Memorial Sites of Western Azerbaijan: The History of the Village of Dashkerpyu, Whose Population Was Subjected to Massacre

A unique project has been presented to the public - the research work "Places of Memory of Western Azerbaijan".

For the first time, during field research on the territory of modern Armenia, data has been collected and systematized on nearly 600 villages where the ancestors of modern Azerbaijanis historically lived. In some of them, fragments of Turkic cultural and historical heritage have been preserved - cemeteries, shrines, mosques.

A separate video has been prepared about each village in three languages (English, Azerbaijani, Russian), containing photo and video footage of the specific village on the territory of modern Armenia, documented data on the number of Turks (ancestors of modern Azerbaijanis) in the 19th-20th centuries in the specific village, as well as the history of the village and the chronology of the gradual "disappearance" of the Turkic population as a result of expulsions and ethnic cleansings.

Western Azerbaijan is historically a geographical space where hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis lived. Despite attempts to erase the traces of our compatriots in these territories, remembering and being aware of the ancient places of residence of Azerbaijanis in Western Azerbaijan is the duty of each of us.

Oxu.Az presents to its readers the next part of the series, dedicated to the village of Dashkerpyu in Armenia, whose population over the course of one century was subjected to massacre, forced deportation, and final expulsion.

In documents of the Russian Empire and other written sources of the 19th - first third of the 20th century, the ancestors of modern Azerbaijanis were designated by various terms: "Tatars," "Caucasian Tatars," "Turks," or "Muslims." In certain sources used in the preparation of the project, the designations "Turks," "Turko-Tatars," "Islams," or "Mohammedans" are also found. Hereinafter, for the period before 1920, the term "ancestors of Azerbaijanis" will be conventionally used, and for the subsequent period - "Azerbaijanis."

During the tsarist period, the village was called Dashkyorpi, Dashkepry, Dash-kyorpi, Dashkepri, Dash-Kerpi, and during the Soviet period - Dashkyorpi, Dashkerpi, Dashkerpyu.

The village of Dashkerpyu is mentioned in sources from the second half of the 19th century.

On the eve of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, the territory of the village was part of the Kars