Khojaly (village)


Khojaly, also called Khojali, is a town in the Khojaly District of Azerbaijan Republic, currently under control of the unrecognized Republic of Artsakh. In 1992, it was the site of the Khojaly Massacre, the mass murder of at least 613 ethnic Azerbaijani civilians.

Demographics

According to the Caucasian Calendar for 1910, in 1908 Khojaly consisted of 184 Tatar people. According to the Caucasian Calendar for 1912 Khojaly consisted of Tatar and Russian parts with 172 and 52 people respectively. Despite this, officials of the unrecognized Republic of Artsakh and some Armenian publicists claim that Khojaly was initially Armenian village with a predominant Armenian population. Currently, the village has 1397 people with primarily Armenian ethnicity.

History

During the Soviet period, Khojaly was a village in the Askeran District of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. As the Karabakh conflict started, the Azerbaijani government began to implement a plan to create a new district center. From 1988 to 1990 the population of Khojali increased from 2135 to 6000 residents, mostly consisting of immigrants from Soviet Central Asia and Armenia. In April 1990 Azerbaijan abolished the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast and its internal divisions. Khojali was given city status and became the regional center for the newly created Khojali District composed of the former Askeran District and part of Martuni.
Khojaly on 26 February 1992 during the Nagorno-Karabakh War. The name became internationally notable after the Khojaly Massacre of February 1992, where at least 161 ethnic Azeri civilians were massacred by Armenian irregular forces.
In 2001 the settlement was renamed Ivanyan, after the late general of the Karabakh Defense Army, Kristapor Ivanyan.

Claimed sister city

In February 2010, media reported a claim by the Azeri-Czech Society that representatives of the Azeri administration of Khojaly in exile and the Czech town of Lidice were to sign an agreement making Khojaly and Lidice sister cities and that a street in Lidice was to be named "Khojali". In March 2012, reports quoted the mayor of Lidice, Veronika Kellerova, as officially stating that Lidice and Khojali had never been sister cities. She further repudiated reports that there exists a street named Khojaly in Lidice.