Categories: History

History In Postage Stamps – Armenians, Georgians, But No Azerbaijanis

Postage stamps, like banknotes, are one of the attributes of statehood. Three Transcaucasian nations are represented on the stamp above. More specifically, these nations are Georgians, Armenians, and Turks.

The absence of Azerbaijanis on this stamp may seem odd only to people unfamiliar with history, as well as to residents of the Republic of Azerbaijan from whom the authorities are carefully hiding their own history.

The reason for the absence of the word “Azerbaijani” on the stamp is simple – in 1933, the nation called “Azerbaijanis” did not exist yet. Azerbaijanis, called the “Caucasian Tatars” or the “Transcaucasian Turks” before the revolution, received their artificial ethnonym only with the adoption of the USSR Constitution in 1937.

And the name of Azerbaijan itself – a state created in 1918 by the troops of Anatolian (Ottoman) Turks – was borrowed from the Azerbaijan Province in Northern Iran populated by Turkic-speaking Persians.

Arthur Davoyan

Vigen Avetisyan

Recent Posts

The Turkish Pipeline: How Syrian Fighters Were Recruited, Moved and Deployed Against Armenian Forces in the 2020 Artsakh War

Image Source: 301.am For years, Ankara and Baku publicly denied that Syrian fighters had any…

2 days ago

Tork Angegh: Storm, Stone, and the Oldest Face of the Armenian Pantheon

Long before Armenia's kings raised churches over pagan sanctuaries, before Hellenism folded Vahagn into Herakles…

7 days ago

The Goat on the Armenian Highland: A Symbol Older Than Writing

Introduction Long before Urartian kings inscribed their names in cuneiform on the cliffs of Van,…

1 week ago

“Summon Against Her the Kingdoms of Ararat”: Urartu-Armenia in the Prophecy Against Babylon

A Coalition Beneath the Mountain Among the oracles of judgment collected in the Book of…

2 weeks ago

The Tower That Never Left Us: From the Susi Shrine of Ancient Van to the Obelisk Above the Yerevan Cascade

If you have ever climbed the Cascade in Yerevan and looked up at the tall,…

2 weeks ago

Hayravank Monastery: The “Father Monastery” of Lake Sevan and the Legend of the Doves

On a rocky promontory above the southwestern shore of Lake Sevan, at an elevation of…

2 weeks ago