1. about the subject

About the history of the notion of “Azerbaijan”. Despite the fact that the notion of Azerbaijan has ancient roots, the age of the experience on studying the history of this country is not very old. The notion of "Azerbaijani history" is even more emerging.

The first general work on the history of Azerbaijan is A. Bakikhanov's "Gulustani- Iram". Ali Husseinzadeh wrote: “The novelty that A. Bakikhanov brought to Azerbaijani historiography has two characteristic features. One of them is the concept that the author puts forward about the historical definition of Azerbaijan, and the second is the new research method adopted by him.

Prior to A. Bakikhanov's "Gulustani-Iram", the history of Azerbaijan was directly addressed in the works dedicated to the history of various countries, regions and individual khanates. By that time, Azerbaijan was not studied as a geographical, economic and political unit.
A. Bakikhanov was the first historian to study Azerbaijan as a single country from ancient times to the time of the Treaty of Gulustan (1813). "Gulustani Iram is the first historical novel to express the national awakening and pride of the Azerbaijani people and to emphasize its social and cultural role in the history of the world."

A. Bakikhanov's "Gulustani-Iram" was also titled as "the History of the eastern part of the Caucasus", "History of Derbentnama or Shirvan and Dagestan". Definitely, the question arises: why was not the book named as the History of Azerbaijan? It can be assumed that A. Bakikhanov, taking the historical definition of Azerbaijan in a broader sense, preferred to write the history of Shirvan and Dagestan in the historical context of Azerbaijan. The publication of Gulustani-Iram in 1923 under the title of The History of Azerbaijan can also be assessed as disregard towards the author's position. Subsequent editions of the work also confirm the elimination of this approach.

The establishment of the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan in May 1918 has aroused a keen interest in history. During this period, special attention was drawn to writing historical works on the past of Azerbaijan. In 1920s, activities in this direction expanded.

The works by J. Pakhomov, R. Ismailov, J. Zeynalova, V. Sysoyev, W. Barthold, G. Passek and B. Latinin are of this type as well. The works by J. Pakhomov, V. Sysoyev, G. Passek and B. Latinin address the history of North Azerbaijan directly. However, the historical notion of Azerbaijan and its content was not completely defined in the 1920s. Although the book "History of Azerbaijan. Short Essays", published in 1941, described the events in South Azerbaijan, it did not solve the problem.
The same might be said on essays about Azerbaijan history. As stated in the first volume of three volumed book of Azerbaijan History, “during the Soviet period, many authors advanced the initiative to write works on the history of the Azerbaijani people at various times. Short essays on the history of Azerbaijan and essays on the history of Azerbaijan, published at different times, are not only a step forward in the scientific development of the history of our people, but also a noteworthy event in the history of Azerbaijan. However, there are a lot of mistakes and shortcomings in these essays”

Thus, it is impossible to find a correct answer to the question of what the history of Azerbaijan deals with. The content of the books of Azerbaijani history, published by “Elm” Publishing House in 1979 ("Azerbaijan in the ancient times", "Azerbaijan in the era of feudalism", "Northern Azerbaijan in the process of the Development of Capitalism in Russia", "Soviet Azerbaijan", "The Prosperity of Socialist Azerbaijan", "The Azerbaijani SSR on the Path to Communism") reveals the problems related to historical notion of Azerbaijan.

The assumptions of the authors on the historical geography of Azerbaijan as a whole are even more misleading. They wrote: "Despite numerous studies, we have not been able find out the main thread in the history of Azerbaijan yet. Most commonly, they accept the history of the states, "History of France", "History of Georgia" and so on as an example. But this thread can be accepted only in that case, if this state has a centuries-old history. Otherwise, they place special emphasis on the people: "History of the Armenian people", "History of the Tajik people" and so on. This principle is especially often used when writing the history of minorities. In both cases, the period before the emergence of the first state or people belongs to the prehistory. Neither the first nor the second fits for Azerbaijan … ». The following conclusions can be drawn from this opinion: “The history of Azerbaijan should be studied, as the history of the two states - Albania-Shirvan, and particularly, Azerbaijan, which periodically lost but regained back the independence. The Republic of Azerbaijan has become a state for Albania-Shirvan”.
Awareness of the history of Azerbaijan amateurishly does not serve as a basis for such unscientific judgment: The history of Azerbaijan shall not be interpreted based on the approach applied for the "history of France" and the "history of the Armenian people". It is entirely natural to apply specific interpretation method. 2) It is a mistake to equate Albania with Shirvan. Thus, it became necessary to dig into studying basic historical research, instead of making this already confusing issue more complicated. Let us remind the opinion of academician Ziya Bunyadov (1923-1997) on this issue: "We are studying now the territory where Azerbaijanians live and speak the same language, call both parts of the country as Azerbaijan. It is necessary clarify which territory is exactly meant when speaking of Azerbaijan, i.e whether we are referring to Arran (Albania), Shirvan, Sunik, Arsakh, Uti, Girdiman, Shaki, Gabala, Derbent province, Beylagan in the north, or Mugan, Bezzein, Nakhchivan, in the south”.

Thus, to sum up, we can see that the history of Azerbaijan, its historical-geographical boundaries and subject scope have not been fully studied yet. First of all, the historical name of Azerbaijan was especially mentioned since the beginning of the XIX century, as a part of the Soviet Union with total area of 86.6 th. sq. km.

Second, the history of Azerbaijan has been studied as the history of economic and class struggle, and the long and complex path of historical development of Azerbaijan society has been distorted. It is impossible to study the scientific history of Azerbaijan without eliminating the shortcomings in this area.
The history of Azerbaijan: historical-geographical and subject area. The history of Azerbaijan is more complicated than the historical concept of England or France. Dozens of independent states were established on the territory of Azerbaijan, and their borders spread outside of the territories of historical Azerbaijan. It means that Azerbaijan, historically and geographically, together with historical Azerbaijan territory, must also cover the lands whose borders widened in certain historical periods.
The main course of the history of Azerbaijan is generally determined according to the requirements. Besides, it is necessary to take into account one characteristic feature of Azerbaijan history. The point is that the lands of Azerbaijan have historically been part of more than twenty states. This important fact must be considered when studying the history of Azerbaijan. Thus, it is not practical to study the history of Azerbaijan in the relevant periods without knowing the history of the Sassanid Empire or the Arab Caliphate, and it is impossible to study the history of those states without studying the situation in Azerbaijan.
Z. Bunyadov (1923-1997) wrote in his book "Azerbaijan in the VII-IX centuries": “In the 7th and 9th centuries, Azerbaijan was occupied by the Arabs, became a part of the Arab Caliphate, and at the end of the period under review, a number of independent states and countries were established. The establishment of these two states (Mazyads and Sa'ils - K.Sh.) on the territory of Azerbaijan were similar to the events that took place in every part of the Caliphate.