Oğuz (), formerly known as Vartashen (''Vartaşen'', from ), is a city, municipality and the capital of the

Oghuz District Oghuz District ( az, Oğuz rayonu) is one of the 66 districts of Azerbaijan. It is located in the north of the country and belongs to the Shaki-Zagatala Economic Region. The district borders the districts of Shaki, Qabala, Agdash, and the Russi ...

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...

. The village was populated by

Armenians Armenians ( hy, հայեր, ''hayer'' ) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian highlands of Western Asia. Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the ''de facto'' independent Artsakh. There is a wide-ranging diaspora ...

and

Udis Udis (endonym ''Udi'' or ''Uti'') are a native people of the Caucasus that currently live mainly in Russia and Azerbaijan, with smaller populations in Georgia (country), Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and other countries. Their total number ...

before the

exodus Exodus or the Exodus may refer to: Religion * Book of Exodus, second book of the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Bible * The Exodus, the biblical story of the migration of the ancient Israelites from Egypt into Canaan Historical events * Ex ...

of Armenians from Azerbaijan after the outbreak of the

Nagorno-Karabakh conflict The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is an ethnic and territorial conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, inhabited mostly by ethnic Armenians, and seven surrounding districts, inhabited mostly by Azerbaij ...

Etymology

Before 1991 the town was called Vartashen (), 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.

Jost Gippert Jost Gippert (; born 12 March 1956 in Winz-Niederwenigern, later merged to Hattingen) is a German linguist, Caucasiologist, author, and professor for Comparative Linguistics at the Institute of Empirical Linguistics at the Goethe University of ...

«Relative Clauses in Vartashen Udi Preliminary Remarks» «Iran and the Caucasus» Brill Publishers 2011. Стр. 208: A colophon on Armenian manuscript dating to 1466 suggests possibly earlier bilingual variants of the name: Giwlstan (), and Vardud (). The town was renamed to Oghuz in 1991 during the expulsion of the Armenian and autochthonous Udi-speaking population. The name Oghuz, given to the town in 1991, was taken from the old Turkic tribe of Oghuz.

Population

Until 1991, Vartashen was mainly a

Udi Udi may refer to: Places * Udi, Enugu, a local government areas and city in Nigeria * Udi, a place in the Etawah district of Uttar Pradesh, India People * Udi Gal (born 1979), Israeli Olympic sailor * Udi Vaks (born 1979), Israeli Olympic judoka ...

village, where the Vartashen dialect of the

Udi language The Udi language, spoken by the Udi people, is a member of the Lezgic branch of the Northeast Caucasian language family. It is believed an earlier form of it was the main language of Caucasian Albania, which stretched from south Dagestan to cur ...

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

, most Udis of the town were expelled by the local activists of

Popular Front of Azerbaijan The Azerbaijani Popular Front Party (APFP; az, Azərbaycan Xalq Cəbhəsi Partiyası, ) is a political party in Azerbaijan, founded in 1992 by Abulfaz Elchibey. After Elchibey's death in 2000, the party split into two wings, the ''reform'' wi ...

. 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.Wolfgang Schulze:
Towards a History of Udi.
'' International Journal of Diachronic Linguistics 1, 2005, pp. 55–91. There were also Tat-speaking

Mountain Jews Mountain Jews or Caucasus Jews also known as Juhuro, Juvuro, Juhuri, Juwuri, Juhurim, Kavkazi Jews or Gorsky Jews ( he, יהודי קווקז ''Yehudey Kavkaz'' or ''Yehudey he-Harim''; russian: Горские евреи, translit=Gorskie Yevrei ...

in Vartashen. Most of them have emigrated to Israel, but possibly 80 have stayed.Michael Zand: ''Language and Literature.'' In: Liya Mikdash-Shamailov: ''Mountain Jews: Customs and Daily Life in the Caucasus.'' The Israel Museum (Muzeon Yisrael), Jerusalem 2002
p. 37.

Twin towns — sister cities

Oghuz is twinned with: *

Nova Gorica A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramati ...

, Slovenia

References

External links

*
Бежанов М. Краткие сведения о селе Варташен и его жителях // СМОМПК. Тифлис, 1892. Вып. 14.
Populated places in Oghuz District Elizavetpol Governorate {{Oghuz-geo-stub