Yousif Vazir Chamanzaminli (1887-1943), -
prominent Azeri writer and public figure.
Chamanzaminli was born in Shusha and spent his childhood and youth
in this town. "Imagine a town in the mountains, shrouded in greenery in
spring and summer; and in mist and snow in autumn and winter. This is my
town." - Chamanzeminli, who always remembered Shusha with love and pride,
wrote in his memoirs.
Shusha and Karabakh themes occupy the central
place in Chamanzaminli's works. One can find a detailed description of late 19th
and early 20th c. Karabakh in his novels "Twenty Years of My Life", "Copybook of
a Youth" etc. These novels can be of great interest for the researchers learning
the history of Karabakh.
Chamanzaminli's masterpiece novel "Between the two fires" ("In the
Blood") is also dedicated to Karabakh and describes the history of the Karabakh
khanate of Ibrahim-khan, as well as the heroic defense of Shusha from the
invasion of Shah Qajar of Persia in 1795.
Chamanzaminli is also claimed
to be the author of famous novel "Ali and Nino", written by an anonimous writer
under the pen-name Gurban Said.
Chamanzaminli was also a prominent
political figure, first ambassador of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic
(1918-1920) in Turkey. After the Soviet invasion he had to live for several
years in exile. His yearning for his country made him to return after a while
but the Soviet government always persecuted him for his past. In 1940 in the
height of the Stalin repressions, he was arrested and exiled to the village of
Sukhobezvodnoye in Gorki (N.Novgorod) region of Russia. Chamanzaminli could not
resist the deprivations of the life in exile and died in 1943 after a long
period of illness.
Source http://shusha.aznet.org
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