11 Facts About Ziya Bunyadov

Ziya Musa oglu Bunyadov was an Azerbaijani historian, academician, and Vice-President of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan.

Ziya Bunyadov was born on 21 December 1921 in the town of Astara in Azerbaijan.

Ziya Bunyadov's father, originally from Bibiheybat village of Baku, was a customs officer and, due to his work, the Bunyadov family changed their residence several times.

Ziya Bunyadov went on to fight on the European Front and participated in the Soviet capture of Warsaw and Berlin.

Ziya Bunyadov was awarded the Soviet Union's highest military honor, Hero of the Soviet Union, for his actions in the battle over a bridge on Pilica river in Poland on 14 January 1945, resulting in 100 enemy fatalities and 45 enemy prisoners taken.

Ziya Bunyadov was the author and editor of numerous monographs, books, and articles on the history of Caucasus.

Ziya Bunyadov managed to do excellent translation of the Holy Book.

On 21 February 1997, Ziya Bunyadov was assassinated at the entrance to his apartment in Baku.

Soviet academic Igor Diakonoff wrote that Ziya Bunyadov become infamous for a scientific edition of "a historical source from where all mentions on Armenians have been carefully eliminated".

Some of Ziya Bunyadov's research is discussed by Western journalist and author Yo'av Karny.

The Russian ethnologist, historian and anthropologist Victor Schnirelmann dismisses Ziya Bunyadov's theory, criticizing Ziya Bunyadov for not mentioning that Babak spoke Persian, and ignoring the witness accounts of Babak's contemporaries who call him Persian.