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vide specific evidence on this matter, despite a clear wish to please
the investigation. It still remains a riddle why investigator Babenko
did not even try to interview the Armenian residents of Guba and its
surroundings. That is exactly the issue we’ll address later.
To add to this, throughout the whole investigation, Alibey Zizik-
ski never confessed in any of the items in the indictment. Despite
some confessions of other persons accused in the North Caucasus
Highlander Counterrevolutionary Case, he held himself upright at all
confrontations. He spoke reservedly of the Guba period of his ser-
vice and flatly refused to provide any testimonies of the March-May
events in 1918, stating that there was nothing to recall due to the
matter’s long standing. When offered by the interrogator “to ease his
lot by coping a plea” on his role in the Guba events in 1918, Zizkski
stated clearly: “I was never an art and part in the Guba events”. (199)
It is hard to assume whether the records sent from Guba were
sufficient for the AzGPU investigators, however, the Final Resolution
on his case was passed on August 2, 1918 whereby as ‘a political
gangster” he was charged with counterrevolutionary activities and
ties with foreign counterrevolutionary agencies, as well as involve-
ment in printing counterfeited banknotes. Based on this document,
on August 6, 1928, Alibey Zizikski was sentenced to capital punish-
ment (execution) by the AzGPU Panel “to the extreme measure of
social protection, i.e. execution”. (200)
It took a little bit more than a year to support the motion by the
AzGPU on non-applying the Amnesty Act adopted by the state bo-
dies of Azerbaijan, Trans-Caucasian Federation and the Soviet Union
due to the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution to this particu-
lar case. Once the plea was upheld, Alibey Zizikski was executed im-
mediately during the night of 16/17 September 1929.
Another document worth being hereby mentioned, also signed
by the Armenians and related to the events of 1918, reveals lack of
specific evidence pertaining to the involvement of the Azerbaijani
public figures in violent actions against the country’s Armenian popu-
lation. The document in question deals with Hamdulla Efendi, another
prominent figure in Guba Uyezd and a member of the Azerbaijani
Parliament in 1918-1920.
Resident of his family estate, Galagah village, Davachi Precinct,
Hamdulla Efendi was an offspring of a renowned cleric family enjoying
Events of 1918 in Guba in the Context of Plans for Mass Extermination
of Azerbaijan’s Muslim Population