The Caucasian Albanians

The Caucasian Albanians were a group of indigenous Caucasian peoples, who lived in the ancient Kingdom of Albania (no relation to modern day Albania). Situated in the south-eastern Caucasus mountain range, it was bordered by Iberia (present day Georgia) to the north-west, Sarmatia to the north, the Caspian Sea to the east, the Armenian provinces of Artsakh and Utik to the south-west, and by the Arax river which borders Iran to the south.

According to first-century geographer, Strabo, the Albanians were a group of 26 tribes who lived to the north of the Kura river. He describes each one as having its own language and originally its own king but by the 1st century BC were united by a single ruler.

“[t]hey speak six and twenty languages from the want of mutual intercourse and communication with one another"¹

Sitting on the crossroads between East and West, the region was subject to frequent incursion, including Roman, Persian and Turkic and in 387 AD, following Perisan conquest, the region passed under the administrative control of Albania. There were several distinct ethnic groups living in the region at this time, including Mycians, Capians, Gargarians, Sakasenians, Parsians, Parrasians and Armenians, and although subject to Armenian influence, most were cited as distinct ethnic entities.²

In the fourth century the Kingdom of Albania, converted to Christianity. This was led by Saint Gregory the Illuminator³ shortly after Armenia’s conversion to Christianity in 301 AD. Grigoris, the grandson of St Gregory was appointed head of the Albanian Church around 330 AD.Grigoris was martyred in 338 AD and his body was brought back to Artsakh and buried in a church built by St Gregory the Illuminator⁴ in Amaras, in the Martuni region. The monastery of Amaras⁵ remains one of the most important shrines in Karabakh today.

The Albanian church, like that of the early Iberian Church, was canonically aligned with the Armenian Church⁶ and in 552 the seat of the Albanian Church was moved from Derbent to Partav, and the Albanian Catholicosate was established. The Patriarch of the Albanian Church was ordained by the Catholicos of Armenia and held the title “Catholicos of Aghuank” (Artsaskh and Utik).

Early in the 5th century, the Armenian monk, Mesrop Mashtots⁷, inventor of the Armenian Alphabet, created one for the Caucasian Albanians. Evidence of the script⁸ of the extinct Albanian language can be found in the Matenadaran, Mesrop Mashtots Museum of Ancient Manuscripts in Armenia. Armenian, however, remained the official state language and language of the Church.

The Persians ended the Caucasian Albanian monarchy in about 510, after which the country north of the river Kura was ruled by an oligarchy of local princes, led by the Persian Mihranid prince of Gardman.When the country was conquered by the Arabs in the 7th century, the last of the Gardman princes was assassinated and the part of Albania north of the Kura river disintegrated into a number of different principalities⁹. The Arabs introduced Islam to the region, however, the area south of the river Kura, including Artsakh and Utik remained predominantly Armenian Christian.

The term “Albania” was used to refer to the new administrative entity south of the Kura. Known as “New Albania” it was distinguished from Albania proper north of the Kura. The “New” Albanian Christian culture flourished after the Albanian capital was transferred in the 5th century, from Kabala north of the Kura river, to Partav (now Barda) in Utik, south of the river. From the 11th to 13th centuries, more than 40 monasteries and major religious centres were built in Karabakh through the patronage and efforts of the “Armenian Princes of Artsakh”. “By the 15th century, the monastery of Gandzasar¹⁰ became the seat of the Catholicos of the Albanian Church. The existence of a separate Catholicosate in Karabakh, with its own autonomous religious institutions, underlines the importance of the region as a cultural and religious centre."¹¹

Most of the Albanian tribes were absorbed by the Turkic tribes who invaded the region in waves beginning in the 11th century while any remaining were either absorbed into Armenian or Georgian populations. The only identifiable descendants of the Caucasian Albanians today consist of the Lezghians, Udins and other small ethnic groups from Northern Azerbaijan and Southern Dagestan¹².Many academics believe that the Udi language, still spoken in parts of Azerbaijan is descended from ancient Albanian¹³.

When tsarist Russia liberated Karabakh from Persian domination in the 19th Century the status of the Catholicosate of Karabakh was reduced to a Diocese of the Armenian Church under Etchmiadzin. Despite this, the religious centre of Karabakh continued to flourish with Shushi as a major theological centre for the region. Between 1820 and 1930 Karabakh was home to a vibrant religious and cultural life. Shushi was home to ten schools alone and the first printing press in the region was opened in 1828, with over 150 titles on theological, philosophical and scientific subjects published. A symbol of the religious-cultural renaissance is the Ghazanchetsots Cathedral (Cathedral of Our Saviour), built 1868-1887, in Shushi¹⁴.

Historical Revisionism

In recent years Armenian-Albanian relations have been the subject of dispute. At issue is which people can claim to be the legitimate and rightful heirs to the land and culture of what is present day Karabakh¹⁵.

The publication of a work by Azerbaijani scholar Ziya Bunyadov “Azerbaijan in the Seventh-Nineth Centuries,” in Baku 1965 sought to imply that the ethnically distinct Armenian and Azerbaijani people in both Karabakh and Azerbaijan proper are one and the same people and that not only is Karabakh Azerbaijani territory but much of Eastern Armenia is too¹⁶.

These claims have been used to create an Azerbaijani ethnic identity and have been used by the Azerbaijani authorities to justify the 1988-1994 war and the 44-day war in 2020 in Karabakh.

Both Armenian and International scholars have called these claims into question, and almost all agree that, although borders were subject to change, the river Kura marked the boundary between Armenia and Caucasian Albania.The ancient provinces of Utik and Artsakh (contemporary Karabakh) and Syunik (Zangezour, located in Armenia) were not an integral part of the Caucasian Albanian State. The Armenians living in Artsakh and Utik during the Caucasian Albanian period were a distinct ethnic group that retained throughout history a clear Armenian identity.