From Aravsa to Arevis: How the History of an Azerbaijani Village in Zangezur Changed

As part of the "Places of Memory of Western Azerbaijan" project, a study has been published about the Azerbaijani village of Aravsa (now Arevis) on the territory of modern Armenia, founded by settlers from Nakhchivan.

The corresponding article was published on the Perished Civilization portal.

The study notes that during the Tsarist period, the village was mentioned under the names Aravsa and Shagarjik, and during the Soviet period as Aravus and Arevis.

The village is located in Zangezur, on the territory historically inhabited by the ancestors of Azerbaijanis, the western part of which was transferred to Armenia by the Bolsheviks.

According to the study, the name Aravsa appears in Russian Empire sources and was preserved until the Soviet period. The toponym derives from the ethnonym "Arafsali" — one of the branches of the Turkic Kengerli tribe, whose members reside, among other places, in the present-day Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic.

In July 1968, as part of the Armenianization policy and the destruction of Azerbaijani heritage carried out in Armenia, the village was renamed Arevis.

Since 1995, the village has been part of the Syunik Province of Armenia.

From the mid-18th century until the Russian conquest, the territory of the village was part of the Karabakh Khanate.

In the early 19th century, the Karabakh Khanate came under the control of the Russian Empire. During the Tsarist period, the village belonged to the Zangezur district of the Elisabethpol Governorate.

According to the document "Description of the Karabakh Province," compiled in 1823 by order of the Commander-in-Chief in the Caucasus, General A. P. Yermolov, the village was inhabited by ancestors of Azerbaijanis, in particular the family of Bek Ali Umbat from Nakhchivan.

Statistical data from the Tsarist period, cited including in Armenian sources, indicate that in various years before 1914, the population of the village consisted entirely or predominantly of ancestors of modern Azerbaijanis.

The study provides the following historical data.

According to the work of Z. Korkotyan, "The Population of Soviet Armenia over the Last Hundred Years (1831–1931)," in 1831, 19 people lived in the village, all of whom were ancestors of modern Azerbaijanis.

According to the "Compendium of Statistical Data on the Population of the Transcaucasian Region, Extracted from Family Lists of 1886," in 1886, the population of the village was 148 people, all of whom were ancestors of Azerbaijanis.

The work of Z. Korkotyan also indicates that in 1897