Guba, April-May 1918. Documented Pogroms of the Muslims
48
ropean languages were to be broadly promoted. The report empha-
sized the necessity of the soonest possible commencement of the
Commission’s work “for numerous facts traceable in the immediate
aftermath of the events, such as interviews, photographic and other
substantial evidence available, may get less accessible if not totally
lost afterwards”. (121)
During the same meeting on June 15, 1918, the Cabinet of Mi-
nisters adopted a Resolution on the Ad Hoc Investigation Commission
(AH IC) to be formed “with a view to investigating the acts of violence
towards the Muslim population and its assets throughout the whole
Transcaucasia since the outset of the European War”. Alakbar-bey Khas-
mammadov, an attorney at law, was appointed the AHIC Chairman. The
Commission included 7 more members, mainly trained legal experts,
with representatives of judicial and investigation authorities in Baku
and Ganja involved at the later stage. A.F.Novatski, N.M.Mikhaylov,
A.E.Klughe, M.Tekinski, W.W.Goodwill, A.Alexandrovich (Litovski) and
other professional lawyers and public figures were among the most
active participants of the Commission. (122)
The AHIC members split into groups and started investigating
violent actions in urban and rural areas either already controlled by
the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan or freshly liberated from
the the Bolshevik and Dashnaktsutyun (i.e. Communist and Armenian)
forces. E.g. as of September 1918 active investigations were ongoing in
various uyezds of Erivan and Elisavetpol (Ganja) Provinces. Upon Baku’s
liberation in September 1918, the official Government moved to Baku
from Ganja launching investigation of the events of March that year in
the capital city and its environs almost immediately.
In December 1918, Andrey F.Novatski, a member of the Ganja
District Court, arrived in Guba with his assistant to initiate investiga-
tion of the events in April-May that year in both the town of Guba and
all over the Uyezd. Within several months, Novatski’s Investigation
Team succeeded in questioning dozens of witnesses, inspecting the
scenes of accidents and collecting other evidence summing up in 3
volumes, 451 pages each. The investigation resulted in the Report on
the Devastation of the Town of Guba and Villages of Guba Uyezd and
the Atrocities towards Residents of the Town and Villages Mentioned
Above presented to the AHIC Chairman. (123)
In November 1919, the Ad Hoc Investigation Commission estab-