2025
2025
2025-10-27
Talish was one of the Armenian-populated villages of Eastern Transcaucasia. It was located 5.3 km northeast of the present-day Aghsu regional center, on the left bank of the Aghsu River. During the period of the Russian Empire, it was part of the Shamakhi district of the Baku province. The village was also known by the variants Talishshen and Talish-Melik-Umud.
No specific information has been preserved about the founding of the village. However, according to Bishop Makar Barkhutaryants, the inhabitants of Talish had settled there from the Dizak and Varanda regions of Artsakh.
According to statistical data from 1831, Talish had 24 Armenian households, with138 inhabitants. In 1861, there were 15 Armenian households in the village. By 1876, the Armenian population of Talish had reached 96. In 1889, there were 74 Armenians living there, and in 1890—18 households with 75 Armenian residents. In 1901, the Armenian population of Talish numbered 67 people, in 1905—72, in 1909—74, and in 1912—77 Armenian inhabitants.
Besides Armenians, Turkic-speaking people also settled in the village. They probably moved to Talish in the early 1890s, since Bishop Makar Barkhutaryants, who visited the village in the late 1880s, did not mention them.
An issue of the Mshak newspaper from 1902 contains information that only 6 Armenian households remained in Talish, while the number of Turkic-speaking households had reached 40. It is likely that they also took part in the 1894 attack by a gang of twenty bandits on the house of the Armenian headman of Talysh. The attack was led by Mutalim, who was known for murders and robberies in the Gyokcha and Shamakhi districts. The Turkish bandits managed to loot his house and escape. Because of the presence of Turkic-speaking settlers in the village, the Armenians of Talish even wanted to leave and settle in Shamakhi.
During 1918–1920, the period of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, the Armenians who had remained in the village suffered new losses.
After the establishment of Soviet rule in Azerbaijan, the surviving Armenians of Talish did not return to the village but instead settled in the village of Zarkhu in the Shamakhi district (now Shirvan).
By the late 1980s, more than fifteen inscribed Armenian tombstones were still preserved at the village site. Most likely, those tombstones have since been destroyed.
Bibliography
Ardzaganq, 1894, no. 97, August 24, p. 2.
Mesrop Archbishop Smbatyants, Description of the Monastery of Saint Stepanos of Salian and Other Monasteries and Sacred Sites in the Towns and Villages of the Shamakhi Diocese. Tiflis, 1896, p. 139.
Sargisbekyan S., Shamakhi, Mshak, 1902, no. 62, March 21, p. 2.
Bishop Makar Barkhutaryants. The Land of Aghvank and Its Neighbors. Artsakh. Yerevan, 1999, p. 96.
Karapetyan, S., Aghvank Proper, Part 1, Yerevan, 2024, p. 46.