Was Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mother Azeri?

AZERBAIJAN'S PSYCHOPATHIC NATIONALISM HAS A NEW TARGET NOW

The Azerbaijani nationalist oil dictatorship has apparently developed a new strategy of how to use its petrodollars: it will pay obscure Western academics to promote claims to Azerbaijan's purported antiquity and fame through absurd and shockingly insolent pseudo-science. Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mother was an “Azeri?” What is next: a “discovery” that Egyptian pyramids were build by “Azerbaijanis”? Or a revelation that Jesus Christ was an “Azerbaijani?”

It is clear what lies beneath this nonsense - Azerbaijan is afraid of history of its neighbors and tries to make up for the lack of historical continuity by fabricating ridiculous lies. Unlike Azerbaijan’s neighbors of Armenia, Georgia and Iran (Persia), whose unique cultures and states have existed continuously from the ancient times, an entity called “Azerbaijan” is a phenomenon of the 20th century. Azerbaijani political leaders decided to name their self-proclaimed state, in 1918, after a bordering province of Persia called “Azerbaijan” (where a large number of Turkic-speaking Persians lived). Rejection of Azerbaijan’s independence by the League of Nations followed almost immediately. To fully grasp the absurdity of the situation imagine Germans deciding to name their country “Burgundy” or “Venice,” with France or Italy protesting, and with the UN refusing to recognize its sovereignty.

Plus, no people called “Azerbaijanis” or “Azeris” were known prior to the 1930s. These terms were invented by Bolshevik anthropologists in the course of what is known in academic literature as the USSR’s “nativization” (“indigenization”) project. By the Kremlin’s order, a task force of Bolshevik scholars engineered new names for dozens of obscure nationalities of the former Russian Empire, and invented for them claims to historical continuity. This included the Turkic-speakers of the Southern Caucasus that had been obscurely referred to by bureaucrats of the Russian Empire as “Caucasian Tartars.” Before the 20th century, these “Caucasian Tartars,” lacking self-definition as one people, identified themselves either very broadly, as “Muslims,” or very narrowly—as members of specific tribes, clans or urban communities (e.g. Afshars, Padars, Igirmidort, Sarijalli, etc.). Moscow also instituted standard surnames for Azerbaijanis—based on Arabic forenames plus the Russian “ov” ending bolted on, and created a Cyrillic-based alphabet for their, largely unwritten, language.

@John Harduny's diagnosis: Paranoid schizophrenia.

I don't think that research on Da Vinci's mother is credible. At the same time
I think, that the author of the previous comment is an armenian nationalist.
In this case John Harduny's attack to azeri nationalists looks like a fight of two stupids.

Actually, Mr Harduny's statement is completely correct from a historical point of view. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the Turkic-speaking Muslims of present-day Azerbaijan were known simply as Tatars, both in Russia and abroad. Before the same period, Azerbaijan was never known under this name, since in fact it is a collection of several different regions with different historical names: Shirvan, Qarabagh, Talesh and so on. The name Azerbaijan was adopted by local Muslim nationalists in order to support their own claims in front of the Armenians and the Russians: they could not claim to be a nation if they had no name. The name Azerbaijan NEVER appears in Muslim sources before the 20th century to indicate the territories north of the Aras river.

And Leonardo's mother can hardly be Azeri, since 15th century Italian states took their slaves from the Black Sea basin.

Would some Armenians and pro-Armenians claim that Azerbaijan has no history, that Safavi Shahs were not the ancestors of today's Azeris and that the Book of Dada Korkud is not Azeri epic?

Eventhough the comments here clearly readed the article, unfortunately they failed to understand the essence. Scholar Louis Buff Parry says that Da Vinci's mother was "Muslim" from the region that is today "Azerbaijan". And we know that the region of Azerbaijan was already Muslim in the era of Da Vinci, that is 15th century.
So think of it this way, if you disagree that the mother of Da Vinci was from Azerbaijan, how would you argue the fact she was Muslim, while this is established in the documents from 2002. And since Azerbaijan was the only Muslim Transcaucasian sovereign in history, how can you deny she from from Azerbaijan?
You cannot deprive a nation of its culture and history because of its name.

Daniel & James, thanks for simple logic.
Harduny, Azeris never claimed fake history, and they don’t need to claim Pyramids - they built pyramids greater than pyramids in Egypt and they made to built largest structure on earth, they are in East Turkestan today (China) - search Hidden Pyramids Of China and Great Wall of China.

"Turkic-speaking Persians" -this phrase shows that you have no idea on history and historic relationshipa as well... no comments then

I admire Da Vinci, but I personally do not care about whether Da Vinci's mother was or was not from Azerbaijan. This is just another weird theory that an so far an unknown researcher (who btw, has no Azeri background!) has come up with. But what I do care about is how this news is being exploited by some Armenian "virtual warriors" operating regularly in the RFE/RL forums, like "John Hardunian" and others. I want to let them know that Azeris will never lower themselves to their level and all their efforts here are in vain. Thank you!

First of I think this theory is nonsense. Territory of Azerbaijan in 15th century covered large parts of Caucasus, Middle East and current Iran, which is also covered many ethnicities including Armenians who had an Armenian state only for 30 years in the AC 3rd century till XX century. So his mother could theoretically be an Armenian as many Armenian claim. Indeed according to Armenians mothers of almost all great people including George Washington, Eistein, Newton, etc were Armenians.