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Many maps, where the territory of Azerbaijan stretches from Ekbatan, Hamadan, on the south to Derbent on the north, were published, among other stuff, in order to back the falsifications in the Azerbaijani historiography, famous cartographer Rouben Galichian writes in his book Historical and Geographical Falsifications of Azerbaijan, a historical, cultural and cartographical research based on a detailed analysis backed by documentary evidence.

Galichian analyses maps from Historical Maps of Azerbaijan, an atlas published in Baku in 1994. The maps were copied in this atlas from the collection Historical Geography of Azerbaijan (1987) edited by Buniatov, an Azerbaijani historian who has repeatedly been accused of falsifications of historical sources.

“Buniatov played a key role in setting the ground for conducting the anti-Armenian propaganda. He was the one initiating the cartographic works,” Galichian writes.

He notes that the name ‘Armenia’ is not mentioned in any of the maps in that line, which covers the period from 2000 BC to the 20th century.

According to Galichian, the territory of the Republic of Armenia and the Persian province Atrpatakan (Atropatene) are presented as the territories of the country preceding the Azerbaijani Republic in the Historical Maps of Azerbaijan. This pursues the aim to create an ‘ancient and historical past’ for Azerbaijan. The author cites Rumyantsev, a researcher who said, “Greater Armenia inalterably existed for centuries. The name ‘Greater Azerbaijan’ has come into use since the 1990s to liken to it. The term gradually went into the textbooks.”

According to the atlas, in the 9th and 10th centuries, Azerbaijan encompassed the territory of the modern Republic of Armenia, too. “Despite the maps being called Azerbaijan from 9th to 10th centuries, the name ‘Azerbaijan’ is not mentioned among the map toponyms because that country did not exist yet, while Armenia, which existed in that period, is not mentioned on purpose,” Galichian points out.

“The history and cartography falsifications begin from the school textbooks in Azerbaijan dimming the children’s consciousness and rooting an invented history in it,” the author writes.

He notes an excerpt from an Azerbaijani school textbook for the 6th grade cited by Rumyantsev who thoroughly studied the educational literature of Azerbaijan. “My Azerbaijan has been a big and powerful country since the ancient times to the present days… Derbent fortress, which our ancestors called ‘Iron Gates,’ is a part of our Homeland. Our homeland stretches from Derbent to the Caspian, to Qazvin and Hamadan. Shirak, ancient Borchali, Dilijan, Sevan, Yerevan, Nakhijevan – situated on the west – are all the inseparable part of our Homeland.”

To be continued.
Born in Tabriz, Rouben Galichian is a descendant of refugees from Van who survived the Genocide. He received scholarship and studied engineering at Aston University, Birmingham (UK).  Since in 1981, he started to study the rich cartographical heritage in the libraries of the UK and other European countries. His first research, Historic Maps of Armenia (in English), was published in 2004. It was a collection of maps from various libraries and museums in the world, where Armenia was noted, beginning from the 6th century to the present times. His second book, Armenia in World Cartography, was published in Yerevan in 2005. The research ‘Countries South of the Caucasus in Medieval Maps. Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan’ (in English and Armenian) was published in 2007. The book The Invention of History (in English) was published in 2009.
In his book Historical and Geographical Falsifications of Azerbaijan, published in 2013, the author details the reasons, aims and methodology of the falsification of the history of Azerbaijan and the countries of the region.