A study on the history of Khalaj, an Azerbaijani village in present-day Armenia that was left deserted after its Azerbaijani residents were driven out in the late 1980s, has been published as part of the "Sites of Memory of Western Azerbaijan" project.
Report informs that the article was published in The Perished Civilization.
In documents of the Russian Empire and other written sources from the 19th century through the first third of the 20th century, the ancestors of present-day Azerbaijanis were referred to as "Tatars," "Caucasian Tatars," "Tiurks," or "Muslims." Some of the sources referenced in this project also use the terms "Turks," "Tiurko-Tatars," "Islams," or "Myugammedans."
The study uses "ancestors of the Azerbaijanis" when referring to the period before 1920 and "Azerbaijanis" for the subsequent period.
The village's name was recorded as Khaladzh, Khaladzh II and Khalach during the Tsarist period, and as Khaladzh and Khalach during the Soviet period. The village had been known as Khalaj for at least two centuries. In July 2006, it was renamed Achanan, a change the study describes as part of a policy of Armenianization and the erasure of Azerbaijani heritage in Armenia. Since 1995, the village has been part of Syunik Province of the Republic of Armenia.
The village is situated in Zangezur, on land that was historically inhabited by ancestors of the Azerbaijanis. According to the study, the western part of this area was ceded to Armenia by the Bolsheviks.
From the mid-18th century until the Russian conquest, the village's territory formed part of the Ajanan-Turk mahal of the Karabakh Khanate.
In the early 19th century, the Karabakh Khanate came under the authority of the Russian Empire. During the Tsarist period, the village was part of the Zangezur Uyezd of the Elisavetpol Governorate. According to the Description of the Karabakh Province, compiled in 1823 on the orders of A. P. Yermolov, commander-in-chief in Georgia, the village was inhabited by ancestors of the Azerbaijanis.
Tsarist-era statistical records, also cited in Armenian sources, indicate that at various times before 1914, the village was inhabited exclusively or predominantly by ancestors of the Azerbaijanis.
The study states that between 1918 and 1920, independent Armenian armed detachments and the forces of the First Republic of Armenia carried out ethnic cleansing of the Turkic population in the Elisavetpol Governorate, including in Zangezur. It says ethnic cleansing was also carried out in the Erivan Governorate and in other areas, particularly in Karabakh and Nakhchivan.
According to archival records cited in the study, Armenian armed groups opened fire on the residents of the village in December 1918. As a result of the attack, 80 people were killed, while the remaining residents were forced to flee. The village itself was looted and burned down. The study says Armenian sources dating to 1919 also confirm the destruction of the village.
On November 29, 1920, Soviet Armenia was proclaimed, although the Dashnaktsutyun government still remained in power in Erivan. According to the study, the following day, the leadership of Soviet Azerbaijan decided to cede Zangezur to Soviet Armenia. The former Zangezur Uyezd was subsequently divided. In the summer of 1921, the western part, then populated predominantly by Armenians following what the study describes as ethnic cleansing, was incorporated into the Armenian SSR, while the eastern part remained within the Azerbaijan SSR.
The Azerbaijani population began returning to the village in the early 1920s. During the Soviet period, the village was part of the Gafan District, which was established in 1930. Armenian sources indicate that the territory of the village was inhabited exclusively by Azerbaijanis until the 1980s.
In the 1940s, residents of three nearby abolished villages, Yemazli, Injevar and Tajadin, were resettled in Khalaj. Between 1948 and 1953, the Soviet authorities carried out the deportation of Azerbaijanis from the Armenian SSR to the Azerbaijan SSR. As a result, in 1948, 48 Azerbaijani inhabitants of Khalaj were forcibly resettled in the Dashkasan District of Azerbaijan.
The latest population figures cited for the village date to 1979, when it had 331 inhabitants, all of whom were Azerbaijanis.
The study says that in the late 1980s, as a result of Armenian territorial claims to Karabakh and escalating tensions between the two republics, Azerbaijanis were permanently driven out of the territory of the Armenian SSR.
The 1902 Collection of Information about the Elisavetpol Governorate mentions a functioning mosque in the village.
Between 2021 and 2024, extensive fieldwork was conducted across the territory of Armenia, including in remote mountainous regions. The research was undertaken in preparation for the book The Perished Civilization and focused on identifying and documenting surviving Azerbaijani heritage sites. During the fieldwork, a building that may previously have served as a mosque was discovered in the village. A semi-oval stone above the entrance still bears an Arabic inscription dating to the late 19th century.
The "Sites of Memory of Western Azerbaijan" project collected and organized information on nearly 600 villages in present-day Armenia once inhabited by ancestors of the Azerbaijanis. The project says its fieldwork brought this information together for the first time. Some of the villages still contain remnants of Turkic cultural and historical heritage, including cemeteries, shrines and mosques.