The Persian Heritage in Armenia… part 2
I write today to expose the Azeri lies about Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. This is a sample of false information they wrote on the Information and Communication Technologies Center website. See the resources.
First, we should differentiate between the Urartian civilization and the Sassanid civilization as there is nothing called Urartian Sassanid. They are as far as the east and the west. According to the Britannica encyclopedia, the Urartu Kingdom is an ancient country of southwest Asia, centred in the mountainous region southeast of the Black Sea and southwest of the Caspian Sea. Today, the region is divided among Armenia, eastern Turkey, and northwestern Iran. Mentioned in Assyrian sources from the early 13th century BCE, Urartu enjoyed considerable political power in the Middle East in the 9th and 8th centuries BCE.
The Urartians were succeeded in the area in the 6th century BCE by the Armenians. “Urartu” is an Assyrian name. The Urartians themselves called their country Biainili, and their capital, located in modern Van, Tushpa (Turushpa). The majority of Urartian settlement remains can be found between four lakes: Çildir and Van in Turkey, Urmia in Iran, and Sevan in Armenia, with a sparse extension westward to the Euphrates River.
The Sasanian or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries CE. Named after the House of Sasan, it endured for over four centuries, from 224 to 651 CE, making it the longest-lived Persian imperial dynasty.
The Sasanian Empire succeeded the Parthian Empire and re-established the Persians as a major power in late antiquity alongside their neighbouring arch-rival, the Roman Empire (after 395, the Byzantine Empire).
The empire was founded by Ardashir I, an Iranian ruler who rose to power as Parthia weakened from internal strife and wars with the Romans. After defeating the last Parthian shahanshah, Artabanus IV, at the Battle of Hormozdgan in 224, he established the Sasanian dynasty. He set out to restore the legacy of the Achaemenid Empire by expanding Iran’s dominions. At its greatest territorial extent, the Sasanian Empire encompassed all of present-day Iran and Iraq and stretched from the eastern Mediterranean (including Anatolia and Egypt) to parts of modern-day Pakistan, as well as from parts of southern Arabia to the Caucasus and Central Asia. According to legend, the vexilloid (flag-like object) of the Sasanian Empire was the Derafsh Kaviani.
* Some information about Azeri deceptive writings
-As we mentioned, “The Urartians were succeeded in the area in the 6th century BCE by the Armenians.” This means that Armenians lived in Armenia for a long time before 1918 and before the collapse of the Soviet empire.
— Urartu is a geographical region and an Iron Age kingdom, also known as the Kingdom of Van, centred around Lake Van in the historic Armenian Highlands. This means that Armenians were there before the Azeris, according to what is written on the Azeri website. “In medieval written sources, the name of the city where Azerbaijani Turks had been the only inhabitants since ancient times, is mentioned as Ravan, Iravan, or Irivan.”
— It isn’t true that Armenian historians are trying to bind the name of the city (now being called Yerevan) with the name of Erebuni Fortress (Irpuni) built during the ruling period of Urartu Argistinin Tsar I (782 BC). As elements of the Urartian language blended with that of the Armenian one, the name eventually evolved into Yerevan (Erebuni = Erevani = Erevan = Yerevan). Also, one theory regarding the origin of Yerevan’s name is the city was named after the Armenian king, Yervand (Orontes) IV, the last ruler of Armenia from the Orontid dynasty, and founder of the city of Yervandashat.
— Additionally, as indicated by the cuneiform inscription, it shows that the Urartian military fortress of Erebuni was founded in 782 BCE by the orders of King Argishti I at the site of modern-day Yerevan, to serve as a fort and citadel guarding against attacks from the north Caucasus. During the height of the Urartian power, irrigation canals and artificial reservoirs were built in Erebuni and its surrounding territories.
— The cuneiform inscription found at Erebuni Fortress reads:
By the greatness of the God Khaldi, Argishti, son of Menua, built this mighty stronghold and proclaimed it Erebuni for the glory of Biainili [Urartu] and to instil fear among the king’s enemies. Argishti says, “The land was a desert, before the great works I accomplished upon it. By the greatness of Khaldi, Argishti, son of Menua, is a mighty king, king of Biainili, and ruler of Tushpa.”[Van].
Info about Turkic Khanates
— The Turkic were the largest group in the khanate, but they were composed of three branches; settled, semi-settled, and nomadic. Like the Persian ruling elite, a number of them perished in the 1826–1828 war against the Russians. The principal settled Turkic groups in the khanate were the Bayat, Kangarlu, Ayrumlu, Ak Koyunlu, Qara Qoyunlu, and Qajars, as well as the “Turkified Qazzaqs” (i.e., Karapapakh). Many of the Turkic groups, numbering some 35,000, were some sort of nomads. The Karapapakh and the Ayrumlu were the largest Turkic nomad groups; most of them were resettled in Azerbaijan (historic Azerbaijan, also known as Iranian Azerbaijan) with the help of Abbas Mirza, after 1828.
Who is Abbas Mirza?
According to the Britannica Encyclopedia, Abbas Mirza was born on August 26, 1789, in Nava, Mazandaran. He was the younger son of Fath Ali Shah, but on account of his mother’s royal birth, he was destined by his father to succeed him. Considered the favourite son of his father, he was named governor (beglarbeg) of the Azerbaijan region of Persia, in approximately 1798, when he was 10 years old.
He developed a reputation as a military commander during the Russo-Persian War of 1804–1813 and the Russo-Persian War of 1826–1828, as well as during the Ottoman–Persian War of 1821–1823. He is also noted as an early modernizer of Persia’s armed forces and institutions, and for his death before his father, Fath Ali Shah.
Abbas Mirza Mosque / Sardar Mosque
Abbas Mirza Mosque (Persian: مسجد عباس میرزا) was a nineteenth-century Shia mosque in Yerevan, Armenia. This mosque was built at the beginning of the nineteenth century, during the reign of the last khan (governor) of the Erivan Khanate, Huseyn Khan. It was named Abbas Mirza Jami, after the Qajar crown prince Abbas Mirza, the son of Fat′h-Ali Shah. After the capture of Erivan by the Russians, the mosque was used as an arsenal. The mosque was turned into barracks after it was conquered by Russian troops. During the Soviet era, the mosque, along with Christian buildings, was derelict, and currently, only the frame of the mosque has been preserved.
Resources:
1- https://www.virtualkarabakh.az/.../historic-architectural...
2- https://www.virtualkarabakh.az/.../irevan-ancient...
3- https://www.britannica.com/place/Urartu
4- https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sasanian-dynasty
5- 5https://everything.explained.today/Sasanian_Empire/
6- https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/erevan-1
7- The Khanate of Yerevan Under Qajar Rule, 1795–1828 by Bournoutian, George A.
