71
trils, whereas some other valuables were sewn into dresses.” Then he
adds:” Due to the treachery of the Bolshevik Commissar Ghelovani,
the residents rescued from prison numbering 132, surrendered on
their way to liberation. The attackers killed all men in front of their
mothers and wives and captured women taking hold of everything
that had not been robbed…”. (191)
The “facts” of the Armenian women’s being robbed by “malefac-
tors”, some esteemed representatives of Guba’s nobility among them,
is a complete responsibility of an anonymous author, although it is hard
to imagine that with whole groups of armed bodyguards, these per-
sons would hardly stoop to rob women, however the very fact that
Ghelovani is mentioned in this document as an accomplice of Muslim
robbers exposes the false nature of the paper. A well-established fact is
that the Armenian sources named Ghelovani “provocateur” and “trai-
tor” only after he started cooperating with the AHIC. His assassina-
tion by an Armenian terrorist followed soon after. This also makes clear
why the “representative of former Armenian population of the town of
Guba” lodged the request to recover the loot neither to the AHIC, nor
to the Government of Azerbaijan but to the Armenian National Council
of Baku. An interesting fact also worthwhile being hereby mentioned is
that the Armenian National Council took no action on this document.
What makes the document in question notable is that it men-
tions Alibey Zizikski, the Uyezd Commissar, as a “person heavily pulled
into the atmosphere of ethnic war” in the area. This is quite indicative
as the first sign of a consistent ill-intentioned campaign initiated by
the Armenian activists with regard to one of the most outstanding
representatives of the Guba community renowned participant of li-
beration movement in Azerbaijan and the member of the Azerbaijani
Parliament representing Guba Uyezd.
It is well known that A.Zizikski could not be personally involved
in the events bound with sheltering Armenians in Guba’s prison for
he was out of town at that moment. In the meantime, as it was men-
tioned earlier, Zizikski was among the key figures in armed resistance
to the Bolshevik and Dashnaktsutyun squads in Guba Uyezd. The local
residents, Armenians among them, were quite aware of that.
Upon the Soviet takeover, Zizikski moved to the Iranian Azerbai-
jan settling in Ardabil. He repatriated in 1923 and got legalized with the
help of his former subordinate Mirjafar Baghirov, then the chairman of
Events of 1918 in Guba in the Context of Plans for Mass Extermination
of Azerbaijan’s Muslim Population