in Russian – https://aga-tribunal.info/a-manasyan-5/
Alexandr Manasyan
November 22, 2020
- How the state named Azerbaijan emerged in Transcaucasia in 1918
- Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) in the chaos of the collapse of the Russian Empire (1918-1920)
- Consequences of Turkish intervention in Transcaucasia
- The annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh by the Bolsheviks in favor of the AzSSR
- Fragmentation of the NK territory after its inclusion in the AzSSR
- Stalin’s project of building the Azerbaijani nation and its mutation
- Genocide of Armenians in AzSSR
- Legitimacy of the NKR proclamation
- Artsakh as a victim of the decision of the Council of Europe of December 16, 1991
How the state named Azerbaijan emerged in Transcaucasia in 1918
Until 1918, there was no conflict between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh (NK), since before that there had never been a political entity or geographic region named Azerbaijan in Transcaucasia. There was no ethnos with such an ethnonym either. For the first time in Transcaucasia, such an entity was created by the Turks in 1918, when, during the collapse of the Russian Empire, they invaded the region with the aim of eliminating the Republic of Armenia (RA) and establishing a new Turkish state in the east of Transcaucasia. The plan of reprisals over Armenia was thwarted in the battles of Sardarapat and Bash Aparan. But it was not possible to stop the advance of Turkish troops on Baku. Along the way, they exterminated the population of dozens of Armenian villages, and on September 15, after the capture of the city and the overthrow of the legitimate authorities, the Turks put their relatives, the Caucasian Tatars, in power and with their crowds massacred more than 30 thousand Armenians. Thus, a new Turkish state, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR) was established. This was the first experience of Turkey in the 20th century in the establishment of new satellite states by armed invasion outside its borders, which was later repeated in Cyprus in 1975.Until 1918, there was no conflict between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh (NK), since before that there had never been a political entity or geographic region named Azerbaijan in Transcaucasia. There was no ethnos with such an ethnonym either. For the first time in Transcaucasia, such an entity was created by the Turks in 1918, when, during the collapse of the Russian Empire, they invaded the region with the aim of eliminating the Republic of Armenia (RA) and establishing a new Turkish state in the east of Transcaucasia. The plan of reprisals over Armenia was thwarted in the battles of Sardarapat and Bash Aparan. But it was not possible to stop the advance of Turkish troops on Baku. Along the way, they exterminated the population of dozens of Armenian villages, and on September 15, after the capture of the city and the overthrow of the legitimate authorities, the Turks put their relatives, the Caucasian Tatars, in power and with their crowds massacred more than 30 thousand Armenians. Thus, a new Turkish state was established – the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR). This was the first experience of Turkey in the 20th century in the establishment of new satellite states by armed invasion outside its borders, which was repeated later in Cyprus in 1975.
Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) in the chaos of the collapse of the Russian Empire (1918-1920)
After the capture of Baku, Turkish troops moved to Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) in order to force it to submit to the ADR. This is how the Karabakh conflict arose. The Artsakh people rejected these demands and on October 18, 1918, near the village of Msmna, they defeated the Turks who had invaded NK. In the chaos that reigned in 1918-1920, the Congresses of Plenipotentiary Representatives of the Population (PRP) of the NK have repeatedly declared the region an integral part of the RA. This was once again announced by the IX PRP Congress of the NK on April 28, 1920, on the day of the proclamation of the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic (AzSSR). Not a single national institution in Transcaucasia had such a resource of legitimacy as did the PRP Congresses of the NK.
Consequences of Turkish intervention in Transcaucasia
In 1920, the League of Nations rejected the ADR’s application for admission to the League because of its claims to lands where it had neither political nor administrative control. The ADR has left history without actually established and recognized boundaries. However, the Turkish intervention had its consequences. One of them, left out of proper attention, was the turning point in the public attitudes of the Caucasian Tatars towards the Armenians that occurred during the pogroms and mass robberies, the outgrowing of economic jealousy into intolerance and hatred, into genocidal consciousness and behavior. In March 1920, the ADR authorities organized the arson of the historical capital Shushi, the massacre of the Armenian population of this city and nearby villages.
The annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh by the Bolsheviks in favor of the AzSSR
The borders of the Soviet Transcaucasian republics did not form immediately. On November 30, 1920, the day after the establishment of Soviet power in Armenia, Baku recognized NK, Zangezur and Nakhichevan as an integral part of Soviet Armenia (ArmSSR), and on December 2 recognized the right of the NK people to full self-determination. On June 12, 1921, the ArmSSR declared NK to be its integral part. On July 4, 1921, at the request of Baku, the issue was considered at the plenum of the Caucasian Bureau of the RCP (b), which rendered a decision in favor of Armenia without procedural violations. In response to Baku’s protest, the plenum decided to move the issue to the party’s Central Committee. However, the next day, Stalin, who arrived at the plenum with the task of the Bolshevik Center to transfer the NK to Azerbaijan, read a new draft decision: “… Leave Nagorno-Karabakh within the Azerbaijani SSR, granting it broad regional autonomy with … the center in Shushi.” The draft was not discussed and was not put to a vote. The decision was not actually taken, but it was implemented. Under the plundering of the Armenian territories of Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhichevan, the Bolsheviks adjusted the idea of creating in the Azerbaijani SSR a non-national republic without a titular nation of a new type of Muslims and Armenians as state-forming peoples. The text of the decision of the Caucasian Bureau of the RCP (b) begins with the advancement of this programmatic thesis: “Based on the need for national peace between Muslims and Armenians…”
Fragmentation of the NK territory after its inclusion in the AzSSR
On July 7, 1923, Baku, in violation of the not adopted decision of the Caucasian Bureau of the RCP (b), decreed the Autonomous Region of Nagorno-Karabakh (ARNK, later NKAR) on one fourth of the NK. Under the pretext of creating Kurdish autonomy, Karvachar (Kelbajar) and Kashatag (Lachin) districts were not included in the region. The Armenian-populated areas of Northern NK also remained outside the region, which was eventually created as an enclave. In violation of the Treaty of Kars, in 1923 the status of Nakhichevan district was changed, transferred under the patronage of the AzSSR. It was given the status of an autonomous republic within the AzSSR.
Stalin’s project of building the Azerbaijani nation and its mutation
Having dealt with the Bolshevik leaders, Stalin, in order to strengthen the southern borders of the country in the 1930s, decided to correct the mistakes made in the national policy in the east of Transcaucasia, which led to the Turkization of the ethnically faceless mass of the Caucasian Tatars. He came up with the idea of mixing the peoples of the republic professing Islam to bring out a new Azerbaijani nation, different from both the Persian and Turkish identity. In the mixer conceived by Stalin, through the assimilation of autochthonous peoples, the Caucasian Tatars should realize themselves not as Turks, but as Azerbaijanis. The Azerbaijanization project of the AzSSR considered the plundering of the history and culture of indigenous peoples in favor of the project nation. However, over time, the project was degenerated into a process of forcible Turkization of the Muslim peoples of the republic, especially after Stalin’s death. In this process, was formed a special spiritual image of the Caucasian Tatars who “became” Azerbaijanis, who applied more sophisticated technologies of violence and plunder, which was allowed by the project of Azerbaijanization (actually, Turkization) of the republic. The Armenians of the AzSSR became an obstacle to the completion of this process.
Genocide of Armenians in AzSSR
Throughout the Soviet years, a policy of deliverance of Armenians from the AzSSR was carried out, who repeatedly raised the issue of reuniting the region with Soviet Armenia. New hopes were raised by the policy of “glasnost” (publicity). On February 20, 1988 the region applied with a request to the Supreme Councils of the AzSSR, the ArmSSR and the USSR to consider this issue. In response, an act of genocide of Armenians in Sumgait followed. Gorbachev, who set a course for the collapse of the USSR into the union republics, was inactive. Waves of mass violence swept across the entire AzSSR. In 1991, the Center placed Soviet troops at the disposal of Baku to carry out the punitive operation “Koltso” (“Ring”) in NK.
Legitimacy of the NKR proclamation
On August 30, 1991, Azerbaijani Republic declared its rejection of the succession of the AzSSR and restored the statehood of ADR that had existed in 1918-1920 and did not include NK. The illegality of the inclusion of NK in the AzSSR in 1921, the refusal of the AR from the succession of the AzSSR and the return of the AR in 1991 to the realities of 1918-1920 legally meant that on September 2, 1991 the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) proclaimed independence in the territories not belonging to the Azerbaijani Republic. On December 10, 1991, the people of Nagorno-Karabakh confirmed their choice in a referendum. The legitimacy of the NKR was also legally ensured by the USSR Law of April 3, 1990, which confirmed the right of the Karabakh people to self-determination up to the proclamation of independence in case the union republic left the USSR.
Artsakh as a victim of the decision of the Council of Europe of December 16, 1991
On December 16, 1991, the European Council (EC) decided to recognize the post-Soviet states within their borders as former Soviet republics. Concerned about preserving its integrity, Russia agreed to this. This is how the AR was recognized with the NK which was legally not belonging to it. Baku understood this as a sanction for the war against the NKR and for the continuation of the genocide. The historically developed syndrome of impunity for crimes against humanity, for acts of genocide against Armenians in Baku (1905, 1918, 1990), Shushi (1920, 1988), Sumgait (1988), Maragha (1992) worked. But the AR, deprived of Gorbachev’s support, was defeated and in May 1994 signed the Bishkek Ceasefire Protocol. During the war, the NKR liberated the territories that were supposed to be part of the NKAO. These territories are within the NK itself, not around it. Europe ignored the legal case of the problem and drove it into the trap of a false image with its decision. Europe ignored not only the LAW, but also the historically formed political culture in Azerbaijan, where jurisdiction is understood as the right to genocide. During the thirty years of the negotiation process, the simple truth was hushed up that none of the three state-like formations with the name Azerbaijan took place by an act of self-determination, that the borders of none of them were determined by a referendum. The first of them, ADR, ceased to exist without any established boundaries. The borders of the AzSSR were formed by the Bolsheviks, forcibly including Nakhichevan and NK into its borders. In December 1991, Europe mechanically ascribed these arbitrarily established borders to the AR, despite the fact that the independence of the NKR was proclaimed in compliance with all the norms of international law and the laws of the USSR and was consolidated by a referendum on December 10, 1991.The EC committed arbitrariness against NK and has not realized this guilt to this day. The war unleashed on September 27, 2020 against Artsakh, in which Baku attracted Turkey and international terrorists, is a direct consequence of the illegal recognition of Azerbaijan by Europe within the borders of the Azerbaijani SSR.
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