Abstract
This Chapter focuses on the city of Ganja/Gandzak and the basin of the river Kura in its middle course. We shall compare the presence of the Church of Caucasian Albania in the pre-Caspian planes and in the easternmost spurs of the Lesser Caucasus facing the city. Special attention will be devoted to the activity of David of Gandzak (c. 1065-1140), the author of “Admonitory Exhortations” written at the request of a priest from Ganja. David’s book affords a lens through which to observe cultural interaction in these marchlands between former Caucasian Albania and Armenia during the first decades of the Turkic colonisation of the south-eastern Caucasus. Yet, the “Admonitory Exhortations” have but very seldom been used as a source of this crucial moment in the history of the region because they do not easily fit into any known category of historical documents. They contain, in particular, rare information concerning relationships between the Muslim population of Ganja and other cities and towns in the lowlands of the former Albanian kingdom, and their Christian inhabitants, as well as instances of cultural blending and religious syncretism. Such phenomena have largely determined the history of the southeastern Caucasus during the subsequent centuries. The analysis of these phenomena thus allows us to gain a deeper understanding of the reciprocal perceptions of the region’s diverse ethnic and religious groups.
