Archive sources trace Azerbaijani history of Aghbulag village in Armenia

Various archival documents and written sources from the 19th and 20th centuries contain information about the history, toponym and ethnic composition of the population of Aghbulag village, located in Armenia's Gegharkunik Province.

According to Report, the information was published by The Perished Civilization project.

The project notes that in documents of the Russian Empire and other written sources from the 19th century through the first third of the 20th century, the ancestors of present-day Azerbaijanis were referred to by various terms, including "Tatars," "Caucasian Tatars," "Tiurks" and "Muslims." Some sources used in the project also contain the terms "Turks," "Tiurko-Tatars," "Islams" and "Myugammedans."

For consistency, the project uses the term "ancestors of the Azerbaijanis" for the period before 1920 and "Azerbaijanis" for the subsequent period.

During the Tsarist period, the village"s name appeared as Agbulag, Agbulakh and Ag-bulag, while during the Soviet period it was recorded as Agbulakh.

The village was known as Aghbulag for several centuries. In April 1991, it was renamed Aghberk, which the project describes as part of a policy of Armenianization and the erasure of Azerbaijani heritage in Armenia.

Since 1995, the village has been part of Gegharkunik Province of the Republic of Armenia.

Under the 1724 Russo-Ottoman Treaty of Constantinople, the territory of the present-day Republic of Armenia was recognized by Russia as part of the Ottoman Empire.

In 1728, Ottoman officials compiled the Summary Register of the Iravan Eyalet, recording the names of settlements. Aghbulag village is mentioned in this document.

From the mid-18th century until the Russian conquest, the village's territory was part of the Goycha mahal of the Iravan Khanate.

Russia occupied the territory of the Iravan Khanate in 1827, and its incorporation into the Russian Empire was formalized by the 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay. During the Tsarist period, the village formed part of the Novobayazet Uyezd of the Erivan Governorate.

Between 1829 and 1832, an administrative census of the territories of the former Iravan and Nakhchivan khanates was conducted at the direction of the Russian authorities. According to the census, Aghbulag had 136 inhabitants, all of whom were ancestors of the Azerbaijanis.

Tsarist-era statistical records, also cited in Armenian sources, indicate that at various times before 1915 the village was inhabited exclusively or predominantly by ancestors of the Azerbaijanis.

According to the Collection of Information about the Caucasus, the village had 422 inhabitants in 1873, all of whom were ancestors of the Azerbaijanis.

The Summary of Statistical Data on the Population of the Transcaucasian Krai, Extracted from the 1886 Family Lists recorded 575 inhabitants in 1886, all of whom were ancestors of the Azerbaijanis.

According to Z. Korkotyan's The Population of Soviet Armenia over the Last Hundred Years (1831–1931), the village had 806 inhabitants in 1897, all of whom were ancestors of the Azerbaijanis.

The Caucasian Calendar for 1909 recorded 940 inhabitants in 1906, predominantly ancestors of the Azerbaijanis.

The Erivan Governorate Memorial Book for 1908 recorded 940 inhabitants in 1908, all of whom were ancestors of the Azerbaijanis.

According to the Caucasian Calendar for 1912, the village had 972 inhabitants in 1911, predominantly ancestors of the Azerbaijanis.

The Caucasian Calendar for 1916 recorded 1,131 inhabitants in 1915, predominantly ancestors of the Azerbaijanis.

On May 29, 1918, the government of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR) ceded Erivan, present-day Yerevan, and several surrounding territories to the Armenians. The project states that the First Republic of Armenia was thereby established on territory historically inhabited by ancestors of present-day Azerbaijanis.

It further states that within the first few months of its existence, Armenia began making territorial claims against neighboring Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye, then the Ottoman Empire.

According to the project, between 1918 and 1920, Dashnaktsutyun, the nationalist party in power in the Republic of Armenia, carried out ethnic cleansing of the Turkic population in the Erivan Governorate and other areas, particularly Zangezur, Karabakh and Nakhchivan.

The available written sources contain no reports of Armenian armed groups massacring the Turkic population of Aghbulag, making it one of the few villages where no such incident is documented, the project notes.

Soviet rule was proclaimed in Armenia in late 1920, and the communist regime fully consolidated its power in the country in 1921.

The village became part of the Dilijan District in 1930 and was incorporated into the Krasnoselsk District in 1937.

According to Armenian sources cited by the project, Azerbaijanis inhabited the village until the late 1980s.

Korkotyan's The Population of Soviet Armenia over the Last Hundred Years (1831–1931) states that in 1922, the village had 1,053 inhabitants, all Azerbaijanis. In 1926, it had 1,229 inhabitants, of whom 1,221 were Azerbaijanis, while in 1931 all 1,392 inhabitants were Azerbaijanis.

According to A. P. Manvelyan and G. M. Martirosyan's Settlements and Population of the Armenian SSR over the Period 1831–1959, the village had 1,154 inhabitants in 1959, predominantly Azerbaijanis.

T. Kh. Hakobyan, St. T. Melik-Bakhshyan and H. Kh. Barsegyan's Dictionary of Toponymy of Armenia and Adjacent Territories states that in 1970, the village had 1,563 inhabitants, all Azerbaijanis. In 1989, its population stood at 688.

The project states that in the late 1980s, amid Armenian territorial claims to Karabakh and escalating tensions between the two republics, Azerbaijanis were completely driven out of the territory of the Armenian SSR.

Between 2021 and 2024, extensive fieldwork was conducted across Armenia, including in remote mountainous regions, in preparation for the book The Perished Civilization. The research focused on identifying and documenting surviving Azerbaijani heritage sites.

During the fieldwork, an Azerbaijani cemetery containing several dozen gravestones, some of which have survived, was discovered in the village. Several of the gravestones bear inscriptions dating to the 19th century.

The Sites of Memory of Western Azerbaijan project is a research initiative under which information on nearly 600 villages once inhabited by ancestors of present-day Azerbaijanis has been collected and systematized through field research in present-day Armenia.

Fragments of Turkic cultural and historical heritage, including cemeteries, sacred sites and mosques, remain in some of these settlements.

Archive sources trace Azerbaijani history of Aghbulag village in Armenia