Early history marks the place in
Nakhchivan City, which is traditionally believed to be the site of
Noah's grave. The oldest material culture artifacts found in the region date back to the
Neolithic Age. On the other hand, Azerbaijani archaeologists have found that the history of Nakhchivan dates back to the Stone Age (
Paleolithic). As a result of archaeological diggings, archaeologists discovered a great number of Stone-Age materials in different regions of Nakhchivan. These materials were useful to study the Paleolithic age in Azerbaijan. Pollen analysis conducted in Gazma Cave (Sharur District) suggests that humans in the Middle Palaeolithic (
Mousterian) lived not only in the mountain forests but also in the dry woodlands found in Nakhchivan. Several archaeological sites dating from the
Neolithic and
Chalcolithic periods have also been found in Nakhchivan, including the ancient towns of
Nakhchivan Tepe (near the city of Nakhchivan) and
Ovchular Tepesi. Some of the oldest salt mines in the world have also been discovered. The region was part of the states of
Urartu and later
Media. It became part of the
Satrapy of Armenia under
Achaemenid Persia c. 521 BC. After the death of
Alexander the Great in 323 BC several generals of the Macedonian army, including
Neoptolemus, attempted but failed to take control of the region, and it was ruled by the native Armenian dynasty of
Orontids until
Armenia was conquered by
Antiochus III the Great (ruled 222–187 BC). (908–1021) In 189 BC, Nakhchivan became part of the new
Kingdom of Armenia established by
Artaxias I. Within the kingdom, the region of present-day Nakhchivan was part of the
Ayrarat,
Vaspurakan and
Syunik provinces. According to the early medieval Armenian historian
Movses Khorenatsi, from the third to second centuries, the region belonged to the Muratsyan
nakharar family but after disputes with central power, King
Artavazd I massacred the family and seized the lands and formally attached it to the kingdom. The area's status as a major trade center allowed it to prosper; as a result, many foreign powers coveted it. In 428, the Armenian
Arshakuni monarchy was abolished and Nakhchivan was annexed by Sassanid Persia. In 623, possession of the region passed to the
Byzantine Empire From 640 on, the
Arabs invaded Nakhchivan and undertook many campaigns in the area, crushing all resistance and attacking Armenian nobles who remained in contact with the Byzantines or who refused to pay tribute. In 705, after suppressing an Armenian revolt, Arab viceroy
Muhammad ibn Marwan decided to eliminate the Armenian nobility. In Nakhchivan, several hundred Armenian nobles were locked up in churches and burnt, while others were crucified. In the eighth century, Nakhchivan was one of the scenes revolutionary
Babak Khorramdin of the Iranian
Khorram-Dinān ("those of the joyous religion" in Persian). Nakhchivan was finally released from Arab rule in the tenth century by
Bagratuni King
Smbat I and handed over to the princes of Syunik. The magnificent 12th-century
mausoleum of Momine Khatun, the wife of Ildegizid ruler, Great
Atabeg Jahan Pehlevan, is the main attraction of modern Nakhchivan. At its heyday, the Ildegizid authority in Nakhchivan and some other areas of South Caucasus was contested by Georgia. The Armeno-Georgian princely house of Zacharids frequently raided the region when the Atabeg state was in decline in the early years of the 13th century. It was then plundered by invading Mongols in 1220 and Khwarezmians in 1225 and became part of
Mongol Empire in 1236 when the Caucasus was invaded by
Chormaqan. The 14th century saw the rise of
Armenian Catholicism in Nakhchivan, , 1830, by
Francis Rawdon Chesney Many of the Armenian deportees were settled in the neighborhood of
Isfahan that was named
New Julfa since most of the residents were from the original
Julfa. The Turkic Kangerli tribe was later permitted to move back under
Shah Abbas II (1642–1666) to repopulate the frontier region of his realm. In the 17th century, Nakhchivan was the scene of a peasant movement led by Köroğlu against foreign invaders and "native exploiters". With the onset of Russian rule, the
Tsarist authorities encouraged resettlement of Armenians to Nakhchivan and other areas of the
Caucasus from the
Persian and
Ottoman Empires. Special clauses of the Turkmenchay and
Adrianople treaties allowed for this.
Alexandr Griboyedov, the Russian envoy to
Persia, stated that by the time Nakhchivan came under Russian rule, there had been 290 native Armenians families in the province excluding the city of Nakhchivan, the number of Muslim families was 1,632, and the number of the Armenian immigrant families was 943. The same numbers in the city of Nakhchivan were 114, 392, and 285 respectively. With such a dramatic influx of Armenian immigrants, Griboyedov noted friction arising between the Armenian and Muslim populations. He requested Russian army commander Count
Ivan Paskevich to give orders on resettlement of some of the arriving people further to the region of Daralayaz to quiet the tensions. The Nakhchivan Khanate was dissolved in 1828 the same year it came into Russian possession, and its territory was merged with the territory of the
Erivan khanate and the area became the
Nakhichevan uezd of the new
Armenian oblast, which later became the
Erivan Governorate in 1849. According to official statistics of the Russian Empire, by the turn of the 20th century Tatars (later known as
Azerbaijanis) made up roughly 57% of the
uezd's population, while Armenians constituted roughly 42%. During the
Russian Revolution of 1905, conflict erupted between the Armenians and the Tatars, culminating in the
Armenian-Tatar massacres which saw violence in Nakhchivan in May of that year.
War and revolution In the final year of
World War I, Nakhchivan was the scene of more bloodshed between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, who both laid claim to the area. By 1914, the Armenian population had decreased slightly to 40% while the Azeri population increased to roughly 60%. After the
February Revolution, the region was under the authority of the Special Transcaucasian Committee of the
Russian Provisional Government and subsequently of the short-lived
Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. When the TDFR was dissolved in May 1918, Nakhchivan,
Nagorno-Karabakh, Zangezur (today the Armenian province of
Syunik), and
Qazakh were heavily contested between the newly formed and short-lived states of the
Republic of Armenia and the
Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR). In June 1918, the region came under Ottoman occupation. Under British occupation, Sir
Oliver Wardrop, British Chief Commissioner in the South Caucasus, made a border proposal to solve the conflict. According to Wardrop, Armenian claims against Azerbaijan should not go beyond the administrative borders of the former Erivan Governorate (which under prior Imperial Russian rule encompassed Nakhchivan), while Azerbaijan was to be limited to the governorates of
Baku and
Elizavetpol. This proposal was rejected by both Armenians (who did not wish to give up their claims to Qazakh, Zangezur and Karabakh) and Azeris (who found it unacceptable to give up their claims to Nakhchivan). As disputes between both countries continued, it soon became apparent that the fragile peace under British occupation would not last. In December 1918, with the support of Azerbaijan's
Musavat Party,
Jafargulu Khan Nakhchivanski declared the
Republic of Aras in the Nakhchivan uyezd of the former Erivan Governorate assigned to Armenia by Wardrop. Still, fighting between Armenians and Azeris continued and after a series of skirmishes that took place throughout the Nakhchivan district, a cease-fire agreement was concluded. However, the cease-fire lasted only briefly, and by early March 1920, more fighting broke out, primarily in Karabakh between Karabakh Armenians and Azerbaijan's regular army. This triggered conflicts in other areas with mixed populations, including Nakhchivan. Following the adoption of the name of "
Azerbaijan" by the newly established Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, a naming dispute arose with
Qajar Iran, with the latter protesting this decision. In tandem with this naming controversy, however, the young Azerbaijan Republic also faced a threat from the nascent
Soviets in Moscow and the Armenians. In the end, these efforts proved to be of no avail, with the Soviets taking over the entirety of Transcaucasia.
Sovietization In July 1920, the
11th Soviet Red Army invaded and occupied the region and on July 28, declared the
Nakhchivan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic with "close ties" to the
Azerbaijan SSR. In November, on the verge of taking over Armenia, the Bolsheviks, to attract public support, promised they would allot Nakhchivan to Armenia, along with Karabakh and Zangezur.
Nariman Narimanov, leader of Bolshevik Azerbaijan, issued a declaration celebrating the "victory of Soviet power in Armenia" and proclaimed that both Nakhchivan and Zangezur should be awarded to the Armenian people as a sign of the Azerbaijani people's support for Armenia's fight against the former Armenian government: The decision to make Nakhchivan a part of modern-day Azerbaijan was cemented on March 16, 1921, in the
Treaty of Moscow between
Soviet Russia and the newly founded Republic of Turkey. The agreement between Soviet Russia and Turkey also called for attachment of the former
Sharur-Daralagezsky Uyezd (which had a solid Azeri majority) to Nakhchivan, thus allowing Turkey to share a border with the Azerbaijan SSR. This deal was reaffirmed on October 13, in the
Treaty of Kars. Article V of the treaty stated the following: Thus, on February 9, 1924, the Soviet Union officially established the Nakhchivan ASSR. Its constitution was adopted on April 18, 1926. as well as the
Baku-
Yerevan railway. Azeris made up 85% in 1926, but 96% in 1979 (leaving the small remainder mixed or other). Three factors were involved: the emigration of Armenians to the
Armenian SSR, the immigration of Azeris from Armenia, and the birth rate of Azeris being higher than that of Armenians. This effectively crippled Armenia's economy, as 85% of the cargo and goods arrived through rail traffic. In response, Armenia closed the railway to Nakhchivan, thereby strangling the exclave's only link to the rest of the Soviet Union. The
transportation and economic blockade against Armenia was later joined by Turkey in 1993 and has persisted to today. December 1989 saw unrest in Nakhchivan as its Azeri inhabitants moved to physically dismantle the Soviet border with Iran to flee the area and meet their ethnic Azeri cousins in northern Iran. This action was angrily denounced by the Soviet leadership and the Soviet media accused the Azeris of "embracing
Islamic fundamentalism".
Declaring independence On Saturday, January 20, 1990, the
Supreme Soviet of the Nakhchivan ASSR issued a declaration stating the intention for Nakhchivan to
secede from the USSR to protest the Soviet Union's actions during
Black January. Iranian Press Agency,
IRNA, reported that upon its independence, Nakhchivan asked Turkey, Iran, and the
United Nations to come to its aid. It was the first part of the Soviet Union to declare independence, preceding
Lithuania's declaration by only a few weeks. Subsequently, Nakhchivan was independent from Moscow and Baku but was then brought under control by the clan of
Heydar Aliyev.
In the post-Soviet era Heydar Aliyev, the future president of Azerbaijan, returned to his birthplace of Nakhchivan in 1990, after being ousted from his position in the
Politburo by
Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. Soon after returning to Nakhchivan, Aliyev was elected to the Supreme Soviet by an overwhelming majority. Aliyev subsequently resigned from the
CPSU, and after the failed
August 1991 coup against Gorbachev, he called for complete independence for Azerbaijan and denounced
Ayaz Mütallibov for supporting the coup. In late 1991, Aliyev consolidated his power base as chairman of the Nakhchivan Supreme Soviet and asserted Nakhchivan's near-total independence from
Baku. Nakhchivan became a scene of conflict during the
First Nagorno-Karabakh War. On May 4, 1992, Armenian forces shelled the
raion of
Sadarak. The Armenians claimed that the attack was in response to cross-border shelling of Armenian villages by Azeri forces from Nakhchivan. David Zadoyan, a 42-year-old Armenian physicist and mayor of the region, said that the Armenians lost patience after months of firing by the Azeris. "If they were sitting on our hilltops and harassing us with gunfire, what do you think our response should be?" he asked. The government of Nakhchivan denied these charges and instead asserted that the Armenian assault was unprovoked and specifically targeted the site of a bridge between Turkey and Nakhchivan. According to Human Rights Watch, hostilities broke out after three people were killed when Armenian forces began shelling the region. The heaviest fighting took place on May 18, when the Armenians captured Nakhchivan's exclave of
Karki, a tiny territory through which Armenia's main north–south highway passes. The exclave presently remains under Armenian control. After the fall of
Shusha, the Mütallibov government of Azerbaijan accused Armenia of moving to take the whole of Nakhchivan (a claim that was denied by Armenian government officials). However, Heydar Aliyev declared a unilateral ceasefire on May 23 and sought to conclude a separate peace with Armenia. Armenian President
Levon Ter-Petrossian expressed his willingness to sign a cooperation treaty with Nakhchivan to end the fighting, and subsequently a cease-fire was agreed upon. The tension reached its peak, when Turkish heavy artillery shelled the Nakhchivan side of the Nakhchivan-Armenian border, from the Turkish border for two hours. Iran also reacted to Armenia's attacks by conducting military maneuvers along its border with Nakhchivan in a move widely interpreted as a warning to Armenia. However, Armenia did not launch any further attacks on Nakhchivan and the presence of Russia's military warded off any possibility that Turkey might play a military role in the conflict. A new constitution for Nakhchivan was approved in a referendum on November 12, 1995. The constitution was adopted by the republic's assembly on April 28, 1998, and has been in force since January 8, 1999. However, the republic remains isolated, not only from the rest of Azerbaijan, but practically from the entire
South Caucasus region. From 1995 until his resignation in December 2022, the region was ruled by
Vasif Talibov, who is related by marriage to Azerbaijan's ruling family, the Aliyevs. He was known for his authoritarian Most residents prefer to watch Turkish television as opposed to Nakhchivan television, which one Azerbaijani journalist criticised as "a propaganda vehicle for Talibov and the Aliyevs." As part of the
2020 ceasefire agreement which ended the
Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, Armenia, in the context of all economic and transport connections in the region to be unblocked, agreed "to guarantee the security of transport connections between the western regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic in order to arrange unobstructed movement of persons, vehicles and cargo in both directions". As part of the agreement, these transport communications are to be patrolled by
Border Service of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. == Administrative divisions ==