In reality, as a result of the tragic events of 1918, the Armenians suffered first of all. After the collapse of the Russian Empire, the Mussavatists started to proclaim a Turkish Republic in the Eastern part of the Trans Caucasus. However, other communities of the multinational region on the territory of which than was established Azerbaijan were against it. Armenians and Russians were obliged to support the Baku commune which was going to form a Workers’ and Peasants’ authority to follow the interests of all those ethnical minorities.
The confrontations between the revolutionary groups of Bolsheviks and Turkish nationalist bands in fact turned to become a civil war. However, as Armenians were supporting Bolsheviks, the civil war gained tints of a national confrontation. In the end of March 1918 the Baku commune, together with the Armenian home guards, suppressed the massacres and reestablished order and legality.
The new authorities proved that the peaceful co-existence of Armenians and the Azeri was possible. However, after half a year the British intervenes threw down the international government shooting Sahumyan, Azizbekov and other leaders of the commune. After it a new wave of Armenian massacres started. These events can be compared with Genocide. But of course, nobody in Baku remembers about them.
This year the ”Memory Day” was marked in a particular way in Azerbaijan. And what is the most interesting that usually the ”Memory Days” in Azerbaijan are being marked or on the eve or immediately after commemorations of tragic events in the history of Armenian people. In February, on the eve of the day of the Sumgait genocide the day of Khojalu events where Armenians, as if, had massacred the Azeri, was being marked in Baku. And now, on the eve of April 24, the Day of the Genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, they commemorate the victims of the civil war of 1918 which is being called ”genocide”. All this is being done only in order to distract the attention from the shameful pages of the Azerbaijanian history soaked with the blood of Armenians.
