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

AHIC even being in Baku. This was exactly what the Armenian resi-

dents of Baku affected by the March events did.

The overall context of that particular period is not to be over-

looked as it was the time of the British administration in Baku pro-

vince, and the leaders of the Armenian community were extremely

active in lodging various complaints to the Azerbaijani Government,

Turkish and British military missions and foreign diplomatic services.

This born in mind, lack of any testimonial evidence regarding violence

against the Armenian residents of Guba perpetrated by the Muslims

in 1917-1918 in fact nullifies any claims of purported “slaughter of

Guba’s Armenian population” as the excuse of subsequent mass pog-

roms of Muslims all over Guba Uyezd.

There is one document of this type, though, found in the History

Archive of the Republic of Armenia. The document’s authors presented

it as

The Application by a Representative of Former Armenian Population

of the Town of Guba to the Baku Armenian National Committee Regar-

ding Murder, Plunder and Violence towards the Armenians, Treachery of

the Bolshevik Commissar Ghelovani in March 1918 and the Distressful

Conditions of the Remnants of Guba’s Armenian Population.

(190)

The document in question dating February 6, 1919, and re-

portedly compiled in Baku fails to name neither the purported au-

thor ‘a, representative of former Armenian population of Guba’, nor

any specific victim of ‘murder, plunder and violence’. What it basically

mentions is the well-known episode when part of Guba’s Armenian

population was provisionally placed by the Muslim public figures in

local prison premises to prevent any potential acts of violence by cer-

tain local Muslim residents to avenge for what the atrocities com-

mitted by their fellow tribesmen in Baku and Shemakha. This epi-

sode was described in details in witness testimonies quoted above.

Even the anonymous author of the document admits that “they were

incarcerated to rescue their lives” unless they were released by the

Bolshevik commissar Ghelovani. He also notes that “thanks to some

nice people they did not starve to death”. Despite general claims of

“murder and violence”, the author emphasized facts of “plunder” the

Armenian “prisoners” were subject to:”I will not go into the details

of all the atrocities committed by malefactors, humiliation and vio-

lence towards women and minors, however what I’d like to note is

that some money and jewellery were saved in women’s hair and nos-