Reading the novel Stone Dreams on the 100th anniversary of the “Great Catastrophe”

• Published in: Nationalities papers 2016-11, Vol.44 (6), p.967-984
• Main Author: Mamedov, Mikail
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: "Akram Aylisli"; "Armenian Genocide"; "Stone Dreams"; Armenia; Azerbaijan; Christmas; Dreams; General public; Genocide; Girls; Massacre; Massacres; Novels; Older people; Russian literature; Turkey; Women; Writers
• ISSN: 0090-5992; 1465-3923
• DOI: 10.1080/00905992.2016.1202911

The article analyzes the Stone Dreams novel by the famous Azeri writer Akram Aylisli. Published in the Russian literary journal Druzhba Narodov (Friendship of the People) in December 2012, it condemned anti-Armenian pogroms in the republic and in the cities of Baku and Sumgait in particular at the end of the 1980s. The novel also refers to the massacre committed by Turkish troops on Christmas of 1919 in the midst of the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1923. At that time, Turkish commander Adif-bey ordered the mass execution of the Armenian population in the author's home village Aylis (Agulis in Armenian). Almost all Armenians were killed, with the exception of a few young girls who by the late 1980s had turned into gray-haired women. The writer knew them when he was a young man, and the whole of his narrative was based on the stories that were told by the older people in the village. The novel caused mass outrage in Azerbaijan, for allegedly being one-sided. This included mass demonstrations in front of the author's house and the public burning of his books.