Oct. 17. 2013
http://www.armradio....asian-albanian/
Alisa Gevorgyan
“Radiolur”
An international scientific conference titled “Albania-Aghvank- Arran: Ethno-political history and issues of Christian culture” kicked off in Yerevan today. The forum aims to clarify who are the ethnic descendants of the Caucasian Albania, or Aghvank as Armenians call it. Not only Armenian and Russian, but also representatives of Caucasian nations once included in the above-mentioned Albanian state will present reports during the two-day conference.
The Armenian and foreign scholars will try to restore the history of Caucasian Albania, which was located in the north of Kura River. Today descendants of Turkic nomads are trying to lay territorial claims on Armenia on behalf of Caucasian Albanians.
“The real inheritors of the Albanian culture are some peoples of the North Caucasus, particularly Dagestanis, but never Azerbaijanis,” said Yuri Suvaryan, Academician of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences. “Azerbaijanis, who had once settled in Daghestan and the adjacent territories, today call themselves with the names of their ancestors – the immigrant Turkic tribes. They represent a nation, which has not yet finally determined its identity and was given the name “Azerbaijani” only in the 20th century. The claims of Azerbaijan, which has declared itself the inheritor of Albanian culture, are at least cynical, and this does not stand any scientific justification.
Perhaps, there’s no need to refer to the hundreds of churches and monuments on the liberated territories of Artsakh, which are proofs of the uninterrupted Armenian spiritual-cultural presence in those regions. The numerous sensational discoveries of the past years simply disperse all Azerbaijani claims.
One of the recent sensations was the discovery of Artsakh’s Tigranakert built by Tigran the Great, which is an evidence of the 2,000-year-long existence of Armenian statehood on the territory of Artsakh.
Russian scholar Vladimir Zakharov said “the claims of Azerbaijanis of being the descendants of Albanian culture are at least hilarious, although this is a state policy conducted on the highest level, which aims to prove that Armenians are comers here, while Azerbaijanis are among the most ancient nations of theCaucasus.’
“I find no words other than impudence to describe this policy. The attempts of Azerbaijanis to declare themselves Albanians have no scientific ground. Therefore, what Azerbaijan is doing, is a mere speculation,” Zakharov added.
