How was Vedi village Armenianized? – Sites of Memory of Western Azerbaijan

Vedi was known as Boyuk Vedi during the Tsarist and Soviet periods, according to an article published by Perished Civilization.

The village was known as Boyuk Vedi for several centuries. In April 1946, it was renamed Vedi, and in 1963 it was granted the status of an urban-type settlement.

In 1995, Vedi received city status and became part of Ararat Province of the Republic of Armenia.

Under the terms of the 1590 Treaty of Constantinople, which ended the Ottoman-Safavid War of 1578-1590, nearly the entire territory of the present-day Republic of Armenia came under Ottoman rule.

In 1590, Ottoman officials compiled the Detailed Register of the Iravan Eyalet, which listed the names of settlements, including the village of Boyuk Vedi.

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

In 1728, Ottoman officials compiled the Summary Register of the Iravan Eyalet, in which the village was also listed.

From the mid-18th century until the Russian conquest, the territory of the village formed part of the Vedibasar 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 Erivan 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, the village had 1,244 inhabitants, including 799 indigenous Turkic residents and more than 400 Armenian settlers from Persia.

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 present-day Azerbaijanis.

According to the Collection of Information about the Caucasus, Boyuk Vedi had 1,743 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 2,110 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 2,798 inhabitants in 1897, of whom 2,792 were ancestors of the Azerbaijanis.

The 1899 Collection of Statistical Data on Land Ownership and Farming Methods in Five Governorates of the Transcaucasian Krai states that only ancestors of the Azerbaijanis owned land in the village.

The Caucasian Calendar for 1909 recorded 2,423 inhabitants in 1906, predominantly ancestors of the Azerbaijanis.

According to the Erivan Governorate Memorial Book for 1908, the village had 2,423 inhabitants, of whom 2,387 were ancestors of the Azerbaijanis.

The Caucasian Calendar for 1912 recorded 2,501 inhabitants in 1911, predominantly ancestors of the Azerbaijanis, while the Caucasian Calendar for 1916 recorded 2,464 inhabitants in 1915, also 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.

According to the article, within the first months of its existence, Armenia began making territorial claims against neighboring Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye, then the Ottoman Empire.

The project states that between 1918 and 1920, Dashnaktsutyun, the nationalist party that held 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.

At that time, Boyuk Vedi and surrounding villages became one of the centers of Turkic resistance to the Dashnak government. The Armenian government repeatedly dispatched troops to the area, leading to a full-scale uprising in Vedibasar in the summer of 1919.

The project says the consequences of those events can be seen by comparing the number of Turkic inhabitants recorded in earlier years with Soviet Armenia's 1922 census.

According to Korkotyan, the village had 1,969 inhabitants in 1922, of whom 1,504 were Azerbaijanis.

Soviet rule was proclaimed in Armenia in late 1920, and the communist regime was firmly established in 1921.

Boyuk Vedi became the administrative center of the Vedi District. Following the district's abolition, the village was temporarily incorporated into the Artashat District. It later again became the administrative center of the re-established Vedi District, which was subsequently renamed the Ararat District.

According to Soviet and Armenian sources, Azerbaijanis continued to live in the village until the late 1980s.

Korkotyan recorded 1,839 inhabitants in 1926, of whom 1,545 were Azerbaijanis, and 1,478 inhabitants in 1931, of whom 1,254 were Azerbaijanis.

According to the All-Union Population Census of 1939. National Composition of the Population of Districts, Cities, and Large Villages of the Union Republics of the USSR, Boyuk Vedi had 2,830 inhabitants in 1939, of whom 2,319 were Azerbaijanis.

Between 1948 and 1953, the Soviet authorities carried out the deportation of Azerbaijanis from the Armenian SSR to the Azerbaijan SSR. As a result, approximately 2,000 Azerbaijanis were deported from Boyuk Vedi to various districts of Azerbaijan.

A. P. Manvelyan and G. M. Martirosyan's Settlements and Population of the Armenian SSR over the Period 1831–1959 states that the village had 3,478 inhabitants in 1959, predominantly Armenians.

According to T. Kh. Hakobyan, St. T. Melik-Bakhshyan and H. Kh. Barsegyan's Dictionary of Toponymy of Armenia and Adjacent Territories, the settlement had 6,165 inhabitants in 1970 and around 7,900 in 1979, predominantly Armenians.

The project states that in the late 1980s, amid Armenian territorial claims to Karabakh and deteriorating relations between the two republics, Azerbaijanis were permanently driven out of the Armenian SSR.

The 1879 Collection of Information about the Caucasus mentions one functioning mosque in the village, while the Erivan Governorate Memorial Book for 1902 records four.

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, the ruins of a mosque were discovered in the village.

The Sites of Memory of Western Azerbaijan is a research project under which information on nearly 600 villages once inhabited by ancestors of present-day Azerbaijanis has been collected and systematized during field studies in present-day Armenia. Some of these settlements still contain fragments of Turkic cultural and historical heritage, including cemeteries, shrines and mosques.

How was Vedi village Armenianized? – Sites of Memory of Western Azerbaijan