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Abstract
Did the 1915 genocide of the Ottoman Armenians play a role in the genesis of the Karabakh war? In the early phase of the conflict, many Armenian activists and politicians drew parallels between the evolving struggles of the present and the traumatic events of 1915. This essay explores the ways in which Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey have referred to the events of 1915 to formulate their policies towards the conflict. The essay argues that the largely suppressed past trauma was present in the mass psychology of the conflicting parties, although in radically different ways, and that it shaped developing events. After depoliticising genocide commemorations in the early years of its independence, Armenia has recently witnessed an increase in references to the genocide in political discourse. The same also applies, somewhat paradoxically, to Azerbaijan, which has developed its own state-sponsored discourse of genocide, vehemently denying that the genocide took place while portraying Azerbaijan as a victim of genocide itself. This exchange of roles clearly needs further explanation.
The author would like to thank Webster University Geneva for a research grant that made this essay possible.
Notes
1 The Committee of Union and Progress, or Ittihadists, was an Ottoman political formation that came to power after a coup in 1908 and was responsible for organising the deportations and massacres of the Armenians during World War I.
2 One of the Armenian militants buried at Tsitsernagaberd is Movses Gorgisyan, an activist and intellectual who was the editor of the samizdat magazine Glasnost’, and one of the active orators of the Karabakh movement. He was 28 years old when he was killed in clashes near northern Nakhichevan—an Azerbaijani exclave that borders Armenia, Iran and Turkey—in early 1990.
3 See, for example, the statement of the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan at the 69th session of the United Nations, 24 September 2014, available at: http://www.president.am/en/press-release/item/2014/09/24/President-Serzh-Sargsyan-New-York-speech/, accessed 8 June 2018.
4 See, for example, the letter sent by Robert Kocharyan to Recep Tayyip Erdogan on 25 April 2005, ‘ID: 05YEREVAN769_a’, WikiLeaks, 27 April 2005, available at https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/05YEREVAN769_a.html, accessed 28 February 2018.
5 Armenian deaths from the wars and pogroms that occurred in the Transcaucasus between the outbreak of the Russian Revolution and the start of Sovietisation in the 1920s are estimated to be as high as 200,000.
6 Ottoman armies did take part in the interethnic conflict that erupted in the Transcaucasus following the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917 and the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Caucasus frontlines when they intervened in the South Caucasus and took part in anti-Armenian massacres. Also, Kemalist Turkey exerted a certain influence on decision-making in the early Soviet period, including over borders through the Treaty of Kars, signed in 1921, which defined not only the Soviet–Turkish border but also the internal Soviet division between the three South Caucasus union republics, and specifically defined the boundaries of current Nakhichevan as an autonomous republic within the Azerbaijan SSR.
7 See also Lazyan (Citation1991).
8 The Karabakh Committee was formed in 1988 by dissident intellectuals, to lead the Karabakh Movement.
9 The December 1986 Almaty riots following the dismissal of the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, Dinmukhamed Kunayev, an ethnic Kazakh, and the appointment of an ethnic Russian, Gennadii Kolbin, did not produce a sustained social movement.
10 See also Marshall (Citation2010, pp. 35–41).
11 Gerard Libaridian in his preface to Shahmuratian (Citation1990, p. xi) mentions 72 deaths, while Russian journalist and dissident Andrei Shilkov is quoted as saying that ‘at least’ 350 people died in the pogroms (Remnick Citation1988).
12 Author’s interview with Vazgen Manukyan, Yerevan, 18 December 2004.
13 Author’s interview with Ashot Manucharyan, Yerevan, 18 December 2004.
14 There were 150 military advisers in Azerbaijan during the conflict (Croissant Citation1998, p. 96); see also Rugman (Citation1992).
15 The blockade imposed by Turkey continues until now; in fact, the Turkish–Armenian border is the last preserved portion of the ‘iron curtain’. See Cheterian (Citation2017).
16 See also Swietachowski (Citation1995, pp. 163–77).
17 Author’s interview with Vazgen Manukyan, Yerevan, 18 December 2004.
18 By ‘Dashnaks’ Buniatov was referring to the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun— ARF) which was active at the time in the Armenian diaspora.
19 For the English translation, see Chorbajian et al. (Citation1994, pp. 188–89). Buniatov’s article was re-published in Visions of Azerbaijan, March/April 2010, available at: http://www.visions.az/history,37/#cite-note_12, accessed 28 February 2018.
20 The Azerbaijani Popular Front was established in the summer of 1988 by members of the nationalist intelligentsia, such as Abulfaz Elchibey, a philologist and translator at Baku Faculty of Oriental Studies, and industrial workers such as Nemet Panakhov. The APF was in power in Azerbaijan from June 1992 until September 1993, when its leader Elchibey was overthrown in a military coup.
21 ‘Conflict in the Soviet Union: Black January in Azerbaijan’, Human Rights Watch & The Inter-Republic Memorial Society, 1991, p. 15.
22 See Rumyanstev and Huseynova in this special issue.
23 See Rumyanstev and Huseynova in this special issue..
24 Author’s interview with an ethnic Armenian commander who took part in the military operation, Stepanakert, April 1992.
25 Author’s interview with an ethnic Armenian commander who took part in the military operation, Stepanakert, April 1992.
26 ‘Azerbaijan, Seven Years of Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh’, Human Rights Watch Helsinki, 1994, available at: http://www.hrw.org/reports/pdfs/a/azerbjn/azerbaij94d.pdf, accessed 28 February 2018.
27 The original interview with Mutalibov was done by Czech journalist Dana Mazalova, published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 2 April 1992. See Rettie (Citation1992), Zvyagin (Citation2010).
28 See, ‘Decree of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan on the Genocide of the Azerbaijani People’, Baku, 26 March 1998, available at: http://www.human.gov.az/?sehife=etrafli&sid=MTMyMjMzMTA4MTMyNjE1Mw==&dil=en, accessed 28 February 2018.
29 The short-lived period of Bolshevik rule in Baku under Stepan Shahumyan and a group of multinational radical revolutionaries, from April to July 1918.
30 See, ‘Decree of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan on the Genocide of the Azerbaijani People’, Baku, 26 March 1998, available at: http://www.human.gov.az/?sehife=etrafli&sid=MTMyMjMzMTA4MTMyNjE1Mw==&dil=en, accessed 28 February 2018.
31 ‘Posters about Khojaly Massacre Appear in U.S. Cities’, Azernews, 22 February 2013, available at: https://www.azernews.az/nation/50057.html, accessed 28 February 2018.
32 ‘Azeri Mark 20th Anniversary of Khojaly Massacre in Istanbul’, Hürriyet Daily News, 26 February 2012, available at: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/azeris-mark-20th-anniversary-of-khojaly-massacre-in-istanbul.aspx?pageID=238&nID=14673&NewsCatID=355, accessed 28 February 2018.
33 ‘Nationalists Unfurl Banner Hailing Assassin of Hrant Dink at Khojaly Massacre Commemoration’, Hürriyet Daily News, 24 February 2014, available at: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/nationalists-unfurl-banner-hailing-assassin-of-hrant-dink-at-khojaly-massacre-commemoration.aspx?pageID=238&nID=62849&NewsCatID=341, accessed 28 February 2018.
34 On the tensions between Iranian Azeris and the Republic of Azerbaijan, especially regarding questions of identity, see Hunter (Citation1994, Citation2006).
35 ‘Genocide Memorial Complex Opened in Guba’, News.Az, 18 September 2013, available at: http://news.az/articles/politics/82690, accessed 28 February 2018.
36 ‘Azeri Party Offers Bounty for Ear of Author’, Reuters, 12 February 2013, available at: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-azerbaijan-writer/azeri-party-offers-bounty-for-ear-of-author-idUSBRE91B1GD20130212, accessed 28 February 2018.
37 See the Turkish Foreign Ministry document: ‘Policy of Zero Problems with our Neighbours’, undated, available at: http://www.mfa.gov.tr/policy-of-zero-problems-with-our-neighbors.en.mfa, accessed 8 June 2018.
38 Author’s interview with Arman Giragosyan, Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia, Yerevan, 7 October 2009.
39 Author’s interview with Giro Manoyan, head of ‘Armenia Cause’ office of ARF, Yerevan, 6 October 2009.
40 ‘Baku Raps Turkish–Armenian Accord’, Azernews, 13 October 2009, available at: https://www.azernews.az/nation/15007.html, accessed 28 February 2018.
41 ‘Armenia Scrapping Protocols to Normalize Relations with Turkey’, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1 March 2018, available at: https://www.rferl.org/a/armenia-turkey-yerevan-scrapping-protocols-normalize-relations/29071069.html, accessed 8 June 2018.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Vicken Cheterian
Vicken Cheterian, Lecturer in History and International Relations at University of Geneva and Webster University Geneva, 22 Bd. des Philosophes, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland. Email: [email protected]