ZANGILAR (DONUZYEYEN, MESJIDLI)

The village in Zangibasar district, 4 km northwest of the village of Uluhanli, the center of Zangibasar district, on the left bank of the Zangi river, on the edge of the waterway, separated from the river.

Only Azerbaijani Turks lived in the village.

In 1832, there were 355 Azerbaijanis (188 men, 167 women) in 42 households, in 1873 - 905 people (497 men, 408 women) in 110 households, in 1886. - 1012 people (569 men, 443 women) in 136 farms, in 1897 -1077 people, in 1909 - 1,131 persons, in 1914 - 1464 persons.

In 1918, like other Turkish-Muslim villages in the Zangibasar district, the village of Donuzoyen was subjected to brutal attacks by the Armenian Dashnak bloodsuckers, the village was destroyed, looted, burned, part of its population was brutally killed, the survivors were forced to leave their native land.

In the first years of Soviet power, part of the fleeing population of the village was able to return home, in 1922 their number was 399 people, in 1926 reached 493 people, in 1931 - 518 people.

On January 3, 1935, the name of the village of Donuzeyen was renamed Zangilyar, and on April 19, 1991 it was renamed Zorak.

In 1949, almost half of the village was deported to the Sabirabad, Barda, and Salyan regions of Azerbaijan. Subsequently, 25 of their families were able to return to their native village.

During the events of 1988, one of the residents of the village Magarram Guliyev Adosh oghlu was brutally killed by Armenians. Khavar Hajiyeva Hasan gizi, born in 1927, experienced a terrible shock during the events and soon after her arrival in Azerbaijan committed suicide.

There were four cemeteries in the village. One of them was in front of the mosque, and the other on the outskirts of the village.­And in the old cemetery, until recently, there were statues of horses, camels and rams.­On one of the graves the figure of a sword was clearly visible.  The grave with a sculpture of a horse in the cemetery is said to have been the grave of the Pahlavan of ­ Mohammed Pahlavan village, and the grave with a sculpture of a ram was the grave of Palazgulag Pahlavan. There was no one around to put them on their backs.

The village also had four mosques, one of which was located on the outskirts of the village on the north side, it was built of stone and functioned until 1988. The second was located on the bank of the Zangi river and was destroyed in the 1960s. The third was inside the village, its ruins still standing.