Armenian historians have acknowledged defeat on Albanian issue

The topic of Albanian history in the South Caucasus has stirred up the Armenian academic community. The Armenian academic community is not accustomed to fighting back; it is accustomed only to attacking and did not expect that Baku would take the matter so seriously.

Until recently, the Armenian community believed that the topic of churches in the Karabakh region was a taboo. The whole world, as if by default, accepts them as Armenian, and Baku will not dare to change this paradigm. Historians will write something about them, experts will comment on them, but it will not come to the involvement of officials in this “ring.” The Armenian community of falsifiers observed calmly and relaxed. Everything was in place: their own people were stationed everywhere, the real evidence was securely hidden, and it was impossible to get to it. Thanks to a powerful lobby, Albanian studies have been relegated to the level of UFOology in global academic circles. The Armenian Church, pseudoscience, and the Western and Russian academic circles that indulge it have done everything to ensure that Caucasian Albania is forever forgotten, and its place is taken by Armenians, who are supposed to reap all the benefits and justify their claims to Karabakh. And the Azerbaijanis can say whatever they like — no one will listen to them anyway; let them look for their own “Atlantis.”

However, the extremely nervous reaction of the Armenian side to the unexpected and strong re?emergence of the topic of Caucasian Albania in recent weeks shows that the situation has changed. The relaxation and the "let them talk" gesture are no longer noticeable. as it was before. The forgers, who found themselves outside their comfort zone for the first time, became nervous.

Take, for example, the infamous professor of Yerevan State University Stepan Stepanyants, Doctor of Sciences - historical, of course.

As is well known, YSU is a breeding ground for nationalism, an institution where the younger generation is mutilated, producing diploma?clad zombies who have attended lectures by Professor Stepanyants and others who fill young minds with misanthropic theories.

Stepanyants is very concerned that Armenia is not standing up to Azerbaijan’s actions — not just statements, but actual actions — aimed at restoring the real history of Karabakh. And to the horror of their neighbors, the issue is not limited to Karabakh — in Baku, the topic of Albanian heritage is already being raised on the territory of Armenia itself.

Stepanyants is genuinely concerned. It turns out that Armenia has plenty of “scientifically substantiated truth,” but for some reason it doesn’t present it. New research is needed, the falsifier is nervous, urging people not to rush to the Turkish archives, but to turn to the Matenadaran.

Stop. Why do Armenian historians need Turkish archives if they have an institution right at their doorstep where, as they claim, the entire history of the Caucasus is stored? And this is not the only question that arises when you read the emotional outbursts of the professor from Yerevan State University. What sources then substantiate the “scientifically grounded truth” of Armenian historians? It turns out that all the arrogance of Armenian falsifiers in asserting their rightness rested solely on external support and the confidence that Baku would not touch the topic, fearing world authorities and the “substantiated truth” from the annals of the Matenadaran. That is, the only real justification for the Armenians’ claims to the legacy of Caucasian Albania in Karabakh is sheer audacity and the traditional belief in the support of an external group.

Stepanyants and those like him claim that there is no evidence of the Albanian origin of the Karabakh temples, just as there is no Albanian language or writing system at all. Meanwhile, such evidence does exist, and it is not hidden away somewhere; it is available for study by experts. Unlike the Armenian “substantiated truth,” these pieces of evidence are all in plain sight.

Professor Stepanyants is known for his inadequacy, but he managed to outdo himself. From his nervous statements, it follows that if — pay attention! - The name of the Albanian prince Hasan?Jalal is not of Turkic but of Arabic origin, which means that the Albanian churches of Karabakh belong to the Armenians. This is a very strange logic. The Armenians attached the ending “yan” (Hasan?Jalalyan) to the Hasan?Jalal family name and considered this sufficient proof of their rights to the Albanian heritage.

A serious scholar, which is what Stepan Stepanyants considers himself to be, a professor at Yerevan State University who dares to take to the podium and teach young people about history, should be ashamed to use such arguments. He is, after all, a doctor of sciences, not an ordinary expert. And this approach reflects the bitter reality for Armenian pseudo?historians, in which they find themselves with nothing to show for themselves. Claiming that an Arabic name makes an Albanian prince an Armenian may be something Aunt Anush from the village store or Uncle Avetis from the Yerevan market might claim. But not a doctor of historical sciences.

All the layers of propaganda that supported the notion of the irrefutability of the Armenian side’s arguments are crumbling before our eyes. Instead of defeating the opponent with irrefutable facts, the YSU professor proposes — once again, attention! — to engage in dialogue with representatives of the Udi, Talysh, and Lezgin peoples of Azerbaijan, whose history and culture are “suppressed and hushed up.” That is, to resort to one of the methods of hybrid warfare against Azerbaijan, which the Armenians had already tried in the early 1990s. A little more, and Professor Stepanyants would suggest blowing up Ganjasar and Khudaveng just so that they wouldn’t fall into the hands of the Udi?Albanian Christian community.

And finally, Professor Stepanyants’s heartfelt cry: “Tomorrow they might say, ‘Echmiadzin isn’t yours either,’ and declare it to be Uch?Kilise.”

Yes, by the way, it’s good that he reminded us. Indeed, there was historically no ancient spiritual center of the Armenians on the territory of the South Caucasus. The Catholicoses wandered back and forth until the Garagoyunlu princes sold them the lands. Village after village, pasture after pasture. And that’s how Echmiadzin came to be. But here, the criticism is already directed at our ancestors, whose greed for Armenian gold created serious problems for their descendants. The Armenian Church was always wealthy and was ready to pay exorbitant prices for lands it could not even dream of. It was only later, when the powers needed its services, that the Armenians stopped paying and simply massacred or expelled the population of the territories they needed.

But this is a separate topic, and we will discuss it later through the words of historians.

Meanwhile, the professor at YSU, driven to despair, is rushing to the Minister of Education and Science, Zhanna Andreasyan, to propose creating a commission consisting of historians, ethnographers, writers, and artists to “counteract falsification with facts.”

I remember something similar happening in the late 1980s, when commissions consisting of historians, writers, and cultural figures were similarly formed; they also tried to substantiate Armenia’s claims to Azerbaijani lands, and, failing to do so, they fanned the flames of a bloody conflict. Today, revanchists are trying to incite the Armenian government to take similar steps. However, the current leadership of the country does not want to get bogged down in this quagmire. Armenia needs to be pulled out of it, and the “Tigranakert” and other nationalist romanticism from the time of the Karabakh conflict are a past that is better left behind.