Like the fictitious "Greater Armenia," the concept of the "Armenian Highlands" ("Armyanskoye naqorye") is also a fabrication - writes Yaqub Mahmudov
Armenian and pro-Armenian historians are not content with merely "justifying" their territorial claims based on the exaggerated territories of the fictitious "Greater Armenia" on paper. From the end of the 19th century, the falsifiers introduced another fabricated term into scientific circulation: the geographical concept of the "Armenian Highlands" ("Armyanskoye naqorye"). Superficial researchers, mainly geographers, began to instill in minds that even larger areas, including the mountains of Eastern Anatolia, supposedly belonged to Armenians from ancient times.
All the generalizing geographical terms that ancient authors applied to the mountainous region in eastern Anatolia continued to be used correctly in scientific literature, including European scientific literature, until the 19th century. However, in the 19th century, the situation began to change. For example, M. Wagner, who visited the Mount Ararat region in 1843 in connection with the geological study of the consequences of an earthquake, used the expression "Mountains of Armenia" (German: "Hochland Armenien"). In K. Ritter's work translated into Russian in 1874, both the "Taurus Range" ("Tavrskaya tsep") and "Elevations of Armenia" ("Vozvyshennosti Armenii") are used in parallel. In the first volume of H. Lynch's work translated into Russian in 1910, the landscape of the area later called "Armenia" is presented in three forms, indicating attempts in Russian-language literature to gradually associate the region with the name of the Armenian ethnic group. In later Russian-language scientific literature, the expression "Armyanskoye naqorye" already acquired "citizenship rights."
In the 19th century, European geologists and geomorphologists, when determining ethnic boundaries (although this was beyond their competence), proceeded from a false theory based on oronyms (mountain names) and other natural factors.
The naming of the plateau in eastern Anatolia after the Armenian ethnic group is sometimes incorrectly justified by the claim that researchers traveling to these places in the 19th century could not "bypass" the influence of the "Armenian question," which was then at the center of international diplomacy. In reality, the "Armenian question" was never a factor that could disturb international public opinion or influence the political landscape of the region, then or later. However, the Russian Empire and other great powers simply adopted a line in their foreign policy to use the "Armenian card" to eliminate the Ottoman Empire, divide its territory among themselves, and seize the straits. This, of course, was to the liking of Armenian nationalists who dreamed of creating a "Greater Armenia" on paper. This factor, undoubtedly, had a certain influence on the "scientific research" of Armenian and pro-Armenian historians, geographers, and Russian and European authors who were in solidarity with them. The psychology of hatred towards the Ottoman Empire and Turks prevalent in Russia and some European political circles, as well as the policy of "Christian solidarity" regarding Armenians, also played a significant role in this matter.
So what is the real name, more precisely the ancient name and real history, of the geographical area that Armenian and pro-Armenian "researchers" began calling the "Armenian Highlands" from the 19th century?
The geographical area in question was first recorded in written sources in an ancient Babylonian literary composition called the "Legend of the Gutians," compiled in the 19th century BC but reflecting military-political events at the end of the 23rd century BC. This legend, which is assumed to be related to the ancient Azerbaijani tribe of Gutians, notes that during the reign of Naram-Suen (2236-2200 BC), tribes coming from the "Silver Mountains" occupied settlements in eastern Anatolia, northern Mesopotamia, and the land of Gutium (areas west and south of Lake Urmia), creating a serious threat to the Akkadian state.
In the earliest sources from the 21st century BC, the mountainous area west of Lake Van was called Tabra (or Tibar). In the inscriptions of Shalmaneser III (859-824 BC) and Sargon II (722-705 BC), this place is referred to as Tabal and is localized in modern Cappadocia. Later, ancient authors began to use this geographical term in the form "Taurus."
The name "Taurus" given to the mountainous area in eastern Anatolia as a geographical term was later forgotten and only mentioned in the writings of travelers and historians who referred to the works of ancient authors. After the First World War (1914-1918), this geographical area and even adjacent territories began to be instilled into public-political consciousness under the name "Armyanskoye naqorye" (Armenian Highlands, Armenisches Hochland, Armenian upland, Armenien plateau) first in Russian-language periodicals and gradually in Western European scientific literature. Behind this, undoubtedly, stood the future-oriented insidious political intentions of Tsarist Russia and Soviet military-political circles against Turkey and the Turkish population of the region. Since the "Armenian-inhabited areas" of Anatolia were always on the agenda of the Soviet regime in the ideological struggle against "capitalist" Turkey, the term "Armyanskoye naqorye" was introduced into scientific-political circulation not only as a geographical concept but also for the implementation of future military-political plans.
Thus, the continuous circulation of the "Greater Armenia" propaganda and the concept of the "Armenian Highlands," along with the falsification of historical-geographical names, led to the formation of false perceptions in the memory of successive Armenian generations that these places were associated with the name of Armenians from ancient times, or rather, "belonged to Armenians." In this way, the foundation of historical injustice was laid by attributing a vast geographical area—extending from Erzincan in the west to Ardabil in the east, from the historical borders of Georgia in the north to the north of Lake Urmia in the south, covering approximately 400,000 square kilometers—solely to the name of a single ethnic group, and that too an alien ethnic group (Armenians) with neither ancient history nor ancient cultural roots in these places. Summarizing ethnic entities and peoples who have been the indigenous population of this geography for centuries, who have lived and continue to live in this region, and who are directly connected to these places from the earliest times with their historical-spiritual values, under the fictitious name "Armyanskoye naqorye" is an unprecedented forgery in the science of geography as it is in historical science.
Armenian and pro-Armenian falsifiers should not forget that Xenophon, in his work "Anabasis," which traverses from south to north the territory of the "small" and "large" Armenian provinces attached to the name of Armenians, or more precisely, the historical "Armina" which has nothing to do with Armenians, never once calls this mountainous country the "Armenian Highlands" ("Armyanskoye naqorye"). In other primary sources, including Roman-Greek sources, the geographical concept of the "Armenian Highlands" ("Armyanskoye naqorye") is not encountered.
It should be noted that in the scientific circles of modern Turkey, preference is correctly given not to the fabricated phrase "Armenian Highlands" ("Armyanskoye naqorye") and its translations into European languages, but to the term "Anatolia" (Greek Ανατολιέ – "East"), one of the historical names of the region.
Yaqub Mahmudov,
Full member of ANAS
