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 Land of Kajants: Language, Kings, and Gods

Reconsidering the Language and Sacred Heritage of Urartu in Armenian Historical Thought For more than…

2 days ago

Hayasa-Azzi: A Powerful Armenian Kingdom of the Armenian Highlands

Among the earliest known states of the Armenian Highlands, few are as historically important as…

2 weeks ago

The Frescoes of Dadivank Monastery and the Misinterpretation of Heritage

The medieval monastery of Dadivank is one of the most important spiritual and artistic centers…

3 weeks ago

Armenian Orphan Girls in New York (1917): A Forgotten Act of Witness and Relief

In 1917, at the height of global upheaval during World War I, a small but…

4 weeks ago

The Armenian Genocide: State Crime, Mass Participation, and the Burden of Historical Responsibility

The Armenian Genocide (1915–1921 ...) was not an accident of war, nor a tragic byproduct…

4 weeks ago

The First Printed Armenian Bible (Amsterdam, 1666–1668)

Introduction The first printed edition of the Bible in the Armenian language stands as one…

1 month ago