Massive diaspora congress to take place in Azerbaijan’s Shusha city
About 400 diaspora reps from 65 countries to attend the event

POLITICS  18 April 2022 - 12:01

Azerbaijan’s Shusha city will play a host to the Fifth Congress of World Azerbaijanis, Caliber.Az reports citing the State Committee on Work with Diaspora of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

According to the committee, the preparations for the upcoming even is nearing completion. The Congress will reportedly be the first massive meeting of the Azerbaijani diaspora in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan after decades.

About 400 diaspora representatives from 65 countries are expected to attend the Congress, which will feature two separate debates titled “Tasks facing the Azerbaijani Diaspora in the post-war period" and "Contributions of the Azerbaijani Diaspora to the restoration and reconstruction of Karabakh”.

Shusha was out of Azerbaijan’s control from 1992 to 2020 due to the illegal occupation of the city by the Armenian forces. The city was liberated in a special operation as part of the 44-day war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2022. Currently, the city is massively restored and reconstructed by the Azerbaijani government.

Shortly after its liberation, President Aliyev declared Shusha the cultural capital of Azerbaijan given its contributions to the development of multiple aspects of the Azerbaijani culture, including music, poetry, and art. In a separate order, President Aliyev announced 2022 as the “Year of Shusha” in Azerbaijan to honor the 270th anniversary of the city’s foundation in the 18th century.

The forthcoming Fifth Congress of World Azerbaijanis will not be the first significant event to take place in Shusha. The city has previously hosted a high-level meeting between the Azerbaijani officials and representatives of the UN dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral relations between the sides.

In May 2021, the Kharybulbul Music Festival returned to its historic homeland after nearly 30 years of its cancellation due to the Armenian occupation of Shusha. The cultural event also marked the return of Azerbaijan’s multicultural traditions to the city. Shusha also welcomed the traditional Vagif Poetry Days to honor Azerbaijan’s great poet and public figure Molla Panah Vagif, who served as a vizier to the Karabakh khan Ibrahimkhalil in the khanate’s capital, Shusha.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, the International Organization of Turkic Culture, known as TURKSOY, declared Shusha “Cultural Capital of the Turkic World” for 2023.

For Azerbaijanis, Shusha is one of the cradles of the national culture, a significant economic, and administrative centre, and a strategic city in the Karabakh region.

Azerbaijani Karabakh khanate's Panahali khan has laid the foundation stone of the city in the 18th century. According to historical sources, the construction of the city followed the khan’s decision to build an "eternal and invincible fortress in a firm and impassable place in the mountains" after previous castles have been found to be unfavorable due to their locations. Construction of the city began in 1752 at about 1,600 meters above sea level in Karabakh. Panahali khan ordered the relocation of the Karabakh khanate’s capital to the newly built Shusha in 1756-1757.

Shusha has shortly turned into one of the main administrative, economic and cultural centres of Azerbaijan, as well as served as a trade hub and a significant carpet-weaving centre.  

In its cultural significance, Shusha is to Azerbaijan what Vienna is to Austria and Naples is to Italy. Local population honor the city as "the temple of Azerbaijani music". The city has a big role in the creation and rise of mugham — the traditional Azerbaijani genre of vocal and instrumental arts that has influenced music throughout the Caspian and Middle East regions. The founding father of Azerbaijani-composed classical music and opera, Uzeyir Hajibeyli, who has for the first time juxtaposed the elements of the Azerbaijani folk music with the European music, was born in Shusha. Hajibeyli is the author of the first ever opera, “Leyli and Majnun’, in the East, which was staged in Baku in 1908.

Dark clouds started looming over the Shusha city of Azerbaijan starting the early 19th century.

The city of Shusha that was built and inhabited by the ethnic Azerbaijani population faced serious demographic problems after the occupation by Tsarist Russia in the early 19th century. Relocation of Armenians from Iran and Turkey to Azerbaijani territories, including the Karabakh region, triggered the future ungrounded claims of Armenians for the historical Azerbaijani city.

The repression against the indigenous Azerbaijani population of the Karabakh region gained pace with the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922. Shusha lost its role as the administrative center of Karabakh after the Soviet authorities granted autonomy to the so-called Nagorno-Karabakh region within Azerbaijan in 1923, and moved the region’s capital to Khankendi. The population of the city decreased three-fold during the next 50 years, from around 44,000 people to 14,000.

Shusha’s occupation by the Armenian forces took place in 1992 during a bloody war between Armenia and Azerbaijan that ensued following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The military offensive launched by Armenia lasted until 1994. Azerbaijan lost control over 20 percent of its internationally-recognized territories, namely the Karabakh and modern-day East Zengezur regions, including Shusha, in the wake of the war. Armenian forces killed more than 30,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis and displaced one million throughout the war.

The illegal occupation of Shusha ended on November 8, 2020, when the Azerbaijani army restored Azerbaijan’s sovereignty over the city. Today, Shusha is going through massive restoration and reconstruction campaign to get rid of the scars of war and occupation. The Azerbaijani government plans to bring the city back to its fame as a world-renowned cultural and touristic center of the country.

Mushvig Mehdiyev

Caliber.Az