Movsumov Shafa Kamran Oglu
A military training certificate can reveal a chapter of history that battlefield accounts overlook. At the National Museum of History of Azerbaijan, certificates and photographs documenting Azerbaijani servicemen’s training in Pakistan sit alongside uniforms, personal belongings and wartime records. Together, these materials preserve individual stories of service while offering a tangible record of military ties between the two countries.
These documents form part of the museum’s Patriotic War Fund, a collection dedicated to preserving the experiences of Azerbaijani servicemen. For readers, they provide a particularly direct connection to the people behind Azerbaijan’s recent military history. For the museum, their value lies in both remembrance and research: each item can help establish where a serviceman trained, whom he served alongside and how his career developed.
Preserving the record of war
The museum’s work extends beyond displaying military achievements. Its staff collect, catalogue and preserve objects that would otherwise risk being dispersed or lost. Clothing, photographs, documents, weapons and other wartime materials help connect national events with the lives of those who experienced them.
A central part of this work concerns the 44-day war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in September–November 2020, known in Azerbaijan as the Patriotic War. The museum presents this history through its Victory Hall, a dedicated space within the permanent exhibition. Personal belongings, uniforms, documentary materials and captured military equipment illustrate Azerbaijani servicemen’s experiences and the place of the war in the country’s public memory.
The collection also includes material relating to the First Karabakh War, the April 2016 clashes, the fighting around Tovuz in July 2020 and Azerbaijan’s military operation of 19–20 September 2023. These holdings allow researchers to examine individual military careers across different periods of conflict rather than treating each event in isolation.
The fund’s inventory comprises 3,514 items. Its holdings include belongings associated with martyred servicemen and veterans, as well as materials from participating branches of the armed forces. Among those represented are Major General Polad Hashimov, Colonel Ilgar Mirzayev, Colonel Shukur Hamidov, Allahverdi Baghirov and Chingiz Gurbanov, all recognised as National Heroes of Azerbaijan.
For families, such belongings carry personal meaning. For historians, their significance also depends on careful documentation. An object’s owner, date and circumstances of use are essential to understanding what it can establish about the past. Preserving that information is as important as conserving the object itself.
From collections to public understanding
In 2021, the museum organised an exhibition devoted to the 2020 war, bringing together uniforms, documents, military equipment and captured materiel. It helped make the growing collection accessible to a wider public and provided an opportunity to tell individual stories through surviving objects.
The museum also organises lectures and seminars at educational and cultural institutions, alongside guided visits to the Victory Hall. These activities introduce audiences to the collection and explain the historical context of the items on display. For younger visitors in particular, a named person’s photograph or uniform can make an otherwise distant event easier to understand.
Research and publication extend this work beyond the exhibition space. The museum’s catalogue, Heroes of the Great Victory, presents biographical information on 269 officers, soldiers and medical personnel, together with descriptions of 2,783 collection items. By bringing biographies and inventory records together, it offers researchers a starting point for further study and helps preserve information about the people represented in the collection.
The Pakistan Connection
Among the fund’s documents are copies of certificates relating to Major Saleh Valeh oglu Hasanov, a participant in the 2020 war. One records his completion of the Pakistan Army’s Officer Advance Commando Course, Serial 59, held from February to September 2011. Another documents his completion of a paratrooper course at Pakistan’s Para Training Centre in July that year.
The collection also preserves a certificate and a photograph belonging to Captain Kamil Alish oglu Shirinov, an Azerbaijani officer martyred in the 2020 war. It records his completion of counter-terrorism training with the Pakistan Army from 6 January to 27 March 2020.
Further photographs show the late Lieutenant Colonel Anar Vagif oglu Aliyev of Azerbaijan’s Special Forces with his team and with two Pakistani servicemen at an award ceremony following military training in Pakistan. Such images give the relationship a human dimension, recording encounters between servicemen whose careers were shaped, in part, by training abroad.
These materials document particular courses and personal experiences. Their significance should be understood on that basis: they offer evidence of professional contact and training, rather than a complete account of the two countries’ defence relationship. Their preservation nevertheless gives future researchers concrete records from which to ask broader questions.
As head of the Patriotic War Fund, I see this work as a responsibility to the people whose belongings we preserve and to those who will study them. Remembrance gives the collection its human purpose; accurate records give it lasting historical value. The documents connected with Pakistan show how a national museum can preserve both a country’s military experience and the international relationships woven into individual lives.
*Head of the Patriotic War fund National Museum of History of Azerbaijan.
