Legacy
Following Shahumyan's death, the Soviet government depicted him as a fallen hero of the Russian revolution. Shahumyan's close relationship with Lenin also increased the already heightened tensions between the British and the Soviets, who laid much of the blame on British complicity in the massacre.
"And today we say with pride and love, that the great son of Armenian people Stepan is also the son of Azerbaijani people, all people of Transcaucasia, all multinational and united Soviet people". Heydar Aliev, the leader of Soviet Azerbaijan
Throughout the Soviet Union's existence, the town of Vararakn Khankendi in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Azerbaijan SSR was renamed Stepanakert, after Shahumyan. In 1992, Azerbaijan restored the pre-Soviet name of the town, Khankendi, while Nagorno-Karabakh authorities still refers to it as Stepanakert. The city of Dzhalal-Ogly in the Armenian SSR was also renamed, in Shahumyan's honor, Stepanavan, a name it has retained in post-Soviet Armenia. Streets in Lipetsk, Yekaterinburg, Stavropol and Rostov-on-Don (Russia), an avenue in Saint-Petersburg are named in Shahumian's honour. A statue of him erected in 1931 also exists in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.
Read more about this topic: Stepan Shahumyan
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“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)