of that map. Arran and Albania were not in the same geographic region; I have provided several maps to support that, please stop engaging in any more original research.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 01:21, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Arran, a region of eastern Transcaucasia. It lay essentially within the great triangle of land, lowland in the east but rising to mountains in the west, formed by the junction of the Rivers Kur or Kura and Araxes or Aras.
In pre-Islamic times, Arran formed the heart of the province of Caucasian Albania (to be distinguished of course from the Balkan Albania), which in fact embraced all eastern Transcaucasia, i.e. Arran here was a wider concept than that of post-Islamic Arran, and corresponded grosso modo with the modern Azerbaijan SSR.
That the so-called Christian or New Albanian culture, which flourished after the transfer of the capital from Kabala, north of the Kur, to Partav, south of the river, in the fifth century, A. D., was essentially Armenian is also beyond question, and here the arguments of Manc'akanyan are the strongest. No trace of an Albanian literature in the Albanian language survived, and all of the so-called Albanian literature which has come down to us is certainly written in Armenian. Contrary to Bunjatov, there is no evidence that any of this literature was translated into Armenian from another language and his assertion that the Armenian Church caused the Albanian literature to be translated into Armenian and then had originals destroyed is a flight of facy.
Hewsen, Robert H. Ethno-History and the Armenian Influence upon the Caucasian Albanians, in: Samuelian, Thomas J. (Hg.), Classical Armenian Culture. Influences and Creativity, Chico: 1982, 34.
- Sahl Smbatian Erranshahik Haykazuni, prince of Syunik, Lord of the Castle Khachen
- Atrnerseh
- Grigor
- Sahak-Sevada, prince of Gardman Parrisos
- Grigor II
- Sevada Ishkhan
- Hovhannes-Senekerim, king [of Parrisos]
What tosh! Pre-Islamic means prior to the seventh century, there is nothing here that speaks about BC. As for the relevence of the 11 sources, even the maps uploaded here on Wikipedia, including the expedition of Alexander the Great (which was prior to 190 BC) includes in it Armenia. From those 11 sources, there are encyclopedias which you have used; I sincerely hope you won't have any problems if I remove them in the articles you have used as sources. Persian Arran, from those sources, was in Armenia, Arabic Arran was also in Armenia. Sources were already provided, and this one only helps strenghten my case: [42]. And here are other recent ones: "Further the country 2 of Arran in the country of Armenia, with a language of its own, a believing and baptized people.." (The Syriac Chronicle Known as that of Zachariah of Mitylene, The Syriac Chronicle Known as that of Zachariah, Zacharias, Frederick John Hamilton, Ernest Walter Brooks, British Library, 1979, p. 328), the same quote is found in Red Sea-Black Russia by Jacques Bačić (1995, p. 291). Persian Arran also once included the present city of Yerevan. It's funny you claim those sources as irrelevent to answer my claim of irrelevency. I didn't say the quotes were irrelevent because I was questioning the material, but because they were not addressing my answer. On the other hand, you have claimed those sources which had everything to do with the subject as irrelevent, engaging in OR.
As for Minorsky's reputation, when I have questioned his reputation, I just addressed the issue of his Soviet conception of ancient history which is now believed to be not entirely accurate and is mysteriously in accord with the way they have sliced several pieces to incorporate them in the Union. No Russian scholars at that time were really immune to that, and this is not necessarly a wanted bias but everything to do with the era's bias. Britannica 1911 has several such bias, this does not mean that the reputation of those who wrote the articles has been or is questioned.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 19:29, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Please mind civility, my state of mind is quite fine. Everything you refer to us to read ends up not supporting what you say. You are engaging in OR by questioning their validity without providing the scholars who do so. There was no Albania between Arax and Kura during Alexander the Great's era, so tell me how those maps can therefore be ruled unreliable. For that matter, there was no Albania between Arax and Kura prior to when that territory became part of Armenia. The quotes you keep cutting and pasting don't even support what you say. As for your claim that there was no Armenia back then: you are again discrediting yourself, you have apparently access to JSTOR, and can type Alexander and Armenia which should be sufficient enough to debunk this sort of propaganda which originates from Baku, which essentially rejects Armenia never existed in that territory.
Regarding Minorsky, he certainly had some bias regarding boundaries. He was dispatched to Iran to survey Azerbaijan and Kurdistan during a commission to settle the borders between Iran and the Ottoman Empire. They sent him to the Mount Ararat region for the same purposes. He was involved in practically all such commissions, and while it is true that he never lived in the Soviet Union, his direct connection to England didn't start prior to the 1930's, and even then later with the events which happened during the WWII, he reestablished contact with the scientific circles in the Soviet Union and became even a guest of honor at the Soviet Academy of Sciences to visit Baku, Yerevan and Tbilisi. He was a great scholar, and his research about the history of Iran is impressive to say the least, but in regards to the boundaries in the Caucasus, I have my doubt about the Soviet School, since the obviously erroneous map which was in the article Caucasian Albania was drawn by the same school.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 21:26, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
At this point in time, I'm quite willing to accept any of Hewsen's maps. Even though it essentially is in conformity with Ulubabyan's maps, this ridiculously tiring, asinine and circular complaint by GM has gone on long enough. Armenia (i.e., the Yervanduni kingdom) was very real at the time of Alexander's campaigns in the east ( Xenophon writes about it in great detail) and Azerbaijani attempts to erase any existence of an Armenia is only too obvious and pathetic. Strabo is clear that when Artashes I began his expansion, he did so at the expense of the Medes or Iberians (nothing about the Albanians) – Artsakh and Utik were already part of Armenia. Anything else is just the same garbage that flows out from the Baku School of Revisionism.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 18:35, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Strabo says nothing about population of Artsakh. And Iranica article is self-contradictory, it also says further on:
Armina under Darius and Xerxes had much narrower boundaries than the future Armenia of the Artaxiads and the Arsacids. The "Armenians" with the inhabitants of Paktyike (?) and other peoples of the northwest formed the 13th satrapy, whose tribute was fixed at 400 talents (Herodotus 3.93). The Armenians in the strict sense must then have lived in areas between Cappadocia, the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the lake of Van. They are clearly distinguished from the Alarodians (= Urartians) who occupied the future province of Ayrarat (= Urartu) on the Araxes and with the Saspires (further northeast) and the Matienians (further southeast) formed the 18th satrapy (ibid., 3.94, cf. 7.79). [43]
So it cannot be used to oppose the views of Hewsen, as it actually agrees with them. -- Grandmaster ( talk) 14:47, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
There are two different paragraphs dealing with the same issue ( [44]). They ought to be combined and the repetitive statements removed. Perhaps someone could do that when there is time. Khoi khoi 05:06, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Затем [царь] назначил им вождей и правителей, во главе которых по приказу Валаршака был поставлен некто из рода Сисака, одного из потомков Иафета, по имени Аран, который унаследовал долины и горы страны Алуанк, от реки Ерасх до крепости hЫнаракерт [***]. Из-за его [Арана] мягкого нрава страна эта была названа Алуанк, ибо из-за мягкого нрава звали его Алу. Многие храбрые и знатные из потомков этого Арана, говорят, были назначены Валаршаком Партевом наместниками и тысячниками. От его [Арана] сына, произошли племена [***] Утийского, Гардманского, Цавдейского, Гаргарского княжеств.
"Following this [sic] dirty intrigue [the reaction of the Armenian pontif to the attempted split by the Church of Albania during the Arab periods], the Arabs put an end to the sovereignty of the Albania, and the Albanian Church was subordinated to the Armenian. That was the beginning of a progressive de-ethnicization of the of the Albanian nation. Thus the darkest [a big sic here also] forecasts were realized. The Armenians (for the nth time) began to oppress the Albanians." Caucasian Albania from the First Century BC to the First Century AD, Baku, 1974, p. 62.
The indisputable conclusion follows from everything said above that the so-called Armenians of Karabakh and the Azerbijanis as such (who are the descendants of the Albanian population) of northern Azerbaijan share the same mother. Both of them are completely indisputably former Albanians and therefore the Armenians as such [original emphasis] on the territory of Nagorny Karabakh, into which they sruged in huge numbers after the first quarter of the nineteenth century, have no rights. Black Garden, p. 155.
Глава L
О том, как разрушилось и развалилось армянское царство, как многие из армянских нахараров восстали и протянули руку персидскому царю Шапуху, и как вскоре разбрелись в разные стороны и оскудело армянское царство.
Тридцать четыре года наша армянская страна воевала с персидским царем, после сего обе стороны утомились, устали, потерпели поражение, пали духом. И началось разложение в лагере армянского царя, стали оставлять своего царя Аршака и уходить, и это разложение началось с великих вельмож. Сперва бдэшх Алдзника и бдэшх Ноширакана, и Махкер-туна, и Нихоракана, и Дасна, и все Алдзникское нахарарство, их войска и алдзникский род восстали против армянского царя Аршака... После этого бдэшх Гугарка, а после него владетель гавара Дзора, владетель гавара Колб, с ними также владетель Гардманадзора, и все те, кто находились в этих краях, около и вокруг них, вместе восстали против царя армянского Аршака и поехали и предстали перед персидским царем Шапухом. Против армянского царя Аршака восстали также укрепленный гавар Арцах, укрепленный гавар Тморик и укрепленная страна Кордик; также и владетель гавара Кордик поехал и предстал перед персидским царем. [47]
Show me please the place where Buzand speaks of rebelled people of Artsakh? Can't you see that is was rather the nakharars, who rebelled against Arshak I and that because of thier war-weariness? And can't you see that Pavsos is speeking of rebelled Armenian provinces? In the same way it is unacceptable your remove of the mention that Artsakh was borderd by other provinces of Armenia making them simply "regions". Also your quote of Hewsen is absolute inappropriate here, did you actually read the text above? there is nothing said about Sisak at all! Hewsen hasn't the directly wording "Hayk was not a real person", we have stated that he was a mythical figure and that is completely enough here.
What about Aliev: I it well known how much the Albanians owe to the Armenians, for example:
the fortresses and cities of Albania occupied by the Persians, including the strategical "Caucasian Port" - Derbend, and entrusted them to the Albanians (who according Yeghishe were fleed to the Caucasus mountains), thus assuring for them full sovereignity,
So you think it's a little thing, that after all Armenians have done fore Albanians, Aliev blames them for "de-ethnicization of the Albanian nation"??? Bah! the lowest slander I ever heard! We can't accept such an Anti-Armenian author here. You can't put Igrar Aliyev on a par with Arrakel Babakhanian. You can compare him rather to the Azerbeidzjani hisoriographer Mirza Jamal Jevanshir, widely used in Wikipedia. Babakhanian was a native of Artsakh and most of his historical works concern Artsakh's history. In any case there is no such a source wich can be trustd for 100%, in this case its important that Babakhanian is consistend with sholars as R. Hewsen and Thoumanoff, i.e. they speak of an Haykid-Armenian princely family which existed in Artsakh and Utik. Hewsen even says that the Melikdoms of Karabakh were descendet of this Haykid family. -- Vacio ( talk) 09:52, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
The quote from Buzand:
Глава XII
Об Арцахе.
Он разгромил и страну Арцах в большом сражении, многих жителей взял в плен, у остальных взял заложников и обложил их данью.
He defeated the country of Artsakh in a great battle, took many inhabitants as prisoners, took hostages from the rest and imposed tribute on them. [48]
As for Igrar Aliyev, like I said, he is an internationally respected scholar. By "so-called" he means that many Armenians of Karabakh are descendants of the original inhabitants of the region, i.e. Albanians. This fact is not disputed even by Armenian scholars. I suggested to use only neutral third party sources, you keep on referring on Armenian sources with obvious bias. In that case, I will have every right to refer to Azerbaijani scholars, which is what I'm going to do. Alternatively, we can stick to third part authors, as was discussed many times already. And sneaky removal of the quote from Hewsen by Vacio has no justification, this is not the first time that he is are deleting this line:
Hayk and Sisak are thought to have been just eponyms and not real persons.<ref>Robert H. Hewsen. "The Primary History of Armenia": An Examination of the Validity of an Immemorially Transmitted Historical Tradition. History in Africa, Vol. 2. (1975), pp. 91-100</ref> [49]
I'm expecting a reasonable explanation for deletion, before discussing it elsewhere. Grandmaster ( talk) 06:28, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Here's the Armenian scholar Suny saying that Albanians of Karabakh were assimilated by Armenians:
The Caucasus region has long been the scene of very serious social, religious and ethnic conflicts. Back in the Middle Ages, before the Turkish people migrated here from central Asia, eastern Transcaucasia was known as Caucasian Albania. No relation to the Balkan Albanians, these were a Christianized people quite close to the Armenians. Once the Seljuk Turks began arriving in the 11th century, the Albanians in the mountainous area – Karabagh up to historic Armenia – remained largely Christian and eventually merged with the Armenians. The Albanians in the eastern plain leading down to the Caspian Sea mixed with the Turkish population and eventually became Muslims.
Ronald G. Suny: What Happened in Soviet Armenia? Middle East Report, No. 153, Islam and the State. (Jul. - Aug., 1988), pp. 37-40.
And your idea that Albanians disappeared in the 5th century is wrong, Hewsen says that their state broke up in the 10th century, while Albanians as ethnicity may have existed after that time, this is from T.de Waal, p.156:
In his letter, he (Hewsen) stressed that the amount of evidence on Caucasian Albania was really quite small, but he concurred with the idea that by the tenth century the Albanians had pretty much been broken up: "Since, according to Strabo, the Albanians were a federation of twenty-six tribes, the general consensus is that their state began to disintegrate in the Arab period and was gone by the tenth century; an Albanian ethnic group may have survived longer: we don't know."
Grandmaster ( talk) 05:23, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
He [Mesrop Mashtots] revived the Church and strengthened the Faith and spread the teaching of the gospel to the land of the Utiacik', the Albanians, the Lp'ink', the Kaspk', up to the Chołay Pass, and other foreign tribes whom Alexander of Macedon had captured and settled around the great Mount Caucasus, namely, the Gargark' and the Kamicik Hep't'ałk. (1.27)
CHAPTER 4. VAŁARSHAK APPOINTS A RULER OVER THE ALBANIANS
Here begins the [history of the] government of the Albanians. We cannot say anything definite for the benefit of our readers about the people who inhabited the great Mount Caucasus from the creation of the world down to Vałaršak, king of Armenia. On the establishment of his rule over the northerners, he summoned to him the wild, foreign tribes in the northern plain and round the foot of the Caucasus and the valleys and ravines south thereof down to the entrance to the plain, and commanded them to cease their plundering and murdering and to pay tribute to the king. He appointed over them governor and prefects of whom the chief, by order of Vałaršak, was a certain Arran of the Sisakan family. (1.4)
The History of Caucasian Albanians by Movses Dasxuranci. Translated by C. J. F. Dowsett, London 1961, pp. 3-4.
Raffi refers to this house as the "Orbelians in Sisian" and it would appear, then, that the House of Melik-Tangian was of Orbelid rather than of Haykid origin and that it represented a survival of the Orbelid dynasty of Siwnik' just as the melik houses of Karabagh represented survivals of the earlier Haykid dynasty of the same principality.
Hewsen, Robert H., The Meliks of Eastern Armenia III, Revue des Etudes Arméniennes, Paris 1975-76, p. 224.
This is the quote about Sisak from Hewsen:
Gegham. He is said to have left Armenia and gone to the shore of a great lake which was thence forward called Gegh, and to have settled people in a region called after him — Geghak’unik'. Gegham, then, was probably not a person but an eponym — a personification of the lake (now called Sevan) and district of Geghak’uni, whose names are actually derived from Welikuhi, the name of this region even before the time of Urartu, which conquered it in the late eighth century B.C. Sisak, brother of Harma and son of Gegham, can only be another eponym, and a late one at that. Sisak is said to have been the ancestor of the princes of Siwnik', a province on the southern border of Geghak’uni. It was called Sisakan by the Sasanids (who ruled Persia from 226 to 637 A.D.); this term was unknown to Armenian historiography before the seventh century A.D. and was first used by a Syrian writer only in the sixth century.
Robert H. Hewsen. «The Primary History of Armenia»: An Examination of the Validity of an Immemorially Transmitted Historical Tradition. History in Africa, Vol. 2. (1975), pp. 91-100.
As you can see, the term Sisakan was unknown to Armenian historiography before the seventh century A.D., so it was invented much later after the time Aran was supposed to live. So Sisak was an eponym, and Hubsmann also said that Sisak was an imaginary person.
In the note on p. 194 of his Baladuri edition de Goeje says: "Est populus cujus genealogiae princeps appellatur Sisag," while referring to St. Martin, Memoires sur l'Armenie, Paris, 1818, i, pp. 207-214. Here St. Martin discusses the text of Moses of Khoren's History (book ii, ch. 7) on the province of Sisakan, which is the northwesternmost province of Great Armenia, lying between the Araxes and the Lake of Sewan and bordering on Albania; the older Armenian name is Siounik'. Moses of Khoren derives the name Sisakan from a heros eponymos Sisak ; this Sisak is, however, as Hubschmann also (Idg. Forschungen, xvi, p. 263) thinks, only an imaginary forefather, whose name was deduced from the form Sisakan.
J. H. Kramers. "The Military Colonization of the Caucasus and Armenia under the Sassanids." Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, Vol. 8, No. 2/3.
Movses never mentions Artsakh in connection with Aran, he only mentions Tsavdek, and you showed no reliable sources to support the idea that Tsavdek is the same as Artsakh. -- Grandmaster ( talk) 11:06, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Then we have your source, Movses of Khoren, who writes:
И вот, один из его потомков, упомянутый именитый и доблестный Драя, и был назначен парфянином Валаршаком наместником-десятитысячником. Говорят, что племя утийцев и княжества гардманцев, цавдейцев и гаргарцев происходят от его отпрысков.
So one of his descendants, the aforementioned noble and brave Draya, was appointed by the Parthian Valarshak a governor. It is said that the tribe of utis and principalities of Gardmanians, Tsavdekians and Gargarians descended from his offspring. [51]
So Valarhsak was Parthian, and not Armenian. And descendants of Aran include the udi people, who are not even Indo-European and have no relation to Armenians, they are Caucasian people from Nakho-Dagestani group. How this people could have descended from Aran, if he was an Armenian? It is clearly a legend, invented after the 7th century, and has nothing to do with reality. -- Grandmaster ( talk) 11:18, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
And Moses of Kalankatuyk also writes: От его [Арана] сына, произошли племена Утийского, Гардманского, Цавдейского, Гаргарского княжеств.
I.e. The tribes of the principalities of Uti, Gardman, Tsavdek and Gargar descended from Aran. I provided the full quote above. How all this people could have descended from Armenians, if they spoke languages from a completely different linguistic group? -- Grandmaster ( talk) 11:21, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Btw, even the Armenian author Gagik Sarkisian, who translated the work of Moses of Khoren, says:
Аран — один из случаев персонификации Мовсесом Хоренаци названия местности.
Aran – one of the instances of personification of the name of a region by Movses.
See this footnote. [52] So even Armenian scholars say that Aran was not a real person. So Vacio, please stop POV editing, there’s no way you can prove that Aran was a real person, when even Armenian sources disagree with you. Grandmaster ( talk) 11:30, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
That the so-called Christian or New Albanian culture, which flourished after the transfer of the capital from Kabala, north of the Kur, to Partav, south of the river, in the fifth century, A. D., was essentially Armenian is also beyond question, and here the arguments of Manc'akanyan are the strongest. No trace of an Albanian literature in the Albanian language survived, and all of the so-called Albanian literature which has come down to us is certainly written in Armenian. Contrary to Bunjatov, there is no evidence that any of this literature was translated into Armenian from another language and his assertion that the Armenian Church caused the Albanian literature to be translated into Armenian and then had originals destroyed is a flight of fancy. Ethno-History and the Armenian Influence upon the Caucasian Albanians in Samuelian, Thomas J. (Ed.), Classical Armenian Culture. Influences and Creativity, Chico: 1982, p. 34.
Grandmaster, You seem to be using some original research deductions, like "what language they must have spoke PROVES their ethnicity", to claim that certain ancestral people referenced in Armenian history books never even existed. Even if perhaps they never existed, the wording needs to attribute this POV to the sources explicitly arguing this in clear language, otherwise it is known as "POV pushing", ie, siding with sources of one particular POV, rather than treating them all "neutrally". Also if there are really no sources whatsoever that mention "Aran" in connection with Artsakh, then the whole debate over Aran's existence does not need to fill up this page, and is a complete synthesis here, and probably belongs on some other page. Til Eulenspiegel ( talk) 11:35, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
There's no reason to believe that Arranshahs were anyone other than Arsacids. After all, Mihranids had to kill them to take over the country, and no other dynasty is registered between Arcasids and Mihranids. Both those dynasties were Iranian, it is a well documented fact. Therefore Vacio's edits that he tries to force into the article on Mihranids are clearly OR and POV. [57]
Today this narrative of Khorenatsi says that an Armenian headsman and warrior named Hayk revolted against the Assyro-Babylonian realm, defeated the enemy forces and established an new Armenians state in the neighborhood of the Lake Van. This was the Armenian state of Ararat.
When did occur the events in relationship with Hayk? It’s hard to estimate. Khorenatsi gives no exact date. Some scholars believe Hayk gained the victory about the mid-3th millennium BC.
Raphael Ishkhanian, Patkerazard Patmutyun Hayots), v. I, Yerevan 1989.
Artsakh and the region Sodk of the province of Syunik comprised the Tsavdekian feudal principality (nakharardom) of the Armenian kingdom. [58]
And from among his descendants, they say, famous and valiant men, many governors were appointed by Vałaršak the Parthian; and from his son, they say, descended the inhabitants of the principalities of Uti, Gardman, Covdk', and Gargark'.
Up to here we have shown the (various) genealogies
The History of Caucasian Albanians by Movses Dasxuranci. Translated by C. J. F. Dowsett, London 1961, p. 4.
The royal house of Aranshahik, traditionally descended form the divine eponym of the Albanians, Aran, a descendant, in turn, of Hayk, is the first known royal dynasty of Albania and possibly the one which, through the subordination to itself of the other fellow-dynasts, achieved the unification of the country and gave birth to the Albanian Monarchy. Superseded in the mid-first century by the Arsacids, this dynasty was nearly exterminated in the sixth century by the Mihranids of Gardman, who, in 628, were to acquire the Principate of Albania replacing the Arsacid Monarchy. The Aranshahiks, however, survived in one branch, settled at Gis, in Otene, down to the ninth century and may possibly have continued, down to the tenth, as the Kings of trans-Cyran Albania, in Shak’e or Shakki and Heret’i. (...)
The House of Aranšahik must, thus, have been the pre-Arsacid royal house and its descendants. It was, however, the hostility not of the Arsacids, but of the Mihranids of Gardman that exterminated this family, with the exception of Zarmihr, who was married to a Mihranid princess: Moses Kał. 3.17. In 1.27, Varaz P’erož of the House of Aranšahik is mentioned as settled at Gis; it is there that the House of Varaz P’erož is mentioned (in the seventh century) in 2.32, where it is said to bear the title of lak’nar (...). Vač’agan Eranšahik defended Albania against the Khazars in 714, 3.16; and in the ninth century, Sahl i Smbatian, designated as both an Eranšahik and a Zarmihrakan, played a considerable role in eastern Caucasia (...). In his A history of Sharvan and Darband in the 10th-11th Centuries (Cambridge 1958), Minorsky was inclined to think that it was the Mihranids who entitled themselves Eranšahik and that Sahl merely took over that title from them: 11 n. 2, 13; but cf. 21. This was written before the text of Moses of Kał. became available through Dowsett’s translation.
Cyrille Toumanoff, Studies in Christian Caucasian History, Georgetown University Press, 1963, p. 257-258
Aber Eŕanšahik–k’: das alte Geschlecht der Haikanier (Armenier), die Eŕanšahik Mos.Kal. I,287; Varaz-Perož aus der Aŕanšahik-Familie Mos.Kal. I.192; der Eŕanšahik Vačagan Mos.Kal. II.46 ist nicht mp. = Erānašahrikān 'Iranier' (Salemann, mp. Stud. 222), sondern = mp. *Arrān-šāh-īk von pers, Arrān Provinz zwishen Araxes und Kur Barb. 17, arm. Aŕan Gesch. Georg. 29, 73, 75 (vgl. MX. 77, 78) + pers. šāh 'König' + suff. īk.
Heinrich Hübschmann, Àrmenische Grammatik, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1895, p.38
This article is now under full protection for a month while disputes are worked out. — Rlevse • Talk • 12:18, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Grandmaster is trying to push up in the intro an absolute improper excerpt by means of edit-warring ( [59] [60]). Artsakh has been under Albanian control only after 387, already was mentioned in the intro. Grandmaster was just edit warring in the articles Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhichevan Khanate and he is also known for representing false information as "well known facts" (see Talk:Aghstafa River) I think this is harming WP policy for good faith. -- Vacio ( talk) 07:56, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
I have fact tagged the claim that Artsakh was part of Caucasian Albania. No source is provided for this claim, and it is a dubious claim given that it seems to be contradicted by other sources. And please, don't give that pile of garbage known as Columbia Encyclopedia as a source - it will not be accepted. General encyclopedias are not valid sources. Meowy 03:08, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
The Armenians considerably curtailed the Albanian territories to the south of the Kur and Armenized them. Only after the division of Armenia between Byzantium and Persia in 387 did the provinces of Uti and Artsakh (lying south of the Kur) fall again to the lot of the Albanian ruler. The earlier capital of Albania seems to have lain north of this river, whereas the later capital Perozapat (Partav, Barda'a) was built by the Albanian Vach'e only under the Sasanian king Peroz (457-84).
V. Minorsky, A History of Sharvan and Darband in the 10th-11th centuries, Cambridge (Heffer and Sons), 1958
The quote of Minorsky above is too hazy: I still cant understand what he meant: Armenians curtaild albnian territery in ethnical sense or political? How you can use an excerpt as a source when it is not clear enough? Anyway, this allegation as if Armenians took it from Albania is discounted by modern western scholarship, in the 2nd c BC the Albanian state nor the Albanian nation existed, and Armenins could not curtail their territory. See for example Hewsen:
Although Arrian's mention of the Albanians places them (perhaps anachronisti-cally) in the Persian army against Alexander the Great, Caucasian Albania first appears in history as a vassal state in the empire of Tigranes the Great of Armenia (95-56 B.C.), having arisen as a kingdom in eastern Caucasia and, with the Georgians and the Armenians, forming one of the three nations that held between them that northeasternmost sector of the Mediterranean world. According to Strabo, the kingdom of Albania coalesced in the Hellenistic period as a federation of twenty-six tribes under the leadership of one of their chieftains, essentially as Iberia and Armenia had become unified at an earlier time.
— Robert H. Hewsen. Armenia: A historial Atlas. The University of Chicago Press. 2000, p. 40
Classical sources are unanimous in making the River Kyros / Cyros the frontier between Armenia and Albania. Only in the late 4th century A.D. did the Armenian principalities of Arc'ax, Utik', Gardman, Ŝakaŝen and Kołt pass under permanent Albanian rule.
— Ibid. p. 41
Also it is quite possible that the Armenian did not took this area form Medes:
Strabo’s description of the expansion of Zariadris and Artaxes makes it clear just what lands the Orontids had originally controlled: apparently much of greater Armenia from the Euphrates to the basin of Lake Sevan and possibly beyond to the juncture of the Kur and Araxes rivers (… as depicted here).
— Ibid p. 32
--06:13, 21 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vacio ( talk • contribs)
Quoting Hewsen:
These peoples, all conquered by the Armenians in the second century B. C., must have been subjected to a great deal of Armenicization over the next few centuries, but most of them were still being cited as distinct ethnic entities when these regions passed to Albania in 387, some 500 years later.
Hewsen, Robert H., Ethno-History and the Armenian Influence upon the Caucasian Albanians, in: Samuelian, Thomas J. (Hg.), Classical Armenian Culture. Influences and Creativity, Chico: 1982, 27-40.
Grand master 07:17, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
In sum, according to Hewsen, the region orignally had non-Armenian population, and was conquered by Armenians in the 2nd century A.D. In 387 A.D. it passed to Albania. So it was a part of Albania. I added a reference to Hewsen, I hope this resolves the dispute. Grand master 07:32, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
Arcax was lost to Albania in 387, while Sawdk remained as one of the districts of Siwnik. ... The Arcax of the ASX also contains the principality of Kolt', and it is not impossible that the princes of Kolt' were its original owners, although at the time of the cession of these lands to Albania in the period 363-387, Kolt' and Arc'ax are spoken of as separate entities.
Robert H. Hewsen. Armenia: A historial Atlas. The University of Chicago Press. 2000, p. 102
I have again added the "Disputed" tag in the article in reaction to the last changes in the intro [61] thanks to which we have two more controversial statements there. First, there seem to be no sources that indicate that Artsakh has been "a region" (or something else) before the 2nd C. BC, we have only sources that it was thereafter organized as a province within the Armenian state. Second, in his last work Hewsen makes clear that it is not certain that the region was conquered from Medes (or another state), he says that it is possible that it had been part of Orontid Armenia in the 4th century BC. -- Vacio ( talk) 14:01, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't call in question its pass over to Albania in 387 AD (though its condition as part of Albania needs perhaps more clearance). But what is real controversial is its political condition before 189 BC. I have here another quote from Hewsen which makes it clear that 1) it is uncertain that Artsakh was "conquered" in the 2nd century BC, 2) there are no evidences to believe that there was a land or region called "Artsakh" before 2nd century BC.
The Eastern Frontiers of Armenia
All this part of Armenia was acquired by the Armenians during the early second century B.C, when Strabo (XI.14.5) tells us that they conquered Phauene (sic, read Sauene - Siwnik?), Otene (Utik), and Kaspiane under Artaxias (Artashes) I (c.190 - c.161 B.C.), and possibly the unnamed land of Arcax which lay between the other three.
— Robert H. Hewsen. Armenia: A historial Atlas. The University of Chicago Press. 2000, p. 58
-- Vacio ( talk) 07:36, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
Good. This is the prevailing opinion among scholars that Artsakh was conquered in the 2nd century B.C. Other scholars also say so. The primary sources make no direct mention of Artsakh, but since Siwnik and Kaspiane were conquered at that time, it is obvious that Artsakh was conquered at the same time. -- Grand master 12:56, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Not all of these people were aboriginal, for example Gargaracik were apparently migrants:
Classical sources place the Gargarians in the North Caucasus but Armenian sources place them in this region, possibly as the result of migration.
— Robert H. Hewsen. Armenia: A historial Atlas. The University of Chicago Press. 2000, p. 41
User Grandmaster I strongly recommend you to examine first the relevant sources properly, then edit. -- Vacio ( talk) 07:26, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
Robert H. Hewsen believes that these tribes were "certainly not of Armenian origin", and "although certain Iranian peoples must have settled here during the long period of Persian and Median rule, most of the natives were not even Indo-Europeans". [1]
2. The Ethnogenesis of the Armenian people
There are essentially four theories concerning the origin of the Armenian people, which we may call respectively the Armenian tradition, the Greek tradition, the modern consensus, and the latest hypothesis. Each has its supporters as well as its supporting evidence but it is important to note that none of them can be as yet proved and it is unlikely that firm proof will ever be possible to attain.
(…)
The modern consensus has been that the earliest Armenians were a tribe of Phrygian or related origin, dubbed by scholars as the ‘Armens’ or ‘proto-Armenians’, who moved into the Armenian plateau in the confusion followed by the fail of Urartu. There, they intermarried with the non-Indo-European-speaking natives, already a highly mixed people to form the Armenian people that we know today (Adontz, Toumanoff, Diakonoff, et al).
(…)
Following, for the present, the general consensus, we may note that from earliest times the Armenian highlands have been inhabited by many ethnic elements entering from various directions (as everywhere else), but here geography conspired to preserve the ethnic distinctions for countless centuries. Many clans, tribes, and peoples came to dwell in different valleys. Some clans and tribes held but one of these; others several. These were ruled by clan heads, tribal chiefs, princes, and kinglets. Armenia thus had little cohesion, geographic or ethnic; division was the order of the day. it was a patchwork, a crazy quilt, a mosaic of peoples. Dozens of distinct groups have been identified, many of them, of course, being but tribes or offshoots of others. Twice this ethnic complexity was pulled together in ancient times: first by the kings of Biainele, or Van, that is, the Urartian federation of the ninth to sixth centuries B.C.; and second under the kings of Armenia, which became, in effect, a successor federation to that of Urartu. The Urartian federation was highly mixed ethnically, comprising about a hundred principalities, and many peoples involved In the federation are mentioned in Urartian and Assyrian records. When the Urartian federation collapsed c. 585 B.C., and the so-called Armens, or proto-Armenians, entered from the west, they must have been, at first, merely another new ethnic element entering the mix and mingling with the older ones already there. This was not necessarily an invasion—at least there is no record of any—but appears rather to have been an infiltration.
These proto-Armenians must have been large in numbers, however, given the way that they came to dominate the plateau. Thus, there must have been some conflicts between them and the natives, and there are some records of these. Ultimately, the proto-Armenians spread into nearly every valley large and small, at least in the center of the plateau—absorbing the aboriginal ethnic elements but not always completely and certainly not on the fringes of the country. Generally speaking, the Armenians appear to have avoided the more remote mountains within which some of the early peoples appear to have taken refuge. Thus, numerous pre-Armenian peoples long survived, and, as Adontz (1908) has demonstrated, ethnonyms mentioned in Urartian, Hittite, and Assyrian records survived until far longer into the historic period than has perhaps always been appreciated. Indeed, some of these names are recognizable one thousand years after the fall of Urartu, when the Armenians begin to leave us written records of their own. Most of these peoples were, of course, more or less armenized—many of them doubtless completely so—but many of them, including those quite assimilated, seem to have continued to be governed by the descendants of their own ancestral rulers: the clan heads, tribal chiefs, princes, and kinglets of old. All of these local rulers were eventually incorporated into the complex body of the Armenian nobility—the Armenian princely houses—of which there were some seventy. The names of many of these houses betray either their pre-Armenian or non-Armenian origin: the Sala (one of the pre-Armenian peoples) are represented by the Princes Sghkuni, the Manda by the Princes Mandakuni, the Pala or Bala by the Princes Paluni. In the same way, the names of the various Armenian districts betray the names of their early inhabitants: the Pala by Paghnatun and Balahovit 'Pala House (or tribe)' and 'Bala Valley', the Mardians (Medes?) by Mardastan and Mardaghi, the Mannaians by Mananaghi, the Mushki by Moskikhe and Mukhank' and perhaps by Mokk', the Ainians by Hani, the Drilloi or Driles perhaps by Daranaghi and Derjan, the Udins by Utlk', and so on. All of these names attest to the diversity of pre-Armenian ethnic elements; indeed, the Udins exist today and are not Armenian despite the fact that those Udins who remained Christian rather than converting to Islam are members of the Armenian Church and their language is laced with Armenian vocabulary.— Robert H. Hewsen. Armenia: A historial Atlas. The University of Chicago Press. 2000, p. 10
-- Vacio ( talk) 06:54, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
means that they were not Armenian but later mixed with the proto-Armenians. It is this context that I mean must not left out. -- Vacio ( talk) 07:16, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
I have already cited sufficient reasons for not quoting that excerpt in the article (in particular the Median rule). The fact that it had mostly an non-Indo-European population before the proto-Armenians came is already reflected in the article. However I oppose the way of picking out an just excerpt from a hot scholarly dispute. Imagine yourself if I should do the same, I can find numerous "good" excerpts form Hewsen works and quote them all in this article. I also demand that the earlier statements of Hewsen would be compared with his latest ones.-- Vacio ( talk) 08:11, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Your arguments do not disprove the statement of Hewsen that the original population of Artsakh was non-Armenian. Even if we assume that Arsakh was conquered during Orontid times, still that does not make Armenians the original inhabitants of this land. Someone must have lived there before the Armenians came. Therefore the information of Hewsen that the original population of Artsakh was non-Armenian must be restored. The deletion of this info is unjustified suppression of the sourced info. -- Grand master 13:00, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
A land of high mountains, deep gorges, and rich pastureland, Vaykunik’ was the territory of the Khaghbakid branch of the Siunid princes of Khach’ēn, ancestors of the later meliks of Tsar, the latter holding the area until the coming of the Russian. Though remote, Tsar nevertheless suffered from the deportations of Shah ’Abbās in the early seventeenth century and was almost denuded of its Armenian inhabitants. Eventually, Kurds settled the area, as they did in the district of Kashat’agh across the Karabagh (Arts’akh) Mountains to the south. Only the monasteries, churches, and extensive funeral monuments bore witness to the essential Armenian nature of the original population.
Robert H. Hewsen, Armenia: A Historical Atlas. The University of Chicago Press, 2001, pp. 264-265. ISBN: 978-0-226-33228-4
I restored some of the deleted bits namely: 1. A quote from Hewsen mentioning the definite non-Armenian origin of the region's earliest population. Even if his later work contradicts his original statement with regard to the time the region was absorbed into the Armenian state, that still does not contradict him saying that the earliest population of Artsakh was not Armenian. 2. A quote from Shnirelman clarifying that in Strabo's time, speaking Armenian did not necessarily mean being Armenian. I find it odd that the quote was deleted by someone but the actual reference remained. Parishan ( talk) 08:52, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
From Strabo we learn that under King Artashes (188-ca. 161 B. C.), the Armenians expanded in all directions at the expense of their neighbors. Specifically we are told that a t this time they acquired Caspiane and 'Phaunitis," the second of which can only be a copyist's error for Saunitis, i. e. the principality of Siwnik '.Thus, it was only under Artashes, in the second century B. C., that the Armenians conquered Siwnik' and Caspiane and, obviously, the lands of Arc'ax and Utik', which lay between them. These lands, we are told, were taken from the Medes. (…)
What do we know of the native population of these regions--Ar’cax and Urik’--prior to the Armenian conquest? Unfortunately not very much. Greek, Roman and Armenian authors provide us with the names of several peoples living there, however--Utians, in Otene, Mycians, Capians, Gargarians, Sakasenians, Gelians, Sodians, Lupenians, Balasa[ka]nians, Parsians, Parrasian, --and these names are sufficient to tell us that , whatever their origin, they were certainly not Armenian. (…)
In 387 A. D., the various peoples of Arc’ax and Utik, whether Armenians, Armenicized aborigens, or both, passed under Albanian rule, which under these conditions, would have meant that the various ethnic elements comprising the Albanians north of the Kur a number of others was added to the south. That these people were highly Armenicized and that many were actually Armenians per se cannot bee doubted.
Robert H. Hewsen, "Ethno-History and the Armenian Influence upon the Caucasian Albanians," in Thomas J. Samuelian, ed., Classical Armenian Culture: Influences and Creativity. Pennsylvania: Scholars Press, 1982, pp 32-34.
Strabo’s description of the expansion of Zariadris and Artaxias makes it clear just what lands the Orontids had originally controlled: apparently much of Greater Armenia from the Euphrates to the basin of Lake Sevan and possibly beyond to the juncture of the Kur and Arax Rivers (…)
The Eastern Frontiers of Armenia
All this part of Armenia was acquired by the Armenians during the early second century B.C, when Strabo (Xl.14.5) tells us that they conquered Phauene (sic, read Sauene - Siwnik?), Otene (Utik'), and Kaspiane under Artaxias {Artases) I (c. 190-c 161 B.C.), and possibly the unnamed land of Arc'ax which lay between the other three. (…)
Is seems likely that except of Siwnik, eastern Armenia was not much more than armenized, if that. Sakasen, at least originally, was obviously a Scythian (Saka) enclave in the country, the Utians were almost certainly a Caucasian tribe, the names Gardman and Gargaracik suggest a Georgian connection, but we have no idea to what ethnic group the Kaspians may have belonged. Siwnik, too, had a mixed population that doubtless contained many Armenians but, as Abrahamyan notes, also included such other ethnic groups as Scythians, Balas and Persians and, moreover, evinced a strong tendency to separate from Armenia as late as the seventh century. Arc'ax, a stronghold of Armenian national identity from at least the ninth century, may also have been originally more varied in ethnic character; we cannot be sure, and attempts to build nationalist claims—whether Armenian or Azeri—for this territory on the basis of conditions that may have existed in the ancient period rest upon slim evidence. The population of modern Arc'ax (M. Arm. Arts'akh; Russ. Nagorno Karabakh) is Armenian, as it has been for well over a thousand years, and that is surely sufficient justification for its independence of Azeri rule.
Robert H. Hewsen, Armenia: A Historical Atlas. The University of Chicago Press, 2001, pp. 32, 58. ISBN: 978-0-226-33228-4
Also, why you keep on deleting the statement, supported by the reference to Shnerelman? You did that at least 3 times already. Stop doing it. Here's the quote from Shnirelman:
Ниже мы увидим, что расхожим местом в работах армянских историков стало утверждение о том, что в царстве Арташесидов обитали одни лишь армяне. При этом дается ссылка на Страбона, писавшего, что в конце I тыс. до н.э. население всей территории Армении говорило только на армянском языке. Между тем, вопрос о том, насколько достоверно это сообщение Страбона, даже не ставится. А ведь Страбон не проводил никаких широких лингвистических исследований в Армении, да и трудно было бы ожидать этого от античного автора. Зато хорошо известно, что в те времена в городах Передней Азии всегда встречались, например, кварталы сирийцев и евреев, и нет оснований полагать, что в Армении это было не так. Да и как бы иначе арамейская письменность могла проникнуть в ту эпоху в Закавказье?
Историкам также хорошо известно, что в древности язык бюрократии и письменности иной раз существенно отличался от языка основной массы местного населения. Например, в Древневавилонском царстве, где господствовал аккадский (семитский) язык, сохранялась шумерская клинопись и бюрократия продолжала культивировать шумерский язык; в эллинистических государствах Передней Азии самым популярным письменным языком был греческий, хотя и местное население, и знать принадлежали к совершенно иным культурным традициям; в тот же период арамейский язык служил lingua franca в иранском мире и зоне иранского влияния; аналогичная картина встречалась в средневековой Европе, где господствовала латынь. И совсем уж недавно, на рубеже XVIII-XIX вв., русская аристократия предпочитала говорить на французском языке и пользоваться французской письменностью. Все такие примеры поднимают кардинальную проблему, давно ставящую в тупик профессиональных историков. Действительно, если речь идет о малоизученном древнем государстве, от которого до нас дошли лишь весьма немногочисленные письменные документы, можно ли по ним судить о языке основной массы местного населения или же речь идет лишь о языке, который отличался от общепринятого и обслуживал узкий круг бюрократии? Историки могут давать разные ответы на этот вопрос, но ответ патриотически настроенного историка хорошо предсказуем: если язык письменных документов соответствует языку его этнической группы, то он охотно припишет его основной массе населения; если же такого соответствия не обнаружится, то он отождествит этот язык с узким кругом иноземной бюрократии и противопоставит его языку местных обитателей. Мало того, не исключено, что во втором случае он не избежит соблазна изобразить героическую борьбу местных жителей с "иноземными поработителями".
You know that personal interpretation of a primary source is not acceptable, yet you keep on deleting the interpretation by a secondary source. It is not acceptable. Grand master 08:11, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
1. We can change "original" to population prior to the Armenian conquest". That's fine for me.
2. Armenized does not mean that those people became ethnically Armenian, it just mean that they were under the Armenian cultural influence. Hewsen also says that most of those people "were still being cited as distinct ethnic entities when these regions passed to Albania in 387", which mean that most of the Albanian population of the region was still non-Armenian by 387 A.D. And yes, Hewsen clearly says that the original population was non-Armenian. Armenians could not be original population of the region for a simple reason that they are descendants of the migrant tribes of Armens. They moved to the region from the Balkans, according to Dyakonov and other leading experts on the topic.
3. You can quote Hewsen's latest work too, however it also does not make Armenians the original population of the region. Whether they came in the 4th or 2nd century, someone still lived there before Armenians came. So any attempts to deny the migrant origins of the Armenian population of Artsakh are unscholarly, and POV. The general consensus among the scholars is that Armenians came to the region from other locations, and conquered the region either from the local tribes, Persia or Medes. But 2nd century B.C. is a prevailing point of view among the scholars. Minorsky and Trever also say that Armenians conquered the region, and were not its original inhabitants. Grand master 12:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Here's another quote:
Во II в. до н. э. армянский царь Арташес I (189—160 гг.) присоединил к Армении ряд соседних областей, в том числе и правобережье Куры, где обитали шаки, утии и гаргары-албаны; будучи раздроблены, эти племена не могли воспрепятствовать захвату их земель.8 С той поры пограничной рекой между Албанией и Арменией античные авторы называют Куру.
8. Захваченные области до IV в. н. э. оставались в составе Армении (Шакашен, Утик, Арцах и Пайтакаран), а затем были воссоединены с Албанией.
Тревер К.В. Очерки по истории и культуре Кавказской Албании IV в. до н. э. — VII в. н. э. М. Л. 1959.
Grand master 12:24, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
The underlying substrata, however, were originally much too diversified to enable us to agree with either Bunjatov or Mnac'akanyan that the present day population represents a common ethnic entity, either Albanian or Armenian. Although the present population doubtless contains many true Armenians and many pure Turks, it also comprises many more elements neither Armenian nor Turkish, however totally Armenicized or Turkified they now may be.
There are essentially four theories concerning the origin of the Armenian people, which we may call respectively the Armenian tradition, the Greek tradition, the modern consensus, and the latest hypothesis. Each has its supporters as well as its supporting evidence but it is important to note of them can be as yet proved and it is unlikely that firm proof will ever be possible to attain.
(...)
The most recent theories suggest that the Armenians—and, Indeed, all the Indo-European speaking peoples—were native to the Armenian Plateau (Gamkrelidze and Ivanov), that, not only were the Urartians Armenians themselves, but the pre Urartian Hurrians as well, and that the existence of proto-Armenian states can be traced back to Sumerian times and that these states even had Sumerla n connec-tions (Kavoukjian). The best surveys of these various theories are to be found In the works of Adontz (1946), Diakonoff (D'iakonov), Kapantsian (Ghapanc'yan), Toumanoff (1963) Gamkrelidze and Ivanov (1985), and Kavoukjian (1987). While none of these theories can be proved, it is possible that historians, enamoured of Classical authority, have given more weight to the evidence of Herodotus than Is actually warranted and that a review of the more recent, albeit more nationalistic, theories are worth an objective examination.
In 387 A. D., the various peoples of Arc'ax and Utik', whether Armenians, Armenicized aborigines, or both, passed under Albanian rule, which, under these conditions, would have meant that to the various ethnic elements comprising the Albanians north of the Kur a number of others was added to the south. That these peoples were highly Armenicized and that many were actually Armenians per se cannot be doubted.
Thus, his earlier contention about the ancient population of Artsakh, Hewsen himself has partly refuted. A Quote from his earlier works with such partly refuted statments is objectionable. So is there any other proposal how we can write about the ancient population of Artsakh without that quote? --
Vacio (
talk) 17:27, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Certain words and theories are laden with political significance. Thus, the controversial linguistic theory of T. Gamkrelidze and V. Ivanov (1984), which sees the original Proto-Indo-European developing in direct association with the Proto-Kartvelian (West Caucasian) and ancient Semitic families of languages in an eastern Anatolian homeland, receives an extremely warm reception not on its linguistic merits, but on its locating Proto-Indo-European speakers in the historic Armenian heartland. Proto-Indo-European thus becomes a buzzword for Proto-Armenian. This questionable identification is transparent in tendentious interpretations of Bronze Age and later prehistoric materials from Transcaucasia, as exemplified by V.E. Oganesian's (1992) implausible ethnic interpretation of the fantastically suggestive iconography on a silver goblet recently excavated in the Karashamb cemetery north of Yerevan; or by G. E. Areshian's (1992:27) detailed and ingenious, albeit strained, attempt to weave together historical, mythological, and archaeological materials to demonstrate that "Armeno-Aryans" constituted "the population living in the basins of the Araxes and Kura from the end of the third millennium BC" and "continuously carried out rituals connected with Indo-European cosmogonic mythology."
Philip L. Kohl, Clare Fawcett. Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology (New Directions in Archaeology). ISBN: 0521558395
What the legend of Aran has to do with Artsakh? Artsakh is not even mentioned there. I think that it is off-topic and should be removed, otherwise we should explain that Aran was a legendary person, that did not exist in real life. I can understand the relevance of that story in the article about Albania, but there's no direct connection of Aran with Artsakh. Grand master 08:31, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
Meowy, I have tried to use primary sources as less as possible, therefore I have drawn this passage generally from the Armenian scholars Ghevond Alishan and Arakel Babakhanian, who based on the narratives of medieval Armenian historiographers, believe that Aran Sisakean was the ancestor of the princes of Artsakh, Gardman and Utik. Thus I have two authors who think that Aran was a real person. But I think whether he was a real or not real person is a POV which we better should avoid. Perhaps we may call him a "mythical figure" (Toumanoff styles him a "divine eponym") and permit our readers to have their own beliefs. I agree that the passage is partially off-topic, a good solution would be to make an article about Aran, that would save us from repeating the same stuff numerous times. --Vacio (talk) 08:07, 24 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vacio ( talk • contribs)
Аран — один из случаев персонификации Мовсесом Хоренаци названия местности.
Aran – one of the instances of personification of the name of a region by Movses Khorenatsi.