Gevorg S. Stepanyan
Literary, lithographic and documentary sources witness that the Armenian population had been living in Eastern Ciscacausus since antiquity and that that territory was considered to be within the sphere of the influence of Armenian civilization. With the efforts of the Caucasian Tatars, heirs of the Turk-Oghuz, and the Turkish army who came to their aid, contemporary historians of the Azerbaijani state, which had been created only in 1918, over the last several decades, when reflecting upon the history of the left bank of the Kur River of “Bun Aghvank” and Shirvan, have “created” the ancient and medieval history, which has nothing to do with reality; a fable of an Aghvan-Azerbaijani-Turkish heritage.
Azerbaijani historiography has thoroughly distorted the roots of the ethnic formation of its own people – with the “excuse” of finding “Azerbaijanis,” “Azerbaijani tribes,” or the “Azerbaijani race” they have appropriated the ethnic-cultural and political history of the Eastern Cisscaucasus peoples – the Armenians, the Lezgis, the Tatars and others.
The objective of this artificial notion, is to appropriate the created spiritual and material culture of the indigenous people of the territory and by doing so present themselves as an ancient people.