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Caucasian Albania
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- This region should not be confused with modern-day Albania in south-eastern Europe.
Caucasian Albania (Albanía ; Old Armenian: ???????, Aghuank, Parthian: Ardhan, in Persian: Arran , in Arabic: Al Ran ) was an ancient kingdom that existed on the territory of present-day Republic of Azerbaijan and southern Dagestan and came under strong Armenian religious and cultural influence.
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- This region should not be confused with modern-day Albania in south-eastern Europe.
Caucasian Albania (Albanía ; Old Armenian: ???????, Aghuank, Parthian: Ardhan, in Persian: Arran , in Arabic: Al Ran ) was an ancient kingdom that existed on the territory of present-day Republic of Azerbaijan and southern Dagestan and came under strong Armenian religious and cultural influence. The kingdom's long-term capital was Qabala. The name "Albania" is Greek and Latin, and denotes "mountainous land"; the native name for the country is unknown.
Ancient population of Caucasian Albania
Caucasian Albanians, not to be confused with Albanians of the Balkans, were one of the Northeast Caucasian peoples, the ancient population who ruled over the central and eastern Transcaucasia before the common era.
According to Strabo, the Albanians were a group of 26 tribes which lived to the north of the Kura river and each of them had its own king and language . Sometime before the 1st century BC they federated into one state and were ruled by one king .
Strabo wrote of the Caucasian Albanians in the first century BC:
According to the historian Robert H. Hewsen, the Albanian tribes "must have been largely of autochthonous Caucasian origin, but we cannot be certain that this was true of all twenty-six of them. Thus, properly speaking, there was no Albanian people per se but only a federation of Caucasian tribes among whom the Albanians were possibly only one, paramount, tribe which had organized the federation to begin with."
The original population of the territories on the right bank of Kura also consisted of various autochthonous people. Ancient chronicles provide the names of some tribes that populated Caucasian Albania, including the regions of Artsakh and Utik. These were Utians, Mycians, Caspians, Gargarians, Sakasenians, Gelians, Sodians, Lupenians, Balas[ak]anians, Parsians and Parrasians. According to Robert H. Hewsen, 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".
The Mannaeans maintained one of the earliest states recorded as being established in the area as far as the Kura from ca. 800 BC, and they were rivals of Urartu and Assyria, but later fell under the rule of Urartu until their destruction and eventual assimilation by the Medes under Cyaxares in 616 BC. In ancient times, they were mixed with the Persian people who settled in the area during the Achaemenid, Parthian and Sassanid periods.
Historians believe that after the Caucasian Albanians were Christianized in the 4th century, the western parts of the population were gradually assimilated by the ancestors of modern Armenians, and the eastern parts of Caucasian Albanians were absorbed and Islamized by the Turkic peoples.
It is believed that during the ancient and medieval eras parts of the population of Caucasian Albanian were assimilated and might have played a role in the ethnogenesis of the Azerbaijanis, the Armenians of the Nagorno-Karabakh, the Georgians of Kakhetia, the Laks, the Lezgins and the Tsakhurs of Daghestan.
Geography
The ancient Caucasian Albania lay on the south-eastern part of the Greater Caucasus mountains. It was bounded by Caucasian Iberia (present-day Georgia) to the west, by Sarmatians of the Caucasus to the north, by the Caspian Sea to the east, and by Armenia to the west along the river Kura .
According to 7th century Armenian Geography, attributed to Movses Khorenatsi or Anania Shirakatsi, Caucasian Albania was a land with fertile valleys, cities, fortresses, villages and numerous rivers . The districts of Albania were the following :
- Kambysene
- Getaru
- Elni / Xeni
- Begh
- Shake
- Xolmaz
- Kapalak
- Hambasi
- Gelavu
- Hejeri
- Kaladasht
Strabo had no knowledge of any city in Albania, although in the first century AD Pliny mentions the initial capital of the kingdom - Kabalak .
Classical sources are unanimous in making the Kura River (Cyros) the frontier between Armenia and Albania . The original territory of Albania was approximately 23.000 km² . However, late in the 4th century, after the partition of Armenia between Byzantium and Persia, the Albanians (with Persian connivance) acquired the Armenian lands in the south of Kura, in particular the principalities of Artsakh and Utik, together with their 20 cantons (Gardman, Shakashen, Koght a.o.) .
After 387 the territory of the latter, sometimes referred to by scholars as "Greater Albania" , grew to ca. 45.000 km² . In the fifth century the capital was transfered to Partav in Utik, reported to have been built in the mid-fifth century by the King Vache II of Albania , but according to Encyclopedia Iranica existed earlier as an Armenian city .
Early history
According to the Georgian Chronicle "Juansher's Concise History of the Georgians", Armenians, Georgians and Albanians had one father named Togarmah (Torgom), who was a descendant of Japheth, son of Noah. Torgom divided his land among his sons, and gave to one of them, by the name of Bartos, the "territory from the Berdahoj river to the region of the Kur river to the sea where the conjoined Erasx (Aras) and Kur rivers enter it". According to this legend, Bartos built the city Partaw in his own name.
According to ancient historians, Arran was the legendary eponym of the Albanians. Movses Khorenatsi, the father of Armenian history, mentions that the plains of Caucasian Albania and the adjacent mountainous region from the river Yeraskh (Araks) up to the castle of Hnarakert on the river Kura, were inhabited by a race from the tribe of Sisak. One of his descendants, a man named Arran, was appointed a military governor by Vagharshak, the Parthian king of Armenia.. Moses of Kalankatuyk explained the name Aghvank as a derivation from the word Aghu (Armenian for sweet, soft, tender), which was the nickname of Caucasian Albania's first governor Arran and referred to his lenient personality. . From his offspring descended the families of Utik, Gardman, and Gargar. Sisak is thought to have been only an eponym and the legendary forefather of the princes of Syunik.
As opposed to neighboring Armenians and Georgians, Caucasian Albanians took a long time to establish a kingdom, which was founded in the second century BC. Albanians are mentioned for the first time in 331 BC at the Battle of Gaugamela as participants from the satrapy of Media.
Strabo, Ptolemy and Pliny all write that at this time, the border between Albania and the Kingdom of Greater Armenia was the river Kura. At the same time Strabo writes that the river of Kura flows through Albania. However the frontier along the Kura was repeatedly overrun, to the advantage sometimes of the Albanians, sometimes of the Armenians. In 66 BC, following the defeat of the Armenian king Tigranes II at the hand of the Romans, the Armenian empire lost most of its western territory. According to the seventh-century historian Moses of Kalankatuyk, author of History of Aghvank, at this time, the southern border of Caucasian Albania was along the Araks river.
In 65 BC, the Roman general Pompey invaded Albania. When fording the Alazan river, he was attacked by forces of Oroezes, King of Albania, and eventually defeated them. According to Plutarch, Albanians "were led by a brother of the king, named Cosis, who as soon as the fighting was at close quarters, rushed upon Pompey himself and smote him with a javelin on the fold of his breastplate; but Pompey ran him through the body and killed him".
Plutarch also reported that "after the battle, Pompey set out to march to the Caspian Sea, but was turned back by a multitude of deadly reptiles when he was only three days march distant, and withdrew into Lesser Armenia".
Between 83 and 93 AD, in the reign of the Roman Emperor Domitian a detachment of the Legio XII Fulminata was sent to the Caucasus to support the allied kingdoms of Iberia and Albania in a war against Parthia. An inscription found in Gobustan (69 km south of Baku) attests to the presence of a Roman garrison in that area. During the reign of Roman emperor Hadrian (117-138) Albania was invaded by the Alans, an Iranian nomadic group.
The Sasanian domination
In 252-253 AD Caucasian Albania along with Iberia and Armenia was conquered by the Sassanid Empire. Albania was mentioned among the Sasanian provinces listed in the trilingual inscription of Shapur I at Naqsh-e Rustam.
In the middle of the fourth century the king of Albania Urnayr arrived in Armenia and was baptized by Gregory the Illuminator, but Christianity spread in Albania only gradually, and the Albanian king remained loyal to the Sassanids. After the partition of Armenia between Byzantium and Persia (in 387 AD), Albania, as an ally of Sassanid Persia, regained all the right bank of the river Kura up to river Araxes, including Artsakh and Utik.
Sasanian king Yazdegerd II passed an edict requiring all the Christians in his empire to convert to Mazdaism, fearing that Christians might ally with Roman Empire, which had recently adopted Christianity. This led to a rebellion of Albanians, along with Armenians and Iberians. In a battle that took place in 451 AD in the Avarayr field, the allied forces of the Armenian, Albanian and Iberian kings, devoted to Christianity, suffered defeat at the hands of the Sassanid army. Many of the Armenian nobility fled to the mountainous regions of Albania, particularly to Artsakh, which became a center for resistance to Sassanid Persia. The religious center of the Albanian state also moved here. However, the Albanian king Vache, a relative of Yazdegerd II, was forced to convert to the official religion of the Sasanian empire, but soon reverted back to Christianity.
In the middle of the fifth century by the order of the Persian king Peroz I Vache built in Utik the city initially called Perozabad, and later Partaw and Barda, and made it the capital of Albania. Partaw was the seat of the Albanian kings and Persian marzban, and in 552 A.D. the seat of the Albanian Catholicos was also transferred to Partaw.
After the death of Vache, Albania remained without a king for thirty years. The Sasanian Balash reestablished the Albanian monarchy by making Vachagan, son of Yazdegerd and brother of the previous king Vache, the king of Albania.
By the end of the fifth century, the ancient Arsacid royal house of Albania, a branch of the ruling dynasty of Parthia, became extinct, and in the sixth century it was replaced by princes of the Persian or Parthian Mihranid family, who claimed descent from the Sasanians. They assumed a Persian title of Arranshah (i.e.the shah of Arran, the Persian name of Albania). The ruling dynasty was named after its Persian founder Mihran, who was a distant relative of the Sasanians. The Mihranid dynasty survived under Muslim suzerainty until 821-2.
In the late sixth – early seventh centuries the territory of Albania became an arena of wars between Sasanian Persia, Byzantium and the Khazar kaganate, the latter two very often acting as allies. In 628, during the Third Perso-Turkic War, the Khazars invaded Albania, and their leader Ziebel declared himself lord of Albania, levying a tax on merchants and the fishermen of the Kura and Araxes rivers "in accordance with the land survey of the kingdom of Persia". Most of Transcaucasia was under Khazar rule before the arrival of the Arabs. The Albanian kings retained their rule by paying tribute to the regional powers. According to Peter Golden, "steady pressure from Turkic nomads was typical of the Khazar era, although there are no unambiguous references to permanent settlements", while Vladimir Minorsky stated that, in Islamic times, "the town of Qabala lying between Sharvan and Shakki was a place where Khazars were probably settled".
Arab and Seljuk domination
In the middle of the seventh century, the kingdom was overrun by the Arabs and, like all Islamic conquests at the time, incorporated into the Caliphate. The Albanian king Javanshir, the most prominent ruler of Mihranid dynasty, fought against the Arab invasion of caliph Uthman on the side of the Sasanid Iran. Facing the threat of the Arab invasion on the south and the Khazar offensive on the north, Javanshir had to recognize the Caliph’s suzerainty. The Arabs then reunited the territory with Armenia under one governor.
By the eighth century, Caucasian Albania had been reduced to a strictly geographical and ecclesiastical connotation, and referred to as such by medieval Armenian historians; it existed as a number principalities, such as that of Khachen, along with various Caucasian, Iranian and Arabic principalities: the principality of Shaddadids, the principality of Shirvan, the principality of Derbent, and so on Most of the region was ruled by the Sajid Dynasty of Azerbaijan from 890 to 929.
The Arab invasion on the one hand, and the penetration of Seljuk Turks into the region on the other hand, resulted in many Caucasian Albanians converting to Islam and mixing with the Turkic population. Eventually these groups were absorbed by Azeris, while those that remained Christian were either assimilated into Armenians, or continued to exist on their own and be known as Udi people.
Religion
The ancient pagan religion of Albania was centered on the worship of three divinities, designated by Interpretatio Romana as Sol, Zeus, and Luna.
Christianity started to enter Caucasian Albania at an early date - according to Movses Kaghankatvatsi, in the 1st century A.D. the first Christian church in the region was built by St. Eliseus, a disciple of Thaddeus of Edessa, at a place called Gis (believed to be the modern-day Kish).
In 498 AD (in other sources, 488 AD) in the settlement named Aluen (Aghuen) (present day Agdam region of Azerbaijan), an Albanian church council convened to adopt laws further strengthening the position of Christianity in Albania.
Albanian churchmen took part in missionary efforts in the Caucasus and Pontic regions. In 682, the catholicos, Israel, led an unsuccessful delegation to convert Alp Iluetuer, the ruler of the North Caucasian Huns, to Christianity. The Albanian Church maintained a number of monasteries in the Holy Land.
Alphabet and language
According to Movses Kaghankatvatzi, the Caucasian Albanian alphabet was devised by Mesrob Mashdots, an Armenian monk, theologian and linguist and inventor of the Armenian alphabet. A disciple of Saint Mesrob, Koriun, in The Life of Mashtots, wrote:
However, this claim is not confirmed by non-Armenian sources. The alphabet of fifty-two letters, some bearing a resemblance to Armenian or Georgian characters, has only survived through a few manuscripts and inscriptions. It was rediscovered in 1937 by a Georgian scholar, Professor Ilia Abuladze, in an Armenian manuscript from the 15th century. The manuscript, Matenadaran No. 7117, is a language manual, presenting different alphabets for comparison - Armenian, Greek, Latin, Syrian, Georgian, Coptic, and Caucasian Albanian among them. The alphabet was titled: "Aluanic girn e" (meaning, "Albanian letters").
The distinctive Caucasian Albanian language persisted into early Islamic times, and Muslim geographers Al-Muqaddasi, Ibn-Hawqal and Al-Istakhri recorded that the language which they called Arranian was still spoken in the capital Barda and the rest of the country in the 10th century C.E. The Udi language, spoken by 8000 people mostly in Azerbaijan, and also Georgia, is thought to be the last remnant of the language once spoken in Caucasian Albania.
See also
Footnotes
External links
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