Karabakh movement


The Karabakh movement, also known as the Artsakh movement, was a national liberation movement in Soviet Socialist Republic|Armenia] and Nagorno-Karabakh from 1988 to 1991 that advocated for the reunification of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast – an autonomous enclave within Soviet Azerbaijan – with Soviet Armenia. The movement was motivated by fears of cultural and physical erasure under Anti-Armenian sentiment in Azerbaijan#Suppression of [Armenian culture in Nagorno-Karabakh|government policies from Azerbaijan]. Throughout the Soviet period, Azerbaijani authorities implemented policies aimed at suppressing Armenian culture and diluting the Armenian majority in Nagorno-Karabakh through various means, including border manipulations, encouraging the exodus of Armenians, and settling Azerbaijanis in the region. In the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, Armenians protested against Azerbaijan's cultural and economic marginalization
Armenians had petitioned Soviet authorities to transfer the mostly Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast in Azerbaijan to Armenia. By 1988, nearly one million Armenians from several regions of the republic engaged in regular demonstrations, centered on Yerevan's Theater Square.
The Karabakh Committee, a group of ethnic Armenian intellectuals from Nagorno-Karabakh, led the movement from 1988 to 1989. The movement transformed into the Pan-Armenian National Movement by 1989 and won majority in the 1990 parliamentary election. In 1991, both Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence from the Soviet Union. A referendum in 1988 was held to transfer the region to Soviet Armenia, citing self-determination laws in the Soviet constitution. This act was met with a series of pogroms against Armenians across Azerbaijan, and in November 1991, the Azerbaijani government passed a motion aimed at abolishing the autonomy of the NKAO and prohibiting the use of Armenian placenames in the region. By 1992, the conflict escalated into the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.
Up until the 2018 Armenian Revolution, the Karabakh Movement was the largest mass movement in Armenian history. Azerbaijan's inability to suppress the Karabakh Movement has significantly influenced Azeri nationalism, which is widely considered institutionally anti-Armenian.

Background

During the Soviet Era, the Armenians of Nakhichevan and of Lachin were subjected to gradual ethnic cleansing by Soviet Azeri authorities resulting in the exodus of all Armenians from the region. During the Soviet Era, Armenians were scapegoated for state, societal and economic shortcomings in Azerbaijan. The Karabakh Movement is characterized as a struggle for national liberation by both Armenians and others.
Building on these grievances, Armenian intellectuals within the Karabakh Movement also rejected the long-standing belief that Armenia’s membership of the USSR was necessary for protection against Turkey. Up until Armenia's incorporation into the Soviet Union, the Republic of Turkey and its Ottoman predecessor had aimed at eliminating Armenia and transforming it into a Turkish protectorate or vassal state. Led by figures such as Levon Ter-Petrosyan and Vazgen Manukyan, Armenian intellectuals aimed for complete independence and the possibility of peaceful coexistence with neighboring states, marking a fundamental shift in Armenian political thought.

Suppression of Armenian culture in Nagorno-Karabakh

Although the Karabakh Movement came to a flashpoint in 1988, its origins date back to the 1920s, during which it was suppressed by the Soviet authorities. Between 1921 and 1990, under the control of the Azerbaijan SSR within the USSR, Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh faced economic marginalization, deportation, and cultural discrimination, leading to a significant exodus. Meanwhile, authorities encouraged the inflow of Azeris from outside Nagorno-Karabakh. This policy – sometimes called a "White [genocide (Armenians)|White Genocide]" – aimed at "de-Armenizing" the territory culturally and then physically and followed a similar pattern to Azerbaijan's treatment of Armenians in Nakhchivan.
The suppression of Armenian language and culture was widespread; many Armenian churches, cemeteries, and schools were closed or destroyed, clerics arrested, and Armenian historical education was banned. The Armenian educational institutions that remained were under the administration of the Azeri Ministry of Education, which enforced prohibitions against teaching Armenian history and using Armenian materials and led to a curriculum that significantly differed from that of Armenia itself. Moreover, restrictions limited cultural exchanges and communication between Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians and Armenia, with significant neglect in transportation and communication infrastructure.
The Azerbaijani government's decree in 1957 that Azerbaijani was to be the main language and the alteration of educational content to favor Azerbaijani history over Armenian exemplify the systemic efforts to assimilate the Armenian population culturally. The 1981 "law of the NKAO" denied additional rights, restricted cultural connections between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, and removed provisions that had explicitly listed Armenian as a working language to be used by local authorities. Resentment against what was perceived as a forced "Azerification" campaign led to a mass movement for reunification with Armenia.

Response in Azerbaijan

Soviet Azerbaijani authorities categorically rejected petitions made by the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh to secede, declaring the unanimous vote made by the enclave's legislature in June 1988 to be "null and void." The Karabakh Movement was met with extreme violence from Azerbaijani authorities and civilians, escalating tensions and culminating in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. The anti-Armenian violence between 1988 and 1992, described by Genocide Watch as a "campaign of terror," heightened fears of another Armenian genocide, leading to the flight of 350,000 Armenians from Azerbaijan.
Between 1988 and 1992, Azerbaijani authorities and civilians engaged in actions to accelerate the elimination of Armenians and settle Azerbaijanis in their place. Notable instances include pogroms in Sumgait, Kirovabad, and Baku, as well as Operation Ring, and the Maraga Massacre. The journalist De Waal stated that the Popular Front of Azerbaijan was responsible for the mass pogrom in Baku, as they shouted "Long live Baku without Armenians!" The anti-Armenian pogroms in Azerbaijan involved elements of premeditation, such as the use of lists to target Armenians specifically and hand-made weapons. The perpetrators targeted the victims based solely on their Armenian ethnicity. The apartments of Armenians were attacked and the residents were indiscriminately murdered, raped, and mutilated by the Azerbaijani rioters. Looting, arson and destruction of Armenian property was also perpetrated. Azerbaijani authorities took no action to stop the atrocities, and the failure to conduct a timely, thorough investigation or hold the perpetrators accountable, further escalated tensions. Many of those who participated in the massacre were later hailed as national heroes. Following the devastating 1988 Spitak earthquake in Armenia, which killed tens of thousands, multiple countries sent humanitarian aid, while pianist Evgeny Kissin claimed that Azerbaijan sent only crutches and coffin nails.
Russian political writer Roy Medvedev and USSR Journalists' Union described the pogroms as a genocide against Armenians. Sociologist Donald E. Miller and historian Richard Hovannisian, note that the 1988 pogroms against Armenians, while horrific, only explained the mass flight of Armenians when seen as a precursor to genocide, as many who fled left behind well-established homes, jobs, and property. Many observers compared the plight of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh with those that were persecuted in Turkey and Azerbaijan during the Armenian Genocide. In 1989, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov wrote "the Armenian people are again facing the threat of genocide...for Nagorno-Karabakh this is a question of survival, for Azerbaijan—just a question of ambition."
In 1990, a group of 130 prominent academics — including Jacques Derrida, Isaiah Berlin, Alain Finkielkraut, Richard Rorty — published a letter condemning anti-Armenian violence in Azerbaijan. They warned that "flagrant violations of human rights a half century after the genocide of the Jewish people in Nazi concentration camps" reflected the enduring threat of racism and called for international action. Citing repeated attacks that "followed the same pattern," the signatories argued these were no "accidents or spontaneous outbursts," but that "crimes against the Armenian minority have become consistent practice – if not consistent policy – in Soviet Azerbaijan." Azeri academic Ziya Bunyadov, gained notoriety for his article "Why Sumgait?" in which he blamed the Armenian victims themselves for orchestrating the pogrom—a stance that led British journalist Thomas de Waal, to describe him as "Azerbaijan’s foremost Armenophobe."
In November 1991, the Azerbaijani government passed a motion to abolish the autonomy of the NKAO and facilitate a form of culturally motivated ethnic cleansing by enforcing the exclusive use of Azerbaijani placenames for the cities of Stepanakert, Mardakert, and Martuni. In 1991, two groups of independent international experts visited the Caucasus and concluded that Azerbaijan was the primary aggressor in the conflict, aiming to ethnically cleanse Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh. The experts cited several reasons for their conclusion: the brutal deportations, the blockades of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, and the use of particular military equipment against civilians and civilian areas.

Miatsum

Miatsum was a concept and a slogan used during the Karabakh movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which led to the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1992–1994.

Timeline

1987

1988

  • February 13: First demonstration in Stepanakert. Traditionally considered the start of the movement.
  • February 18–26: Major demonstrations held in Yerevan for the unification of the NKAO with Soviet Armenia.
  • February 20: The NKAO Supreme Council issued a request to transfer the region to Soviet Armenia.
  • February 22–23: Local Armenians and Azerbaijanis clash in Askeran, resulting in several deaths
  • February 26: Demonstrations paused after Mikhail Gorbachev's asked for time to develop a position.
  • February 27–29: Sumgait pogrom starts, Armenians of Azerbaijan start to leave in large numbers
  • March 9: Gorbachev meets with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan Karen Demirchyan and Kamran Baghirov in Moscow to discuss the public demands of unification of the NKAO with Soviet Armenia
  • March 22: Over 100,000 people discontented with the tendencies demonstrate in Yerevan.
  • March 23: The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union rejects the demand of NKAO Regional Party.
  • March 25: Gorbachev rejects Armenian claims, forbade demonstrations in Yerevan.
  • March 26: Despite not being authorized by the Moscow government, tens of thousands demonstrate in Yerevan.
  • March 30: NKAO Communist Party adopts a resolution demanding unification.
  • April 24: Hundreds of thousands of Armenians march to the genocide memorial in Yerevan.
  • May 21: Karen Demirchyan resigns.
  • May 28: Flag of Armenia first raised in front of Matenadaran.
  • June 12, the legislature of Nagorno-Karabakh unanimously votes to secede from Azerbaijan and to reunify with Soviet Armenia
  • June 13: the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR refuses the request.
  • June 14: A general strike occurs in Yerevan, closing all businesses and schools, in support of the Armenian legislature.
  • June 15: Soviet Armenian Supreme Council votes in favor of the unification of NKAO.
  • June 17: Soviet Azerbaijani Supreme Council opposes the transfer of NKAO to Armenia.
  • June 28–29: Conference of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union disapproves Armenian claims to NKAO.
  • July 5: Zvartnots Airport clash, the Soviet troops confronted by protesters in Zvartnots Airport, one man left dead, tens injured.
  • July 12–13: NKAO Soviet Council votes in favor of unification with Armenia.
  • July 18: Soviet Supreme Council refuses Armenian claims.
  • July 21: Paruyr Hayrikyan deported to Ethiopia.
  • Autumn: Around 167,000 Azerbaijanis of Armenia start to leave in large numbers.
  • September: State of emergency declared in Stepanakert after Armenian and Azerbaijanis clash.
  • November: Kirovabad pogrom
  • November 7: Hundreds of thousands demonstrate in Yerevan to support the Karabakh Committee.
  • November 22: Soviet Armenian Supreme Council recognizes the Armenian Genocide.
  • November 24: State of emergency declared in Yerevan.
  • December 7: Armenian earthquake.
  • December 10: Karabakh Committee members arrested, sent to Moscow.

1989

1990

1991