I arrived in Yerevan in September 2017, in the warmth
of late-summer. I had visited Armenia twice before, in 2006 and 2013. During
those visits, the tragic past of the Armenian people had persistently loomed. The
1915 genocide in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire, and the deep wound left
by the loss of territory in eastern Turkey that Armenians consider rightly to
be theirs. And the more recent tragedies in the wars over Nagorno-Karabakh, the
Armenian-inhabited enclave seized from neighbouring Azerbaijan as the Soviet
Union crumbled. This time I wanted to visit Karabakh, to try to understand
better the meaning of this remote, sparsely-inhabited mountainous region for
Armenians.
From Azerbaijan’s perspective, visiting Karabakh was
illegal. I would be unlawfully entering Azerbaijan’s territory. When I had
visited Azerbaijan in 2014, there was a question on the visa application form
as to whether I had ever visited Karabakh? The answer, at the time, was no.
Azerbaijan has adopted a similar policy to Georgia and Ukraine with respect to
their lost territories in Abkhazia, Crimea and the rebel-territories in Donbas.
While entering those territories from within Georgia or Ukraine was
permissible, crossing the border from Russia was an offence. Several foreign
politicians and performing artists have been banned from visiting Ukraine after
they illegally entered Crimea.
The Nagorno-Karabakh border
Since a referendum in February 2017, Karabakh had
taken the name Artsakh, for which an ancient Armenian lineage was claimed. I
joined a group of diaspora Armenians, led by an enthusiastic guide from
Yerevan. Most of them had originally come from Iran or Syria, but now lived in
the United States or Canada. We needed visas to enter Karabakh, but while these
could be obtained at the Artsakh embassy in Yerevan, our guide picked them up
for us at the foreign ministry in Stepanakert, the territory’s capital.
Crossing into Karabakh, the border was marked by a sign welcoming us to the
would-be state. A little further on there was a border post, with two flags
flying, one of Armenia, the other of Artsakh. The Artsakh flag is the same red,
blue and orange tricolour as that of Armenia, but with the addition of a jagged
white line running from top to bottom. Our guide told me this symbolised that
on both sides of the line, the border, were Armenian lands.
During the journey, our guide was most insistent on
the name Artsakh. She fervently spoke of the determination of Armenians to hang
on to what she saw as their ancestral territories. My diaspora Armenian
companions responded with applause. It was not just the territory of Soviet-era
Nagorno-Karabakh, or mountainous Karabakh, that she referred to, but to the
whole territory that Armenian forces had occupied during the war of the early
1990s, including lands around the former autonomous province. The Soviet-era
autonomous province did not even share a border with Armenia, and was
completely surrounded by Azerbaijan. We crossed into Karabakh via the Lachin
corridor, whose capture by Armenian forces during the war had established a
vital territorial bridge between Armenia and Karabakh. But for our guide even
all the captured territory was not enough. There was still territory that
needed to be ‘liberated’ from Azerbaijani control, she asserted.
Ever since the war in the 1990s, there have been
on-off talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan to look for a settlement of their
longstanding dispute. They have never got very far. At different times, various
concessions have been discussed. Levon Ter-Petrosyan, the first president of
independent Armenia, advocated a phased solution, under which Armenia would
hand back most of the captured territory around Karabakh, and agreement over
Karabakh itself would be deferred. In return, Azerbaijani and Turkish blockades
of Armenia would be lifted, aiding Armenia’s economic recovery. But
Ter-Petrosyan did not manage to bring his countrymen with him, and he was
ousted from power in 1998. Another idea was a mooted territorial swap, by
which, in return for giving up Karabakh, Azerbaijan would receive territory in
the south of Armenia, to give it a land bridge to its territory of Nakhichevan,
sandwiched between Armenia and Turkey. But our guide had no such notions of
compromise. Armenians were determined to hold on to all the territory.
Karabakh is a sparsely populated enclave. While the
makeup of its population had fluctuated over the centuries, following its
takeover by the Russian Empire from Persia early in the 19th century, its
Armenian population was boosted by migrants from lands to the south that
remained in Persia, while many Muslims left. By the end of the Soviet Union,
the population of the enclave was around three-quarters Armenian. To this day
there is much controversy over the decision in 1921 by Stalin, the Bolshevik
Commissar for Nationalities, to grant Karabakh to Azerbaijan, albeit as an
autonomous territory with an Armenian majority. Armenians note bitterly that the
decision nearly went their way. But the Bolsheviks were swayed by their desire
to establish sound relations with the new Turkish republic to hand the
territory to Azerbaijan, according to the wish of Ataturk. To Armenians, this
appears one more example of the Turkish determination to wipe all trace of them
from their historic lands. After losing so much territory and so many people
during and after the First World War, having now won the war over Karabakh in
the early 1990s, they are determined to hold on to their gains.
National Assembly and Union of Artsakh Freedom Fighters
Stepanakert is a small town of a little over 50,000
inhabitants, down from 70,000 before the war with Azerbaijan. It suffered
severe bombardment during the war, when rockets rained down from nearby Shusha
(Shushi in Armenian), which overlooks the town. The population was forced to
seek shelter in basements, and many left. But there is little sign of that now.
With the help of diaspora money, Stepanakert has been rebuilt. And it has been
rebuilt to be a capital of a state. Karabakh may be small, with a population of
around 150,000, but the presidential palace in Stepanakert might grace the
capital of a large country. Across the main square is the newly built
parliament building, and the headquarters of the Union of Artsakh Freedom
Fighters.
This impressive new town centre appears to be an
expression of confidence in the future of Artsakh. On the outskirts of
Stepanakert stands a monument that symbolises the enduring presence of
Armenians in Karabakh. Built in 1967, the ‘We Are Our Mountains’ monument,
otherwise known as ‘Grandma and Grandpa’, depicts an Armenian man and woman in
traditional attire. Hewn from rock, it represents the steadfastness of the
Armenian people of the highlands of Karabakh.
We Are Our Mountains
Stepanakert also holds reminders of the heavy price
Karabakh’s Armenian population paid for their victory. The Artsakh State Museum
contains artefacts going back to pre-history, as well as photographs and
exhibits depicting traditional Armenian life and handicrafts. It also has
displays about the recent war. Especially poignant is the Museum of Fallen
Soldiers, in a modest little building tucked out of sight in a backyard close
to the central square. As well as exhibits of weapons and other memorabilia,
the walls of the museum are covered with photographs of the mostly young men,
and a few women, who died in the fighting. But still, it is a celebration of
victory. In one room there is an Azerbaijan flag on the floor, apparently captured
in Shusha. It seems to invite people to trample on it.
We visited Shusha the following day. A short drive up
into the mountains above Stepanakert, its strategic importance is clear.
Perched on a clifftop, it had repeatedly defied would-be attackers. Shusha’s
origins are disputed, but in the middle of the 18th century it became the
capital of the Karabakh Khanate, under Persian suzerainty. Following the
region’s incorporation into the Russian Empire in the early 19th century, many
Armenians settled in the town, and by the time of the Russian revolution they made
up slightly over half of the inhabitants. But the town retained its importance
for Azeris, and was known as a cultural centre. In the struggle for territory
at the end of the First World War, the Armenians of Shusha were among the
victims. In March 1920, Azerbaijani forces sacked the Armenian quarter of the
town, massacring several hundred and expelling the rest. Shusha’s much
diminished population (thousands of Azeris left as well) was predominantly
Azeri throughout the Soviet period, an Azeri centre in mainly Armenian Karabakh.
In a daring assault in May 1992, Shusha was captured by Armenian forces. We
stopped on the road from Stepanakert to Shusha to see one of two tanks that the
Armenian attackers used in the attack, now standing as a monument to the
victory.
Shusha ruins
The Armenian capture of Shusha relieved Stepanakert
from bombardment. But it also brought a new tragedy, the expulsion of the Azeri
population and the widespread destruction of the once fine town. Almost all the
destruction was caused after the town’s capture. It ensured that Azeris would
not be able to return to their homes. I took a walk around Shusha. While there
has been a lot of rebuilding, much of the town remains in ruins. The
population, which had reached over 15,000, mostly Azeris, at the onset of the
conflict (it had been over 40,000 before the First World War), had recovered to
getting on for 5,000 by 2015, all Armenians. At a high point in the town,
Ghazanchetsots Cathedral has been restored.
Mosque under reconstruction, Shusha
One of the ruined mosques in Shusha was in the process
of being restored when I visited. However, this was not necessarily a portent
of reconciliation with Azerbaijan. Iranian experts were invited to carry out
the restoration. In his book on the Caucasus, Thomas de Waal described how
Armenians and Azeris have carried their war over territory into the realms of
history, as each has sought to assert prior claims. Thus nationalist Armenian
historians denied the historical presence of Azerbaijan. Shia Muslims speaking
the Azeri dialect of Turkish had lived in Karabakh and in Armenia for
centuries, and Muslim-ruled Khanates had held sway over much of the southern
Caucasus. But as the name ‘Azerbaijan’ was not commonly used until the 20th
century, Armenians denied there was any Azerbaijani history in the region. Thus
Armenians claimed that mosques in Shusha and in Yerevan were Persian, not
Azerbaijani. Our guide told me in Shusha that Azerbaijan objected to the
restoration of the mosque by Iranians, as if it were a part of the Persian
rather than the Azerbaijani heritage.
Blue Mosque, Yerevan
I visited the one remaining mosque in Yerevan before
my trip to Karabakh. Yerevan had been a small, predominantly Muslim town before
the incorporation of the southern Caucasus into the Russian Empire. Baku and
Tbilisi had both been more important Armenian population centres. Yerevan’s
Blue Mosque had been built in 1765, and, following the end of the Soviet
period, in the 1990s, it too was restored by Iran. Yerevan’s Iranian
information centre is at the same site. As well as a religious centre, it is
also an Iranian cultural centre, and offers Persian language courses.
Another mosque that has been a subject of contention
is in the ruined town of Agdam, north-east of Stepanakert. Agdam was an
overwhelmingly Azeri town, situated outside of the territory of Soviet-era
Nagorno-Karabakh. Early in the war, it had been used as a military base by the
Azerbaijanis. In July 1993, Armenian forces captured it, sending the entire
Azeri population fleeing eastwards. While the town was captured mostly intact,
it was afterwards wrecked by people seeking booty. As in Shusha, the
destruction meant that Azeris would have nothing to return to. We drove
alongside the ruined town, now a ghostly place, almost no building left
standing, gradually being reclaimed by nature. This was surely an uncomfortable
sight for Armenians, testimony to the injustices suffered by Azeris, a
challenge to the notions of Armenian triumph and righteousness. Our guide told
us Agdam had been a notorious centre of criminal activity, a criminal town.
Thomas de Waal described Agdam as a black-market centre. No doubt it was so.
But it is a big step from that to declaring a whole town to be criminal, as if
in some kind of justification for its inhabitants’ fate at the hands of
Armenian conquering forces. Our guide’s characterisation of the tragedy of Agdam
left a distinctly bad taste in the mouth. The mosque in Agdam is still
standing. Our guide stressed that Armenians respected religious buildings,
although visitors had previously reported that the building had become
derelict, and that its floor had been strewn with cow dung. More recently it
had been cleaned up, and Karabakh’s authorities announced it was being
renovated.
Gandzasar Monastery
Christian churches have also been the subjects of
fierce historical dispute between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. Azeri historians
have sought to portray churches that had served the Armenian community in
Azerbaijan as having been, in origin, Caucasian Albanian. The Caucasian
Albanians had, before the arrival of Islam, ruled a territory that included
much of present-day Azerbaijan. Little trace of them remains today. Probably
many of them converted to Islam and were assimilated by the Turkic Azeris,
while others who retained their Christian faith came under the sway of the
Armenian Apostolic Church. But Azeris see them as part of their heritage. The
Christian churches around Azerbaijan are for them Caucasian Albanian churches
that had been usurped by Armenians. We visited Gandzasar monastery, north-west
of Stepanakert. Monasteries are the of glories of Armenia. During this trip, I
visited several in Armenia itself. Gandzasar, with the 13th century church of
St John the Baptist, is a fine example, and important evidence for Armenians of
their historical presence in Karabakh. In 2015, a manuscript centre was opened
at Gandzasar, a museum and library containing old illuminated manuscripts and
early printed books. Siting such an important cultural repository in Karabakh
was another affirmation of the permanence of the Armenian presence in the
region, in the past and the future.
Close to Agdam is the archaeological site of
Tigranakert, which was discovered in 2005 and is in the process of being
excavated. Armenians assert that this is one of four cities of that name
honouring Tigran the Great, who ruled a vast Armenian empire in the 1st century
BC. For Armenian nationalists, the boundaries of that empire, including swathes
of today’s eastern Turkey, remain legitimate. The site of Tigranakert in the
territory of Artsakh (but outside Soviet-era Nagorno-Karabakh) is an important
affirmation for Armenians of their historical right to this land. Our guide
thanked God that the site had been found while the territory was under Armenian
control, as she was sure that if the Azeris had found it, they would have
claimed an altogether different history for the town. Thus the history of
archaeological sites, as that of mosques and churches, has become a tussle
between competing nationalisms. Walking through the site’s museum, I could not
see any concrete evidence for this being Tigranakert rather than some other
town. I raised the point with one of the researchers who worked there. The
answer was essentially that it made sense that this should be Tigranakert.
Maybe it is. But when history is misused for modern political ends, truth is
too often lost in the murk.
Karabakh, or Artsakh, remains precarious. De jure, the
territory remains part of Azerbaijan. Even Armenia has not officially
recognised its independence. What are the chances that a change of borders based
on force and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people will be
recognised? The viability of this remote land with its tiny population is open
to question. Efforts have been made to boost the population. A native of
Karabakh, Levon Hairapetyan, who had made a huge fortune as an energy sector
tycoon in Russia, sponsored hundreds of mass-weddings in Karabakh, and became
the godfather of hundreds of children in an effort to promote population
growth. Hairapetyan died in a Russian prison in October 2017, shortly after my
visit, where he faced charges of embezzlement. But in his native Karabakh, he
was a hero. He had invested huge sums in his home village of Vank, close to
Gandzasar. As we approached Karabakh, in the strategic Lachin corridor, I saw
an attempt to draw Armenians to settle in the disputed territory. Newly-built
houses built in rows, which our guide told me had been built for Armenian
refugees from war-torn Syria. It looked a barren, lifeless place, just houses
with no sign of how new settlers were supposed to make a living there.
Armenians are determined to hold on to this land,
dependent on support from Yerevan and from the Armenian diaspora. After 25
years of economic blockade by Azerbaijan and Turkey, they appear willing to
continue to pay the price for it. Even the most reasonable, most moderate
Armenians and Azeris practically never agree on Karabakh. And by no means all
of them are at all reasonable or moderate. Most Armenians see little reason to
compromise over a land they see as rightfully theirs. For now, they think they
have won. But a small, isolated country, in a hostile region, they cannot but
feel uneasy.
