Nagorno-Karabakh
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referring) to postings by Hasan 'Mutlu' is a frequently futile occupation.
Despite legitimate concerns, his extremely sectarian perspective, his
completely partisan positions and the sheer volume of his unfocused
material often cloud, if not completely obscure, any issues lost within the
morass.
Nagorno-Karabakh is as thorny an issue as they come. In relation to
Nagorno-Karabakh Mr. 'Mutlu' (in "Would 'Milanini' Trust, Say, Nalbandian,
Dewey, Allen, Muratoff...") writes that:
"Anyway, the historical truth is that Russian Imperial expansion
upset the traditional balance of the peoples of the Crimea and Caucasus."
a point which undoubtedly true. Ottoman, Mongol and Persian Imperial
expansion, however, probably upset it just as much over the centuries, in
addition to a host of home-grown expansions and territorial disputes making
it questionable whether there ever was any real indigenous, long-term
'balance' in this region.
Mr. 'Mutlu' (apparently paraphrasing A. N. Kurat's, "Turkiye ve Rusya,
1798-1919,") would seeming have us believe that the overwhelming
majority of the population of the Caucuses including Nagorno-Karabakh was
always Muslim in character and that it has been Russian Imperial expansion
and its importation of Christians which has upset that balance. This full
story is more complex, however, and begins long before the 18th century
Russian machinations in the region cited by 'Mutlu'/Kurat.
In particular, readers following events in Nagorno-Karabakh may be
interested in the following extract of an article written by none other than
historian Roy Medvedev ("The Emergence of National Problems in Soviet
Transcaucasia (1989)") first published in Labour Focus on Eastern Europe,
vol. 9(4) and then reprinted in Across Frontiers vol. 5(5). In light of recent
events there his words published some three years ago have a certain
prescience.
"The problem of the autonomous oblast of Nagorno-Karabakh is not a
major national one, but nor is it a straightforward problem as its origins
and history go back into the distant past. The lands of Nagorno-Karabakh
began to be settled by Armenians back in the First Century A.D. when one of
the ancient states of Eastern Transcaucasia, Caucasian Albania, began to
decline and significant territories of this state from Lake Sevan to the
Caspian Sea were conquered by Great Armenia. For 300 years Armenians
settled the whole region of Karabakh and their national religious influence
remained predominant there despite the fact that after the Fourth Century
Nagorno-Karabakh reverted (first) back to Albania, then to Persia, then to an
Arab Kaliphate and a Khazar Khanate. For about a thousand years Nagorno-
Karabakh was subject to the devastating incursions of the Mongols, Turks
and Turkmen; only by the 17th century had it been conquered by Persia.
However, Turkey persisted in its claim to this small Persian domain and
wars between Persia and Turkey continued until the end of the 18th Century.
The khans and beks changed but the peasant population of the region, as
before, consisted predominantly of Armenians with a comparatively small
number of Georgians and Azerbaijanians.
In religious life the region was dominated by Georgianism although
attempts to implant Islam were continuous, persistent and not always
without success. From the Church there arose the desire to establish
relations with Russia; back in 1701 the first delegation from Nagorno-
Karabakh headed by Bishop Minas arrived at the court of Peter the Great
with a request for protection. However, the Karabakh khanate was finally
annexed to Russia in 1813 by the treaty of Gulistan after the latest Russo-
Persian War. At the end of the 19th Century Nagorno-Karabakh was a part of
Elizavetpol province in Transcaucasia. The capital of the province was
Elizavetpol, later Gandzha and now Kirovobad.
The Tsarist government was not concerned with the national
boundaries in Transcaucasia and in 1917 the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh
joined the Sushensky and Zangezursky regions. In Transcaucasia, after the
fall of the Tsarist and Provisional governments in 1917 and then of the
celebrated Baku Commune in 1918, there occured not only outbursts of civil
unrest but also brutal national wars including for the possession of
Nagorno-Karabakh which the Armenian nationalists (Dashnaks) considered an
inalienable part of Armenia and the Azerbaijani nationalists (Mussavatists)
an inalienable part of Azerbaijan. Only the victory of Soviet power in
Transcaucasia brought an end to this bloody internecine strife which in
some mountainous regions had reduced life to 30% of the population.
The Armenian population of Transcaucasia had particularly suffered.
If, before the Revolution, Armenians constituted 42% (of the population of
Nakhichevan) then by the beginning of the 1920's the population had fallen to
15%. . . Although Nakhichevan did not have a common border with Azerbaijan
but was geographically in Armenia, it was decided to form the Nakhichevan
Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic not within Armenia but within
Azerbaijan.
Fortunately, Nagorno-Karabakh had suffered less. At the beginning of
the 1920's approximately 94% of the population were Armenians.
Nevertheless, for some little known reason, it was decided to organize on
this territory not an autonomous republic within Armenia along the lines of
Nakhichevan, but an autonomous region within Azerbaijan which to this day
is regarded by virtually all Armenians both within Nagorno-Karabakh and
beyond its boundaries as an unjust and irrational solution and which became
the starting point for prolonged disputes between Armenia and Azerbaijan
which have become extremely aggravated at the present time."
It is an oft-quoted platitude that those who forget their history are
doomed to repeat it. On the other hand those who cannot forgive and forget,
as well, are destined to be slaves of their history. It is a sad truth that the
world has seen an unending litany of injustices and atrocities. The desire
for vengeance has the capacity to extend these injustices and atrocities
indefinitely into the future, providing fresh fuel for future reprisals.
For those seeking solutions beyond this morass of vendetta and
counter-vendetta I offer the following: one of the most sage pieces of
advice in relation to settling disputes came from a friend who was a high
profile mediator in labour and other disputes. Her experience was that if you
*truly* wish for a settlement, and peace, it is *never* in your interests to
humiliate your opponents. Otherwise you merely sow the seeds of future
revenge -- a strategy which benefits no one in the long term.
C. Majka
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