Helenendorf/Göygöl/Chanlar
Helenendorf/Göygöl/Chanlar
Names in other languages
Azerbaijani: Xanlar, Xanlıqlar, Jelenendorf; Russian: Еленендорф (Elenendorf)
Etymology
The colony was named after the beloved sister of the Russian Tsar Alexander I (1818–1881), Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna (1784–1803), who died at a young age.
Location
40°35'21.3" north latitude, 46°19'33.0" east longitude, on the north-eastern foothills of the Lesser Caucasus, between the Kura tributaries Gəncəçay and Kürəkçay. Helenendorf lies ten kilometres south of Gəncə, Azerbaijan’s second-largest city, not far from the mainBaku–Tbilisi railway line.
Region
The town of Göygöl, which grew out of the German colony of Helenendorf, is the administrative centre of the Göygöl district, which also comprises a further 44 settlements and villages, as well as a nature reserve featuring Lake Göygöl (situated at an altitude of 1,556 metres).
Political and administrative affiliation
Historically, the area was part of Gəncə, which in the Middle Ages belonged to the Arab Caliphate, the Aqqoyunlu and Qaraqouyunlu states, and the Safavid Empire. From 1747 to 1804, it was part of the independent Gəncə Khanate; from 1804 to 1918, it was part of the Elizavetpol Governorate (Russian Empire); from 1918 to 1920 to the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan, and from 1920 to 1991 to the Azerbaijan SovietSocialist Republic. Since 1991, Göygöl has been part of the Republic of Azerbaijan. From 1920 onwards, the administrative structure of the rayon underwent several changes. In 1930, Helenendorf became the administrative centre of the Narimanov rayon, later of the Xanlar rayon, and, from 2008, of Göygöl.
Common symbolism
There is no known official coat of arms from the time of the Helenendorf colony. Wine was the town’s most important product. The Konkordia co-operative, which brought together all the winegrowers in the region, featured grapes and a wine barrel with wings on its logo. The Xanlar district also included grapes in its coat of arms.
Prehistory and Early History
In the area around Helenendorf, kurgans (burial mounds) and ruins dating from the Bronze Age have been discovered, which are attributed to the Kura-Araxes culture. In addition to human remains, the graves contained numerous bronze weapons and everyday objects.
Middle Ages
The region served as a transit route and strategic stronghold for the Arab, Persian, Seljuk and Mongol armies. The 12th-century Ağ-Körpü bridge, along with other bridges, bears witness to the heavy traffic that passed through the area.
Modern times
By the end of the 18th century, the region was under the control of the new Iranian Qajar dynasty (1779–1925), of Turkmen origin. At the start of the Third Russo-Persian War (1804–1813), the entire region came under Russian control after Gəncə fell in January 1804 following a siege. On 14 May 1805, at the Russian troops’ military camp on the Kürəkçay River, a treaty was signed between Ibrahim Khan (1732–1806), the Khan of Karabakh, and General Cicianov (1754–1806, on behalf of the Russian Tsar Alexander I). The treaty sealed Karabakh’s incorporation into the Russian Empire.
Under the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813, Iran recognised Russian control over the territory, which was allocated to Swabian settlers just a few years later. The invitation issued by Empress Catherine the Great (reigned 1762–1796) was upheld under her successor, Tsar Paul I (reigned 1796–1801), and extended under Alexander I (reigned 1801–1825) to the newly incorporated outlying regions of the Tsarist Empire. Poverty in the Kingdom of Württemberg following the Napoleonic Wars, a famine resulting from the ‘Year Without a Summer’ of 1816, and the search for salvation by the Pietists and the Free Church ‘Stundists’ led to a mass emigration from southern Germany towards the East.
127 of a total of 562 families, predominantly from the Neckar region, who arrived in the Caucasus in 1817/18, reached the area around Gəncə. They were allocated 2,600 desyatinas of land (approx. 2,860 ha, 1.09 ha per family). In 1819, the colony of Helenendorf was founded. In addition to Helenendorf, the settlements of Annenfeld/Şamxor, Eigenfeld/Şəmkir, Georgsfeld/Çınarlı, Alexanderfeld/Həsənsu, Grünfeld/Vurğun and Traubenfeld/Tovuz were established on Azerbaijani territory. Annenfeld and Helenendorf were so-called ‘mother settlements’. A number of ‘daughter settlements’ were established as a result of the influx of colonists from other parts of Russia. In addition, German-speaking families from Switzerland inhabited a colony in Todas/Hacıkənd.[1]
Wars, disease, the cold winter of 1831 – which proved devastating for the vines – and a locust plague in 1847 characterised the first decades following the colony’s founding.[2] During the Russo-Turkish Wars of 1853–1856 and 1877–1878, the Helenendorf colony was already a major supplier to the Russian army.
During the First World War, German settlements were subject to increased scrutiny on suspicion of collaboration. Although Tsar Nicholas II had thanked his subjects of German origin for their loyalty during his visit to Tiflis on 14 November 1914, anti-German sentiment began to spread within the administration, particularly in the military. In 1915, the so-called ‘liquidation laws’ were passed, which provided for the expropriation of Germans. The Russification of place names was one of the first measures taken. Thus, on 9 February 1915, Helenendorf became Elenino; Annenfeld was renamed Annino; Eigenfeld became Petrovka; Georgsfeld became Georgievskoe; Grünfeld became Zelenaja Poljana; and Traubenfeld became Vinogradnaja Poljana.[3] As the inhabitants of Helenendorf were Russian citizens, they were initially exempt from the expropriations of that time. Furthermore, the governor’s intervention is said to have initially prevented the expropriations in the South Caucasus.[4] The implementation of the expropriations varied in terms of consistency and speed, as the property first had to be registered, the estates checked for debts and all the relevant documents compiled. The land was then put up for auction – a total of 3,383 desyatinas in Helenendorf alone. However, it transpired that the relevant documentation was not available for all the plots of land. In such cases, the Bauernland Bank refused to proceed with the purchase.
The Germans in Helenendorf resisted the expropriation and sent their representative, Theodor Hummel (1869–1944), to lodge a complaint with the University Senate. They argued that they had been invited to Russia personally by Tsar Alexander I not as subjects of the German Empire, but of the Kingdom of Württemberg. They pointed out that they had dutifully contributed to the development of agriculture and paid 1.6 million roubles in taxes annually. The University Senate’s reply of 14 June 1916 stated that it had no jurisdiction over this matter.
In March 1916, 179 soldiers and eight officers from Helenendorf were serving in the Russian army. In September 1916, a further 67 residents were conscripted. 580 horses and 230 four-wheeled carts were handed over to the army.
As a result of the deteriorating supply situation in Russia, some measures were revoked and, in June 1916, the Germans were permitted to continue farming the land for a further two years. In the Caucasus, this permission was limited to one year. On the one hand, the colonists were officially forbidden to remain on the expropriated land; on the other hand, they were allowed to live there until the end of the harvest season. The assets were transferred to the farmers’ banks, but payment of the proceeds was delayed, with the amount payable made contingent on the harvest yield. Arbitrary decisions led to a loss of motivation among the farmers. When intimidation tactics failed to yield results, the authorities attempted to persuade the farmers to carry out agricultural work by offering them assistance. The people of Helenendorf sabotaged this assistance in protest against the expropriations. For example, millet seeds delivered to Helenendorf were not accepted.[5]
Contemporary History
Following the February Revolution of 1917, the Provisional Government repealed the liquidation laws. The Germans in Russia organised themselves and drew up political demands. At the first conference of the Germans (20–22 April 1917) in Moscow, the Germans from the South Caucasus were represented by Theodor Hummel from Helenendorf. The conference resolved that the colonies should strengthen their self-government. One demand was the admission of German-language teaching in schools. A federal republic was proposed as the preferred political system for Russia.
The Provisional Government confirmed the large landowner Christian Zaiser as Commissioner for Helenendorf. A German national committee was founded. On 14 May 1917, a conference of Russian citizens of German nationality from the South Caucasus took place in Tiflis. In August, the residents of Helenendorf decided to form their own militia and applied to the Provisional Government’s representative office for the necessary armaments for 30 men. However, these militias were not recognised by the government.
Following the elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly in November 1917, the deputies from the South Caucasus convened the Caucasian Sejm in Tiflis, which took over the administration of the region until May 1918. German committees also came together and founded the ‘Transcaucasian German National Council’ in Tiflis in March 1918. During the Russian Civil War, they sided with the White Army and decided to form a German regiment under General Wrangel (1878–1928).
Men from Helenendorf aged between 18 and 26 had already volunteered for the German forces in February 1918 and subsequently took part in the German Caucasus Expedition from June to December 1918. The aim of the expedition was to secure oil supplies for German troops.
In the summer of 1918, the German community of Helenendorf supplied food to the Azerbaijani-Turkish troops as they advanced towards Baku. Following the establishment of the first Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR), Lorenz Kuhn (1884–1942) from Helenendorf served as the representative of the German minority in the Azerbaijani parliament. In his inaugural speech, he spoke of “severe trials to which the Germans were subjected during the World War” and expressed confidence that “the revolution, which embodied equality and fraternity for all, has put an end to this nightmare”. He noted that the Germans of Azerbaijan were inclined to see this fundamental political change as a positive development for themselves and for the preservation of their distinct identity.[6] This referred to the new situation in which the Germans no longer saw themselves as dependent on the protection of the Russian Crown, but regarded themselves as citizens of a new republic.
During the existence of the ADR, there were disputes between the residents of Helenendorf and those of the neighbouring villages of Topal Həsənli and Molla Hacılı over access to water and the use of land, which were resolved through legal channels. On 9 June 1919, the Helenendorf community celebrated its 100th anniversary with a church service, a festive procession, a banquet, singing and exhibitions of pupils’ work and agricultural implements. The Parliament of the Republic sent a telegram congratulating them on the occasion and wishing “this little cultural island continued prosperity and well-being in the future”[7].
The independence of the First Republic was brought to an end on 28 April 1920 by the 11th Red Army, and the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed. The property of the Germans was collectivised into sovkhozes and kolkhozes. The members of the Konkordia cooperative were convicted as ‘kulaks’ in 1926. Until their deportation in 1941, there were several arrests, and clergy and students from Helenendorf were persecuted in the larger cities. In response to the attack by Nazi Germany, all Germans were indiscriminately suspected of collaboration, and arrangements were made for their resettlement to Central Asia. They were housed in special settlements in Kazakhstan, subject to strict registration requirements and curfews. Germans from Helenendorf were, amongst other things, put to work as forced labourers in the coal mines near Karaganda. Although the special settlements were abolished in 1955, a return to their home towns was not permitted until 1972. Only a few returned to Azerbaijan. A mass emigration to the Federal Republic of Germany from the late 1980s onwards also included the descendants of the deported residents of Helenendorf.
In 1938, Helenendorf was renamed Xanlar after the Azerbaijani communist Xanlar Səfərəliyev (1885–1907). In 2008, the town was renamed Göygöl, after the region’s famous mountain lake.
Administration
Village self-government was headed by an elected village mayor, who was responsible for tax collection, building projects and, more generally, public order. This system of self-government was abolished in 1871. The office was later reintroduced. Following Sovietisation, administrative authority was transferred to a revolutionary committee, even though a village soviet formally exercised self-government.
Population
When Helenendorf was founded, there were 127 Swabian families living there, comprising around 500 people. In 1897, according to the Russian census, 2,983 Germans lived in the rural areas of the Elizavetpol district, which included not only Helenendorf but also Annenfeld; of these, 1,464 were men and 1,519 were women.[8] This indicates that the population of the village had at least tripled. Apart from a Cossack regiment, members of other ethnic groups were mostly living in Helenendorf on a temporary basis, whilst during the harvest season many labourers arrived from neighbouring villages.
In 1908, Helenendorf was home to 2,384 Germans, 400 Russians, 366 Armenians, 300 Persians, 40 Lezgins, 30 Georgians and five Azerbaijanis. Helenendorf thus had a total population of 3,525.[9] According to a report by the village mayor, Breitmeyer, Helenendorf took in 628 Aisors (Assyrians) as refugees in August 1915. Shortly afterwards, 3,000 Armenian refugees from Turkey were settled in and around Helenendorf.
To counter shortages in the food supply, the Provisional Government established committees throughout the country in 1917 to distribute staple foods. At that time, apart from the Germans, 720 Armenians and Azerbaijanis lived in Helenendorf; they lodged a written complaint alleging that the German settlers were discriminating against them in the distribution of rations. However, official investigations revealed that the Helenendorf administration had not withheld any food from them, but that they themselves had not received any food at all.
During violent Armenian-Azerbaijani clashes in the spring of 1918, the Germans attempted to maintain neutrality. During the stationing of German Imperial troops in Georgia in 1918, relations between the Germans in the Caucasus and the neighbouring population deteriorated, as the German troops had aided the latter in raids and looting.[10]
In 1928, Helenendorf was home to 2,115 Germans (520 families), 200 Volga Germans, 300 Aisors, 150 Armenians and 80 Azerbaijanis, making a total population of 3,845. According to administrative records, all residents apart from the 2,115 Germans were living in Helenendorf on a temporary basis and owned no property there.[11]
During the deportation in October 1941, 2,675 Germans were listed as having to leave Helenendorf. As early as 1935, 600 families from Annenfeld and Helenendorf had been deported to East Karelia. In accordance with the decree of the State Committee for Defence of 8 October 1941 ‘On the resettlement of Germans from Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia’, 22,741 Germans were deported from the Azerbaijan SSR to Akmolinsk and Kustanai in Kazakhstan. A few Germans were allowed to remain in Helenendorf if they had a non-German parent, such as Viktor Klein, who was known as ‘the last German’ in the region and died in 2007. Between 1944 and 1955, German prisoners of war were housed in the military hospital in Xanlar; 909 were buried in the neighbouring village.
Following the deportation of the Germans, Armenians were initially settled in Helenendorf, followed later by Azerbaijanis. In the post-war period, as part of the repatriation of the Armenian diaspora to the Soviet Union, numerous Azerbaijanis from Nagorno-Karabakh were resettled in the interior of the country. Thus, in 1948, 132 Azerbaijani families arrived in Helenendorf. Until the 1960s, the majority of the population was of Armenian origin. At the end of the 1980s, further Azerbaijani refugees from Karabakh arrived. The Armenian population, by contrast, was expelled. In 2020, 19,400 people lived in what was once Helenendorf.[12]
Economy
Unlike in the North Caucasus, where Russian colonisation triggered a mass exodus of the Muslim population to Turkey, leaving much land vacant, arable land was in short supply in the South Caucasus. Although each family was promised 60 desyatinas of land upon settlement, only half was actually allocated. In some places, it was possible to lease additional land. The land was not allowed to become private property but had to remain the common property of the colony. In addition to the costs of travel and settlement, the state provided each family with a loan of 3,000 roubles. The Germans were granted free rights of use for forests and pastureland. By 1874, the ‘crown debt’ (the colonists’ debts to the Russian treasury) had been repaid. TheBaku–Tbilisi railway line, completed in 1881, and economic growth in the Russian Empire fostered the development of the colonies and the sale of their produce.
Following settlement, fruit orchards and vineyards were the most important branches of agriculture. Viticulture was practised partly as dry farming. Initially, the Georgian Tarkveri grape variety was planted. After 1848, new varieties were introduced from France and North America, of which Muscat Rose and Isabella proved suitable for long-term cultivation. The production of dried fruit and rusks for the military provided a further source of income. Whilst 40 families were engaged in silk weaving in Helenendorf in 1845, they soon switched to the more profitable viticulture. Whilst the Russian Empire was primarily interested in the settlement of peasants at the beginning of the 19th century, a tsarist decree of 30 September 1825 also granted foreigners admission to practising crafts. Colonists remained exempt from military service. With its soap works, cheese dairies, joinery workshops, cart-building workshops and smithies, Helenendorf played a major role in the crafts practised by Germans in the Caucasus. Their four-wheeled carts enjoyed great popularity. As it was usually the youngest son who inherited the land, craftsmanship became an important source of employment for the older male descendants. The wines produced by the Vohrer Brothers company were awarded gold medals at the World Exhibitions in London (1897) and Paris (1901). In 1915, the settlements were connected to the electricity grid.
To counteract the growing economic inequality amongst the German villages and the social stratification of families, several producers’ and marketing co-operatives were founded at the beginning of the 20th century. The Konkordia Winegrowers’ Cooperative, founded in Helenendorf in 1908, was the largest of these. The cooperative structure enabled it to operate successfully until the beginning of the Soviet era.
The production of wine and other alcoholic beverages remained an important economic sector in the region even after the deportation of the Germans. In the 1980s, the Xanlar Winery was, according to its own accounts, the third-largest producer of wine spirits and wine in the Soviet Union. Viticulture, which had ground to a halt during the anti-alcohol campaign of the Perestroika era, has been experiencing a renaissance since the 2000s.
Military history
Russian military units were always stationed in Helenendorf, and were supplied by the local inhabitants. From 1854 onwards, a battery of the Don Cossacks, a dragoon regiment, infantry regiments and, from 1884 to 1917, the First Regiment of the Cossack Army were stationed at Helenendorf. During the First World War, the 1st Kuban Regiment, the 3rd Caucasian Cossack Regiment and the Zabajkalsk Regiment were quartered in the region.[13] During the war, the people of Helenendorf donated 24,000 roubles to the Red Cross.
History of Religion and the Church
Emigration from Württemberg took place for religious reasons, amongst others. From 1812 onwards, groups of Pietists began to form; drawing on the ideas of the writer and pioneer of the Revival Movement, Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling (1740–1817), and the theologian Johann Albrecht Bengel (1687–1752), sought to organise a quest for salvation in Palestine. They came together in ‘Harmonies’ – early Christian communities living in harmony – each comprising 50 families, and set out on their journey from Ulm. Around 25 per cent cited ‘religious fervour’ as the reason for their departure in the emigration lists.[14] From 1823 onwards, pastoral care for the colonists was provided by Basel missionaries in Şuşa. Johann Bernhard Saltet was the first senior pastor of the South Caucasian colonies from 1826 to 1830 and modelled his ministry on the Old Württemberg church constitution.[15] Under the Evangelical-Lutheran Church Act of 1832, the congregations in Tiflis and Baku were placed under the authority of the Moscow Consistory. However, the colonists’ congregations retained their special status.[16] In 1854, the foundation stone of the Lutheran St John’s Church in Helenendorf was laid, and its solemn consecration took place in 1857. Well into the 20th century, Lutheran church life remained the unifying force for social and cultural life amongst the German settlers. In October 1918, the people of Helenendorf also celebrated the 400th anniversary of the Reformation. With the Soviet Religious Law of 1929, the parishes, churches and clergy were dissolved.
Special cultural institutions
In addition to the church and community centre, there were theatre groups and a brass band. A separate school was established in Helenendorf for the Eastern Orthodox Aisors, who had resettled in the South Caucasus from the Ottoman Empire and Iran. In 1927, a museum of local history was opened at the instigation of Johann Hummel. In the park on the outskirts of Helenendorf, there was an open-air concert hall, which was rebuilt in 2014. Since 2008, St John’s Church has served as a local history museum, housing a permanent exhibition on the history of German settlement, whilst Viktor Klein’s former home is home to a museum of everyday history.
Education and Science
In Helenendorf, alongside a grammar school, there was a German two-stage school with a total of 515 pupils in 1920. In the late 1920s, a technical college for mechanical engineering was founded in Helenendorf, followed in the 1930s by a technical college for viticulture and winemaking. In March 1938, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)[17] and the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR adopted a joint resolution on the compulsory teaching of the Russian language in all non-Russian schools. This resulted in the reorganisation of all German schools and the switch to Russian as the language of instruction. Agricultural economists from Helenendorf wrote books on plant protection in Azerbaijan. Johann Heinrich Hummel became a co-founder of Azerbaijani archaeology.
Everyday culture
The settlers from Reutlingen, Esslingen, Tübingen and other towns, most of which were situated in the Neckar region, laid out six streets in a chequerboard pattern in Helenendorf, with around 400 houses. The local council, the church and the school were situated on the central square. From 1850 onwards, two-storey half-timbered houses were built on rubble-stone foundations, featuring cellars up to six metres deep for storing food. Local labourers were involved in the construction, which is why the houses featured elements of both Caucasian and German architectural styles. The streets were lined with plane trees.
The entrepreneur Werner von Siemens wrote about his visit to one of the South Caucasian colonies in 1865:
‘It is surprising to encounter, quite unexpectedly, the unadulterated old Swabian customs and language in these Swabian settlements. One feels as though one has suddenly been transported to a Black Forest village, such is the appearance of the houses, streets and inhabitants of these colonies. Admittedly, I found it difficult to understand their language […], but I heard from a true Swabian that even he could only understand it with difficulty, as it is the dialect spoken at the beginning of the century, and not the one used today, which has changed significantly under the influence of time. Just as with their language, the people have also retained all their customs and traditions exactly as they were when they emigrated. They are, as it were, set in stone and resist any change with all their might.”[18]
Until the turn of the century, German remained the main language of communication, even when dealing with workers from neighbouring villages. A third of the Germans could understand Russian. From the second half of the 19th century onwards, numerous young people moved to larger towns and to Germany to undertake apprenticeships or pursue higher education. In 1893, a ‘German Association’ was founded, complete with a club, library, orchestra, theatre, choirs and a skittle alley. Marriages with members of neighbouring communities, particularly with the Muslim population, were rare.
Culture of memory and remembrance
In 2003, on the initiative of the German Embassy in Baku, work began on cataloguing the graves. The regional administrator of the Xanlar district announced plans to revive the German heritage.[19] Shortly afterwards, the church – which had been converted into a basketball hall following Sovietisation – was converted into a local history museum. The cemetery, containing the 909 graves of prisoners of war mentioned above, was restored with the assistance of the German War Graves Commission. As part of a regional development project run by the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), support was provided for the restoration of the church and entire streets, and a museum concept was drawn up to link tourism in the region with its culture of remembrance. St John’s Church is now known to local residents as the ‘Lüteran’. Viktor Klein’s house has been undergoing conversion into the Swabian Museum since 2014, with support from the GIZ. In particular, the EuroKaukAsia scientific association, led by Prof. Eva-Maria Auch, campaigned for its preservation and use as a museum, and organised visits by descendants of the settlers from Reutlingen. The descendants of the settlers from Helenendorf have been holding annual gatherings in various towns across Germany since 1994. Together with them, the Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg, Günther Oettinger, visited Helenendorf in 2009 to mark the 190th anniversary of its founding. A Muscat dessert wine, produced at the Göygöl winery, bears the name Yelenendorf.
In 2016, a decree was issued by the President of Azerbaijanto mark the 200thanniversary of the settlement of Germans in the South Caucasus, with the aim of “appropriately honouring the profound mark left by the German settlers on the history and culture of the Azerbaijani people, in keeping with Azerbaijan’s multicultural traditions”.[20] In the years that followed , the travelling exhibition *Entgrenzung: Germans in Search of a Home between Württemberg and the Caucasus*, a significant part of which is devoted to Helenendorf, was shown in Baku, Berlin, Kyiv, Tbilisi and other locations. In 2017, the exhibition *Verlorene Spuren* (Lost Traces), which explores the history of emigration, was shown in Reutlingen. Over Easter 2019, descendants of the settlers from Reutlingen travelled to Azerbaijan to take part in the anniversary celebrations.
4. Discourses/Controversies
Compared with other ethnic groups resident in Azerbaijan, the Germans have received greater attention in historiography; Helenendorf, in particular, has been the subject of popular science publications and monographs. The exchange of agricultural techniques and mutual cultural influence are explored in several works by Eva-Maria Auch. Tensions with neighbouring peoples over land scarcity have been examined by Ikram Ağasiyev.
A rather idealised view of the German communities as a particularly progressive civilising force in the history of Azerbaijan can be found in the works of Tamara Humbatova, Mammad Džafarlii, Jacqueline Suchet-Grewlich and Nazim Ibragimov.
Bibliography
- Eva-Maria Auch: Germans in the Multicultural Environment of the South Caucasus, Baden-Baden 2017.
- Eva-Maria Auch: German Traces in Azerbaijan. Fexplorers – colonists and entrepreneurs between the Greater Caucasus and the Caspian Sea. Baku 2014.
- Eva-Maria Auch, Manfred Nawroth: Beyond Borders. Germans in Search of a Home between Württemberg and the Caucasus. Berlin 2017.
- Ikram Agasiyev: Qafqazin Alman əahalisi [The German Population of the Caucasus]. Baku 2010.
- Mammad Džafarli: Političeskij Terror i sud’by azerbajdžanskich nemcev [Political Terror and the Fate of the Azerbaijani Germans]. Baku 2003.
- Jacqueline Grewlich-Suchet: Wine and Wagons. Helenendorf: Azerbaijan’s First German Settlement. In: Azerbaijan IRS, Summer 2004, pp. 70–75.
- Nazim Ibragimov: A Home Away from Home. The German Influence on the Development of Azerbaijan. Baku 1997.
- Melanie Krebs: From Baku to Batumi: Through the Caucasus with Essad Bey. Frankfurt 2017.
- Viktor Krieger: Colonists, Soviet Germans, Resettlers. A History of the Russian Germans. (Publication Series 1631), Bonn 2015.
- Renate Föll: Lost Traces, catalogue of the special exhibition at the Reutlingen Local History Museum, 2017.
- Gisela Rasper: Journey to Helenendorf: from Württemberg to the Caucasus, 1817–1819. Books on demand, 2017.
Web links
- http://www.kaukasusdeutsche.de/ (Specialist portal on the history and culture of Germans in the South Caucasus)
- https://eleonora-hummel.de (Website of a descendant of the Hummel family from Helenendorf)
- http://www.g-hummel.eu (Website of the artist Günter Hummel, a native of Helenendorf)
Notes
[1] Also, *German Spuren*, p. 32.
[2] Grewlich-Suchet, *Wine and Wagons*, p. 73.
[3] Ağasiyev, *Qafqazın*, p. 92.
[4] Auch/Nawroth, *Entgrenzung*, p. 42.
[5] Ağasiyev, *Qafqazın*, p. 100.
[6] Azerbaijani Democratic Republic (1918–1920), Parliament, stenographic reports [Stenographic reports of the Parliament of the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan], Baku 1998, p. 29.
[7] Ibragimov, Home Abroad, p. 71.
[8] N. A. Trojnickij: The First General Census of the Population of the Russian Empire, 1897, Elisavetpol Governorate [First General Census of the Russian Empire 1897, Elisavetpol Governorate], 1904, [4], XII, pp. 62–63.
[9] Džafarli, Political Terror, p. 25.
[10] Ağasiyev, *Qafqazın*, pp. 168–170.
[11] Džafarli, Political Terror, p. 25.
[12] Data taken from Demographic Indicators of Azerbaijan, Statistical Yearbook, www.stat.gov.az/source/demoqraphy/ (accessed 27 March 2021). Page 87.
[13] Ağasiyev, *Qafqazın*, p. 114.
[14] Also, *Entgrenzung*, p. 10.
[15] Also, ‘Faith’, www.kaukasusdeutsche.de/geschichte/1816-1871/glaube.html (accessed 27 March 2021).
[16] Also, ‘Entgrenzung’, p. 20.
[17] In this official name of the party, the ‘b’ stands for ‘Bolsheviks’ (bol’ševiki).
[18] Werner von Siemens, Memoirs, Munich 2008, p. 334.
[19] Grewlich-Suchet, *Wine and Wagon*, p. 75.
[20] The anniversary decree referred to the start of settlement in the South Caucasus in 1817. The measures also covered the anniversary of Helenendorf, which had been founded in 1819.
Citation
Elnura Jivazada: Helenendorf/Göygöl/Chanlar. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2022. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p79084 (as at 17 February 2022).
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