The use of Armenian toponyms should be regarded a cartographic war against Azerbaijan

"Nagorno-Karabakh" was invented by the Armenians

A cartographic war against Azerbaijan, which began on the day of the creation of the Armenian SSR by the Bolsheviks on December 30, 1922, has been lasting. Since that time, Yerevan has unilaterally changed in Armenian the Turkic and Persian names of 212 settlements and 112 rivers and reservoirs in the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Since the Soviet times, maps of Karabakh with Armenian toponyms have been printed in Yerevan. Last time, in 2009, the Center for Geodesy and Cartography of the State Committee for Real Estate Cadaster under the Government of Armenia in Yerevan published the Atlas of Nagorno-Karabakh with about 70 maps. The Atlas was published both in Armenian and in Russian. The Armenian names of settlements, territories, rivers and lakes in Azerbaijan were changed into Armenian names, and were used in Soviet documents, the organizations and media in Russia and other countries.

Armenian politicians changed the names established by them on the territory of Azerbaijan, depending on the political moment. Historian Yaseman Garagoyunlu said in an interview for ASTNA.biz that before the Bolsheviks’ coming in the Caucasus, there was no separate geographical unit called "Nagorno-Karabakh".

https://www.turan.az/ext/news/2020/10/free/Interview/ru/129367.htm

The Karabakh Khanate existed since the second half of the 18th century, and it was ceded to Russia as a result of the war of this empire with Persia. Of course, there was no Stepanakert either, but there was the village of Khankendi (the village of Khan). In Soviet times, the Armenians were driven there, and the village was named after the Bolshevik Stepan Shaumyan.  This can be checked in the historical maps in this resource: https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/blogs/83772/posts/27305

In order to isolate the Armenian-populated part of Karabakh and annex it to Soviet Armenia, the Armenian Bolsheviks invented a new term - Nagorno-Karabakh. In 1921, the Caucasian Bureau under the Kirov Regional Executive Committee instructed Armenia "to create a legal basis for claims to Karabakh and Zangezur." The Armenian press spread a statement signed by the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of Armenia Myasnikov and demanded the annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. Thus appeared the toponym Nagorno-Karabakh; in 1921, it became the basis for the name of the administrative unit - the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) within the Azerbaijan SSR.

Throughout the Soviet period and in the post-Soviet period, until about 2015 the Armenians used the Turkic ethnonym Karabakh. In January 1988, the Armenians distributed leaflets in the NKAO with the following content: "... the agenda of which should include the issue of reunification of Karabakh with the Motherland." The declaration on independence of Armenia noted Nagorno-Karabakh, and not a word about Artsakh.

The resolutions of the NKAO and the Armenian SSR of 1989 on reunification also mention Nagorno-Karabakh, not NKAO, so both sides did not recognize NKAO, but recognized the name Nagorno-Karabakh. Not a word about Artsakh.

In 1991, Armenia adopted an Act on Independence, including Nagorno-Karabakh in the text of the document. Again, not a word about Artsakh.

The Supreme Council of the USSR adopted a reciprocal resolution rejecting the decision adopted by the Armenian SSR "on the reunification of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh." Other Soviet documents use the abbreviation NKAO.

You cannot find "Artsakh" in any document of that period

Then Yerevan decided that the purely Turkic words Gara and Bagh (Karabakh - Black Garden from Turkic) suggested the non-Armenian history of this region; so, in 2017, in the next edition of the illegal "constitution" of the self-proclaimed "Nagorno-Karabakh Republic» they included the second name - Artsakh.

This ethnonym was created by the Sak tribes who lived in the territory of modern Azerbaijan in the 7th century BC. Subsequently, Artsakh became one of the provinces of the state of Caucasian Albania, and then, with its disintegration and absorption by ancient Persia, the name “Artsakh” remained only in historical documents. In 2017, the Armenians planned to use historical toponym for the final rejection of Karabakh from Azerbaijan.

To call the Nagorno-Karabakh "Artsakh" is as ridiculous as renaming the modern Azerbaijan Republic into Manna, after the name of the first known state in history on the territory of geographic Azerbaijan, dating back to the 10-7 centuries BC.

The same is with the populated areas. Virtual maps of Azerbaijan on the Internet are full of false fake maps, in which settlements in Karabakh are named by Armenian toponyms, sometimes even written in the Armenian alphabet.

Shusha, not "Shushi", not even "sushi"

In all Russian maps (1801-12, 1914) and documents of the imperial period, and Soviet state, geographical, literary sources, the Azerbaijani city in Karabakh, the former capital of the Karabakh Khanate, built and called by the Azerbaijanis, is called Shusha. Gradually, during the period of Armenian occupation, Armenian, then Russian, and then other media began to call this city Shushi - in the Armenian way.

On November 8, 2020, the Moscow edition Izvestiya.ru explained: “The Azerbaijani side calls the city “Shusha” and declines it as a feminine name, while the Armenians call it “Shushi”, and does not decline this name.” Nevertheless, knowing the spelling rules for the name of the Azerbaijani city, in that article and on November 19, Izvestiya.ru used the Armenian name - "Shushi".

Lenta.ru knows about the rules of mentioning the name of the city. On November 11, an article in this resource was titled: “Azerbaijan recaptured the city of Shushi from Armenia”.  Then the article used two indicative sentences: “Whoever owns Shushi, he owns Karabakh” - this is what they say in Armenia and Karabakh. Azerbaijan, where the city was founded as Shusha, is also well aware of the military, historical and symbolic significance of this ancient mountain fortress,” writes Lenta.ru.

It is time for Azerbaijan to win the cartographic war

Knowing the correct spelling of the name of the Azerbaijani city, the Russian media prefer to use its Armenian name. In addition, the Armenian-Russian media writes the city of Fizuli as Varanda, Lachin - is written as Kashatag, Jabrail - as Jrakan. Even the most cited world dictionary "Wikipedia" offers the attention of readers Armenian or, along with Armenian, also Azerbaijani toponyms of settlements in Azerbaijan. If the separatist-annexationist intention of the Armenians in such cases is understandable, then such "mistakes" on the Russian side (and in other countries) indicate the anti-Azerbaijani policy of these states.

It is interesting that sometimes-ordinary Armenians prefer, according to the Soviet habit, to call Azerbaijani cities liberated in the war by legal toponyms. The publication ru.armeniasputnik.am writes: “In Armenia, merciless, evil and again, as it turned out, unnecessary, defending Shushi, Kelbajar, Jabrail and other regions, were killed about five thousand Armenians, mostly young”.

In 2020, at the cost of incredible efforts, the Azerbaijani people returned most of their territories occupied by Armenia since 1993. However, the cartographic war against Azerbaijan continues to this day. It is time that the country's leadership come up with a fundamental demand to all countries and the media in the world on the strict application of purely legal Azerbaijani toponyms. The use of the names of settlements, territories, rivers and lakes in the territory of Azerbaijan invented in Yerevan should be perceived by official Baku as a hostile act, with the ensuing retaliatory actions.

Map of the Caucasus region 1801-1813.

Map of the Caucasian Territory 1903