While the “Greater Azerbaijan” movement has employed varying strategies over time, its ultimate political objective has remained consistent. Thus, considering it impossible to occupy the Armenian territories by military means during the years of the Soviet government, leadership of Azerbaijan adopted a novel strategy. This entailed a shift from massacres, persecutions, and forced displacement to a policy of ethnic cleansing, disenfranchisement, national discrimination, distortion of the ethnographic image through ethnographic factor, statistics, and fabricated data, Turkification of toponyms, cartographic distortions, and appropriation of cultural values. It should be noted that the appropriation of new Armenian territories under the false slogan of “proletarian internationalism and friendship of the peoples” under the guise of creating nomadic economies also constituted a significant aspect in the expansionist agendas pursued by the governing bodies of the Azerbaijani SSR. According to Art. Abeghyan’s accurate definition, “...red imperialism continues the policy of white imperialism in the Caucasus. It keeps the Tatar in the state of a nomadic herder, so that the latter, perched on the heights of the Armenian world for six months, continues to hang the sword of Damocles over the head of the Armenian peasant, in a state of obedience to the Muscovite government and its Caucasian representatives.” At the same time, the author of the article emphasized that “The nomadic scourge of the past, which may be exemplified by the Armenian-Tatar conflicts of 1905–1906, brought numerous disasters to the Armenians, resulting in being the most effective weapon in the hands of the Tsarist regime”.

KeywordsGreater Azerbaijan Azerbaijani SSR expansionism pan-Turkism nomadic economy Central Executive Committee demography

During wars, cultural heritage is particularly vulnerable to deliberate attacks and acts of intolerance, as starkly demonstrated during the 44-day war initiated by Azerbaijan in 2020, the blockade of the Lachin Corridor, and the complete depopulation of Artsakh due to military operations in 2023. In armed conflicts, the use of monuments and their surrounding cultural landscapes for military purposes – such as shelters, ammunition depots, combat bases, observation posts, command centers, or deployment hubs for armed forces –poses a significant threat to heritage protection. During and after the 2020 war, numerous churches, community cultural centers, and educational institutions in Artsakh were repurposed by Azerbaijan for military use. This repurposing undermined the primary cultural, spiritual, historical, educational, and aesthetic functions of these heritage sites. By altering their roles to serve military purposes – effectively turning them into “military objects” – their spiritual and cultural significance is disrupted. Moreover, this transformation violates the protections afforded by the Hague and Geneva Conventions, as well as international humanitarian law, which safeguard cultural heritage as a civilian asset. Converting heritage sites for military purposes compromises their inviolability, making them more susceptible to damage or destruction. Despite the norms of international humanitarian law, incidents of damage and destruction to Artsakh's monuments due to their military use by Azerbaijan have not ceased. On the contrary, they continue to escalate, further endangering the cultural heritage of the region and, by extension, the world.

KeywordsInternational humanitarian law protection of cultural heritage armed conflict Artsakh Azerbaijan military use of cultural values war crime

The political doctrine of Pan-Turkism proposed by Ziya Gökalp was intended to be implemented in a three-stage system. After the first stage, which involved the mass Turkification of the subject nations of the Ottoman Empire, the second stage was planned: the creation of an Oghuz state, which would include the Ottoman Empire, Eastern Transcaucasia, the Turkic-speaking countries of Central Asia (Khorezm), and the Iranian province of Atropatene-Azerbaijan. Within the scope of implementing the Oghuz state plan, a military-political concept was developed, consisting of both short-term and long-term strategies. Accordingly, the immediate plan envisaged, along with the conquest of Eastern Transcaucasia, the creation of a so-called “Azerbaijan” – an “East Caucasian Muslim” formation, which, as a temporary implementation phase, would become the main operational and political stronghold of the Young Turk-Musavat alliance. Subsequently, on the basis of this formation within the Ottoman Empire, a so-called “Great Azerbaijan” state was to be created, extending from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea, from Batumi to Baku, including the Iranian Atropatene-Azerbaijan province. The long-term plan envisioned “Great Azerbaijan” as the first link in the creation of a pan-Oghuz state, which would bridge the Ottoman Empire with the Turkic-speaking peoples of Central Asia, ultimately laying the groundwork for the third phase –the establishment of a Turanian Empire under a common Pan-Turkic roof. Although the “Great Azerbaijan” project has periodically changed its tactics, its political goal has remained unchanged. During the Soviet era, realizing the impossibility of militarily annexing the Armenian territories, Azerbaijani leadership adopted a new strategy. Instead of massacres, persecutions, and forced displacements, they implemented a policy of ethnic cleansing, disenfranchisement, national discrimination, distortion of demographic data, Turkification of place names, cartographic falsifications, and appropriation of civilizational values.

Keywords“Great Azerbaijan” Eastern Transcaucasia Pan-Turkism falsification toponym map topocid

The historians and academics of the Republic of Azerbaijan, preach and propagate that since the language spoken in the Iranian Province of Azerbaijan is the same as that spoken by the population of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the two are the same race and of the same background, therefore, they are the same people who presently live in two separate countries. Based on this baseless assumption, they propagate all sorts of misinformation aimed at the Iranian side, to separate from Iran and join their historical brothers and sisters in the Republic of Azerbaijan. The article suggests that language cannot be the sole basis for understanding the background of a certain society or tribe. Otherwise, most of the population of South America, all of Mexico, and the Philippines should actually be named Spanish. By the same token, many African countries that speak a European language would belong to the members of the same races, who, earlier on, had colonized their lands.

KeywordsAzerbaijan Caucasian Albania Armenia Iran the Azeri language the Turkish language Pahlavi dialect.

The Moscow and Kars Treaties, which proved fateful for Armenia and resulted in the seizure of strategically important territories from the Armenian people, have been widely discussed in recent decades, with particular emphasis on the injustice and illegality of these documents from the perspective of international law. Under these treaties, Nakhichevan was illegally placed under the protection of Azerbaijan, and Baku is currently taking unilateral steps to change the status of this autonomous republic, in violation of the Moscow and Kars Treaties still in force. The article examines Turkey’s diplomatic efforts to transfer Nakhichevan to Azerbaijan, which were based on the pan-Turkic goals of the Turkish authorities, as well as the consistent policy of the Azerbaijani authorities aimed at the de-Armenization of the autonomous republic. The domestic and foreign policy motives of the Azerbaijani authorities for changing the status of the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic are also analyzed. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the illegality of the actions of the Azerbaijani authorities in unilaterally changing the status of the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic from the standpoint of international treaty law, as well as to indicate the possible political and legal consequences of violating the provisions of the Moscow and Kars Treaties regarding the status of Nakhichevan.

KeywordsNakhichevan status of autonomous republic Moscow and Kars Treaties Armenia Azerbaijan Turkey Pan-Turanian project

In any given part of the world, forced demographic changes to the ethnic population inevitably result in changes to the local linguistics as well as the evolution and alteration of toponyms. The resulting changes can give politicians and extremists the possibility to exploit the changes to augment their claims and incursions. In extreme cases, such as the “scorched earth” policy adopted by Shah Abbas of Iran in the so called “protectorates” of Nakhchivan, Syuniq and Karabakh, the Armenian ethnic population was decimated. The elimination of the ethnic Armenians gave an opportunity to the Turkish speaking remaining minority of the local population the possibility to claim ownership of these lands. Through the citation of historical facts and cartographic evidence, the article discusses the reasons for the naming of Lake Sevan in Armenia as “Gokcha”, and the exploitation of this new toponym in an attempt to prove ownership of the lake, through the presentation of dubious documents and arguments.

KeywordsArmenia Sevan Azerbaijan Gökcha Shah Abbas Cartography Toponyms.

Looking back at the path taken by the First Republic of Armenia (1918– 1920), which was formed under difficult military and political conditions, it should be noted that this path was unfolded through complex and challenging turns. The Republic lived and operated in complicated internal and external circumstances, where the most urgent issues facing the state required immediate solutions. The independent Armenian state, first and foremost, had to establish its territorial integrity. This commission was also conditioned by the unfavorable attitudes of the newly formed neighboring states (Georgia and Azerbaijan), which had made their aspirations to seize territories historically belonging to Armenia a cornerstone of their state policy.1 It is well known that, having been defeated in the First World War, the Ottoman Empire, following the Armistice of Mudros (October 30, 1918), was forced to withdraw its troops from Transcaucasia, including the occupied territories of Eastern Armenia, and retreat to the borders of 1914.

KeywordsRepublic of Armenia Stepan Ghorghanyan Samtskhe–Meskheti Tachkastan “Greater Azerbaijan” Server-bek Atabekov Kobliansky Amir-bek Narimanbekov Yakub Shevki Pasha.