Azerbaijan

• Location: and Iran
• Variant names: Azäbaycan

1. The Republic of Azerbaijan (Azäbaycan Respublikası) since 1991. Previously the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic (1936–91), having had the same title as part of the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1922–36) which joined the USSR in 1922; the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan (1920–2) after invasion by the Red Army; and the independent Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan (1918–20) after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. During Soviet rule the territory of Azerbaijan was reduced by 11 000 square miles (28 500 sq. km). Some 16 per cent of its territory, of which roughly one-third is the autonomous province of Nagornyy-Karabakh, has been under Armenian control since 1993. Until achieving independence in 1918 Azerbaijan had never existed as a state, having been subjected to a variety of powers through the ages: Scythians, Seleucids, Romans, Persians, Arabs, Seljuk Turks, Mongols, Ottoman Turks, and Russians. The Treaties of Gulistan (in Nagornyy-Karabakh) in 1813 and of Turkmenchai (now in Iran) in 1828 resulted in the area called Azerbaijan being partitioned between Russia and Persia (Iran) along the River Aras; only the northern half now constitutes the Republic of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan may take its name from one of Alexander III the Great's^† Persian generals, Atropates, who established a kingdom and dynasty after the death of Alexander in 323 bc. Atropates took his name from the Greek atropatan 'protected by fire'. Alternatively, it may come from Persian words meaning 'Land of Fire', a reference to the fire-worshippers, or to the oil seeping from the ground which could be burnt. Having annexed it by the 3rd century, the Romans named the area Albania which later became known as Caucasian Albania. The Caucasian Albanians had no links with the 'Illyrian' Albanians in modern Albania and disappeared without trace in the 11th century.
2. Iran: there are two Azerbaijani provinces in north-west Iran: Azārbāyjan-e Gharbī (West) and Azārbāyjan-e Sharqī (East). More than twice as many Azeris live in Iran as in Azerbaijan. The region was occupied by the Soviet Union during the Second World War in an effort to reunify Iranian and Soviet Azerbaijan; the attempt failed in the face of Western opposition.

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