Behbud Khan Javanshir

Behbud Khan Azad Khan oghlu Javanshir (24 July 1878 – 18 July 1921) was an Azerbaijani engineer, politician and diplomat, a descendant of Panah Ali Khan, founder of the Karabakh Khanate; he was Minister of Internal Affairs of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918, deputy minister of trade and industry, and a member of its parliament. ^{1 2} He worked as an oil engineer, then — spared imprisonment after the Soviet takeover through Nariman Narimanov's help — represented the Soviet government in Berlin and Constantinople, where an Armenian gunman assassinated him in 1921 in Operation Nemesis. ¹

He was born at Azad Qaraqoyunlu in the Javanshir uyezd of Elizavetpol Governorate — the Azerbaijani and Russian articles give 12 [24] July 1878, the two calendar readings of one day, and the English article gives 24 July — the son of Azad Khan, a great-grandson of Panah Ali Khan, the founder of the Karabakh Khanate. ^{1 3} From 1890 to 1898 he studied at the Tiflis Realny School, where he learned German; in 1902 he enrolled at the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology, graduating cum laude in 1906, and then moved to London, where he learned English. ¹

On his return to Azerbaijan in 1907 he began work as a senior engineer in the oil industry. According to archival documents carried in the articles, he was a member of the anti-government organisation Difai, together with Ahmad Bey Aghayev, Garay Bey Garaybeyov, Mammad Hasan Hajinski, Isa Bey Ashurbeyov and Niftali Bey Behbudov. ^{1 3} Travelling to Germany, he brought German wheat to Karabakh, which local farmers acclimatised and still grow, and he was the first person to bring an automobile to the Karabakh region once roads were built. After the March massacres of 1918 he sat on the Azerbaijani-Armenian reconciliation commission and travelled with its delegations to Ganja and Karabakh; the Azerbaijani article describes him as a man of peace respected by Armenians and Azerbaijanis alike. ^{1 3}

On 17 June 1918 he was appointed Minister of Internal Affairs of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic; on 26 December 1918 Khalil Bey Khasmammadov replaced him. From 6 October 1918 he was deputy minister, and then acting minister, of trade and industry, and he also served in the National Assembly. ^{1 2} After Soviet rule was established in Azerbaijan, Nariman Narimanov's assistance spared him imprisonment by the Bolsheviks, and he was assigned to work in the Soviet oil fields at Baku; because of his German education he was then sent to represent the Soviet government first in Berlin and, from the summer of 1921, in Constantinople. ¹

At Constantinople he was the guest of Ahmad Bey Aghaoglu, together with his Russian wife Tamara and his brothers Surkhay and Jumshud, as the Azerbaijani article records. ³ On the evening of 18 July 1921, returning with his wife and brothers from the Tepebashi Theatre to the Pera Palace Hotel through the park, he was shot by the Armenian Misak Torlakian with a Mauser pistol — once in the head and twice in the chest — assisted by Ervand Fundukyan and Arutiun Arutunyan, in the Dashnak Operation Nemesis, in retaliation for his alleged role in the massacres of Armenians in Baku. He died in hospital and Torlakian was apprehended. ¹ His funeral at the Yahya Efendi lodge in Beşiktaş on 20 July 1921 turned into a mass demonstration despite the resistance of some forces, as the Azerbaijani article recounts. ³ A British military tribunal tried Torlakian, who said the killing was justified by the killing of Armenians in Baku; his defence claimed epileptic seizures made him not responsible for his actions, a Turkish doctor testified he had neither epilepsy nor mental disorder, and in October 1921 the tribunal found him guilty but not responsible by reason of epilepsy, after which he left for Greece and then the United States. ¹ His widow Tamara's letter to the Constantinople newspaper Tribune Libre was reprinted in John Dos Passos's The Orient Express (1927), whose author witnessed the commotion of the murder at the Pera Palace. ¹

This section sets out positions as reported in the sources. It is not a verdict by the museum.

His faith. No consulted source names any affiliation for Behbud Khan Javanshir, and this section states exactly what the sources give: the English, Azerbaijani and Russian articles are silent on his religion throughout, the Persian article — a translation of the same material, checked but not registered — is likewise silent, and Wikidata carries no religion value for him at all. ^{1 3 4} His descent from Panah Ali Khan and his republican offices are background; the Azerbaijani article's long narrative of the March 1918 events mentions the funerals of Baku's Muslim victims at the Tazapir mosque — the rites of a community reported as history, not one man's belief. ³ His faith is therefore recorded as unknown.

On his assassination. The Dashnak presentation of the killing — retaliation for his role in the September 1918 massacres of Armenians in Baku — is the organisation's and the assassin's stated case at trial, as the English article reports it, and the museum records it attributed, not as its own finding; against it, the Azerbaijani article presents him as a peacemaker on the reconciliation commission, respected in office by Armenians and Azerbaijanis alike. ^{1 3}

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.