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Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Sept 8 2014
Search for causes of USSR disintegration in Karabakh -1
8 September 2014 - 12:33pm
By Peter Lyukimson, Israel, Kuryer N28-32, June 1992
The feature story "Nagorno-Karabakh: chronicles of a conflict. Notes
of a Jew from Baku" was written in 1992, soon after the author moved
to Israel. It was published in a Russian-language newspaper in Israel
called Kuryer. Those were the times when the tone in the cultural and
the public life of the Russian-speaking community of Israel was set by
the Moscow and Saint Petersburg clerisy. It had a big impact on the
attitude of Israeli society towards the events on the territory of the
former USSR. They sympathized with Armenia in its conflict with
Azerbaijan. As it turned out, most Israelis knew nothing about the
origin of the conflict or the truth about its development. The
position of the Jewish clerisy in the issue was formed based only on
publications in the central Soviet and partly in the Western press,
which were not always impartial. To be precise, most of them were made
from explicit lies and misinformation, some on semi-truths that are
sometimes even worse than obvious lies, because they gain trust.
It all inspired me to write "Notes of a Jew from Baku." Of course, I
was not an ordinary "Jew from Baku." It just so happened that my
career as a journalist coincided with the conflict around
Nagorno-Karabakh, I was involuntarily in the center of events, spent a
lot of time moving, meeting refugees, inhabitants of Nagorno-Karabakh
and so on. All the impressions of the four years (1988-1991) were
reflected in the story. Certainly, I did not know that much then, I
could not know. In over two decades, there were certainly many
documents declassified, many new testimonies appeared, many events
happened, so it cannot be considered a full and absolutely impartial
chronical of the conflict, I do not insist that myself.
As I discovered, the feature story was published by an Azerbaijani
paper the same year, then a brochure was published, it can be found in
the catalogue of the Central Library of Azerbaijan. I hope to get hold
of it someday...
For every Azerbaijani, Karabakh today is the same as Jerusalem for
Jews, the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius and Yasnaya Polyana for
Russians, Versailles and the Bois de Boulogne for the French...
Hundreds of thousands of Armenians had a happy life on the territory
of all Azerbaijan; newspapers and books in the Armenian language were
published, Armenian schools were open in Karabakh, Baku, Khanlar and
other districts of the republic with at least a small Armenian
population; an Armenian section existed in any large library of
Azerbaijan... Regarding the economy of the NKAO, the rate of its
development was ahead of the average in the republic, consequently,
the NKAO turned into a rich region. All the authorities were solely
Armenians, Armenians were chairing village councils even in
Azerbaijani villages of the NKAO. There could be no discrimination
against the Armenian population in Azerbaijan.
The Azerbaijani population faced overt pressure from authorities of
the autonomous region... Every year, thousands of families of
Azerbaijanis were moving from the NKAO to other districts of the
republic. By 1985, 123,000 Armenians and 37,000 Azerbaijanis were
living in the region; when the Karabakh Khanate joined Russia, the
region had only 90,000 inhabitants, 4,331 of them Armenians. The same
year (1985), Armenians removed the inscription 150 from the memorial
built in Mardakert for the 150th anniversary of the settlement of
Armenians in Karabakh.
It is Karabakh where the origins of the separatism that eroded the
"unbreakable union" hide. The strikes in Karabakh became the beginning
of the economic crisis the former Union is in, they were declared
right in that period when the first, careful economic reforms produced
the first results - in 1987, the fall in the rate of growth of
national income was halted for the first time in 1.5 years.
The events started with the decision made at another Armenian National
Congress in Paris held in 1987 to use the democratic reforms in the
USSR to fulfil "the fair demands of the Armenian people" for "reunion"
of the NKAO with Armenia. The same year, in Paris, Gorbachev's
economic advisor Abel Aganbegyan met officials of the Armenian
diaspora in France, after which he was in a hurry for an interview
with French newspapers, in which he said that Karabakh, located in the
north-east of the republic, had become Armenian. Abel Aganbegyan said:
"As an economist, I believe that it is connected closer with Armenia
than Azerbaijan. I made a proposal for it. I hope that the problem
will find a solution in the context of Perestroika and democracy." At
the same time, the Armenian and the All-Union press started publishing
articles by Armenian publicists with a message that the Azerbaijanis
were alien people of the Trans-Caucasus without historical origins or
their own culture and all the territory had been Armenian from the
very beginning. Some of the authors were even trying to declare
Azerbaijan's greatest poet Nizami Ganjavi to be an Armenian.
The peak of anti-Azerbaijani "hysteria" was achieved in 1987 after
publication of Armenian poet Silva Kaputikyan's poem "Friendship of
Peoples," urging readers to repeat the path of "glorious Andranik" and
move through Azerbaijani villages with a "Berdan rifle and winding
sheet."
Soon after, many copies of Zori Balayan's "Hearth" were published,
depicting Karabakh as the "hearth" of the Armenian nation. The book
criticizes the Azerbaijanis for... breeding too fast, so it was
recommended to sterilize Azerbaijani women as a preventive measure.
Azerbaijan figured that it should respond. Dozens of historians and
literature critics - from skilled to amateurs - wrote reviews of the
book but the Azerbaijani authorities prohibited publishing anything on
the topic, under the pretext that such publications can cause "a
divide between the brotherly Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples..."
And there, in Stepanakert, started protests with demands to adjoin the
NKAO to Armenia, backed in Yerevan. The protests consisted of only a
few hundred people but, in just a few days, they grew to tens of
thousands. The demands and slogans in Yerevan and Stepanakert were
surprisingly familiar: it is time to rectify "Stalin's mistake" and
reunite the people of the NKAO and their "Mother Armenia." After the
Armenian demonstrations of 1987 going through Armenia and
Nagorno-Karabakh, Moscow was confused...
To be continued
http://vestnikkavkaza.net/articles/politics/59709.html
Sept 8 2014
Search for causes of USSR disintegration in Karabakh -1
8 September 2014 - 12:33pm
By Peter Lyukimson, Israel, Kuryer N28-32, June 1992
The feature story "Nagorno-Karabakh: chronicles of a conflict. Notes
of a Jew from Baku" was written in 1992, soon after the author moved
to Israel. It was published in a Russian-language newspaper in Israel
called Kuryer. Those were the times when the tone in the cultural and
the public life of the Russian-speaking community of Israel was set by
the Moscow and Saint Petersburg clerisy. It had a big impact on the
attitude of Israeli society towards the events on the territory of the
former USSR. They sympathized with Armenia in its conflict with
Azerbaijan. As it turned out, most Israelis knew nothing about the
origin of the conflict or the truth about its development. The
position of the Jewish clerisy in the issue was formed based only on
publications in the central Soviet and partly in the Western press,
which were not always impartial. To be precise, most of them were made
from explicit lies and misinformation, some on semi-truths that are
sometimes even worse than obvious lies, because they gain trust.
It all inspired me to write "Notes of a Jew from Baku." Of course, I
was not an ordinary "Jew from Baku." It just so happened that my
career as a journalist coincided with the conflict around
Nagorno-Karabakh, I was involuntarily in the center of events, spent a
lot of time moving, meeting refugees, inhabitants of Nagorno-Karabakh
and so on. All the impressions of the four years (1988-1991) were
reflected in the story. Certainly, I did not know that much then, I
could not know. In over two decades, there were certainly many
documents declassified, many new testimonies appeared, many events
happened, so it cannot be considered a full and absolutely impartial
chronical of the conflict, I do not insist that myself.
As I discovered, the feature story was published by an Azerbaijani
paper the same year, then a brochure was published, it can be found in
the catalogue of the Central Library of Azerbaijan. I hope to get hold
of it someday...
For every Azerbaijani, Karabakh today is the same as Jerusalem for
Jews, the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius and Yasnaya Polyana for
Russians, Versailles and the Bois de Boulogne for the French...
Hundreds of thousands of Armenians had a happy life on the territory
of all Azerbaijan; newspapers and books in the Armenian language were
published, Armenian schools were open in Karabakh, Baku, Khanlar and
other districts of the republic with at least a small Armenian
population; an Armenian section existed in any large library of
Azerbaijan... Regarding the economy of the NKAO, the rate of its
development was ahead of the average in the republic, consequently,
the NKAO turned into a rich region. All the authorities were solely
Armenians, Armenians were chairing village councils even in
Azerbaijani villages of the NKAO. There could be no discrimination
against the Armenian population in Azerbaijan.
The Azerbaijani population faced overt pressure from authorities of
the autonomous region... Every year, thousands of families of
Azerbaijanis were moving from the NKAO to other districts of the
republic. By 1985, 123,000 Armenians and 37,000 Azerbaijanis were
living in the region; when the Karabakh Khanate joined Russia, the
region had only 90,000 inhabitants, 4,331 of them Armenians. The same
year (1985), Armenians removed the inscription 150 from the memorial
built in Mardakert for the 150th anniversary of the settlement of
Armenians in Karabakh.
It is Karabakh where the origins of the separatism that eroded the
"unbreakable union" hide. The strikes in Karabakh became the beginning
of the economic crisis the former Union is in, they were declared
right in that period when the first, careful economic reforms produced
the first results - in 1987, the fall in the rate of growth of
national income was halted for the first time in 1.5 years.
The events started with the decision made at another Armenian National
Congress in Paris held in 1987 to use the democratic reforms in the
USSR to fulfil "the fair demands of the Armenian people" for "reunion"
of the NKAO with Armenia. The same year, in Paris, Gorbachev's
economic advisor Abel Aganbegyan met officials of the Armenian
diaspora in France, after which he was in a hurry for an interview
with French newspapers, in which he said that Karabakh, located in the
north-east of the republic, had become Armenian. Abel Aganbegyan said:
"As an economist, I believe that it is connected closer with Armenia
than Azerbaijan. I made a proposal for it. I hope that the problem
will find a solution in the context of Perestroika and democracy." At
the same time, the Armenian and the All-Union press started publishing
articles by Armenian publicists with a message that the Azerbaijanis
were alien people of the Trans-Caucasus without historical origins or
their own culture and all the territory had been Armenian from the
very beginning. Some of the authors were even trying to declare
Azerbaijan's greatest poet Nizami Ganjavi to be an Armenian.
The peak of anti-Azerbaijani "hysteria" was achieved in 1987 after
publication of Armenian poet Silva Kaputikyan's poem "Friendship of
Peoples," urging readers to repeat the path of "glorious Andranik" and
move through Azerbaijani villages with a "Berdan rifle and winding
sheet."
Soon after, many copies of Zori Balayan's "Hearth" were published,
depicting Karabakh as the "hearth" of the Armenian nation. The book
criticizes the Azerbaijanis for... breeding too fast, so it was
recommended to sterilize Azerbaijani women as a preventive measure.
Azerbaijan figured that it should respond. Dozens of historians and
literature critics - from skilled to amateurs - wrote reviews of the
book but the Azerbaijani authorities prohibited publishing anything on
the topic, under the pretext that such publications can cause "a
divide between the brotherly Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples..."
And there, in Stepanakert, started protests with demands to adjoin the
NKAO to Armenia, backed in Yerevan. The protests consisted of only a
few hundred people but, in just a few days, they grew to tens of
thousands. The demands and slogans in Yerevan and Stepanakert were
surprisingly familiar: it is time to rectify "Stalin's mistake" and
reunite the people of the NKAO and their "Mother Armenia." After the
Armenian demonstrations of 1987 going through Armenia and
Nagorno-Karabakh, Moscow was confused...
To be continued
http://vestnikkavkaza.net/articles/politics/59709.html