Shusha pogrom
Encyclopedia
The Shusha
pogrom
of 1920 or the Massacre
of Shusha"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 | author = Giovanni Guaita
| chapterurl = http://www.grazhdanin.com/grazhdanin.phtml?var=Vipuski/2004/4/statya17&number=%B94 }} was a pogrom directed against the ethnic Armenian population of Shusha
(Shushi), a town in the region of Nagorno-Karabagh. The event took place between 22 and 26 March 1920, and had as its background a conflict over competing claims of ownership of the region by Armenia
and Azerbaijan
. It resulted in the complete destruction of the Armenian-populated quarters of Shusha and the elimination of the town's Armenian population.
Estimates of casualty figures are uncertain and varied: 500 to 20,000-30,000 Armenian victims - and destruction of many buildings in Shusha. According to Andrey Zubov
, "the British administrator of Karabakh colonel Shuttleworth did not prevent the discrimination of Armenians by the Tatar administration of governor Sultanov. Interethnic tensions resulted in a horrible massacre
, in which most Armenians in the town of Shusha perished. Baku
parliament refused even to condemn the perpetrators of the Shusha massacre, and the war started in Karabakh. English tried to interfere between the Armenian and Azerbaijani troops. But when they left the region, the Azerbaijani army was completely defeated by the Armenians in early November 1919. Only the interference of the English prevented the march of the Armenian troops to Elizavetpol and Shemakha".. Historian Giovanni Guaita
wrote, that Azerbaijani
and Soviet authorities "during the decades will deny and try to hush up the mass killings of about 30,000 Armenians"
calendar in 1917, in 1916 just before the Russian revolution, the population of the town of Shusha was 43,869, of which 23,396 (53 %) were Armenians, and 19,121 (44 %) were Tatars (Azerbaijanis).
At the end of the First World War, the ownership of the territory of Nagorno-Karabagh was disputed between the newly founded republics of Armenia
and Azerbaijan
. Shusha
- the territory's largest settlement, its capital, and with a mixed population consisting mostly of ethnic Armenians and Azeris - found themselves at the center of dispute.
The government of Azerbaijan
proclaimed in Baku
about the annexation
of the disputed territory and, on January 15, 1919, appointed Khosrov bek Sultanov, the "owner of vast tracts of Karabagh ... an ardent pan-Turkist, a friend of the Ittihadists of Constantinople, and a terror to all Armenians" , as governor-general of Karabagh. Britain (which had a small detachment of troops stationed in Shusha) agreed to Sultanov's appointment as a provisional governor, but insisted that a final decision on the territory's ownership should be decided only at a future Peace Conference.
In response to Sultanov's appointment, the General Assembly of the Armenians of Karabagh (Armenian National Council of Karabagh
), meeting in Shusha on February 19, "rejected with legitimate indignation all pretense of Azerbaijan with regard to Armenian Karabagh, which said Assembly has declared an integral part of Armenia".
On April 23, 1919 the National Council of Karabagh met again in Shusha
and rejected again Azerbaijan
's claim of sovereignty
, insisting on their right of self-determination
. After this, a local Azerbaijani
detachment encircled the Armenian
quarters of Shusha, demanding the inhabitants to surrender fortress. Shots were fired, but when the British mediated, Armenians agreed to surrender to them .
On the 4 and 5 June 1919, armed clashes occurred in Shusha between the two communities and Sultanov began a blockade of the town's Armenian quarters. American nurses working in Shusha for Near East Relief wrote of a massacre
"by Tartars of 700 of the Christian
inhabitants of the town". A cease-fire was quickly organised after the Armenian side agreed to Sultanov's condition that members of the Armenian National Council
left the town. However, a new wave of violence
then swept through neighbouring Armenian-populated villages: in mid-June Azeri mounted "irregulars", about 2,000 strong, attacked, looted and burnt a large Armenian village, Khaibalikend, just outside Shusha, and approximately 600 Armenians lay dead.
The seventh Congress of the Armenians of Karabagh was convened in Shusha on August 13, 1919. It concluded with the agreement of August 22, according to which Nagorno-Karabagh would consider itself to be provisionally within the borders of the Republic of Azerbaijan until its final status was decided at the Peace Conference in Paris.
On February 19, 1920 Sultanov issued a demand that the Armenian National Council of Karabagh "urgently to solve the question of the final incorporation of Karabagh into Azerbaijan". The Council, at their eighth congress held from 23 February to 4 March, responded that Azerbaijan's demand violated the terms of the 22nd August provisional agreement and warned that "repetition of the events will compel the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabagh to turn to appropriate means for defence" . Armenians of Karabakh prepared a revolt against the Azerbaijani power.
s in Shusha, Khankendi, Askeran
and Terter on the night of March 23, 1920, during the holiday of Novruz-Bairam.
According to Richard Hovannisian, the failure at Khankendi sealed the doom of Shusha
. "As planned, the Varanda
militia entered Shushi on the evening of March 22, supposedly to receive its pay and to felicitate Governor-General Sultanov
on the occasion of Novruz Bairam. That same night, about 100 armed men led by Nerses Azbekian slipped into the city to disarm the Azerbaijani garrison in the Armenian quarter. But everything went wrong. The Varanda militiamen spent most of the night eating and drinking and were late in taking up their assigned positions, whereas Azbekian’s detachment, failing to link up with the militia, began firing on the Azerbaijani fort from afar, awakening the troops and sending them scurrying to arms. It was only then that the Varanda militiamen were roused and began seizing Azerbaijani officers quartered in Armenian homes. The confusion on both sides continued until dawn, when the Azerbaijanis learned that their garrison at Khankend had held and, heartened, began to spread out into the Armenian quarter. The fighting took the Armenians of Shushi by surprise. Several thousand fled under cover of the dense fog by way of Karintak into the Varanda countryside..
Audrey L. Altstadt writes, referring to a British correspondent in Baku
, that representatives of Allied Powers in the region decided that the police of Karabakh should be made up of equal numbers of Armenians and Azerbaijanis; however in late March 1920 the Armenian half of the police to have murdered the Azerbaijani half during the latter's traditional Novruz Bayram holiday celebrations.
. From March 23 to 26, some 2000 structures were consumed in the flames, including the churches and consistory
, cultural institutions, schools, libraries, the business section and the grand homes of the merchant class. Bishop Vahan (Ter-Grigorian), long an advocate of accommodation with the Azerbaijani authorities, paid the price of retribution
, at his tongue
was torn out before his head was cut off and paraded through the streets on a spike. The chef of police, Avetis Ter-Ghukasian, was turned into a human torch, and many intellectuals, including Bolshevik
Alexandre Dsaturian, were among the 500 Armenian victims".
According to the description of Azerbaijani communist O. Musaev, "a ruthless destruction of defenceless women, children, old women and old men began. Armenians were exposed to a mass slaughter (...). And what beautiful Armenian girls were rape
d and then shot. (...) At an order of (...) Khosrov-bek Sultanov, pogrom
s proceeded for more than six days, houses in the Armenian part were crushed, plundered and reduced all to ashes, everyone led women away whenever they wished, to musavatist executioner
s. During these historically "artful" punishments Khosrov-bek Sultanov, keeping speeches, talked to Moslems about Holy war
(Jihad
) and called on to them to finish off the Armenians of city Shusha, not sparing women, children, etc."
According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia
(Third Edition, 1970), these events contributed to the death of 2096 of the city's population. Subsequently, only a few Armenian families remained.
Nadezhda Mandelstam
wrote about Shusha in the 1920s: "...in this town, which formerly, of course, was healthy and with every amenity, the picture of catastrophe and massacres was terribly vivid... They say after the massacres all the wells were full of corpses. (...) We didn't see anyone in the streets or on the mountain. Only downtown, in the market-square there were a lot of people, but there wasn't any Armenian among them, they were all Muslims".
On January 21, 1936, in the Moscow Kremlin
, during the reception of the delegation from the Azerbaijan SSR
, 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 corpses of women and children."
The former Minister of Internal Affairs of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic
, Behbut khan Javanshir, was assassinated during Operation Nemesis
of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
, as ARF believed that he was involved in these events.
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 the Azerbaijan SSR
, Olga Shatunovskaya
, later wrote in her memoirs: "Azerbaijan didn't want to lose the power as Nagorno-Karabakh is a great region. It's autonomous but only nominally, during these years they ousted many Armenians, closed schools and colleges. Earlier, the main city was Shusha. When in the 1920s there was a massacre, they burnt all the central part of the town, and then they didn't even restore it."
Two prominent Armenian-Russian Communist activists, Anastas Mikoyan
and 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 thousands deployed near the border of Armenia... The army of Azerbaijan shortly before that massacred the Armenians in Shusha, Karabakh."
Russian-Georgian writer Anaida Bestavashvili in her "The people and the monuments" publication compares the pogroms and the burning of Shusha to the tragedy of Pompeii
.
Historian Christopher J. Walker
wrote, in regard of Sultanov's activities, "The Karabagh affair was a grave one for the British. Accusations of direct British complicity in Armenian massacre cannot really be sustained; but the killings were a result of the almost unconscious British tendency to support 'our traditional friends' – the wealthy – and to disregard the wishes of the majority".
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 Azerbaijani
s)".
Modern Russia
n politologist Timur Polyannikov in his Vityaz na rasputie publication marks the pogroms in Shusha among other events in Armenian history, "organized by Azerbaijani Pan-Turkists of "Musavat" party."
The Armenia, Armenia: about the country and the people from the biblical times to our days reference book considers the pogroms of Shusha as a part of genocide of Armenians practiced all over Eastern Armenia
: "Shushi, the capital of Karabakh was seized by Azerbaijani nationalists on March 23, 1920, over 20.000 Armenians were killed and 7000 houses, libraries, churches, cemeteries and pantheons were leveled in three days and three nights."
Prof. Richard G. Hovannisian
wrote about the massacres: "Finally, in August 1919, the Karabagh National Assembly yielded to provisional and conditional Azerbaijani jurisdiction. The twenty-six conditions strictly limited the Azerbaijani administrative and military presence in the region and underscored the internal autonomy of Mountainous Karabagh.
Violations of those conditions by Azerbaijan culminated in an abortive rebellion in March 1920. In retribution, the Azerbaijani forces burned the beautiful city of Shushi, hanged Bishop Vahan, and massacred much of the population. It was the end of Armenian Shushi."
Modern journalist Thomas de Waal
wrote in his book Black Garden about these events: "Terrible pogrom
s took place in Shusha in 1920 shortly after the Russians left the city because of the economic collapse and civil war. This time Azerbaijani forces crushed the higher, Armenian quarter of the city, burned whole streets and killed hundreds of Armenians... The ruins of the Armenian quarter stood untouched for more than forty years". In another place he wrote that the number of massacred people was 500.
According to the author Thomas de Waal
:
In Karabakh, the Armenian community was split between the age-old dilemma of cooperation or confrontation. There were those – primarily Dashnaks and villagers – who wanted unification with Armenia
, and those – mainly Bolshevik
s, merchant
s, and professional
s – who, in the words of the Armenian historian Richard Hovannisian, “admitted that the district was economically with eastern Transcaucasia and sought accommodation with the Azerbaijani government as the only way to spare Mountainous Karabagh from ruin”. The latter group was mainly concentrated in Shusha, but both groups were killed or expelled when an Armenian rebellion was brutally put down in March 1920 with a toll of hundreds of Shusha Armenians. He also wrote that "In March 1920, an Azerbaijani army sacked the town, burning the Armenian quarter and killing some five hundred Armenians."
According to Tim Potier: Following the October Revolution
, Karabakh became part of the independent Republic of Azerbaijan, although its control was hotly disputed by Ottoman and British forces, as well as, of course, Armenians and Azerbaijanis. Eventually, however, the British re-affirmed Azerbaijani jurisdiction over Karabakh by appointing a Muslim
governor at Shusha. Shusha had, by this time, come to be regarded by the Armenian people as an Armenian cultural center
and it was not until 28 February 1920 that the Armenian elder
s of Shusha reluctantly agreed to recognise Azerbaijan's authority. The situation was to alter following the events of 4 April, when a mass exodus of Armenians from Shusha to nearby Khankende (Stepanakert
, today the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh
), following an Armenian uprising put down by Azeri forces, transformed, almost overnight, Shusha into an Azeri city.
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 Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
government introduced a proposal to the National Assembly to establish March 23 as a day of memorial of the victims of the Shusha pogroms.
".
Shusha
Shusha , also known as Shushi is a town in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus. It has been under the control of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic since its capture in 1992 during the Nagorno-Karabakh War...
pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
of 1920 or the Massacre
Massacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...
of Shusha"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 | author = Giovanni Guaita
Giovanni Guaita
Giovanni Guaita is an Italian historian, researcher of Eastern Christianity and writer. Assistant Professor of the Moscow Linguistic University.Guaita was born in 1962 in Italy...
| chapterurl = http://www.grazhdanin.com/grazhdanin.phtml?var=Vipuski/2004/4/statya17&number=%B94 }} was a pogrom directed against the ethnic Armenian population of Shusha
Shusha
Shusha , also known as Shushi is a town in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus. It has been under the control of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic since its capture in 1992 during the Nagorno-Karabakh War...
(Shushi), a town in the region of Nagorno-Karabagh. The event took place between 22 and 26 March 1920, and had as its background a conflict over competing claims of ownership of the region by Armenia
Democratic Republic of Armenia
The Democratic Republic of Armenia was the first modern establishment of an Armenian state...
and Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan Democratic Republic
The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was the first successful attempt to establish a democratic and secular republic in the Muslim world . The ADR was founded on May 28, 1918 after the collapse of the Russian Empire that began with the Russian Revolution of 1917 by Azerbaijani National Council in...
. It resulted in the complete destruction of the Armenian-populated quarters of Shusha and the elimination of the town's Armenian population.
Estimates of casualty figures are uncertain and varied: 500 to 20,000-30,000 Armenian victims - and destruction of many buildings in Shusha. According to Andrey Zubov
Andrey Zubov
Andrei Borisovich Zubov is a Russian historian and political scientist, Doctor of History, Professor of Moscow State Institute of International Relations.-Work:...
, "the British administrator of Karabakh colonel Shuttleworth did not prevent the discrimination of Armenians by the Tatar administration of governor Sultanov. Interethnic tensions resulted in a horrible massacre
Massacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...
, in which most Armenians in the town of Shusha perished. Baku
Baku
Baku , sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal...
parliament refused even to condemn the perpetrators of the Shusha massacre, and the war started in Karabakh. English tried to interfere between the Armenian and Azerbaijani troops. But when they left the region, the Azerbaijani army was completely defeated by the Armenians in early November 1919. Only the interference of the English prevented the march of the Armenian troops to Elizavetpol and Shemakha".. Historian Giovanni Guaita
Giovanni Guaita
Giovanni Guaita is an Italian historian, researcher of Eastern Christianity and writer. Assistant Professor of the Moscow Linguistic University.Guaita was born in 1962 in Italy...
wrote, that Azerbaijani
Azerbaijani people
The Azerbaijanis are a Turkic-speaking people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan, as well as in the neighbourhood states, Georgia, Russia and formerly Armenia. Commonly referred to as Azeris or Azerbaijani Turks , they also live in a wider area from the Caucasus to...
and Soviet authorities "during the decades will deny and try to hush up the mass killings of about 30,000 Armenians"
Background
According to the latest statistical data published in CaucasusCaucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...
calendar in 1917, in 1916 just before the Russian revolution, the population of the town of Shusha was 43,869, of which 23,396 (53 %) were Armenians, and 19,121 (44 %) were Tatars (Azerbaijanis).
At the end of the First World War, the ownership of the territory of Nagorno-Karabagh was disputed between the newly founded republics of Armenia
Democratic Republic of Armenia
The Democratic Republic of Armenia was the first modern establishment of an Armenian state...
and Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan Democratic Republic
The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was the first successful attempt to establish a democratic and secular republic in the Muslim world . The ADR was founded on May 28, 1918 after the collapse of the Russian Empire that began with the Russian Revolution of 1917 by Azerbaijani National Council in...
. Shusha
Shusha
Shusha , also known as Shushi is a town in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus. It has been under the control of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic since its capture in 1992 during the Nagorno-Karabakh War...
- the territory's largest settlement, its capital, and with a mixed population consisting mostly of ethnic Armenians and Azeris - found themselves at the center of dispute.
The government of Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...
proclaimed in Baku
Baku
Baku , sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal...
about the annexation
Annexation
Annexation is the de jure incorporation of some territory into another geo-political entity . Usually, it is implied that the territory and population being annexed is the smaller, more peripheral, and weaker of the two merging entities, barring physical size...
of the disputed territory and, on January 15, 1919, appointed Khosrov bek Sultanov, the "owner of vast tracts of Karabagh ... an ardent pan-Turkist, a friend of the Ittihadists of Constantinople, and a terror to all Armenians" , as governor-general of Karabagh. Britain (which had a small detachment of troops stationed in Shusha) agreed to Sultanov's appointment as a provisional governor, but insisted that a final decision on the territory's ownership should be decided only at a future Peace Conference.
In response to Sultanov's appointment, the General Assembly of the Armenians of Karabagh (Armenian National Council of Karabagh
Armenian National Council of Karabagh
The Karabakh Council the government of Nagorno-Karabakh between 1918-1920. It was elected by the Karabakh Congress, the representative body of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, on July 27, 1918...
), meeting in Shusha on February 19, "rejected with legitimate indignation all pretense of Azerbaijan with regard to Armenian Karabagh, which said Assembly has declared an integral part of Armenia".
On April 23, 1919 the National Council of Karabagh met again in Shusha
Shusha
Shusha , also known as Shushi is a town in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus. It has been under the control of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic since its capture in 1992 during the Nagorno-Karabakh War...
and rejected again Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...
's claim of sovereignty
Sovereignty
Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided...
, insisting on their right of self-determination
Self-determination
Self-determination is the principle in international law that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference...
. After this, a local Azerbaijani
Azerbaijani people
The Azerbaijanis are a Turkic-speaking people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan, as well as in the neighbourhood states, Georgia, Russia and formerly Armenia. Commonly referred to as Azeris or Azerbaijani Turks , they also live in a wider area from the Caucasus to...
detachment encircled the Armenian
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
quarters of Shusha, demanding the inhabitants to surrender fortress. Shots were fired, but when the British mediated, Armenians agreed to surrender to them .
On the 4 and 5 June 1919, armed clashes occurred in Shusha between the two communities and Sultanov began a blockade of the town's Armenian quarters. American nurses working in Shusha for Near East Relief wrote of a massacre
Massacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...
"by Tartars of 700 of the Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
inhabitants of the town". A cease-fire was quickly organised after the Armenian side agreed to Sultanov's condition that members of the Armenian National Council
Armenian National Council
Armenian National Council is a term that refers to*Armenian National Council of Karabagh was also referred as People's Government of Karabagh before the rename in September 1918*Armenian National Council of Baku*Armenian National Council of Tiflis...
left the town. However, a new wave of violence
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
then swept through neighbouring Armenian-populated villages: in mid-June Azeri mounted "irregulars", about 2,000 strong, attacked, looted and burnt a large Armenian village, Khaibalikend, just outside Shusha, and approximately 600 Armenians lay dead.
The seventh Congress of the Armenians of Karabagh was convened in Shusha on August 13, 1919. It concluded with the agreement of August 22, according to which Nagorno-Karabagh would consider itself to be provisionally within the borders of the Republic of Azerbaijan until its final status was decided at the Peace Conference in Paris.
On February 19, 1920 Sultanov issued a demand that the Armenian National Council of Karabagh "urgently to solve the question of the final incorporation of Karabagh into Azerbaijan". The Council, at their eighth congress held from 23 February to 4 March, responded that Azerbaijan's demand violated the terms of the 22nd August provisional agreement and warned that "repetition of the events will compel the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabagh to turn to appropriate means for defence" . Armenians of Karabakh prepared a revolt against the Azerbaijani power.
Revolt
Armenians of Karabakh simultaneously attacked Azerbaijan garrisonGarrison
Garrison is the collective term for a body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it, but now often simply using it as a home base....
s in Shusha, Khankendi, Askeran
Askeran
Askeran is one of the eight provinces of the unrecognised Nagorno-Karabakh Republic , coterminous with the Azerbaijani rayon of Khojali. It is in the center of the NKR, surrounding its capital city of Stepanakert.- Geography :...
and Terter on the night of March 23, 1920, during the holiday of Novruz-Bairam.
According to Richard Hovannisian, the failure at Khankendi sealed the doom of Shusha
Shusha
Shusha , also known as Shushi is a town in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus. It has been under the control of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic since its capture in 1992 during the Nagorno-Karabakh War...
. "As planned, the Varanda
Varanda
Varanda may refer to:* Fizuli Rayon, Azerbaijan* Qaradağlı, Khojavend, Azerbaijan...
militia entered Shushi on the evening of March 22, supposedly to receive its pay and to felicitate Governor-General Sultanov
Sultanov
Sultanov is a popular Tatar and Azerbaijani surname which may refer to:* Agabey Sultanov , an Azerbaijani psychiatrist, scholar and public activist...
on the occasion of Novruz Bairam. That same night, about 100 armed men led by Nerses Azbekian slipped into the city to disarm the Azerbaijani garrison in the Armenian quarter. But everything went wrong. The Varanda militiamen spent most of the night eating and drinking and were late in taking up their assigned positions, whereas Azbekian’s detachment, failing to link up with the militia, began firing on the Azerbaijani fort from afar, awakening the troops and sending them scurrying to arms. It was only then that the Varanda militiamen were roused and began seizing Azerbaijani officers quartered in Armenian homes. The confusion on both sides continued until dawn, when the Azerbaijanis learned that their garrison at Khankend had held and, heartened, began to spread out into the Armenian quarter. The fighting took the Armenians of Shushi by surprise. Several thousand fled under cover of the dense fog by way of Karintak into the Varanda countryside..
Audrey L. Altstadt writes, referring to a British correspondent in Baku
Baku
Baku , sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal...
, that representatives of Allied Powers in the region decided that the police of Karabakh should be made up of equal numbers of Armenians and Azerbaijanis; however in late March 1920 the Armenian half of the police to have murdered the Azerbaijani half during the latter's traditional Novruz Bayram holiday celebrations.
The Pogrom
According to Richard Hovannisian, "Azerbajani troops, joined by the city’s Azerbaijani inhabitants, turned Armenian Shushi into an infernoInferno
Inferno means "Hell" in both Italian and Portuguese, so this word may refer to:*Hell*Conflagration, a large uncontrolled fire.-Literature:* Inferno , the first part of Dante's Divine Comedy...
. From March 23 to 26, some 2000 structures were consumed in the flames, including the churches and consistory
Consistory
-Antiquity:Originally, the Latin word consistorium meant simply 'sitting together', just as the Greek synedrion ....
, cultural institutions, schools, libraries, the business section and the grand homes of the merchant class. Bishop Vahan (Ter-Grigorian), long an advocate of accommodation with the Azerbaijani authorities, paid the price of retribution
Retribution
Retribution may refer to:* Retributive justice* Retribution Engine, a video game engine* Retribution , a novel by Jilliane Hoffman* Retribution , a poem by Longfellow...
, at his tongue
Tongue
The tongue is a muscular hydrostat on the floors of the mouths of most vertebrates which manipulates food for mastication. It is the primary organ of taste , as much of the upper surface of the tongue is covered in papillae and taste buds. It is sensitive and kept moist by saliva, and is richly...
was torn out before his head was cut off and paraded through the streets on a spike. The chef of police, Avetis Ter-Ghukasian, was turned into a human torch, and many intellectuals, including Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
Alexandre Dsaturian, were among the 500 Armenian victims".
According to the description of Azerbaijani communist O. Musaev, "a ruthless destruction of defenceless women, children, old women and old men began. Armenians were exposed to a mass slaughter (...). And what beautiful Armenian girls were rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
d and then shot. (...) At an order of (...) Khosrov-bek Sultanov, pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
s proceeded for more than six days, houses in the Armenian part were crushed, plundered and reduced all to ashes, everyone led women away whenever they wished, to musavatist executioner
Executioner
A judicial executioner is a person who carries out a death sentence ordered by the state or other legal authority, which was known in feudal terminology as high justice.-Scope and job:...
s. During these historically "artful" punishments Khosrov-bek Sultanov, keeping speeches, talked to Moslems about Holy war
Holy war
Holy war may refer to:* A religious war led with an exceptionally high grade of religious feeling* The Crusades, 11th, 12th, and 13th-century religiously sanctioned military campaigns waged by much of Christian Europe against the Muslim Middle East....
(Jihad
Jihad
Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...
) and called on to them to finish off the Armenians of city Shusha, not sparing women, children, etc."
According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Great Soviet Encyclopedia
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia is one of the largest and most comprehensive encyclopedias in Russian and in the world, issued by the Soviet state from 1926 to 1990, and again since 2002 .-Editions:There were three editions...
(Third Edition, 1970), these events contributed to the death of 2096 of the city's population. Subsequently, only a few Armenian families remained.
Nadezhda Mandelstam
Nadezhda Mandelstam
Nadezhda Yakovlevna Mandelstam was a Russian writer and educator, and the wife of the poet Osip Mandelstam, who died in 1938 in a transit camp to the gulag of Siberia...
wrote about Shusha in the 1920s: "...in this town, which formerly, of course, was healthy and with every amenity, the picture of catastrophe and massacres was terribly vivid... They say after the massacres all the wells were full of corpses. (...) We didn't see anyone in the streets or on the mountain. Only downtown, in the market-square there were a lot of people, but there wasn't any Armenian among them, they were all Muslims".
On January 21, 1936, in the Moscow Kremlin
Moscow Kremlin
The Moscow Kremlin , sometimes referred to as simply The Kremlin, is a historic fortified complex at the heart of Moscow, overlooking the Moskva River , Saint Basil's Cathedral and Red Square and the Alexander Garden...
, during the reception of the delegation from the Azerbaijan SSR
Azerbaijan SSR
The Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic , also known as the Azerbaijan SSR for short, was one of the republics that made up the former Soviet Union....
, 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 corpses of women and children."
The former Minister of Internal Affairs of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic
Azerbaijan Democratic Republic
The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was the first successful attempt to establish a democratic and secular republic in the Muslim world . The ADR was founded on May 28, 1918 after the collapse of the Russian Empire that began with the Russian Revolution of 1917 by Azerbaijani National Council in...
, Behbut khan Javanshir, was assassinated during Operation Nemesis
Operation Nemesis
Operation Nemesis is the Armenian Revolutionary Federation's code-name for a covert operation in early 1920s to assassinate the Turkish planners of the Armenian Genocide. Those involved with the planning and execution of the operation were survivors of the massacres...
of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
Armenian Revolutionary Federation
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation is an Armenian political party founded in Tiflis in 1890 by Christapor Mikaelian, Stepan Zorian, and Simon Zavarian...
, as ARF believed that he was involved in these events.
Remembering
The prominent RussianRussians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
Osip Mandelstam
Osip Mandelstam
Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam was a Russian poet and essayist who lived in Russia during and after its revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union. He was one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school of poets...
who was in Shusha in 1931 wrote a poem ("The Phaeton Driver") dedicated to the Shusha pogroms:
So in Nagorno-Karabakh
Nagorno-Karabakh
Nagorno-Karabakh is a landlocked region in the South Caucasus, lying between Lower Karabakh and Zangezur and covering the southeastern range of the Lesser Caucasus mountains...
These were my fears
Forty thousand dead windows
Are visible there from all directions,
The cocoon
Cocoon
Cocoon may refer to:*Cocoon , a pupal casing made by moth caterpillars and other insect larvae*Apache Cocoon, web development software*Cocoon , a 1985 science fiction film**Cocoon: The Return, 1988 sequel to Cocoon...
of soulless work
Buried at the mountains.
One of the Komsomol
Komsomol
The Communist Union of Youth , usually known as Komsomol , was the youth division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Komsomol in its earliest form was established in urban centers in 1918. During the early years, it was a Russian organization, known as the Russian Communist Union of...
leaders of the Azerbaijan SSR
Azerbaijan SSR
The Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic , also known as the Azerbaijan SSR for short, was one of the republics that made up the former Soviet Union....
, Olga Shatunovskaya
Olga Shatunovskaya
Olga Grigoryevna Shatunovskaya was a member of the Shvernik Commission....
, later wrote in her memoirs: "Azerbaijan didn't want to lose the power as Nagorno-Karabakh is a great region. It's autonomous but only nominally, during these years they ousted many Armenians, closed schools and colleges. Earlier, the main city was Shusha. When in the 1920s there was a massacre, they burnt all the central part of the town, and then they didn't even restore it."
Two prominent Armenian-Russian Communist activists, Anastas Mikoyan
Anastas Mikoyan
Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan was an Armenian Old Bolshevik and Soviet statesman during the rules of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, and Leonid Brezhnev....
and Marietta Shaginyan
Marietta Shaginyan
Marietta Sergeevna Shaginian was a Soviet writer and public activist. She was one of the outstanding communist female-authors with broad philosophical and social views....
, wrote about the pogroms in their memoirs. Mikoyan, who was in the region, later remarked: "According to the reconnaissance
Reconnaissance
Reconnaissance is the military term for exploring beyond the area occupied by friendly forces to gain information about enemy forces or features of the environment....
information, at Azerbaijani Mousavatist government's disposal was army of 30-thousands, of whom 20 thousands deployed near the border of Armenia... The army of Azerbaijan shortly before that massacred the Armenians in Shusha, Karabakh."
Russian-Georgian writer Anaida Bestavashvili in her "The people and the monuments" publication compares the pogroms and the burning of Shusha to the tragedy of Pompeii
Pompeii
The city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning...
.
Historian Christopher J. Walker
Christopher J. Walker
Christopher J. Walker is a British historian and author.He worked in Sotheby's department of historical and literary manuscripts. After the winning of Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship he wrote a book on Armenian history which was reissued in 1990. In 1975 with the support of "Minority...
wrote, in regard of Sultanov's activities, "The Karabagh affair was a grave one for the British. Accusations of direct British complicity in Armenian massacre cannot really be sustained; but the killings were a result of the almost unconscious British tendency to support 'our traditional friends' – the wealthy – and to disregard the wishes of the majority".
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
Shusha
Shusha , also known as Shushi is a town in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus. It has been under the control of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic since its capture in 1992 during the Nagorno-Karabakh War...
by the Azerbaijani
Azerbaijani people
The Azerbaijanis are a Turkic-speaking people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan, as well as in the neighbourhood states, Georgia, Russia and formerly Armenia. Commonly referred to as Azeris or Azerbaijani Turks , they also live in a wider area from the Caucasus to...
s)".
Modern Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n politologist Timur Polyannikov in his Vityaz na rasputie publication marks the pogroms in Shusha among other events in Armenian history, "organized by Azerbaijani Pan-Turkists of "Musavat" party."
The Armenia, Armenia: about the country and the people from the biblical times to our days reference book considers the pogroms of Shusha as a part of genocide of Armenians practiced all over Eastern Armenia
Eastern Armenia
Eastern Armenia or Caucasian Armenia was the portion of Ottoman Armenia and Persian Armenia that was ceded to the Russian Empire following the Russo-Turkish War, 1828-1829...
: "Shushi, the capital of Karabakh was seized by Azerbaijani nationalists on March 23, 1920, over 20.000 Armenians were killed and 7000 houses, libraries, churches, cemeteries and pantheons were leveled in three days and three nights."
Prof. Richard G. Hovannisian
Richard G. Hovannisian
Richard G. Hovannisian is an American historian and scholar. He was born and raised in Tulare, California. He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, and his Ph.D. from University of California, Los Angeles. He was also Associate Professor of History at...
wrote about the massacres: "Finally, in August 1919, the Karabagh National Assembly yielded to provisional and conditional Azerbaijani jurisdiction. The twenty-six conditions strictly limited the Azerbaijani administrative and military presence in the region and underscored the internal autonomy of Mountainous Karabagh.
Violations of those conditions by Azerbaijan culminated in an abortive rebellion in March 1920. In retribution, the Azerbaijani forces burned the beautiful city of Shushi, hanged Bishop Vahan, and massacred much of the population. It was the end of Armenian Shushi."
Modern journalist Thomas de Waal
Thomas de Waal
Thomas Patrick Lowndes de Waal , is a British journalist, writer and an expert on the Caucasus. Thomas is the son of Anglican priest Victor de Waal and of writer on religion Esther de Waal, brother of Africa specialist Alex de Waal, John de Waal, barrister and potter and writer Edmund de...
wrote in his book Black Garden about these events: "Terrible pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
s took place in Shusha in 1920 shortly after the Russians left the city because of the economic collapse and civil war. This time Azerbaijani forces crushed the higher, Armenian quarter of the city, burned whole streets and killed hundreds of Armenians... The ruins of the Armenian quarter stood untouched for more than forty years". In another place he wrote that the number of massacred people was 500.
According to the author Thomas de Waal
Thomas de Waal
Thomas Patrick Lowndes de Waal , is a British journalist, writer and an expert on the Caucasus. Thomas is the son of Anglican priest Victor de Waal and of writer on religion Esther de Waal, brother of Africa specialist Alex de Waal, John de Waal, barrister and potter and writer Edmund de...
:
In Karabakh, the Armenian community was split between the age-old dilemma of cooperation or confrontation. There were those – primarily Dashnaks and villagers – who wanted unification with Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
, and those – mainly Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
s, merchant
Merchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
s, and professional
Professional
A professional is a person who is paid to undertake a specialised set of tasks and to complete them for a fee. The traditional professions were doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and commissioned military officers. Today, the term is applied to estate agents, surveyors , environmental scientists,...
s – who, in the words of the Armenian historian Richard Hovannisian, “admitted that the district was economically with eastern Transcaucasia and sought accommodation with the Azerbaijani government as the only way to spare Mountainous Karabagh from ruin”. The latter group was mainly concentrated in Shusha, but both groups were killed or expelled when an Armenian rebellion was brutally put down in March 1920 with a toll of hundreds of Shusha Armenians. He also wrote that "In March 1920, an Azerbaijani army sacked the town, burning the Armenian quarter and killing some five hundred Armenians."
According to Tim Potier: Following the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
, Karabakh became part of the independent Republic of Azerbaijan, although its control was hotly disputed by Ottoman and British forces, as well as, of course, Armenians and Azerbaijanis. Eventually, however, the British re-affirmed Azerbaijani jurisdiction over Karabakh by appointing a Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
governor at Shusha. Shusha had, by this time, come to be regarded by the Armenian people as an Armenian cultural center
Cultural center
A cultural center or cultural centre is an organization, building or complex that promotes culture and arts. Cultural centers can be neighborhood community arts organizations, private facilities, government-sponsored, or activist-run...
and it was not until 28 February 1920 that the Armenian elder
Elder (administrative title)
The term Elder is used in several different countries and organizations to indicate a position of authority...
s of Shusha reluctantly agreed to recognise Azerbaijan's authority. The situation was to alter following the events of 4 April, when a mass exodus of Armenians from Shusha to nearby Khankende (Stepanakert
Stepanakert
Stepanakert is the largest city and capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, a de facto independent republic, though is internationally recognized as a part of Azerbaijan...
, today the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh
Nagorno-Karabakh
Nagorno-Karabakh is a landlocked region in the South Caucasus, lying between Lower Karabakh and Zangezur and covering the southeastern range of the Lesser Caucasus mountains...
), following an Armenian uprising put down by Azeri forces, transformed, almost overnight, Shusha into an Azeri city.
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 Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic , or Artsakh Republic is a de facto independent republic located in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia...
government introduced a proposal to the National Assembly to establish March 23 as a day of memorial of the victims of the Shusha pogroms.
Official naming
In addition to the name Shusha massacres, the Shusha pogrom is sometimes referred to by Armenian sources as "genocideGenocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
".
"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" .
External links
- Shushi Massacres (Video)
- United Nations document
- Shoushi Massacres of Armenians
- Shushi- Armenian city of sorrow and triumph
Publications
- Armenia, Armenia: about the country and the people from the Biblical times to our days, a reference-book, by V. Krivopuskov, V. Osipov, V. Alyoshkin and others, ed. V.V. Krivopuskov, Third ed., revised and expanded. Moscow, Golos-Press, 2007. P. 30-31. В Нагорном Карабахе осудили погромы 1920 года в Шуши