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

or those passing away in refuge from diseases, starvation or out of

fear, the number of households devastated or set afire, with separate

reference to looted mosques, rustled livestock, stolen personal be-

longings, lists of victims with damages inflicted to each of them, etc.

Summary of total damage suffered by each village concludes each

document signed by all villagers involved in the gathering and certi-

fied by the village elder’s seal.

What makes these AHIC files ever more important is the precise

data regarding the number of victims, their names, age, gender, the

list of devastated villages, public and private institutions, etc.

Conclusions (verdicts) by village gatherings and lists of murdered

Guba residents compiled in the Azerbaijani language written in the

then official Arabic script were partially translated into Russian. This

could be the reason of some village names being misspelled in both

the AHIC documents and Novatsky’s report. Another missing element

is verdicts (conclusions) of all the affected villages mentioned in the

lists presented to the Commission in advance (see Files No.No.23-25).

As a result, some of the villages noted in the lists but failing to pre-

sent their conclusions were not included in the affected villages log in

Novatski’s report. Apparently while compiling the log, A.F.Novatski re-

ferred to the official files with all required data included. This was the

reason why the Report presents an uncertain total number of Guba

Uyezd villages attacked by Amazasp’s squads.

E.g. studies and comparative analysis of the records in Russian

and Azerbaijani available in the files of the case revealed 122 affected

villages, whereas the real number of devastated villages in the area

was at least 167, the town of Guba excluded.

Another wrong figure stated in Novatski’s report was the num-

ber of persons killed and wounded during the Guba massacre (60 and

53 respectively). According to the documents with lists of names, the

overall number of people slain was 580, and 55 more wounded. Casual-

ties resulting from fear stress, diseases and starvation in the course of

refuge in highland areas include 781 deaths, also missing in the report.

Novatski’s report also mentions the total loss suffered by the re-

sidents of Guba Uyezd as 58,121,059.00 rubles. This, however does not

include the damage inflicted to the residents of the town which totals

to 63,703,760.00 rubles. The latter figure was calculated through ge-

neral lists and individual statements of loss. Thus the overall damage