A statue of famous Soviet Azerbaijani poet Mikayil Mushviq was removed from its podium in Baku today.
President Ilham Aliyev told his Advisor on Public and Political Issues Ali Hasanov that the “perpetrators of this act will be seriously punished” and demanded an investigation into the “unacceptable” incident.
Mikayil Mushviq was a major Azerbaijani poet of the 1930s, however he fell out of favor with the Soviet authorities towards the end of his life and was eventually executed in 1938 at the age of 30 during the purges of Stalinism.
He was later exonerated, and his poetry was widely popularized in Nikita Khrushchev’s efforts to de-stalinize the USSR.
Azerbaijan’s Minister of Culture and Tourism Abulfaz Qarayev commented that the removal of the statue was sheer “disrespect for Azerbaijani legislation and law”.
Qarayev also demanded that those guilty of moving the statue be punished.
Construction company Azeravtoyol took down the statue while carrying out reconstruction works in Baku’s neighborhood of Sovetski. The company has issued a statement promising that “after the repair and reconstruction works…the statue will be returned to its rightful place”.
