The bust, made by the Azerbaijani sculptor Hayat Abdullayeva and unveiled in 1982, was heavily damaged by the Armenian forces when they captured Shusha in 1992, during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, and was transferred to Armenia.
[4] The Armenian forces heavily damaged the bust, with bullet marks being visible throughout the sculpture.
[9] The British journalist Thomas de Waal, who saw the monuments in Baku, wrote: After capturing the city, the Armenians in revenge dismantled and sold bronze busts of three Azerbaijani musicians and poets, natives of Shusha, and these relics were miraculously saved, this time thanks to a scrap metal buyer in Tbilisi.
I saw these three bronze busts–in a deplorable state, with traces of bullets, they were lying in the courtyard of the headquarters of the Red Cross in Baku.
The poetess Natevan with a head covered with a scarf, holding a book in her hand with a broken thumb; the composer Hajibeyov, speckled with bullets, in a double-breasted jacket and broken glasses, and the famous singer Bulbul, who looks like a thinker ... with a bulging bronze forehead.