Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective
Oğuz (city)
City and municipality in Oghuz, Azerbaijan From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Remove ads
Oğuz (Oghuz) is a city, municipality and the capital of the Oghuz District of Azerbaijan. The village was populated by Armenians and Udis before the exodus of Armenians from Azerbaijan after the outbreak of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.[2]
Remove ads
Etymology
Before 1991 the town was called Vartashen (Armenian: Վարդաշեն), which means town of roses in Armenian; 'Vard' meaning rose and 'shen' meaning town or village. This is in reference to the abundance of roses that naturally grow in this place.[3] A colophon on Armenian manuscript dating to 1466[4] suggests possibly earlier bilingual variants of the name: Giwlstan (Armenian: Գիւլստան), and Vardud (Armenian: Վարդուդ).
The town was renamed to Oğuz in 1991 during the expulsion of the Armenian and autochthonous Udi-speaking population.[2][5] The name Oğuz, was taken from the old Turkic tribe of Oghuz.
Remove ads
Population
Until 1991, Vartashen was mainly a Udi village, where the Vartashen dialect of the Udi language was spoken by about 3000 people in the 1980s. The Udis of Vartashen belonged to the Armenian and Gregorian Church and had Armenian surnames.
During the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, most Udis of the town were expelled by the local activists of Popular Front of Azerbaijan. The Udis, bearing Armenian names and belonging to both the Armenian and the Gregorian Church, had been viewed as Armenians and hence suffered the same fate as other Armenians in Azerbaijan. Some 50 Udi people remained in the town.[2]
There were also Tat-speaking Mountain Jews in Vartashen. Most of them have emigrated to Israel, but possibly 80 have stayed.[6][7]
Remove ads
Notable people
- Movses Silikyan (1862–1937), Armenian general
See also
References
External links
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Remove ads