Artsakh in Chains: A Resistance Spanning Centuries
On December 12, 2022, a group of Azerbaijani protesters blocked the only road connecting the Republic of Artsakh to the Republic of Armenia. Ostensibly protesting the operation of gold mines within Artsakh while ignoring the operation of similar mines within Azerbaijani-controlled territory, the protesters have brought all traffic on the Lachin Corridor to a complete standstill.
At the scene of the environmental protest, donning a gaudy fur coat, stands one woman in particular. In her clenched fist, a white dove struggles, its head lolling back and forth like a broken doll. At last, when the woman finally releases the dove, it falls lifeless to the ground. The fate of the innocent dove under the Janus-faced oppressors resonates to the core of all Armenians watching. As the world listens to Azerbaijan’s leaders promise peace for its citizens, Armenians bear the full brunt of the truth: there is no existence in a land ruled by Azerbaijan.
The total blockade, which has already surpassed its 100th consecutive day, has left the 120,000 remaining people of Artsakh bereft and helpless. Four hundred tons of daily food and medicine used to arrive in Artsakh from Armenia. Today, basic necessities such as food, fuel, maternity essentials, and medicine run dangerously scarce. Premature infants are rotated in and out of the one incubator in working condition. This is not a new paradigm. It is only a recent development in a century-long genocidal campaign imposed by Azerbaijan upon Artsakh and, by extension, every Armenian.
When the Western sphere and its journalists deign to talk about Artsakh, a phrase commonly thrown about is “30-year conflict.” This narrative frames the hostility between Armenians and Azerbaijanis as beginning in 1988 with the first Artsakh War at the fall of the Soviet Union. It distorts a significant aspect of the region’s history: the 69 years of Soviet Azerbaijan’s occupation of Artsakh, which functionally suffocated Artsakh-Armenians and left only a call for liberation as their only hope.
The history of the Armenian struggle for life in Artsakh runs back centuries, to Arab conquests in the 9th century to Seljuk invasions in the early 11th century to the Safavid Empire in the 16th century, wherein Armenians were subjected to higher taxes than their Muslim counterparts, to the famous Armenian rebellion and self-rule of Karabakh and Kapan in the 1720s. Its pertinent start, however, is perhaps in the early 20th century. While Ottoman military officer Enver Pasha orchestrated the Armenian Genocide, which would culminate in the murder of more than 1.5 million Armenians, his half-brother, Nuri Pasha, led Turkish-Azerbaijani forces to invade Artsakh, also known as Nagorno-Karabakh — with the support of the British who wished to control the Baku oil trade. Azerbaijan offered Karabakh-Armenians an ultimatum: recognize the authority of the Azerbaijan state, or pay the ultimate price. Armenians stood firm. From the convention of the First Congress of Karabakh Armenians, held on July 22, 1918, they declared Nagorno-Karabakh an independent entity. In total, nine congresses were held.
The Fourth Congress of Karabakh Armenians took place February 12, 1919. The resolution stated, “Karabakh has never recognized the authority of an Azerbaijani government within its borders and never will.” The Fifth Congress of Karabakh Armenians, convened in April of that same year, declared, “Azerbaijan has always acted as the helper and the accomplice in the atrocities carried out by Turkey concerning Armenians in general and Karabakh Armenians in particular.” Upon meeting the resistance of Karabakh Armenians, Colonel Shuttleworth, commander of the British troops in Baku, attempted to suffocate them into submission. He warned, “Your roads are cut, you will not receive any bread and you will die of famine; we will bring you no aid whatsoever as long as you do not recognize the authority of the Musavat Azerbaijan.”
During this time period, Artsakh suffered many losses, mainly the massacre of up to 30,000 civilians in Shushi, the beloved heart of Artsakh, which was razed to the ground. With the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922, to the great despair of the overwhelming Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, the region was incorporated into Azerbaijan SSR. Following this was a decades-long policy of anti-Armenian discrimination, oppression, and resettlement.
In the early 1920s, an underground coalition Karabagh to Armenia was active, with members from across Transcaucasia. They delivered a cautionary letter to Haratch, an Armenian daily newspaper based in France, speaking of “difficult times” the Karabakh-Armenians faced under Azerbaijani authority. In addition, pamphlets were distributed within Karabakh calling for reunification with Armenia: “If the current leaders of Armenia have abandoned a hundred thousand Armenians in Karabagh . . . then whom do they serve, what is their purpose, sitting as lackeys on the banks of the Hrazdan?” Similar sentiments of distrust echo within today’s Armenia.
For nearly seven decades, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh were terrorized. Over 350 Armenians were killed, and more than 75,000 displaced. In his book Alone with Yourself, Leonid Gurunts, a prominent Armenian writer from Nagorno-Karabakh, reflected on his beloved homeland and people, as well as their struggles under the Azerbaijani governance. A gripping memoir of his life, Gurunts depicts life in Nagorno-Karabakh and all its hardships, sparing no details. His burning for a Karabakh free of shackles provokes thought in each reader. In one particular chapter, titled “Crime without Punishment,” Gurunts accounted for dozens of hate crimes and murders of Armenians.
To name a few examples: In 1967, the chief agronomist of the Kuropatka state farm of Martuni was killed. His successor was killed a year after. Shortly after, the son of the second successor was brutally killed — the perpetrator, Arshad Mammadov, had gouged out his eyes and driven nails into his head and body. Violent protests erupted in indignation against these crimes, leading the state to mass arrest over 50 Armenians, many of whom died from starvation or torture in prison. In addition, several other Armenians were killed or died from suspicious causes during the investigation. For example, deputy Abhramayan; Mr. Hakobyan, the prosecutor; and Levon Harutyunyan, who was beaten to death by Azerbaijanis during an interrogation.
Gurunts recalls many more such cases. In Shushi, the Azerbaijani J. Begylarov approached two Armenians and declared he must kill an Armenian today, asking them to decide which of them it would be. Also in Shushi, the Armenian caretaker of the music school and his son were murdered, and an Armenian forester was shot to death. In Martakert, the field watchman’s entire family was murdered. In Norshen, two Armenian tractor drivers were killed. In Aghdam, a young Armenian man was shot to death. In Imishli, three Armenians from Stepanakert were killed. In Martuni, an old Armenian farmer was decapitated.
When a monument dedicated to Armenian soldiers befallen in World War II was vandalized prior to its grand opening, the perpetrator, an Azerbaijani district secretary, declared, “This is Azerbaijan, and there can be nothing Armenian here.”
The crimes Gurunts spoke of went not only unpunished but unrecorded and undocumented, save for within the living memory of Karabakh-Armenians, who never forgot. Armenians who demanded justice for the countless murders and crimes were accused of inciting ethnic hatred. Even the most innocent and silent protesters were repressed, frequently disappearing with their entire families. While describing the situation, one Armenian said, “The Armenian villages were swarming with terrorists who could shoot anyone they disliked with the connivance of Azerbaijani leaders. If they invited an Armenian official to Baku, there was almost no hope that he would return.”
The land of Nagorno-Karabakh was purposely undermined, underdeveloped, and economically stifled. Moreover, the occupiers purposefully neglected the infrastructure — roads remained unpaved, and railways were destroyed. In an attempt to address these issues, the Armenian Second Secretary Sarkisov sent Azerbaijan’s Central Committee a letter. He wrote, “To raise the region’s economy, it is necessary to restore the railway, build irrigation canals, and create industrial facilities.” Secretary Sarkisov was subsequently removed from his post.
Very few institutions, schools, and hospitals were built in Nagorno-Karabakh in sixty years, especially outside of Shushi. Nothing was built, but much was destroyed. In terms of non-irrigation, almost all of the Armenian region was deprived of water. Two reservoirs were built, but in such a way that they did not reach the Armenian-populated villages. In his book, Gurunts described endless, fruitless letters and requests sent to Baku by Karabakh-Armenians, asking to raise the water reservoir half a kilometer so that it may reach Armenians.
S. Hautiunian, Deputy of the USSR Supreme Soviet, spoke of the high death rates among Armenian children and attributed it to several causes: lack of clean drinking water, malnutrition, lack of hospital supplies, and the non-existence of maternity wards. He, too, was immediately dismissed from his post.
Artsakh’s agriculture had completely plummeted — from mulberry fields, grain production, flour mills, meat processing, to canned enterprises. An excerpt from Why Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan Cannot Coexist by Shahen Mkrtichian provides a thorough depiction of the socioeconomic oppression of Karabakh-Armenians:
“. . . the Azerbaijani leaders began to destroy and plunder the national wealth of the Armenian region. They closed down 18 workshops employing 1054 workers, 6 factories of building materials with 317 workers, 5 silk factories in the regions with 926 workers. For alleged consolidation of collective farms the army and militia displaced Armenians from the villages of Tezkharab, Petrosashen, Spitakshen . . . The six state and collective power plants, the Armenian pedagogical college of Stepanakert, the teacher training college of Hadrut, and the Young Bolshevik Newspaper were closed down. They destroyed and plundered everything that had been created before and during the war. They ruined the 166 km Yevlakh-Stepanakert railroad, felled 1200 hectares of mulberry orchards. Bee keeping, goat breeding, orchards, the most profitable branches of the economy of Karabakh, were on the verge of destruction. Karabakhians were not allowed to use the water of rivers and springs for irrigation. The works by Armenian authors were banned from libraries, over one hundred Armenian historical monuments were ruined, 7 thousand buildings, plundered and ruined by Azerbaijanis in 1920 were razed to the ground by bulldozers . . . In brief, the complete decay of the economy of Armenian Karabakh was instigated openly.”
This economic terror left tens of thousands of Armenians without jobs or homes. Statistics revealed nine out of ten Karabakh-Armenians were compelled to leave Karabakh in the 1970s. Forces accomplished this through mass arrests, exile, or simply a deliberate implementation of a low standard of living.
When villagers in Artsakh wrote to Baku, their wish was a humble one — they wanted nothing more than to see their beloved Armenia’s national football team play. Lacking TV broadcasting, they petitioned Baku to establish a signal nearby. Like all others, their pleas were tossed aside. When Armenia’s Leninakan football team Shirak won a match against the Azerbaijani team in Kirovabad, a pogrom was the Azerbaijani response. The Armenian part of the city was attacked. Windows were smashed, houses broken into, and civilians heavily beaten. “Will you ask why we were silent? Why did we not write to Moscow?” Gurunts writes, “We wrote. However, the complaints were sent to Baku, and people came from there — no longer to analyze complaints but to identify the organizers of collective letters and letters of complaint. The complaints ended.”
Karabakh-Armenians who dared to speak the truth were often met with swift exile or death. Nevertheless, they consistently lobbied and appealed to Moscow on Artsakh’s behalf. A 1945 address to Stalin proposed, “Based on this desire of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Central Committee and The Council of People’s Commissars of Armenia is submitting to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Union Government the question of including the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region of the Azerbaijan SSR in the Armenian SSR.”
Another most notable attempt was made in 1963. More than 2,000 Karabakh-Armenians signed a petition accusing Azerbaijanis of decimating the Armenian community and asking for annexation to either Armenia or the Russian Federation. The petition detailed social and economic discrimination:
“The subordination of enterprises and institutions of Nagorno-Karabakh to the corresponding enterprises in Azerbaijani regions, often 40–60 km from the region, the disruption of the construction of industrial and other enterprises necessary for the region and provided for according to the plan, led to the complete collapse of the administrative and economic activity of the region. Due to unilateral harmful measures, the population of the region lost their jobs, prosperity, and was forced to leave their native cradle . . . The policy of oppression and discrimination causes just hatred toward its source: the leadership of the republic and the region . . . We ask you to immediately resolve the issue of the reunification of Nagorno-Karabakh and all adjacent Armenian regions with the Armenian SSR or their inclusion in the RSFSR.”
Following this petition, 18 Karabakh-Armenians were murdered.
The Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh were stifled in every way. When the first demonstrations were held in Yerevan commemorating the Armenian Genocide, the question of Karabakh, and its sister Nakhichevan, was equally raised. In 1965, another petition was signed, this time by over 50,000 Karabakh-Armenians, detailing their despair and oppression to Moscow. The CPSU instructed Armenia and Azerbaijan to prepare joint proposals for the status of Karabakh. Instead, Azerbaijan cracked down harder on Karabakh, with new repressions and arrests, effectively decapitating the movement. Baku punished the prominent authors of the petition and forced them into exile. Azerbaijani leaders stated that if anyone dared to raise the Karabakh issue again, Karabakh would become “an Armenian graveyard.”
Furthermore, Azerbaijan had a clear policy of demographic engineering and resettling Artsakh. In 1921, Armenians comprised 95% of Artsakh. By 1979, it was 76%. Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani population had increased by 300%. For example, seven villages near the Armenian border, each with 500–700 persons, suffered large areas of land being cut away and given to Azerbaijani settlers. Within seven decades, Azerbaijan effectively erased hundreds of Armenian villages. As told by one Karabakh-Armenian, “The president wanted the Armenian schools to teach the Azeri language, and slowly he was trying to penetrate every corner of the Armenian community and increase the number of Azeris everywhere so that we would eventually become a minority. We felt it. Our leaders felt it.”
The third president of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev, admitted this resettlement policy verbatim in an interview in 2002, “I tried to increase the number of Azerbaijanis in Nagorno-Karabakh and reduce the number of Armenians.”
Every evidence of Armenian history and life in Artsakh was slowly decimated with time. Naming theaters or football teams “Artsakh” was forbidden. Cafes and restaurants bearing that name were shut down. Armenian khachkars were not allowed in the history museum. The works of Armenian writers were banned from libraries. As Turkey annihilated every inch of Armenian history in Western Armenia, to its east Azerbaijan attempted to erase and rewrite the collective memory of Artsakh. Yet, while the world may be fooled, Armenians remain true. There is nothing so painful and powerful as memory, and Armenians are neck-deep in it.
In October of 1987, on the brink of the Karabakh Movement, several Karabakh-Armenians began legal proceedings against the Azeri-Turk authorities in Baku for having “perpetrated genocide against the Armenian population between 1920 and 1987.”
This took place only months prior to the First Karabakh War. During the war, the landlocked Republic of Armenia was subject to an economic blockade the likes of which was compared to Saint Petersburg under the Nazi siege by human rights activist Elena Sakharov.
Time and time again, the oppressor employs its tried and true tactics. 1919. 1991. 2023.
This sacred piece of Armenian homeland has endured all. To Azerbaijanis, Nagorno-Karabakh may indeed be a “thirty-year conflict.” Research, written accounts, and the cultural memory of generations of Armenians suggest otherwise. The Karabakh Movement — battered, berated, but always still breathing — is not a case of irredentism. It is a deep and unyielding cry for life.
This land, its soil watered by blood and tears, is the beacon of Armenian resistance. The second Karabakh War, which emerged in 2020, and involved the help of mercenaries, drone warfare, and several other nations each with their own genocide to answer for, ended with Azerbaijan regaining control of the majority of the Republic of Artsakh. Thereafter, Turkish President Erdogan arrived in Baku and held a commencement speech honoring the soul of Enver Pasha. An exhibit displaying the helmets of fallen Armenian soldiers was established to commemorate the war, a depraved act falling only a few short steps behind displaying the real severed heads of one’s enemies — of course, that the Azerbaijanis did all across Telegram.
The Azerbaijanis named this war, if such an asymmetrical event can be called that, “The Great Patriotic War.” Indeed, the nature of Azerbaijani patriotism was brightly shown. Worse yet is the title “Dəmir Yumruq əməliyyatı” — the Iron Fist Operation.
The First Karabakh War, which occurred upon the Soviet Union’s dissolution, celebrated an Armenian victory, and brought a glimpse of freedom, is known to all Armenians by its true name — the Artsakh Liberation War.
These names speak for themselves. One need look no further.
Works Consulted
Alone with Yourself or How to Shout to You, Descendents! by Leonid Gurunts
Armenia and Karabakh: The Struggle for Unity by Christopher J. Walker
Nagorno-Karabakh: A Reassessment of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Conflict by T. J. Petrowski
The Caucasian Knot by Levon Chorbajian
Why Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan Cannot Coexist by Shahen Mkrtichian