Arif UNUSOV
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Head of the Department of Conflictology and Migration of the Institute of Peace and Democracy of Azerbaijan.

Instead of a preface

This February marked the 10th anniversary of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, better known to the world as the "Karabakh war". This confrontation between two neighboring peoples, living side by side for centuries, marked the beginning of ethnic conflicts on the territory of the former USSR and is now regarded not only as the most protracted, but also complex in the region, the solution of which will obviously not be found soon.

A lot has been written and told about this conflict. But mostly articles and studies are devoted to the history and nature of the events. The purpose of this work is different - to determine the price of this conflict, to identify the changes that have occurred over 10 years in the fate of the peoples of Azerbaijan and Armenia.

For a better understanding of certain data, as well as migration and demographic processes, an analysis of the losses of the parties and the changes that have occurred are given in chronological order. At the same time, it is taken into account that not every figure given at different times of the conflict, especially at the official level, can be trusted.

Sources

This study is based on a variety of sources. These are numerous materials and documents received by me back in 1988-1990. from the Prosecutor's Office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR in connection with the deportations and pogroms in both republics, as well as personal meetings and conversations with refugees during that period. The materials of the State Statistics Committees (Goskomstat) of Azerbaijan and Armenia in 1989-1998 were widely used. and other official documents of the conflicting parties. Materials from human rights and international organizations (Helsinki Watch, Amnesty International, Memorial, the United Nations, the International Organization for Migration, the Red Cross, etc.) and, of course, press reports and studies on this conflict, have also been used in large quantities. appeared over the years.

preliminary statistics

Judging by the last Soviet census conducted on January 12, 1989, then 7 million 21 thousand people lived in Azerbaijan, of which 5 million 805 thousand people were Azerbaijanis. (83% of the population), and Armenians - 391 thousand (5.6%). At the same time, 189 thousand people were registered in the NKAR according to the census. (about 3% of the population of the republic), of which 145 thousand are Armenians (77% of the region's population), and 41 thousand are Azerbaijanis (22% of the region's population).

According to the 1989 census, 3 million 305 thousand people lived in Armenia, of which 3 million 84 thousand people (93% of the population of the republic) were Armenians, and only 85 thousand people were Azerbaijanis. (about 3%).

However, the reliability of these figures was already in serious doubt, since the census was carried out in extreme conditions a year after the start of the conflict. During this time, pogroms and deportations have already taken place in both republics, which naturally affected the results of the census. Thus, in Armenia in 1989, according to the census, there were about 85 thousand Azerbaijanis. Meanwhile, the 1979 census recorded a different figure - 161 thousand (5% of the population of the republic). Therefore, it is more realistic to take as a basis the data of the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan, which registered 186,000 Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia.

According to the 1989 census, the number of Armenians in Azerbaijan also significantly decreased, so the data of 1979 - 475 thousand people should probably be taken as a basis. (8% of the population of the republic), or the number of registered refugees. And even more suspicious are the figures for the NKAO. Censuses 1939, 1959, 1970 and 1979 clearly record the reduction in the number of Armenians in the region in percentage terms from 88% to 76%, respectively. And the 1989 census increases the number of Armenians here to 77%. That is why in Azerbaijan, not trusting the data of the 1989 census, in October 1990 a second census was conducted in 51 cities and villages of the NKAR populated by Azerbaijanis. It turned out that there are not 41, but 46 thousand Azerbaijanis in the region. (24%), and taking into account representatives of other nationalities, non-Armenians lived in the NKAR 47 thousand people.

The beginning of the conflict

The official beginning of the Karabakh conflict dates back to February 20, 1988, when the session of the Council of People's Deputies of the NKAO decided to annex the region to Armenia. But in fact, the confrontation began in the spring of 1986, when in Armenia and the NKAR among the Armenian population they began to collect signatures and organize the sending of hundreds of letters and telegrams to Moscow with a request to consider the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh. And in October 1987, the first demonstrations took place in Yerevan.

As events unfolded in Armenia, the position of the Azerbaijanis began to noticeably worsen here. At the end of 1987, in the second year of "perestroika", Azerbaijan was the first among the former Soviet republics to face the problem of refugees and population migration - the first hundreds of Azerbaijanis fled here from Armenia, mainly from the Kafan, as well as the Sisian and Meghri regions of the republic. By January 25, 1988, their number exceeded 4 thousand people.

On instructions from Moscow, the Azerbaijani authorities hid this fact from the public and tried to quickly accommodate the arrived refugees near Sumgayit, mainly in the villages of Fatmai and Sarai.

On February 14, the first rallies began in Stepanakert, and already on September 18, a new wave of Azerbaijani refugees appeared in Baku, now from the NKAR, mainly from Stepanakert. And on February 22, the first blood was shed: in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe village. Askeran there was a clash of parties, as a result of which two Azerbaijanis died - Ali Hajiyev and Bakhtiyar Guliyev. They opened an account for the victims of the Karabakh conflict.

On the evening of February 27, beatings of Armenians began in Sumgayit, which turned into pogroms on February 28-29, which were stopped by special forces and police only by March 1. Outcome: 26 Armenians and 6 Azerbaijanis were killed, about 130 residents were wounded (including 54 Azerbaijanis and 34 Armenians) and 275 military and policemen.

After these events, both then-Soviet republics were overwhelmed by waves of refugees who, fleeing real or expected violence, hastily left their homes. It is believed that the events were largely uncontrollable and developed spontaneously. Violence was followed by retaliatory violence, and all by the hands of the refugees themselves. However, this was not entirely true, as there is a lot of evidence. It suffices to give such an example: at a rally on November 4, 1988 in Yerevan, an activist of the Karabakh movement R. Ghazaryan directly called "with the help of detachments" that were created in advance "in every possible way to ensure emigration. For the first time in these decades, we have been given a unique opportunity to clear (as in the text - A.Yu.) Armenia. I consider this the greatest achievement of our struggle for these ten months."

In Armenia, the main events unfolded from November 27, 1988, when organized attacks on the villages of Azerbaijanis and Muslim Kurds took place, which led to numerous victims. Even the terrible earthquake on December 7 did not stop the pogroms in Armenia. The last Azerbaijani that year was killed on 12 December. Many Azerbaijanis died while fleeing from Armenia through snow-covered passes. In total, 188 Azerbaijanis and Kurds died in Armenia in 1988.

And in Azerbaijan, the most serious incident occurred in Ganja, where on November 24 a crowd of Azerbaijanis broke into the Armenian district of the city and many Armenians (officially one) died and were injured. In other settlements of Azerbaijan, there were also numerous cases of attacks on Armenians, but no deaths were reported.

In 1989, the epicenter of the clashes moved to the NKAR, where attacks by both sides against each other, many with a fatal outcome, as well as terrorist acts were noted. And all this against the background of the continued deportation of the population from both republics.

In the same 1989, the first thousand Meskhetian Turks appeared in Azerbaijan, who, fleeing the pogroms, fled from Uzbekistan. By the middle of 1992, the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan had registered about 52,000 Meskhetian Turks as refugees, the vast majority of them settled in rural areas of the republic.

In early January 1990, first in the Khanlar region of Azerbaijan, and then practically along the entire Armenian-Azerbaijani border, clashes between the warring parties began with the use of firearms. And on January 13-15, pogroms of Armenians took place in Baku, as a result of which 66 Armenians and 2 Azerbaijanis were killed. Another 20 Armenians, judging by the Armenian press, later died of their wounds in Yerevan hospitals. About 300 Armenians were wounded.

The result of all of the above, according to the data of the State Statistics Committees of Azerbaijan and Armenia of that period: by the beginning of February 1990, all 186 thousand Azerbaijanis, as well as 11 thousand Kurds and 3.5 thousand Russians fled from Armenia to Azerbaijan, and a little later some of them, mostly Russians and part of the Kurds, moved to Russia. In mid-1990, the Azerbaijan State Statistics Committee registered 233,000 refugees from Armenia and Uzbekistan in the republic.

In turn, during the same period, 229 thousand Armenians fled from Azerbaijan to Armenia, and about 100 thousand moved to other regions of the USSR, mainly to Russia. After the events of January 1990, 108,000 Russians left Azerbaijan. At the same time, during the pogroms in 1988-1990. 216 Azerbaijanis and 119 Armenians were killed in both republics. And in the NKAO and around it, 91 Azerbaijanis and 85 Armenians died in the same years.

Armenian-Azerbaijani war in 1991-1994

The collapse of the USSR and the declaration of independence in 1991 by Azerbaijan and Armenia turned the Karabakh conflict into a stage of international confrontation between the two states. In the autumn of 1991, the Armenian armed forces launched an offensive and by the summer of 1992, they expelled from Nagorno-Karabakh and the adjacent Lachin region all the local Azerbaijani and Kurdish population, who replenished the army of refugees, but already as internally displaced persons. The number of the latter was not stable and in 1992, according to the Republican State Statistics Committee, fluctuated between 212-220 thousand people.

In turn, during the summer offensive in 1992 by the Azerbaijani troops, almost the entire Armenian population of the Khanlar and former Shaumyan regions (exception - mixed families), as well as Nagorno-Karabakh (about 40 thousand people in total) replenished the army of refugees from Azerbaijan in Armenia . At that time, about 50,000 Armenians were added to them - internally displaced persons from the regions bordering Azerbaijan, who found themselves in the war zone.

The year 1992 went down in the history of the Armenian-Azerbaijani war as the year of the mass use of hundreds of armored vehicles, as well as aviation and artillery by both sides, which dramatically increased the number of losses of the parties. At the same time, the vast majority of losses that year fell on the military. That year, Azerbaijan lost 3,300 people killed, of which more than 2,000 were servicemen, while the Armenians lost about 1,000 soldiers and officers and 1,500 civilians.

The situation with refugees and population migration as a result of the conflict changed dramatically in 1993. The almost continuous offensive of the Armenian troops and the chaos in the political life of Azerbaijan led to the occupation by the end of 1993 of 6 more regions outside the territory of the former NKAR. As a result, a massive flow of internally displaced persons poured from the occupied regions deep into the territory of Azerbaijan. This flow of people from the interior regions of Azerbaijan was so avalanche-like and uninterrupted that it sharply aggravated the socio-economic situation in the republic. Especially many IDPs have accumulated in the south of the country, mainly along the border with Iran in the area of ​​the cities of Imishli, Sabirabad and Saatli. Fearing a social explosion, the Azerbaijani authorities in August 1993 even blocked all roads from the war zone to Baku and other large cities of the country. In turn, the appearance of a significant number of refugees near the northern border of Iran, where predominantly Azerbaijanis live, greatly alarmed official Tehran. At the same time, the Iranian authorities quickly agreed to the arrangement of tent camps for 100 thousand people. around Imishli, Saatly and Sabirabad.

Turkey, followed by Saudi Arabia, was not slow to follow the example of Iran, and in the autumn of 1993, refugee camps appeared near the cities of Barda and Aghjabadi. This is how the first camps appeared, so far tents for the internally displaced persons of Azerbaijan, built by Iranians, Turks and Arabs. But soon the initiative was seized by international, mainly Western humanitarian organizations, which built in 1994-1997. not only numerous camps, but also settlements for internally displaced persons.

It should also be said here that the flow of refugees from the interior regions of the republic in 1993 greatly complicated the work of the State Statistics Committee and other authorities in working with refugees. Constant migrations in all regions of the republic, their registration in several places at once, as well as the chaos and crisis of power at that time, affected the registration of forced migrants. If, after the occupation of the Kelbajar region in early April 1993, 243,000 internally displaced persons were officially registered, by the beginning of December of the same year, the State Statistics Committee recorded almost 779,000 internally displaced persons. That is, for 7 months the number of forced migrants has increased by more than 535 thousand people. Based on these data, the Azerbaijani government then announced the occupation of 20% of the territory of the republic and the presence of more than 1 million refugees and internally displaced persons in the country.

The signing of a truce in May 1994 allowed the Azerbaijani authorities to stabilize the situation in the republic and, on the whole, to take control of the situation with internally displaced persons, which immediately affected the registration of the latter. The number of forced migrants kept falling and as of January 1, 1998, the State Statistics Committee gave new numbers of forced migrants - 620,000 people. Thus, according to official data, 853,000 refugees and internally displaced persons (11% of the population of the republic) have been registered in Azerbaijan today, taking into account those who arrived earlier from Armenia and Uzbekistan. However, even these data raise doubts among many international humanitarian and public organizations, because even according to official data, as of January 1, 1992, about 480 thousand people lived or were registered in the former NKAO and in the territory of 7 occupied regions. Taking into account the part of the population along the border with Armenia, who also left their homes, the actual number of internally displaced persons should not exceed 520 thousand people.

Settlement and ethnic composition of forced migrants

The 620,000 internally displaced persons officially registered in Azerbaijan (8% of the republic's population) are divided into those who live in 28 camps and settlements (more than 90,000 people); those who settled in public buildings (about 300 thousand people) and those who are distributed in ordinary housing conditions (about 230 thousand people).

Territorially, 53% of internally displaced persons live in cities, mainly in Baku, Sumgayit, Ganja and Mingechevir. Regionally, they settled mainly in two zones: in the capital and around it, as well as in the center of the country along the line of the Armenian-Azerbaijani front from the city of Ganja to the city of Saatly.

The vast majority of internally displaced persons (99%) are Azerbaijanis. Next in number are the Kurds - more than 5 thousand people. At the same time, in 1993-1994. almost 45% of Kurds fled from Nagorno-Karabakh to Baku. However, as the situation stabilized, a significant part of the Kurds, especially from the Lachin region, moved to Karabakh in the Agjabadi region, where 73% of all Kurdish refugees now live.

The share of other peoples (Russians, Meskhetian Turks, etc.) among the forced migrants of Azerbaijan is very small.

Life of refugees and internally displaced persons in Azerbaijan

Behind all the above figures is the pain and suffering of a huge mass of people, regardless of nationality, faith and current place of residence. Needless to say, today refugees are the most vulnerable group of the population with their own specific problems. Almost all of them are victims or witnesses of violence during hostilities, forced to leave their homes on pain of death. All this left a serious imprint on their psyche, and even after several years, many of them suffer from mental illness or need the help of doctors.

Those refugees who live in camps today have special living conditions. Living on humanitarian aid has led them to develop an addiction syndrome, and any information about the termination of this aid causes them to panic and may even provoke unrest. Similar facts already took place at the end of 1996, when a number of humanitarian organizations ceased their activities in Azerbaijan. In addition, camp life has its own specifics. First, there is a social and cultural disorder. In the camps, very often built without taking into account the mentality and former living conditions of refugees, people are settled, sometimes very different from each other in terms of education, traditions, and professional training. In conditions of strong dependence on external assistance, this often leads to conflicts and conflicts of interest. It is especially difficult for women and girls, whose problems are practically not taken into account by both the authorities and humanitarian organizations when building camps and distributing aid. All this has caused a serious crisis in many refugee families: men are engaged in unsuccessful job searches and live away from home for months, some women secretly earn their livelihood through prostitution, and children do not always attend schools due to the high cost of textbooks and school clothes. The foregoing has already led to the fact that the current conditions have made refugees and internally displaced persons a breeding ground for crime in Azerbaijan and have created a threat to the gene pool of the nation.

Quite a lot has been written about these and other problems of refugees and their needs in general. Much less is known about the reaction to their appearance in Azerbaijani society, which also affected the psyche and mentality of the refugees.

At the first stage, in 1988-1990. The population reacted with sympathy to the refugees. This was especially true for the Meskhetian Turks. Being villagers by nature, the Turks in Azerbaijan also settled in rural areas remote from the capital, where, with the support and benevolent attitude of the local population, they quickly adapted to new living conditions, while maintaining their former way of life.

The attitude towards the refugees from Armenia was somewhat different, especially from the authorities. More dependent and almost completely relying on Moscow, the then leadership of Azerbaijan sought to return the refugees from Armenia to their places of former residence. In 1988, Azerbaijani refugees had many conflicts with local authorities, especially the police.

By the end of 1989, the refugees from Armenia also had friction with the local population, primarily in Baku. The fact is that the vast majority of refugees from Armenia are residents of rural areas. But unlike the Meskhetian Turks and despite the obstacles of the authorities, most of the refugees from Armenia settled in the capital, as well as Sumgayit and Ganja. Here they constantly began to have conflicts with local Armenians, which later, with the connivance of the authorities, resulted in pogroms in these cities.

Following this, the refugees from Armenia began to have problems with the city-Azerbaijanis. Being representatives of a rural culture, refugees from Armenia needed time to adapt to the new urban conditions. But they did not have time, besides, the housing issue was acute and conflicts with the authorities almost constantly occurred. The emotional state of the refugees was understandable. But their aggressiveness, the desire to impose their rules and habits on the townspeople very soon aroused hostility among the latter, especially noticeable in the capital, where from now on the negative nickname "yeraz" (Yerevan Azerbaijanis) stuck to the refugees from Armenia.

The negative attitude towards refugees in society was so strong that, in fact, it automatically passed to the internally displaced persons from Karabakh. This is largely due to the fact that forced migrants in the conditions of an acute socio-economic crisis in the republic, albeit unwittingly, have become competitors to the local population, also engaged in the search for a livelihood. Even the Meskhetian Turks were affected by this. In 1997, there were several conflicts between internally displaced persons and Meskhetian Turks. It is no coincidence that the number of Meskhetian Turkish refugees from Uzbekistan has decreased. According to the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan, as of June 1997, 29,000 Turkish refugees now live in the republic, that is, 44% of those who had previously arrived in Azerbaijan from Uzbekistan, in 1993-1997. left the country.

Migration process in 1993-1997

The truce on the Armenian-Azerbaijani front stopped the flow of refugees from the combat zone inside the republic, but now it has noticeably increased outside the republic.

In fact, this process has been going on before. Along with the Armenians in 1988-1990. a large number of citizens of non-titular nationality left the republic. Especially strong changes occurred with the Slavic peoples, primarily Russians. According to the official data of the Azerbaijani authorities, after 1989, 169,000 Russians, 15,000 Ukrainians and 3,000 Belarusians left the republic. True, the Russian side, in particular the Russian Embassy in Azerbaijan, believes that in fact more than 220 thousand Russians left Azerbaijan, and about 180 thousand people remained. At the same time, the main number of Russians left in 1990-1992. due to the unstable political situation in the country. Subsequently, the outflow of Russians from here has noticeably decreased, and now, according to the data of the Russian Embassy in Azerbaijan, up to 10 thousand people leave the republic for permanent residence in Russia. and not all of them are Russian by origin. At the same time, the migration of Russians and other citizens of non-titular nationality from Azerbaijan is now based on socio-economic reasons.

After the cessation of hostilities among those leaving the republic, the predominance of Azerbaijanis became noticeable. Actually, the departure of Azerbaijanis outside the country since the beginning of the Karabakh conflict was before: in 1988-1990. tens of thousands of so-called "Russian-speaking" Azerbaijanis, mostly residents of Baku, emigrated to Russia (officially, the Migration Service of Russia in 1993 registered only 8,000 Azerbaijanis as refugees). The main reason for their departure was the unstable political situation, fear for their future as the positions of radical national-patriotic forces strengthened and the number of rural refugees increased.

As the fighting intensified in 1992-1993. not only "Russian-speaking" Azerbaijanis began to leave the republic.

After the 1994 ceasefire, the flow of Azerbaijanis leaving the borders became simply menacing. At the same time, the number of refugees and internally displaced persons has begun to noticeably increase among migrants. It was a real labor migration. Unable to find work in Azerbaijan, they began to go to work, mainly to Russia, as well as to other CIS republics. Many refugees and internally displaced persons left for Turkey and Iran.

At the same time, representatives of the national intelligentsia, scientists and cultural figures first went to Turkey. But later, especially in recent years, among the migrants to Turkey, there have been noticeably more immigrants from the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic and refugees living there. As a rule, residents of the southern border regions leave for Iran. Azerbaijanis work in these countries, as a rule, in the service sector, at construction sites, as well as porters and shepherds.

The fact that when leaving the country in search of a livelihood from all countries of the world, including the CIS republics, Azerbaijanis prefer Russia is easily explained. There are many reasons: the country is neighboring and well known, Russians are in the first place in terms of the number of mixed marriages, there is no language barrier - almost all northern Azerbaijanis know Russian. The economic factor also played a significant role: after all, by the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, that is, on the eve of the fall of the USSR, Azerbaijanis tacitly controlled almost 80% of the Soviet flower business, which annually brought a gigantic income of 2 billion rubles at that time. As a result of the flourishing flower business in Azerbaijan, a fairly influential and stable layer of entrepreneurs (mainly residents of Baku and the Absheron Peninsula) oriented towards the Russian market was formed at that time.

Even the deterioration of Russian attitudes towards Azerbaijanis after the collapse of the USSR and the discriminatory actions of the Russian authorities, primarily Moscow, did not stop the flow of Azerbaijani citizens arriving here. At the same time, the departure of the overwhelming majority of citizens is practically not recorded by the authorities of the republic, because many of them leave without being removed from the register and they live in Russia, as well as in the CIS countries illegally. At the same time, today, most of them are refugees and internally displaced persons, mostly men aged 20-40, who work illegally for months, and for many years. This circumstance makes it very difficult to keep accurate records of those who emigrated from Azerbaijan to Russia and other CIS republics. Therefore, the data given in the press are quite approximate.

According to the Azerbaijani press, in 1991-1997. More than 1.5 million people left the republic for Russia, and today, according to unofficial data, from 2 to 3 million Azerbaijani citizens live and work in this country - this is 30-40% of the total population of Azerbaijan. At the same time, according to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs and the press, today there are about 400 thousand Azerbaijanis in Moscow, both registered and without registration, and taking into account the Moscow region, this figure rises to 1 million people. In St. Petersburg, the number of Azerbaijanis has reached 200 thousand people. Azerbaijanis have been recorded in almost all regions of Russia. There are many Azerbaijanis even in Siberia, which is far and cold for southerners, and in the Far East. In the Tyumen region, 23 thousand Azerbaijanis are officially registered, and in fact the latter are up to 100 thousand people. In the Omsk region - up to 20 thousand, in the Tomsk region - more than 50 thousand people. Today the number of Azerbaijanis in South Siberian cities has approached the mark of 150,000 people. And in the Far East, the largest number of Azerbaijanis is in Primorye, only in the city of Vladivostok, about 70 thousand Azerbaijanis live.

Interestingly, the Azerbaijanis are trying to settle in Russia on a parochial basis. So, the natives of the cities of Kazakh and Akstafa settle in the cities of Kogalym, Surgut and Tyumen, while Baku residents and residents of Absheron at first preferred to settle mainly in the capital of Russia, and now, after the decline of the flower business, they began to explore the Far East, settling in Vladivostok, Khabarovsk and the Sakhalin Peninsula . Surprisingly, the inhabitants of the subtropical southern regions (Lenkoran, Masalli, etc.), not afraid of the harsh cold of the Russian north, are successfully developing this region, and today there are many of them in Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and other settlements of the Arctic.

Until recently, the natives of Karabakh settled mainly in Samara and Nizhny Novgorod, while the people of Shamkir and Ganja settled in Moscow, the Moscow region and St. Petersburg. However, some changes have taken place here today: part of the Karabakh people, mainly refugees from Aghdam and Fizuli, as well as residents of Nakhchevan, are increasingly settling in Moscow and they already control some of the capital's markets.

The sphere of activity of Azerbaijanis in Russia is quite extensive. Those of them who were born in Russia, or came here back in Soviet times to study and are citizens of this country, now work in the field of science and art, or big business. As a rule, they also head the Azerbaijani communities in Russian cities and regions.

The same residents of Azerbaijan who arrived in Russia during the years of the Karabakh conflict and the collapse of the USSR settled down in different ways: from medium and large businesses to seasonal work at construction sites, in industry and transport. There are many of them in the service sector and in the system of law enforcement agencies.

Previously, Azerbaijanis preferred living in Russian cities, which was natural, because during the Soviet period, representatives of the intelligentsia or students left the republic to study, that is, citizens. Now, among emigrants from Azerbaijan, the number of refugees and people from rural areas of the republic has sharply increased, which is associated with colossal unemployment. In cities, especially large ones, they do not feel so comfortable and familiar. In addition, in the cities, especially Moscow and St. Petersburg, they too often became victims of pogroms and nationalist actions by some Russians, constant attacks by the police and riot police. And therefore, it is no coincidence that the majority of Azerbaijani emigrants now prefer to settle in Russia away from large cities, and recently in the villages where they are engaged in agriculture, they organize cooperatives and farms.

In general, having successfully integrated into Russian society, Azerbaijanis bring, according to unofficial press reports, up to $1 billion annually to the republic, which are then spent on the local market. In fact, a large part of the population of the republic, especially rural areas and refugees, live off the income from labor migration to Russia.

At the same time, it should be pointed out that the departure, albeit temporary, of such a large number of the population of the republic threatens with new serious complications, but already in relation to Azerbaijanis. After all, mostly representatives of the male population leave, the overwhelming majority of them are unmarried. Thus, today the demographic balance in the republic has once again been disturbed, but this time in relation to gender. Given the significant number of dead, wounded and crippled, as well as those who emigrated, a large part of the girls and women of Azerbaijan are doomed to loneliness, which will certainly affect them later.

RESULTS

Thus, the 10-year-old Karabakh conflict has made significant changes to the demographic and confessional situation in Azerbaijan. Before the start of the conflict, in 1988, slightly more than 7 million people lived in Azerbaijan, of which 83% were Azerbaijanis. In confessional terms, 87% of the population were Muslims, 12.5% ​​were Christians, and 0.5% were Jews.

As a result of the conflict, both sides suffered the following losses: 2,000 Azerbaijanis died. and about 30 thousand were wounded, and among the Armenians, respectively, 6 thousand died and wounded - up to 20 thousand people.

During the years of the conflict, both republics were overwhelmed by migration flows: according to official data, at the time of the armistice in 1994, 304,000 Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan were registered in Armenia. After the armistice was signed, 35,000 Armenians returned to Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh. Another 72 thousand people. from the settlements of Armenia bordering Azerbaijan, forced to move to safe areas due to hostilities, are registered as internally displaced persons. Finally, according to unofficial data, about 540 thousand people. (according to other sources - from 600 to 800 thousand people) emigrated from the country in search of a livelihood.

In Azerbaijan, these figures are even more depressing: according to official data, as of January 1998, there were 233,000 refugees from Armenia and Uzbekistan and 620,000 internally displaced persons in the republic, a total of 853,000 people. According to independent experts, in fact, there are 210,000 refugees in Azerbaijan (some of the Meskhetian Turks left the republic) and about 520,000 internally displaced persons, that is, more than 730,000 people affected by the conflict in total. At the same time, after the truce in 1995-1997. about 40 thousand internally displaced persons returned to the liberated villages of the Fizuli region.

In total, during the years of the Karabakh conflict, at least 600 thousand citizens of non-titular nationality, mostly of the Christian faith, left Azerbaijan, and approximately 800 thousand people remained, excluding the Karabakh Armenians. As a result of these migration processes, today more than 90% of the 7.6 million inhabitants of the republic are Azerbaijanis. The composition of ethnic minorities has also noticeably changed: if before, after the Azerbaijanis, Russians and Armenians dominated the republic, now their places have been taken by Lezgins, Talyshs and Kurds. The religious composition has also changed dramatically: more than 95% are Muslims and about 4% are Christians. That is, today Azerbaijan is practically a mono-confessional republic.

But the migration processes in Azerbaijan did not stop there. Today, labor migration plays a huge role, primarily to Russia. In total, more than 2 million Azerbaijanis practically live outside the republic, earning their livelihood.

These are the sad results of the 10-year-old Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.

LITERATURE

1. Arif Yunusov. Pogroms in Armenia in 1988-1989. - "Express Chronicle" (Moscow), No. 9,1991.
2. Arif Yunusov. Pogroms in Azerbaijan in 1988-1990. - "Express Chronicle" (Moscow), No. 21,1991.
3. Arif Yunusov. Statistics of the Karabakh war. - "Commonwealth" (Baku), 1995, No. 1.3.
4. Arif Yunusov. Azerbaijan in the Post-Soviet Period: Problems and Possible Ways of Development. - Collection "North Caucasus - Transcaucasia: problems of stability and development prospects". Moscow, 1997.
5. Refugees and forced migrants on the territory of the Russian Federation. Moscow, 1997.
6. Identity and conflict in the post-Soviet states. Moscow, 1997.
7. Materials of the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan on refugees and internally displaced persons, 1991-1998. Baku.
8. Migration and new diasporas in the post-Soviet states. Moscow, 1996.
9. Population of Azerbaijan in 1993. Baku, 1994.
10. Population of the Azerbaijan Republic. Statistical collection. Baku, 1991.
11. The national composition of the population of the USSR. Population census 1989 Moscow, 1991.
12. Number and natural movement of the population of the Azerbaijan Republic in 1991. Baku, 1992.
13.Arif Yunusov. Demographic disaster.-Index on Censorship (London), Vol.26, No.4, July/August 1996.
14. Azerbaijan Human Development Report, 1996. UNDP. Baku, 1996.
15. Azerbaijan Human Development Report, 1997. UNDP. Baku, 1997.
16. CIS Migration Report, 1996. IOM. Geneva, 1997.
17. Deported peoples of the former Soviet Union: the Case of the Meskhetians. IOM. Geneva, 1998.
18.Frelick Bill. Faultlines of Nationality Conflict. Refugees and Displaced Persons from Armenia and Azerbaijan. USA Committee for Refugees. March 1994
19. Gevork Pogosian. Conditions of Refugees in Armenia. Yerevan, 1996.
20 Human Rights Watch. Seven Years of Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. New York, December, 1994.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a region in Transcaucasia, in the eastern part of the Armenian Highlands. Eighty percent of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh are Armenians.

The armed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan around Nagorno-Karabakh flared up in the early 90s of the last century. The active hostilities of 1991-1994 led to numerous casualties and destruction, about 1 million inhabitants became refugees.

1987 - 1988

The dissatisfaction of the Armenian population with their socio-economic situation has increased in the region. In October, a protest demonstration against the incidents with the Armenian population of the village of Chardakhlu was held in Yerevan. On December 1, several dozens of protesting residents were beaten and detained by the police, in connection with which the victims turned to the USSR Prosecutor General's Office.

In the same period, a massive collection of signatures was held in Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia demanding the transfer of Nagorno-Karabakh to the Armenian SSR.
The delegation of Karabakh Armenians handed over signatures, letters and demands to the reception of the Central Committee of the CPSU in Moscow.

February 13, 1988

Stepanakert hosted the first demonstration of protest over the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh. Its participants demand the accession of Nagorno-Karabakh to the Armenian SSR.

February 20, 1988

An extraordinary session of people's deputies of the NKAR, at the request of the Armenian deputies, turned to 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. Azerbaijani deputies refused to participate in the voting.

February 22, 1988

Near the Armenian village of Askeran on the territory of the NKAO, there was a clash with the use of firearms between Azerbaijanis, police and military cordons put up on their way, and the local population.

February 22-23, 1988

The first rallies were held in Baku and other cities of the Azerbaijan SSR in support of the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the inadmissibility of revising the existing national-territorial structure. In Armenia, meanwhile, a movement to support the Armenian population of the NKAO was growing.

February 26, 1988

A mass rally was held in Yerevan in support of the transfer of Nagorno-Karabakh to the Armenian SSR.

February 27-29, 1988

Pogroms in Sumgayit, accompanied by massive violence against the Armenian population, robberies, murders, arson and destruction of property.

June 15, 1988

June 17, 1988

The Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR stated that the solution of this issue could not fall within the competence of the Armenian SSR and considered the transfer of the NKAR from the AzSSR to the Armenian SSR impossible.

June 21, 1988

At the session of the regional council of the NKAO, the question of secession from the Azerbaijan SSR was again raised.

July 18, 1988

The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR decides that Karabakh remains part of Azerbaijan.

September 21, 1988

Moscow announces the introduction of martial law in the NKAO.

August 1989

Azerbaijan begins an economic blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh. Tens of thousands of people are leaving their homes.

January 13-20, 1990

Armenian pogroms in Baku.

April 1991

The divisions of the Soviet troops and OMON launched the “Operation Ring”, officially aimed at disarming the militants in the Armenian village of Chaikend (Getashen).

December 19, 1991

January 26, 1992

The first serious defeat of the Azerbaijani army.
Dozens of soldiers were killed during an attack on the village of Dashalti (Karintak).

February 25-26, 1992

Hundreds of Azerbaijanis were killed as a result of the storming of Khojaly by Armenians.

June 12, 1992

The offensive of the Azerbaijani troops. The Shaumyanovsky district was taken under the control of the military.

May 1994

On May 5, 1994, in the capital of Kyrgyzstan, through the mediation of Russia and the Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS, a
agreement on a ceasefire from May 12, 1994 in the region of the Karabakh conflict. Moreover, the ceasefire regime is observed without interference
peacekeepers and the participation of third countries.

Sources:

• human rights watch
• Reuters
• Web site of Nagorno Karabakh Republic office in Washington Sumgait.info
• Chronology of the conflict prepared in August of 1990 by CIA
• Chronology prepared by the “Memorial” Society (Russia)

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. started by Tsarist Russia and then continued by the USSR, until the collapse of the Soviet state. The process of resettlement can be divided into two phases:

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

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

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

H and the current geographical area of ​​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) is 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. The Armenian high priests made a number of trips and wrote a large number of letters to the Albanian patriarchs with a request to give them asylum in the Caucasus "as Christian brothers in distress." The Armenian Church, forced to wander around the cities of Byzantium, eventually lost most of the Armenian flock, which converted to Catholicism, thereby jeopardizing the very existence of the Armenian Church. As a result, with the permission of the Albanian Patriarch, some of the Armenian dignitaries, around 1441, moved to the South Caucasus, to the monastery of Echmiadzin (Three Muezzins) - Uchklis: on the territory of present-day Armenia, where they received long-awaited peace and a place for the implementation of further political plans.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Making a small digression, we note that according to historical facts, Irevan (Yerevan) was founded at the beginning of the 16th century as a stronghold of the Safavid (Azerbaijani) empire on the border with the Ottoman Empire. To stop 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 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.” (Wars of Memory, 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, becoming Shah, decided to restore the former greatness of the Safavid state, relying on the idea of ​​uniting the Caucasian lands with the administrative and political center in South Azerbaijan and Persia. This idea did not inspire many khans of Northern Azerbaijan, who gravitated toward the rapidly growing Russian Empire. In such a responsible and difficult time, the initiator of the creation of the anti-Kajar coalition was the ruler of the Karabakh khanate, Ibrahim Khalil Khan. Bloody wars began in the Karabakh land, the Persian Shah Qajar personally led campaigns against the Karabakh khan and his capital city of Shusha.

But all the attempts of the Persian Shah to conquer these lands were unsuccessful, and in the end, despite the successful capture of the Shusha fortress, he was killed here by his own courtiers, after which the remnants of his troops fled to Persia. The victory of Ibrahim Khalil Khan of Karabakh allowed him to start final negotiations on the entry of his possessions under the citizenship of the Russian Empire. May 14, 1805 was signed Treatise between the Karabakh Khan and the Russian Empire on the transition of the Khanate under the rule of Russia, which connected the further fate of these lands with Tsarist Russia. It is worth noting that in the treatise signed by Ibrahim Khan Shushinsky and Karabakh and the Russian general, Prince Tsitsianov, consisting of 11 articles, there is no mention of the presence of Armenians anywhere. At that time, there were 5 Albanian melikdoms subordinate to the Karabakh Khan, and there is no 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. A Resettlement Committee was created to control the migration processes, equipping the resettled Armenians in new places in such a way that the residents of the established settlements did not come into contact with the already existing Azerbaijani villages. Not having time to equip the huge flow of migrants in the Irevan province, the Caucasian administration decides to persuade the majority of the Armenian migrants to settle in Karabakh. As a result of the mass resettlement of Armenians from Persia in 1828-1829, 35,560 migrants ended up here in Northern Azerbaijan. Of these, 2,558 families or 10,000 people. placed in the Nakhichevan province. Approximately 15 thousand people were placed in the Garabagh (Karabakh) province. During 1828-1829, 1458 Armenian families (about 5 thousand people) were settled in the Irevan province. Tsatur Aghayan cited data for 1832: then there were 164,450 inhabitants in the Armenian region, of which 82,317 (50%) were Armenians, and, as Tsatur Aghayan noted, out of the indicated number of local Armenians, there were 25,151 (15%) of the total population , and the rest were immigrants from Persia and the Ottoman Empire.

In general, as a result of the Turkmenchay Treaty, 40,000 Armenian families moved from Persia to Azerbaijan within a few months. Then, relying on an agreement with the Ottoman Empire, in 1830 Russia moved another 12,655 Armenian families from Asia Minor to the Caucasus. In 1828-30, the empire moved another 84,600 families from Turkey to the Caucasus and placed some of them on the 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 counter flows were of a completely “legitimate” nature, since the official Russian authorities, while resettling Armenians in Northern Azerbaijan, did not prevent the Azeri Turks from leaving from here to Iranian and Ottoman lands. .

The largest resettlement was in 1893-94. Already in 1896, the number of Armenians who came reached 900 thousand. Due to the resettlement in Transcaucasia in 1908, the number of Armenians reached 1 million 300 thousand people, 1 million of 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, 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. Soviet power was established in Armenia. Despite this, the Armenians again raised the issue of dividing Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan. On July 27, 1921, the political and organizational bureau of the Central Committee of the AKP (b) considered the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh. This bureau did not agree with the proposal of the representative of Soviet Armenia A. Bekzadyan and stated that the division of the population by nationality and the annexation of part of it to Armenia, and the other to Azerbaijan, is not permissible, both from an administrative and economic point of view.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After the accession of Azerbaijan and Armenia to the UN and the OSCE, Armenia, declaring that it would follow the principles of these organizations, captured the city of Shusha. While a group of UN representatives was in Azerbaijan to collect facts testifying to Armenian aggression, Armenian troops captured the Lachin region, thereby connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. During an 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 education 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.

Armenian soldiers in positions in Nagorno-Karabakh

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict became one of the ethno-political conflicts of the second half of the 1980s on the territory of the then Soviet Union. The collapse of the Soviet Union led to large-scale structural shifts in the sphere of ethno-national relations. The confrontation between the national republics and the union center, which caused a systemic crisis and the beginning of centrifugal processes, revived the old processes of ethnic and national character. State-legal, territorial, socio-economic, geopolitical interests intertwined into one knot. The struggle of some republics against the union center in a number of cases turned into a struggle of autonomies against their republican "mother countries". Such conflicts were, for example, the Georgian-Abkhazian, Georgian-Ossetian, Transnistrian conflicts. But the most large-scale and bloody, which escalated into an actual war between two independent states, was the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region (NKAO), later the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR). In this confrontation, a line of ethnic confrontation of the parties immediately arose, and the warring parties were formed along ethnic lines: Armenian-Azerbaijanis.

The Armenian-Azerbaijani confrontation in Nagorno-Karabakh has a long history. It should be noted that the territory of Karabakh was annexed to the Russian Empire in 1813 as part of the Karabakh Khanate. Interethnic contradictions led to major Armenian-Azerbaijani clashes in 1905-1907 and 1918-1920. In May 1918, in connection with the revolution in Russia, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic appeared. However, the Armenian population of Karabakh, whose territory became part of the ADR, refused to obey the new authorities. Armed confrontation continued until the establishment of Soviet power in the region in 1920. Then the units of the Red Army, together with the Azerbaijani troops, managed to suppress the Armenian resistance in Karabakh. In 1921, by decision of the Caucasus Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh was left within the boundaries of the Azerbaijan SSR with broad autonomy granted. In 1923, the regions of the Azerbaijan SSR with a predominantly Armenian population were united into the Autonomous Region of Nagorno-Karabakh (AONK), which since 1937 became known as the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region (NKAO). At the same time, the administrative boundaries of the autonomy did not coincide with the ethnic ones. The Armenian leadership from time to time raised the issue of transferring Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, but in the center it was decided to establish the status quo in the region. Socio-economic tensions in Karabakh escalated into riots in the 1960s. At the same time, the Karabakh Armenians felt infringed on their cultural and political rights in the territory of Azerbaijan. However, the Azeri minority, both in the NKAR and within the Armenian SSR (which did not have its own autonomy), made counter accusations of discrimination.

Since 1987, the dissatisfaction of the Armenian population with their socio-economic situation has increased in the region. There were accusations against the leadership of the Azerbaijan SSR of maintaining the economic backwardness of the region, of infringing on the rights, culture and identity of the Armenian minority in Azerbaijan. In addition, the existing problems, previously hushed up, after Gorbachev came to power, quickly became the property of wide publicity. At the rallies in Yerevan, caused by dissatisfaction with the economic crisis, there were calls to transfer the NKAR to Armenia. Nationalist Armenian organizations and the nascent national movement fueled the protests. The new leadership of Armenia was openly opposed to the local nomenklatura and the ruling communist regime as a whole. Azerbaijan, in turn, remained one of the most conservative republics of the USSR. Local authorities, headed by H. Aliyev, suppressed all kinds of political dissent and remained loyal to the center to the last. Unlike Armenia, where most of the party functionaries expressed their readiness to cooperate with the national movement, the Azerbaijani political leadership was able to hold power until 1992 in the fight against the so-called. national democratic movement. However, the leadership of the Azerbaijan SSR, state and law enforcement agencies, using the old levers of influence, were not ready for the events in the NKAR and Armenia, which, in turn, provoked mass demonstrations in Azerbaijan, which created conditions for the uncontrolled behavior of the crowd. In turn, the Soviet leadership, who feared that the speeches in Armenia on the annexation of the NKAO, could lead not only to a revision of the national-territorial borders between the republics, but could also lead to the uncontrolled collapse of the USSR. The demands of the Karabakh Armenians and the public of Armenia were considered by him as manifestations of nationalism, contrary to the interests of the working people of the Armenian and Azerbaijan SSR.

During the summer of 1987 - winter of 1988. On the territory of the NKAR, mass protests of Armenians were held, demanding secession from Azerbaijan. In a number of places, these protests escalated into clashes with the police. At the same time, representatives of the Armenian intellectual elite, public, political and cultural figures tried to actively lobby for the reunification of Karabakh with Armenia. Signatures were collected among the population, delegations were sent to Moscow, representatives of the Armenian diaspora abroad tried to draw the attention of the international community to the aspirations of Armenians for reunification. At the same time, the Azerbaijani leadership, which declared the unacceptability of revising the borders of the Azerbaijan SSR, pursued a policy of using the usual levers to regain control over the situation. A large delegation of representatives of the leadership of Azerbaijan and the republican party organization was sent to Stepanakert. The group also included the heads of the Republican Ministry of Internal Affairs, the KGB, the Prosecutor's Office and the Supreme Court. This delegation condemned "extremist-separatist" sentiments in the region. In response to these actions, a mass rally was organized in Stepanakert on the reunification of the NKAR and the Armenian SSR. On February 20, 1988, the session of people's deputies of the NKAR addressed the leadership of the Azerbaijan SSR, the Armenian SSR and the USSR with a request to consider and positively resolve the issue of transferring the NKAO from Azerbaijan to Armenia. However, the Azerbaijani authorities and the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU refused to recognize the demands of the regional council of the NKAR. The central authorities continued to state that the redrawing of the borders was unacceptable, and calls for the entry of Karabakh into Armenia were declared the intrigues of "nationalists" and "extremists." Immediately after the appeal of the Armenian majority (Azerbaijani representatives refused to take part in the meeting) of the NKAR Regional Council about the separation of Karabakh from Azerbaijan, a slow slide to an armed conflict began. There were first reports of acts of interethnic violence in both ethnic communities. The explosion of the rally activity of the Armenians provoked a response from the Azerbaijani community. It came to clashes with the use of firearms and the participation of law enforcement officers. The first victims of the conflict appeared. In February, a mass strike began in the NKAO, which lasted intermittently until December 1989. On February 22-23, spontaneous rallies were held in Baku and other cities of Azerbaijan in support of the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the inadmissibility of revising the national-territorial structure.

The pogrom of Armenians in Sumgayit on February 27-29, 1988 became a turning point in the development of the ethnic conflict. According to official data, 26 Armenians and 6 Azerbaijanis were killed. Similar events took place in Kirovabad (now Ganja), where an armed crowd of Azerbaijanis attacked the Armenian community. However, the densely populated Armenians managed to fight back, which led to casualties on both sides. All this happened with the inaction of the authorities and the rule of law, as some eyewitnesses claimed. As a result of the clashes, flows of Azerbaijani refugees began to flow from the NKAO. Armenian refugees also appeared after the events in Stepanakert, Kirovabad and Shusha, when rallies for the integrity of the Azerbaijan SSR escalated into inter-ethnic clashes and pogroms. Armenian-Azerbaijani clashes also began on the territory of the Armenian SSR. The reaction of the central authorities was the change of party leaders in Armenia and Azerbaijan. On May 21, troops were brought into Stepanakert. According to Azerbaijani sources, the Azerbaijani population was expelled from several cities of the Armenian SSR, and as a result of the strike, obstacles were placed in the NKAR to local Azerbaijanis who were not allowed to work. In June-July, the conflict took on an inter-republican orientation. The Azerbaijan SSR and the Armenian SSR unleashed the so-called "war of laws". The Supreme Presidium of the AzSSR declared unacceptable the resolution of the regional council of the NKAR on secession from Azerbaijan. The Supreme Soviet of the Armenian SSR agreed to the entry of the NKAR into the Armenian SSR. In July, mass strikes began in Armenia in connection with the decision of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the territorial integrity of the Azerbaijan SSR. The allied leadership actually took the side of the Azerbaijan SSR on the issue of maintaining the existing borders. After a series of clashes in the NKAO, on September 21, 1988, a curfew and a special situation were introduced. Rally activity on the territory of Armenia and Azerbaijan led to outbreaks of violence against the civilian population and increased the number of refugees who formed two counter streams. In October and the first half of November, the tension increased. Thousands of rallies were held in Armenia and Azerbaijan, and representatives of the Karabakh party won the early elections to the Supreme Council of the Republic of the Armenian SSR, taking a radical position on the annexation of the NKAR to Armenia. The arrival in Stepanakert of members of the Council of Nationalities of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR did not bring any result. In November 1988, the accumulated discontent in society over the results of the policy of the republican authorities regarding the preservation of the NKAR resulted in thousands of rallies in Baku. The death sentence of one of the defendants in the Sumgayit pogrom case, Akhmedov, pronounced by the Supreme Court of the USSR, provoked a wave of pogroms in Baku, which spread to the whole of Azerbaijan, especially to cities with an Armenian population - Kirovabad, Nakhichevan, Khanlar, Shamkhor, Sheki, Kazakh, Mingachevir. The army and police in most cases did not interfere in the events. At the same time, shelling of border villages on the territory of Armenia began. A special situation was also introduced in Yerevan and rallies and demonstrations were banned, military equipment and battalions with special weapons were brought to the streets of the city. During this time, there is the most massive flow of refugees caused by violence both in Azerbaijan and in Armenia.

By this time, armed formations had begun to form in both republics. At the beginning of May 1989, the Armenians living north of the NKAO began to create the first combat detachments. In the summer of the same year, Armenia introduced a blockade of the Nakhichevan ASSR. As a response, the Popular Front of Azerbaijan imposed an economic and transport blockade on Armenia. On December 1, the Armed Forces of the Armenian SSR and the National Council of Nagorno-Karabakh at a joint meeting adopted resolutions on the reunification of the NKAR with Armenia. Since the beginning of 1990, armed clashes began - mutual artillery shelling on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Helicopters and armored personnel carriers were used for the first time during the deportation of Armenians from the Shahumyan and Khanlar regions of Azerbaijan by the Azerbaijani forces. On January 15, the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces declared a state of emergency in the NKAR, in the regions of the Azerbaijan SSR bordering it, in the Goris region of the Armenian SSR, as well as on the line of the state border of the USSR on the territory of the Azerbaijan SSR. On January 20, internal troops were brought into Baku to prevent the seizure of power by the Popular Front of Azerbaijan. This led to clashes resulting in up to 140 deaths. Armenian fighters began to penetrate into the settlements with the Azerbaijani population, committing acts of violence. Combat clashes between militants and internal troops became more frequent. In turn, units of the Azerbaijani OMON undertook actions to invade Armenian villages, which led to the death of civilians. Azerbaijani helicopters began shelling Stepanakert.

On March 17, 1991, an all-Union referendum on the preservation of the USSR was held, which was supported by the leadership of the Azerbaijan SSR. At the same time, the Armenian leadership, which adopted on August 23, 1990, the declaration of independence of Armenia, in every possible way prevented the holding of a referendum on the territory of the republic. On April 30, the so-called operation "Ring" began, carried out by the forces of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Internal Affairs and the internal troops of the USSR. The purpose of the operation was declared to be the disarmament of illegal armed formations of Armenians. This operation, however, led to the death of a large number of civilians and the deportation of Armenians from 24 settlements on the territory of Azerbaijan. Before the collapse of the USSR, the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict escalated, the number of clashes grew, the parties used various types of weapons. From December 19 to 27, the internal troops of the USSR were withdrawn from the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. With the collapse of the USSR and the withdrawal of internal troops from the NKAO, the situation in the conflict zone became uncontrollable. A full-scale war began between Armenia and Azerbaijan for the withdrawal of the NKAO from the latter.

As a result of the division of the military property of the Soviet army, withdrawn from Transcaucasia, the largest part of the weapons went to Azerbaijan. On January 6, 1992, the declaration of independence of the NKAR was adopted. Full-scale hostilities began with the use of tanks, helicopters, artillery and aircraft. The combat units of the Armenian armed forces and the Azerbaijani OMON alternately attacked enemy villages, inflicting heavy losses and damaging civilian infrastructure. On March 21, a temporary week-long truce was concluded, after which, on March 28, the Azerbaijani side launched the largest offensive against Stepanakert since the beginning of the year. The attackers used the Grad system. However, the assault on the NKAO capital ended in vain, the Azerbaijani forces suffered heavy losses, the Armenian military took up their original positions and pushed the enemy back from Stepanakert.

In May, Armenian armed formations attacked Nakhichevan, an Azerbaijani exclave bordering Armenia, Turkey and Iran. From the side of Azerbaijan shelling of the territory of Armenia was carried out. On June 12, the summer offensive of the Azerbaijani troops began, which lasted until August 26. As a result of this offensive, the territories of the former Shaumyan and Mardakert regions of the NKAO came under the control of the Azerbaijani armed forces for a short time. But it was a local success of the Azerbaijani forces. As a result of the Armenian counteroffensive, strategic heights in the Mardakert region were recaptured from the enemy, and the Azerbaijani offensive itself ran out of steam by mid-July. During the hostilities, weapons and specialists of the former USSR Armed Forces were used, mainly by the Azerbaijani side, in particular aviation, anti-aircraft installations. In September-October 1992, the Azerbaijani army made an unsuccessful attempt to block the Lachin corridor - a small section of the territory of Azerbaijan, located between Armenia and the NKAR, controlled by Armenian armed formations. On November 17, a full-scale offensive of the NKR army began on the Azerbaijani positions, which made a decisive turn in the war in favor of the Armenians. The Azerbaijani side refused to conduct offensive operations for a long time.

It is worth noting that from the very beginning of the military phase of the conflict, both sides began to accuse each other of using mercenaries in their ranks. In many cases, these accusations were confirmed. Afghan Mujahideen, Chechen mercenaries fought in the armed forces of Azerbaijan, including well-known field commanders Shamil Basayev, Khattab, Salman Raduyev. Turkish, Russian, Iranian and presumably American instructors also operated in Azerbaijan. Armenian volunteers who came from the Middle Eastern countries, in particular from Lebanon and Syria, fought on the side of Armenia. The forces of both sides also included former servicemen of the Soviet Army and mercenaries from the former Soviet republics. Both sides used weapons from the warehouses of the armed forces of the Soviet Army. In early 1992, Azerbaijan received a squadron of combat helicopters and attack aircraft. In May of the same year, the official transfer of weapons from the 4th Combined Arms Army to Azerbaijan began: tanks, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, artillery mounts, including Grad. By June 1, the Armenian side got tanks, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles and artillery also from the arsenal of the Soviet Army. The Azerbaijani side actively used aviation and artillery in the bombing of the settlements of the NKAR, the main purpose of which was the exodus of the Armenian population from the territory of the autonomy. As a result of raids and shelling of civilian objects, a large number of civilian casualties were noted. However, the Armenian air defense, initially rather weak, managed to withstand the air raids of the Azerbaijani aviation due to the increase in the number of anti-aircraft installations in the hands of the Armenians. By 1994, the first aircraft appeared in the armed forces of Armenia, in particular, thanks to Russia's assistance in the framework of military cooperation in the CIS.

After repulsing the Summer Offensive of the Azerbaijani troops, the Armenian side switched to active offensive operations. From March to September 1993, as a result of hostilities, Armenian troops managed to take a number of settlements in the NKAO controlled by Azerbaijani forces. In August-September, Russian envoy Vladimir Kazimirov secured a temporary ceasefire that was extended until November. At a meeting with Russian President B. Yeltsin, Azerbaijani President G. Aliyev announced his refusal to resolve the conflict by military means. Negotiations were held in Moscow between the Azerbaijani authorities and representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh. However, in October 1993, Azerbaijan violated the ceasefire and attempted an offensive in the southwestern sector of the NKAR. This offensive was repulsed by the Armenians, who launched a counteroffensive in the southern sector of the front and by November 1 occupied a number of key regions, isolating parts of the Zangilan, Jabrayil and Kubatli regions from Azerbaijan. The Armenian army, thus, occupied the regions of Azerbaijan to the north and south of the NKAO directly.

In January-February, one of the bloodiest battles took place at the final stage of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict - the battle for the Omar Pass. This battle began with the offensive in January 1994 of the Azerbaijani forces on the northern sector of the front. It is worth noting that the fighting took place in the devastated territory, where there were no civilians left, as well as in severe weather conditions, in the highlands. In early February, the Azerbaijanis came close to the city of Kelbajar, occupied a year earlier by Armenian forces. However, the Azerbaijanis failed to build on the initial success. On February 12, the Armenian units launched a counteroffensive, and the Azerbaijani forces had to retreat through the Omar Pass to their original positions. The losses of Azerbaijanis in this battle amounted to 4 thousand people, Armenians 2 thousand. The Kelbajar region remained under the control of the NKR defense forces.

On April 14, 1994, on the initiative of Russia and with the direct participation of the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia, the Council of the CIS Heads of State adopted a statement clearly posing the issue of a ceasefire as an urgent need for a settlement in Karabakh.

In April-May, the Armenian forces, as a result of an offensive in the Ter-Ter direction, forced the Azerbaijani troops to retreat. On May 5, 1994, at the initiative of the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly, the Parliament of Kyrgyzstan, the Federal Assembly and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, a meeting was held, following which representatives of the governments of Azerbaijan, Armenia and the NKR signed the Bishkek Protocol calling for a ceasefire on the night of May 8-9, 1994 of the year. On May 9, Vladimir Kazimirov, Plenipotentiary Envoy of the President of Russia in Nagorno-Karabakh, prepared an "Agreement on an indefinite ceasefire", which was signed on the same day in Baku by Azerbaijani Defense Minister M. Mammadov. On May 10 and 11, the "Agreement" was signed respectively by the Minister of Defense of Armenia S. Sargsyan and the Commander of the NKR Army S. Babayan. The active phase of the armed confrontation is over.

The conflict was "frozen", according to the agreements reached, the status quo was preserved following the results of hostilities. As a result of the war, the actual independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic from Azerbaijan and its control over the southwestern part of Azerbaijan up to the border with Iran was proclaimed. This included the so-called "security zone": five regions adjacent to the NKR. At the same time, five Azerbaijani enclaves are also controlled by Armenia. On the other hand, Azerbaijan retained control over 15% of the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

According to various estimates, the losses of the Armenian side are estimated at 5-6 thousand people killed, including among the civilian population. Azerbaijan lost between 4,000 and 7,000 people during the conflict, with the bulk of the losses falling on military units.

The Karabakh conflict has become one of the most bloody and large-scale in the region, yielding in terms of the amount of equipment used and human losses only to two Chechen wars. As a result of the hostilities, severe damage was inflicted on the infrastructure of the NKR and the adjacent regions of Azerbaijan, and caused an exodus of refugees, both from Azerbaijan and from Armenia. As a result of the war, the relationship between Azerbaijanis and Armenians was dealt a severe blow, and the atmosphere of hostility persists to this day. Diplomatic relations were never established between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the armed conflict was mothballed. As a result, isolated cases of combat clashes continue on the demarcation line of the warring parties at the present time.

Ivanovsky Sergey

In early August, there was an escalation in the tension of the conflict in the zone of Nagorno-Karabakh, which led to human casualties.

This confrontation has been going on since 1988. At the same time, since the beginning of the 20th century, the region of Nagorno-Karabakh twice became the scene of bloody Armenian-Azerbaijani clashes. AiF.ru talks about the history and causes of the intercommunal Karabakh conflict, which has long historical and cultural roots, and what led to its aggravation today.

History of the Karabakh conflict

The territory of modern Nagorno-Karabakh in the II century. BC e. was annexed to Greater Armenia and for about six centuries formed part of the province of Artsakh. At the end of the IV century. n. e., during the division of Armenia, this territory was included by Persia in its vassal state - Caucasian Albania. From the middle of the 7th century until the end of the 9th century, Karabakh fell under Arab rule, but in the 9th-16th centuries it became part of the Armenian feudal principality of Khachen. Until the middle of the 18th century, Nagorno-Karabakh was under the rule of the union of Armenian melikdoms of Khamsa. In the second half of the 18th century, Nagorno-Karabakh with a predominantly Armenian population entered the Karabakh khanate, and in 1813, as part of the Karabakh khanate, under the Gulistan peace treaty, it became part of the Russian Empire.

Karabakh Armistice Commission, 1918. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

At the beginning of the 20th century, the region with a predominantly Armenian population twice (in 1905-1907 and in 1918-1920) became the scene of bloody Armenian-Azerbaijani clashes.

In May 1918, in connection with the revolution and the collapse of Russian statehood, three independent states were proclaimed in Transcaucasia, including the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (mainly on the lands of the Baku and Elizavetpol provinces, the Zagatala district), which included the Karabakh region.

The Armenian population of Karabakh and Zangezur, however, refused to obey the ADR authorities. Convened on July 22, 1918 in Shusha, the First Congress of the Armenians of Karabakh proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh an independent administrative and political unit and elected its own People's Government (since September 1918 - the Armenian National Council of Karabakh).

Ruins of the Armenian quarter of the city of Shusha, 1920. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org / Pavel Shekhtman

The confrontation between the Azerbaijani troops and the Armenian armed groups continued in the region until the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan. At the end of April 1920, Azerbaijani troops occupied the territory of Karabakh, Zangezur and Nakhichevan. By mid-June 1920, the resistance of the Armenian armed groups in Karabakh was suppressed with the help of Soviet troops.

On November 30, 1920, Azrevkom, by its declaration, granted Nagorno-Karabakh the right to self-determination. However, despite the autonomy, the territory continued to remain the Azerbaijan SSR, which led to the tension of the conflict: in the 1960s, socio-economic tensions in the NKAO escalated into mass riots several times.

What happened to Karabakh during perestroika?

In 1987 - early 1988, the dissatisfaction of the Armenian population with their socio-economic situation intensified in the region, which was influenced by the policy of democratization of Soviet public life initiated by the President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev and the weakening of political restrictions.

Protest moods were fueled by Armenian nationalist organizations, and the actions of the emerging national movement were skillfully organized and directed.

The leadership of the Azerbaijan SSR and the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, for its part, tried to resolve the situation by using the usual command and bureaucratic levers, which turned out to be ineffective in the new situation.

In October 1987, student strikes took place in the region demanding the secession of Karabakh, and on February 20, 1988, the session of the regional Council of the NKAO appealed to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR with a request to transfer the region to Armenia. Thousands of nationalist rallies were held in the regional center, Stepanakert, and Yerevan.

Most of the Azerbaijanis living in Armenia were forced to flee. In February 1988, Armenian pogroms began in Sumgayit, thousands of Armenian refugees appeared.

In June 1988, the Supreme Council of Armenia agreed to the entry of the NKAR into the Armenian SSR, and the Azerbaijani Supreme Council agreed to the preservation of the NKAO as part of Azerbaijan, with the subsequent liquidation of autonomy.

On July 12, 1988, the regional council of Nagorno-Karabakh decided to withdraw from Azerbaijan. At a meeting on July 18, 1988, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR came to the conclusion that it was impossible to transfer the NKAO to Armenia.

In September 1988, armed clashes began between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, which turned into a protracted armed conflict, as a result of which there were large casualties. As a result of the successful military actions of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh in Armenian), this territory got out of the control of Azerbaijan. The decision on the official status of Nagorno-Karabakh was postponed indefinitely.

Speech in support of the secession of Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan. Yerevan, 1988 Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org / Gorzaim

What happened to Karabakh after the collapse of the USSR?

In 1991, full-fledged military operations began in Karabakh. Through a referendum (December 10, 1991), Nagorno-Karabakh tried to gain the right to full independence. The attempt failed, and this region became a hostage to the antagonistic claims of Armenia and Azerbaijan's attempts to retain power.

The result of full-scale military operations in Nagorno-Karabakh in 1991 - early 1992 was the complete or partial capture of seven Azerbaijani regions by regular Armenian units. Following this, military operations using the most modern weapons systems spread to internal Azerbaijan and the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

Thus, until 1994, Armenian troops occupied 20% of the territory of Azerbaijan, destroyed and plundered 877 settlements, while the death toll was about 18 thousand people, and more than 50 thousand were wounded and disabled.

In 1994, with the help of Russia, Kyrgyzstan, as well as the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the CIS in Bishkek, Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan signed a protocol, on the basis of which an agreement was reached on a ceasefire.

What happened in Karabakh in August 2014?

In the zone of the Karabakh conflict at the end of July - in August 2014, there was a sharp escalation of tension, which led to human casualties. On July 31 of this year, skirmishes took place between the troops of the two states on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, as a result of which servicemen from both sides died.

A stand at the entrance to the NKR with the inscription "Welcome to Free Artsakh" in Armenian and Russian. 2010 Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org / lori-m

What is Azerbaijan's version of the conflict in Karabakh?

According to Azerbaijan, on the night of August 1, 2014, reconnaissance and sabotage groups of the Armenian army made an attempt to cross the line of contact between the troops of the two states in the territories of the Aghdam and Terter regions. As a result, four Azerbaijani servicemen were killed.

What is Armenia's version of the conflict in Karabakh?

According to official Yerevan, everything happened exactly the opposite. The official position of Armenia says that an Azerbaijani sabotage group penetrated the territory of the unrecognized republic and fired at the Armenian territory from artillery and small arms.

At the same time, Baku, according to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Edward Nalbandian, does not agree to the proposal of the world community to investigate incidents in the border zone, which means, therefore, in the opinion of the Armenian side, it is Azerbaijan that is responsible for the violation of the truce.

According to the Armenian Defense Ministry, only during the period of August 4-5 this year, Baku resumed shelling the enemy about 45 times, using artillery, including large-caliber weapons. There were no casualties from Armenia during this period.

What is the version of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) about the conflict in Karabakh?

According to the Defense Army of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), in the week from July 27 to August 2, Azerbaijan violated the truce regime established since 1994 in the conflict zone in Nagorno-Karabakh 1.5 thousand times, as a result of actions on both sides, about 24 people died. Human.

Currently, the exchange of fire between the parties is carried out, including with the use of large-caliber small arms and artillery - mortars, anti-aircraft guns and even thermobaric grenades. Shelling of border settlements also became more frequent.

What is Russia's reaction to the conflict in Karabakh?

The Russian Foreign Ministry regarded the aggravation of the situation, "which entailed significant human casualties," as a serious violation of the 1994 ceasefire agreements. The agency urged "to show restraint, refrain from using force and take immediate measures aimed at stabilizing the situation".

What is the US reaction to the conflict in Karabakh?

The US State Department, in turn, called for the ceasefire to be respected, and for the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to meet at the earliest opportunity and resume dialogue on key issues.

"We also urge the parties to accept the OSCE Chairman-in-Office's proposal to start negotiations that could lead to the signing of a peace agreement," the State Department said.

It is noteworthy that on August 2 Prime Minister of Armenia Hovik Abrahamyan stated that the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan and the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev may meet in Sochi on August 8 or 9 this year.