Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict – A Multidimensional Analysis
In this collection of articles, the IFLRY Caucasus Program research team offers a multidimensional analysis of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The perspectives proposed in our inquiry explore and comprehend the topic from different perspectives, therefore providing clarity of diverse events and categories that have influenced the dispute at early stages and continue to shape it to this day. We hope that our work, even in the slightest bit, will contribute to finding a peaceful and just resolution to this conflict.
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The 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that started on the 27th of September is not the first dispute between the republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia. Rather, it is a part of the convoluted history of series of discords followed by temporary peace over a timespan of more than one hundred years. Although the first disputes over the region happened in 1905-1906 and 1918-1920, It was in the Soviet times when the status and the territoriality of Nagorno-Karabakh was reconfigured according to Soviet goals and its nationality policy (Mikayel, 2022). In order to make a historical inquiry as a part of larger project of understanding the roots of current conflict, one certainly has to study the impacts of Soviet influence over the disputed region. Although the conflict was largely frozen from 1921 to 1988, the ramifications of Soviet policies further ignited and reshaped the nature of the conflict. This text aims to describe the Soviet political decisions regarding Nagorno-Karabakh and discuss their implications.
The first clash between Armenian and Azeri populations, now known as the Armenian-Tatar, war took place in 1905. The impoverished Azeri population, partially encouraged by Russian governors’ divide-and-rule policy, rebelled against richer Armenian craftsmen on socio-economic grounds. The conflict resulted in the death of thousands and was curbed, but it was far from being over (Souleimanov, 2005, p. 203). Another episode of Armenian-Azerbaijani war happened in 1918-1920, when the two sides clashed over conflicting territorial claims. However, this time it was not only limited to Nagorno-Karabakh region and confrontations took place in Azerbaijan and Armenia proper. During the war, both sides engaged in massacres and ethnic cleansing. The first year of Armenian-Azerbaijani war waged simultaneously with the Russian civil war. The Bolshevik victory in Russia commenced the Sovietization process, which included ‘imperial’ expansion among southern borders into what previously was part of the Russian empire. Armenian-Azerbaijani dispute was halted by the advances of 11th Red Army of the Soviet Union towards the south. Ultimately, the conflict ended after the Soviets took over both Azerbaijan and Armenia. The imposition of a new system and order temporarily froze the conflict, during which territorial and ethnic arrangements were made by high-ranking Soviet officials. It is precisely in these policies that I am interested in.
After the Sovietization of aforementioned republics, demarcation lines had to be set. The Soviet Union, facing the sheer ethnic, territorial and religious diversity of its lands and population formed a single overarching framework called the nationalities policy. Within this framework, territorial reconfigurations, as well as displacement of peoples took place. Sometimes, the Soviets would draw borders in a way that would facilitate ethnic strife. This gave them the leverage to mediate conflicts and further entrench their dominant position (Hunter, 2006, p. 113). Somewhat influenced by political ramifications of the 1921 Soviet-Turkish Treaty of Brotherhood and Friendship, Karabakh and Nakhichevan was handed over to Azerbaijan SSR. After couple of years, a completely new territorial unit called the Nagorno-Karabakh (translates as mountainous Karabakh from Russian) was set up as a part of Azerbaijan SSR, the population of which was predominantly Armenian, reaching up to ninety percent (Souleimanov, 2005, p. 204). Thus, the region that is currently being contested by Azerbaijan and Armenia was in fact a territorial unit named and set up by during the Soviet Union. It was also the decision of theirs that Nagorno-Karabakh stayed within Azerbaijan’s territory. However, it must be noted that the region was given autonomy under the Soviet Azerbaijan. Certainly, continuity is to be observed from Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region to contemporary “Republic of Artsakh” (Recognized by Armenia but not by international institutions), which also claims autonomy from Azerbaijan and is heavily supported by Armenia. “Artsakh Republic” tries to make use of the internationally recognized right to self-determination, while the Azerbaijani position is corroborated by the principle of territorial integrity (Ibid, p. 214).
There were several attempts by Armenians since 1965 to halt the changing demographics of Nagorno-Karabakh by attempting to negotiate with Soviet officials in Moscow but to no avail. Their desire to incorporate the region to Armenian SSR turned out to be fruitless (Hajda, 1993, p. 238). Meanwhile, according to censuses, the Azerbaijani population in Nagorno-Karabakh increased from 12,592 to 37,264 in 1979, consisting 23% of total population of the region. Thus, the USSR incorporated a region that was characterized by ethnic strife, then effectively froze the conflict and rearranged territories according to its own economic and political goals. Over the next several decades, within the new status-quo, Armenians and Azerbaijanis had the mobility to move in and out of Nagorno-Karabakh, contributing to above-mentioned changing demographics. Once the seemingly stable system lost some of its former power and its artificial cohesiveness, ethnic tensions once again arose. In 1988, almost one million people went out to the streets of Yerevan to protest Nagorno-Karabakh’s status that was defined many years ago in the 1920s by Stalin and other Soviet officials. This was yet another turning point in this conflict, as Azerbaijani response to the protests in Yerevan was pogrom in Sumgait, where a lot of Armenians died. Since then, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been a persistent issue in south-Caucasian politics with the most recent episode of confrontation taking place in 2020.
Two important points were illuminated during our discussion. Firstly, the status that set the tone for further unfolding of events in this region was created and granted during Soviet times. It is the autonomous/non-autonomous status of Nagorno-Karabakh that is at the core of today’s conflict. Secondly, Soviet officials decided to grant the region with majority Armenian population to Azerbaijan, which was a disputed territory both before and after the Soviet Union. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is a complex topic that is a story of nationalist territorial claims, tensions created on ethnic grounds, memory wars, and overarching systems, keeping the USSR in mind, that at times subsume, appropriate, and reconfigure these categories. In order for us to have sufficient level of comprehension of the conflict and move towards a just resolution, we have to approach and analyze it from different perspectives. This series of articles aims precisely at taking this multi-dimensional approach.
References
Zolyan, M. (2022, February 20). How it all began: The Soviet nationalities policy and the roots of the Karabakh problem. EVN Report. https://evnreport.com/spotlight-karabakh/how-it-all-began-the-soviet-nationalities-policy-and-the-roots-of-the-karabakh-problem-2/
Suleimanov, E. (2005). The Conflict Over Nagorno-Karabakh (Ser. OSCE Yearbook). OSCE.
Hunter, S. T. (2006). Borders, Conflict, and Security in the Caucasus: The Legacy of the Past. The SAIS Review of International Affairs, 26(1), 111–125. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26999301
Hajda, L. (1993). ETHNIC POLITICS AND ETHNIC CONFLICT IN THE USSR AND THE POST-SOVIET STATES. Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, 19(2), 193–278. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23262734