|
Soviet
Armenia
By November
1920, just over two years after Armenia established its
independence, the Bolsheviks attacked and occupied the
Republic of Armenia. At the same time, Turkish troops in
collusion with the Soviets attacked and captured the
Armenian cities of Kars and Gyumri. The Soviets
established peace with Turkey by ceding the remaining
Western Armenian provinces of Kars and Ardahan, leaving
Armenia the eastern province of Yerevan and returning
Gyumri. Although people rebelled against Bolshevik
oppression, Armenia was powerless to the newly formed
Soviet Union. Between 1921 and 1936 Armenia, Azerbaijan
and Georgia were incorporated into the Union as the
Trans-Caucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. In
1923, the USSR further capitulated to Turkey's demands
by transferring the Armenian provinces of Nakhichevan
and Nagorno-Karabakh to Soviet Azerbaijan, thereby
giving Turkey a border with their Azeri cousins. These
land transfers brought on waves of violence to the
Armenian inhabitants of area. Yet again, Armenians were
forced out of their ancestral homes or left to face
persecution and death. In 1936, a new Soviet
constitution was adopted, whereby the Armenian Soviet
Socialist Republic (SSR) was separated from the
Azerbaijani and Georgian SSR. Nakhichevan and
Nagorno-Karabakh, however, remained under the
jurisdiction of the Azerbaijani SSR as autonomous
administrative regions. Despite these difficulties,
Armenia experienced a long period of industrialization
and relative prosperity within the Soviet structure.
Soviet Armenia became a center of scientific research,
manufacture of products ranging from textiles to
technological goods such as transistors and
semiconductors, and attracted tourists from all corners
of the Soviet Union. These prospects coupled with the
Diaspora Armenian sentiments toward their homeland
helped officials draw Armenians living in other
countries to Soviet Armenia. As the reform-minded Soviet
Premiere Mikhail Gorbachev's concepts of glasnost and
perestroika, which were meant to spur efficiency and
tolerance in the faltering Soviet system, were
implemented, Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh took to the
polls to secede from the Azerbaijani SSR. In Sumgait and
the capital of Soviet Azerbaijan, Baku, Azeri forces
massacred Armenian populations to demonstrate
Azerbaijan's disapproval of the referendum which would
reunite Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. In solidarity
with their Armenian compatriots' struggle, Armenians
rallied and took to the streets of the capital city of
Yerevan. After nearly seventy years of Soviet
domination, Armenia chose to embrace democratic ideals.
While this meant that Armenia was on the path to
independence, it also meant that Armenians faced the
difficult challenges of providing relief to survivors of
the earthquake, refugees expelled from Azerbaijan, and
the prospect of being forced to defend its land and
people as an armed conflict erupted from over the issue
of Nagorno-Karabakh.Under Azeri rule during the Soviet
period, the Armenian majority population of
Nagorno-Karabakh suffered religious and cultural
persecution and infrastructural negligence at Azeri
hands. Armenian churches and graves were defaced; the
people's language was forbidden; the enclave's schools
were under-funded and its roads left in disrepair.
Slowly, the Muslim minority hoped to squeeze out the
indigenous Armenian population through its campaigns,
which were in violation of human rights. In the late
1980s, as Gorbachev's reforms took effect, ethnic
Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh exercised their rights by
voting to separate from Azerbaijan and reunite with
Armenia. This civil action was met by brutal
government-led pogroms against Armenian communities in
Azerbaijan. Threatened by another genocide, the Armenian
nation was forced to take up arms and fight back. In
full-scale armed conflict between 1991 and May 1994,
Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians from all walks of life
bravely defended their right to self-determination. As a
cease-fire was called, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and other
concerned states sat down at the negotiating table.
Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh seized the opportunity to
set up a de facto government independent of Armenia and
Azerbaijan. With the help of the Republic of Armenia,
and to a large part Diaspora Armenians, the independent
Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh began to rebuild a country
that had long endured neglect. While its official status
remains unresolved and no government in the world
recognizes its sovereignty, Armenians firmly assert
their right to self-determination by living and working
in Nagorno-Karabakh. |
