Azerbaijan to solemnly mark 200th anniversary of arrival of German settlers in South Caucasus

By Azernews

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has signed an order on the 200th anniversary of the establishment of German settlements in the South Caucasus region.

To ensure a decent celebration of the German page of Azerbaijan’s history, the president instructed the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Foreign Ministry and the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan to jointly develop and implement a special program dedicated to the actions on the 200th anniversary of the establishment of German settlement in the South Caucasus, in view of their significance in promoting Azerbaijan as a place of centuries-old center of tolerance with multicultural traditions.

The 200th anniversary of the first settlement of Germans in Azerbaijan will be marked in 2017 and this date will be marked by UNESCO as well.

The 19th century found Germany economically weak and politically split into a multitude of independent feudal dominions. The political map of Germany resembled a poor man’s patchwork quilt. As the economy suffered, so did the people.

The unstable situation forced some Germans to leave their homelands. Landless German peasants left their native German principality of Wurttemberg at the beginning of the 19th century, and found shelter many thousands of kilometers away in Azerbaijan, which was then part of the Russian empire.

A number of colonies were created across the country. The first Germans were for the first time settled in the country’s cities of Tovuz, Astara and Ganja in 1817. In early 19th-20th centuries, three of eight German colonies, Eigenfeld, Annenfeld and Georgsfeld, were located in the west of Azerbaijan -- Shamkir.

These colonies were a shelter for German colonists, who created a little Germany here with cozy houses built in German style and tidy streets, with pear and plane trees along them.

But, the World War II destroyed the peaceful life of the colony. Germans were exiled from their second home by Josef Stalin. In October 1941, more than 20,000 German colonists were living in Azerbaijan, and almost all of them were deported to Siberia.

After being allowed to return in 1953, few did, and now the community is a fraction of what it once was and largely assimilated. However, Many German buildings and churches are still extant, with some turned into museums