ACADEMICIAN BUDAG BUDAGOV: "LOCAL AUTHORITIES ARE GUILTY THAT SOME GEOGRAPHIC NAMES WERE NOT CHANGED IN POST-SOVIET PERIOD"
APA
April 5 2010
Azerbaijan
Baku. Elbrus Seyfullayev – APA. Chairman of Azerbaijan parliamentary
commission on geographic names, Academician Budag Budagov gave an
interview to APA.
-What principles guide renaming of geographic places?
-The geographic names are dynamic issue. The process is divided to
several parts. First of all newly-built settlements are named. Second,
old and non-historic places are renamed. There were 111 places
named only after Lenin, many places named after Kirov and others in
the Soviet period. The ancient geographic names were forgotten. The
parliamentary commission on geographic names addresses the problem of
restoration of ancient titles. We are approaching the newly-formed
geographic places from the point of historic view and giving them
new geographic names in accordance with the contemporary period. The
population is rapidly growing in Azerbaijan and new settlements are
established. We are addressing the cases introduced by the local
authorities of the regions and making decisions led by the historic
factors.
-Armenia changed all geographic names related to Azerbaijan. Was
it investigated?
-The geographic names have great historic importance. It depends
on the language of the people living there. We together with
Giyaseddin Geybullayev drew up an explanatory dictionary of the
geographic names in Armenia related to Azerbaijan. There are about
5000 Turkic geographic names and almost nothing Armenian. Others
names were distorted or translated. For example, Echmiadzeen, It is
"Uchmiadzeen". "Uch" is "three" in Turkic language. "Muadzeen" is a
"prayer house" in Arabic. They acknowledge that they were spread over
the world like dust and they don’t know where they came from and where
they were settled. Armenians’ "from sea to sea" claims are meaningless
and ridiculous. Most of the geographic names in Armenia belong to
Azerbaijan and it proves that those places also belong to Azerbaijan.
-By the way, Georgia is also changing the Azerbaijani geographic names.
-As distinct from Armenia, Georgia is conducting this process more
progressively. We mentioned the changing of Azerbaijani geographic
names in Georgia as well. This is their domestic problem. For
example Georgia renamed Arakhli to Arakhlo, but Armenia scythed the
Azerbaijani names. They began this process in the Soviet time, but
couldn’t complete.
-There are some regions in Azerbaijan still saving Soviet geographic
names. Why they are not changed?
-Local authorities are guilty that some places were not renamed. They
have to -make their proposals that we can rename them. We have no
authority to do it without their proposals.
-Is the statistics of geographic names being prepared? How many
geographic names are there in Azerbaijan, how many of them must
be changed?
-Such a book is being prepared, it will be printed in the parliament.
There are geographic names which survival requires time.
-Some days ago the parliament renamed Devechi region as Shabran. It
was not approved unanimously. What do you think about it?
-Shabran is a historical city of Azerbaijan. Excavations were carried
out there and very valuable things were found. Devechi is a geographic
name that does not have history. Earlier, it was called Devechibazar.
This renaming is of great importance.
-A lot of new settlements have appeared in Azerbaijan recently. The
majority of them are located around Baku and conditionally called "new
residential district". When will these residential districts be named?
-I reiterate that this is in the competence of district executive
offices. They must register such districts, write and send to us. Such
places should be given modern names. Some executive offices are very
passive, they do not write a number of names or send to us. We can not
do anything. We do not have right to raise issue. We should protect
our geographic names.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress