55
clearly indicated a commonly-shared concern of the town’s three major
communities, i.e. the Muslim, the Russian and the Jewish, about the ap-
pearance of armed forces nearby. However, once Ghelovani forced the
residents of Guba to recognize the Soviet power, he left the town for
a short while to be back with a unit of 200 soldiers. This was the time
when “about 200 Jews joined them”. (147)
Bearing in mind that under Ghelovani’s control no crackdowns of
civilian population occurred in town, except for “the murder of 27 Mus-
lims reportedly welcoming the Lezghins on their way to the town” (148),
no other references were made neither to these 200 Jews in general, nor
to their involvement in that particular case in particular.
8-10 days later, “a unit of ethnic Lezghins approached the town
from the Jewish settlement and opened fire on the town to kick the
invaders out. The Bolsheviks responded frommachine guns. Exchange
of fire lasted for three days”. Pressed by the Lezghins, the Bolsheviks
started gradually retreating. As it may be concluded from a number
of testimonies, including those of Ghelovani himself, either on their
own will or under duress, “all Russian officials except for investigators
Manuylov and Esman, left the town with retreating troops, together
with all pharmacists and all Armenians… The unit was returning fire
to the advancing Lezghin units. Armenians and Russians evacuated
by the unit were moving ahead of the retreating squad. Casualties
among them included the Armenian priest M.Kasparov, a Russian
priest, pharmacist Golubchin, excise officer Polokhny, doctor Michels,
forestry warden Abrasimov, and two more Armenians Alexander Bog-
danov and Dukhan Pogosov”. (149) The list of those killed in cross-fire
is far from being complete. According to A.Alibeyov, the chief of mu-
nicipality, at least 70 civilians were killed in the skirmish. Were there
ethnic Jews among the victims? Of course they were, as one may con-
clude from the list of names provided by A.Alibeyov. Some local Jews
could also leave with Ghelovani’s retreating squad.
In two weeks time, a 3-thousand strong unit of Amazasp at-
tacked Guba committing massacre and looting everywhere? So what
was the reaction of the local Jewish population to this like? Witness
testimonies on this matter are far from being clear: “I heard that the
Jews from Guba were pointing to the houses that Armenians set fire
on then…”, or “According to what Armenians said, their squad had
about 3 thousand persons of exclusively Armenian origin. Some
Events of 1918 in Guba in the Context of Plans for Mass Extermination
of Azerbaijan’s Muslim Population