1. Azerbaijan in Antiquity

     Scholars consider Azerbaijan to include "the land populated today by the Azerbaijani Turks, the people who inhabit the region stretching from the northern slopes of the Caucuses Mountains along the Caspian Sea to the Iranian plateau".                                                                                                                                                                     
 At the end of IV millennium BC and the early years of the III millennium BC, signs of the emergence of the first class societies, with a proto-urban civilization and embryonic state structure appear. It is at this time that the tribal alliances formed the states of the Aratta, of the Lullubum (From about 2300 BC) and the Gutian (later in the second half of the third millennium BC). In 2175 BC, the Gutians conquered Sumer and Akkad and ruled over them for the next 100 years.
     Over the period from the mid ninth to the seventh centuries BC, the Mannaean kingdom held sway in the area of Lake Urmia. The Cimmerian-Scythian-Saka kingdom flourished in the seventh and sixth centuries BC in the south-west of Azerbaijan. In the mid-sixth century B.C the Mannean kingdom was overthrown.
     A vital role was played in Azerbaijani history by the kingdom of Atropaten, which came into existence in the southern part of the country in the 520s BC and which was heavily influenced by Hellenism.
     The Caucasian Albanian state was created in the north of Azerbaijan in the end of IV and the early years of III millennium BC, with the river Araz as its southern frontier. This state successfully held out against the constant invaders, later to be destroyed by the Romans in 66 BC. The people of Albania included a number of different nationalities, most of which spoke Turkic languages.

2. Azerbaijan in the Middle Ages

     Following invasion by the Arabs, the dominant religion from the early eighth century in Azerbaijan became Islam. Several new states were created in the territory of Azerbaijan in the ninth century, the most powerful of which was the State of Shirvan, with its capital at Shemakha, which was ruled by the Mezyedi dynasty. This endured until the sixteenth century and played an enormous role in the history of medieval Azerbaijan. The independent states of the Sajids, Salarids, Ravvadids (with their capital at Maragha, Ardabil and Tabriz) and Shaddadids (with their capital at Ganja) arose from the ninth to the eleventh centuries in the territory of Azerbaijan.
     Azerbaijan was ruled by the Seljuk dynasty from the end of the eleventh century. Over the period 1136-1225, the Atabek Eldegiz state held sway in Azerbaijan.
     The sharing by the country's indigenous population of a common Turkic language and Turkic provenance and their adherence to the same Islamic faith made possible a process of consolidation of the Azerbaijani nation that reached its culmination in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. This same period saw the greatest flowering of the culture of Azerbaijan, which bequeathed to the world an array of illustrious philosophers, architects, poets and scholars. The crowning achievement of Azerbaijani social and cultural thought of that period was the work of Nizami Ganjavi (1141-1209), poet and philosopher, now one of the treasures of the world's cultural heritage.
     From the mid-thirteenth century, the Azerbaijani states became vassals of the Mongol Hulagid dynasty (1258-1356). In the mid-fourteenth century, following an uprising by the local population to cast off the yoke of the invaders, the local Jalairid feudal lords took up the reins of power in Azerbaijan and, with the support of the Azerbaijani nobility, established the Jalairid state (1359-1410).
     From the end of the fourteenth century, Azerbaijan was repeatedly invaded by Tamerlan and served as the theater for his battles with the Golden Horde.
     The Azerbaijani dynasties of Qara-Qoyunlu and Aq-Qoyunlu ruled over Azerbaijan in 1410-1468 and 1468-1501 and under them Azerbaijan grew significantly in power. In 1501, the Safavid state was formed in Azerbaijan, which was named after the ruling Azerbaijani dynasty, with its capital in Tabriz. Under this dynasty, all the territoris of Azerbaijan were united, for the first time in their history, into a single Azerbaijani state. The territory of the Safavid state stretched from the Amu Darya River to the Euphrates and from Derbent to the shores of the Persian Gulf. This polity was created and developed as an essentially Azerbaijani state and all political power remained in the hands of the Azerbaijani feudal nobility. Senior court officials, military generals and provincial governors were all appointed from among the Azerbaijani nobility. The army was made up from the militia of the most powerful Azerbaijani clans. Azerbaijani was the official language of the Safavid state. By the end of the sixteenth century, the capital of the Safavid state had been transferred to Isfahan and its shah now drew his support primarily from the Persian nobility. The State, while ruled by an Azerbaijan dynasty, took on an increasingly Persian aspect.

3. The independent Azerbaijani khanate States

     Division of Azerbaijan between Russia and Iran
     In the mid XVIII century, with the weakening of the power exercised by the Persian shahs over the territory of Azerbaijan, the country disintegrated into some 20 khanates, namely, Ardabil, Ganja, Derbent, Erivan, Javad, Karabakh, Karadakh, Khoi, Maku, Maragin, Nakhchivan, Quba, Baku, Sarab, Shirvan, Sheki, Tabriz, Talysh and Urumi. In addition to these khanates, the country was further subdivided into the sultanates of Kazah-Samshadil, Ilisu, Arash, Gutgashen and Nagorno-Karabakh, which was inhabited by Azerbaijani Muslims and Albanian Christians, formed an integral part of the Azerbaijani khanate of Karabakh, which covered the territories lying between the Kura and Araxes rivers. The local duchies - or "melikdoms" - of Dizak, Varanda, Khachen, and Gulistan, all of which lay within the mountainous regions of Karabakh, also formed part of this khanate, to which their inhabitants owed allegiance as vassals.
     At the end of the eighteenth and in the first third of the nineteenth centuries, Azerbaijan was fought over by the Persian, Russian and Ottoman empires, each eager to secure hegemony over this country whose geopolitical situation lent it significant strategic advantages. A number of the khanates rose in arms to defend their sovereignty, while others were forced, in an effort to defend their own interests, to conclude agreements reducing them to the status of vassaldom.
     Thus, on May 14, 1805, a treaty was signed on the banks of the river Kura with the Azerbaijani khan Ibrahim Khalil, under which the independent Azerbaijani khanate of Karabakh was placed under Russian over lordship. This treaty has particular resonance today, since it demonstrates that Karabakh historically formed part of Azerbaijan.
     The first Russo-Persian war of 1804-1813, fought to establish dominance over the Azerbaijani khanates, resulted in the first division of Azerbaijani territories between Russia and Persia. The peace treaty of Gulistan, signed on October 12, 1813 by Russia and Persia, gave legal recognition to the effective annexation by Russia of the khanates of northern Azerbaijan, with the exception of Nakhchivan and Erivan. The second Russo-Persian war of 1826-1828 led, on February 10, 1828, to the signing of the Turkmanchai peace treaty, under which Persia officially renounced its claims to northern Azerbaijan and finally recognized its annexation, with the inclusion of the Nakhchivan and Erivan khanates, by Russia.
     It is important to stress that all the khanates listed above, including Karabakh, were annexed to Russia as purely Azerbaijani possessions. They were Azerbaijani by virtue of their predominantly Azerbaijani populations and the ethnic composition of their dominant feudal elite (the khans themselves, the major landowners, the clergy etc.). Under a decree promulgated by Tsar Nicholas I on March 21, 1828, the Azerbaijani khanates of Nakhchivan and Erivan were dissolved and replaced by a new administrative entity known as the "Armenian oblast", administered by Russia; in 1849, the Armenian oblast was renamed the province ("guberniya") of Erivan.Between 1828 and 1920, in pursuance of a policy aimed at changing the entire demographic make-up of Azerbaijan so that Armenians would outnumber Azerbaijanis, more than 2 million Azerbaijanis were forcibly expelled and an unknown number killed. On two occasions, in 1828 and 1854, the Russians invaded eastern Anatolia and on both occasions they left, taking with them 100,000 Armenian sympathizers to the Caucasus, where they took the place of Turks - i.e. Azerbaijanis - who emigrated or died.
     In the war of 1877-1878, Russia seized the district of Kars-Ardahan, driving out the Muslim population and settling 70,000 Armenians in their homes. Some 60,000 Armenians resettled in the Russian Caucasus during the troubles of 1895-1896. Finally, the migrations of the First World War resulted in an almost even exchange of 400,000 Armenians from eastern Anatolia for 400,000 Muslims from the Caucasus.
     According to McCarthy's information, between 1828 and 1920 some 560,000 Armenians were resettled in Azerbaijan. In other words, it was actually after the conquest of the southern Caucasus by Russia that the Armenian population of the Azerbaijani lands north of the river Araxes increased so dramatically.
     When we look at Karabakh, we see from official records for 1810 - in other words, shortly before its annexation by Russia - that the khanate of Karabakh had some 12,000 households, of which 9,500 were Azerbaijani and a mere 2,500 Armenian. According to data for 1823, there was one town in the Karabakh khanate - Shusha - and some 600 villages, 450 of which were Azerbaijani and about 150 Armenian, with a total population of some 90,000. The relative figures for Azerbaijani and Armenian households in Shusha were 1,048 and 474, and in the countryside, 12,902 and 4,331, respectively.
          Since the mid-XIX century, the oil industry had been flourishing in northern Azerbaijan. The first ever industrial oil well was drilled in 1848. In the late XIX th-early XX-th centuries was producing 95% of Russia's and about 50% of the world's oil production. The Nobels and Rothschilds were among the oil magnates of, and earned a considerable income. The fortune of the Nobels was largely derived from the profit on Azerbaijani oil.      

4. The First Republic: The Republic of Azerbaijan (1918-1920)

     After the 1917 revolution in Russia, the processes of weakening and disintegration of the Empire became more pronounced and conditions were ripe in outlying ethnic regions of the former Russian Empire for the formation of independent States. And so, on May 28, 1918 the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic was proclaimed in the territory of the eastern part of the southern Caucasus - the first parliamentary democracy in the East  which was to play a historic role in the renaissance and formation of the sense of ethnic identity and statehood of the Azerbaijani nation. At that time, leader of Azerbaijanis was Mammad Amin Rasulzade.
     The development of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic, both as a nation and a State, was based on the idea of "Azerbaijanism", which hinged on the principles of modernism, Islamism and Turkism, symbolizing the Azerbaijani people's aspiration for progress based on preservation of their adherence to Islamic civilization and Turkic identity.
     Durinq its brief existence of less than two years, the multi-party Azerbaijani parliament and the coalition government managed to take a number of important steps in the process of nation-building and the development of statehood, in such areas as education, formation of an army, development of independent financial and economic systems and securing international recognition for the young Republic as a full member of the international community of nations. On January 11, 1920 the Paris Peace Conference, with the Treaty of Versailles, accorded de facto recognition of the independence of the Azerbaijani Republic.
     In late 1919 and early 1920, however, the political situation in the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic - both at home and abroad - worsened considerably. The country found itself caught up in a ferocious tug-of-war between the countries of the Entente, Russia and Persia, each pursuing its own geopolitical goals in this strategically important and oil-rich area.

5. The Second Republic: The Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (1920-1991)

     The political decision by the Bolshevist Government of the Russian Socialist Federative Republic not to recognize the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic, the deployment of the Eleventh Red Army on the frontiers with the Azerbaijani Republic in spring 1920, the aggression waged by Dashnak-ruled Armenia against Azerbaijan in Karabakh and Zangezur, by Armenian terrorist groups and the Bolsheviks against the peaceful Azerbaijani population in Azerbaijan and the social and economic crisis gripping the country - were all factors that combined to bring about the weakening of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic and which led to occupation by the Eleventh Army on April 27-28, 1920. As stated in a telegram from the general staff of the Caucasian front to the Eleventh Army command, dated May 1, 1920, the Russian troops had been instructed to take possession of the entire territory of Azerbaijan lying within the confines of the former Russian Empire, but without crossing the Persian border.
     The next 70 years, during which it formed part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), marked a new, important stage in the development of the Azerbaijani statehood, during which the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic forged ahead in its social, economic and cultural development. 
     During the Soviet period, the territories of Zangezur, Goycha, part of Nakhchivan and other districts were annexed from Azerbaijan and attached to neighbouring Armenia. As a result, the country's territory, which in the period of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic in 1920 was 114,000 square kilometers, was reduced in 1920-1921 to 86,600 square kilometers. In addition, on July 7, 1923 at the initiative of Moscow leaders of the Bolsheviks, the so-called Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region, with a predominantly Armenian population, was artificially carved out of a part of the territory of historic Karabakh, the majority of population of which constituted Azerbaijanis. That decision marked the first step in the political campaign to annex Nagorno-Karabakh from the rest of Azerbaijan.

6. The Third Republic: The Republic of Azerbaijan