• Dreams and Nightmares: Reading Akram Aylisli’s Stone Dreams on the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide

    This article analyzes Stone Dreams, a novel by famous Azeri writer Akram Aylisli. Published in the Russian literary journal Druzhba narodov (Fraternity of peoples) in December 2012, it condemned anti-Armenian pogroms that took place in the cities of Baku and Sumgait at the end of the 1980s. The book also addressed the massacre committed by Turkish troops during the genocide of the Armenian people (1915–1923), including the mass execution of the Armenian population in Aylisli’s native town of Aylis/Agulis. On Christmas day of 1919, under orders by Turkish commander Adif Bey, almost all of the village’s Armenians were killed, with the exception of a few young girls, whom Aylisli knew when he was a young man. By the late 1980s they were gray-haired women, and the narrative of Aylisli’s novel was based on the stories told by these older people in the village. The publication of Aylisli’s novel caused mass outrage in Azerbaijan because of its alleged one-sidedness. The outrage took the form of mass demonstrations in front of Aylisli’s house, as well as the public burning of his books and accusations of treason.

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