13
Khankandi.
(
In September 1923
it was called Stepanakert.
The historical name has now
been restored.) The city of Shusha
was later, on 16 July 1923, made a part of
the Mountainous Qarabagh Autonomous
Region. As the centre of Qarabagh, Shusha
continued to have an important place in the
socio-economic and cultural life of Azerbaijan
and to rebuff decisively Armenian chauvinism and
separatism, which served only to increase the hostile
activity of the Armenians. In the mid-1980s Armenian separatism
in the Mountainous Qarabagh Autonomous Region gathered strength and
became a wide-scale war of occupation against Azerbaijan. On 8 May 1992 the
Armenians occupied the city of Shusha. However much the Armenians try to talk
up their role in the occupation of Shusha, history has in fact been repeated. Just as in 1797,
the city this time too fell into the Armenians’ hands for no good reason. The Armenian army of
occupation and the marauding band of civilians accompanying it inflicted ruthless reprisals on the
Azerbaijanis that remained in Shusha and on Azerbaijan’s historic city. Armenian vandals destroyed
up to 70 rare architectural monuments of historic interest in Shusha. In order to Armenianize the city,
migration was encouraged and an invented propaganda campaign (the Shusha Charity Marathon, etc.)
conducted. The Azerbaijan Republic has never been reconciled to Armenian’s occupation of Azerbaijani
land and has declared its firm intention to restore the republic’s territorial integrity. The day is not far off
when all the occupied land, including Qarabagh’s heart, the city of Shusha, will be liberated! Only then will there
be an end to the plight of Azerbaijan’s Shusha. The lyrics of the song ‘Mountains of Shusha’ of Khan Shushinski,
an unforgettable singer from Qarabagh and a true man of Shusha, will be sung with renewed passion:
I’m
dying of grief,
know this, If you will
not talk, then at least smile!
The
peaks of the
mountains of Shu-
sha are clad in mist, In
a jacket of red and skir-
ts of green, Too many
hope to die of grief for
you, oh maiden, How
fair that brow,
that hair!