Armenophobia in Azerbaijan

Question № 13: What peoples borrowed the cuneiform writing system?

Correct answer: Akkadians, Babylonians and Assyrians

History of Azerbaijan 6th grade Section II First tribal unions and states on the territory of Azerbaijan § 13 Iskits (Scythian) Culture Part 2

Question № 9: What is the origin of Iskits, Cimmerians and Sakaes?

Correct answer: Turkic

History of Azerbaijan 6th grade Section I. Primitive communal system in Azerbaijan. § 1. The first human dwellings on the territory of Azerbaijan.

Question: When did the first human bands appear in Azerbaijan?

Correct answer: 1.5 million years ago.

Question: What sources make the first mention of the ancient Azerbaijani tribes?

Correct answer: Sumerian legends and cuneiform inscriptions.

History of Azerbaijan 6th grade Section IV Ancient Azerbaijani states Albania

Question: When was the independent Albanian state established?

Correct answer: Late 4th century – early 3rd century B.C.

Question: How far did the borders of Albania extend?

Correct answer: Albania bordered on the Caucasus Mountains in the north, Atropatene in the south, Iberia in the northwest and Western Asia in the southwest (!).

History of Middle Ages 7th grade Section I. Countries of the world in the early Мiddle Аge (emergence of feudal relationships) Chapter 1. Peoples of China, Iran and Caucasus § 3. Peoples of the Caucasus Part 1

Question № 5: What states existed in the South Caucasus in the early Мiddle Age?

Correct answer: Albania, Lazica and Karli

Question № 9: After what developments did Albania win back its historical lands?

Correct answer: Devastation of the Armenian kingdom

Question № 15: Who was Sanaturk

and what did he struggle for?

Correct answer: Sanaturk was the ruler of Paytakaran province who combated the spread of Christianity in favor of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Albania.

History of Azerbaijan 7th grade Section III Fall of Arab Caliphate and revival of Azerbaijani statehood Chapter III Azerbaijani Culture § 31 Our people’s struggle against “Gyavurs clad in black” as portrayed in the epic (Dede Korkut) Part 1

Question № 1: What events does the epos illustrate most vividly?

Correct answer: The struggle of the Oghuz brave men against Armenian and Georgian invaders and their guiding hand, the Byzantine Empire.

Section 1. States of the world in the 11th-15th centuries. Chapter IV Caucasus and peoples of Western Europe § 9 Caucasian peoples Part 4

Question № 16: What Azerbaijani cities did the Georgian King George III invade in 1173 and 1203?

Correct answer: Ani and Debil (Dvin)

The Azerbaijani History textbook for 7th grade swarms with allegations that the ancient Albania (purportedly ancient Azerbaijan) also suffered aggression from Armenians, although “the people and rulers of Albania stretched a helping hand to them in hard times”. Meanwhile, Armenians spread Christianity in Albania that “was not rooted there” and in the guise of the religion allegedly seized the “Azerbaijani lands” under the wing of the Byzantine Empire.

“However, Albania did not become a Christian country”, but rather adopted Islam in the 7th century; it is precisely the Turkic people that wages a war against Armenians and their Christian patrons.

Training manual for 9th grade students Biology: Human Biology: Laboratory Work552

Approved at the session (March 27, 2003) of Biology Panel of the Scientific and Methodical Commission, Ministry of Education of the Azerbaijani Republic. The authors intended “…to impart theoretical knowledge and nurture patriotic individuals through practical activities (laboratory works, tests, math problems, crossword puzzles)”.

Section Characteristics of Locomotor System, exercise: “Who can say the approximate number of the disabled people who lost their limbs in the Karabakh war?”

Exercise: Find out the reason! In times of the Nagorno-Karabakh war, several young people aged 20 or 21 threw themselves from a high cliff in an attempt to divert the enemy’s attention. Despite of the treatment, they are disabled now. Many of them cannot move their lower limbs, and some suffer enuresis. Explain the reason!”

Section Brief Information on Blood and Hematopoietic System, problem: “During the Nagorno-Karabakh events of 1992, a group of people (children, teenagers, pregnant women and elderly people), fled from the enemy as fast as their legs could carry them into the forests, mountains and valleys. Indicate approximately the heart rate of those people and explain the underlying cause”.

Section Brief Information on Respiratory System, problem: “When Azerbaijanis were banished from Zangezur, every second of them suffered health deterioration and needed artificial ventilation. Some of them perished, and some survived. Explain the reason underlying the state of those people”.

A textbook for the 9th grade notes that in order to foil the expansionist plans of the Russian tsar Peter the Great (Peter I), the Azerbaijanis (Shia and Sunni) supposedly turned to Ottoman Turks

for help in an attempt to unite themselves with their brothers in religion and language. Again, Armenians allegedly prevented this from happening: “Armenians, as the henchmen of the tsarism, maintained direct contacts with Russia and pledged their help in conquering the Southern Caucasus, including other regions of Azerbaijan”.

A textbook for the 10th grade expatiates upon the issue of the Armenian repatriation in the 19th century: “The creation of the Armenian state under the Russian patronage as well as the resettlement of Armenians from Iran and Turkey on the lands invaded by Russia was no coincidence, but a logical outcome of the relationships between Armenians and Russians”.

The blame for the conflict between Armenians and Tatars of 1905–1906 is placed on the “Dashnaktsutyun party and the Armenian bands”. Led by Dashnaks, Armenians “purportedly cherished vain dreams of creating the Great Armenia”. Although, despite the fact that “the Azerbaijanis were very humane and trusting, they could, nevertheless, inflict on Armenians heavy losses”.

The Armenian pogroms of March 1918 in Baku are covered in a textbook on the history of Azerbaijan for the 11th grade in a chapter entitled The Azerbaijani genocide. Here, the “naive and humane Azerbaijanis” oppose Armenians allied with the soviet (earlier: tsarist) troops. If in the soviet period this event was portrayed as a symbol of the joint struggle of workers of all nationalities against the reactionary Azerbaijani nationalists, now these events are depicted otherwise: as the Azerbaijani genocide. The underpinnings of this change can be traced back to the presidential decree by Heydar Aliyev dated March 26, 1998 declaring March 31 as the Azerbaijani “genocide memorial day”.

To make things look even more convincing, the authors of the textbook quote at the end of the chapter the words of Mammad Amin Rasulzadeh, one of the leaders of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic, with reference to these events by adding a note of their own: “M. A. Rasulzadeh characterized the genocide of 1918 as a national and political factor”. However, prior to the official decree by Heydar Aliyev, nobody referred to these events as genocide. Also, this term does not appear in Rasulzadeh’s original quote about these bloody events.

In 2011, the Department of Strategic Analysis, Planning and Human Resources Management of the Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Education held an examination for applicants who sought to fill 223 job openings for the positions of history teachers in the schools of the country. 761 persons took part in the examination. The applicants could obtain a score ranging from 4–5 to 16–17 points (!) with a minimum passing score of 35. In explaining their failure, the participants made reference to the “complexity” of the questions. The examinees had to answer 35 questions within 1 hour of the exam that started at 9 a.m.

Against this background, the picture described in an article by Turan information agency seems to be a common occurrence: “A lecturer at one of the Azerbaijan’s universities relished in a rapturous and vivid account of how he would strangle barehanded even a little Armenian child without the slightest remorse”.

The lecturer in question taught the theory of radio journalism and simultaneously worked on AZTV radio station.

“With this lecturer, all criticism was met with a single airtight argument: “How can you criticize our president when we face such a problem for the entire country: Armenians? We must focus on that”, says the article.

Aydin Aslanov, a candidate of Historical Sciences, associate professor at the Chair of Social Disciplines of the Baku Institute for Advanced Training and Retraining for Teachers, in his turn, laments that the history textbook in its account of the “Azerbaijani genocide of 1918 in Baku” says that the Armenians walked over the corpses (of the Azerbaijanis). The Russian translation says: “They walked over pipes”

. “You can’t do that”, complains Aslanov.

It was the same Aslanov who stated with reference to the errors and blunders in the Azerbaijani textbooks: “We should always indicate in our textbooks that we are an ancient indigenous people of Caucasus which later changed our language into Turkic and became Muslims renouncing our fire worship. We are local and not ecdemic. We must take pride in the fact that our ancestor Moisey Kalankatuyski built the first Christian church in the Orient, in the village of Kish of Sheki region.