The human perception of the surrounding reality through myths is based on beliefs and opinions held by representatives of a specific culture, ethnic or social group rather than scientific knowledge.468
People usually resort to social myths, which are warped notions of the reality deliberately inculcated in the public mind to shape the required social responses. The most singular element about social myths is that the bulk of the society views them as a natural state of affairs rather than pieces of fiction. As a rule, under the impact of social myths, the history of origin and development of states and ethnic groups becomes distorted to such extent that its impartial analysis is possible only through critical juxtaposition of various sources.
Specialists consider that myths have the capacity to:
• affect simultaneously the intellectual and emotional aspects of the human consciousness. This makes people believe in the reality of the mythical content;
• turn a hyperbolic depiction of an individual case into an ideal model of the desired line of conduct. It is thanks to this peculiarity that the content of myths can affect the human conduct;
• rely on a specific tradition existing in the society.
Myths are an efficient tool for manipulating the consciousness. A myth taken alone has little meaning. However, when inculcated and deeply ingrained in the minds of the people, a myth can substitute (provided certain conditions are met) the reality for a long time. As a result, the recipient perceives the reality in line with how the myth is interpreted and therefore acts based on such perception. The convenience of the myth resides in its capacity to simplify the reality relieving the recipient of any need for intense (and frequently painful) thinking to comprehend the surrounding world.469
In the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, genocide means “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:470
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”.
March 26, 1998 marked the official starting point for mythologization of the “Azerbaijani genocide” as the Azerbaijani ex-president Heydar Aliyev officially instituted the ‘day of genocide of the Azerbaijanis’.
On March 27, 2003, Aliyev, Sr. stated in his speech:
The massive settlement of Armenians on our historical lands after the division of Azerbaijan between Russia and Iran, the massacre of Azerbaijanis perpetrated by Armenian Dashnaks in 1905 and 1918, handing over Zangezur to Armenians in the 1920s, the creation of an Armenian autonomy on the territory of Karabakh, the deportation of our compatriots from Armenia in 1948–1953… new territorial claims of Armenia to Azerbaijan in the late 1980s – all led to a full-scale war, occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijani lands by the Armenian armed groups and made about 1 million of our compatriots refugees and internally displaced persons.471
The “genocide of 1905 in Baku”, the “genocide of 1918 in Baku and Guba”, the “genocide of 1988–1990” and the “genocide of Khojaly” are the four major “genocides” intensely trumpeted by the Azerbaijani propaganda. There are also other secondary and minor “genocides”: purported to have been perpetrated in Zangezur, Karabakh, Shemakh, Kyurdamir, Salyan, Lankoran, Kafan, Gugark, Sisian, Agdaban, Baghanis-Ayrum, Masis, etc.472
The geography of the Azerbaijani genocides is quite extensive, with matching time frames. Only one thing remains without change: perpetrators and organizers. This role is traditionally reserved for Armenians. Let us examine the psychological prerequisite for the mythologization of “Azerbaijani genocides”.
The scholar Yuri Lotman in his article on semiotics and typology of the culture notes that each culture creates a mythologized image as its ideal self-portrait.473 In his turn, W. Wundt notes that the language, myths and customs represent common spiritual phenomena so closely fused together that one is unthinkable without the other. <…> The customs express through deeds the same views on life that rest on myths and become public through language. These deeds in their turn further enhance and elaborate the perceptions that they stem from.474
It must be pointed out that the mythologization of genocides is a cultural product of today’s Azerbaijani society and is a manifestation of latent aggression.
“Aggression is the consequence of such conduct that has for objective as its targeted response the infliction of a damage to the person it is aimed against. The aggression may not always be exhibited openly; it can manifest itself through fantasizing, dreaming or even through a thoroughly deliberated retaliation plan; it can be directed against the purported cause of frustration, be redirected against a completely innocent target or even own self”.475
Besides, another psychological phenomenon can be at play here termed ‘mirroring’ and amounting to reproduction with varying degrees of adequacy the traits, structural characteristics and relations of other objects. This comes to say that in this case, the historical fact of the Armenian Genocide called for an “Azerbaijani genocide of their own” to match Armenians.
The head of the Assistance to Development of Public Relations NGO, Shelale Hasanova in her interview to the Day.az information agency pointed out the mainstays of the Azerbaijani propaganda: “We suffered through four genocides in a single century and we remained unbroken; we survived and we gained independence and we now become integrated into the world community. This is what we must speak and write about not only on the Genocide Memorial Day but during the history classes in schools, at international conferences and during various political actions. I shall remind you these four genocides: the genocide of Azerbaijanis in 1905–1907 in Western Azerbaijan476 and in Baku, the genocide of 1918–1920 perpetrated by Dashnaks in Armenia and Azerbaijan, the genocide of 1988 when militant nationalists of the Soviet Armenia banished Azerbaijanis from the lands of Oghuz Turks by torturing and burning them alive. And finally, the forth genocide was perpetrated by Armenian armed bands in Khojaly”.477
This anti-Armenian propaganda campaign enlists the assistance of all political and civil institutes. For instance, Elmira Suleymanova, the Azerbaijani Ombudsman, stated that “as a result of a deliberate genocidal policy, ethnic cleansings and deportations perpetrated by Armenians and their supporters against Azerbaijanis over the past two centuries, our people had to endure dreadful ordeals… A total of some 700 thousands of our compatriots were killed”.478
There is no need to dwell in detail on every single attempt at falsification of historic events of the region by the Azerbaijani propaganda. It will suffice to focus on the two most circulated examples, that of Guba and Khojaly.
“The genocide of Guba”
In 2007, during drilling works for the renovation of a stadium in Guba, a mass grave of unknown origin was found on the site of a trash dump. Only 35 human skeletons could be lifted to the surface in their entirety. To this day, no result of any archaeological research or expert appraisal on the origin of these remains has been published. Also, no concomitant evidence has been made available.
Meanwhile, on December 30, 2009, the president Ilham Aliyev issued a decree on creation of a “genocide memorial complex” in Guba. Depending on the interests currently at stake, the remains are attributed to Jews or Lezgins or simply Muslims. However, Armenians are invariably cast in the role of the perpetrators.