Aşağı Ağcakənd
Toponymy
The village was also previously known as Nerkinshen (Armenian: Ներքինշեն).
History
In antiquity the territory was a part of Artsakh of Greater Armenia; in the Middle Ages it was part of the principality of Khachen; in the 17–18th centuries the territory formed part of Melik-Abovian dynasty's Melikdom of Gulistan, with its capital in the fortress of that name.
During Soviet times, the area was renamed after the Armenian Bolshevik Stepan Shaumian, its administrative center, previously the Armenian village of Nerkishen or Nerkinshen (Nerkin Shen, Ներքին Շեն "lower village") taking the same name.
By the 1990s, the population of Shahumyan district was almost exclusively Armenian, though the area was not included within the boundaries of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast by the Soviet Union. In the spring-summer of 1991, Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev ordered the execution of Operation Ring, in which the Soviet Red Army surrounded some of the area's Armenian villages (notably Getashen and Martunashen) and violently deported their inhabitants to the Armenian SSR. Approximately 17,000 Armenians living in Shahumyan's twenty-three villages were expelled from the region.
In December 1991, with the Soviet Union imploding, Shahumyan was claimed by the Republic of Artsakh and became the flashpoint of considerable fighting during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. This reached a climax in summer 1992, when the Azerbaijani army was able to retain its control over most of the area. Damage was severe and the Armenian population fled. Shaumian was renamed to Aşağı Ağcakənd in 1992, and the town has since been partly re-populated by Azerbaijani refugees and internally displaced persons.
See also
References
- ^ "Belediyye Informasiya Sistemi" (in Azerbaijani). Archived from the original on September 24, 2008.
- ^ "Карта 33. Зона конфликта в Нагорном Карабахе (1988–1994...)". iriston.com.
- ^ Сергей Новиков: Нагорный Карабах. Фронт за околицей. Часть третья, 19 май, 2017 (Map with names)
- ^ G. Melvyn Howe, Ronald Grigor Suny, Aleksey Aleksandrovich Mints, Charles James Frank Dowsett, Armenia, Encyclopaedia Britannica. Quote: "In mountainous Karabakh a group of five Armenian maliks (princes) succeeded in conserving their autonomy and maintained a short period of independence (1722–30) during the struggle between Persia and Turkey at the beginning of the 18th century; despite the heroic resistance of the Armenian leader David Beg, the Turks occupied the region but were driven out by the Persians under the general Nādr Qolī Beg (from 1736–47, Nādir Shah) in 1735."
- Encyclopaedia of Islam. — Leiden: BRILL, 1986. — vol. 1. — p. 639–640.
- Րաֆֆի (Հակոբ Մելիք-Հակոբյան). Խամսայի մելիքութիւնները: Ղարաբաղի աստղագէտը: Գաղտնիքն Ղարաբաղի, Վիեննա, 1906. [Raffi (Hakob Melik-Hakobyan). The History of Karabagh's Meliks, Vienna, 1906, in Armenian. Another edition is «Խամսայի մելիքությունները», Երկերի ժողովածու, Երևան, 1964. Collection of Yerkrapah, Yerevan, 1964.] - ^ Egbert Jahn, Nationalism in Late and Post-Communist Europe, vol. 2, Nomos, 2009, p. 277.
- ^ Trailblazer "Azerbaijan with Excursions to Georgia", Hindhead, UK, 2004; p245
