Karabakh conflict: dates, events. Key moments of confrontation between Azerbaijan and Armenia

Where is Nagorno-Karabakh located?

Nagorno-Karabakh is a disputed region on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic was founded on September 2, 1991. The population is estimated in 2013 to be over 146,000. The vast majority of believers are Christians. The capital and largest city is Stepanakert.

What started the confrontation?

At the beginning of the 20th century, mainly Armenians lived in the region. It was then that this area became the site of bloody Armenian-Azerbaijani clashes. In 1917, due to the revolution and the collapse Russian Empire Three independent states were proclaimed in Transcaucasia, including the Republic of Azerbaijan, which included the Karabakh region. However, the Armenian population of the region refused to obey the new authorities. In the same year, the First Congress of the Armenians of Karabakh elected its own government - the Armenian National Council.

The conflict between the parties continued until the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan. In 1920, Azerbaijani troops occupied the territory of Karabakh, but after a couple of months, the resistance of the Armenian armed groups was crushed thanks to the Soviet troops.

In 1920, the population of Nagorno-Karabakh was granted the right to self-determination, but de jure the territory continued to submit to the authorities of Azerbaijan. Since that time, not only riots, but also armed clashes have periodically flared up in the region.

How and when was the self-proclaimed republic created?

In 1987, the dissatisfaction with the socio-economic policy on the part of the Armenian population increased sharply. The measures taken by the leadership of the Azerbaijan SSR did not affect the situation. Mass strikes of students began, and in major city- Stepanakert - thousands of nationalist rallies were held.

Many Azerbaijanis, having assessed the situation, decided to leave the country. On the other hand, Armenian pogroms began to take place everywhere in Azerbaijan, as a result of which a huge number of refugees appeared.

Photo: TASS

The regional council of Nagorno-Karabakh decided to withdraw from Azerbaijan. In 1988, an armed conflict began between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. The territory got out of Azerbaijan's control, but the decision on its status was postponed indefinitely.

In 1991, hostilities began in the region with numerous losses on both sides. Agreements on a complete ceasefire and settlement of the situation were reached only in 1994 with the help of Russia, Kyrgyzstan and the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly in Bishkek.

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When did the conflict escalate?

It should be noted that relatively recently the long-term conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh again reminded of itself. This happened in August 2014. Then skirmishes on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border took place between the military of the two countries. More than 20 people died on both sides.

What is happening now in Nagorno-Karabakh?

On the night of April 2, it happened. The Armenian and Azerbaijani sides blame each other for its escalation.

The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry announces shelling by the Armenian armed forces using mortars and heavy machine guns. It is alleged that over the past day, the Armenian military violated the ceasefire 127 times.

In turn, the Armenian military department says that the Azerbaijani side undertook “active offensive actions” on the night of April 2 using tanks, artillery and aircraft.

Are there any victims?

Yes, I have. However, their data differ. According to the official version of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, over 200 were injured.

UN OCHA:“According to official sources in Armenia and Azerbaijan, at least 30 soldiers and 3 civilians have died as a result of the fighting. The number of wounded, both civilian and military, has not yet been officially confirmed. According to unofficial sources, more than 200 people were injured.”

How did the authorities and public organizations react to this situation?

The Russian Foreign Ministry maintains constant contact with the leadership of the foreign ministries of Azerbaijan and Armenia. and Maria Zakharova called on the parties to end the violence in Nagorno-Karabakh. According to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, reports of a serious

It should be noted that it remains the most stressful. , Yerevan refuted these statements and called them a trick. Baku denies these accusations and speaks of provocations by Armenia. Azerbaijani President Aliyev convened the country's Security Council, which was broadcast on national television.

The appeal of the PACE President to the parties to the conflict with an appeal to refrain from the use of violence and resume negotiations on a peaceful settlement has already been published on the organization's website.

A similar call was made by the International Committee of the Red Cross. He convinces Yerevan and Baku to protect the civilian population. Also, the committee's employees say they are ready to become mediators in the negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The "frozen" conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh for the first time in 22 years has a real opportunity to turn into a full-scale war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. As a result of the war in the early 90s, about 30 thousand people died, almost a million were refugees. Ruposters presents a selection of rare photographs of inter-ethnic conflict in the post-Soviet Transcaucasus.

The territory of modern Nagorno-Karabakh has been covered since the 4th century BC. was part of the first Armenian kingdom, then - Greater Armenia. After 500 years of being under Arab influence, Karabakh again for a long time (from the 9th to the 18th centuries) became part of the Armenian state formations. In 1813 the territory became part of the Russian Empire.

Khojavend, 1993

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was criticized by all sides of the conflict: both Azerbaijanis (and this despite Gorbachev's statement in July 1990 that "the patience of the Azerbaijani people is not limitless"), and Armenians (local media published "data" about the Turkic origin of the mother of the head of the USSR).

The result of shelling "Grad" of the city of Martakert, 1992

Armenian clergyman

Azerbaijani grandmother and Armenian fighter, 1993

Numerous foreign mercenaries took part in the Karabakh war (1992-1994). Armenia in the war was supported mainly by representatives of the large Armenian diaspora - in particular, fighters from the Dashnaktsutyun party.

Chechen field commanders Basaev, Raduev and Arab Khattab fought on the side of Azerbaijan (an Azerbaijani colonel testifies: “About a hundred Chechen volunteers led by Shamil Basaev and Salman Raduev provided invaluable assistance to us. But they, too, were forced to leave the battlefield due to heavy losses and leave"). According to Western sources, Azerbaijan has attracted several hundred Mujahideen from Afghanistan and Turkish Gray Wolves to its side.

106-year-old Armenian woman, Teh village, January 1, 1990

The outbreak of war in Nagorno-Karabakh in the 90s was not the first armed conflict over the disputed territory between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the 20th century. The largest clashes were in 1918-1921, when Azerbaijan did not recognize the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh. It all ended only in 1921, with the establishment of Soviet power in the Caucasus. Then the disputed territory was attached to the Azerbaijan SSR. Unrest in Karabakh flared up every now and then throughout the Soviet period.​

Losses on both sides during the war of 1992-1994 amounted to approximately 30 thousand people. The Azerbaijani authorities estimated their losses at about 20 thousand people - military and civilian. Another 1 million people are said to have become refugees.

Grape pickers under guard

Cemetery in Stepanakert, 1994

Boy with a toy gun, Stepanakert, 1994

As a result of the war, Nagorno-Karabakh received de facto independence from Azerbaijan. Wherein territorial structure of the unrecognized republic is quite specific: almost 14% of the former Azerbaijan SSR fell into the NKR, and at the same time, Azerbaijan still controls 15% of the declared territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijani writers Shikhly and Semedoglu

The events of February 1992 in the city of Khojaly became one of the blackest pages of the war. After the capture of the city by the self-defense forces of the NKR, from 180 (humans rights watch data) to 613 Azerbaijani civilians (according to the Azerbaijani authorities) died. Some sources suggest that these events could become an "act of retaliation" for the Armenian pogroms in Sumgayit (1988) and Baku (1990), the victims of which, according to various estimates, were from several tens to several hundred people.

Going to school, 1992

Stepanakert, 1992

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7 simple facts that explain how it all happened

Have you heard about the conflict in Karabakh and do not know its cause? Have you read about the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and would like to know what exactly is going on?

If so, then this material will help you form the main impression of what is happening.

What are Armenia, Azerbaijan and Karabakh?

Countries in the South Caucasus region. Armenia has existed since the times of Babylon and Assyria. A country called Azerbaijan appeared in 1918, and the concept of "Azerbaijani" and even later - in 1936. Karabakh (called "Artsakh" by Armenians since ancient times) is a region inhabited by Armenians for centuries, and since 1991 has been a de facto independent republic. Azerbaijan is fighting for Karabakh, claiming that it is Azerbaijani territory. Armenia assists Karabakh in its intention to protect its borders and independence from Azerbaijani aggression. (If you want to know more, just look at the "Karabakh" section of Wikipedia).

Why did Karabakh become part of Azerbaijan?

In 1918-1920. the newly created Azerbaijan, with the support of Turkey, is trying to take possession of Karabakh, but the Armenians did not allow Azerbaijan to seize their lands. In the early 1920s, when the communists occupied the Transcaucasus, Joseph Stalin decided in one day to transfer Karabakh to Azerbaijan that had become Soviet. The Armenians were against it, but could not prevent it.

Why did the Armenians not want to accept?

The number of Armenians of Karabakh in the Soviet Azerbaijan began to gradually decrease due to the policy pursued by the Azerbaijani authorities, which in every possible way interfered with the economic and cultural development of the Armenians, closed Armenian schools, also interfered with the relations of the Armenians of Karabakh with Armenia, forced them to emigrate in various ways. In addition, the Azerbaijani authorities constantly increased the number of Azerbaijanis in the region, building new settlements for them.

How did the war start?

In 1988, a national movement of Armenians began in Karabakh, advocating secession from Azerbaijan and joining Armenia. The Azerbaijani leadership responded to this with pogroms and the deportation of Armenians in a number of Azerbaijani cities. The Soviet army, in turn, began the cleansing of Karabakh from Armenians and the deportation of the population. Karabakh began to fight with the Soviet army and Azerbaijan. Local Armenians, by the way, are excellent warriors. Only the village of Chardakhlu (at the moment - under the control of Azerbaijan, all Armenians have been deported) gave 2 Soviet marshals, 11 generals, 50 colonels, who are part of Soviet army fought against the Nazis.

After the collapse of the USSR, the independent Azerbaijan continued the war with Karabakh. At the cost of blood, the Armenians were able to defend most of the territory of Karabakh, but lost one region and part of two other regions. In exchange, the Armenians of Karabakh were able to occupy the territories of 7 border regions, which in the 1920s, also with the mediation of Stalin, were separated from Armenia and Karabakh and transferred to Azerbaijan. Only thanks to this, today the Azerbaijani conventional artillery cannot shell Stepanakert.

Why did the war resume after decades?

According to various international organizations, Azerbaijan, which is relatively rich in oil but has a low standard of living, is a country with a corrupt dictatorship. The average salary here is even lower than in Karabakh. In order to distract the population from numerous internal problems, the Azerbaijani authorities have for years strained the situation on the border of Karabakh and Armenia. For example, the latest clashes coincided with the Panama scandal and the publication of dark facts about the next billions of the clan of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

After all, whose land is Karabakh?

In Karabakh (which, we recall, the Armenians call Artsakh) there are more than 3,000 monuments of Armenian history and culture, including more than 500 Christian churches. The most ancient of these monuments are more than 2 thousand years old. There are no more than 2-3 dozen Islamic monuments in Artsakh, the oldest of them was built in the 18th century.

Whose land is the land of Nagorno-Karabakh? You are free to draw your own conclusions.

Story Karabakh conflict is a small episode in the almost 200-year-old chronicle of the contact of the Armenian ethnos with the Caucasian peoples. Cardinal changes in the South Caucasus are connected with the large-scale resettlement policy of the 19th-20th centuries. started by Tsarist Russia and then continued by the USSR, until the collapse of the Soviet state. The process of resettlement can be divided into two phases:

1) XIX-early XX centuries, when the Armenian people moved from Persia, Ottoman Turkey, the Middle East to the Caucasus.

2) During the 20th century, when intra-Caucasian migration processes were carried out, as a result of which the autochthonous (local population) were ousted from the territories already inhabited by Armenians: Azerbaijanis, Georgians, and small Caucasian peoples, and thereby an Armenian majority was created on these lands, with the aim of further substantiation of territorial claims to the peoples of the Caucasus.

For a clear understanding of the causes of the Karabakh conflict, it is necessary to make a historical and geographical excursion on the path traversed by the Armenian people. The self-name of the Armenians is hai, and the mythical homeland is called Hayastan.

H and the current geographical area of ​​\u200b\u200bits residence is the South Caucasus, the Armenian (Hai) people fell into force historical events and the geopolitical struggle of world powers in the Middle East, Asia Minor and the Caucasus. In today's world historiography, most scholars and researchers of the Ancient East agree that the Balkans (South-Eastern Europe) were the initial homeland of the Hai people.

The "father of history" - Herodotus, pointed out that the Armenians are the descendants of the Phrygians who lived in the south of Europe. The Russian Caucasian scholar of the 19th century I. Chopin also believed that “Armenians are aliens. This is the tribe of Phrygians and Ionians who crossed into the northern valleys of the Anatolian mountains.

The well-known Armenist M. Abeghyan pointed out: “It is assumed that the ancestors of the Armenians (Hays) long before our era lived in Europe, near the ancestors of the Greeks and Thracians, from where they crossed to Asia Minor. During the time of Herodotus in the 5th century BC. they still clearly remembered that the Armenians came to their country from the west.”

The ancestors of the present Armenian people, the Khays, migrated from the Balkans to the Armenian Highlands (East of Asia Minor), where the ancient Medes and Persians, who lived in the neighborhood, called them by the name of their former neighbors, the Armenians. The ancient Greeks and Romans began to call the new people and the territory occupied by them the same way, through which these names - the ethnonym "Armenians" and the toponym "Armenia" spread in the current historical science, although the Armenians themselves still continue to call themselves hays, which additionally confirms them coming to Armenia.

Russian Caucasian scholar V.L. Velichko noted at the beginning of the 20th century: “Armenians, a people of unknown origin, with undoubtedly a significant admixture of Jewish, Syro-Chaldean and Gypsy blood ..; far from all who identify themselves as Armenians belong to the indigenous Armenian tribe.

From Asia Minor, Armenian settlers began to get to the Caucasus - to present-day Armenia and Karabakh. In this regard, the researcher S.P. Zelinsky noted that the Armenians who appeared at different times in Karabakh did not understand each other in language: « The main difference between the Armenians of different areas of Zangezur (which was part of the Karabakh Khanate) make up the dialects they speak. There are almost as many dialects here as there are districts or individual villages..

Several conclusions can be drawn from the above statements of Russian Caucasian scholars of the 19th - early 20th centuries: the Armenian ethnos could not be autochthonous not only in Karabakh or Azerbaijan, but also in the South Caucasus as a whole. Arriving in the Caucasus at different periods of history, the “Armenians” did not suspect the existence of each other, and spoke different dialects, that is, at that time there was no concept of a single Armenian language and people.

Thus, step by step, the ancestors of the Armenians found their homeland in the South Caucasus, where they occupied the ancestral lands of the Azerbaijanis. Mass e The stage of the resettlement of Armenians to the South Caucasus was marked by the benevolent attitude of the Arab Caliphate towards them , who was looking for social support in the conquered territories, therefore he treated the resettlement of Armenians favorably. The Armenians found shelter in the Caucasus on the territory of the state of Caucasian Albania, but very soon such hospitality cost the Albanians dearly (the ancestors of today's Azerbaijanis). With the help of the Arab Caliphate in 704, the Armenian-Gregorian Church tried to subjugate the Albanian Church, and the library of the Albanian Catholicos Nerses Bakur, which had passed into the hands of the Armenian church dignitaries, was destroyed. The Arab Caliph Abd al-Malik Umayyad (685-705) ordered the merging of the Aftokephalic Albanian Church and Christian Albanians who had not converted to Islam with the Armenian Gregorian Church. But at that time it was not possible to fully implement this plan, and the Albanians managed to defend the independence of their church and statehood.

At the beginning of the 15th century, the position of the Armenians in Byzantium worsened, and the Armenian Church turned its eyes to the loyal Caucasus, where it set itself the goal of creating its own statehood. Armenian high priests made a number of trips and wrote a large number of letters to the Albanian patriarchs with a request to give them asylum in the Caucasus "as Christian brothers in distress." The Armenian Church, forced to wander around the cities of Byzantium, eventually lost most of the Armenian flock, which converted to Catholicism, thereby jeopardizing the very existence of the Armenian Church. As a result, with the permission of the Albanian Patriarch, some of the Armenian dignitaries, around 1441, moved to the South Caucasus, to the monastery of Echmiadzin (Three Muezzins) - Uchklis: on the territory of present-day Armenia, where they received long-awaited peace and a place for the implementation of further political plans.

From here, the Armenian settlers began to get to Karabakh, which they now decided to call Artsakh, thereby trying to prove that these are Armenian lands. It should be noted that the toponym ARTSAKH, as Nagorno-Karabakh is sometimes called, is of local origin. In the modern Udi language, which belongs to one of the languages ​​of Caucasian Albania, Artsesun means "to sit down". From this verb form is derived artsi - “sedentary; people leading a sedentary lifestyle. Dozens of geographical names with formants like -ah, -ex, -uh, -oh, -ih, -yuh, -yh are known in Azerbaijan and the North Caucasus. Toponyms with the same formants are preserved in Azerbaijan to this day: Kurm-uh, Kohm-uh, Mamr-uh, Muhakh, Jimjim-ah, Sam-uh, Arts-ah, Shad-uh, Az-yh.

In the fundamental academic work “Caucasian Albania and Albanians” by a specialist in the ancient Armenian language and history, Albanian scholar Farida Mammadova, who studied medieval Armenian manuscripts in Soviet times and found that many of them were written 200-300 years ago, but are issued as “ancient”. Many Armenian annals are collected on the basis of ancient Albanian books, which fell into the hands of the Armenians after the Russian Empire abolished the Albanian Church in 1836 and transferred all its heritage to the Armenian Church, which collected the “ancient” Armenian history on this basis. In fact, the Armenian chroniclers, having got to the Caucasus in a hurry, ruffled the history of their people in the literal sense on the grave of Albanian culture.

During the XV-XVII centuries, during the time of the powerful Azerbaijani states of Ak-Koyunlu, Gara-Koyunlu and Safavids, Armenian Catholicos wrote humble letters to the rulers of these states, where they swore allegiance and prayed for help with the resettlement of Armenians to the Caucasus in order to save them from "the yoke of the perfidious Ottomans". Using this method, using the confrontation between the Ottoman and Safavid empires, a large number of Armenians moved to the Safavid territories bordering between these states - present-day Armenia, Nakhchivan and Karabakh.

However, the period of power of the Azerbaijani state of the Safavids was replaced by feudal fragmentation by the beginning of the 18th century, as a result of which 20 khanates were formed, where there was practically no single centralized power. The heyday of the Russian Empire began, when, under the reign of Peter I (1682-1725), the Armenian Church, which placed great hopes on the Russian crown in the restoration of Armenian statehood, began to expand its contacts and ties with Russian political circles. In 1714, the Armenian vardaped Minas submitted to Emperor Peter I "a proposal in the interests of the alleged war between Russia and the Safavid state to build a monastery on the shores of the Caspian Sea, which during the period of hostilities could replace the fortress." The main goal of the vardaped was for Russia to take under its citizenship the Armenians scattered all over the world, which the same Minas asked Peter I later, in 1718. At the same time, he interceded on behalf of “all Armenians” and asked "liberate them from the basurman yoke and take them into Russian citizenship." However, the Caspian campaign of Peter I (1722) was not brought to an end, due to its failure, and the emperor did not have time to populate the Caspian coast with Armenians, whom he considered "the best means" for securing the territories acquired in the Caucasus for Russia.

But the Armenians did not lose hope and sent numerous appeals to the name of Emperor Peter I, continued to cry for intercession. Responding to these requests, Peter I sent a letter to the Armenians, according to which they could freely come to Russia for trade and "it was ordered to reassure the Armenian people with imperial grace, to assure the sovereign of the sovereign's readiness to accept them under his protection." At the same time, on September 24, 1724, the emperor ordered A. Rumyantsev sent to Istanbul to persuade the Armenians to move to the Caspian lands, on the condition that the local residents “will be expelled, and they, the Armenians, will be given their lands.” The policy of Peter I in the “Armenian issue” was continued by Catherine II (1762-1796), "expressing consent to the restoration of the Armenian kingdom under the auspices of Russia." That is, the Russian Empire decided to “restore” the Armenian state of Tigran I, which once existed in Asia Minor (now Turkey) for only a few decades, at the expense of the Caucasian lands.

The dignitaries of Catherine II developed a plan, which indicated “in the first case, you should establish yourself in Derbend, take possession of Shamakhi and Ganja, then from Karabakh and Sygnakh, having collected a sufficient number of troops, you can easily take possession of Erivan.” As a result, already at the beginning of the 19th century, Armenians in noticeable numbers began to move to the South Caucasus, since the Russian Empire had already taken possession of this region, including Northern Azerbaijan.

During the XVII - early XIX centuries, the Russian Empire waged eight wars with the Ottoman Empire, as a result of which Russia became the mistress of three seas - the Caspian, Azov, Black - took possession of the Caucasus, Crimea, gained advantages in the Balkans. The territory of the Russian Empire expanded further in the Caucasus after the end of the Russian-Persian wars of 1804-1813 and 1826-1828. All this could not but affect the change in the orientation of the Armenians, who, with each new victory of Russian weapons, were more and more inclined to the side of Russia.

In 1804-1813. Russia negotiated with the Armenians of the Ottoman Erzurum vilayet in Asia Minor. It was about their resettlement to the South Caucasus, mainly to the Azerbaijani lands. The answer of the Armenians read: “When Erivan is occupied by the grace of God by Russian troops, then by all means all Armenians will agree to enter into the patronage of Russia and live in the Erivan province.”

Before continuing the description of the process of resettlement of Armenians, one should dwell on the history of Yerevan, which was named after the capture of the Irevan Khanate and the city of Irevan (Erivan) by Russian troops. Another fact of the arrival of Armenians to the Caucasus and in particular to present-day Armenia is the history of the celebration of the founding of the city of Yerevan. Seems, many have already forgotten that until the 1950s of the last century, Armenians did not know how old the city of Yerevan was.

Making a small digression, we note that according to historical facts, Irevan (Yerevan) was founded at the beginning of the 16th century as a stronghold of the Safavid (Azerbaijani) Empire on the border with the Ottoman Empire. To stop advancing Ottoman Empire to the east, Shah Ismail I Safavi in ​​1515 ordered the construction of a fortress on the Zengi River. The construction was entrusted to the vizier Revan-guli Khan. Hence the name of the fortress - Revan-kala. In the future, Revan-kala became the city of Revan, then Irevan. Then, during the weakening of the Safavid Empire, more than 20 independent Azerbaijani khanates were formed, one of which was the Iravan khanate, which existed until the invasion of the region of the Russian Empire and the capture of Iravan at the beginning of the 19th century.

However, let us return to the artificial ageing of the history of the city of Yerevan that took place in Soviet times. This happened after the 1950s. Soviet archaeologists found a cuneiform tablet near Lake Sevan (the former name of Goycha). Although the inscription mentions three cuneiform characters “RBN” (there were no vowels in ancient times), this was immediately interpreted by the Armenian side as “Erebuni”. This title the Urartian fortress of Erebuni, allegedly founded in 782 BC, which immediately became the basis for the authorities of the Armenian SSR to celebrate the 2750th anniversary of Yerevan in 1968.

The researcher Shnirelman writes about this strange story: “At the same time, there was no direct connection between the archaeological discovery and the festivities that took place later (in Soviet Armenia). Indeed, after all, not archaeologists, but the Armenian authorities, who spent huge sums on this, organized a magnificent nationwide holiday. … And what does the capital of Armenia, Yerevan, have to do with the Urartian fortress, whose connection with the Armenians still needs to be proven? The answer to the questions posed is no secret to those who know recent history Armenia. We must look for it in the events of 1965, which stirred up, as we will see below, the whole of Armenia and gave a powerful impetus to the rise of Armenian nationalism.” (Memory Wars, Myths, Identity and Politics in Transcaucasia, V.A. Shnirelman).

That is, if there had not been an accidental and incorrectly deciphered archaeological find, the Armenians would never have known that their “native” Yerevan is now over 2800 years old. But if Yerevan is a part of the ancient Armenian culture, then this would be preserved in the memory, the history of the Armenian people, and the Armenians should have been celebrating the founding of their city for all these 28 centuries.

Returning to the process of the resettlement of the Armenian people to the Caucasus, Armenia and Karabakh, let us turn to famous Armenian scientists. In particular, the Armenian historian, Columbia University professor George (Gevorg) Burnutyan writes: “A number of Armenian historians, speaking of statistics after the 1830s, incorrectly estimate the number of Armenians in Eastern Armenia (by this term Burnutyan means present-day Armenia) during the years of Persian possession (that is, before the Turkmenchay Treaty of 1828), citing a figure from 30 to 50 percent of the general population. In fact, according to official statistics, after the Russian conquest, Armenians barely made up 20 percent of the total population of Eastern Armenia, while Muslims made up more than 80 percent ... Thus, there is no evidence of an Armenian majority in any district during the years of the Persian administration (before the conquest of the region by the Russian Empire) ... only after the Russian-Turkish wars of 1855-56 and 1877-78, as a result of which even more Armenians arrived in the region from the Ottoman Empire, even more Muslims left here, the Armenians finally reached the majority of the population here . And even after that, until the beginning of the 20th century, the city of Iravan remained predominantly Muslim.». The same data is confirmed by another Armenian scientist Ronald Suny. (George Burnutian, article "The Ethnic Composition and the Socio-Economic Condition of Eastern Armenia in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century", in the book "Transcaucasia: nationalism and social change” (Transcaucasua, Nationalism and Social Change. Essays in the History of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia), 1996,ss. 77-80.)

Regarding the settlement of Karabakh by Armenians, Armenian scientist, University of Michigan professor Ronald G. Suny, in his book “Looking towards Ararat”, writes: “From ancient times and in the Middle Ages, Karabakh was part of the principality (in the original “kingdom”) of the Caucasian Albanians. This independent ethno-religious group, which no longer exists today, was converted to Christianity in the 4th century and became close to the Armenian Church. Over time, the highest stratum of the Albanian elite was Armenianized ... This people (Caucasian Albanians), which is the direct ancestor of today's Azerbaijanis, spoke the Turkic language and adopted Shiite Islam, which is widespread in neighboring Iran. The upland part (Karabakh) remained predominantly Christian, and over time, the Karabakh Albanians merged with the (immigrants) Armenians. The center of the Albanian church, Ganzasar, became one of the bishoprics of the Armenian Church. Echoes of the once independent national church were preserved only in the status of the local archbishop, called the Catholicos. (Prof. Ronald Grigor Suny, "Looking Towards Ararat", 1993, p. 193).

Another Western historian Svante Cornell, relying on Russian statistics, also cites the dynamics of the growth of the Armenian population in Karabakh in the 19th century: « According to the Russian census, in 1823 Armenians made up 9 percent of the total population of Karabakh(the remaining 91 percent were registered as Muslims), in 1832 - 35 percent, and in 1880 already reached the majority - 53 percent "(Svante Cornell, Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus, RoutledgeCurzon Press, 2001, p. 68).

At the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, the Russian Empire, pushing the Persian and Ottoman empires, expanded its possessions in a southerly direction at the expense of the territory of the Azerbaijani khanates. In this difficult geopolitical situation, the further fate of the Karabakh Khanate, which became a struggle between the Russian, Ottoman Empire and Persia, was interesting.

A special danger for the Azerbaijani khanates was Persia, where in 1794, Agha Mohammed-Khan Qajar of Azerbaijani origin, becoming Shah, decided to restore the former greatness of the Safavid state, relying on the idea of ​​uniting the Caucasian lands with the administrative and political center in South Azerbaijan and Persia. This idea did not inspire many khans of Northern Azerbaijan, who gravitated toward the rapidly growing Russian Empire. In such a responsible and difficult time, the initiator of the creation of the anti-Kajar coalition was the ruler of the Karabakh khanate, Ibrahim Khalil Khan. Bloody wars began in the Karabakh land, the Persian Shah Qajar personally led campaigns against the Karabakh khan and his capital city of Shusha.

But all the attempts of the Persian Shah to conquer these lands were unsuccessful, and in the end, despite the successful capture of the Shusha fortress, he was killed here by his own courtiers, after which the remnants of his troops fled to Persia. The victory of Ibrahim Khalil Khan of Karabakh allowed him to start final negotiations on the entry of his possessions under the citizenship of the Russian Empire. May 14, 1805 was signed Treatise between the Karabakh Khan and the Russian Empire on the transition of the Khanate under the rule of Russia, which connected the further fate of these lands with Tsarist Russia. It is worth noting that in the treatise signed by Ibrahim Khan Shushinsky and Karabakh and the Russian general, Prince Tsitsianov, consisting of 11 articles, there is no mention of the presence of Armenians anywhere. At that time, there were 5 Albanian melikdoms subordinate to the Karabakh Khan, and there is no question of Armenian political entities, otherwise their presence would certainly have been noted in Russian sources.

Despite the successful end of the Russo-Persian War (1826-1828), Russia was in no hurry to conclude a peace treaty with Persia. Finally, on February 10, 1828, the Turkmenchay Treaty was signed between the Russian Empire and the Persian state, according to which, including the Iravan and Nakhchivan khanates, they went to Russia. Under its terms, Azerbaijan was divided into two parts - Northern and Southern, and the Araz River was defined as a demarcation line.

A special place was occupied by Article 15 of the Turkmenchay Treaty, which gave"All residents and officials of the Azerbaijan region have a one-year period for free passage with their families from the Persian regions to the Russian regions." First of all, it concerned "Persian Armenians". In pursuance of this plan, the “highest decree” of the Russian Senate of March 21, 1828 was adopted, which stated: "By the power of the treaty with Persia, concluded on February 10, 1828, attached to Russia - the Khanate of Erivan and the Khanate of Nakhichevan, we command in all matters to be called from now on the Armenian region."

Thus, the foundation of the future Armenian statehood in the Caucasus was laid. A Resettlement Committee was created to control the migration processes, equipping the resettled Armenians in new places in such a way that the residents of the established settlements did not come into contact with the already existing Azerbaijani villages. Not having time to equip the huge flow of migrants in the Irevan province, the Caucasian administration decides to persuade the majority of the Armenian migrants to settle in Karabakh. As a result of the mass resettlement of Armenians from Persia in 1828-1829, 35,560 migrants ended up here in Northern Azerbaijan. Of these, 2,558 families or 10,000 people. placed in the Nakhichevan province. Approximately 15 thousand people were placed in the Garabagh (Karabakh) province. During 1828-1829, 1458 Armenian families (about 5 thousand people) were settled in the Irevan province. Tsatur Aghayan cited data for 1832: then there were 164,450 inhabitants in the Armenian region, of which 82,317 (50%) were Armenians, and, as Tsatur Aghayan noted, out of the indicated number of local Armenians, there were 25,151 (15%) of the total population , and the rest were immigrants from Persia and the Ottoman Empire.

In general, as a result of the Turkmenchay Treaty, 40,000 Armenian families moved from Persia to Azerbaijan within a few months. Then, relying on an agreement with the Ottoman Empire, in 1830 Russia moved another 12,655 Armenian families from Asia Minor to the Caucasus. In 1828-30, the empire moved another 84,600 families from Turkey to the Caucasus and placed some of them on the most good lands Karabakh. In the period 1828-39. 200 thousand Armenians were resettled in the mountainous parts of Karabakh. In 1877-79, during the Russian-Turkish war, another 185,000 Armenians were resettled to the south of the Caucasus. As a result, significant demographic changes took place in Northern Azerbaijan, which were even more intensified due to the departure of the indigenous population from the territories inhabited by Armenians. These counter flows were of a completely “legitimate” nature, since the official Russian authorities, while resettling Armenians in Northern Azerbaijan, did not prevent the Azeri Turks from leaving from here to Iranian and Ottoman lands. .

The largest resettlement was in 1893-94. Already in 1896, the number of Armenians who came reached 900 thousand. Due to the resettlement in Transcaucasia in 1908, the number of Armenians reached 1 million 300 thousand people, 1 million of which were resettled by the tsarist government from foreign countries. Due to this, in 1921, the Armenian state appeared in Transcaucasia. Professor V.A.Parsamyan in "History of the Armenian people-Ayastan 1801-1900" writes: “Before joining Russia, the population of Eastern Armenia (Irevan Khanate) was 169,155 people - of which 57,305 (33.8%) were Armenians… After the capture of the Kars region of the Armenian Dashnak Republic (1918), the population increased to 1 million 510 thousand people. Of these, 795,000 were Armenians, 575,000 Azerbaijanis, 140,000 were representatives of other nationalities.”

By the end of the 19th century, a new phase of the activation of Armenians began, associated with the national awakening of the peoples, a phenomenon that migrated from Europe to Asia. In 1912-1913. the Balkan wars began between the Ottoman Empire and the Balkan peoples, which directly affected the situation in the Caucasus. During these years, Russia dramatically changed its policy towards the Armenians. On the eve of the First World War, the Russian Empire began to assign the Ottoman Armenians the role of its ally against Ottoman Turkey, where the Armenians rebelled against their state, hoping with the support of Russia and European countries create an Armenian state on Turkish lands.

However, the victories in 1915-16. The Ottoman Empire on the fronts of the First World War prevented these plans: the mass deportation of Armenians from the war zone in Asia Minor towards Mesopotamia and Syria began. But the main part of the Armenians - more than 300,000 fled with the retreating Russian army to the South Caucasus, mainly to the Azerbaijani lands.

After the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, the Transcaucasian Confederation was formed in Transcaucasia and the Seim was created in Tiflis, in which Georgian, Azerbaijani, Armenian parliamentarians played an active role. However, disagreements and a difficult military situation did not allow maintaining the confederal structure, and following the results of the last meetings of the Seimas in May 1918, independent states appeared in the South Caucasus: the Georgian, Ararat (Armenian) and Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR). On May 28, 1918, the ADR became the first democratic Republic in the East and in the Muslim world with a parliamentary form of government.

But the leaders of Dashnak Armenia began the massacre of the Azerbaijani population of the former Erivan province, Zangezur and other regions that now make up the territory of the Republic of Armenia. At the same time, Armenian troops, made up of detachments deserting from the fronts of the First World War, began to move across the territory in order to “clear space” for the creation of the state of Armenia. In this difficult time, trying to stop the bloodshed and massacre of the civilian population committed by the Armenian troops, a group of representatives of the leadership of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic agreed to cede the city of Yerevan and its environs to create an Armenian state. The condition of this concession, which still causes great controversy in Azerbaijani historiography, was that the Armenian side would stop the massacre of the Azerbaijani population and would no longer have territorial claims to the ADR. When in June 1918 Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia signed, each separately, "treaties of peace and friendship with Turkey", the territory of Armenia was defined as 10,400 sq. km. The undisputed territory of the ADR was about 98 thousand square kilometers. (together with disputed areas of 114 thousand square kilometers).

However, the Armenian leadership did not keep its word. In 1918, part of the Russian and Armenian soldiers were withdrawn from the Turkish front, and as a result, the detachments consisting of Armenians deserting from the fronts of the First World War were skillfully directed towards Azerbaijan and its oil capital Baku. Along the way, they used scorched earth tactics, leaving behind the ashes of Azerbaijani villages.

The hastily formed Armenian militia consisted of those who agreed, under Bolshevik slogans, to carry out the orders of the Dashnak leaders, led by Stepan Shaumyan, who was sent from Moscow to lead the Baku communists (Baksovet). Then, on their basis, Shaumyan managed to equip and fully equip a 20,000 group in Baku, consisting of 90% Armenians.

The Armenian historian Ronald Suny in his book “The Baku Commune” (1972) described in detail how the leaders of the Armenian movement, under the auspices of communist ideas, created the Armenian national state.

It was with the help of a shock and well-armed group of 20 thousand, consisting of soldiers and officers who went through the fronts of the 1st World War, in the spring of 1918, the Dashnak leaders, under the cover of the ideas of Bolshevism, managed to arrange an unprecedented massacre of the civilian population of Baku and the regions of Azerbaijan. In a short time, 50-60 Azerbaijanis were killed, in total, 500-600 thousand Azerbaijanis were slaughtered in the Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Persia.

The Dashnak groups then for the first time decided to try to wrest the fertile lands of Karabakh from Azerbaijan. In June 1918, the first congress of the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians took place in Shusha, and here they declared themselves independent. The newly formed Armenian Republic, having sent troops, committed unprecedented pogroms in Karabakh and bloodshed in Azerbaijani villages. Objecting to the Armenian unfounded demands, on May 22, 1919, in the information given to V. Lenin by the Baku communist Anastas Mikoyan, it was reported: “The agents of the Armenian leadership, the Dashnaks, are trying to annex Karabakh to Armenia. For the Karabakh Armenians, this would mean leaving their places of residence in Baku and joining their destinies with anything that does not bind Yerevan. The Armenians at their 5th congress decided to accept the Azerbaijani government and unite with it.”

Then the efforts of the Armenian nationalists to conquer Nagorno-Karabakh and annex it to Armenia were unsuccessful. On November 23, 1919, in Tbilisi, thanks to the efforts of the Azerbaijani leadership, it was possible to conclude a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan and stop the bloodshed.

But the situation in the region continued to be tense, and on the night of April 26-27, 1920, the 72,000th 11th Red Army, crossing the borders of Azerbaijan, headed for Baku. As a result of the military assault, Baku was occupied by the troops of Soviet Russia, and Soviet power was established in Azerbaijan, under which the positions of the Armenians were further strengthened. And during these years, the Armenians, not forgetting their plans, continued to fight against Azerbaijan. The issue of Nagorno-Karabakh was repeatedly discussed at the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), the Transcaucasian branch of the RCP (b), at the bureau of the Central Committee of the AKP (b).

On July 15, 1920, at a meeting of the Central Committee of the Azerbaijan Communist Party (b), a decision was made to annex Karabakh and Zangezur to Azerbaijan. But the situation did not develop in favor of Armenia, and on December 2, 1920, the Dashnak government, without resistance, transferred power to the Military Revolutionary Committee, headed by the Bolsheviks. Armenia has established Soviet authority. Despite this, the Armenians again raised the issue of dividing Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan. On July 27, 1921, the political and organizational bureau of the Central Committee of the AKP (b) considered the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh. This bureau did not agree with the proposal of the representative of Soviet Armenia A. Bekzadyan and stated that the division of the population by nationality and the annexation of part of it to Armenia, and the other to Azerbaijan, is not permissible, both from an administrative and economic point of view.

Regarding this adventure, the Dashnak leader, the leader of Armenia, Hovhannes Kachaznuni, wrote in 1923: « From the very first day of our state life, we perfectly understood that such a small, poor, ruined and cut off from the rest of the world country like Armenia cannot become truly independent and self-sufficient; that a support is needed, some kind of external force... There are two real forces today, and we must reckon with them: these forces are Russia and Turkey. By coincidence, today our country is entering the Russian orbit and is more than adequately secured against the invasion of Turkey... The issue of expanding our borders can only be resolved by relying on Russia.”

After the establishment of Soviet power in the Caucasus in 1920-1921, Moscow decided not to redraw the existing borders between the former independent local states formed as a result of Armenian aggression in the region.

But this did not dampen the appetites of the ideologists of Armenian national separatism. In Soviet times, the leaders of the Armenian SSR repeatedly in the 1950-1970s. appealed to the Kremlin with requests and even demands to transfer the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region (NKAO) of Azerbaijan to Armenia. However, at that time, the allied leadership categorically refused to satisfy the unfounded claims of the Armenian side. Changes in the position of the leadership of the USSR occurred in the mid-1980s. in the era of Gorbachev's "perestroika". It is no coincidence that it was with the beginning of perestroika innovations in the USSR in 1987 that Armenia's claims to the NKAO acquired a new impetus and character.

Appeared like mushrooms after the “perestroika rain”, the Armenian organizations “Krunk” in the NKAR itself and the Committee “Karabakh” in Yerevan started to implement the project of the actual separation of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Dashnaktsutyun party became active again: at its 23rd Congress in 1985 in Athens, it decided to consider “the creation of a united and independent Armenia” as its primary task and to implement this slogan at the expense of Nagorno-Karabakh, Nakhchivan (Azerbaijan) and Javakheti (Georgia). As always, the Armenian Church, the nationalist-minded layers of the intelligentsia and the foreign diaspora were involved in the implementation of the idea. As the Russian researcher S.I. Chernyavsky later noted: « Unlike Armenia, Azerbaijan did not and does not have an organized and politically active diaspora, and the Karabakh conflict deprived the Azerbaijanis of any support from the leading Western countries, given their traditionally pro-Armenian positions.”

The process began in 1988 with the deportation of new groups of Azerbaijanis from Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. On February 21, 1988, the Regional Council of the NKAO announced its secession from the Azerbaijan SSR and joining Armenia. The first blood in the Karabakh conflict was shed on February 25, 1988 in Askeran (Karabakh), when two young Azerbaijanis were killed. Later, in Baku, in the village of Vorovskoye, an Armenian killed an Azerbaijani serving in the police. On July 18, 1988, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR confirmed that Nagorno-Karabakh should be part of Azerbaijan and no territorial changes are possible.

But the Armenians continued to distribute leaflets, threatened the Azerbaijanis and set their houses on fire. As a result of all this, on September 21, the last Azerbaijani left the administrative center of Nagorno-Karabakh, the city of Khankendi (Stepanakert).

The escalation of the brewing conflict followed, accompanied by the expulsion of Azerbaijanis from Armenia and all of Nagorno-Karabakh. In Azerbaijan, the power was paralyzed, the flows of refugees, and the growing anger of the Azerbaijani people would inevitably lead to mass Armenian-Azerbaijani clashes. In February 1988, a tragedy-provocation occurred in the city of Sumgayit (Azerbaijan), as a result of which Armenians, Azerbaijanis and representatives of other peoples were killed.

An anti-Azerbaijani hysteria was organized in the Soviet press, where they tried to present the Azerbaijani people as cannibals, monsters, "pan-Islamists" and "pan-Turkists". Passions around Nagorno-Karabakh ran high: Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia were placed in 42 cities and regions of Azerbaijan. Here are the tragic results of the first phase of the Karabakh conflict: About 200,000 Azerbaijanis, 18,000 Muslim Kurds, and thousands of Russians were forced out of Armenia at gunpoint. 255 Azerbaijanis were killed: two had their heads cut off; 11 people were burned alive, 3 were cut into pieces; 23 were run over by cars; 41 beaten to death; 19 were frozen in the mountains; 8 are missing, etc. Also, 57 women and 23 children were brutally killed. After that, on December 10, 1988, the modern Dashnaks declared Armenia a "republic without Turks." The books of a Baku Armenian tell about the nationalist hysteria that gripped Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh and the difficult fate of the Armenians who settled here Roberta Arakelova: "Karabakh Notebook" and "Nagorno-Karabakh: The perpetrators of the tragedy are known."

After the Sumgayit events initiated by the Soviet KGB and emissaries from Armenia in February 1988, an open anti-Azerbaijani campaign began in the Soviet press and television.

The Soviet leadership and the media, silent when the Armenian nationalists expelled Azerbaijanis from Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, suddenly “woke up” and raised hysteria about the “Armenian pogroms” in Azerbaijan. The leadership of the USSR openly accepted the position of Armenia, and sought to blame Azerbaijan for everything. The main target of the Kremlin authorities was the growing national liberation movement of the Azerbaijani people. On the night of January 19-20, 1990, the Soviet government, headed by Gorbachev, committed a criminal act, terrible in its cruelty, in Baku. As a result of this criminal operation, 134 civilians were killed, 700 people were injured, 400 people went missing.

Perhaps the most terrible and inhuman act of the Armenian nationalists in Nagorno-Karabakh was the genocide of the population of the Azerbaijani city of Khojaly. From February 25 to February 26, 1992, at night, the biggest tragedy of the 20th century took place - the Khojaly genocide. First, the sleeping city, with the participation of the 366th motorized rifle regiment of the CIS, was surrounded by Armenian troops, after which Khojaly was subjected to massive shelling from artillery and heavy military equipment. With the support of the armored vehicles of the 366th regiment, the city was captured by the Armenian invaders. Everywhere armed Armenians shot the fleeing civilians, ruthlessly cracking down on them. Thus, on a cold, snowy February night, those who were able to escape from the ambushes arranged by the Armenians and escape to the nearby forests and mountains, most of them died from the cold and frost.

As a result of the atrocities of the criminal Armenian troops, 613 people from the population of Khojaly were killed, 487 people became crippled, 1275 civilians - old men, children, women, were captured, were subjected to incomprehensible Armenian torment, insults and humiliation. The fate of 150 people is still unknown. It was a real genocide. Of the 613 people killed in Khojaly, 106 were women, 63 children, 70 old men. 8 families were completely destroyed, 24 children lost both parents, and 130 children lost one of their parents. 56 people were killed with particular cruelty and mercilessness. They were burned alive, their heads were cut off, the skin was torn off their faces, the eyes of babies were gouged out, the stomachs of pregnant women were opened with bayonets. Armenians insulted even the dead. The Azerbaijani state and its people will never forget the Khojaly tragedy.

The Khojaly events put an end to any previous chance of a peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict. Two Armenian presidents - Robert Kocharyan and the current Serzh Sargsyan, as well as Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan, took an active part in military operations in the Karabakh war, in the destruction of the civilian Azerbaijani population, in particular in Khojaly.

After the Khojaly tragedy of February 1992, the justified anger of the Azerbaijani people at the atrocities and impunity of Armenian nationalists resulted in an open phase of the Armenian-Azerbaijani military confrontation. Bloody combat operations began with the use of aviation, armored vehicles, rocket launchers, heavy artillery and large military units.

The Armenian side used prohibited chemical weapons against the peaceful Azerbaijani population. In the context of the virtual absence of serious external support from world powers, Azerbaijan, as a result of a series of counter-offensives, was able to liberate most of the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh.

In this situation, Armenia and the separatists of Karabakh several times, with the mediation of the world powers, achieved a ceasefire and sat down at the negotiating table, but then, treacherously violating ongoing negotiations, unexpectedly switched to a military offensive at the front. So, for example, on August 19, 1993, on the initiative of Iran, negotiations between the Azerbaijani and Armenian delegations were held in Tehran, but it was at that moment that the Armenian troops, having disrupted all the agreements, treacherously went on the offensive on the Karabakh front in the direction of the Aghdam, Fuzuli and Jabrayil regions . The blockade of Nakhchivan by Armenia also continued with the aim of its subsequent rejection from Azerbaijan.

On June 4, 1993, the rebellion of Suret Huseynov began in Ganja, who turned his troops from the Karabakh front line to Baku in order to seize power in the country. Azerbaijan is on the verge of a new civil war. In addition to Armenian aggression, Azerbaijan faced open separatism in the south of the country, where the rebellious field commander Alikram Humbatov announced the creation of the "Talysh-Mugan Republic". In this difficult situation, on June 15, 1993, the Milli Mejlis (Parliament) of Azerbaijan elected Heydar Aliyev as the head of the country's Supreme Council. On July 17, President Abulfaz Elchibey resigned his presidential powers, which the Milli Majlis handed over to Heydar Aliyev.

In the north of Azerbaijan, separatist sentiments arose among the Lezgi nationalists, who were also going to tear away the Azerbaijani regions bordering Russia. The situation has become even more complicated, since Azerbaijan also found itself on the brink of civil war between various political and paramilitary groups within the country. As a result of the crisis of power and an attempted military coup in Azerbaijan, where there was a struggle for power, neighboring Armenia went on the offensive and occupied the Azerbaijani lands adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh. On July 23, the Armenians captured one of the ancient cities of Azerbaijan - Aghdam. On September 14-15, the Armenians tried to break into the territory of Azerbaijan from military positions in Kazakh, then in Tovuz, Gadabay, Zangelan. On September 21, villages and villages of the Zangelan, Jabrayil, Tovuz and Ordubad regions were subjected to massive shelling.

On November 30, 1993, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister G. Hasanov spoke at the OSCE meeting in Rome, stating that as a result of the aggressive policy pursued by Armenia, in the name of creating "Great Armenia", it occupied 20% of Azerbaijani lands. More than 18,000 civilians were killed, about 50,000 people were wounded, 4,000 people were taken prisoner, 88,000 residential areas, more than a thousand economic facilities, 250 schools and educational institutions were destroyed.

After the accession of Azerbaijan and Armenia to the UN and the OSCE, Armenia, declaring that it would follow the principles of these organizations, captured the city of Shusha. While a group of UN representatives was in Azerbaijan to collect facts testifying to Armenian aggression, Armenian troops captured the Lachin region, thereby connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. During an unofficial meeting of the Geneva "five", the Armenians occupied the Kelbajar region, and during the visit of the head of the OSCE Minsk Group to the region, they captured the Aghdam region. After the adoption of a resolution that the Armenians must unconditionally liberate the occupied Azerbaijani territories, they captured the Fizuli region. And while the head of the OSCE Margaret af Iglas was in the region, Armenia occupied the Zangelan region. After that, at the end of November 1993, the Armenians captured the zone near the Khudaferin bridge and, thus, took control of 161 km of the Azerbaijani border with Iran.

Finally, on December 23, 1993, with the mediation of the Turkmen President S. Niyazov, a meeting took place between Ter-Petrosyan and G. Aliyev. Numerous meetings were held with representatives of Russia, Turkey and Armenia. On May 11, 1994, a temporary truce was declared. On December 5-6, 1994, at the summit of heads of state in Budapest and on May 13-15 in Morocco, at the 7th summit of Islamic states, H. Aliyev in his speech condemned the Armenian policy and aggression against Azerbaijan. He also pointed out that they did not comply with UN resolutions Nos. 822, 853, 874 and 884 in which the aggressive actions of Armenia were condemned, and a demand was made for the immediate release of the occupied Azerbaijani lands.

After the First Karabakh War Armenia occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and seven more Azerbaijani regions - Aghdam, Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Zangilan, Gubadli, Lachin, Kalbajar, from where the Azerbaijani population was expelled, and all these places turned into ruins as a result of aggression. Now about 20% of the territory (17 thousand square kilometers): 12 regions and 700 settlements of Azerbaijan are under the occupation of Armenians. As a result of the struggle of Armenians for the creation of "Great Armenia", for the entire period of confrontation they brutally killed 20 thousand and captured 4 thousand people of the Azerbaijani population.

In the occupied territories, they destroyed about 4 thousand industrial and agricultural facilities with a total area of ​​6 million square meters. m, about a thousand educational institutions, about 180 thousand apartments, 3 thousand cultural and educational centers and 700 medical institutions. 616 schools, 225 kindergartens, 11 vocational schools, 4 technical schools, 1 higher education were destroyed educational institution, 842 clubs, 962 libraries, 13 museums, 2 theaters and 183 cinemas.

There are 1 million refugees and internally displaced persons in Azerbaijan - that is, every eighth citizen of the country. The wounds inflicted by the Armenians on the Azerbaijani people are incalculable. In total, during the 20th century, 1 million Azerbaijanis were killed, and 1.5 million Azerbaijanis were expelled from Armenia.

Armenia organized mass terror on Azerbaijani soil: explosions in buses, trains, and the Baku subway did not stop. In 1989-1994, Armenian terrorists and separatists carried out 373 terrorist attacks on the territory of Azerbaijan, as a result of which 1568 people died and 1808 were injured.

It should be noted that the adventure of the Armenian nationalists to recreate the "Great Armenia" was very expensive for the ordinary Armenian people. Now in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, the population has almost halved. There are 1.8 million left in Armenia, and 80-90 thousand Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is half the figures of 1989. The resumption of hostilities on the Karabakh front may lead to the fact that, as a result, the Armenian population will almost completely leave the South Caucasus region and, as statistics show, will move to the Krasnodar and Stavropol regions of Russia and the Ukrainian Crimea. This will be the logical outcome of the mediocre policy of nationalists and criminals who have usurped power in the Republic of Armenia and occupied Azerbaijani lands.

The Azerbaijani people and leadership are making every effort to restore the country's territorial integrity and liberate the territories occupied by the Armenian side as soon as possible. To this end, Azerbaijan is pursuing a comprehensive foreign policy, as well as building its own military-industrial complex, modernizing the army, which will restore Azerbaijan's sovereignty by force if the aggressor country Armenia does not liberate the occupied Azerbaijani lands peacefully.

Experts consider the strengthening of ethnic separatism to be one of the main factors negatively affecting the provision of regional and international security. A vivid example of this in the post-Soviet space for almost three decades has been the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Initially, the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan was artificially provoked from outside, and the levers of pressure on the situation were in different hands, which needed confrontation first for the collapse of the USSR, and then for the Karabakh clan to come to power. In addition, the escalating conflict played into the hands of those major players who intended to strengthen their presence in the region. And, finally, the confrontation made it possible to put pressure on Baku to conclude more profitable oil contracts with it. According to the developed scenario, events began in the NKAR and in Yerevan - Azerbaijanis were fired from their jobs, and people were forced to leave for Azerbaijan. Then pogroms began in the Armenian quarters of Sumgayit and in Baku, which, by the way, was the most international city in Transcaucasia.

Political scientist Sergei Kurginyan said that when Armenians were brutally killed at first in Sumgayit, mocking them and performing certain ritual actions, it was not the Azerbaijanis who did it, but people from outside, hired representatives of international private structures. "We know these representatives by name, we know to which structures they belonged then, to which structures they belong now. These people killed Armenians, involved Azerbaijanis in this case, then killed Azerbaijanis, connected Armenians in this case. Then they pushed Armenians and Azerbaijanis , and this controlled tension began. We saw it all, we saw what was behind it, "the political scientist said.

According to Kurginyan, at that time, "demacratoid and liberoid myths, which had nothing to do with this, were already perceived as the ultimate truth, as something self-evident, as something absolutely correct, they already controlled consciousness. All these viruses had already bit into consciousness, and crowds fled in the right direction, towards their own end, towards their own misfortune, towards their own ultimate misfortune, in which they ended up later. Later, this tactic was used to foment other conflicts.

Mamikon Babayan, a columnist for Vestnik Kavkaza, is looking for ways to resolve the conflict.

The Karabakh war has become one of the bloodiest in the post-Soviet space. Peoples with close languages ​​and cultures, who lived side by side for centuries, were divided into two warring camps. More than 18,000 people have died over the long period of the conflict, and this figure is constantly growing.

The population on both sides lives in constant tension due to frequent skirmishes, and the danger of a resumption of large-scale war still remains. And it is not only about the war with the use of firearms. The conflict manifests itself in the section of the common historical and cultural heritage, including national music, architecture, literature, and cuisine.

25 years have passed since the signing of the truce in Karabakh, and every year it is more and more difficult for the Azerbaijani leadership to explain to their society why the richest country in the region continues to experience difficulties in resolving the issue of restoring territorial integrity. Today, a real information war is unfolding in the region. Although full-scale hostilities are no longer underway (with the exception of the escalation in April 2016), the war has become a mental phenomenon. Armenia and Karabakh live in tension, which is maintained by forces interested in destabilizing the region. The atmosphere of militarization is noticeable in the educational programs of school and preschool institutions in Armenia and the unrecognized "Nagorno-Karabakh Republic". The media do not stop talking about the threat they see in the statements of Azerbaijani politicians.

In Armenia, the Karabakh issue divides society into two camps: those who insist on accepting the de facto situation without any concessions, and those who agree on the need to make painful compromises that will help overcome the post-war crisis consequences, including the economic blockade Armenia. It is worth noting that the veterans of the Karabakh war, who are now in power in Yerevan and "NKR", do not consider the condition of surrendering the occupied regions. The ruling elites of the country understand that an attempt to transfer at least part of the disputed territories under the direct control of Baku will lead to rallies in the Armenian capital, and, perhaps, to civil confrontation in the country. Moreover, many veterans categorically refuse to return the "trophy" territories that they managed to win back in the 1990s.

Despite the obvious crisis in relations, both in Armenia and Azerbaijan there is a general awareness of the negative consequences of what is happening. Until 1987, peaceful coexistence was supported by interethnic marriages. There can be no talk of an "eternal war" between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, since throughout history in Karabakh itself there were no conditions due to which the Azerbaijani population could leave the NKAR (Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region).

Meanwhile, representatives of the Armenian diaspora, who were born and raised in Baku, do not pour negativity on their friends and acquaintances from Azerbaijan. "The people cannot be an enemy," - one can often hear from the lips of the older generation of Azerbaijanis when it comes to Karabakh.

Nevertheless, the Karabakh issue remains a lever of pressure on Armenia and Azerbaijan. The problem leaves an imprint on the mental perception of Armenians and Azerbaijanis who live outside the Transcaucasus, which, in turn, serves as a reason for the formation of a negative stereotype of the relationship between the two peoples. To put it simply, the Karabakh problem hinders life, hinders close attention to the problems of the energy security of the region, as well as the implementation of joint transport projects that are beneficial for the entire Transcaucasus. But not a single government dares to take the first step towards a settlement, fearing the end of its political career in case of concessions on the Karabakh issue.

In Baku's understanding, the beginning of the peace process is concrete steps to liberate part of the lands that are currently seized. Azerbaijan considers these territories occupied, referring to the resolutions of the UN Security Council during the Karabakh war of 1992-1993. In Armenia, the prospect of returning land is an extremely painful topic. This is related to the issue of the safety of the local civilian population. During the post-war years, the occupied territories turned into a "security belt", therefore the surrender of strategic heights and territories is unthinkable for Armenian field commanders. But it was after the seizure of territories that were not part of the NKAR that the most massive expulsion of the civilian population took place. Almost 45% of Azerbaijani refugees come from Agdam and Fuzuli regions, and Agdam itself remains a ghost town today.

Whose territory is this? It is impossible to answer this question directly, since archeology, architectural monuments give every reason to believe that both the Armenian and Turkic presence in the region dates back centuries. This is the common land common Home many peoples, including those that are in conflict today. For the Azerbaijanis, Karabakh is a matter of national importance, since expulsion and expulsion were carried out. Karabakh for Armenians is the idea of ​​the people's struggle for the right to land. It is difficult to find a person in Karabakh who is ready to agree to the return of the adjacent territories, because this topic is linked to the issue of security. The inter-ethnic tension has not been eliminated in the region, overcoming which it will be possible to say that the Karabakh issue will be resolved soon.