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â€˜Stepan Shaumyan was not shot in Agjagum in 1918â€™ â€“ the document confirms

04 February 2009 11:42 (UTC +04:00)

Director of History Institute Yagub Mahmudov gave information about the excavations carried out in Sahil Park on January 24-26. According to him, the document found in the National Archive contains the information sent by head of Georgian government to the representative of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic on March 8, 1919.
â€œ26 Baku commissars were shot on September 20, 1918. The document writes that Stepan Shaumyan was a prisoner of war,â€ he said.

The full text of the document found in the archive is as follows:
â€œMr. representative of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic! Our representative says the following to the head of government with letter #894 on February 26: Tbilisi radio station recorded a telegram sent from Astrakhan to Sokolov. The telegram is connected with the exchange of POWs. The telegram writes that the issue on exchanging the captured member of the allies mission with Stepan Shaumyan and other POWs,â€ he said. The telegram ends with the words: â€œSee in Baku soon.â€

Yagub Mahmudov said the document was very important. The director of the institute said he had given instructions to the employees of the institute to identify Sokolov.
He said it was noted in the Baku Soviet (Council) archive document that Armenian government allocated 150 thousand rubles in 1934 for construction of â€œ26â€ monument in Krasnovodsk. â€œThese facts prove that Armenia always tried to entangle the â€œ26â€ history. Our first researches show that a huge work was done in Moscow for entangling this caseâ€.

Mahmudov said ages of persons introduced as 26 Baku commissars in the historic books coincided with that 23 bodies found in the grave were between 20 and 50. â€œ11 of 23 bodies found in Sahil (Seaside) Park were at 20-29, 11 were at 30-39, one â€“ at 40-49. It was found out that two of three missed persons were at 40-49 and one was at 30-39 as a result of confronting them with the list of 26.
It was seen from the list that there were three among 26 at age above 39: Shaumyan (40), Azizbayov (42) and Amiryan (45). After researching the photo-materials, the experts did not rule out that the body of person at this age was Azizbayovâ€™sâ€.

Director of the institute said mass media issued mass wrong reports about â€œ26â€. â€œSome newspapers even published materials taken from the Soviet Encyclopedia, which creates wrong idea about the 26, who were executioners committed genocide against the Azerbaijani People. â€œFounding not 26, but 23 bodies in the Sahil Park showed that the history was falsified. It is not correct to introduce â€œ26â€ as â€œ26 Baku commissarsâ€. We have a list of 12 commissars onlyâ€.

Pictures of exhumation of graves in Sahil Park, expertise and burying the remains of 23 bodies in the city cemetery were shown at the end of the Scientific Council.