He was decorated by a superpower for its oil and remembered by his own people for its words. Both lives are kept alive today — above all by his family and his community.
Dates and figures are drawn from Russian Wikipedia, the Jewish encyclopedias and community archives; the most celebratory wartime numbers come from community sources.
For organizing wartime oil production
He was also a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan and a personal pensioner of union significance.
In his last years Agarunov returned to the pen. «Oil and Victory» (Baku, 1991) told the story of Baku’s oil workers in the war; his memoir of his people, «The Great Destiny of a Small People» (Moscow, 1995), appeared after his death and is held by the National Library of Israel. His Judeo-Tat dictionaries were completed and published by his son Mikhail.
His legacy was preserved, above all, by his son Mikhail Agarunov (1936–2023), a chemist and historian of the Mountain Jews who worked the family and state archives to republish his father’s books. Today the foundation STMEGI, which keeps the heritage of the Mountain Jews, hosts his memoir and his story — and the Red Village where he was born still stands as a living home of his people.
The great destiny of a small people. Yakov Agarunov
He helped fuel a war and outlived an empire, but the work he chose to close his life with was the smallest and the largest of all: to write down the history of a people few had ever counted. Oilman and poet, he gave that people both a future and a memory.