The Shusha fortress ( or Shushi fortress () is a fortress surrounding the historical centre of Shusha, also called Shushi. The newly conquered castle town was called "Panahabad fortress" named after Panah Ali Khan who together with Melik Shahnazar was the founder of the fort. In later years, the city was just called "Fortress". A settlement at Shusha is first recorded in a 15th-century illustrated Armenian gospel kept on display at Yerevan's Matenadaran (archival number 8211), which mentions the "Shushu village". The gospel was written by the scribe and artist Ter-Manuel in 1428, and is the earliest known artifact from the town.
The area where the Shusha fortress was built is a mountainous plateau in the form of amphitheater from the west with numerous hills and rifts. The highest area of plateau is 1600 m and the lowest area is 1300 m above sea level. At present, the territory of Shusha city consists of plateau with a hill located lengthwise in its center. The architecture of Shusha fortress represents basic principles of architecture of feudal period in terms of both the choice of location, structural planning and the artistic appearance of the fort.
Shusha fortress had three main gates: Ganja Gate, Iravan Gate and Aghoghlan Gate. The names of all these gates are often mentioned in historical sources, as well as in all the drawn plans of 19th-century Shusha.
History
Historical and political situation
After the collapse of the centralized state in Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan in the mid-18th century, independent khanates started to appear on the territory of Azerbaijan and one of them was The Karabakh Khanate. Each of these khanates, which was implementing their own policies and trying to develop their economy, had a center to control the areas that was under their supervisory. This period was associated with several complicated events in the military-political history of the South Caucasus. Some of them are as follows:
1. Forty Years’ War (1709–1749) had not yet ended.
2. The wars and the uprisings of peasants in feudal society were frequent.
3. The region was being attacked by Turks and Iranians.
In such a situation, khanates were mainly in need of a well-fortified capital city because they had to maintain their territorial integrity and political independence. Therefore, the construction of such fortified cities was primarily driven by the demand of military-political situation.
Panah Ali khan who founded the Karabakh Khanate with the support of Armenian Melik Shahnazar in 1747 decided to build a fortress which would help him to control this large country extending from The Aras River to Lake Goycha, from The Tartar River to Meghri, Tatev and Sisian and including the areas of Karabakh, Zangezur and Bargushad. In 1748, Panah Ali Khan ordered to start the construction of Bayat castle near Barda. Panah Ali Khan were willing to build "a fortress where his family can live and he can protect the people in the case of invasion by enemies". Therefore, Bayat castle was surrounded by deep ditches and thick exterior walls.
Bayat castle, which was built with fired bricks, features Khan's palace, mosque, bazaar, bath and houses. Following the settlement of Khan's family in Bayat, artists from nearby villages as well as Ardabil and Tabriz moved here. However, Bayat did not remain as Khan's residence for a long time. Despite numerous reinforcement efforts, the castle was still weak against the attacks of foreigners. Taking into account the threat, Panah Ali Khan started to look for a strategically more favorable area to build a new fort. As a result, the area of Ternekut best known as Shahbulag, which was a foothill located near Shahbulag spring (10 km away from Aghdam), was preferred.
The 19th-century Karabakh historians stated that fortress, stone houses, mosque, bath and bazaar was built in accord with Panah Ali Khan's instructions. The information related to the construction of civil and religious buildings in Shahbulag can be found in the works of Mirza Yousif Karabakhi and Mirza Jamal Javanshir. M. J. Javanshir noted "In the section about monuments and buildings erected by the order of deceased Panal Ali Khan" in his "The History of Karabakh" book: "Shahbulag fortress, mosque near the fort, bath, other buildings and bazaar were built by the order of Panah Ali khan". The khan, who moved to a new castle and fortified his positions, instructed to destroy his former headquarters.
