Research

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Email from Clement Bailly, grandson of Jeyhun Hajibeyli [brother of Uzeyir Hajibeyov], who lives in Paris. Posted on HAJIBEYOV.com with permission from the author.

To: Betty Blair, Editor of Azerbaijan International magazine and editor of HAJIBEYOV.com, who lives in Los Angeles.

Issue: Researching the history of the Hajibeyov Family since so much was lost during the Soviet period and Uzeyir the composer was living in Baku while his brother, vehemently anti-Communist was forced to live in exile in Europe. Clement is wondering about censorship during the Soviet period and what influence it had on the creativity of Hajibeyov.

Betty,

I do not know what happened with my email. I was in the middle of writing a long historical text about censorship in USSR during the 30s. The damned thing disappeared from my computer. AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!

Guess I’ll have to rewrite it. Lot of things happened in this period of time. Uzeyir’s attitude is more comprehensible. I’ve found another interesting quote. My grandfather [Jeyhun, Uzeyir’s brother] wrote “After all, Stalin is from the Caucasus, I think the Russian people are suffering more than us (Caucasians) I think it’s true that Stalin was more “gentle” with Caucasus than for the rest of USSR. Anyway I will try to do again my little writing.

Later

Clément
December 4, 2001

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Betty,

I started back on my “little story on Soviet censorship during the 30s” with new documentation that I have found. Mainly about problems encountered by Russian musicians - Prokofiev, Shostakovitch even the Armenian composer Kachaturian - during this period of “dirigisme” [economic planning and control by the state].

The 30s were the worst period in USSR. There was a great crisis and the words like “sabotage,” “diversionism,” “foreign agents,” and others appear.

In 1934 the nightmare starts: public trials, mass deportation (7 million people , 3 million killed). Give me a few days and I will send you the baby.

As Azerbaijan does not seem to be even thinking about writing their history from 1920 to 1990, we have to find out for ourselves. Azerbaijanis still fear Russia, Russia still thinks that the Caucasus is just one of their province, just like Afghanistan.

Let’s do a Virtual Museum of the Hajibeyov Museum on the web. I think we have enough material.

Clement in Paris
December 5, 2001

Added: Dec 15, 2001

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