Shamil Asgarov or Shamil Askerov ( az, Şamil Səlim oğlu Əsgərov, 1929, Ağcakənd – 20 May 2005,

Baku Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world a ...

) was a

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

scholar, poet, and researcher on the history of the Kurds in Azerbaijan. He was the leader of

Kalbajar Kalbajar ( az, Kəlbəcər , ) is a city and the capital of the Kalbajar District of Azerbaijan. Located on the Tartar river valley, it is away from the capital Baku. The city had a population of 7,246 before its capture by Armenian forces on ...

's large Kurdish community, owned a 30,000 book library of books about Caucasian Kurds and their history and was the founder and former director of the Kurdish Museum in Kelbajar before that town was occupied by Armenian forces and the former population forced to flee in 1993. He was also editor of the Kurdish newspaper ''Denge Kurd'' published from 1991 to 2004 in

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 ...

. Shamil Asgarov translated the classic Kurdish love story '' Mem and Zin'' into Azerbaijani and was the author of 17 other books among them one, ''Ferhenge'', a Kurdish-Azerbaijani dictionary, was published in 1999 with the support of the

Soros Foundation Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a grantmaking network founded and chaired by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with a sta ...

. Shamil's son, Khalid, a photographer for

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...

, documented the tale of Asgarov's harrowing escape from Kelbajar during the Armenian attacks of spring 1993 on a 2017 radio documentary for the BBC.Witness (2017 BBC radio programme featuring Khalid Asgarov
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References & Bibliography

1929 births 2005 deaths Kurdish poets Askerov, Shamil Kurdish scholars Kurdish historians 20th-century poets 20th-century Kurdish people 21st-century Kurdish people Directors of museums in Azerbaijan {{Kurd-poet-stub