Karabakh movement

Not to be confused with Armenian national movement (1862–1921).

Karabakh movement
Part of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, First Nagorno-Karabakh War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union
The first major demonstration in Stepanakert, 13 February 1988
Date13 February 1988 — 30 April 1991
Location
Armenian SSR (mainly Yerevan)
Nagorno-Karabakh AO (mainly Stepanakert)
GoalsSelf-determination for the Karabakh Armenians, unification of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia
MethodsDemonstrations, sit-ins, strikes, hunger strike, student protest, civil disobedience
Resulted inEstablishment of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
Escalation of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War
Parties
Lead figures
Number

Yerevan:
200,000 (24-25 February 1988)[2][3]
1 million (26 February 1988)[4][3]
300,000 (May 1988)[5]
400,000 (January 1990)[6]
Stepanakert:

100,000 (25 February 1988)[3]
120,000 (26 February 1988)[3]

The Karabakh movement (Armenian: Ղարաբաղյան շարժում "Gharapaghyan sharjhum"), also known as the Artsakh movement[7][8] (Armenian: Արցախյան շարժում), was a national liberation movement[9][10][11][12] in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh from 1988 to 1991 that advocated for the reunification of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) – an autonomous enclave within Soviet Azerbaijan – with Soviet Armenia. The movement was motivated by fears of cultural and physical erasure under government policies from Azerbaijan.[13][14][15] 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,[16][17][18] encouraging the exodus of Armenians, and settling Azerbaijanis in the region.[19][20] In the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, Armenians protested against Azerbaijan's cultural and economic marginalization[21][22][23] The concept of reunification (“Miatsum”) was so deeply embedded among Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh that the region was almost universally regarded as an integral part of Armenia rather than a distinct entity.[24]

Armenians had petitioned Soviet authorities to transfer the mostly Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) 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 (today Freedom Square).[25]

The Karabakh Committee, a group of ethnic Armenian intellectuals from Armenia along with the Karabakh-based local group "Krunk", led the movement.[26] After 1989, the movement transformed into the Pan-Armenian National Movement (HHSh) 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.[a] 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.[28] Initially, the movement relied on non-violent means, including petitions, marches, vigils, hunger strikes, demonstrations, and general strikes, and was met with anti-Armenian violence.[29][30] By 1992, the conflict had escalated into the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.

Up until the 2018 Armenian Revolution, the Karabakh Movement was the largest mass movement in Armenian history.[31][32] It was also the largest instance of public mobilization in the Soviet Union since its formative years in the 1920s.[33][34][35] At one point in the movement, up to a million protestors were mobilized in Yerevan.[36][37]

Azerbaijan's inability to suppress the Karabakh Movement has significantly influenced Azeri nationalism,[38] which is widely considered institutionally anti-Armenian.[39][40][41]

Background

See also: Anti-Armenian sentiment in Azerbaijan

During the Soviet Era, the Armenians of Nakhichevan[42] and of Lachin[43] were subjected to gradual ethnic cleansing by Soviet Azeri authorities[44][45][46] 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.[47][41] The Karabakh Movement is characterized as a struggle for national liberation by both Armenians[48][49][50] and others.[26][9][10][11] The concept of reunification (“Miatsum”) was so deeply embedded among Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh that the region was almost universally regarded as an integral part of Armenia rather than a distinct entity.[24] Nagorno-Karabakh was unique in the Soviet Union as the only autonomous region whose ethnic majority matched that of a neighboring republic (Armenia) but was not allowed to join it.[51]

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[52][53][54][55] and transforming it into a Turkish protectorate or vassal state.[56][57] 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.[58]

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.[59] For decades, an underground movement in Nagorno-Karabakh sought unification with Armenia. During periods of political easing or major change in the USSR—such as in 1945, 1965, and 1977—Armenians submitted letters and petitions to Moscow requesting that Nagorno-Karabakh be transferred to Soviet Armenia.[60]

Between 1921 and 1990, under the control of the Azerbaijan SSR within the USSR, Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh faced economic marginalization, deportation,[61][62] and cultural discrimination,[63] leading to a significant exodus.[64][65] Meanwhile, authorities encouraged the inflow of Azeris from outside Nagorno-Karabakh.[66] This policy – sometimes called a "White Genocide"[67][68][69] – aimed at "de-Armenizing" the territory culturally and then physically and followed a similar pattern to Azerbaijan's treatment of Armenians in Nakhchivan.[70] Census data from the Soviet period reflects these demographic shifts. The city of Shusha—once a major center of Armenian cultural life within Nagorno-Karabakh—became overwhelmingly Azerbaijani. In 1959, Armenians constituted 84.4% of Nagorno-Karabagh’s population; twenty years later, their share had fallen to 76%.[71]

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.[72] 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.[70][73][74] Moreover, restrictions limited cultural exchanges and communication between Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians and Armenia, with significant neglect in transportation and communication infrastructure.[64] Health clinics were restricted from Armenian villages and limited to Azerbaijani villages.[75]

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.[13] 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.[76] Resentment against what was perceived as a forced "Azerification" campaign led to a mass movement for reunification with Armenia.[77][78][79]

Escalation of movement in 1988

The beginning of the movement is widely considered to have escalated on February 13 when the first major demonstration occurred in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh.[80][81] Several hundred Karabakh Armenians held an unsanctioned rally in Lenin Square calling for unification with Armenia. Addressing the crowd, actress Zhanna Galstian said she felt happy "because by coming out here, the Karabakhi has killed the slave in himself," prompting chants of "Miatsum!" ("Unity!").[34] On 15 February 1988, during a gathering of the Armenian Writers’ Union—one of the most vocal organizations in the country—the poet Silva Kaputikian voiced her backing for the Armenians of Karabakh.[82] On 20 February 1988, just before the Regional Soviet convened in Stepanakert, 30,000 people gathered in protest in Freedom Square, and the crowd doubled each day. By 22 February, the protests in Stepanakert exceeded 100,000, rose to about 300,000 the following day, and a transport strike was launched in Yerevan.[83] The unprecedented mass rallies swept both the Armenian SSR and the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, marking the largest public mobilization seen in the Soviet Union since the 1920s.[33]

On 20 February 1988, the Soviet of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region voted 110-17 in favor of uniting with Armenia.[84] adopting a resolution "welcoming the wishes of the workers" and calling on higher authorities to show "deep understanding of the aspirations of the Armenian population."[34] Though couched in formal language, the measure effectively sought the region’s transfer from Soviet Azerbaijan to Soviet Armenia, amounting to a challenge to established Soviet internal borders. According to the journalist Thomas de Waal, this resolution was "truly revolutionary" since "the Karabakh Armenians were, in effect, making politics from below for the first time in the Soviet Union since the 1920s."[34]

In March 1988, Armenian radicals created "Krunk"—named after the crane as a symbol of longing for Armenia—and it became the first organization in the late Soviet Union to deploy strikes as a political weapon. Levon Ter-Petrosian, the first prime minister of Armenia, later acknowledged that unification with Armenia was the catalyst of the 1988 movement but not necessarily its ultimate objective. He described a split between early activists who sought to resolve Karabakh within the Soviet system and those who concluded that the system itself had to be transformed in order to solve the issue.

In the first half of 1988, strikes shut down factories in Nagorno-Karabakh and started to disrupt the tightly interconnected Soviet command economy.[85]

Response by the central government of the Soviet Union

The central Soviet government responded to the Karabakh Movement by attempting to contain the crisis without altering republican borders, pairing limited administrative and economic measures with growing reliance on force. In July 1988, the USSR Supreme Soviet’s Presidium rejected demands to transfer Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan to Armenia on constitutional grounds. As violence escalated, Moscow deployed internal troops and security forces, imposed emergency measures in affected areas, and in 1991 participated in Operation Ring—a joint Soviet–Azerbaijani campaign that involved mass arrests and the forced removal of Armenian villagers from multiple settlements within Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding areas. The USSR never recognized either unification with Armenia or Nagorno-Karabakh’s independence.

The Politburo initially rejected the demands of the Regional Soviet of Nagorno-Karabakh and portrayed the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh as disloyal "extremists." The Politburo’s adviser on nationalities, Vyacheslav Mikhailov, later stated, "This was something completely new for us." The movement came from within a Soviet institution, and Karabakh Armenians argued they were simply reviving Lenin’s slogan, "All power to the Soviets."[86]

On 3 March 1988, Mikhail Gorbachev (the leader of the Soviet Union) told the Politburo that it had failed to recognize clear warning signs. He noted that although the Central Committee had received five hundred letters about Nagorny Karabakh over three years, they were met with only routine replies and little real attention;[87] however, declassified records from June 1988 suggest that Gorbachev never planned to transfer Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, yet he hesitated to firmly oppose the Armenian demonstrators.[88]

After Azerbaijan engaged in anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgait, Moscow dismissed local officials, initiated prosecutions, expanded the use of internal security forces, and later replaced the first secretaries of both Armenia and Azerbaijan, while relying on emergency governance tools such as curfews and restrictions on gatherings.[89] In July 1988, the central government publicly reaffirmed its position in a Supreme Soviet presidium session, rejecting the transfer of Nagorno-Karabakh while acknowledging grievances and promising Union-level involvement. After that, Moscow pursued a practical workaround: it increased direct central oversight in Karabagh by sending Arkady Volsky with extraordinary authority, reducing effective Azerbaijani control without formally altering jurisdiction, and in January 1989 it formalized this approach by placing the region under a special administration responsible to the central government.[90] At the same time, the Soviet authorities acted against Armenian movement leaders and organizations through denunciations, investigations, and arrests—steps that intensified under emergency conditions following the December 1988 earthquake.[91]

Response in Azerbaijan

The sudden events in Nagorno-Karabakh in February 1988 surprised Azerbaijan, revealing both its underlying insecurities and a longstanding lack of awareness of how deeply Armenians cared about the region.[92] 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."[93][94] 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,"[95] heightened fears of another Armenian genocide,[96][97][98] leading to the flight of 350,000 Armenians from Azerbaijan.[99][100][101]

Between 1988 and 1992, Azerbaijani authorities and civilians engaged in actions to accelerate the elimination of Armenians and settle Azerbaijanis in their place.[102][14][103] Notable instances include pogroms in Sumgait (1988),[104][105][106] Kirovabad (1988),[107] and Baku (1990),[108][109] as well as Operation Ring (1991),[110][111] and the Maraga Massacre (1992).[112] The journalist De Waal stated that the Popular Front of Azerbaijan (forerunner of the Azerbaijani Popular Front Party) was responsible for the mass pogrom in Baku, as they shouted "Long live Baku without Armenians!"[113] The anti-Armenian pogroms in Azerbaijan involved elements of premeditation, such as the use of lists to target Armenians specifically and hand-made weapons.[114][115][116] The perpetrators targeted the victims based solely on their Armenian ethnicity.[117][118] The apartments of Armenians (which were marked in advance) were attacked and the residents were indiscriminately murdered, raped, and mutilated by the Azerbaijani rioters.[119][120][121] Looting, arson and destruction of Armenian property was also perpetrated.[122] Azerbaijani authorities took no action to stop the atrocities,[123] and the failure to conduct a timely, thorough investigation or hold the perpetrators accountable,[124][125] further escalated tensions.[126] Many of those who participated in the massacre were later hailed as national heroes.[127][128][129] 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.[130][131][132][133]

Russian political writer Roy Medvedev and USSR Journalists' Union described the pogroms as a genocide against Armenians.[134][135] 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.[136] Many observers compared the plight of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh with those that were persecuted in Turkey and Azerbaijan during the Armenian Genocide.[137][138][139] 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."[140]

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."[141] 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."[142]

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.[28] 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.[143][144] 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.[145][146]

Leaders and prominent voices in the movement

The leaders of the movement included people from the Karabakh Committee as well as others.

The Karabakh Committee was formed in May 1988 and comprised activists, demonstration-organizers, professors, and environmentalists.[147]

  • Levon Ter-Petrosyan
  • Vazgen Manukyan
  • Vano Siradeghyan
  • Babken Ararktsyan
  • Ashot Manucharyan
  • David Vardanyan
  • Rafael Ghazaryan
  • Hambardzum Galstyan
  • Silva Kaputikyan
  • Arkady Manucharov
  • Robert Kocharyan
  • Serzh Sargsyan

Miatsum

Main article: Miatsum

Miatsum (Armenian: Միացում, romanized: Unification)[148] was a concept and a slogan[149][150] used during the Karabakh movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which led to the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1992–1994.[151]

Timeline

1987

1988

  • February 13: First demonstration in Stepanakert.[80] Traditionally considered the start of the movement.[81] Approximately 8,000 people attend the demonstration.[37]
  • February 18–26: Major demonstrations held in Yerevan for the unification of the NKAO with Soviet Armenia.[154] By 20 February, 30,000 people gathered in protest in Freedom Square in Yerevan, Armenia with the crowd doubling each day.[83][37]
  • February 20: The NKAO Supreme Council issued a request to transfer the region to Soviet Armenia.[155]
  • February 22–23: Local Armenians and Azerbaijanis clash in Askeran, resulting in several deaths. By 22 February, the protests in Yerevan, Armenia rose to between 300,000 to one million the following day, and a transport strike was launched in Yerevan.[83][37]
  • February 26: Demonstrations paused after Mikhail Gorbachev's asked for time to develop a position.[156]
  • February 27–29: Sumgait pogrom starts, Armenians of Azerbaijan start to leave in large numbers[156]
  • 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[157]
  • March 22: Over 100,000 people discontented with the tendencies demonstrate in Yerevan.[158]
  • March 23: The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union rejects the demand of NKAO Regional Party.[158]
  • March 25: Gorbachev rejects Armenian claims, forbade demonstrations in Yerevan.[158]
  • March 26: Despite not being authorized by the Moscow government, tens of thousands demonstrate in Yerevan.[159]
  • March 30: NKAO Communist Party adopts a resolution demanding unification.[159]
  • April 24: Hundreds of thousands of Armenians march to the genocide memorial in Yerevan.[159]
  • May 12-16: A general strike is launched in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh that forces the shutdown of factories and public transportation.[160]
  • May 21: Karen Demirchyan resigns.
  • May 28: Flag of Armenia first raised in front of Matenadaran.[161]
  • June 4-15: Peaceful protests intensify in Yerevan and Stepanakert, with hundreds of students staging hunger strikes and sit-ins demanding reunification talks and an impartial All-Union review of the Sumgait trials.[37]
  • June 12, the legislature of Nagorno-Karabakh unanimously votes to secede from Azerbaijan and to reunify with Soviet Armenia[94]
  • June 13: the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR refuses the request.[162]
  • June 14: A general strike occurs in Yerevan, closing all businesses and schools, in support of the Armenian legislature.[94] A demonstration of 100,000 continues in Yerevan.[94]
  • June 15: Soviet Armenian Supreme Council votes in favor of the unification of NKAO.[161]
  • June 17: Soviet Azerbaijani Supreme Council opposes the transfer of NKAO to Armenia.[161]
  • June 28–29: Conference of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union disapproves Armenian claims to NKAO.[161]
  • July 5: A general strike is announced. Strikers demand the resolution of the Karabakh question and transfer of the trials of those involved in the Sumgait pogrom from Azerbaijan to the USSR Supreme Court.[163] There is a clash at Zvartnots Airport, between the Soviet troops and protesters in Zvartnots Airport, leaving one man left dead, and tens injured.[164][165]
  • July 12–13: NKAO Soviet Council votes in favor of unification with Armenia.[164][155]
  • July 18: Soviet Supreme Council refuses Armenian claims.[164]
  • July 21: Paruyr Hayrikyan deported to Ethiopia.[164]
  • Autumn: Around 167,000 Azerbaijanis of Armenia start to leave in large numbers.[166]
  • 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.[167]
  • November 22: Soviet Armenian Supreme Council recognizes the Armenian Genocide.[167]
  • November 24: State of emergency declared in Yerevan.[167]
  • December 7: Armenian earthquake.
  • December 10: Karabakh Committee members arrested, sent to Moscow.[168]

1989

1990

1991

Notes

  1. ^ According to the Constitution of the USSR, if a union republic voted to leave the Soviet Union, its autonomous republics, autonomous oblasts, and autonomous okrugs had the right to hold their own referendums to independently decide whether to remain in the USSR or to leave alongside the seceding union republic. They also had the right to raise questions regarding their own state-legal status.[27]

References

  1. ^ Flag of Armenia was adopted on August 24, 1990.
  2. ^ "Soviet Armenia erupts in protests". The Daily News. 24 February 1988. Archived from the original on 11 August 2022. Retrieved 16 July 2013.
  3. ^ a b c d Armenians protest USSR’s refusal to honor Nagomo-Karabakh annexation referendum, 1988 Archived 2022-09-17 at the Wayback Machine Matthew Heck, Global Nonviolent Action Database, December 5, 2010
  4. ^ "Pravda Talks of Ethnic Woes". New York Times. 19 April 1988. Archived from the original on 11 August 2022. Retrieved 16 July 2013. As many as one million people demonstrated in the Armenian capital of Yerevan in February to demand that Nagorno-Karabakh be made part of Armenia
  5. ^ "Mass Protests Said to Flare In Soviet Armenian Capital". New York Times. 31 May 1988. Archived from the original on 30 May 2023. Retrieved 16 July 2013.
  6. ^ "The Press-Courier - Google News Archive Search". news.google.com. Archived from the original on 2022-12-19. Retrieved 2020-09-27.
  7. ^ "An event dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the Artsakh Movement taken place at the US Congress". Ministry of Foreign Affairs Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. 13 February 2012. Archived from the original on 20 March 2023. Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  8. ^ "The Artsakh Movement started on this day 25 years ago". Public Radio of Armenia. 20 February 2013. Archived from the original on 17 August 2016. Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  9. ^ a b Vicken Cheterian (2011). War and Peace in the Caucasus Russia's Troubled Frontier. Oxford University Press. p. 123. ISBN 978-1-78738-186-5. By June 1989, the Armenian National Movement (Hayots Hamazkayin Sharzhoum, ANM) was formed, transforming the Karabakh Committee into an instrument for the struggle of national independence.
  10. ^ a b "Anniversary of Karabakh movement reminds Yerevan residents about national idea". Caucasian Knot. Retrieved 2025-09-17.
  11. ^ a b Civilnet (2018-02-22). "Yerevan Photo Exhibit Celebrates 30th Anniversary of Karabakh Movement". CIVILNET. Retrieved 2025-09-17.
  12. ^ Paylan, Sheila (2025-09-18). "Legitimization of Violence and State Dissolution in Nagorno-Karabakh:". In Grzybowski, Janis; Oltramonti, Giulia Prelz; Verdebout, Agatha (eds.). Contested States in War and Law. Bristol University Press. pp. 107–109. doi:10.2307/jj.25941162.10. ISBN 978-1-5292-4691-9. The case of Nagorno-Karabakh, by contrast, represents a genuine struggle for self-determination by the ethnic Armenian population, who have long expressed a clear and consistent will to determine their own political status and have sought to achieve this through established democratic processes, such as referendums
  13. ^ a b Malkasian 1996, pp. 27–28.
  14. ^ a b Chorbajian, Levon; Donabédian, Patrick; Mutafian, Claude (1994). The Caucasian knot: the history & geopolitics of Nagorno-Karabagh. Politics in contemporary Asia. London: Atlantic Highlands, NJ : Zed Books. p. 37. ISBN 978-1-85649-287-4.
  15. ^ Eduard Abrahamyan (2025). Small States, Russia and the West Polarity, Constellations and Heterogeneity in the Geopolitics of the Caucasus. Taylor & Francis. p. 1964. ISBN 978-10-4035016-4. The violence prompted the Armenian society of the crumbling Soviet Union of 1990-1991 to act in self-defence, perceiving a 'tangible prospect of looming genocide in Artsakh.'
  16. ^ Saparov 2014, p. 116: "The solution proposed by the [Karabakh uezdy] conference was similar to previous suggestions, but it also called for the creation of a Karabakh Oblast’, a region that would encompass both mountainous and lowland parts of Karabakh. It offered a way in which the creation of a predominantly Armenian autonomous unit in the mountainous part of the region could be avoided. During 1921, the position of the Azerbaijani leadership regarding Karabakh autonomy had been that suppression of banditry in the region would solve the ethnic conflict, and that there would be no need to grant autonomy to the Armenian-populated part of Karabakh. This tactic was successful in the short term."
  17. ^ Chorbajian, Mutafian & Donabedian 1994, pp. 138–140, 154: "The borders were to be drawn before 15 August by a mixed commission...but without the participation of either Yerevan or Moscow. All would be presided over by Karaiev. Under such circumstances, the Armenians could expect to be grossly disappointed. On the one hand...they excluded, on the west, the 'corridor' made up of Lachin, Kelbajar, and Kedabek, which had been carefully emptied of its Armenian population to separate Mountainous Karabagh from Armenian Zangezur. On the other hand, in the north, without any justification, they removed the districts of Shamkhor, Khanlar, Dashkesan and Shahumian.. where the Armenian population was predominant (about 90 per cent)... From Shamkhor in the north to Shahumian in the south, Armenian villages in these districts have been systematically emptied...Mountainous Karabagh delimited in this way is only a portion of what had always been Armenian Karabagh, which itself is only a part of what was included in the ancient Armenian provinces of Artsakh and Utik...The spectre of ‘Nakhichevanization’ haunts...Mountainous Karabagh, which had 125,000 inhabitants in 1926 who were 89 percent Armenian. This region has become an ‘enclave’ since the ‘cleansing’ of the Hagaru Valley in order to separate Karabagh from Zangezur by a narrow strip emptied of Armenians...Azerbaijan still contained a large Armenian minority. Aside from the ‘bastion’ of the Autonomous Region of Mountainous Karabagh, Armenians were numerous in Baku and in the region north of the Autonomous Region, up to Shamkhor, where the Armenian villages had been deliberately left outside the frontiers drawn in 1923 and, thereby, subjected to direct Azerbaijani authority. From north to south, these areas had already largely been ‘swept clean,’ with the exception of the area of Shahumian, the northern gateway to the Autonomous Region. The Azerbaijani plan was clearly described in the declaration by the Karabagh Committee on 2 December 1988: 'Exploiting the anarchic situation, the Azerbaijani authorities are about to unleash a monstrous programme: to expel Armenians from their several millennia old homes in Gandzak and the areas north of Artsakh, in preparation for an invasion of Mountainous Karabagh.' Already about 120,000 Armenians have left Azerbaijan, and 50,000 have sought refuge in Armenia and the others in the North Caucasus and Central Asia."
  18. ^ Walker, Christopher. Armenia: A Very Brief History. Rouben Galichian, 2022. p. 41. ISBN 978-9939-68-926-5. The borders between Armenia and Artsakh were manipulated such that Armenia could have no direct link with Artsakh.
  19. ^ Hein, Patrick (7 April 2024). "From Stalin to the Aliyev clan: 70 years of hindered autonomy in Nagorno-Karabakh". Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism. 24 (2): 197–215. doi:10.1111/sena.12420. ISSN 1473-8481.
  20. ^ Patrick Wilson Gore (2008). 'Tis Some Poor Fellow's Skull Post-Soviet Warfare in the Southern Caucasus. iUniverse. p. xii. ISBN 978-0-595-48679-3. So after the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh that the Azeris undertook in 1991, Azeris...were settled in formerly Armenian towns and villages to reduce the oblast's overwhelmingly Armenian complexion.
  21. ^ Broers, Laurence, ed. The limits of leadership: Elites and societies in the Nagorny Karabakh peace process. Conciliation Resources, 2005. p.93
  22. ^ Suny 1993, pp. 192–194.
  23. ^ Zürcher 2007, p. 154.
  24. ^ a b Eduard Abrahamyan (2025). Small States, Russia and the West Polarity, Constellations and Heterogeneity in the Geopolitics of the Caucasus. Taylor & Francis. p. 1964. ISBN 978-10-4035016-4.
  25. ^ Malkasian 1996, p. 41.
  26. ^ a b Vicken Cheterian (2011). War and Peace in the Caucasus. Hurst. p. 123. ISBN 978-1-78738-186-5. During the spring and summer of 1988, a new leadership was formed known as the Karabakh Committee, which directed the mass movement. At its head were Levon Ter-Petrossian and Vazgen Manuian, who later became the first president and prime minister of independent Armenia. By June 1989, the Armenian National Movement (Hayots Hamazkayin Sharzhoum, ANM) was formed, transforming the Karabakh Committee into an instrument for the struggle of national independence.
  27. ^ "СОЮЗ СОВЕТСКИХ СОЦИАЛИСТИЧЕСКИХ РЕСПУБЛИК. ЗАКОН О порядке решения вопросов, связанных с выходом союзной республики из СССР" (in Russian). Archived from the original on 12 September 2016. Retrieved 13 June 2022.
  28. ^ a b Harzl, Benedikt (2025). Secessionist Entities and International Law: The South Caucasus Disputes between Self-Determination, Territorial Integrity, and the Quest for a European Engagement Policy. Human Rights and Humanitarian Law E-Books Online, Collection 2025. Leiden Boston: Brill | Nijhoff. p. 390. ISBN 978-90-04-68710-3. On 23 November 1991, when the National Assembly of Azerbaijan adopted the Law 'About Abolition of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region of the Azerbaijan Republic' This law not only revoked the autonomy arrangement of 1980, but also provided for culturally driven ethnic cleansing by returning alleged 'historical names' to the cities of Stepanakert, Mardakert, and Martuni, which was tantamount to prohibiting the use of their Armenian names and allowing only their Azerbaijani names (ibid., Art. 2).
  29. ^ Chorbajian, Levon; ebrary, Inc, eds. (2001). The Making of Nagorno-Karabagh: From Secession to Republic. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire New York: Palgrave. ISBN 978-1-349-41594-6. Armenians raised the issue of Karabagh in a peaceful manner during 1987 and 1988. They employed time honored means of non-violent resistance including petitions, marches, vigils, hunger strikes, demonstrations, rallies and general strikes. These actions were met with extreme violence, first in the Azerbaijani industrial city of Sumgait in late February of 1988.
  30. ^ Report, E. V. N. (2018-01-26). "Karabakh Movement 88: A Chronology of Events on the Road to Independence". EVN Report. Retrieved 2026-02-23.
  31. ^ Armenia's Velvet Revolution. Bloomsbury Publishing. 3 September 2020. p. 53. ISBN 978-1-78831-719-1.
  32. ^ Panossian, Razmik (2006). The Armenians: From Kings and Priests to Merchants and Commissars. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 385. ISBN 9780231139267. The Gharabagh movement in Armenia—as mobilised for and through the issue of the enclave's unification to the republic—is a prime example of a mass national movement.
  33. ^ a b Chorbajian, Levon; ebrary, Inc, eds. (2001). The Making of Nagorno-Karabagh: From Secession to Republic. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire New York: Palgrave. pp. xi, 1. ISBN 978-1-349-41594-6.
  34. ^ a b c d De Waal, Thomas (2003). Black garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through peace and war. New York: New York University Press. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-8147-1944-2.
  35. ^ Archives, L. A. Times (1988-02-23). "120,000 Soviet Armenians Reported in Land Protest : Return of Territory Demanded". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2026-02-23.
  36. ^ Central Intelligence Agency (August 1, 1988). "Unrest in the Caucasus and the Challenges of Nationalism" (PDF) (CREST). General CIA Records: Central Intelligence Agency — FOIA Electronic Reading Room. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 February 2026. Retrieved 23 February 2026. The size of the crowds in Yerevan grew to close to a million, with the uninhibited influx of thousands from throughout the republic.
  37. ^ a b c d e Report, E. V. N. (2018-01-26). "Karabakh Movement 88: A Chronology of Events on the Road to Independence". EVN Report. Retrieved 2026-02-23.
  38. ^ Polonski, Andrei. Ислам в контексте общественной жизни современного Азербайджана (in Russian). Газета "История". № 28/1999. Издательский дом "Первое сентября". Archived from the original on 22 June 2014. Retrieved 22 January 2013. Обстоятельства благоприятствовали абстрактным размышлениям интеллектуалов о национальных корнях, об истории и традиции, о своем месте и миссии в мире. Впрочем, в Азербайджане расслабленного гуманизма было меньше, чем в большинстве республик СССР. Карабахский кризис и нарастающая армянофобия способствовали формированию устойчивого образа врага, который в известной степени повлиял на характер новой идентичности (первоначально агрессивно-победительной).
  39. ^ ""Первый и неразрешимый"". ВЗГЛЯД.РУ (in Russian). 2 August 2011. Retrieved 2025-07-15.
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  46. ^ Chorbajian, Levon; ebrary, Inc, eds. (2001). The Making of Nagorno-Karabagh: From Secession to Republic. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire New York: Palgrave. pp. 210–212. ISBN 978-1-349-41594-6.
  47. ^ Alexandre Bennigsen, S. Enders Wimbush (1986). Muslims of the Soviet empire: a guide. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 145. ISBN 9780253339584. The Armenian presence is strongly felt by Azeris traditionally, the Azeri elite have regarded the Armenians as rivals. Before and during the Revolution this anti-Armenianism was the basis of Azeri nationalism, and under the Soviet regime Armenians remain the scapegoats who are responsible for every failure.
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  49. ^ Parks, Michael (1989-11-06). "Nationalists in Armenia Form New Movement". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2025-09-19.
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  56. ^ Herzig, Edmund; Kurkchiyan, Marina, eds. (2014). The Armenians: past and present in the making of national identity. Caucasus world: peoples of the Caucasus (First issued in paperback ed.). London New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN 978-1-138-87458-9.
  57. ^ Walker, Christopher J., ed. Armenia and Karabagh: The struggle for unity. Minority Rights Group, 1991. p. 134-135,106
  58. ^ Cheterian, Vicken (2018-07-03). "The Uses and Abuses of History: Genocide and the Making of the Karabakh Conflict". Europe-Asia Studies. 70 (6): 884–903. doi:10.1080/09668136.2018.1489634. ISSN 0966-8136.
  59. ^ amartikian (2023-02-20). "Karabakh movement: "From the desire for freedom to its loss"". Jamnews in English. Retrieved 2025-09-19.
  60. ^ De Waal, Thomas (2003). Black garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through peace and war. New York: New York University Press. p. 16. ISBN 978-0-8147-1944-2.
  61. ^ Dorfmann-Lazarev, Igor; Khatchadourian, Haroutioun (2023-12-14). Monuments and Identities in the Caucasus: Karabagh, Nakhichevan and Azerbaijan in Contemporary Geopolitical Conflict. BRILL. pp. 1–11. doi:10.1163/9789004677388_002. ISBN 978-90-04-67737-1. The promotion of Azerbaijan's Turkish-speaking majority to the status of sole titular nation was accompanied by the persecution of peoples of different ethnic origins rooted in the same territory.... Mir Dzhafar Bağırov, already elected First Secretary of Azerbaijan's Communist Party...was responsible for the deportation of numerous minority groups, the suppression of their languages, and the systemic discrimination against Armenians.
  62. ^ Chorbajian, Levon, ed. (2001). The Making of Nagorno-Karabagh. pp. 210–212. doi:10.1057/9780230508965. ISBN 978-1-349-41594-6.
  63. ^ Huttenbach, Henry R. (June 1997). "Levon Chorbajian, Patrick Donabedian and Claude Mutafian, The Caucasian Knot: The History and Geopolitics of Nagorno-Karabagh. London: Zed Books, 1994, xx, 173 pp., appendices and index". Nationalities Papers. 25 (2): 140–143. doi:10.1017/s0090599200004669. ISSN 0090-5992.
  64. ^ a b Yamskov, A. N. (1991). "Ethnic Conflict in the Transcausasus: The Case of Nagorno-Karabakh". Theory and Society. 20 (5): 631–660. doi:10.1007/BF00232663. ISSN 0304-2421. JSTOR 657781. S2CID 140492606.
  65. ^ Laurila, Juhani. "Power Politics and Oil as Determinants of Transition: the case of Azerbaijan." (1999). "The Azerbaijanis can be accused of depriving the 130 000 Armenians living in the Nogorno-Karabakh of their possibilities to watch TV broadcasts from Yerevan, of their right to study Armenian history and their access to Armenian literature. The Azerbaijani government, too, can be said to have conducted racial, cultural and economic discrimination against the Nagorno Karabakh Armenians. Over 80 000 Nagorno-Karabakh residents signed an address asking for annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. Based on this address the Council of Representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh turned to Supreme Council of the USSR, Azerbaijan and Armenia with request to transfer the Nagorno-Karabakh under Armenia."
  66. ^ Starovotova, Galina Vasilevna. Sovereignty after empire: self-determination movements in the former Soviet Union. Vol. 31. No. 19. US Institute of Peace, 1997. "Limited employment opportunities and discrimination against Armenians contributed to the gradual emigration of the Armenian population from the region, while republican authorities encouraged the inflow of Azeris from outside Nagorno-Karabakh."
  67. ^ Malkasian 1996, p. 56.
  68. ^ Tsypylma Darieva, Wolfgang Kaschuba. Representations on the Margins of Europe: Politics and Identities in the Baltic and South Caucasian States, Campus Verlag GmbH, 2007, ISBN 9783593382418, p. 111 "Thus, the notion of 'genocide', as perceived by the people, included the expressions 'white genocide' (bearing in mind the example of the ethnic cleansing of Nakhichevan and Nagorno- Karabagh of Armenians)...".
  69. ^ Ole Høiris, Sefa Martin Yürükel. Contrasts and solutions in the Caucasus, Aarhus Univ. Press, 1998, ISBN 9788772887081, p. 234 "...the Azerbaijanization of Nakhichevan is called a 'white genocide', that is, one that operates by erasure of evidence of Armenian residence"
  70. ^ a b Walker, Christopher J., ed. (1991). Armenia and Karabagh: the struggle for unity. Minority Rights Publications. London: Minority Rights Group. ISBN 978-1-873194-00-3. [The exodus of many Armenians is] not a matter of chance, but is due to the persistent policy of Baku, whose aim is to 'Nakhichevanize' the territory, to de-Armenize it, first culturally and then physically.
  71. ^ Suny, Ronald Grigor (2018-02-06), Denber, Rachel (ed.), "Nationalism and Democracy in Gorbachev's Soviet Union: The Case of Karabagh", The Soviet Nationality Reader (1 ed.), Routledge, p. 488, doi:10.4324/9780429495830-26, ISBN 978-0-429-49583-0, retrieved 2026-02-27{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)
  72. ^ Chorbajian, Levon. The making of Nagorno-Karabagh: from secession to republic. Springer, 2001. "There was overwhelming evidence demonstrating the existence of anti-Armenian policy in Nagorno-Karabagh sanctioned by Azerbaijan. Accounts of forced migrations and resettlement were substantiated by the decreasing and increasing percentage of Armenians and Azeris respectively in the population.61 The lack of economic development and demographic manipulations had been accompanied by cultural suppression. In the 1930s, 118 Armenian churches were closed, clerics arrested and text- books on Armenian history banned from schools. During the 1960s, 28 Armenian schools were closed, churches and cemeteries destroyed and Azeri was imposed as the official language of the republic. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, cultural ties with Armenia were severed and Azeris began to be appointed in Nagorno-Karabagh’s law enforcement and economic bodies."
  73. ^ "Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict in the South Caucasus: Nagorno-Karabakh and the Legacy of Soviet Nationalities Policy". Routledge & CRC Press. Retrieved 2024-01-29. The Armenian schools were attached to the Azerbaijani Ministry of Education and were prohibited from teaching Armenian history. The employed staff was Azerbaijani. Armenian books and journals from neighbouring Armenia and the Armenian diaspora were totally banned. These measures were taken to 'hamper Armenian cultural development' in N-K [Nagorno-Karabakh].
  74. ^ "Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict in the South Caucasus: Nagorno-Karabakh and the Legacy of Soviet Nationalities Policy". Routledge & CRC Press. Retrieved 2024-01-29. 80 per cent of the population of Mountainous Karabakh are Armenians and they constitute about 130,000 individuals. The region is about 4500 square kilometers. There are 187 Armenian schools, which unfortunately are administered not by the Ministry of Education of Armenia, but that of Azerbaijan, in which there is not a single inspector or a single person who knows Armenian. This is a very dangerous thing and it is harming us.
  75. ^ John Wright, Richard Schofield, Suzanne Goldenberg (2003). Transcaucasian Boundaries. Routledge. p. 102. ISBN 978-1-135-36850-0. The Azerbaijani authorities in effect ran an apartheid system in Karabakh, and the Armenian population decreased as a result...The use of the Armenian language in education was chauvinistically restricted by Azerbaijani authorities, and television programmes were in either Russian or Turki. Health clinics were for Azerbaijani villages, not Armenian.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  76. ^ "Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict in the South Caucasus: Nagorno-Karabakh and the Legacy of Soviet Nationalities Policy". Routledge & CRC Press. p. 109. Retrieved 2024-01-29.
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  84. ^ Suny, Ronald Grigor (2018-02-06), Denber, Rachel (ed.), "Nationalism and Democracy in Gorbachev's Soviet Union: The Case of Karabagh", The Soviet Nationality Reader (1 ed.), Routledge, p. 491, doi:10.4324/9780429495830-26, ISBN 978-0-429-49583-0, retrieved 2026-02-26{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)
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  87. ^ De Waal, Thomas (2003). Black garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through peace and war. New York: New York University Press. p. 16. ISBN 978-0-8147-1944-2. On 3 March 1988, Gorbachev told the Politburo that it had been remiss in failing to spot warning signals: 'We must not simplify anything here, and we should look at ourselves too. The Central Committee received five hundred letters in the last three years on the question of Nagorny Karabakh. Who paid any attention to this? We gave a routine response.'
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  92. ^ De Waal, Thomas (2003). Black garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through peace and war. New York: New York University Press. p. 29. ISBN 978-0-8147-1944-2. The extraordinary events in Nagorny Karabakh in February 1988 caught Azerbaijan by surprise and revealed its hidden insecurities...Many intellectuals in Baku say that they had never taken an interest in the Karabakh issue before 1988; unaware that it was a potent theme for Armenians, they had simply taken for granted that Karabakh would always be theirs.
  93. ^ amartikian (2023-02-20). "Karabakh movement: "From the desire for freedom to its loss"". Jamnews in English. Retrieved 2025-11-05.
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  103. ^ Walker, Christopher J., ed. (1991). Armenia and Karabagh: the struggle for unity. Minority rights publications. London: Minority Rights Group. p. 107. ISBN 978-1-873194-20-1. Since November 1989 Mountainous Karabagh has been ruled from Baku and the Azerbaijani authorities there are doing all that they can to make life impossible for the population with the apparent aim of driving them out and re-populating the territory with Azerbaijanis. In July 1990 the Second Secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist Party seriously formulated a plan for deporting all Armenians from Nagorno=Karabagh — a grisly echo of the 1915 massacres. The Azeris have employed every means to isolate Mountainous Karabagh.
  104. ^ Chorbajian, Levon (2001). The making of Nagorno-Karabagh: from secession to republic. Basingstoke New York: Palgrave. p. 16. ISBN 978-0-333-77340-6. The killings of Armenians in Sumgait were, therefore, exemplary crimes and bear strong similarities to the lynching of African-Americans in the USA and the victims of other pogroms and genocides. In all these cases, even though the victims were individuals, the purpose of the crimes was to intimidate the entire community of people to which the victims belonged.
  105. ^ Shahmuratian, Samvel; Jones, Steven, eds. (1990). The Sumgait tragedy: pogroms against Armenians in Soviet Azerbaijan. Zoryan Institute files. New Rochelle, N.Y. : Cambridge, Mass: Aristide D. Caratzas; Zoryan Institute for Contemporary Armenian Research and Documentation. pp. xi-page 8. ISBN 978-0-916431-31-0. Pogroms involve the violation of a number of human rights, including the right to life for the victims both as individuals and as members of an ethnic group. According to the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, these pogroms can be defined as genocides. By any standard, these are genocidal acts...Understanding the factors which make pogroms possible, just as understanding factors which make genocides possible, should not evolve into such empathy that there is reluctance to call a pogrom by its name. Explanations become excuses, understanding turns in justification. Ultimately, such ostensibly detached characterizations of pogroms [namely, that it was only a result of political and economic purposes], is most insulting to and paternalizing of the culture and religion of Azeri Turks, the majority of whom did not participate in the pogroms and many of whom helped Armenians at the risk of their own lives.
  106. ^ Waal 2004, p. 40.
  107. ^ Kaufman, Stuart J. (2001). Modern hatreds: the symbolic politics of ethnic war. Ithaca: Cornell university press. p. 77. ISBN 9780801487361.
  108. ^ Kaufman, Stuart J. (2001). Modern hatreds: the symbolic politics of ethnic war. Cornell studies in security affairs. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. p. 70. ISBN 978-1-5017-0199-3. The next day, a massive wave of attacks on Armenians in Baku got underway, with strong evidence of government involvement but also with evidence of material motivations, as many rioters appear to have been homeless refugees who occupied Armenians' apartments immediately after ejecting them.
  109. ^ O'Ballance, Edgar (1997). Wars in the Caucasus, 1990-1995. London s.l: Palgrave Macmillan UK. p. 23. ISBN 978-1-349-14229-3. Violent attacks on resident Armenians suddenly erupted [in 1990]...The violence gathered momentum and developed into what amounted to an attempt at ethnic cleansing, as it was generally Azeris attacking Armenians, some of whom were killed and many others injured.
  110. ^ Tranca, Oana. "What Causes Ethnic Conflict Diffusion? A Study of Ethnic Conflicts in Azerbaijan and Macedonia." Journal of Peace, Conflict and Development Issue. Online 12 (2008): pp 14,18,21
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  135. ^ Time of change: an insider's view of Russia's transformation, Roy Medvedev, Giulietto Chiesa – 1991 – p. 209
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  148. ^ Nodia, Ghia (Winter 1997–1998). "Causes and Visions of Conflict in Abkhazia". University of California, Berkeley. p. 15. Mountainous Karabakh should not be part of Azerbaijan not because Artsakh (the Armenian name for Karabakh) is an ancient Armenian land and Miatsum (unification) is a legitimate Armenian project, but because Azerbaijan allegedly mistreats its minorities.
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Bibliography

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