Caucasian Albania: Difference between revisions
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== The Sasanian domination == |
== The Sasanian domination == |
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{{main|Albania (satrapy)}} |
{{main|Albania (satrapy)}} |
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In 252-253 AD Caucasian Albania along with [[Iberia]] |
In 252-253 AD Caucasian Albania along with [[Iberia]] became a [[vassal state]] of [[Sassanid Empire]].<ref>James Stuart Olson. An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires. ISBN 0313274975</ref> Albania remained under the dominion of Sasanian empire, but still retained its monarchy. The Albanian king was one of the chief vassals of Sasanian [[Shahanshah]] and the Sassanid [[marzban]] (military governor) held most civil, religious, and military authority.<ref name="Iranica">[http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/v1f8/v1f8a022.html Encyclopaedia Iranica]</ref> |
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In the middle of the 4th 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.<ref name="Iranic"/> |
In the middle of the 4th 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.<ref name="Iranic"/> |
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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 rebellion of Albanians, along with Armenians and Iberians. However, the Albanian king Vache, a relative of Yazdegerd II, converted to the official religion of the Sasanian empire, but quickly reverted back to Christianity. |
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 rebellion of Albanians, along with Armenians and Iberians. However, the Albanian king Vache, a relative of Yazdegerd II, converted to the official religion of the Sasanian empire, but quickly reverted back to Christianity. |
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In the middle of the 5th century by the order of the Persian king [[Peroz I]] Vache built in Utik the city initially called Perozabad, and later Partaw and [[Barda, Azerbaijan|Barda]], and made it the capital of Albania.<ref>[http://www.vostlit.info/Texts/rus5/Kalank/text11.phtml?id=618 Movses Kalankatuatsi. History of Albania. Book 1, Chapter XV]</ref> |
In the middle of the 5th century by the order of the Persian king [[Peroz I]] Vache built in Utik the city initially called Perozabad, and later Partaw and [[Barda, Azerbaijan|Barda]], and made it the capital of Albania.<ref>[http://www.vostlit.info/Texts/rus5/Kalank/text11.phtml?id=618 Movses Kalankatuatsi. History of Albania. Book 1, Chapter XV]</ref> Partaw was the seat of the Albanian kings and Persian marzban, and the seat of the Albanian Catholicos was also transferred to Partaw.<ref>[http://www.vostlit.info/Texts/rus5/Kalank/text21.phtml?id=620 Movses Kalankatuatsi. History of Albania. Book 2, Chapter VI]</ref><ref name="Iranica"/> |
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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. |
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. |
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By the end of the 5th century, the ancient ruling dynasty of Albania was replaced by princes of the Persian or [[Parthia]]n [[Mihranids|Mihranid]] family, who claimed descent from the Sasanians. They assumed a Persian title of [[Arranshahs]] (i.e. [[shah]]s of Arran, Persian name of Albania).<ref>[http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/v2f5/v2f5a010.html Encyclopedia Iranica. C. E. Bosworth. Arran]</ref> The ruling dynasty was named after its Persian founder Mihran, who was a distant relative of the Sasanians.<ref>[http://www.vostlit.info/Texts/rus5/Kalank/text21.phtml?id=620 Moses Kalankatuatsi. History of country of Aluank. Chapter XVII. About the tribe of Mihran, hailing from the family of Khosrow the Sasanian, who became the ruler of the country of Aluank]</ref> Mihranid dynasty survived under Muslim suzerainty until 821-2.<ref>The Cambridge history of Iran. 1991. ISBN 0521200938</ref> |
By the end of the 5th century, the ancient ruling dynasty of Albania was replaced by princes of the Persian or [[Parthia]]n [[Mihranids|Mihranid]] family, who claimed descent from the Sasanians. They assumed a Persian title of [[Arranshahs]] (i.e. [[shah]]s of Arran, Persian name of Albania).<ref>[http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/v2f5/v2f5a010.html Encyclopedia Iranica. C. E. Bosworth. Arran]</ref> The ruling dynasty was named after its Persian founder Mihran, who was a distant relative of the Sasanians.<ref>[http://www.vostlit.info/Texts/rus5/Kalank/text21.phtml?id=620 Moses Kalankatuatsi. History of country of Aluank. Chapter XVII. About the tribe of Mihran, hailing from the family of Khosrow the Sasanian, who became the ruler of the country of Aluank]</ref> Mihranid dynasty survived under Muslim suzerainty until 821-2.<ref>The Cambridge history of Iran. 1991. ISBN 0521200938</ref> |
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In the late 6th – early 7th centuries AD the territory of Albania became an arena of wars between Sasanian Persia, [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantium]] and [[Khazar]] kaganate, the latter two very often acting as allies. In 628 Khazars invaded Albania, and their leader Shath declared himself lord of Albania, levying a tax on merchants and the fishermen of the Kura and Araxes rivers |
In the late 6th – early 7th centuries AD the territory of Albania became an arena of wars between Sasanian Persia, [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantium]] and [[Khazar]] kaganate, the latter two very often acting as allies. In 628 Khazars invaded Albania, and their leader Shath declared himself lord of Albania, levying a tax on merchants and the fishermen of the Kura and Araxes rivers "in accordance with the landsurvey of the kingdom of Persia". The Albanian kings retained their rule by paying tribute to the regional powers. Khazars settled in some parts of the Albanian kingdom, such as Shaki, although the Turkic presence did not significantly alter the ethnic make-up of the region.<ref>''An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples'' by Peter B. Golden. Otto Harrasowitz (1992), ISBN 3-447-03274-X (retrieved [[8 June]] [[2006]]), p. 385–386.</ref> |
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== Arab and Seljuk domination == |
== Arab and Seljuk domination == |
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Revision as of 05:49, 4 June 2007
Caucasian Albania, also known as Arran in Persian, was an ancient kingdom that covered what is now southern Dagestan and most of present-day Azerbaijan. The name "Albania" is Latin and denotes "mountainous land".[1]
Ancient population of Albania
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The history of Caucasian Albanians has been described as a "Curious mixture, of history, legend, epic, meteorology, and descriptions of manners and customs. [2]
Aran was a legendary ancestor and the eponym of the Albanians (Aghvan). Caucasian Albania were one of the Ibero-Caucasian peoples, the ancient and indigenous population of modern southern Dagestan and Azerbaijan. The Mannaeans had 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 heavily mixed with the Persian people who settled in the area during the Achaemenid, Parthian and Sassanid periods.
Ancient tribes of the Caucasian Albania were: Abaris (Iberis) or Avars, Savir or Sabirs, Hers, Gargars, Gels, Caspians, Uties, Saks, and Sodes, who along with other tribes, constituted the Albanian tribal union.[citation needed] According to Strabo (Geography 11.14, 1st BC), the number of the Albanian tribes reached 26, and each of them spoke a different language.
Origin and regions
The kingdom of Caucasian Albania (Aghbania, Aghvania) was founded in the late 4th - early 3rd century BC. Albanians are mentioned for the first time in 331 BC at the Battle of Gaugamela as participants from the satrapy of Media.[3] Strabo had no knowledge of any city in Albania, although in the 1st century AD Pliny[3] mentions the initial capital of the kingdom which was pronounced in many different ways including Kabalaka, Shabala, Tabala, and present-day Qabala. Later the capital moved to the south to Partaw (present-day Barda).
Early history
Parts of Caucasian Albania, including Utik on the right bank of the Kura river were conquered by the Armenians, in the 2nd century B.C.[4]
Strabo, Ptolemy and Pliny all write that at this time, the border between Albania and the Kingdom of Greater Armenia was through 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. [3] 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 territory. At this time, the Albanians regained control over their right bank territories conquered by Armenians.[3] According to the 7th c. historian Moses of Kalankatuyk, author of "History of Aghvank", at this time, the southern border of Caucasian Albania was along the Araks river.[5] Thus, referring to the events in the beginning of 2nd c. BC, he mentions that "… as leader of [savage tribes to the north], by [Armenian king] Vagharshak's order, was appointed someone from the family of Sisakan, one of the descendants of Yafet, named Aran, who inherited the plains and mountains of the country of Aghvank beginning from the river Yeraskh (Araks) up to the castle of Hnarakert (on river Kura)," after whom "this country was called Aghvank" (I.4). Medieval historian Moses of Kalankatuyk explained the name Alvank as a derivation from the word Alu which was the nickname of Caucasian Albania's first king Aran and referred to his lenient personality.[6] The Armenian historian Moses of Chorene, who is considered in Armenian historiography "the father of Armenian history", also confirmed that the Sisakan family inherited the area "from the river Yeraskh (Araks) up to the castle called Hnarakert," and the region was named Aghvank after them in the early 2nd century BC (History of Armenia, II.8).
Little is known about the history of Caucasian Albania during the 1st century BC till the 4th century AD. During this time, part of Albania was conquered again by the Armenian kings, and they alternated control over the territory on the right bank of Kura (Artsakh and Uti provinces) several times until 387, when the Armenian kingdom was partitioned between the Persians and Romans.
In 65 B.C. the Roman general Pompey invaded Albania at the head of his army. 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".[7]
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".[8]
Between 83 and 93 A.D. in the reign of 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, and Iranian nomadic group.[9]
The Sasanian domination
In 252-253 AD Caucasian Albania along with Iberia became a vassal state of Sassanid Empire.[10] Albania remained under the dominion of Sasanian empire, but still retained its monarchy. The Albanian king was one of the chief vassals of Sasanian Shahanshah and the Sassanid marzban (military governor) held most civil, religious, and military authority.[11]
In the middle of the 4th 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.[3]
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 rebellion of Albanians, along with Armenians and Iberians. However, the Albanian king Vache, a relative of Yazdegerd II, converted to the official religion of the Sasanian empire, but quickly reverted back to Christianity.
In the middle of the 5th 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.[12] Partaw was the seat of the Albanian kings and Persian marzban, and the seat of the Albanian Catholicos was also transferred to Partaw.[13][11]
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 5th century, the ancient ruling dynasty of Albania was replaced by princes of the Persian or Parthian Mihranid family, who claimed descent from the Sasanians. They assumed a Persian title of Arranshahs (i.e. shahs of Arran, Persian name of Albania).[14] The ruling dynasty was named after its Persian founder Mihran, who was a distant relative of the Sasanians.[15] Mihranid dynasty survived under Muslim suzerainty until 821-2.[16]
In the late 6th – early 7th centuries AD the territory of Albania became an arena of wars between Sasanian Persia, Byzantium and Khazar kaganate, the latter two very often acting as allies. In 628 Khazars invaded Albania, and their leader Shath declared himself lord of Albania, levying a tax on merchants and the fishermen of the Kura and Araxes rivers "in accordance with the landsurvey of the kingdom of Persia". The Albanian kings retained their rule by paying tribute to the regional powers. Khazars settled in some parts of the Albanian kingdom, such as Shaki, although the Turkic presence did not significantly alter the ethnic make-up of the region.[17]
Arab and Seljuk domination
In the middle of the 7th century AD, 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.[11]
From the 8th century, Caucasian Albania existed as the principalities of Arranshahs and Khachin, along with various Caucasian, Iranian and Arabic principalities: the Principality of Shaddadids, the Principality of Shirvan, the Principality of Derbent, etc. Most of the region was ruled by the Sajid Dynasty of Azerbaijan from 890 to 929.
As a result of the expansion of Seljuks (Turks) into the territory of modern Azerbaijan in the 11th century, the indigenous Albanian population were assimilated. Albanians played a significant role in the ethnogenesis of today's Azeris.
Christianization
Caucasian Albania was one of the first countries where Christianity was adopted from the 4th century, when the Armenian Church was formed.
In the 4th-5th centuries Christianity became established in Albania, and this led to a rapprochement with Byzantium, and a corresponding cooling-down in the relationship between Albania and Sassanid Persia. 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 Albanian nobility ran to the mountainous regions of Aghbania, particularly to Artsakh, that became a center for resistance to Sassanid Iran. The religious center of the Albanian state also moved here. In 498 AD (in other sources, 488 AD) in the settlement named Aluen (Aguen) (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.
Alphabet and language
According to Movses Kaghankatvatzi, the Albanian alphabet was invented by Mesrob Mashdots, an Armenian monk, theologian and linguist (see Moses Kalankaytuk, The History of Aluank, I, 27 and III, 24).
Another Armenian historian, Koriun, in his book "The Life of Mashtots", wrote: "Then there came and visited them an elderly man, an Albanian named Benjamin. And he [Mesrop] inquired and examined the barbaric diction of the Albanian language, and then through his usual God-given keenness of mind invented an alphabet, which he, through the grace of Christ, successfully organized and put in order." (see Koriun, Ch. 16).
The Albanian alphabet was rediscovered by a Georgian scholar, Professor Ilia Abuladze, in 1937. The alphabet was found in Matenadaran MS No. 7117, an Armenian-language manual of the 15th century. This manual presents different alphabets for comparison: Armenian, Greek, Latin, Syrian, Georgian, Coptic, and Albanian among them. The Albanian alphabet was titled: "Aluanic girn e" (Albanic letters). Abuladze made an assumption that this alphabet was based on Georgian letters.
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.[18]
Footnotes
- ^ James Stuart Olson. An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires. ISBN 0313274975
- ^ Robert H. Hewsen, "Movses Daskhurantsi and the Caucasian Albanians"
- ^ a b c d e Encyclopedia Iranica. M. L. Chaumont. Albania.
- ^ The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Nagorno-Karabakh
- ^ Russia and Azerbaijan: a borderland in transition - T Swietochowski
- ^ The History of Aluank by Moses of Kalankatuyk. Book I, chapter IV
- ^ Plutarch, The Parallel Lives. Pompey, 35
- ^ Plutarch, The Parallel Lives. Pompey, 36
- ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911
- ^ James Stuart Olson. An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires. ISBN 0313274975
- ^ a b c Encyclopaedia Iranica
- ^ Movses Kalankatuatsi. History of Albania. Book 1, Chapter XV
- ^ Movses Kalankatuatsi. History of Albania. Book 2, Chapter VI
- ^ Encyclopedia Iranica. C. E. Bosworth. Arran
- ^ Moses Kalankatuatsi. History of country of Aluank. Chapter XVII. About the tribe of Mihran, hailing from the family of Khosrow the Sasanian, who became the ruler of the country of Aluank
- ^ The Cambridge history of Iran. 1991. ISBN 0521200938
- ^ An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples by Peter B. Golden. Otto Harrasowitz (1992), ISBN 3-447-03274-X (retrieved 8 June 2006), p. 385–386.
- ^ Caucasian Albanian Script. The Significance of Decipherment by Dr. Zaza Alexidze.
For a specimen of the 'Caucasian Albanian Palimpsest' see Wolfgang Schulze http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/Cauc_alb.htm
See also
External links
- Encyclopedia Iranica. Albania, Ancient country in Caucasus, by M. Chaumont
- About the Caucasian Albania
- About the Caucasian Albania (section 10)
- Wolfgang Schulze (Munich): Caucasian Albanian
References
- Template:Ru icon Movses Kalankatuatsi. The History of Aluank. Translated from Old Armenian (Grabar) by Sh.V.Smbatian, Yerevan, 1984.
- Template:En icon Koriun, The Life of Mashtots, translated from Old Armenian (Grabar) by Bedros Norehad.
- Template:Ge icon Movses Kalankatuatsi. History of Albania. Translated by L. Davlianidze-Tatishvili, Tbilisi, 1985.
- Template:Ru icon Movses Khorenatsi. The History of Armenia. Translated from Old Armenian (Grabar) by Gagik Sargsyan, Yerevan, 1990.
- Template:En icon Ilia Abuladze. About the discovery of the alphabet of the Caucasian Albanians. - "Bulletin of the Institute of Language, History and Material Culture (ENIMK)", Vol. 4, Ch. I, Tbilisi, 1938.
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