Where does Aliyev's inspiration come from to develop, so to speak, plans for the restoration of "Western Azerbaijan"? "Hayatsk, Yerevan"

On March 21, 1828, the Armenian Marz was formed on the territory of the Russian Empire. The Russian authorities advised the Armenians to settle in the territories under their control, but first of all, in the Armenian region.

The formation of a separate administrative unit with a homogeneous ethnic composition was a bold step for an empire with a heterogeneous population. It is unlikely that the authorities of that time did not understand this. The consolidation of any ethnic minority has always been fraught with political complications.

That this ambiguous circumstance was well understood by Russia was evident from the way the borders of the Armenian region were determined.

It is known that the same colonel Lazarev proposed to bring the mainly Armenian-populated territories, Syunik and Karabakh, into the Armenian Marz, and even to create Armenian military units. But the idea caused serious resistance from various officials, in particular, the Russian ambassador to Persia, Griboyedov, who was closely related to these issues.

This approach was not accidental. And the fact that the most important circumstance is that the provinces of Syunik and Artsakh (which were part of the former Karabakh Khanate) with a majority of Armenian inhabitants were not included in the Armenian Marz. As time has shown, this trend of administrative demarcation of the Armenian-populated provinces of the Caucasus turned out to be very stable. These two provinces were not only administratively separated from the Armenian Marz, and later from the Yerevan Province, but were also administratively and economically dependent on the Muslims. Thus, at the very beginning of the annexation of Karabakh to Russia, the king handed over all the lands of the province to the artificially created class of Muslim beys in Shushi, and the administration was headed by the descendant of the deposed Shushva Khan.

Historians claim that the Armenians were not going to move from Georgia to the Armenian Marz, and the Russian authorities focused their efforts on the repatriation of the Armenians expelled by Shah Abbas in the 17th century. According to existing calculations, after 1828, about 57,000 Armenians moved from Persia to Erivan Province and Karabakh. At the same time, about 35,000 of the 87,000 Muslims, Tatars, Kurds and other representatives of nomadic tribes, who were settled in the Erivan Khanate, left those areas. After this mass migration, Armenians began to form the majority of the former Khanate population (65,000 Armenians and 50,000 Muslims, including 10,000 Kurds).

Already in 1838, after the influx of Armenians from Persia and the Ottoman Empire, they made up half of the province's 165,000 inhabitants. Armenians from other places in the Caucasus also moved here, but the main source of the growth of the Armenian population remained the constant flow of refugees from the Ottoman Empire.

But for now, it should be clear where the inspiration of today's president of Azerbaijan comes from to develop, so to speak, plans for the restoration of "Western Azerbaijan". Aliyev prefers to remain silent about when and where his ancestors came from and in whose abandoned houses they settled. And when the tsarist authorities banned the nomadic life of his immediate ancestors, the Caucasian Muslims, he should also know.

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