WAR for KARABAKH 2020: Origins, Reasons, Results
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Patriotic war – 2020 By Oleg KUZNETSOV, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Professor (Moscow, Russia) WAR FOR KARABAKH 2020: Origins, Reasons, Results 16 www.irs-az.com 47, SPRING 2021 www.irs-az.com 17 Patriotic war – 2020 Cannons of the Azerbaijani army fire at Armenian fortifications in Karabakh On 10 November 2020, the fourth Armenian- seven adjacent administrative districts of Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani war in the last two centuries ended. It has the expulsion of 1.2 million ethnic Azerbaijanis from already gone down in the history of the independent their homes (500,000 from Armenia and 700,000 from Azerbaijani state as a Patriotic war. The first of them, the occupied territories). So the Armenian-Azerbaijani which thanks to the tsar’s governor in the Caucasus, conflict did not start yesterday, it has a history of more Count I. Vorontsov-Dashkov, was labeled as the than a century, and the recent developments around “Armenian-Tatar massacre” in which 158 Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh that attracted the attention of the and 128 Armenian settlements were destroyed and world community are only a small part of it, very brief up to 10,000 people died, happened back in 1905- and not particularly significant in terms of spatial and 1906. In the second war, which occurred in 1918- geographical localization. 1920, the fighting involved the armies of the Dashnak If one looks at the history of the Armenian- Republic of Armenia and the Azerbaijan Democratic Azerbaijani confrontation with an honest and impartial Republic. The war and the genocide of the civilian view, one can see that it has never stopped over the population was stopped only at the end of 1920, after past one and a half centuries. Sometimes it subsided the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan and but then flared up with fresh ferocity. Many people Armenia by the 11th Red Army. That war ended in today are trying to present it in the light of Samuel F. the killing or expulsion of up to 150,000 Azerbaijanis Huntington’s concept of a “clash of civilizations”, as a from their traditional places of residence). The third “war on the fault line”, portraying it purely as a Christian- war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which went Muslim confrontation. However, such a primitive down in history as a “Karabakh war”, was waged in view of the essence of the issue stumbles over two 1988-1994. It began with Azerbaijani pogroms in the immutable historical facts that are not very pleasant Armenian city of Kafan and ended with the signing for the modern Eurocentric model of the world. of the Bishkek Protocol to end the armed conflict in First, since its proclamation in 1918, the Republic and around Nagorno-Karabakh. It ended in the death of Azerbaijan has always positioned itself as a secular of up to 10,000 civilians, Armenian occupation of the state, ahead of not only the Republic of Turkey but also former Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region and the rest of the Muslim world. Even if a religious factor 18 www.irs-az.com 47, SPRING 2021 did play a role in the life of Azerbaijan and Azerbaijanis the active state support of neo-paganism at state level throughout the 20th century, it was rather cultural, not in Armenia, which was particularly pronounced in the political, and therefore could not influence the state first decade of the 21st century. life of the ethnos. As a result, the modern Azerbaijani Consequently, this conflict had completely different version of secular “non-political” Islam is characterized driving forces, and it is necessary to understand their by loyalty, tolerance and non-conflict with other presence. Armenians are one of a handful of peoples religions and cultures, which qualitatively distinguishes the majority of whose representatives live outside it from the “Arab-Maghreb” political Islam. the territory of their political state, i.e. the Republic Secondly, over the past hundred years, the of Armenia. In other words, the aggregate number Armenian ethnos has created its country in its present of people from the Armenian diaspora who often form not at all on the religious canons of the officially do not have political ties of citizenship with the declared Monophysite Christianity, referring quite country usually referred to as a “historical homeland” often to the pagan roots of its national mentality. This exceeds the population of this state. Even though process became very fast during the years of Soviet ethnographers believe that it is impossible to calculate power, and not without the support of the authorities the exact number of Armenians in the world due to of the Armenian SSR for which neo-paganism was a their dispersion in the diaspora, it is still possible to trump card in the ideological struggle against the estimate their number with an accuracy of a hundred clerical influence of the Armenian-Gregorian Church thousands people. I think I will not be mistaken if I and the ideologists of the Armenian diaspora in the say that there are about 11.5 million Armenians in countries of the bourgeois and “third” world. For the world today. At the same time, less than 3 million this, the Institute of History and Ethnography (now Armenians currently live in Armenia, or a quarter of the the Institute of History and Armenian Studies) was total. specifically established within the Academy of Sciences To consolidate an ethnos that is predominantly of the Armenian SSR in 1959. This is also evidenced by dispersed, an external unifying factor is needed, and www.irs-az.com 19 Patriotic war – 2020 Azerbaijani tank heading into battle USSR lived in accordance with completely different moral values and social guidelines than their fellow tribesmen in Lebanon, Syria, the United States or France. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting acquisition by former Soviet Armenians of their own national statehood gave rise to the need for their quickest integration into the world Armenians because the diaspora traditionally exceeded, and still does, the autochthonous population of the sovereign Republic of Armenia. Armenia and the diaspora had to unite, and the motive for such unification was the armed struggle for Karabakh, which in modern history received the name of the 1988-1994 Karabakh war. Post- Soviet Armenia with its underdeveloped economic the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict turned out to be one. and social infrastructure (there is not even water It is worth remembering the historical conditions in supply in many regions of the Republic of Armenia which it was unleashed: during the Soviet era, there today) could not be an object of interest for investors was an iron curtain between citizens of Soviet Armenia from the Armenian diaspora without Karabakh. In fact, and their fellow tribesmen from other countries. The the Karabakh war of 1988-1994 became a kind of pass presence of this curtain implied an ideological split for the former Soviet Armenians (both of Yerevan and between the two communities of representatives of Karabakh) to the Armenian community of the world. this ethnic group. For many years, Armenians in the Therefore, the reasons for the Armenian-Azerbaijani Azerbaijani infantry heading into battle 20 www.irs-az.com 47, SPRING 2021 A tank bearing the name of National Hero of Azerbaijan Albert Agarunov with infantrymen heading into battle war of the fall of 2020 must be sought in the results of desire and, most importantly, hatred to literally wipe the Karabakh war of 1988-1994. out the memory of a half-million citizens of Azerbaijan Armenia, having occupied Azerbaijani territories who lived here a quarter of a century ago! around Nagorno-Karabakh and declared them a It is worth mentioning an important nuance in “buffer zone of security” (Agdam, Gubadli, Jabrayil, this context: it was not only Azerbaijanis who were Zangilan, Fizuli, Kalbajar, Lachin) did not carry out any persecuted by the Armenians, as propagandists economic activity on these lands at all. Moreover, the from Yerevan are claiming today in an effort to entire industrial, economic and social infrastructure interpret the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over of these administrative districts of Azerbaijan was Karabakh as purely ethnic or ethno-religious. Along deliberately plundered and destroyed after occupation with ethnic Azerbaijanis, Russians, Jews, Ukrainians, – the property of residents was sold for a pittance to and Meskhetian Turks were also expelled from the Armenia, Georgia and Iran, industrial equipment was occupied territories. In other words, unable to bring dismantled and sold as scrap metal, all buildings and anything of their own and originally Armenian to structures built of brick or sawn stone were dismantled the occupied lands, the invaders sought to destroy for construction materials, which were also sold at everything non-Armenian in these territories, and meager prices most often to Iran. I happened to visit they did not care what exactly to destroy. This was Karabakh a month after its liberation, and I saw with most clearly manifested in the deliberate destruction my own eyes not only villages and settlements, but of cultural heritage sites: in Karabakh, 63 out of 67 entire cities razed to the ground. Prior to the Armenian Muslim mosques were dismantled and the remaining occupation, these cities were home to 50,000-70,000 four were seriously damaged. The same was in store people. The material damage caused to the Azerbaijani for the Temple of the Transfusion of the Lord in the people by the Armenian occupation amounts to tens village of Kuropatkino in Khojavand District, which was of billions of dollars. One has to have so much strength, completely plundered and partially destroyed during www.irs-az.com 21 Patriotic war – 2020 Azerbaijan’s extensive use of unmanned aircraft maintained ecumenical ties with each other all this revolutionized military affairs time and the supreme hierarchs of the two churches met more than once.