Last update: 04/02/2016

Violent clashes broke out in Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed region on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, on Saturday night. using "all kinds of weapons". The Azerbaijani authorities, in turn, claim that the clashes began after shelling from Nagorno-Karabakh. Official Baku stated that the Armenian side violated the ceasefire regime 127 times over the past day, including using mortars and heavy machine guns.

AiF.ru talks about the history and causes of the 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 initiated Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev the policy of democratization of Soviet public life and the relaxation 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 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone 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 action aimed at."

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 8 or 9 August this year.

It is hard to believe, but Armenians and Azerbaijanis have been killing and hating each other for decades because of a small geographical area with a total area of ​​just under four and a half thousand square kilometers. This region is divided into mountainous, where the majority of the population were Armenians, and plains, where Azerbaijanis predominated. The peak of skirmishes between nations came at the time of the collapse of the Russian Empire and the civil war. After the Bolsheviks won, and Armenia and Azerbaijan became part of the USSR, the conflict was frozen for many years.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a total area of ​​just under four and a half thousand square kilometers // Photo: inosmi.ru

By the decision of the Soviet authorities, Nagorno-Karabakh became part of Azerbaijan. The Armenian population could not come to terms with this for a long time, but they did not dare to resist this decision. All manifestations of nationalism were severely suppressed. And yet, the local population always said that it was part of the USSR, and not the Azerbaijan SSR.

Perestroika and Chardakhlu

Even in Soviet times, skirmishes on ethnic grounds took place in Nagorno-Karabakh. However, the Kremlin did not attach any importance to this. After all, there was no nationalism in the USSR, and Soviet citizens were a single people. Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika, with its democratization and glasnost, unfrozen the conflict.

No dramatic events took place on the disputed territory itself, unlike the village of Chardakhlu in the Azerbaijan SSR, where a local party leader decided to change the head of the collective farm. The former head of the Armenian was shown the door and an Azerbaijani was appointed instead of him. This did not suit the residents of Chardakhlu. They refused to recognize the new boss, for which they were beaten, and some were arrested on false charges. This situation again did not cause any reaction from the center, but the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh began to resent what the Azerbaijanis were doing to the Armenians. After this, the demands to annex Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia began to sound very loud and persistent.

The position of the authorities and the first blood

At the end of the 1980s, Armenian delegations rushed to Moscow, trying to explain to the center that Nagorno-Karabakh was a primordially Armenian territory, which, by a huge mistake, was annexed to Azerbaijan. The leadership was asked to correct the historical injustice and return the region to its homeland. These requests were reinforced by mass rallies in which the Armenian intelligentsia took part. The Center listened attentively, but was in no hurry to make any decisions.

Requests to return Nagorno-Karabakh to their homeland were reinforced by mass rallies in which the Armenian intelligentsia took part. The center listened attentively, but was in no hurry to make any decisions // Photo: kavkaz-uzel.eu

Meanwhile, in Nagorno-Karabakh, aggressive sentiments against the neighbor grew by leaps and bounds, especially among young people. The last straw was the campaign of Azerbaijanis against Stepanakert. Its participants sincerely believed that Armenians were brutally killing Azerbaijanis in the largest city of Nagorno-Karabakh, which in fact was not even close to true. The crowd of distraught avengers was met by a police cordon near Askeran. During the suppression of the rebellion, two Azerbaijanis were killed. These events led to mass pogroms in Sumgayit, a satellite city of Baku. Azerbaijani nationalists killed twenty-six Armenians and inflicted various injuries on hundreds. It was possible to stop the pogrom only after the introduction of troops into the city. After that, war became inevitable.

A crisis

The pogrom in Sumgayit led to the fact that the Azerbaijanis threw everything they had acquired and fled from Armenia, fearing death. The same was done by the Armenians, who ended up in Azerbaijan by the will of fate. The real hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh began in 1991 after the collapse of the USSR and the declaration of independence by Azerbaijan and Armenia. Nagorno-Karabakh also declared itself a sovereign state, but none of the foreign countries was in a hurry to recognize its independence.

In the nineties, gangs began an open war in Nagorno-Karabakh, and the number of victims went from dozens to hundreds. The Karabakh war flared up with renewed vigor after the troops of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, which had ceased to exist, were withdrawn from the disputed territory, which until the last did not allow the massacre to begin. The armed conflict lasted for three years and was stopped by the signing of a ceasefire agreement. More than thirty thousand people became victims in this war.

Our days

Despite the truce, skirmishes in Nagorno-Karabakh did not stop. Neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan wanted to cede the disputed territory. This situation led to an extraordinary growth of nationalism. A neutral rather than hateful comment about a neighbor was viewed with suspicion.

TBILISI, April 3 - Sputnik. The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan began in 1988, when the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan SSR. Negotiations on a peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict have been held since 1992 within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a historical region in Transcaucasia. The population (as of January 1, 2013) is 146.6 thousand people, the vast majority are Armenians. The administrative center is the city of Stepanakert.

Background

Armenian and Azerbaijani sources have different points of view on the history of the region. According to Armenian sources, Nagorno-Karabakh (ancient Armenian name - Artsakh) at the beginning of the first millennium BC. was part of the political and cultural sphere of Assyria and Urartu. First mentioned in the cuneiform writing of Sardur II, king of Urartu (763-734 BC). In the early Middle Ages, Nagorno-Karabakh was part of Armenia, according to Armenian sources. After most of this country was captured by Turkey and Persia in the Middle Ages, the Armenian principalities (melikdoms) of Nagorno-Karabakh retained a semi-independent status. In the 17th-18th centuries, the princes of Artsakh (meliks) led the liberation struggle of Armenians against the Shah's Persia and Sultan's Turkey.

According to Azerbaijani sources, Karabakh is one of the most ancient historical regions of Azerbaijan. According to the official version, the appearance of the term "Karabakh" dates back to the 7th century and is interpreted as a combination of the Azerbaijani words "gara" (black) and "bag" (garden). Among other provinces, Karabakh (Ganja in Azerbaijani terminology) was part of the Safavid state in the 16th century, and later became an independent Karabakh khanate.

In 1813, according to the Gulistan peace treaty, Nagorno-Karabakh became part of Russia.

In early May 1920, Soviet power was established in Karabakh. On July 7, 1923, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region (AO) was formed from the mountainous part of Karabakh (part of the former Elizavetpol province) as part of the Azerbaijan SSR with the administrative center in the village of Khankendy (now Stepanakert).

How did the war start

On February 20, 1988, an extraordinary session of the regional Council of Deputies of the NKAO adopted a decision "On a petition to the Supreme Soviets of the AzSSR and the ArmSSR on the transfer of the NKAR from the AzSSR to the ArmSSR."

The refusal of the allied and Azerbaijani authorities caused demonstrations of protest by Armenians not only in Nagorno-Karabakh, but also in Yerevan.

On September 2, 1991, a joint session of the Nagorno-Karabakh regional and Shahumyan regional councils took place in Stepanakert, which adopted a Declaration on the proclamation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic within the borders of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region, the Shaumyan region and part of the Khanlar region of the former Azerbaijan SSR.

On December 10, 1991, a few days before the official collapse of the Soviet Union, a referendum was held in Nagorno-Karabakh, in which the vast majority of the population - 99.89% - voted for complete independence from Azerbaijan.

Official Baku recognized this act as illegal and abolished the autonomy of Karabakh that existed in the Soviet years. Following this, an armed conflict began, during which Azerbaijan tried to keep Karabakh, and the Armenian detachments defended the independence of the region with the support of Yerevan and the Armenian diaspora from other countries.

Victims and losses

The losses of both sides during the Karabakh conflict amounted, according to various sources, to 25 thousand people were killed, more than 25 thousand were injured, hundreds of thousands of civilians left their places of residence, more than four thousand people are missing.

As a result of the conflict, Azerbaijan lost over Nagorno-Karabakh and, in whole or in part, seven regions adjacent to it.

Negotiation

On May 5, 1994, through the mediation of Russia, Kyrgyzstan and the Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS in the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek, representatives of Azerbaijan, Armenia, the Azerbaijani and Armenian communities of Nagorno-Karabakh signed a protocol calling for a ceasefire on the night of May 8-9. This document entered the history of the settlement of the Karabakh conflict as the Bishkek Protocol.

The negotiation process to resolve the conflict began in 1991. Since 1992, negotiations have been underway on a peaceful settlement of the conflict within the framework of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France. The group also includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Finland and Turkey.

Since 1999, regular bilateral and trilateral meetings of the leaders of the two countries have been held. The last meeting of the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia, Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan, within the framework of the negotiation process on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, took place on December 19, 2015 in Bern (Switzerland).

Despite the confidentiality surrounding the negotiation process, it is known that they are based on the so-called updated Madrid principles, transmitted by the OSCE Minsk Group to the parties to the conflict on January 15, 2010. The main principles of the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, called Madrid, were presented in November 2007 in the capital of Spain.

Azerbaijan insists on maintaining its territorial integrity, Armenia defends the interests of the unrecognized republic, since the NKR is not a party to the negotiations.

The war in Nagorno-Karabakh is smaller than the Chechen one, with about 50,000 deaths, but the duration of this conflict is longer than all the Caucasian wars of recent decades. So, today it is worth remembering why Nagorno-Karabakh became known to the whole world, the essence and causes of the conflict, and what the latest news is from this region.

Prehistory of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh

The prehistory of the Karabakh conflict is very long, but in short, its cause can be expressed as follows: Azerbaijanis, who are Muslims, have long begun to argue over territory with Armenians, who are Christians. It is difficult for a modern layman to understand the essence of the conflict, since killing each other because of nationality and religion in the 20-21st century, yes, as well as because of the territory, is complete idiocy. Well, you don’t like the state within whose borders you find yourself, pack your bags, but go to Tula or Krasnodar to sell tomatoes - you are always welcome there. Why war, why blood?

The scoop is to blame

Once, under the USSR, Nagorno-Karabakh was included in the Azerbaijan SSR. By mistake or not by mistake, it doesn’t matter, but the Azerbaijanis had paper on land. Probably, it would be possible to agree peacefully, dance a collective lezginka and treat each other with watermelon. But it was not there. The Armenians did not want to live in Azerbaijan, to accept its language and legislation. But they didn’t really intend to dump to Tula to sell tomatoes or to their own Armenia. Their argument was ironclad and quite traditional: “Didas lived here!”.

The Azerbaijanis also did not want to give up their territory, they also had didas living there, and there was also paper on the ground. Therefore, they did exactly the same as Poroshenko in Ukraine, Yeltsin in Chechnya and Snegur in Transnistria. That is, they sent in troops to restore constitutional order and protect the integrity of the borders. The first channel would call it a Bandera punitive operation or an invasion of blue fascists. By the way, the well-known hotbeds of separatism and wars, the Russian Cossacks, actively fought on the side of the Armenians.

In general, the Azerbaijanis started shooting at the Armenians, and the Armenians at the Azerbaijanis. In those years, God sent a sign to Armenia - the Spitak earthquake, in which 25,000 people died. Well, it seems like the Armenians would have taken it and left for the vacant place, but they still really did not want to give the land to the Azerbaijanis. And so they shot at each other for almost 20 years, signed all sorts of agreements, stopped shooting, and then started again. The latest news from Nagorno-Karabakh is still periodically full of headlines about shootings, killed and wounded, that is, although there is no big war, it is smoldering. In 2014, with the participation of the OSCE Minsk Group, together with the United States and France, a process was launched to resolve this war. But this did not bear fruit either - the point continues to be hot.

Everyone probably guesses that there is a Russian trace in this conflict. Russia really could have settled the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh a long time ago, but it is unprofitable for it. Formally, it recognizes the borders of Azerbaijan, but it helps Armenia - just as duplicitously as in Transnistria!

Both states are very dependent on Russia and the Russian government does not want to lose this dependence. Both countries have Russian military installations - in Armenia, the base in Gyumri, and in Azerbaijan - the Gabala radar station. Russian Gazprom deals with both countries, buying gas for supplies to the EU. And if one of the countries comes out from under Russian influence, it will be able to become independent and rich, what good else will it join NATO or hold a gay parade. Therefore, Russia is very interested in the weak countries of the CIS, and that is why it supports death, war and conflicts there.

But as soon as the power changes, Russia will unite with Azerbaijan and Armenia within the EU, tolerance will come in all countries, Muslims, Christians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Russians will hug each other and will visit each other.

In the meantime, the percentage of hatred for each other among Azerbaijanis and Armenians is simply off scale. Get yourself a VK account under an Armenian or Azeri, chat, and just be amazed at how serious the split is.

I would like to believe that maybe even after 2-3 generations this hatred will subside to nothing.

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” the Armenian state of Tigran I, which once existed in Asia Minor (now Turkey) for only a few decades, at the expense of the Caucasian lands.

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

During the 17th - early 19th centuries, the Russian Empire waged eight wars with the Ottoman Empire, as a result of which Russia became the mistress of three seas - the Caspian, Azov, Black - took possession of the Caucasus, Crimea, gained advantages in the Balkans. The territory of the Russian Empire expanded further in the Caucasus after the end of the Russian-Persian wars of 1804-1813 and 1826-1828. All this could not but affect the change in the orientation of the Armenians, who, with each new victory of Russian weapons, were more and more inclined to the side of Russia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A special danger for the Azerbaijani khanates was Persia, where in 1794, Agha Mohammed-Khan Qajar of Azerbaijani origin, 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 oncoming flows were of a completely “legitimate” nature, since the official Russian authorities, resettling Armenians in Northern Azerbaijan, did not prevent the Azeri Turks from leaving from here to Iranian and Ottoman borders. .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On July 15, 1920, at a meeting of the Central Committee of the Azerbaijan Communist Party (b), a decision was made to annex Karabakh and Zangezur to Azerbaijan. But the situation did not develop in favor of Armenia, and on December 2, 1920, the Dashnak government, without resistance, transferred power to the Military Revolutionary Committee, headed by the Bolsheviks. 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 public life, we perfectly understood that such a small, poor, ruined and cut off from the rest of the world country like Armenia cannot become truly independent and self-sufficient; that a support is needed, some kind of external force... There are two real forces today, and we must reckon with them: these forces are Russia and Turkey. By coincidence, today our country is entering the Russian orbit and is more than adequately secured against the invasion of Turkey... The issue of expanding our borders can only be resolved by relying on Russia.”

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

But this did not dampen the appetites of the ideologists of Armenian national separatism. In Soviet times, the leaders of the Armenian SSR repeatedly in the 1950-1970s. appealed to the Kremlin with requests and even demands to transfer the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region (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 secession of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Dashnaktsutyun party became active again: at its 23rd Congress in 1985 in Athens, it decided to consider “the creation of a united and independent Armenia” as its primary task and to implement this slogan at the expense of Nagorno-Karabakh, Nakhchivan (Azerbaijan) and Javakheti (Georgia). As always, the Armenian Church, the nationalist-minded layers of the intelligentsia and the foreign diaspora were involved in the implementation of the idea. As the Russian researcher S.I. Chernyavsky later noted: « Unlike Armenia, Azerbaijan did not 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, which were silent when the Armenian nationalists expelled Azerbaijanis from Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, suddenly “woke up” and raised hysteria about the “Armenian pogroms” in Azerbaijan. The leadership of the USSR openly accepted the position of Armenia, and sought to blame Azerbaijan for everything. The main target of the Kremlin authorities was the growing national liberation movement of the Azerbaijani people. On the night of January 19-20, 1990, the Soviet government, headed by Gorbachev, committed a criminal act, terrible in its cruelty, in Baku. As a result of this criminal operation, 134 civilians were killed, 700 people were injured, 400 people went missing.

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

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

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

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

The Armenian side used prohibited chemical weapons against the peaceful Azerbaijani population. In the situation of the virtual absence of serious external support from the 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 thousand civilians were killed, about 50 thousand people were injured, 4 thousand people were taken prisoner, 88 thousand residential areas, more than a thousand economic facilities, 250 schools and educational institutions were destroyed.

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

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

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

In the occupied territories, they destroyed about 4 thousand industrial and agricultural facilities with a total area of ​​6 million square meters. m, about a thousand educational institutions, about 180 thousand apartments, 3 thousand cultural and educational centers and 700 medical institutions. 616 schools, 225 kindergartens, 11 vocational schools, 4 technical schools, 1 higher 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, 1 million Azerbaijanis were killed during the 20th century, and 1.5 million Azerbaijanis were expelled from Armenia.

Armenia organized mass terror on Azerbaijani soil: explosions in buses, trains, and the Baku metro 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.