A History of Qarabagh: An Annotated Translation of Mirza Jamal Javanshir Qarabaghi's Tarikh-E Qarabagh [Hardcover]

Jamal Javanshir Qarabaghi (Author), George A. Bournoutian (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Persian (translation)
Original Language: Persian

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Mazda Pub (November 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568590113
• ISBN-13: 978-1568590110
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,409,537 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A work of meticulous scholarship, September 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A History of Qarabagh: An Annotated Translation of Mirza Jamal Javanshir Qarabaghi's Tarikh-E Qarabagh (Hardcover)

Translator George A. Bournoutian has produced a work of meticulous scholarship. The 466 footnotes included in Mirza Jalal Qarabaghi's "History of Qarabagh" not only offer extensive biographical and historical background guide for the reader, but provide valuable references to other ancient and contemporary sources. The book also features a detailed bibliography, a glossary, and a facsimile copy of the original Persian text. Finally, A History of Qarabagh is testimony to the wide-ranging linguistic and scholarly skills of Bournoutian, whose works has established him as a leading authority on Azerbaijan and Eastern Armenia.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bob Kostoff: Important historical text on Nagorno-Karabakh, September 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A History of Qarabagh: An Annotated Translation of Mirza Jamal Javanshir Qarabaghi's Tarikh-E Qarabagh (Hardcover)

The study is a fully annotated English translation of Tarikh-e Qarabagh, a 19th-century manuscript on the region of Nagorno-Karabakh written by Mirza Jamal Javanshir Qarabaghi, a Turkic (Azeri) historian. Without using any Armenian chroniclers, the annotator, relying primarily on Muslim historians, has assembled additional material from Arabic, Persian, Azeri and Turkish sources (dating from the 9th to the 20th centuries) on Karabakh and has incorporated it into the more than five hundred footnotes in the text. This unique work challenges the somewhat awkward claims of Azerbaijani Republic's current leadership, which still tries, albeit desperately, to deny a historic Armenian presence in Nagorno-Karabakh and prove the presence of ethnic Azeris in this region earlier than the date of their official arrival there, which is 1752 AD. The text proves beyond any doubt that the Armenians, according to all primary sources, including the author of the Tarikh-e Qarabagh, inhabited the region from pre-Christian times and constituted an absolute demographic majority in its mountainous part in mid-XVIII century. This excellent hardcover volume of 236 pages includes five specially prepared historical maps, the complete facsimile of the original manuscript, English text, glossary, assessment of the sources, bibliographical data, and index. Mirza Jamal Javanshir Qarabaghi's "Tarikh-E Qarabagh" is highly recommended to all historians studying the Caucasus and, in particular, Azerbaijan.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A valued piece of historical record, September 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A History of Qarabagh: An Annotated Translation of Mirza Jamal Javanshir Qarabaghi's Tarikh-E Qarabagh (Hardcover)

The publication of The History of Qarabagh will come as unwelcome news for the scholars responsible for asserting Azerbaijan's historical claim to Mountainous Karabagh (Nagorno-Karabakh). A History of Qarabagh is one of four primary sources of Mountainous Karabagh dating from the 19th century. All were written by Azerbaijani Turks -- three in Persian and one in Russian. As representatives of a people whose national consciousness crystallized only with the imposition of Soviet rule, Azerbaijani scholars have long grappled with a sense of insecurity and inferiority in their relations with the ancient cultures of their Armenian and Georgian neighbors. During the Soviet period, the Persian-language histories were translated into Russian and Azeri, and published in relatively small numbers with little fanfare. Since the dispute over Mountainous Karabagh erupted in 1988, the Azerbaijani Academy of Sciences has reissued each of the histories in much larger printings. More important, Azerbaijani scholars have scrupulously deleted references to Armenians from the translations. A History of Qarabagh represents a serious setback for Azerbaijani efforts. As a resource for specialist, A History of Qarabagh will undoubtedly prove more useful than the publications produced by the Azerbaijani Academy of Sciences. In contrast to the Azerbaijani translations, which lack annotations, Bournoutian's footnotes in A History of Qarabagh carefully compare Mirza Jamal's account with the three other 19th-century histories, as well as with additional sources. From the Azerbaijani standpoint, Bournoutian's scholarship will be difficult to dispute. The documentation for the footnotes of A History of Qarabagh relies almost exclusively on Persian and Azerbaijani sources. The publication of The History of Qarabagh is an important event. This reverend text is a great asset for everyone who is interested in serious scholarship on the Caucasus.