Utik
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Utik (Armenian: Ուտիք also known as Uti, Utiq, or Outi, or Otena in Latin sources) was a historic province of the Kingdom of Armenia and Caucasian Albania. Most of the region is located within present-day Azerbaijan immediately west of the Kura River while a part of it lies within the Tavush province of present-day Armenia.
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[edit] History
According to Anania Shirakatsi's Ashkharatsuyts ("Geography" 7th c. AD), Utik was the 12th among the 15 provinces of the Kingdom of Armenia and belonged at the time to Caucasian Albania.[1] It was populated by Utis[2][3] and consisted of 8 cantons (gavars): Aranrot, Tri, Rotparsyan, Aghve, Tuskstak (Tavush), Gardman, Shakashen, and Uti. The province was bounded by the Kura River from north-east, river Arax from south-east, and by the province of Artsakh from the west.[4]
Greco-Roman historians of 2nd c. BC - 2nd c AD state that Utik was a province of Armenia, with the Kura River separating Armenia and Albania.[5][6][7] But the Armenian-Albanian boundary along the river Kura, confirmed by Greco-Roman sources, was often overrun by armies of both countries.[8]
According to Strabo, Armenia, which in the 6th c. BC had covered a large portion of Asia,[9] had lost some of its lands by the 2nd c. BC.[10] At the same time Strabo wrote: "According to report, Armenia, though a small country in earlier times, was enlarged by Artaxias and Zariadris". Around 190 BC, under the king Artashes I, Armenia conquered Vaspurakan and Paytakaran from Media, Acilisene from Cataonia, and Taron from Syria. Some have suggested that Utik was among the provinces conquered by Artashes I at this time,[3] though Strabo doesn't list Utik among Artashes' conquests.[11]
After the area between the Kura and Arax rivers (including Utik) passed to Albania in 387 AD, medieval Armenian historians (5th-7th cc. A.D.) referred to it as the "Albanian plain." According to their chronicles, in the 2nd c. BC Armenian king Vagharshak established the principality of Albania as part of the Kingdom of Armenia[citation needed], subjugating the "savage tribes" south of the Caucasus mountains, and appointing as its governor an Armenian nobleman by the name of Aran, who descended from the Armenian patriarch Hayk and was from the Armenian princely family of Sisakan. According to this account, members of the Sisakan family inherited Utik as well as the rest of the plain between the Arax and Kura rivers, which was later named "Albanian plain" by the Sisakan princes (the entire area under Aran's governorship was named Aghuank (Albania) after the Sisakan nobles, who had fine (in Armenian--aghu) values).[12][13]
In 370's, after the Albanian king Urnayr had invaded Utik, Armenian sparapet Mushegh Mamikonyan defeated the Albanians, restoring the frontier back to the river Kura.[14] In 387 A.D. the Sassanid Empire extended the boundaries of the marzpanate of Albania to include Utik, which was taken away from the Kingdom of Armenia.[15] Subsequently, medieval Armenian historians often referred to the area as the "Albanian plain."
In the middle of the 5th century by the order of the Persian king Peroz I the Albanian king Vache built in Utik the city initially called Perozabad, and later Partaw and Barda, and made it the capital of Albania.[16]
Starting with the 13th century, the area covered by Utik and Artsakh was called Karabakh.
[edit] Population
In ancient times the area was inhabited by Udis, after whom it was named.[17][18] Early Armenian chronicles (5th c. AD) state that the local princes of Utik descended from the Armenian noble family of Sisakan.[19]
Utik had been one of the provinces of Caucasian Albania, the population of which is referred to by the name Udini (or Utidorsi) in Latin sources, and by the name Outioi in Greek sources.[2] Ancient Greco-Roman writers placed Udis beyond Utik, north of the Kura River.[3]
Pliny the Elder calls udis a Scythian tribe and also mentions so called utidors (which was apparently a tribe of mixed origin). Due to this a drift of ethnonym or more complex ethnogenetic processes are probable (for example, settlement of some Iranian-speaking or, less probably, Finno-Ugric peoples and adoption by them of language of the local Caucasian population).[3]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Anania Shirakatsi. Geography
- ^ a b Wolfgang Schulze. The Language of the ‘Caucasian Albanian’ (Aluan) Palimpses
- ^ a b c d Igor Kuznetsov. Udis.
- ^ Anania Shirakatsi, "Geography"
- ^ Strabo, Geography, 11.14.4, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0198&loc=11.14.1
- ^ Pliny the Elder, "The Natural history ", 6.39: "..the tribe of Albanians settled on the Caucasian mountains, reaches ... the river Kir making border of Armenia and Iberia"
- ^ Claudius Ptolemy, "Geography" 5.12: "Armenia is located from the north to a part of Colchida, Iberia and Albania along the line, which goes through the river Kir (Kura)"
- ^ Encyclopedia Iranica. M. L. Chaumont. Albania.
- ^ Strabo, Geography, 11.13.5: "In ancient times Greater Armenia ruled the whole of Asia, after it broke up the empire of the Syrians", http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0198&loc=11.13.1
- ^ Strabo, Geography, 11.14.5, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0198&loc=11.14.1
- ^ Strabo, Geography, 11.14.5, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0198&loc=11.14.1
- ^ Movses Khorenatsi, "History of Armenia," I.13, II.8
- ^ Movses Kaghankatvatsi, "History of Aghvank," I.4
- ^ Pavstos Buzand, "History of Armenia," 5.13, 4th. c. A.D.
- ^ Encyclopedia Iranica. M. L. Chaumont. Albania.
- ^ Movses Kalankatuatsi. History of Albania
- ^ Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia, v. 6, p. 135, Yerevan 1980
- ^ Agathangelos, History of St. Gregory
- ^ Movses Khorenatsi, "History of Armenia," I.13, II.8
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