title: Shamil Asgarov
text: # Shamil Asgarov
  
  Shamil Asgarov or Shamil Askerov (Azerbaijani: Şamil Səlim oğlu Əsgərov, 1929, Ağcakənd – 20 May 2005, Baku) was a Kurdish scholar, poet, and researcher on the history of the Kurds in Azerbaijan. He was the leader of Kalbajar's large Kurdish community, owned a 30,000 book library of books about Caucasian Kurds and their history and was the founder and former director of the Kurdish Museum in Kelbajar before that town was occupied by Armenian forces and the former population forced to flee in 1993. He was also editor of the Kurdish newspaper Denge Kurd published from 1991 to 2004 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Shamil Asgarov translated the classic Kurdish love story Mem and Zin into Azerbaijani and was the author of 17 other books among them one, Ferhenge, a Kurdish-Azerbaijani dictionary, was published in 1999 with the support of the Soros Foundation.
  
  Shamil's son, Khalid, a photographer for Reuters, documented the tale of Asgarov's harrowing escape from Kelbajar during the Armenian attacks of spring 1993 on a 2017 radio documentary for the BBC.
  
  ## References & Bibliography
  
  * ↑ Goltz, Thomas (1999). Azerbaijan Diary, p.322. M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0-7656-0244-2.
  * ↑ Mürvət, Qədimoğlu (2000). Hər Çeşmədən Bir Damla,Şamil Əsgərov-70, p. 3. Baku: ARAZ, Index 4228190013/05200.
  * ↑ de Waal, Thomas (2003). Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War, p. 212. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 0-8147-1945-7.
  * ↑ BBC radio 2017 report
  * 1 2 "I CARE - Internet Centre Anti Racism Europe, NEWS - Archive for April 2003". Retrieved 2008-06-30.
  * ↑ "Central Asia and the Caucasus - Journal of Social and Political Studies". Retrieved 2008-06-30.
  * ↑ Mürvət, Qədimoğlu (2000). Hər Çeşmədən Bir Damla,Şamil Əsgərov-70, p. 11. Baku: ARAZ, Index 4228190013/05200.
  * ↑ Witness (2017 BBC radio programme featuring Khalid Asgarov
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