Azerbaijan

Human use of this land reaches back to the Upper Palaeolithic. On a plateau of rocky boulders south of Baku, the Gobustan reservation preserves more than 6,000 rock engravings bearing testimony to some 40,000 years of human activity, alongside inhabited caves, settlements and burials. Inscribed by UNESCO in 2007, Gobustan's images of hunters, animals, dancers and reed boats document the lifeways of the people who occupied the semi-desert after the last Ice Age, and the continuity of human presence from prehistory into the Middle Ages.

In antiquity the region between the Greater Caucasus and the Aras River was the kingdom of Caucasian Albania, one of the three Christian states of the South Caucasus alongside Armenia and Georgia. The Albanians established a kingdom around the 1st century BCE; their king Urnayr adopted Christianity as the state religion in the 4th century CE, and the kingdom became a province under the Sasanian Persian Empire. The Greek geographer Strabo described a land of many tribes, and the country kept its own church and script until the upheavals of the Arab conquest.

The land's Zoroastrian heritage left an enduring signature. Natural gas seeping from the Abşeron Peninsula fed perpetual flames that made the area a centre of fire worship, and the name Azerbaijan is traditionally linked to fire — the "land of fire." At Surakhany near Baku a pentagonal fire-temple complex, the Ateshgah, grew up over an ancient place of worship; its altar burned with natural gas until petroleum works cut off the supply in the 1880s. The temple is on Azerbaijan's UNESCO tentative list as a monument to this fire-worshipping past.

Turning points

1. c. 40,000 years agoCulture & Ideas

   The rock art of Gobustan

   On a plateau south of Baku, prehistoric peoples carved more than 6,000 engravings of hunters, animals and boats, leaving a record of roughly 40,000 years of human activity later inscribed by UNESCO.

   [1]

2. c. 1st century BCEFormation

   The kingdom of Caucasian Albania

   The Caucasian Albanians established a kingdom in the eastern Caucasus, much of which overlaps present-day Azerbaijan, before falling under the suzerainty of the Sasanian Persian Empire.

   [4] [2]

3. 4th century CEReligion

   Caucasian Albania adopts Christianity

   King Urnayr made Christianity the state religion of Caucasian Albania, which kept its own church and alphabet as a Sasanian province until the Arab conquests.

   [4]

Arab armies reached the eastern Caucasus in the seventh century, beginning roughly four centuries of Arab control and introducing Islam, which gradually displaced Zoroastrianism and the Albanian church. Power devolved to local Muslim rulers, and the region became a frontier of the Islamic world. In the eleventh century the Seljuk Turks swept across the Caucasus; their invasions changed the composition of the population and established the linguistic dominance of Oghuz Turkic, the ancestor of the modern Azerbaijani language. The land thus became Turkic in speech while remaining tied to the Persian cultural sphere.

From this period the Shirvanshahs, a long-lived line of local rulers, dominated the northeastern lands around the Caspian. By the eleventh century Baku had come into their possession, and in the twelfth century they made it their capital. They fortified the old town, Icheri Sheher, behind defensive walls and raised the great cylindrical Maiden Tower (Qız Qalası), a 12th-century monument some 27 metres high standing over still older structures. Baku grew into a walled Caspian port whose layers — Zoroastrian, Sasanian, Arab, Persian and Shirvani — were later recognised by UNESCO.

Across the wider region of historic Azerbaijan, art, trade and learning flourished under a succession of Muslim dynasties, and the poet Nizami Ganjavi of Ganja became one of the greatest figures of medieval Persian literature. The Shirvanshahs continued to rebuild their seat of power, and in the fifteenth century constructed the Palace of the Shirvanshahs in the inner city — a complex of reception hall, mosque, mausoleum and bath-house that is counted among the pearls of Azerbaijani architecture.

Turning points

1. 7th centuryReligion

   Arab conquest and the coming of Islam

   Arab armies brought the eastern Caucasus under Muslim rule, introducing Islam in the seventh century and beginning some four centuries of Arab control over the region.

   [4] [7] [5]

2. 11th centuryPeoples & Migration

   Seljuk invasions and Turkic settlement

   The Seljuk Turks invaded the Caucasus, changing the population and establishing the dominance of Oghuz Turkic, the basis of the modern Azerbaijani language.

   ↗See the data

   [7]

3. 12th centuryPolitics & Power

   The Shirvanshahs make Baku their capital

   The Shirvanshahs, who had held Baku since the 11th century, made it their capital, walling the inner city and raising the Maiden Tower.

   [7] [8] [2]

4. 15th centuryCulture & Ideas

   The Palace of the Shirvanshahs

   The Shirvanshahs built their palace complex in Baku's inner city — reception hall, mosque, mausoleum and bath-house — later inscribed with the walled city by UNESCO in 2000.

   [2] [7]

In 1501 Ismail I, descendant of the Sufi order founded by Sheikh Safi al-Din of Ardabil, was enthroned as shah at Tabriz with his power base in Azerbaijan, and proclaimed Twelver Shia Islam the state religion of his new Safavid empire. The dynasty drew the historic Azerbaijani lands firmly into the Persian world and helped make Shiism the dominant faith of the population — a heritage that still distinguishes Azerbaijan among Turkic-speaking nations. After Safavid power waned in the eighteenth century, the region fragmented into a patchwork of Persian-ruled khanates in Shirvan, Baku, Ganja, Karabakh, Nakhichevan and beyond.

These khanates formed the frontier where the expanding Russian Empire met Qajar Persia. Two Russo-Persian wars settled the matter. By the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813, Persia ceded to Russia a wide band of the eastern Caucasus, from Lankaran northward to Derbent, including Baku, Shirvan, Ganja and Karabakh. The Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828 confirmed and extended Russian control, adding Nakhichevan and Yerevan. The frontier the treaties drew along the Aras River endures today, dividing the Azeri-speaking Caucasus from Iranian Azerbaijan to the south.

Russian rule reorganised the conquered khanates into provinces and bound the region to a vast empire. Incorporation brought new schools, administration and contact with European ideas, opening an outlet for educated Azerbaijanis, some of whom turned from a religious upbringing toward a more secular outlook. The seeds of a modern national and reformist consciousness were sown under the tsars — even as the population remained, in its own self-understanding, part of the larger Muslim world rather than a continuous national tradition.

Turning points

1. 1501Religion

   Ismail I and the Safavid empire

   Crowned shah at Tabriz with his base in Azerbaijan, Ismail I founded the Safavid dynasty and made Twelver Shia Islam the state religion, binding the land to Persia.

   [10] [11]

2. 1813War & Rupture

   Treaty of Gulistan

   Ending the Russo-Persian war of 1804–13, Persia ceded to Russia the eastern Caucasus khanates from Lankaran to Derbent, including Baku, Shirvan, Ganja and Karabakh.

   ↗See the data

   [12] [6]

3. 1828War & Rupture

   Treaty of Turkmenchay

   The second Russo-Persian war ended with Turkmenchay, confirming Russian rule and adding Nakhichevan and Yerevan, fixing the Aras-river border that still divides the two Azerbaijans.

   ↗See the data

   [13] [6]

Commercial exploitation of Baku's oil began in 1872, and within a generation the Abşeron fields transformed the city. By 1900 the Baku oil field was the largest in the world, drawing capital, engineers and a multi-ethnic industrial workforce, and remaining the largest field in what became the Soviet Union until the 1940s. Oil wealth built grand mansions and a turbulent labour movement; it also made Baku a strategic prize fought over in the chaos that followed the Russian Revolution of 1917.

As the Russian Empire collapsed, Azerbaijani national politics crystallised around the Musavat ("Equality") party, founded in 1911 and led by Mammad Amin Rasulzade. On 28 May 1918 the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic declared independence — the first secular, parliamentary and democratic republic in the Muslim world. Its parliament, convened in December 1918, enacted progressive measures: in July 1919 it extended the vote to all citizens aged twenty and over, making Azerbaijan one of the first countries in the Muslim East to grant women the right to vote, ahead of many Western states.

The republic's independence proved brief. Caught between Bolshevik Russia, Ottoman and British intervention, and the unresolved dispute with Armenia over Karabakh, the young state could not survive the Soviet advance. In April 1920 the Red Army marched into Baku against little resistance, and Azerbaijan was incorporated into Soviet rule. The democratic republic lasted scarcely two years, but its flag, parliament and ideals would be claimed as the foundation of the independent Azerbaijan reborn in 1991.

Turning points

1. 1872Economy & Trade

   The Baku oil boom begins

   Modern commercial oil extraction began in Baku in 1872; by 1900 the Abşeron field was the largest in the world, turning the city into a global energy capital.

   ↗See the data

   [7] [9]

2. 28 May 1918Independence

   Azerbaijan Democratic Republic declared

   On 28 May 1918 Azerbaijan declared independence under Musavat leadership, founding the first secular parliamentary republic in the Muslim world, with Mammad Amin Rasulzade among its leaders.

   ↗See the data

   [6] [4]

3. April 1920War & Rupture

   Soviet annexation

   The Red Army entered Baku in April 1920 against little resistance, ending the democratic republic and bringing Azerbaijan under Soviet rule.

   ↗See the data

   [6]

Figures of the era

Sovietisation reshaped Azerbaijan. After a brief Transcaucasian federation, the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic was established and, from 1936, became a full union republic of the USSR. Baku's oil fuelled Soviet industrialisation and was a vital prize in the Second World War, when Nazi Germany drove toward the Caucasus seeking its fields. Soviet rule brought mass literacy, industrialisation and urban growth, alongside collectivisation, purges and the suppression of religious and national expression — and a switch of the Azerbaijani alphabet first to Latin and then to Cyrillic.

Within the republic, the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh — populated by an Armenian majority — was constituted in 1923 as an autonomous oblast inside Soviet Azerbaijan. The arrangement froze a contested status quo for decades. As Moscow's grip loosened under perestroika in the late 1980s, the unresolved question erupted: in 1988 the region's Armenian majority demonstrated for transfer to Armenia, igniting intercommunal violence and a dispute that would outlast the Soviet Union itself.

The career of Heydar Aliyev spanned and outlived the Soviet system. A former KGB officer, he rose to lead the Azerbaijani Communist Party in 1969 and joined the Soviet Politburo in Moscow before his fall in the late 1980s. As the USSR disintegrated, Azerbaijan declared sovereignty in 1989 and, after the failed August 1991 coup in Moscow, moved toward full independence — closing the Soviet chapter and reopening the contest over Karabakh as an interstate war.

Turning points

1. 1920Politics & Power

   Azerbaijan SSR established

   Following the Red Army's entry into Baku, the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic was formed, becoming a full union republic of the USSR from 1936.

   [6] [4]

2. 1923Politics & Power

   Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous oblast created

   The Armenian-majority mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh was constituted as an autonomous oblast within Soviet Azerbaijan, freezing a contested status that would later erupt.

   [14] [4]

3. 1988War & Rupture

   Karabakh dispute reignites

   Under perestroika, Nagorno-Karabakh's Armenian majority demonstrated for transfer to Armenia, triggering intercommunal violence that grew into open conflict as the Soviet Union collapsed.

   ↗See the data

   [14]

4. 1989Independence

   Azerbaijan declares sovereignty

   Azerbaijan declared its sovereignty in 1989 as Soviet authority weakened, a first step toward the restoration of independence two years later.

   ↗See the data

   [6]

Azerbaijan restored its independence on 18 October 1991, declaring itself the successor of the 1918 republic; the move was confirmed by referendum that December, and the United States recognised the new state on 25 December 1991, establishing diplomatic relations in February 1992. The early years were turbulent. War with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh went badly for Azerbaijan, and political instability brought the fall of two presidents. In June 1993 Heydar Aliyev, the veteran Soviet-era leader, returned to power, founding a durable order; a 1994 ceasefire left Armenian forces in control of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts, with large numbers displaced on both sides.

Aliyev anchored the new state on Caspian hydrocarbons. Major contracts with international oil companies and the construction of export pipelines turned oil and gas into the backbone of the economy and the basis of state power. In 2003 the ailing Heydar Aliyev was succeeded by his son Ilham Aliyev, who has governed since, channelling oil wealth into rapid growth, a transformed Baku skyline and a much-expanded military — while drawing criticism for authoritarian rule. Azerbaijan became one of the world's most hydrocarbon-dependent economies and a significant gas supplier to Europe.

The Karabakh conflict, treated here without taking sides, was reopened by force. In a 44-day war in the autumn of 2020, Azerbaijani forces — aided by Turkish and other support — retook much of the territory, capturing the town of Shusha before a Russian-brokered ceasefire on 9 November 2020. In September 2023 a further Azerbaijani offensive brought the entire region under Baku's control; the self-declared Armenian authorities dissolved, and by international estimates more than 100,000 of roughly 120,000 ethnic Armenians fled. Casualty and displacement figures from the conflict are estimates and remain disputed.

Turning points

1. 18 October 1991Independence

   Independence restored

   Azerbaijan adopted the Constitutional Act on State Independence, declaring itself successor to the 1918 republic; the US recognised it on 25 December 1991.

   ↗See the data

   [6] [17]

2. 1994War & Rupture

   First Karabakh war ends in ceasefire

   A 1994 ceasefire halted the first Nagorno-Karabakh war, leaving Armenian forces in de facto control of the region and surrounding districts, with large displacement on both sides (figures are estimates).

   ↗See the data

   [14] [15]

3. 2003Politics & Power

   Ilham Aliyev succeeds his father

   On the death of the gravely ill Heydar Aliyev, his son Ilham Aliyev became president, continuing a family-led order built on Caspian oil and gas wealth.

   [16] [15]

4. Sept–Nov 2020War & Rupture

   Second Nagorno-Karabakh war

   In a 44-day war Azerbaijani forces retook much of Nagorno-Karabakh, capturing Shusha before a ceasefire on 9 November 2020; casualty figures are estimates.

   ↗See the data

   [14] [16]

5. September 2023War & Rupture

   Azerbaijan takes full control of Nagorno-Karabakh

   A September 2023 offensive brought all of Nagorno-Karabakh under Azerbaijani control and dissolved the self-declared republic; by estimates over 100,000 of about 120,000 ethnic Armenians fled.

   ↗See the data

   [14] [16]

Figures of the era