# The Chronicle of Azerbaijan: From the fire-altars of Caucasian Albania and the Shirvanshahs' Baku to the oil boom, the 1918 republic, Soviet rule and renewed independence. History of Azerbaijan: From the fire-altars of Caucasian Albania and the Shirvanshahs' Baku to the oil boom, the 1918 republic, Soviet rule and renewed… Canonical: https://terralore.co/country/AZE/chronicle Updated: 2026-06-15 Founding: Restoration of state independence — 18 October 1991. The modern Republic of Azerbaijan dates its political founding to 18 October 1991, when the Supreme Council adopted the Constitutional Act on the State Independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan, declaring the country the legal successor of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic of 1918–1920 and ending more than seven decades of Soviet rule; the act was confirmed by referendum on 29 December 1991. Azerbaijan had earlier declared sovereignty in 1989 and, after the failed August 1991 coup in Moscow, adopted a declaration on restoring independence on 30 August 1991. The United States recognised Azerbaijan's independence on 25 December 1991 and established diplomatic relations on 19 February 1992. The republic inherited a land of extraordinary depth — Caucasian Albania, the Shirvanshahs' Baku, Persian khanates and a century of Russian and Soviet rule — and a brief but pioneering experiment in parliamentary democracy in 1918. The land between the Greater Caucasus and the Caspian Sea carries one of the deepest records of human habitation in the region — the 40,000-year-old rock art of Gobustan, the ancient kingdom of Caucasian Albania, and a Zoroastrian heritage of natural-gas fires that gave Azerbaijan its name as the "land of fire." After the Arab conquests brought Islam in the seventh century and the Seljuks made Oghuz Turkic the dominant tongue, the medieval Shirvanshahs built their walled capital at Baku around the Maiden Tower, and the Safavids of Ardabil drew the country into the Persian world. Russia annexed the eastern Caucasus khanates by the treaties of Gulistan (1813) and Turkmenchay (1828), and the late-nineteenth-century Baku oil boom made the city a world energy capital. In 1918 the short-lived Azerbaijan Democratic Republic became the first secular parliamentary republic in the Muslim world before Soviet annexation in 1920; the modern Republic of Azerbaijan restored its independence on 18 October 1991. This file carries the chronicle's sourced event record — every event with its year, summary and source keys (resolved under References below). The full reading narrative lives on the canonical page. ## Gobustan, Caucasian Albania and the land of fire — c. 38,000 BCE – 7th century CE From Palaeolithic rock carvings to an ancient Christian kingdom and a landscape of perpetual natural-gas flames. - c. 40,000 years ago: **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. [unesco-gobustan] - c. 1st century BCE: **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. [loc-azerbaijan, unesco-baku] - 4th century CE: **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. [loc-azerbaijan] ## Islam, the Seljuks and the Shirvanshahs' Baku — 7th century – 1500 Arab conquest brought Islam, Turkic migration reshaped the people, and the Shirvanshahs walled their Caspian capital. - 7th century: **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. [loc-azerbaijan, britannica-baku, britannica-history-azerbaijan] - 11th century: **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. [britannica-baku] - 12th century: **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. [britannica-baku, britannica-icheri, unesco-baku] - 15th century: **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. [unesco-baku, britannica-baku] ## Persian khanates and Russian annexation — 1500 – 1870 The Safavids drew the land into Shia Persia; then Russia took the khanates of the eastern Caucasus by treaty. - 1501: **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. [britannica-safavid, britannica-ismail] - 1813: **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. [britannica-gulistan, britannica-russian-suzerainty] - 1828: **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. [britannica-turkmenchay, britannica-russian-suzerainty] ## The Baku oil boom and the 1918 republic — 1870 – 1920 Caspian oil made Baku a world energy capital — and gave birth to the Muslim world's first parliamentary republic. - 1872: **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. [britannica-baku, britannica-abseron] - 28 May 1918: **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. [britannica-russian-suzerainty, loc-azerbaijan] - April 1920: **Soviet annexation** — The Red Army entered Baku in April 1920 against little resistance, ending the democratic republic and bringing Azerbaijan under Soviet rule. [britannica-russian-suzerainty] Figures: - Mammad Amin Rasulzade (1884–1955) — Leader of the Musavat party; founder of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. Head of the Musavat ("Equality") party founded in 1911, Rasulzade was the central political figure of the 1918 republic, the first secular parliamentary democracy in the Muslim world. He died in exile after the Soviet takeover. ## The Azerbaijan SSR — 1920 – 1991 Seven decades inside the Soviet Union — oil for Moscow, industrial growth, and the autonomy of Nagorno-Karabakh. - 1920: **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. [britannica-russian-suzerainty, loc-azerbaijan] - 1923: **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. [britannica-nagorno-karabakh, loc-azerbaijan] - 1988: **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. [britannica-nagorno-karabakh] - 1989: **Azerbaijan declares sovereignty** — Azerbaijan declared its sovereignty in 1989 as Soviet authority weakened, a first step toward the restoration of independence two years later. [britannica-russian-suzerainty] ## Independence, the Aliyev era and Karabakh — 1991 – present A restored republic built on Caspian oil and gas, ruled by a single family — and the long, violent contest over Nagorno-Karabakh. - 18 October 1991: **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. [britannica-russian-suzerainty, history-state-azerbaijan] - 1994: **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). [britannica-nagorno-karabakh, britannica-aliyev-heydar] - 2003: **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. [britannica-aliyev-ilham, britannica-aliyev-heydar] - Sept–Nov 2020: **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. [britannica-nagorno-karabakh, britannica-aliyev-ilham] - September 2023: **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. [britannica-nagorno-karabakh, britannica-aliyev-ilham] Figures: - Heydar Aliyev (1923–2003) — President of Azerbaijan (1993–2003); Soviet-era party leader. A former KGB officer who led Soviet Azerbaijan from 1969, Aliyev returned to power in 1993 and stabilised the independent state, building it on Caspian oil revenues before handing the presidency to his son. Machine-readable claims — every event above as an addressable claim ID (TL:AZE:event::) with its sources and a ready citation string: https://terralore.co/country/AZE/chronicle.claims.json ## References - [unesco-gobustan] Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape — UNESCO World Heritage Centre · https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1076/ - [unesco-baku] Walled City of Baku with the Shirvanshah's Palace and Maiden Tower — UNESCO World Heritage Centre · https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/958/ - [unesco-ateshgah] Surakhany, Atashgyakh (fire-worshippers' temple-museum), Baku — Tentative List — UNESCO World Heritage Centre · https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/1172/ - [loc-azerbaijan] Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia: Country Studies (ed. Glenn E. Curtis) — Library of Congress, Federal Research Division · https://www.loc.gov/item/94045459/ - [britannica-history-azerbaijan] History of Azerbaijan — Encyclopædia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-Azerbaijan - [britannica-russian-suzerainty] Azerbaijan: Russian suzerainty and the road to independence — Encyclopædia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/place/Azerbaijan/Russian-suzerainty - [britannica-baku] Baku: location, history and economy — Encyclopædia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/place/Baku - [britannica-icheri] Icheri-Shekher (Inner City), Baku — Encyclopædia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/place/Icheri-Shekher - [britannica-abseron] Abşeron Peninsula — Encyclopædia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/place/Abseron-Peninsula - [britannica-safavid] Safavid dynasty — Encyclopædia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/topic/Safavid-dynasty - [britannica-ismail] Ismāʿīl I, shah of Iran — Encyclopædia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ismail-I-shah-of-Iran - [britannica-gulistan] Treaty of Golestān (Gulistan), 1813 — Encyclopædia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/topic/Treaty-of-Golestan - [britannica-turkmenchay] Treaty of Turkmenchay, 1828 — Encyclopædia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/topic/Treaty-of-Turkmenchay - [britannica-nagorno-karabakh] Nagorno-Karabakh: conflicts, map and people — Encyclopædia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/place/Nagorno-Karabakh - [britannica-aliyev-heydar] Heydar Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan — Encyclopædia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/biography/Heydar-Aliyev - [britannica-aliyev-ilham] Ilham Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan — Encyclopædia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ilham-Aliyev - [history-state-azerbaijan] A Guide to the United States' History of Recognition: Azerbaijan — U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian · https://history.state.gov/countries/azerbaijan - [wikipedia-adr] Azerbaijan Democratic Republic — Wikipedia · https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijan_Democratic_Republic - [nwe-azerbaijan] Azerbaijan — New World Encyclopedia · https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Azerbaijan Citation template: Terralore, "The Chronicle of Azerbaijan: From the fire-altars of Caucasian Albania and the Shirvanshahs' Baku to the oil boom, the 1918 republic, Soviet rule and renewed independence.", terralore.co/country/AZE/chronicle, retrieved .