WHY THE ARMENIANS OF NAGORNO KARABAKH VOTED TO UNITE THE ARMENIAN SSR
In August 1987, Karabakh Armenians sent a petition for union with Armenia with tens of thousands of signatures to Moscow. And there were many reasons for this...
1923 - 1988
THE COLONIAL POLICY OF SOVIET AZERBAIJAN AND THE STRUGGLE OF THE ARMENIANS OF ARTSAKH FOR THE REUNIFICATIN OF NKAR WITH THE SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA
PART 1
From the very beginning of NKAR (Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast) formation the leaders of Azerbaijan defied the rights and interests of the Armenian population. The violation of rights was mainly evident the attempts of suspending artificially the social-economic growth of the region and making Nagorno Karabakh the raw material appendix of Azerbaijan. The authorities of Azerbaijan tried to lead an active demographic expansion driving the Armenians of NKAR out of their land. Before it, they had succeeded doing it in Nakhijevan. They started practicing the policy of personnel discrimination, partial change of the administrative - territorial structure of the region, language and culture restriction, annihilation of Armenian historical monuments and cultural values.
On 6 August, 1923 the Kurdish province was declared a self-governing Kurdish region - Red Kurdistan or Kurdistan Uyezd (in the territory of Berdzor known as "Lachin Corridor". The majority of Kurds in the region were Shia, unlike Sunni Kurds of Nakhijevan and other areas of the Middle East.
In a very short period the Kurds were turkified.
On 8 April 1929, the uyezd was dissolved. On 30 May 1930, Kurdistan Okrug (region) was founded in its place. The region included the territory of the former uyezd and also entire Zangelan and a part of Jabrail region. The okrug was created by the Soviet authorities in order to attract the sympathies of Kurds in neighboring Iran and Turkey and take advantage of Kurdish nationalist movements in those countries. However, the region was liquidated on 23 July 1930.
A new groundless period of estranging the Kurds began. In 1926 over 44.000 Kurds lived in Azerbaijan. In 1936 that number decreased to 6000 and according to the census data of 1979 there were NO KURDS in Azerbaijan.
Nagorno Karabakh territory settlements were cut off from the autonomous region and granted to Azerbaijan!
After the so-called Trans-federation was abolished, the villages of Hogher and Harar were cut off from Hadrut district and annexed to Fizuli and Lachin districts.
THE MYSTERY OF THE TERRITORY BETWEEN ARMENIA AND NAGORNO KARABAKH IS NOW RESOLVED! It was meant to artificially disconnect Armenia and Artsakh from each other.
PART 2.
The Azerbaijani government snatched fields from the Armenian villages through 1950-1970's. After all that new Azerbaijani villages appeared on the crossroads of the region. This led to the disappearance of tens of Armenian villages. Part of them such as Jamilu, Krkzhan, Khojalu were populated with Azeries.
From 1920s to the end of 1950s thousands of young men from Nagorno Karabakh were annually recruited and sent to work in the industrial centers of Azerbaijan and on the arid lands of Milli and Mughan.
The lack of arable lands, low harvest yield, the absence of irrigational canals made the Armenians work in Azerbaijani regions. The hard work, the drastic change of climate conditions became the reasons for epidemic and death.
After cutting Nagorno Karabakh from Armenia, the leaders of Azerbaijan artificially suspended the social-economic growth of the autonomy with the purpose of increasing the outflux of the Armenians of the region.
Thus those high-quality Armenian specialists who received their education in Armenia were not given work. Those Armenian young men who had Armenian education had no right to work within administrative bodies.
One of the reasons of the migration of Armenian population was the absence of elementary conditions for going to school. Up to 1970 no school building or palace of culture was built in Armenian districts of the region by the state budget means. IT WAS PROHIBITED to take Armenian History in the Armenian schools of Azerbaijan, but Azerbaijani History was a mandatory subject in Teacher Training (Pedagogic) Institute of Stepanakert.
The health service system of the region also left much to be desired. In 1987 there were 28 doctors per 10.000 people in Nagorno Karabakh and 28 in Azerbaijan.
The volume of the apartment construction was reduced year by year. For getting a flat people of Stepanakert had to wait tens of years.
The bad state of communication system led to the isolation of many villages. Most of the industrial enterprises of the autonomous region which had been built before the revolution in 1917 still used handiwork and very old equipment, which could not give the desired result.
Nagorno Karabakh was mainly an agricultural region but throughout the Soviet Era it didn't have an irrigation system. The region which had great stocks of water still had a problem of obtaining drinking water. Despite this, the region gave more agricultural products then it received. That is why the working class always lacked diary and meat products. The sale of the products was carried by special checks.
Throughout 70 years of Soviet regime the Azerbaijani leaders drove the region to a deadlock by all possible and impossible means and took its Armenian population under their colonial yoke.
A Volski, the chief of the central committee of the Soviet Union Communist Party was right to not, "Nowhere I have seen such destruction, such scorn towards the fate of the people in Mountainous Karabakh". The aim of the Azerbaijani policy was to drive the Armenians from Artsakh and settle their lands with the Azeries.
Every attempt of the region's Armenians to defend their elementary rights was regarded as an expression of nationalism.
According to the census data of 1926 and 1939 the total number of the region's Armenian population increased from 111.7 thousand to 132,8 thousand. During he same years the total number of the region's population increased from 125,3 thousand to 159,8 thousand that is by 20.4%.
In 1949 over 24,500 Armenians of Artsakh were exiled to Altai. Besides there was a migration of the population. By 1959 the population of Artsakh was 110,1 thousand (less than in 1926).
During the Soviet era only one out of ten born in Artsakh lived there because the other nine migrated. As a result of this the number of the region's Armenian population decreased from 11.7 thousand to 123.1 thousand (1979), and the number of Azerbaijani population increased from 12,6 thousand to 37,2 thousand.
During the interval of 40 years between the census of 1939 and 1979 the number of Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh got reduced by 7.3% and the number of the Azerbaijanis increased in 2,6 times.
The policy of ousting the Armenian from Nagorno Karabakh became especially intensive in the 50's. However, there was a simultaneous increase of the number of the Azerbaijanis in Armenia too.
The outflux of the youth led to the "aging" of the region's Armenian population which on one hand decreased the birth rate and on the other hand increased the mortality rate.
Thus with a purposeful demographic policy the authorities of Azerbaijan tired to force all the Armenians out of the region and give a final solution to the problem of Karabakh.
In order to endure and overcome anti-Armenian policy Artsakh started a liberation and freedom movement immediately after its annexation to Azerbaijan. There were many uprisings in the districts of Artsakh against the Azerbaijani officials.
Dashnaktutyun party was there. In 1920's "Karabakh to Armenia" union led the liberation movement with its branches in Nagorno Karabakh and Gandzak. After spreading thousands of leaflets in 1927, over 500 union members got arrested. A witness of the events in 1927 remembered later, "Hundreds of Armenians of Artsakh came to railway station at night and left by train. Many people hid in the forests and mountains".
The activists of the movement organized and ammunition depot and workshop in Shushi district. But in 1930 a special commission arrested 17 gunsmiths, confiscated 17 cannons, 30 machine guns and other kinds of weapon and ammunition. The population of Khtsaberd village rebelled and numerous troops were brought to Nagorno Karabakh to oppress the nation-wide rebellions.
In 1931 the leadership of the region committee was accused of nationalism ad of the attempts to reunite Mountainous Karabakh and Armenia. They were arrested.
In 1945 the first secretary of Soviet Armenian Committee G. Harutyunyan addressed an appeal letter to Stalin asking him to review the issue of Karabakh. He also proved with certain facts the essence and necessity of reunification of Nagorno Karabakh with Armenia.
However, Malenkov, the secretary of CP Central Committee sent that letter to Bagirov, the first secretary of Azerbaijan CP Central Committee. The latter was to get acquainted with the letter and to introduce some suggestions concerning the issue. In his return letter Bagirov denied the facts and arguments which had been mentioned by G. Harutyunyan, he instead gave his consent to the reunification of Nagorno Karabakh with the Armenian SSR only on the condition that the latter would cede Shoushi district as well as its 3 regions which border Azerbaijan. Decisive steps were undertaken to change the demographic structure of the region. In 1949 a large number of the Azerbaijanis moved to the Armenian villages of Artsakh. Each Armenian family was obliged to share his house with one or two Azerbaijani families. The peaceful life of the Armenians of Artsakh was disturbed by the Azerbaijani families which in a very short tie turned the fertile fields and gardens of the region into desert steppes. However being unable to adapt the adamant and unappeasable will and moods of the Artsakhians (1950), the families moved to the plain parts known as Lower Karabakh - Khanlar, Shamkhor, Shahumyan, Karhat causing new problems for the local Armenians.
Azerbaijan didn't achieve its goals.
In 1962 300 workers of Stepanakert machine column addressed a protest letter to the Supreme Council of USSR, the Central Committee of the communist party and the council of Ministers in which they told about the colonial state of the region and suggested that Nagorno Karabakh would reunite with the Armenian SSR.
In 1962 many intellectuals sent a similar letter too.
Another protest letter was sent to the Central Committee in 1965 signed by 45000 workers. On 8 August 1966 the secretariat of the Soviet Union Communist Party CP ordered the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia to discuss the issue of Karabakh and introduce their suggestions concerning the reunification with Armenia to the Central Committee of the Soviet Union CP.
However the authorities of Azerbaijan prohibited any further discussion of the problem with a blackmail and threats of executing new massacres.
In 1971 tens of outstanding intellectuals such as Martiros Saryan, Paruyr Sevak, Gohar Gasparyan among them, addressed with an appeal the authorities of the USSR and the Armenian SSR. They were worries by the illegalities that took place in NKAR. The intellectuals wrote, "The police and the soldiers of the state security which have come from Baku humiliate the Armenian population of the region with their persecutions and examinations. Hundreds of honest and brave people are driven to prisons and those who try to protest against this get harassed and dismissed. Instead more and more traitors are appointed responsible to the posts. No end of this is seen".
The issue of Artsakh was again touched upon during the public discussion of the draft of the USSR new constitution. The minutes of the chairmanship of the USSR Minister Council ran, "Tens of years ago Mountainous Karabakh was artificially annexed to Azerbaijan under s number of historic conditions. Its historical past, national structure, economic interests and the will of the people were not taken into consideration. Many years have passed but the issue of Karabakh still remains unsolved. It is necessary to reunite Artsakh with the SSR of Armenia. It will restore the former legal state of things".
The struggle of the Armenians of Artsakh which went on with rises and falls during the years of the Soviet rule became the basis for the nationwide liberation movement which begun in February in 1988.
To be continued...
Source: VAHRAM BALAYAN "ARTSAKH HISTORY"
Djan please add your sources in footnotes and bibliography if possible. I think we need to send this out to all the journalists in Artsakh!
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