It is as if those who died are rewriting life going forward. From the Martyrs’ Lane in Baku to the thousands of tragedy-laced individual memorials to lost servicemen and women that are so evident across the nation, the occupation years and liberation represent a painful narrative painted in blood.
Yet the rise of Karabakh and Azerbaijan also represents a benediction to the nation’s fallen heroes. It transmutes grief into an element of glory.
Yerevan’s leadership had never visited Martyrs’ Lane, a cemetery and memorial in central Baku dedicated to those killed by the Soviet Army during Black January 1990 and the First Karabakh War.
