Places of Memory of Western Azerbaijan: History and Demography of the Village of Agudy - Photo/Video

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 on nearly 600 villages where the ancestors of modern Azerbaijanis originally lived have been collected and systematized. In some of them, fragments of Turkic cultural and historical heritage have been preserved - cemeteries, shrines, and mosques.

A separate video has been prepared for each village in three languages (English, Azerbaijani, Russian), containing fragments of 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 geographic 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 readers the next part of the series, dedicated to the village of Agudy (now Agitu) in Armenia, where predominantly Azerbaijanis lived until the late 1980s.

During the Tsarist period, the settlement was called Agudy, and during the Soviet period - Agudi.

In Russian Empire sources, the village appeared under the name Agudy. During the Soviet period, the name Agudi was used, which was retained until 1991, when as part of the policy of Armenianization and destruction of Azerbaijani heritage in Armenia, the village was renamed Agitu.

Since 1995, the village has been part of the Syunik Province of the Republic 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 rule of the Russian Empire. During the Tsarist Russia period, the village was part of the Zangezur Uyezd of the Elisabethpol Governorate.

According to statistical data from the Tsarist period, also cited in Armenian sources, at various times before 1915, the village was inhabited exclusively or predominantly by ancestors of Azerbaijanis.

Korkotyan Z. The Population of Soviet Armenia over the Last Hundred Years (1831-1931):

In 1831, 60 people lived in the village, all of them ancestors of Azerbaijanis.

In 1873, 450 people lived in the village, all of them ancestors of Azerbaijanis.

At the end of the 19th century, the development of industry and trade, in particular the creation of a pan-Caucasian market network, made some settlements of the South Caucasus more attractive for