Guba, April-May 1918. Documented Pogroms of the Muslims

mainly Armenians, with some Russians” (171) Ghelovani in the mean-

time refused to identify the place which was reportedly shown to him

by the Armenians appearing out of nowhere. Finally, how could an

official representative of the authorities of the day, a member of Com-

munist party subordinate to the party rules and discipline, change

the itinerary on demand of “indignant” Armenian soldiers of a troop

train who “started getting anxious”? How could the same official en-

ter Guba and “as a neutral person” demand the civilian population to

comply with the Soviet regime within two hours?

According to Ghelovani’s testimonies, this was the way he was

trying to hold back a troop train of furious Armenian soldiers, al-

though in view of reported “120 murdered Armenians” “devastating

Guba” would be more logical for them than trying to establish the

Soviet rule in the area. It should be noted that the circumstances of

Ghelovani’s appearance in Guba, the way he describes them, totally

differ from the version of M.Baghirov presented above. The latter one

seems more trustworthy. (172) However A.F.Novatski, while intervie-

wing Ghelovani, did not get into the depth of these questions. In-

stead, he was trying to determine Ghelovani’s role during the first

wave of violent events in Guba resulting in deaths of civilians and

arsons of public and private property in town.

In this respect, Ghelovani fully denied his guilt, as well as the

guilt of his and even Amazasp’s squads stating the following: “While

retreating from Guba with Amazasp, our squad perpetrated no vio-

lence, not a household was set on fire, and there was a burning house

somewhere below, however it caught fire from a cannon shell”. (173)

Meanwhile, Ghelovani did not dispute his involvement in ex-

change of fire with the Lezghins? And this was exactly the moment

when civilian casualties occurred. Trying to acquit himself, Ghelovani

stated: “I was resisting the Lezghins for two days and did not sur-

render for two reasons: first, this would be contrary to the concept of

officer’s dignity? And second, I have never received an offer to sur-

render. What I received instead was threatening mail with no security

guarantees neither to my whole unit, nor myself that we would not be

executed upon surrender”. (174)

Meanwhile, in his testimonies Ghelovani fully acknowledged the

facts of atrocities committed by Amazasp with regard to civilian Mus-

lim population of both Guba and its surroundings. He flatly denied