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Shusha after the 1920 pogroms

The Shusha pogrom of 1920 were pogroms during the Armenian-Azerbaijani War in 1920, when Azerbaijani army soldiers suppressed the Armenian revolt in the town of Shusha in Nagorno-Karabakh (sometimes referred to as Shushi). These events took place on March 22-26, 1920, and resulted according to various estimates in 500 - 20,000 Armenian deaths and the destruction of Shusha.

Background

On June 4-5, 1919, an armed clash between Armenians and Azeris took place in Shusha, organized and initiated by Governor-General Khosrov beg Sultanov. The town was isolated and blockaded, and the Armenian population found itself in acute need of food. The barracks in Khankendi (Stepanakert) were filled with soldiers of the Azerbaijani army, and only a single unit of the English army was located in the town, which was populated by Muslim Indians. In August, 1919, 700 Christian inhabitants of Shusha were killed by Tartars. The Armenian part of Shusha was under siege from the armed Turks. The Armenian forces were not only limited in numbers, but had no weapon cartridges.

Attempts to subjugate Karabakh to Azerbaijan continued to fail; the Armenian National Council of Karabakh remained uncooperative. Sultanov's goal was to bring Karabakh under Azerbaijani control; he used techniques such as pogroms to accomplish this goal, beginning in Shusha. The shootings on June 4-5 ended with casualties on both sides. The British mission in Shusha presented Sultanov's conditions for ceasefire to the Armenian side: removal of the Armenian National Council members from the town. On June 5, three members of the Council left Shusha. This was partially due to the involvement of the English soldiers. However, a new wave of violence swept through the neighboring villages of Ghaibalishen, Pahlul and Krkzhan, which were pillaged on June 5-7. About 700 people, mostly uninvolved civilians, were killed in Ghaibalishen. Guerrilla activities in these cities were led by the brother of General Sultanov.

When the Karabakh capital, Shusha, fell to Azerbaijani forces in March 1920, its entire Armenian population was killed or expelled.

Pogroms in Shusha on March 22-26, 1920

From the beginning of 1920, Governor Sultanov, breaking the terms of the temporary agreement of August 22, 1919, tightened the blockade around Karabagh, through both accumulation of armed forces in the strategically important locations and by arming the Azeri population, attempting to prepare the latter for guerrilla fights.

In the winter and spring of 1920, Sultanov was well aware of the degree of the Armenian population's armament in Karabakh, which in fact was much more lower than that of the Azeris. One of his dispatches reads: "I think this is the most suitable moment for the final resolution of the Nagorno Karabagh issue, since they have few cartridges available." Armenians were also aware of Sultanov's preparations and tried to resist them.

In the early morning of March 23, 1920, when the Azeri population of Shusha was celebrating Nowruz, a small Armenian detachment entered Shusha and tried to take over the barracks in accordance with an uprising program developed by the Karabakh self-defense commanders.

This started an exchange of fire which served as a signal for Azeri army soldiers and Kurdish gangs in the town to attack the Armenian district, plunder, set everything on fire and start a pogrom of the Armenian population.

There is another version of events regarding the beginning of the pogrom, in which a Turkish officer tried to disarm a young Armenian and insulted the honor of the Armenian's wife in the man's presence. The young man killed the officer, and his whole family was then killed by the Turkish soldiers accompanying the officer. While the shooting was going on, the Turks called for help from fellow Turks and compatriots.

Some Azeris residing in Shusha, the Azeri soldiers stationed in the town, and other guerrilla warriors sympathetic with the Azeri cause began to destroy the Armenian part of the town; the fires, killings, and looting initiated by the Azeri military and their sympathizers lasted for three days.

The number of casualties was not counted by anyone at the time, nor was the number of Armenian survivors of the siege. According to the 1914 population data, more than 22,000 Armenians lived in Shusha, whereas in 1921, they numbered about 300. Nadezhda Mandelstam wrote about Shusha in the 1920s: "...in this town, which formerly off course was healthy and with every amenity, the picture of catastrophe and massacres was terribly visual... They say after the massacres all the wells were full of dead bodies. ...We didn't see anyone in the streets on the mountain. Only at downtown- in the market-square there were a lot of people, but there wasn't any Armenian among them, all were Muslims".

The documented records from the Armenian archives provide evidence that the pogrom of the Armenians in Shusha was thoroughly prepared by the Azerbaijani authorities, under the command of experienced Turkish emissary Khalil Pasha. Without the purported preparations of the authorities, it is doubtful that a seemingly peaceful population would initiate an attack without some kind of coordination..

Destroyed Armenian part of Shusha in 1930s

On January 21, 1936, in the Moscow Kremlin, during the reception of the delegation from Soviet Azerbaijan, Sergo Ordzhonikidze remembers his visit to destroyed Shusha: "Even today I remember what I saw in Shusha in 1920, with horror. The most beautiful Armenian town was completely destroyed, and in the wells we saw dead bodies of women and children."

One of the organizers of the Shusha pogroms, Behbut khan Jivanshir (the former internal affairs minister of Azerbaijan) was assassinated during "Operation Nemesis" of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation.

Remembering

The prominent Russian poet Osip Mandelstam who was in Shusha in 1931 wrote a poem ("The Phaeton Driver") dedicated to the Shusha pogroms:

So in Nagorno-Karabakh
These were my fears
Forty thousand dead windows
Are visible there from all directions,
The cocoon of soulless work
Buried at the mountains.

One of the Komsomol leaders of Soviet Azerbaijan, Olga Shatunovskaya, later wrote in her memoirs: "Azerbaijan dont want to lose the power as Nagorno-Karabakh is a great region. Its autonomous but only nominally, during these years they ousted many Armenians, closed schools, colleges. Earlier the main city was Shusha. When in 1920s there was a massacre, they burnt all the central part of the town, and then they even didnt restored it."

Two prominent Armenian-Russian Communist activists (Anastas Mikoyan and writer Marietta Shaginyan) wrote about the pogroms in their memoirs. Mikoyan, who was in the region, later remarked: "According to the reconnaissance information, at Azerbaijani Mousavatist government's disposal was army of 30-thousands, of whom 20 thousants deployed near the border of Armenia... The army of Azerbaijan shortly before that massacred the Armenians in Shusha, Karabakh."

On 1 July, 1997, in her speech in the House of Lords, United Kingdom, Baroness Caroline Cox remarked: "Armenians have repeatedly suffered atrocities at the hands of Turks and Azeris, including the murder of 1.5 million Armenians by Turkey in the genocide of 1915; the massacre of 20,000 Armenians in the ancient Armenian city of Shushi in 1920; and massacres in Sumgait and Baku in 1988 and 1990."

Research analyst Kalli Raptis wrote in her book "Nagorno-Karabakh and the Eurasian Transport Corridor": "In July 1918, the First Armenian Assembly of Nagorno Karabakh declared the region self-governing and created a national Council and government. In August 1919, the Karabakh national Council entered into a provisional treaty arrangement with the Azerbaijani government in order to avoid military conflict with a superior adversary". Azerbaijan's violation of the treaty culminated in March 1920 with the massacre of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh's capital, Shushi (called Shusha by the Azerbaijanis)".

Modern Russian politologist Timur Polyannikov in his "Vityaz na rasputie" prize-awarded publication marks the pogroms in Shushi (1920) among other events in Armenian history, "organized by Azerbaijani Pan-Turkists of "Musavat" party."

On March 20, 2000, a memorial stone was laid in Shusha on the site of the planned monument to the victims of the pogrom. The government introduced a proposal to the National Assembly to establish March 23 as a day of memorial of the victims of the Shushi pogroms.

Official naming

In addition to the name Shusha massacres, the Shusha pogrom is sometimes referred to by Armenian sources as 'genocide'.

"The massacre of Armenians in Shushi in 1920 is nothing but a genocide, Chairman of the parliamentary Commission for Foreign Relations of Karabakh, Vahram Atanesyan, said at a press-conference today. He said the massacre was perpetrated by Azerbaijan with the support of the Turkish expeditionary corps. Atanesyan stressed that Karabakh has never been a part of Azerbaijan and was de facto independent at that moment, its status being recognized by Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan" .

See also

External links

Publications

References

  1. "British administrator of Karabakh colonel Chatelword didnt empede the discrimination of Armenians by Tatarian administration of governor Saltanov. The national clashes ended by the terrible massacres in which the most of Armenians in Shusha town perished. The Parliament in Baku refused even condemn the accomplishers of the massacres in Shusha and the war was started in Karabakh. A. Zubov (in Russian) А.Зубов Политическое будущее Кавказа: опыт ретроспективно-сравнительного анализа, журнал "Знамя", 2000, #4, http://magazines.russ.ru/znamia/2000/4/zubov.html
  2. ^ Kalli Raptis. "Nagorno-Karabakh and the Eurasian Transport Corridor" (PDF). Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy. massacre of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh's capital, Shushi (called Shusha by the Azerbaijanis)"
  3. World Directory of Minorities - Page 145 by Minority Rights Group, Miranda Bruce-Mitford
  4. ^ Giovanni Guaita (2001). "Armenia between the Bolshevik hammer and Kemalist anvil". 1700 Years of Faithfulness: History of Armenia and its Churches. Moscow: FAM. ISBN 5898310134. A month ago after the massacres of Shushi, in April 19, 1920, prime-ministers of England, France and Italy with participation of the representatives of Japan and USA collected in San-Remo..."
    "In March, 1920 a terrible pogrom took place in Shushi, organized by Azerbaijanis with the support of Turkish forces. Azerbaijani and Soviet authorities during the decades will deny and try to hush up the mass killings of about 30000 Armenians     {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
  5. Armenia in Crisis: The 1988 Earthquake - Page 6 by Pierre Verluise
  6. "exterminé la population arménienne dans l'ancienne capitale Chouchi au début du 20ème siècle." La nation, un concept républicain (14ème partie) : les solutions républicaines fondées sur les états-nations pour des conflits actuels, par Valentin Boudras-Chapon // ReSPUBLICA journal, Mardi 22 mai 2007
  7. "Situation des réfugiés et déplacés d'origine arménienne sur le territoire de l'ex-Union soviétique" (PDF). Commission des recours des refugies (in French). De 1918 à 1920, les républiques indépendantes d'Arménie et d'Azerbaïdjan se sont disputées le contrôle du Karabagh, pour des raisons symboliques et stratégiques. Des pogroms et des incendies anéantissent le quartier arménien de Chouchi en février 1920.
  8. I. P. Dobaev, V. I. Nemchina: И.П.Добаев, В.И.Немчина. Новый терроризм в мире и на Юге России: сущность, эволюция, опыт противодействия (Ростов н/Д., 2005)
  9. La construction de l'État en Arménie: un enjeu caucasien - Page 69 by Gérard J. Libaridian
  10. Tim Potier. Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia: A Legal Appraisal
  11. Benjamin Lieberman. Terrible Fate: Ethnic Cleansing in the Making of Modern Europe. ISBN-10: 1566636469
  12. Thomas de Waal. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. ISBN 0814719449
  13. ^ "The Nagorno-Karabagh Crisis:A Blueprint for Resolution" (PDF). Public International Law & Policy Group and the New England Center for International Law & Policy. June, 2000. p. p. 3. In August 1919, the Karabagh National Council entered into a provisional treaty agreement with the Azerbaijani government. Despite signing the Agreement, the Azerbaijani government continuously violated the terms of the treaty. This culminated in March 1920 with the Azerbaijanis' massacre of Armenians in Karabagh's former capital, Shushi, in which it is estimated that more than 20,000 Armenians were killed. {{cite web}}: |page= has extra text (help); Check date values in: |date= (help); External link in |work= (help)
  14. ^ Caroline Cox (July 1 1997). "Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan". Lords Hansard. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  15. Why IDPs Matter in the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict by Seepan V. Parseghian, p.5
  16. Historic Maps of Armenia: The Cartographic Heritage - Page 7 by Rouben Galichian
  17. Russian analysts Igor Babanov and Konstantin Voevodsky write that "On March, 1920, during the occupation of Shushi town, 30 thousand Armenians were massacred". / Игорь Бабанов, Константин Воеводский, Карабахский кризис, Санкт-Петербург, 1992
  18. Нагорный Карабах в 1918—1923 гг.: сборник документов и материалов. Ереван, 1992, стр., стр. 240, документ № 155
  19. "Kavkazskoe slovo" newspaper,1.07.1919
  20. Нагорный Карабах в 1918—1923 гг.: сборник документов и материалов. Ереван, 1992, стр. 265—269, документы №№ 177, 178
  21. s:The New York Times/Nurses stuck to post
  22. Нагорный Карабах в 1918—1923 гг.: сборник документов и материалов. Ереван, 1992, стр. 162—164, документ № 105
  23. (in Russian) "Slovo" newspaper, 28.08.1919
  24. Нагорный Карабах в 1918—1923 гг.: сборник документов и материалов. Ереван, 1992, стр., стр. 240, документ № 155
  25. Walker, Armenia and Karabakh, p.91
  26. Goldenberg, Pride of Small Nations, p.159
  27. Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War By Stuart J. Kaufman, p.51
  28. Нагорный Карабах в 1918—1923 гг.: сборник документов и материалов. Ереван, 1992, стр. 385, документ № 261
  29. "Communist" newspaper, Baku, 25 June, 1920
  30. (in Russian) Н. Я. Мандельштам. Книга третья. Париж, YMCA-Ргess, 1987, с.162-164.
  31. (in Russian) Нагорный Карабах в 1918—1923 гг.: сборник документов и материалов. Ереван, 1992, стр. 376, документ № 254
  32. Caroline Cox (1997). "Nagorno Karabakh: forgotten people in a forgotten war". Contemporary Review. For example, also in the 1920s, Azeris brutally massacred and evicted Armenians from the town of Shushi, which had been a famous and historic centre of Armenian culture {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  33. "Fighting broke out in 1920 over whether Shusha would be part of the newly declared republics of Armenia or Azerbaijan. Thousands died and the Armenian population fled the city." Jerusalem of Karabakh" at the heart of Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, by Michael Mainville, Agence France Presse, 7/25/07
  34. Партиздат ЦК ВКП(б), 1936, с. 60-63
  35. "Помимо лидеров младотурок руководство операции "Немезис" приняло решение о ликвидации некоторых деятелей мусаватистского правительства Азербайджана, виновных, по их мнению, в организации резни армян в Баку в сентябре 1918 г. - бывшего премьер-министра Фатали хана Хойского (июнь 1920 г.), а также бывшего министра Бехбуд хана Дживаншира (июль 1921 г.), организатора резни армян в Шуши (Карабах)." I. P. Dobaev, V. I. Nemchina: И.П.Добаев, В.И.Немчина. Новый терроризм в мире и на Юге России: сущность, эволюция, опыт противодействия (Ростов н/Д., 2005)
  36. Осип Мандельштам, Фаэтонщик, http://www.klassika.ru/stihi/mandelshtam/mandel107.html
  37. Осип Мандельштам. Сочинения. В 2-х т. Т.1, с.517-519.
  38. (in Russian) Шатуновская О. Г . Об ушедшем веке. Рассказывает Ольга Шатуновская / сост.: Д. Кутьина, А. Бройдо, А. Кутьин. – La Jolla (Calif.) : DAA Books, 2001. – 470 с., c. 71
  39. "Here during the 3 days in March 1920, 7000 houses were destroyed and burnt, and the people are marking different numbers of that who were massacred...". (in Russian) Marietta Shaginyan, "Soviet Transcaucasus", Armgiz, 1947, p. 254
  40. (in Russian) Микоян Анастас. Так было (воспоминания), http://biblioteka.org.ua/book.php?id=1121020105&p=19
  41. "Как известно, первым случаем геноцида в XX веке считается уничтожение 1.5 миллионов армян в течение 1915 – 1923 гг. в Западной Армении и других частях Османской империи, которое было организовано и планомерно осуществлялось турецкими правителями. Сюда же примыкают и массовые «этнические чистки» в Восточной Армении и в Закавказье в целом, совершенные младотурками во время вторжения в Закавказье в 1918 г. и кемалистами во время агрессии против Армении в сентябре–декабре 1920 г., а также погромы, организованные азербайджанскими пантюркистами из партии «Мусават» в Баку (1918 г.) и Шуши (1920 г.). "Витязь на распутье. Россия между империей и государством-нацией, Тимур Полянников http://www.kirichenko-premiya.ru/upload/works/w_394.doc
  42. Nagornyy Karabakh marks 80th anniversary of 1920 Armenian pogroms, Noyan Tapan, 24 Mar. 2000
  43. Massacre of Armenians in Shushi in 1920 is nothing but a genocide: Chairman of the parliamentary Commission for Foreign Relations of Karabakh, Vahram Atanesyan, at a press-conference, Arminfo, March 23, 2002
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