History of Karabakh

Karabakh is one of the oldest historical regions of Azerbaijan. The name of Karabakh, which is an integral part of Azerbaijan, is derived from the words "black" and "bag" in the Azerbaijani language. The word combination "black" and "garden" has a history as old as the Azerbaijani people themselves. It is also an undeniable fact that this word combination is related to the specific territory of Azerbaijan all over the world. The word "Karabakh" given by the Azerbaijani people to a piece of their native land was used in the first sources as early as 1300 years ago (from the 7th century!). Karabakh previously referred to a specific place as a historical-geographic concept, and then it was related to the vast geographical area of Azerbaijan. By the way, this situation is typical for Azerbaijan: Nakhchivan city - Nakhchivan region, Sheki city - Sheki region, Ganja city - Ganja region, Lankaran city - Lankaran region, etc. The history of the formation of "Karabakh" as the name of a specific province, a region of Azerbaijan allows for a more scientific explanation of its etymology. Because in the Azerbaijani language (as well as in other Turkic languages), "black" has other meanings besides color: "dense", "thick", "big", "dark" and others. In this regard, the term "Karabakh" means "black garden", i.e. "big garden", "dense garden", "thick garden", "smelly garden", etc. makes sense. Thus, like Karabakh itself, the word "Karabagh" belongs to the Azerbaijani people. The modern state of Azerbaijan takes its roots from the state of Caucasian Albania. The area currently known as Nagorno-Karabakh was once a part of that state. According to ancient sources, the ethnic composition of Albania consisted of 26 ethnic groups belonging to the local Caucasian and Turkic peoples. Albania had a rich and rare culture, it had an alphabet of 52 letters. In 313 AD, Christianity was declared the state religion in Albania, and an independent Albanian church began to function. Tense and complex conditions did not allow the long-term independence of Albania. In 705 AD, the state of Albania joined the Arab Caliphate. After that, the Caliphate, which formed an alliance with the Armenians against Byzantium, made the Albanian Church dependent on the Armenian Gregorian Church in order to break the close ties between Albania and Byzantium. During the Middle Ages, Karabakh was a part of the state ruled by the Turkic Muslim dynasties that existed in the current territory of Azerbaijan, and Turkic-speaking peoples settled there. The 18th century is marked by the establishment of the Karabakh Khanate, headed by the Javanshirs, a Turkic (Azerbaijani) dynasty. It was the Azerbaijan Khanate, where the hereditary dynastic tradition of Azerbaijani nobles prevailed, and Azerbaijanis dominated among the ethnic dynasties that settled here. After the Treaty of Kurekchay (1805) signed between the Karabakh Khanate and the Russian Empire, the Khanate was forced to come under the rule of the Russian Empire. After occupying the entire Caucasus region, the Russian Empire began to implement the "divide and conquer" policy by various means in order to establish and strengthen its control over the territory. The resettlement of Armenians from Iran and the Ottoman Empire to Karabakh and thereby artificially changing the demographic situation in the region was part of the large-scale measures taken in this area. After the Russian-Iranian (1806-1813, 1826-1828) and Russian-Ottoman (1828-1829) wars, the ethnic composition of the territory was completely changed. During the years 1828-1830 alone, more than 40,000 Armenians from Iran and 84,600 from the Ottoman Empire were resettled in Azerbaijan. In 1828, by order of the Russian tsar, an Armenian province was established on the territory of the occupied Azerbaijani khanates (Iravan and Nakhchivan). It was intended to create a state entity between the two conflicting parties at the back door of the Ottoman Empire and to separate the Turkic-speaking peoples from each other. After the signing of the 1813 Gulustan and 1828 Turkmenchai agreements on the division of Azerbaijani territories between Iran and Russia, he began to implement the plan to establish an "Armenian state" with the aim of creating a buffer zone in the ancient Azerbaijani lands. 300 years ago, the Russian emperor Peter I, who was thinking about the contours of the future empire, instructed the messengers he sent to the south: "We should try to collect them (Armenians) and bring them to our lands so that they become a base for Russia." For this purpose, up to 300,000 Armenians living in the territory of Iran and Turkey were transferred to Azerbaijan in the first half of the 19th century and settled in Iravan (now Yerevan), Nagorno-Karabakh, Nakhchivan, Zangezur, Darelayaz, Ordubad, Vedibasar and other areas. However, despite the relocation of Armenians to the territories of Azerbaijan, Azerbaijanis had a numerical superiority over Armenians in these territories. For example, in 1886, out of 326 villages in Zangezur district of Ganja province, only 81 were Armenian villages. 66 percent of the population in Iravan region were Azerbaijanis, and 34 percent were Armenians. In order for Armenians to form a majority in these areas, a genocidal policy was resorted to against Azerbaijanis, Armenians were secretly armed by tsarist Russia, and military units were formed. The massive removal of Azerbaijanis from the territory of present-day Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, violence against the civilian population, atrocities took place with the patronage and help of the Russian government at the beginning of the 20th century, especially in 1905-1907. In the Zangezur, Iravan, Nakhchivan, Ordubad, Gazakh, Karabakh provinces of Azerbaijan, hundreds of villages were burned, and the population, from children to adults, was mercilessly murdered. In March 1918, Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Russian Bolsheviks, appointed Bolshevik Stepan Shaumyan as the extraordinary commissioner of the Caucasus and sent him to Baku. In the name of seizing power in Baku, the Bolsheviks created conditions for the secret intentions of the armed forces of the Armenian Dashnaks. On March 31, a mass massacre of Azerbaijanis began in Baku. According to Stepan Shaumyan's confession, six thousand armed soldiers of the Baku Soviet, as well as 3-4 thousand armed detachments of the "Dashnaksutyun" party took part in the massacre of peaceful Azerbaijanis. During the massacre, which lasted for three days, the Armenian armed forces, with the help of the Bolsheviks, made sudden raids on the neighborhoods where Azerbaijanis lived and killed the population, from children to adults. A German with the surname Kulner, who witnessed those terrible days, wrote the following about the Baku events in 1925: "Armenians broke into the Muslim (Azerbaijani) neighborhoods and killed everyone, dismembered them with swords, and pierced them with bayonets. A few days after the massacre, a corpse was taken out of a hole. 87 bodies of Azerbaijanis had their ears and noses cut off, their stomachs ripped open, and their genitals chopped off. Armenians did not show mercy to children, nor did they show mercy to the elderly." In general, during the two massacres that took place in the Transcaucasia in the first half of the 20th century (1905-1907, 1918-1920), about 2 million Azerbaijanis were killed by Armenians and forcibly expelled from their homes. During the March massacre, the corpses of 57 Azerbaijani women with their ears and noses cut off and their bellies torn were found in one place of Baku. The fact that young women were nailed alive to the wall, and the burning of the city hospital where two thousand people were trying to take refuge from the Armenian attack are also among these terrible facts. In order to shoot the population trying to escape and save their lives, the Armenians had previously placed machine guns in the relevant parts of the city. The genocide of Dashnaks against Azerbaijanis was not limited to Baku. In a short time, Azerbaijanis were massacred in Shamakhi, Guba, Iravan, Zangezur, Karabakh, Nakhchivan, and Kars. In March-April 1918, up to 8 thousand civilians were killed in Shamakhi. Most cultural monuments, including the Shamakhi Juma Mosque, were burned and blown up. 28 villages of Javanshir district and 17 villages of Jabrayil district were completely burned and their population was destroyed. On April 29, 1918, near Gyumri, a 3,000-person Azerbaijani emigration, consisting mainly of women, children and the elderly, was ambushed and destroyed to the last person. Armenian armed groups burned several villages of Nakhchivan district, 115 Azerbaijani villages were destroyed in Zangezur district, 3257 men, 2276 women and 2196 children were killed. In total, 10,068 Azerbaijanis were killed or maimed in this accident, and 50,000 Azerbaijanis became refugees. 135,000 Azerbaijanis living in 199 villages of Iravan province were destroyed, and the villages were razed to the ground. Armenian armed groups then marched to Karabakh, between 1918 and 1920, 150 villages were destroyed in the mountainous part of Karabakh, and their population was destroyed. (Government of ADR, from the materials of the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry). In May 1920, more than 12 thousand Azerbaijanis were killed in Ganja with the participation of Armenians and the XI Red Army. During the Tehran conference of 1943, when the Soviet-Iranian relations were being discussed, the Armenian diaspora asked the USSR Foreign Minister V. Molotov to transfer the Armenians living in Iran to the USSR. In Tehran, Molotov brought the matter to the chairman of the Central Committee of the CPSU, I.Stalin, and the relocation of the Armenians was agreed. G. Arutyunov, secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia, took advantage of this and achieved a decision on the forced removal of Azerbaijanis from Armenia under the pretext of the migration of Armenians abroad to Armenia. On December 23, 1947, the Council of Ministers of the USSR issued a decision "On the transfer of collective farmers and other Azerbaijani population from the Armenian SSR to the Kur-Araz plain of the Azerbaijan SSR". During the next deportation of Azerbaijanis carried out by Stalin in 1948-1953, the issue that Armenians particularly focused on was the evacuation of economically, socially and morally strong, strategically important Azerbaijani settlements. For this reason, at the first stage, the settlements near the city of Irevan (present-day Yerevan) were cleared of Azerbaijanis, and then the population of the district centers, surrounding villages and settlements was relocated. Part of the deported population lives in the mountainous regions of Armenia, so it is difficult for them to get used to the climatic conditions of the Kura-Araz plain. For this reason, mass deaths were recorded among tens of thousands of Azerbaijanis who were transferred to Kura-Araz lowland. On the other hand, not a single person transferred from Armenia was allowed to the Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh territory. On the contrary, in the direction of the implementation of the idea of "Great Armenia", the work of emptying this territory from Azerbaijanis continued in a planned manner, and in 1949, 132 families (549 people) were transferred from Nagorno-Karabakh to the Khanlar region of Azerbaijan under the name of internal transfer. At the same time, the operation of renaming Azerbaijani settlements, closing educational and cultural centers, and unifying regions was carried out. In 1947-1953, 60 localities where Azerbaijanis lived changed their names. In general, in 1921-1988, the names of hundreds of settlements of Turkish origin were changed in Armenia. The cunning of the Armenians during the deportation was that the population of the regions and cities was transferred with the condition that a small number of Azerbaijanis remained. The remaining minority population was expelled from the country at the next stage - during the operation to completely "cleanse" the territory of Armenia from Azerbaijanis. Armenian claims against Azerbaijani lands, including Nagorno-Karabakh, are part of their strategic plans aimed at creating "Greater Armenia". Therefore, Armenians, being loyal to their "traditions", always started to fight for the realization of this plan as soon as favorable conditions arose. In 1985, when the pro-Armenian M.S. Gorbachev came to power in the USSR, the Armenian separatists became active again. This time, it became clear that the Soviet leadership protected and protected the armed Armenian separatists-terrorists. In order to implement the secret plan regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Province, M.S. Gorbachov removed Heydar Aliyev from the Politburo as the first step. Shortly after that, in November 1987, the Armenian academician A. Aganbekyan, who joined Gorbachev's team, stated that he made a proposal to the Soviet leadership about Nagorno-Karabakh in Paris, and hoped to find a solution to this problem in the conditions of reconstruction and democracy. The Armenian "Karabakh Committee", which used to operate secretly, its separatist-terrorist organization "Krunk" in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region, went to open work, and the "Miatsum" (Unification) movement was formed. This movement relied on the potential of Armenia, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Province, the Moscow leadership, the USSR and Armenians of the world. Events took a more aggressive course from February 1988. In February, a wave of separatist and Armenian nationalist rallies began in Yerevan and Stepanakert. On February 20, the session of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Province Council appealed to the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR to review the status of the province. This fact showed that the Armenians changed their tactics compared to November 1945. They were able to create a wrong opinion about Nagorno-Karabakh in the world community thanks to their intensive propaganda during the period after World War II and with the help of the strong Armenian diaspora in foreign countries. That's why this time they decided to take their claims to the streets behind closed doors. The leadership of Azerbaijan at that time and the general public were unprepared for the new tactics of the Armenian separatists and their defenders. The killing of two Azerbaijani youths and wounding of 19 people by Armenian separatists-terrorists in Askeran region on February 24 did not result in the preparation of a political line against the plans of Armenians. At the end of February, in Sumgait, a large industrial city of Azerbaijan, pre-planned plots were committed with the participation of Armenian special services and USSR State Security agencies. Soon it became clear why the events of Sumgait were committed. As previously planned, this event was immediately used against the Azerbaijanis living in Armenia and for the removal of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region from the Azerbaijan SSR. "On March 10, 4 residents of the village of Mehmandar belonging to Azerbaijanis, south of Yerevan, were killed. On March 25, more than 100 houses were looted and burned in the Azerbaijani villages of Ararat region, and their inhabitants were expelled. In the middle of May, Azerbaijani villages near Yerevan were raided again...." Armenian brutalities and genocides against Azerbaijanis, repeated many times in history, began to rage again. During this period, when separatist-terrorist Armenian atrocities were taking place, it was also clearly revealed that the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet government were not interested in a realistic assessment of the situation. The decision of March 24, 1988 "On measures to accelerate the socio-economic development of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region of the Azerbaijan SSR in 1988-1995" was deliberately aimed at covering up the fact that the issue was an act of separatism. Such support further encouraged the Armenian separatists and increased their aggression. The leadership of Azerbaijan, led by A. Vazirov, who showed meekness in front of Moscow, was betraying his people and making concessions to the aggressor. Finally, Moscow took another step towards removing the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region from the Azerbaijan SSR: the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a decision on January 12, 1989 "On the introduction of a special form of governance in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region of the Azerbaijan SSR." . The goal was clear: the Special Management Committee established in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Province was supposed to ensure that the Autonomous Province was taken from Azerbaijan and transferred to Armenia. However, as a result of the democratic struggle of the Azerbaijani people who understood this, the Special Management Committee was abolished on November 28. However, a new institution - the Organization Committee - was created instead. Taking advantage of this situation, the Armenian SSR adopted an unconstitutional decision on the annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia on December 1. This was an open legal act of interference by Armenia against the territorial integrity of the Azerbaijan SSR. Moscow, as expected, turned a blind eye to the fact of this rude intervention. With this, the situation became more acute. This time, the leadership of the USSR, led by Gorbachev, committed a more terrible crime against Azerbaijan. Baku was chosen as the main target. The Soviet state violated its constitutional obligation to its citizens and sent a large contingent of troops armed with the most modern equipment and weapons and committed a bloody massacre in Baku on the night of January 19-20, 1990. Armenian soldiers and officers were widely used as manpower in the Baku massacre. However, the January 20 massacre could not break the will of the Azerbaijani people, on the contrary, it strengthened the struggle for the independence and territorial integrity of the republic. On the morning of January 20 massacre, Heydar Aliyev, who came to the Azerbaijani representation in Moscow and resolutely exposed the criminal acts of the Soviet leadership, stood in front of this just struggle of the Azerbaijani people - the Liberation War. On August 30, 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR adopted a statement on the restoration of state independence, and on October 18, the Constitutional Act on state independence was adopted. Armenian separatists of Nagorno-Karabakh also continued their political organization using the situation. In September 1991, they announced the creation of a puppet organization called the "Nagorno-Karabakh Republic". The Republic of Azerbaijan refused to recognize that institution, and on November 26, the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Province was canceled. With the collapse of the USSR at the end of 1991, new geopolitical conditions emerged in the former Soviet space. Armenia, in fact, started an open and unjust war against Azerbaijan. The military units of Armenia violated the borders of Azerbaijan and entered Karabakh and joined with the Armenian separatists-terrorists of Nagorno-Karabakh and started the occupation of Azerbaijani lands. Institute of History named after A. Bakikhanov of ANAS COMMENCEMENT OF THE CONFLICT Armenian claims against Azerbaijani lands, including Nagorno-Karabakh, are part of their strategic plans aimed at creating "Greater Armenia". Therefore, Armenians, being loyal to their "traditions", always started to fight for the realization of this plan as soon as favorable conditions arose. In 1985, when the pro-Armenian M.S. Gorbachev came to power in the USSR, the Armenian separatists became active again. This time, it became clear that the Soviet leadership protected and protected the armed Armenian separatists-terrorists. In order to implement the secret plan regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Province, M.S. Gorbachov, as the first step, removed Heydar Aliyev, who was the most powerful obstacle in front of him, from the Political Bureau of the CPSU. Shortly after that, Armenian academician A. Aganbekyan, who joined Gorbachev's team in November 1987, stated that he made a proposal to the Soviet leadership about Nagorno-Karabakh in Paris, and hoped that this problem would be solved under the conditions of reconstruction and democracy. The Armenian "Karabakh Committee", which used to operate secretly, its separatist-terrorist organization "Krunk" in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region, went to open work, and the "Miatsum" (Unification) movement was formed. This movement relied on the potential of Armenia, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Province, the Moscow leadership, the USSR and Armenians of the world. Events took a more aggressive course from February 1988. In February, a wave of separatist and Armenian nationalist rallies began in Yerevan and Stepanakert. On February 20, the session of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Province Council appealed to the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR to review the status of the province. This fact showed that the Armenians changed their tactics compared to November 1945. They were able to create a wrong opinion about Nagorno-Karabakh in the world community thanks to their intensive propaganda during the period after World War II and with the help of the strong Armenian diaspora in foreign countries. That's why this time they decided to take their claims to the streets behind closed doors. The leadership of Azerbaijan at that time and the general public were unprepared for the new tactics of the Armenian separatists and their defenders. The killing of two Azerbaijani youths and wounding of 19 people by Armenian separatists-terrorists in Askeran region on February 24 did not result in the preparation of a political line against the plans of Armenians. At the end of February, in Sumgait, a large industrial city of Azerbaijan, pre-planned plots were committed with the participation of Armenian special services and USSR State Security agencies. Soon it became clear why the events of Sumgait were committed. As previously planned, this event was immediately used against the Azerbaijanis living in Armenia and for the removal of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region from the Azerbaijan SSR. "On March 10, 4 residents of the village of Mehmandar belonging to Azerbaijanis, south of Yerevan, were killed. On March 25, more than 100 houses were looted and burned in the Azerbaijani villages of Ararat region, and their inhabitants were expelled. In the middle of May, Azerbaijani villages near Yerevan were raided again...." Armenian brutalities and genocides against Azerbaijanis, repeated many times in history, began to rage again. During this period, when separatist-terrorist Armenian atrocities were taking place, it was also clearly revealed that the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet government were not interested in a realistic assessment of the situation. The decision of March 24, 1988 "On measures to accelerate the socio-economic development of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region of the Azerbaijan SSR in 1988-1995" was deliberately aimed at covering up the fact that the issue was an act of separatism. Such support further encouraged the Armenian separatists and increased their aggression. The leadership of Azerbaijan, led by A. Vazirov, who showed meekness in front of Moscow, was betraying his people and making concessions to the aggressor. Finally, Moscow took another step towards removing the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region from the Azerbaijan SSR: the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a decision on January 12, 1989 "On the introduction of a special form of governance in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region of the Azerbaijan SSR." . The goal was clear: the Special Management Committee established in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Province was supposed to ensure that the Autonomous Province was taken from Azerbaijan and transferred to Armenia. However, as a result of the democratic struggle of the Azerbaijani people who understood this, the Special Management Committee was abolished on November 28. However, a new institution - the Organization Committee - was created instead. Taking advantage of this situation, the Armenian SSR adopted an unconstitutional decision on the annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia on December 1. This was an open legal act of interference by Armenia against the territorial integrity of the Azerbaijan SSR. Moscow, as expected, turned a blind eye to the fact of this rude intervention. With this, the situation became more acute. This time, the leadership of the USSR, led by Gorbachev, committed a more terrible crime against Azerbaijan. Baku was chosen as the main target. The Soviet state violated its constitutional obligation to its citizens and sent a large contingent of troops armed with the most modern equipment and weapons and committed a bloody massacre in Baku on the night of January 19-20, 1990. Armenian soldiers and officers were widely used as manpower in the Baku massacre. However, the January 20 massacre could not break the will of the Azerbaijani people, on the contrary, it strengthened the struggle for the independence and territorial integrity of the republic. On the morning of January 20 massacre, Heydar Aliyev, who came to the Azerbaijani representation in Moscow and resolutely exposed the criminal acts of the Soviet leadership, stood in front of this just struggle of the Azerbaijani people - the Liberation War. On August 30, 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR adopted a statement on the restoration of state independence, and on October 18, the Constitutional Act on state independence was adopted. Armenian separatists of Nagorno-Karabakh also continued their political organization using the situation. In September 1991, they announced the creation of a puppet organization called the "Nagorno-Karabakh Republic". The Republic of Azerbaijan refused to recognize that institution, and on November 26, the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Province was canceled. With the collapse of the USSR at the end of 1991, new geopolitical conditions emerged in the former Soviet space. Armenia, in fact, started an open and unjust war against Azerbaijan. The military units of Armenia violated the borders of Azerbaijan and entered Karabakh and joined with the Armenian separatists-terrorists of Nagorno-Karabakh and started the occupation of Azerbaijani lands.