The Shamakhi genocide occupies a special place among the criminal acts committed by the Armenian nationalists in 1918, who wanted to create a “Greater Armenia” state in Azerbaijan, in terms of its scale, number of victims and the amount of material and moral damage. In Shamakhi district, the Armenian Dashnaks led by S. Lalayan and T. Amirov brutally killed the Muslim population. Armenian and Molokan soldiers break into Muslim homes, take valuables and money from frightened people, and then kill their entire families.Also, by the order of S. Lalayan, Armenian soldiers burned alive the residents of the city who took refuge in 12 neighborhood mosques of the city, as well as the Juma Mosque, which dates back to the VIII century. The violence and looting continued for four days, until Azerbaijani troops came to the aid of Shamakhi Muslims from Ganja and entered the city. During the two-time genocide of Azerbaijanis in Shamakhi, between 8,000 and 10,000 people out of the city’s 21,127 Muslims were killed, and the rest were displaced to various cities and districts of Azerbaijan. In addition to residential areas and mosques, all public buildings, markets, hundreds of shops, warehouses, mills and other civilian objects in the city were burned and completely destroyed. The genocide in Shamakhi lasted until mid-July 1918, when it was liberated by Turkish-Azerbaijani troops.During that period, 106 villages of Shamakhi district were burned and destroyed, and residents of 110 villages suffered from attacks by Armenian-Molokan gangs.The total number of those killed during the attacks and in captivity was 10,341, including 4,359 women and children. Thousands of wandered refugees in the mountains, forests and plains for months, have died of cold, hunger and disease. The total amount of material damage inflicted on the residents of Muslim villages of Shamakhi district amounted to 607,167,420 rubles. The main difference between the genocide in Shemakhi and the genocides in other regions of Azerbaijan is the active participation of the Molokan-Russian population in these events along with the Armenians. The documents of the Extraordinary Investigation Commission on the Shamakhi genocide totaled 22 volumes of investigative material and 63 photographs. These documents allow us to know the scale of the full picture of the 1918 Shamakhi tragedy.
