Khojaly (town)

Khojaly (Azerbaijani: Xocalı, listen ) is de jure a town in the Khojaly District of Azerbaijan; since 1992, it is under the de facto control of the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh as part of its Askeran Province, where it was renamed Ivanyan (Armenian: Իվանյան). The village was one of the largest Azerbaijani towns in the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast until the massacre of its population during the First Nagorno-Karabakh war.[2]

Khojaly

Xocalı

Իվանյան  • Ivanyan
The panorama of Khojali town
Khojaly
Khojaly
Coordinates: 39°54′40″N 46°47′21″E
Country Azerbaijan (de jure)
 Artsakh (de facto)
RayonKhojaly (de jure)
ProvinceAskeran (de facto)
Elevation
570 m (1,870 ft)
Population
 (2015)
 • Total1,397[1]
Time zoneUTC+4 (UTC)

Demographics

According to the Caucasian Calendar for 1910, in 1908, Khojaly had 184 Tatar (Azerbaijani) people inhabitants.[3] According to the Caucasian Calendar for 1912, Khojaly had 172 Tatar (Azerbaijani) and 52 Russian inhabitants.[4] Currently, the town has 1,397 inhabitants, primarily ethnic Armenians.

History

During the Soviet period, Khojaly was a village in the Askeran District of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. As the First Nagorno-Karabakh War started, the Azerbaijani government began to implement a plan to create a new district center. From 1988 to 1990 the population of Khojali increased from 2,135 to 6,000 residents, mostly consisting of immigrants from Soviet Central Asia (including more than 2,000 Meskhetian Turks) and immigrants from Armenia (about 2,000). In April 1990 Azerbaijan abolished the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast and its internal divisions. Khojali was given city status and became the regional center for the newly created Khojali District composed of the former Askeran District and part of Martuni.[5][6]

In 2001 the settlement was renamed Ivanyan, after the late general of the Karabakh Defense Army, Kristapor Ivanyan.[7]

Khojaly massacre
Main article: Khojaly massacre

Khojaly was captured by Armenian forces on 26 February 1992 during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. The Khojaly Massacre of February 1992, was the mass murder[8] of at least 161 ethnic Azerbaijani civilians in Khojaly on 26 February 1992. According to the Azerbaijani side, as well as the Memorial Human Rights Center, Human Rights Watch and other international observers,[9][10] the massacre was committed by the Armenian armed forces, as well as some military personnel of the 366th Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) regiment who were not acting on orders from their command.[11][12] The death toll claimed by Azerbaijani authorities is 613 civilians, including 106 women and 63 children.[13] Autopsies by the International Committee for the Red Cross indicated that numerous dead bodies were mutilated.[14] Former President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, who also was the leader of the “Nagorno-Karabakh Forces Committee” during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, in an interview with British author Thomas de Waal stated the following regarding the Khojaly massacre:

Before Khojali, the Azerbaijanis thought that they were joking with us, they thought that the Armenians were people who could not raise their hand against the civilian population. We were able to break that [stereotype]. And that's what happened.[14]

The event became the largest massacre in the course of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.[15]

Azerbaijani exile community

In February 2010, the Azeri-Czech Society reported that representatives of the Azeri administration of Khojaly in exile and the Czech town of Lidice were to sign an agreement making Khojaly and Lidice sister cities and that a street in Lidice was to be named "Khojali".[16][17][18] In March 2012, reports quoted the mayor of Lidice, Veronika Kellerova, as officially stating that Lidice and Khojali had never been sister cities. She further repudiated reports that there exists a street named Khojaly in Lidice.[19]

  • Panorama
  • Playground
  • Kindergarten
  • Mausoleum
  • Panorama
  • Monument
  • Scenery
  • Wine factory
  • Wine factory interior
  • Sign in Armenian at the entrance of the village

References
  1. "Nagorno-Karabakh Republic population census". pop-stat.mashke.org.
  2. Андрей Зубов. "Андрей Зубов. Карабах: Мир и Война". drugoivzgliad.com.
  3. Кавказский календарь на 1910 год. Part IV. P. 398.
  4. "Просмотр документа – dlib.rsl.ru". rsl.ru.
  5. Доклад общества «Мемориал» (Memorial). Независимая газета, 18 June 1992
  6. "Карабахские депутаты: Ходжалу стал жертвой политических интриг и борьбы за власть в Азербайджане – ИА REGNUM". regnum.ru.
  7. "Karabakh Marks Ten Years Of 'Independence'". azatutyun.am.
  8. de Waal, Thomas (2004). Black garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through peace and war. ABC-CLIO. pp. 172–173. ISBN 0-8147-1945-7. Archived from the original on 3 June 2016.
  9. "New York Times – massacre by Armenians Being Reported". Commonwealth of Independent States; Azerbaijan; Khojaly (Armenia); Armenia: Select.nytimes.com. 3 March 1992. Archived from the original on 11 March 2007. Retrieved 28 April 2014.
  10. Smolowe, Jill (16 March 1992). "TIME Magazine – Tragedy Massacre in Khojaly". Time.com. Archived from the original on 28 February 2005. Retrieved 28 April 2014.
  11. Bloodshed in the Caucasus: escalation of the armed conflict in Nagorno Karabakh, vol. 1245 of Human rights documents, Human Rights Watch, 1992, p. 24
  12. Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus By Svante E. Cornell
  13. "Letter dated 26 February 2015 from the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the United Nations Office at Geneva addressed to the President of the Human Rights Council". Archived from the original on 11 January 2016.
  14. Cornell, Svante E. (2011). Azerbaijan Since Independence. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe. p. 62. ISBN 9781317476214. Retrieved 25 October 2020.
  15. Human Rights Watch/Helsinki (1994). Azerbaijan: Seven Years of Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. New York [u.a.]: Human Rights Watch. p. 6. ISBN 1-56432-142-8. Retrieved 12 March 2014.
  16. "Khojali to be twinned with Czech Lidice". Trend News Agency. 2010-02-22. Archived from the original on 2010-02-24. Retrieved 2010-02-22.
  17. "A street in Lidice, Czechia to be named after Khojaly". Azerbaijan Press Agency. 2010-02-22. Archived from the original on October 27, 2011. Retrieved 2010-02-22.
  18. Asya Chekanova (2010-03-09). "Лидице стали побратимами Ходжалы. Армения против" [Lidice twinned with Khojaly. Armenia is against]. Český Rozhlas. Retrieved 2010-04-29.
  19. "Mayor Veronika Kellerova: Lidice, Khojaly not sister cities, no street named Khojaly in Lidice". Panorama.am. Retrieved 2 March 2012.
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