Ziya Bunyadov

Ziya Musa oglu Bunyadov (Azeri: Ziya Bünyadov) (24 December 1921, Astara – 21 February 1997, Baku) was an Azerbaijani historian, academician, and Vice-President of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan. As a historian, he also headed the Institute of History of the Azerbaijani Academy of Sciences for many years. Bunyadov was a World War II veteran and Hero of the Soviet Union.

Ziya Bunyatov was born on December 21, 1923 in the town of Astara. After finishing the secondary school, he joined Baku military school. In 1942, he was sent to World War II to fight on the Caucasus front, near the town of Mozdok. Ziya Bunyadov showed heroic effort in the battle over Pilitsa bridge in Poland on January 14, 1945, resulting in 100 Nazi fatalities and 45 Nazi prisoners taken. For this deed, on February 27, 1945, by the decree of the Supreme Soviet (parliament) of the Soviet Union, Ziya Bunyadov was awarded the honorary title of the Hero of the Soviet Union. Besides this highest title, for his participation and heroism in World War II, Ziya Bunyadov was also awarded the honorary Red Banner, Red Star, Alexander Nevsky, and 2-nd degree Patriotic War Soviet orders and honorary Soviet medals "For the Defense of Caucasus", "For liberation of Warsaw", "For liberation of Berlin" and "For the Victory Over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945". For a year after the end of war, Lieutenant Ziya Bunyadov was the deputy military commendant of the Pankow district of Berlin.

After the war, Ziya Bunyadov completed the Moscow Institute of Orientalism and in 1954 defended his doctorate dissertation. Dr. Bunyadov returned to Baku and started working at the Institute of the History of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan SSR. Here he grew from a position of a research associate to become a chief scientist, head of the Insitute of History, academician and vice-president of the National Academy of Sciences.

On February 21, 1997, Ziya Bunyadov was murdered at the entrance to his flat in Baku. Though the official state investigation placed the resposibility on a group of Islamic extremists, many of whom received life sentences, the culprits and circumstances of Bunyadov's murder remained mysterious.

Bunyadov studied ancient Azerbaijani historiography. He led controversial research on Caucasian Albania, an ancient state that existed on the territory of modern Azerbaijan before 5th century A.D., and along with his student Dr. Farida Mammadova, published several books on the history of Caucasian Albania.^[1]

In Soviet times, Bunyadov's research discussed an alleged centuries-long Armenian plot to dominate Caucasian Albania and the Caucasus. That is how Yo’av Karny describes what he heard from Bunyadov: "It took a while to expose the conspiracy..." notes Karny sardonically... "Under Arab auspices, in the Middle Ages, monks and priests of the Armenian national church had translated the entire body of Albanian literature Armenian, destroyed the Albanian original, then integrated it into the Armenian Church." ^[2]

Bunyadov is also known for his article Why Sumgait? published shortly after anti-Armenian pogroms in Azerbaijan's town of Sumgait, which resulted in 26 fatalities.

Buniatov began a poisonous quarrel for which Caucasian Albanians themselves should take none of them blame. (Their true history has not become any clearer as a result). Buniatov’s scholarly credentials were dubious. It later transpired that the two articles he published in 1960 and 1965 on Caucasian Albania were direct plagiarism. Under his own name, he had simply published, unattributed, translations of two articles, originally written in English by Western scholars C.F.J. Dowsett and Robert Hensen. ^[3]

• З. Буниятов. «Азербайджан в VII-IX веках». 1973. Баку
• З. Буниятов. «Государство атабеков Азербайджана: 1136-1225». 1984. Баку
• Yo'av Karny. Highlanders: A Journey to the Caucasus in Quest of Memory, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001 [2]
• Thomas De Waal. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War, New York University Press, 2004 [3]