THE LAST OF THE FAMILY OF GENERALS

On the 98th day of gruelling interrogations, he, a war hero, officer and professional, did not care anymore where his former colleagues will try him. Sometimes he was taken to the headquarters of the board of the court, which was a few minutes' walk from Red Square. This time they decided to try him in the building of the Lefortovo prison.

It is not that the Military Board of the Supreme Court came to the prison specially for him - the judges did not recognize military honour. It is just that in 1938 the Lefortovo prison was packed with officers - the best, experienced Soviet officers. New ones were delivered each day, and to accelerate the "business", it was easier for the court to appear in prison in person to "consider" several cases per day.

General and collector of butterflies

In terms of biography and the Stalin principle "the son is not responsible for his father", there was something to try the outstanding military brigade commander, Camsid Naxcivanski, for. He came from a bay's family (which was already punishable according to the criteria of those years), his father was that same Cafarqulu Xan Naxcivanski, who headed the board of khans in the territory of Erivan province and proclaimed the independent Araz Republic. But the main crime of Naxcivanski was that he was a talented and professional officer (besides that, he came from an officer's family) the Stalin regime was so afraid of.

Naxcivanski fought as a volunteer in the famous "Wild Division" and joined it in 1914 as a 19-year-old cadet. He made a quick career in the tsarist army and was promoted to cornet six months after joining the division. At 21, he was awarded the first military decorations, several orders of St. Anne and St. Stanislav. At 22, he was awarded a personal gun for bravery with St. George's name engraved on it. The accompanying document stated: "For the fact that commanding a mounted patrol of 10 riders of the named regiment in the battle of 31 May 1916 near the village of Tyshkovitse, he led his men in the attack when a platoon of enemy infantry seized the flank of the advancing 1st squadron of the regiment and began to bombard them cruelly, for the fact that despite the heavy rifle fire, he was the first to cut into the ranks of the enemy, who was scattered, while the 1st squadron was given the opportunity to continue the attack, and for the fact that he was wounded twice."

The chairman of the trial of Naxcivanski was Colonel Vasiliy Ulrikh, bloodthirsty and devoid of any human qualities, someone Stalin, who was mired in his own fears and delusions of persecution, could rely on. It was precisely Ulrikh who urged the Politburo of the CPSU (b) to tighten the review of cases of traitors as repression began in 1935-36. He was known as a notable entomologist and collected butterflies throughout the Soviet Union. Perhaps he found some symbolic parallels in pinning insects to the cardboard and killing the best of the officers he knew.

Yes, Naxcivanski had something to be "tried" for if the killing of the best of those who were able to hold a gun was the aim. He was one of the first officers to receive St. George's Cross for valour (the award was given only to soldiers). In 1917, already a lieutenant, he received an award "for the fact that on 29 June 1917 near the town of Kalusha, being in front of his squad, he was the first to attack the enemy and make them take flight". There was something to try him for, because in 1918, in the rank of colonel (at 23!), Naxcivanski was the commander of a squad, which was part of the Transcaucasian army led by Aliaga Sixlinski. It is the same army, which swore allegiance to the new Azerbaijan Democratic Republic after the collapse of the "White movement". There was something to try him for, because in the army of the republic he fought against the Red Army, the Central Caspian Dictatorship, the Dashnaks and even the British.

After the trial, which lasted only 15 minutes, the schemer and collector of butterflies Ulrikh ordered the death penalty. Naxcivanski was found guilty of being "an active member of an anti-Soviet Azerbaijani nationalist organization and a member of the military centre organized at the Azerbaijan national centre. He carried out active work to prepare the overthrow of Soviet power in Azerbaijan and the secession of Azerbaijan from the Soviet Union. He personally developed the plan of an armed uprising in Azerbaijan... In addition, Naxcivanski had been engaged in espionage activities since 1921." At the closed and fast-track trial there were neither lawyers nor witnesses.

Honour of the oath

In fact, no evidence of "guilt" was provided: the trial was based solely on the confessions of Naxcivanski himself. During the entire Soviet period of his life, he taught at military academies and trained officers. No evidence was collected against him and certainly it did not even exist. Perhaps, Naxcivanski did not really approve of the new government, but being from an officer's family, he knew what honour and oath are and that they are not compatible with betrayal.

Naxcivanski confessed after 98 days of constant interrogations and torture. The sentence noted the "confiscation of all property belonging to him". He lived in a communal apartment, where all furniture, including iron beds, was state-owned. He only owned awards, binoculars, a camera, a hunting rifle, the family sword of the Naxcivanskis, as well as an ID card, a pass, documents, family correspondence and photographs. And the most interesting thing is that the inventory of the property said "to be destroyed as having no relation to the case and being of no value". It is obvious that these valuables were simply stolen, because someone from the senior leadership, people who preached austerity, but by many accounts (including according to Solzhenitsyn and Trifonov) lived in a big way, had their eye on them.

Naxcivanski was buried in an unmarked grave at Kommunarka-Loza, a secret suburban cemetery near Moscow, where, incidentally, the bodies of our other fellow countrymen lie: the famous metallurgist and People's Commissar Cingiz Ildirim, People's Commissar of Agriculture Dadas Bunyadzada, Secretary of the Baku City Committee M. A. Narimanov and our other prominent countrymen arrested in 1937-38.

That was a time when strong, proactive and honest people, willingly or not, became a threat to the state, when snitching and theft flourished in all its glory, hiding behind the hypocritical mask of asceticism (it is enough to remember the last autobiographical book of T. Tolstoy, which describes the house-museum of Kirov full of bourgeois furniture and equipment). Generosity and courage in those years were not a value, but a weakness that made a person an easy target. In 1941, the murder of Naxcivanski and other professional officers backfired: the country that was preparing for war all previous years turned out to be unable to repel the enemy it knew in advance.

We can say that had it not been for that terror and had people like Camsid Naxcivanski stayed alive, it would have saved millions of lives and may have even prevented the war.

On 22 December 1956, Camsid Naxcivanski was posthumously rehabilitated. The Military Board of the USSR Supreme Court decided to overturn the 26 August 1938 verdict of the Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR and drop the case due to lack of evidence.

A few days ago, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree to mark the 120th jubilee of Camsid Naxcivanski.