18
rest in the villages. During the years of Soviet power, the population
of Nakhchivan faced grave political, socio-economic, and cultural
difficulties.
Unfortunately, all of these problems have not yet been reflected
in the newest literature. National leader Heydar Aliyev stated: “Our
nation has confronted many tragedies during the twentieth century.
Among them, the evils that happened to Nakhchivan have probably
been more tragic and horrible than those that happened to the other
regions of Azerbaijan.”
The 1920-1930s were one of the hardest periods in the history
of Nakhchivan. The government of Nakhchivan in those years was
initially set forth by the Regulations adopted by the Azerbaijan CEC
in April 1924. The Regulations were in force until the fist Constitu-
tion of the Nakhchivan ASSR, adopted at the All-Nakhchivan So-
viet Congress on April 18, 1926. Later, due to the changes in the
USSR and Azerbaijan SSR Constitutions, a new Constitution came
into effect in the Nakhchivan ASSR on September 17, 1937. The
repression during the 1920-1930s was also very painful in Nakh-
chivan. Having witnessed those bloody tragedies, Heydar Aliyev
would say later on: “I am a witness of those days. I was living in
Nakhchivan. Within two days, they jammed our weeping neighbors
into cars and then drove them to the other side of the Araz River. I
also saw those exiled from Nakhchivan to Central Asia for political
motives in 1937-1938. They were the girls and boys who had stud-
ied at high school together with me, coming in tears to bid farewell
to us. We did not understand them; when coming to see them off,
Huseyn Javid Tomb. 1996. Nakhchivan.
Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. (2009). Political-administrative map.
Map 7.
Source: Azərbaycan Respublikası Naxçıvan tarixi atlası. Bakı, 2010, s. 46-47
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