(MENAFN- AzerNews)
Vusala Mustafayeva read more In the early 20th century, following the establishment of the
Republic of Armenia, a policy of ethnic cleansing was carried out
against the local Azerbaijani population in Azerbaijan's historical
lands. This included forced evacuations of Azerbaijani settlements
and the transfer of Armenian populations into those settlements.
Additionally, the immediate renaming of these settlements was also
implemented.
In December 1919, the Armenian government formed a
special commission to rename villages, cities, rivers, and
mountains.
As part of this effort, 17 settlements in present-day Armenia
had their names changed to Armenian equivalents between 1918 and
1920.
In subsequent years, one of the primary objectives was to
Armenianize toponyms, or place names. This involved the changing of
Turkish origin names to Armenian language.
“Armudlu” –“Tandzut”
“Daşqala” –“Karaberd”
“Darəkənd” –“Dzoraqyuğ”
“Dərəçiçək” –“Tsaxkadzor”
“Güllübulaq” –“Vardaxpuyr”
Azerbaijani historian Nazim Tapdiqoghlu said that Armenians have
renamed the regions in Armenia by distorting the names of
Azerbaijani and Turkish origins. According to him, they changed the
Hammali to“Spitak”.
"There was“Allahverdi” district, they made it“Tumanyan”. We
had Basarkecher district, they have replaced“Basarkecher” wih
“Vardeniz”. Also, they have changed Zangibasar to Masiz. Not only
those, they even continued to change names of small villages,
mountains, lakes. By that time, over 80% of the village names had
been of Turkish origins."
In 1918-1987, 254 Azerbaijani settlements in the territory of
present-day Armenia were removed from the list of settlements in
various ways. The original Turkish words which were written at the
beginning of the words as Yuxarı”,“Aşağı”,“Böyük”,“Kiçik”
renamed in different ways. They have distorted them by giving the
Armenian words such as "Verin", "Nerkin", "Mets", "Pokr".
“Armenians have changed our hydronyms (lakes and rivers) and our
oronyms (mountains, valleys, and hills). Generally, they just did
not change residential areas, they also radically changed our
hydronyms and oronyms system," said historian Nazim
Tapdiqoghlu.
On November 7, 1995, the Republic of Armenia adopted a new law
regarding its administrative-territorial division. The previous
regional divisions were abolished, and 11 new provinces were
established instead. Furthermore, the names of the regions within
those provinces have been updated in official documents.
“Çəmbərək”-“Krasnoselo”
“Aşağı Qaranlıq”-“Martuni”
“Basarkeçər”-“Vardenis”
“Kəvər”-“Kamo”
“Zəngibasar”-“Masis”
“Keşişkənd” –“Yeğeqnadzor”
There are enough evidences that how implantation of settlers ran
in parallel to changing the Azerbaijani ethno-cultural features of
these territories by Armenians. Almost all native toponyms of
historical Azerbaijani places in the occupied territories were
altered. Settlement activities in the occupied territories were
carried out in a pre-planned and organized manner with clearly
defined objective and geographic focus. Today, Armenians continue
the tradition of falsifying history in order to make their
fictitious "Greater Armenia" claim come true. Armenia's toponymic
atrocities must be stopped.
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