Maragha (; , also ''Maraga'') or Shikharkh (), formerly known as Leninavan (between 1954–1992), is a town in the

Aghdara District Mardakert District (, ; ) was an administrative unit within the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. History The district was formed on 8 August 1930, as the ''Jrabert district''. It was r ...

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...

, in the

disputed Controversy (, ) is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting opinion or point of view. The word was coined from the Latin ''controversia'', as a composite of ''controversus'' – "turned in an oppo ...

region of

Nagorno-Karabakh Nagorno-Karabakh (, ; ) is a region in Azerbaijan, covering the southeastern stretch of the Lesser Caucasus mountain range. Part of the greater region of Karabakh, it spans the area between Lower Karabakh and Syunik Province, Syunik. Its ter ...

. The town had an ethnic

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...

-majority population in 1989, which had the status of a village at the time. The town was the site of a large massacre of ethnic

Armenians Armenians (, ) are an ethnic group indigenous to the Armenian highlands of West Asia.Robert Hewsen, Hewsen, Robert H. "The Geography of Armenia" in ''The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times Volume I: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiq ...

by Azerbaijani forces during the

First Nagorno-Karabakh War The First Nagorno-Karabakh War was an ethnic conflict, ethnic and territorial conflict that took place from February 1988 to May 1994, in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in southwestern Azerbaijan, between the majority ethnic Armenians of Nag ...

History

During the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

period, the village was a part of the Mardakert District of the

Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) was an Autonomous oblasts of the Soviet Union, autonomous oblast within the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic that was created on July 7, 1923. Its capital was the city of Stepanakert. The majori ...

First Nagorno-Karabakh War

On 10 April 1992, during the

, the village, known as Leninavan by then, was the scene of a

massacre A massacre is an event of killing people who are not engaged in hostilities or are defenseless. It is generally used to describe a targeted killing of civilians Glossary of French words and expressions in English#En masse, en masse by an armed ...

of ethnic

i forces, De Waal, Thomas. ''Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War''. New York: New York University Press, 2003, p. 176. which has been described as an act of revenge after the

Khojaly Massacre The Khojaly massacre (, ) was the mass killing of Azerbaijani civilians by Armenian forces and the 366th CIS regiment in the town of Khojaly on 26 February 1992. The event became the largest single massacre throughout the entire Nagorno-Ka ...

Population

References

External links

* {{Portal bar, Geography Populated places in Aghdara District