A walk through history

What's in a label? If the label is "Caucasian", plenty. I always therefore recommend a trip to a museum (the historical kind) of any interesting place you go to. I paid up my US $10 or whatever it was to get my own personal English-speaking guide at Yerevan's main museum right off Republic Square. The tour started with historical cartography proving Armenia's existence into antiquity and proceeded to the modern day.

One of the things I learned was the exact meanng of "Caucasian Albania". An area roughly coincident with modern-day Azerbaijan has been called Caucasian Albania since antiquity. The guide patiently explained that there is no connection to modern-day Albania. I did not get much more than that, but researching on this further, I discovered there is also a "Caucasian Iberia", roughly modern Georgia. Which was of course called Gurjstan by the Turks, and the Gujjars of northern India and Pakistan claim descent from here. Which is not unlikely, because the Caucasus is surmised to be the cradle of various horse-warrior tribes including Huns and Scythians who historians believe ruled great parts of the subcontinent.

Back to Azerbaijan - from the Armenian perspective it is an "invention of history". Perhaps it is, but these issues are so vexing though. Armenians have a strong notion of  "historical Armenia", as opposed to the post-Soviet nation state, which includes Western Armenia (now in Turkey) and much of Azerbaijan. One supposes that territory was Armenian geographically and culturally, until most of Eastern Armenia was taken by the Persians (and then to the Russians who defeated the Persians).

No doubt every culture, civiliation or polity is begotten by another, but somewhere the umbilical cord gets cut. Azeris are a mix of Persian, Turkic and other prominent ethinicities of the region which certainly includes Armenians. They converted to Islam though, and adopted the Turkic culture. Now they are a separate nation and culture. This has happened elsewhere: Pakistan is a good example of a new nation, culture and race, no matter how connected to its parental nations.

Some day I hope to grab my Azeri friend here in Singapore on this. Speaking of whom, he was the person most excited about my Armenia trip: how was it? is it a modern country? what's Yerevan like? are people rich? educated? The questions wouldn't stop. Funny, this life and its animosities.

But since we are on a James-Burke-Connections type ramble here, let us also throw in that the first native post-Islamic dynasty in Iran, the Safavids are considered Azeri Turks (it is surmised they were of Persian, Turkic, Kurdish and even Georgian ancestry, but they did come out of presnt-day Azerbaijan) and hated by "Persian" Iranians today. They in fact believe there is a Turkic conspiracy to keep the Persians down, swamping Iran with (Azeri Turks) and getting themselves into power - both Khameini and Ahmadinejad are rumored to be Azeri Turks, not "Persian".

So as we step into 2010, let us not forget who we are and how we got here. Oh heck, it is all so confusing, let us have a drink and forget just that.