TBILISI, April 3 - Sputnik. The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan began in 1988, when the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan SSR. Negotiations on a peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict have been held since 1992 within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group.
Nagorno-Karabakh is a historical region in Transcaucasia. The population (as of January 1, 2013) is 146.6 thousand people, the vast majority are Armenians. The administrative center is the city of Stepanakert.
Background
Armenian and Azerbaijani sources have different points of view on the history of the region. According to Armenian sources, Nagorno-Karabakh (ancient Armenian name - Artsakh) at the beginning of the first millennium BC. was part of the political and cultural sphere of Assyria and Urartu. First mentioned in the cuneiform writing of Sardur II, king of Urartu (763-734 BC). In the early Middle Ages, Nagorno-Karabakh was part of Armenia, according to Armenian sources. After most of this country was captured by Turkey and Persia in the Middle Ages, the Armenian principalities (melikdoms) of Nagorno-Karabakh retained a semi-independent status. In the 17th-18th centuries, the princes of Artsakh (meliks) led the liberation struggle of Armenians against the Shah's Persia and Sultan's Turkey.
According to Azerbaijani sources, Karabakh is one of the most ancient historical regions of Azerbaijan. According to the official version, the appearance of the term "Karabakh" dates back to the 7th century and is interpreted as a combination of the Azerbaijani words "gara" (black) and "bag" (garden). Among other provinces, Karabakh (Ganja in Azerbaijani terminology) was part of the Safavid state in the 16th century, and later became an independent Karabakh khanate.
In 1813, according to the Gulistan peace treaty, Nagorno-Karabakh became part of Russia.
In early May 1920, Soviet power was established in Karabakh. On July 7, 1923, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region (AO) was formed from the mountainous part of Karabakh (part of the former Elizavetpol province) as part of the Azerbaijan SSR with the administrative center in the village of Khankendy (now Stepanakert).
How did the war start
On February 20, 1988, an extraordinary session of the regional Council of Deputies of the NKAR adopted a decision "On a petition to the Supreme Soviets of the AzSSR and the ArmSSR on the transfer of the NKAO from the AzSSR to the ArmSSR."
The refusal of the allied and Azerbaijani authorities caused demonstrations of protest by Armenians not only in Nagorno-Karabakh, but also in Yerevan.
On September 2, 1991, a joint session of the Nagorno-Karabakh regional and Shahumyan regional councils took place in Stepanakert, which adopted a Declaration on the proclamation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic within the borders of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region, the Shaumyan region and part of the Khanlar region of the former Azerbaijan SSR.
On December 10, 1991, a few days before the official collapse of the Soviet Union, a referendum was held in Nagorno-Karabakh, in which the overwhelming majority of the population - 99.89% - voted for complete independence from Azerbaijan.
Official Baku recognized this act as illegal and abolished the autonomy of Karabakh that existed in the Soviet years. Following this, an armed conflict began, during which Azerbaijan tried to keep Karabakh, and the Armenian detachments defended the independence of the region with the support of Yerevan and the Armenian diaspora from other countries.
Victims and losses
The losses of both sides during the Karabakh conflict amounted, according to various sources, to 25 thousand people were killed, more than 25 thousand were injured, hundreds of thousands of civilians left their places of residence, more than four thousand people are missing.
As a result of the conflict, Azerbaijan lost over Nagorno-Karabakh and, in whole or in part, seven regions adjacent to it.
Negotiation
On May 5, 1994, through the mediation of Russia, Kyrgyzstan and the Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS in the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek, representatives of Azerbaijan, Armenia, the Azerbaijani and Armenian communities of Nagorno-Karabakh signed a protocol calling for a ceasefire on the night of May 8-9. This document entered the history of the settlement of the Karabakh conflict as the Bishkek Protocol.
The negotiation process to resolve the conflict began in 1991. Since 1992, negotiations have been underway on a peaceful settlement of the conflict within the framework of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France. The group also includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Finland and Turkey.
Since 1999, regular bilateral and trilateral meetings of the leaders of the two countries have been held. The last meeting of the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan within the framework of the negotiation process on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem took place on December 19, 2015 in Bern (Switzerland).
Despite the confidentiality surrounding the negotiation process, it is known that they are based on the so-called updated Madrid principles, transmitted by the OSCE Minsk Group to the parties to the conflict on January 15, 2010. The main principles of the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, called Madrid, were presented in November 2007 in the capital of Spain.
Azerbaijan insists on maintaining its territorial integrity, Armenia defends the interests of the unrecognized republic, since the NKR is not a party to the negotiations.
The conflict between Azerbaijan, on the one hand, and Armenia and the NKR, on the other, escalated on April 2, 2016: the parties accused each other of shelling the border areas, after which positional battles began. At least 33 people were killed in the fighting, according to the UN.
Nagorno-Karabakh (Armenians prefer to use the old name Artsakh) is a small territory in the Transcaucasus. Mountains cut by deep gorges, turning into valleys in the east, small fast rivers, forests below and steppes higher up the mountain slopes, a cool climate without sudden changes in temperature. From ancient times, this territory was inhabited by Armenians, was part of various Armenian states and principalities, and numerous monuments of Armenian history and culture are located on its territory.
At the same time, a significant Turkic population has been penetrating here since the 18th century (the term “Azerbaijanis” had not yet been adopted), the territory is part of the Karabakh Khanate, which was ruled by a Turkic dynasty, and the majority of the population of which were Muslim Turks.
In the first half of the 19th century, as a result of wars with Turkey, Persia and individual khanates, the entire Transcaucasus, including Nagorno-Karabakh, goes to Russia. Somewhat later, it was divided into provinces without regard to ethnicity. So Nagorno-Karabakh at the beginning of the 20th century was part of the Elizavetpol province, most of which was inhabited by Azerbaijanis.
By 1918, the Russian Empire had disintegrated as a result of well-known revolutionary events. Transcaucasia became the arena of bloody inter-ethnic struggle, until the time restrained by the Russian authorities (It is worth noting that during the previous weakening of imperial power during the revolution of 1905-1907, Karabakh already became the arena of clashes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis.). The newly formed state of Azerbaijan claimed the entire territory of the former Elizavetpol province.
The Armenians, who constituted the majority in Nagorno-Karabakh, wished either to be independent or to join the Armenian Republic. The situation was accompanied by military clashes. Even when both states, Armenia and Azerbaijan, became Soviet republics, a territorial dispute continued between them. It was decided in favor of Azerbaijan, but with reservations: most of the territories with the Armenian population were allocated to the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region (NKAR) as part of the Azerbaijan SSR.
The reasons why the Union leadership made such a decision are unclear. As assumptions, the influence of Turkey (in favor of Azerbaijan), the greater influence of the Azerbaijani "lobby" in the union leadership compared to the Armenian one, Moscow's desire to maintain a hotbed of tension in order to act as the supreme arbiter, etc. are put forward.
V Soviet time the conflict quietly smoldered, breaking through now with petitions from the Armenian public for the transfer of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, then with the measures of the Azerbaijani leadership to creep out the Armenian population from the regions adjacent to the autonomous region. The abscess broke through as soon as the allied power weakened during the "perestroika".
The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh became a landmark for the Soviet Union. He clearly showed the growing helplessness of the central leadership. He demonstrated for the first time that the Union, which seemed indestructible in accordance with the words of his anthem, can be destroyed. In some way, it was the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that became the catalyst for the process of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Thus, its significance goes far beyond the region. It is difficult to say which way the history of the USSR, and hence the whole world, would have gone if Moscow had found the strength to quickly resolve this dispute.
The conflict began in 1987 with mass rallies of the Armenian population under the slogans of reunification with Armenia. The Azerbaijani leadership, with the support of the Union, unambiguously rejects these demands. Attempts to resolve the situation are reduced to holding meetings and issuing documents.
In the same year, the first Azerbaijani refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh appear. In 1988, the first blood was shed - two Azerbaijanis died in a clash with Armenians and police in the village of Askeran. Information about this incident leads to an Armenian pogrom in Azerbaijani Sumgayit. This is the first case of mass ethnic violence in the Soviet Union in several decades and the first death bell toll on Soviet unity. Further violence grows, the flow of refugees from both sides increases. The central government demonstrates helplessness, the adoption of real decisions is at the mercy of the republican authorities. The actions of the latter (the deportation of the Armenian population and the economic blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan, the proclamation of Nagorno-Karabakh as part of the Armenian SSR by Armenia) inflame the situation.
Since 1990, the conflict has escalated into a war with the use of artillery. Illegal armed formations are active. The leadership of the USSR is trying to use force (mainly against the Armenian side), but it's too late - he Soviet Union ceases to exist. Independent Azerbaijan proclaims Nagorno-Karabakh as its part. The NKAR declares independence within the boundaries of the autonomous region and the Shahumyan region of the Azerbaijan SSR.
The war lasted until 1994, accompanied by war crimes and heavy civilian casualties on both sides. Many cities were turned into ruins. On the one hand, the armies of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia participated in it, on the other, the armies of Azerbaijan, with the support of Muslim volunteers from different countries world (usually mention the Afghan Mujahideen and Chechen fighters). The war ended after the decisive victories of the Armenian side, which established control over most of Nagorno-Karabakh and the adjacent regions of Azerbaijan. After that, the parties agreed to the mediation of the CIS (primarily Russia). Since then, a fragile peace has been maintained in Nagorno-Karabakh, sometimes broken by skirmishes on the border, but the problem is far from being solved.
Azerbaijan firmly insists on its territorial integrity, agreeing to discuss only the autonomy of the republic. The Armenian side just as firmly insists on the independence of Karabakh. The main obstacle to constructive negotiations is the mutual exasperation of the parties. By setting the peoples against each other (or at least not preventing the incitement of hatred), the authorities fell into a trap - now it is impossible for them to take a step towards the other side without being accused of betrayal.
The depth of the abyss between the peoples is well seen in the coverage of the conflict by both sides. There is no hint of objectivity. The parties unanimously keep silent about unfavorable pages of history for themselves and immensely inflate the crimes of the enemy.
The Armenian side focuses on the historical belonging of the region of Armenia, on the illegality of the inclusion of Nagorno-Karabakh in the Azerbaijan SSR, on the right of peoples to self-determination. The crimes of Azerbaijanis against the civilian population are depicted - such as pogroms in Sumgayit, Baku, etc. At the same time, real events acquire clearly exaggerated features - such as the story of mass cannibalism in Sumgayit. Azerbaijan's connection with international Islamic terrorism is being raised. From the conflict, the accusations are transferred to the structure of the Azerbaijani state in general.
The Azerbaijani side, in turn, rests on the long-standing ties between Karabakh and Azerbaijan (remembering the Turkic Karabakh Khanate), on the principle of inviolability of borders. The crimes of Armenian militants are also commemorated, while their own are completely forgotten. The connection of Armenia with the international Armenian terrorism is pointed out. Unflattering conclusions are drawn about the world Armenians as a whole.
In such an environment, it is extremely difficult for international mediators to act, especially given the fact that the mediators themselves represent different world forces and act in different interests.
The parties declare their determination to uphold the principled positions - the integrity of Azerbaijan and the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh, respectively. Perhaps this conflict will be resolved only when generations change and the intensity of hatred between peoples weakens.
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The history of the 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. launched 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 their residence is the South Caucasus, the Armenian (Hai) people fell due to 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..
From the above statements of Russian Caucasian scholars of the 19th - early 20th centuries, several conclusions can be drawn: 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 has come Russian Empire 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 their lands will be given to them, the Armenians.” 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 control 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 17th - early 19th 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, we should dwell on the history of Yerevan, named after the capture of the Irevan Khanate and the city of Iravan (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 the advance of the 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 period of 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 for those who know the modern history of 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 Burnutyan, 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-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, having become 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 talk of Armenian political formations, 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. The Resettlement Committee was created, which controlled the migration processes, equipping the resettled Armenians in new places in such a way that the inhabitants of the created 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 best lands of 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 oncoming flows were of a completely “legitimate” nature, since the official Russian authorities, resettling Armenians in Northern Azerbaijan, did not prevent the Azeri Turks from leaving from here to Iranian and Ottoman borders. .
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 whom were resettled by the tsarist authorities 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 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 role of an ally to the Ottoman Armenians against Ottoman Turkey, where the Armenians rebelled against their state, hoping to create an Armenian state on Turkish lands with the support of Russia and European countries.
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, and 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 public 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 secession 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 have and does not have an organized and politically active diaspora, and the Karabakh conflict deprived the Azerbaijanis of any support from 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, which were 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, breaking all the agreements, treacherously went on the offensive on the Karabakh front in the direction of the Aghdam, Fizuli 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 threshold 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 thousand civilians were killed, about 50 thousand people were injured, 4 thousand people were taken prisoner, 88 thousand 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 informal 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 educational institution, 842 clubs, 962 libraries, 13 museums, 2 theaters and 183 cinema facilities were destroyed.
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.
The Karabakh conflict is an ethno-political conflict in Transcaucasia between Azerbaijanis and Armenians. Nagorno-Karabakh, populated mainly by Armenians, at the beginning of the 20th century twice (1905-1907, 1918-1920) became the scene of a bloody Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. Autonomy in Nagorno-Karabakh was established in 1923, since 1937 - the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region. After the end of the Second World War, the leadership of Armenia raised the issue of transferring the NKAR to the republic, but did not receive the support of the leadership of the USSR. In an interview with the Zerkalo newspaper, Heydar Aliyev claims that, being the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Azerbaijan SSR (1969-1982), he pursued a policy aimed at changing the demographic balance in the region in favor of the Azerbaijanis. (See Appendix 3)
Quite different opportunities were provided by the policy of democratization of the Soviet public life. Already in October 1987, at rallies in Yerevan devoted to environmental problems, demands were made for the transfer of the NKAR to Armenia, which were subsequently repeated in numerous appeals addressed to the Soviet leadership. In 1987-1988 in the region, the discontent of the Armenian population is growing, the reason for which was the socio-economic situation.
The Karabakh Armenians felt themselves the object of various restrictions on the part of Azerbaijan. The main reason for dissatisfaction was that the Azerbaijani authorities deliberately led the matter to break the ties of the region with Armenia and pursued a policy of cultural de-Armenization of the region, systematic settlement of it by Azerbaijanis, squeezing the Armenian population out of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region, while neglecting its economic needs. By this time, the proportion of the Armenian majority in the population had dropped to 76%; the region exploited by the authorities in Baku was economically impoverished, and the Armenian culture of the region was suppressed. Despite the proximity of the region to Armenia, people were not able to receive broadcasts from Yerevan television, and the teaching of Armenian history in schools was prohibited.
Since the second half of 1987, the Armenians have been actively conducting a campaign to collect signatures for the annexation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region to the Armenian SSR. Delegations from Karabakh Armenians were sent to Moscow to "push" their cause in the Central Committee of the CPSU. Influential Armenians (writer Zori Balayan, historian Sergei Mikoyan) actively lobbied for the Karabakh issue abroad.
The leaders of the national movements, in an effort to secure mass support for themselves, placed particular emphasis on the fact that their republics and peoples were "feeding" Russia and the Union Center. As the economic crisis deepened, this instilled in the minds of people the idea that their prosperity could be ensured only as a result of secession from the USSR. For the party elite of the republics, an exceptional opportunity was created to ensure a quick career and well-being. The "Gorbachev team" was not ready to offer ways out of the "national impasse" and therefore constantly hesitated to make decisions. The situation began to spiral out of control.
In September-October 1987, the first secretary of the Shamkhor region of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, M. Asadov, came into conflict with the inhabitants of the Armenian village of Chardakhly, Shamkhor region (northern Karabakh, outside the NKAO) in connection with the protests of the villagers against the dismissal of the director of the state farm - an Armenian, while there were beatings and arrests of several dozen villagers (see Annex 4). A small protest demonstration is taking place in Yerevan in connection with this.
In November 1987, as a result of interethnic clashes, Azerbaijanis living in the Kafan and Meghri regions of the Armenian SSR left for Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani authorities use party levers to condemn "nationalist", "extremist-separatist" processes.
On February 11, 1988, a large group of representatives of the government of Azerbaijan and the leadership of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, headed by the second secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, Vasily Konovalov, leaves for Stepanakert. The group also includes the head of the department of administrative bodies of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan M. Asadov, deputy heads of the republican KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the prosecutor's office, the Supreme Court and law enforcement officers who ensure their safety.
On the night of February 11-12, Stepanakert is hosting an expanded meeting of the Bureau of the Regional Committee of the CPA with the participation of leaders who have arrived from Baku. The bureau decides to condemn the “nationalist”, “extremist-separatist” processes that are gaining momentum in the region, and to hold “party and economic assets” on February 12-13 in the city of Stepanakert and in all regional centers of the NKAR, and then at the level of the autonomous region in order to oppose the growing popular discontent with all the might of a single party-economic apparatus.
On February 12, in the assembly hall of the Stepanakert City Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, a city party and economic asset is held with the participation of representatives from Baku, local party leaders, heads of state institutions, enterprises, trade union committees and party organizers. At the beginning of the meeting, it was stated that “extremists” and “separatists” were behind the events in Karabakh, who were unable to lead the people. The meeting proceeds according to a pre-prepared scenario, the speakers declare the indestructible brotherhood of Azerbaijanis and Armenians and try to reduce the problem to criticism of individual economic shortcomings. After some time, Maxim Mirzoyan bursts onto the podium, who sharply criticizes everything said for indifference and neglect of the national specification of Karabakh, “Azerbaijanization” and the implementation of a demographic policy that contributes to a decrease in the share of the Armenian population in the region. This speech leads to the fact that the meeting gets out of control of the party leaders and the members of the presidium leave the hall. The news about the failure of the meeting reaches Askeran, and the district party and economic asset also does not go according to the planned scenario. An attempt to hold a party and economic asset in the Hadrut region on the same day generally leads to a spontaneous rally. The plans of the Azerbaijani leadership to settle the situation were frustrated. The party and economic leaders of Karabakh not only did not condemn "extremism", but, on the contrary, actively supported it.
On February 13, the first meeting takes place in Stepanakert, at which demands are put forward for the annexation of the NKAR to Armenia. The Executive Committee of the City Council gives permission for its holding, denoting the goal - "the demand for the reunification of the NKAO with Armenia." Head Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Azerbaijan SSR M. Asadov unsuccessfully tries to prevent the rally. Meanwhile, according to participants in the events, the executive authorities of the autonomous region are split and lose control over the situation. Management is taken over by the Board of Directors, which includes the heads of large enterprises in the region and individual activists. The Council decides to hold sessions of city and district councils and then convene a session of the regional Council of People's Deputies.
On February 14, the Azerbaijani party leadership tries to appeal to the population of the NKAR through the regional newspaper Sovetsky Karabakh with an appeal in which the ongoing events are regarded as "extremist and separatist", inspired by Armenian nationalists. As a result of the intervention of the Board of Directors, the appeal was never published.
On February 20, 1988, an extraordinary session of the people's deputies of the NKAR addressed the Supreme Soviets of the Armenian SSR, the Azerbaijan SSR and the USSR with a request to consider and positively resolve the issue of transferring the NKAR from Azerbaijan to Armenia. After that, Azerbaijani refugees arrived in Baku with traces of beatings.
On February 21, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU adopts a resolution according to which the demand for the inclusion of Nagorno-Karabakh in the Armenian SSR is presented as adopted as a result of the actions of "extremists" and "nationalists" and contrary to the interests of the Azerbaijan SSR and the Armenian SSR. The resolution is limited to general calls for the normalization of the situation, the development and implementation of measures for the further socio-economic and cultural development of the autonomous region. In the future, despite the aggravation of the situation, the central authorities will continue to be guided by this decision, constantly declaring that "there will be no redrawing of borders."
On February 22, 1988, near the Armenian settlement of Askeran, a clash took place between a large crowd of Azerbaijanis from the city of Aghdam, who were heading to Stepanakert to protest against the decision of the regional authorities on the separation of Karabakh from Azerbaijan, the police cordons put up on their way, and the local population, some of which were armed with hunting rifles. As a result of the collision, two Azerbaijanis were killed.
About 50 Armenians were wounded. The leadership of Azerbaijan tried not to advertise these events. 2 More mass bloodshed that day was avoided. Meanwhile, a demonstration is taking place in Yerevan. The number of demonstrators by the end of the day reaches 45-50 thousand. On the air of the Vremya program, the topic of the decision of the regional council of the NKAR is touched upon, where it is called inspired by "extremist and nationalistically inclined persons." Such a reaction of the central press only increases the indignation of the Armenian public.
February 26, 1988 - A rally is held in Yerevan, attended by almost half a million people. Later, at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Mikhail Gorbachev said that after the clash in Askeran, leaflets began to circulate in Yerevan calling on Armenians to “take up arms and crush the Turks, but in all the speeches it did not reach either anti-Sovietism or hostile antics.” And on the same day, a rally of 40-50 people is held in Sumgayit in defense of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, which turns into an Armenian pogrom the very next day.
February 27, 1988 - Deputy Prosecutor General of the USSR A.F. Katusev, who was then in Baku, speaks on television and reports on the death of two Azerbaijanis in a clash near Askeran that took place on February 22.
February 27-29 - Armenian pogrom in the city of Sumgayit - the first mass explosion of ethnic violence in recent Soviet history. Tom de Waal, author of a book on the history of the Karabakh conflict, says that "the Soviet Union in peacetime never experienced what happened" in Sumgayit. According to official data from the USSR Prosecutor General's Office, 26 Armenians and 6 Azerbaijanis were killed during these events. Armenian sources indicate that these figures are underestimated.
In the spring - autumn of 1988, the Decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU were adopted in March 1988 regarding the interethnic conflict in the NKAR, did not lead to stabilization of the situation, since the most radical representatives of both conflicting parties rejected any compromise proposals. The majority of members of the regional council of deputies and the regional party committee supported the demands for the transfer of the NKAO from Azerbaijan to Armenia, which were formalized in the relevant decisions of the sessions of the regional Council and the plenum of the regional party committee headed by Henrikh Poghosyan. In the NKAO (especially in Stepanakert) there were daily crowded processions, rallies, strikes of collectives of enterprises, organizations, educational institutions regions with demands for secession from Azerbaijan. An informal organization is being created - the Krunk Committee, headed by the director of the Stepanakert Building Materials Plant Arkady Manucharov.
In fact, the committee assumed the functions of the organizer of mass protests. By the decree of the Supreme Council of the AzSSR, the committee was dissolved, but actually continued its activities. In Armenia, a movement to support the Armenian population of the NKAR was growing. A Karabakh committee has been set up in Yerevan, whose leaders call for increased pressure on state bodies in order to transfer the NKAO to Armenia. At the same time, Azerbaijan continues to call for a "decisive restoration of order" in the NKAR. Public tension and national enmity between the Azerbaijani and Armenian populations are increasing every day. In summer and autumn, cases of violence in the NKAR become more frequent, and the mutual flow of refugees grows.
Representatives of the central Soviet and state bodies of the USSR are sent to the NKAO. Some of the identified problems that have accumulated over the years in the national sphere are becoming public. The Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR urgently adopt a resolution "On measures to accelerate the socio-economic development of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region of the Azerbaijan SSR in 1988-1995."
June 14, 1988 The Supreme Council of Armenia gives its consent to the inclusion of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region into the Armenian SSR.
On June 17, 1988, the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan decides that Nagorno-Karabakh should remain part of the republic: “In response to the appeal of the Supreme Soviet of the Armenian SSR, the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR, proceeding from the interests of preserving the existing national-territorial structure of the country, enshrined in the Constitution of the USSR , guided by the principles of internationalism, the interests of the Azerbaijani and Armenian peoples, other nations and nationalities of the republic, considered the transfer of the NKAR from the Azerbaijan SSR to the Armenian SSR impossible.
In July 1988, many days of strikes by collectives of enterprises, organizations, educational institutions, mass rallies took place in Armenia. As a result of clashes between protesters and military personnel Soviet army one of the protesters died at the Yerevan Zvartnots airport. The 130th Catholicos of All Armenians Vazgen I (1955-1994) addresses on republican television with an appeal for wisdom, calmness, a sense of responsibility of the Armenian people, and an end to the strike. The call goes unheeded. Enterprises and organizations have not been operating in Stepanakert for several months, processions and mass rallies are held every day, the situation is heating up more and more.
Meanwhile, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan is trying to normalize the situation in the places densely populated by Azerbaijanis in Armenia. Refugees from Azerbaijan continue to arrive in the Armenian SSR. According to local authorities, as of July 13, 7,265 people (1,598 families) arrived in Armenia from Baku, Sumgayit, Mingachevir, Gazakh, Shamkhor and other cities of Azerbaijan.
On July 18, 1988, a meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was held in the Kremlin, at which the decisions of the Supreme Soviets of the Armenian SSR and the Azerbaijan SSR on Nagorno-Karabakh were considered and a resolution was adopted on this issue. The resolution noted that, having considered the request of the Supreme Council of the Armenian SSR of June 15, 1988 on the transfer of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region to the Armenian SSR (in connection with the petition of the Council of People's Deputies of the NKAO) and the decision of the Supreme Council of the Azerbaijan SSR of June 17, 1988 On the unacceptability of transferring the NKAO to the Armenian SSR, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet considers it impossible to change the borders and the constitutionally established national-territorial division of the Azerbaijan SSR and the Armenian SSR.
In September 1988, the Azerbaijani population was expelled from Stepanakert, the Armenian population from Shusha. On the 20th of September, a special situation and a curfew were introduced in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region and the Aghdam region of the Azerbaijan SSR. In Armenia, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Armenian SSR decided to dissolve the "Karabakh" committee. However, attempts by party and state bodies to calm the population had no effect. Calls for organizing strikes, rallies and hunger strikes continue in Yerevan and some other cities of Armenia. On September 22, the work of a number of enterprises and public transport in Yerevan, Leninakan, Abovyan, Charentsavan, as well as the Echmiadzin region was stopped. In Yerevan, along with the police, military units are involved in ensuring order on the streets.
In November - December 1988, mass pogroms took place in Azerbaijan and Armenia, accompanied by violence and killings of the civilian population.
Slogans appeared: "Glory to the heroes of Sumgayit." During the end of November 1988, more than 200,000 Armenians became refugees from Azerbaijan, mainly to Armenia. According to various sources, pogroms on the territory of Armenia lead to the death of 20 to 30 Azerbaijanis. According to the Armenian side, 26 Azerbaijanis died in Armenia on ethnic grounds in three years (from 1988 to 1990), including 23 from November 27 to December 3, 1988, one in 1989, and two in 1990. According to Azerbaijani data, as a result of pogroms and violence in 1988-1989, 216 Azerbaijanis were killed in Armenia. The bulk of the dead fell on the northern regions, where refugees from the regions of Kirovabad had poured before; in particular, to the Gugark region, where, according to the KGB of Armenia, 11 people were killed.
In a number of cities of Azerbaijan and Armenia, a special situation is being introduced. In December 1988, there was the largest flow of refugees - hundreds of thousands of people from both sides. In general, by 1989 the deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia and Armenians from rural areas of Azerbaijan (except for Karabakh) was completed. On January 12, by decision of the Soviet government, direct administration was introduced in the NKAO for the first time in the USSR with the formation of the Committee for Special Administration of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region, chaired by Arkady Volsky, head of a department of the Central Committee of the CPSU. The powers of the regional party and state bodies were suspended, the constitutional rights of citizens were limited. The Committee was called upon to prevent a further aggravation of the situation and contribute to its stabilization.
A state of emergency was introduced in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. By decision of the Soviet leadership, members of the so-called "Karabakh" committee (including the future President of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan) were arrested.
From the end of April - beginning of May 1989, a new round of aggravation of the situation in the region began, caused by the continuous and growing actions of the "Karabakh movement". The leaders of this movement and their like-minded people switched to the tactics of openly provoking clashes between the Armenian population of the NKAO and internal troops and Azerbaijanis.
In July, an opposition party, the Popular Front of Azerbaijan, was formed in Azerbaijan. An extraordinary session of the Council of People's Deputies of the Shahumyan region of the Azerbaijan SSR adopted a decision on the inclusion of the region into the NKAO.
In August, the NKAO hosted a congress of representatives of the region's population. The congress adopted an appeal to the Azerbaijani people, which expressed concern over the growing alienation between the Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples, which had grown into interethnic hostility, and called for mutual recognition of each other's inalienable rights. The congress also turned to the commandant of the Special District, officers and soldiers of the Soviet army and units of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs with a proposal of active cooperation in order to ensure peace in the region. The congress elected the National Council (chairman - People's Deputy of the USSR V. Grigoryan), before which the task was set practical implementation decision of the session of the regional Council of People's Deputies of February 20, 1988. The Presidium of the National Council sent an appeal to the UN Security Council with a request for assistance in ensuring the protection of the Armenian population of the region.
The leadership of the Azerbaijan SSR, as a measure of pressure on the NKAR and Armenia, undertakes their economic blockade, blocking the delivery of national economic goods (food, fuel and building materials) by rail and road through its territory. NKAO found itself practically isolated from the outside world. Many enterprises were stopped, transport was inactive, crops were not exported.
On November 28, 1989, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a resolution on the abolition of the Committee for Special Administration of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region, according to which, in particular, Azerbaijan was to "create a republican organizing committee on an equal footing with the NKAO and restore the activities of the Council of People's Deputies of the NKAO." The created organizing committee, which was headed by the second secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, Viktor Polyanichko, did not include representatives from the NKAR, the activities of the Council of People's Deputies of the NKAR were not resumed, the requirements of the Decree on ensuring the status of real autonomy of the NKAR, observing the law, protecting the life and safety of citizens were not met, prevention of changes in the existing national composition in the NKAO. In the future, it was this body that developed and carried out operations for the deportation (eviction) of the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh and neighboring regions by the police, OMON and internal troops. The session of the Council of People's Deputies of the NKAR independently declared the resumption of its activities and did not recognize the Republican Organizing Committee, which led to the creation of two centers of power in the NKAR, each of which was recognized only by one of the conflicting ethnic groups.
On December 1, the Supreme Soviet of the Armenian SSR and the National Council of the NKAO, "based on the universal principles of self-determination of nations and responding to the legitimate desire for the reunification of the two forcibly separated parts of the Armenian people", at a joint meeting adopted a resolution "On the reunification of the Armenian SSR and the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region" .
From January 13 to 20, 1990, Armenian pogroms took place in Baku, where by the beginning of the year only about 35 thousand Armenians remained. The central authorities of the USSR are showing criminal slowness in taking decisions in order to stop the violence. Only a week after the start of the pogroms, troops were brought into Baku to prevent the seizure of power by the anti-communist Popular Front of Azerbaijan. This action led to numerous casualties among the civilian population of Baku, who tried to prevent the entry of troops.
January 14 - The Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR unites two neighboring regions - the Armenian-populated Shaumyanovsky and the Azerbaijani Kasum-Ismaylovsky into one - Goranboy. In the new administrative region, Armenians make up only 20 percent of the population.
January 15 The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR declares a state of emergency in the NKAR, the regions of the Azerbaijan SSR bordering it, in the Goris region of the Armenian SSR, as well as in the border zone along the state border of the USSR on the territory of the Azerbaijan SSR. The commandant's office of the region of the state of emergency was formed, responsible for the implementation of this regime. In her subordination were the units of the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR attached to her.
In connection with the introduction of a state of emergency, the activities of the regional and district councils of people's deputies of the NKAR, the Nagorno-Karabakh regional committee of the KPA, party and all public organizations and associations in Stepanakert and four Armenian-populated regions were suspended. At the same time, in the Shusha region, where almost only Azerbaijanis lived, the activities of all constitutional authorities were preserved. Unlike the Armenian settlements, in the Azerbaijani villages of the NKAO, party organizations were not abolished; on the contrary, party committees were created in them with the rights of district committees of the KPAz. The supply of food and industrial goods to the inhabitants of the NKAO was carried out intermittently; railway, the number of Stepanakert-Yerevan flights has sharply decreased. Due to the shortage of food, the situation in the Armenian settlements became critical, the Armenians of Karabakh did not have a land connection with Armenia, and the only means of delivering food, medicines there, as well as evacuating the wounded and refugees was civil aviation. The internal troops of the USSR stationed in Stepanakert tried to drastically reduce such flights - up to the withdrawal of armored vehicles to the runway. In this connection, the Armenians in Martakert, in order to maintain contact with the outside world, built an unpaved runway capable of receiving AN-2 aircraft. However, on May 21, the Azerbaijanis, with the support of the military, plowed up the runway and destroyed the equipment.
On April 3, the USSR Law "On the Legal Regime of the State of Emergency" was adopted. Illegal armed groups began to play an increasingly important role, receiving the support of the local population, which saw them as their defenders and avengers for the wrongs inflicted. During 1990 and the first half of 1991, as a result of an unwinding spiral of violence and the growing activity of these formations, military personnel, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and civilians were killed and injured. Armed groups also penetrated from the territory of Armenia into the places of compact residence of the Armenian population on the territory of Azerbaijan (NKAR and adjacent regions). Numerous cases of attacks on civilians, cattle thefts, hostage-taking, attacks on military units with the use of firearms were noted here. On July 25, the Decree of the President of the USSR "On the prohibition of the creation of illegal formations not provided for by the legislation of the USSR, and the seizure of weapons in cases of illegal storage" was issued. On September 13, units of the Azerbaijani OMON stormed the village of Chapar in the Martakert region. During the attack, in addition to small arms, mortars and grenade launchers were used, as well as helicopters from which hand grenades were dropped. As a result of the assault, 6 Armenians were killed. On September 25, two Azerbaijani helicopters bombed Stepanakert in the same way.
On April 30, 1990, the beginning of the so-called operation "Ring" to implement the Decree of the President of the USSR of July 25, 1990 "On the prohibition of the creation of illegal formations not provided for by the legislation of the USSR, and the seizure of weapons in cases of their illegal storage", carried out by the units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan Republic, internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR and the Soviet Army from late April to early June 1991 in the NKAR and adjacent regions of Azerbaijan. The operation, which had as an official goal the disarmament of the Armenian "illegal armed formations" and the verification of the passport regime in Karabakh, led to armed clashes and casualties among the population. During the “Ring” operation, a complete deportation of 24 Armenian villages of Karabakh was carried out.
On May 1, the US Senate unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the crimes committed by the authorities of the USSR and Azerbaijan against the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia and Azerbaijan. On May 15, the landing of the Azerbaijani OMON near the Armenian villages of Spitakashen and Arpagyaduk led to the complete deportation of the inhabitants of these villages
On July 20, as a result of an attack by Armenian militants near the village of Buzuluk in the Shaumyan region, three Mi-24s were damaged, and one of the pilots was wounded.
On August 28, 1990, Azerbaijan declared independence. The declaration "On the restoration of the state independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan" states that "The Republic of Azerbaijan is the successor of the Republic of Azerbaijan that existed from May 28, 1918 to April 28, 1920."
On September 2, the Joint Session of the Nagorno-Karabakh Regional and Shaumyan District Councils of People's Deputies took place, proclaiming the formation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) within the borders of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region (NKAO) and the adjacent Shahumyan District of the Azerbaijan SSR populated by Armenians. According to the deputies, they were guided by the USSR Law of April 3, 1990 "On the procedure for resolving issues related to the withdrawal of a union republic from the USSR."
In the autumn of 1990, the Agdam branch of the Popular Front of Azerbaijan created the Agdam militia battalion under the command of Bagirov. On September 25, a 120-day shelling of Stepanakert with Alazan anti-hail installations begins. The escalation of hostilities is unfolding almost throughout the entire territory of the NKR. On November 23, Azerbaijan cancels the autonomous status of Nagorno-Karabakh. On November 27, the State Council of the USSR adopted a resolution calling on the parties to cease fire, withdraw all "illegal armed formations" from the conflict zone, and cancel the decrees changing the status of the NKAR. The National Army of Azerbaijan was created in December. December 10 - A referendum on independence is held in the self-proclaimed NKR.
Since the conclusion of the Bishkek ceasefire agreement on May 5, 1994, the fate of more than 4,000 Azerbaijani citizens who are still missing remains unclear. Since 1992, the International Committee of the Red Cross has been closely cooperating with the Azerbaijan Red Crescent Society, while assisting the authorities in fulfilling their obligations in the field of international humanitarian law and in exercising the right of the families of missing persons to information about the fate of their loved ones.
The result of the military confrontation was the victory of the Armenian side. Despite the numerical advantage, superiority in military equipment and manpower, with incomparably large resources, Azerbaijan was defeated.
During the war between Azerbaijan and the unrecognized NKR, as a result of the bombing and shelling of the civilian population of NKR by the Azerbaijani army, 1264 civilians were killed (more than 500 of them were women and children). 596 people (179 women and children) went missing. In total, from 1988 to 1994, more than 2,000 Armenian civilians were killed in Azerbaijan and the unrecognized NKR.
Armenian formations shot down more than 400 armored vehicles (31% of the Republic of Azerbaijan at that time), including 186 tanks (49%), shot down 20 military aircraft (37%), more than 20 combat helicopters of the National Army of Azerbaijan (more than half helicopter fleet of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan).
As a result of the military confrontation between the unrecognized NKR and the Republic of Azerbaijan, the territory of 7 regions of the former Azerbaijan SSR - 5 completely and 2 partially (Kelbajar, Lachin, Kubatli, Jabrayil, Zangelan - completely, and Agdam and Fuzuli partially) with a total area of 7060 sq. km., which is 8.15% of the territory of the former Azerbaijan SSR. Under the control of the National Army of Azerbaijan is 750 square meters. km of the territory of the unrecognized NKR - Shahumyan (630 sq. km.) and small parts of the Martuni and Mardakert regions, which is 14.85% of the total area of the NKR. In addition, a part of the territory of the Republic of Armenia, the Artsvashen enclave, came under the control of Azerbaijan.
390,000 Armenians became refugees (360,000 Armenians from Azerbaijan and 30,000 from the NKR). It should be noted that many Azerbaijanis from Armenia were able to sell their houses or apartments before leaving and purchase housing in Azerbaijan. Some of them made an exchange of housing with the Armenians leaving Azerbaijan.
Any conflict is based on both objective and subjective contradictions, as well as a situation that includes either conflicting positions of the parties on any issue, or opposite goals, methods or means of achieving them in given circumstances, or a mismatch of interests.
According to one of the founders general theory R. Dahrendorf's concept of a free, open and democratic society does not solve all the problems and contradictions of development. Not only developing countries are not immune from them, but also those where there is an established democracy. Social conflicts are a threat, the danger of the collapse of society.
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