User:Grandmaster/Karabakh
ADR[edit]
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.
During the summer of 1919, the Karabakh Armenians agreed to accept their inclusion in Azerbaijan, subject to a final decision at the Paris Peace Conference, provided the resolution was based on the granting of “territorial autonomy for all Karabagh and national-cultural autonomy for its Armenian population”. Early in 1920, the Peace Conference recognized Azerbaijan’s claim to Karabakh.
Tim Potier. Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia: A Legal Appraisal. ISBN 9041114777
The British who replaced the Ottomans after their withdrawal reaffirmed Karabakh’s belonging to Azerbaijan, by appointing a Muslim governor in Shusha. This led to protests among the local Armenians, who only reluctantly accepted Azerbaijani jurisdiction in February of 1920.
Shortly after Haskell's visit to Baku, the Armenians of mountainous Karabagh resolved to include Karabagh in Azerbaijan pending a final decision by the Paris Peace Conference. The resolution was based on the granting of "territorial autonomy for all Karabagh and national-cultural autonomy for its Armenian population."
Early in 1920, the Peace Conference recognized Azerbaijan's claim to Karabagh. The decision upheld earlier Entente policy. It may have been bolstered by reports of Allied observers in the field, like Haskell, and by a recognition of the veracity of what Mikoyan told Lenin: "The unification of Karabagh to Armenia would mean, for the population of Karabagh, deprivation of their source of life in Baku and being tied to Erevan, with which they have never had any kind of connection."
Audrey L. Altstadt. The Azerbaijani Turks: Power and Identity Under Russian Rule. ISBN 0817991816
Upon the Ottoman withdrawal, General Andranik made an attempt to extend Armenian rule over this disputed territory, but on December 1 Thomson asked him to cease his military operations. Furthermore, as of mid-January 1919, the British general put Nagorno-Karabagh together with the neighboring Zangezur uezd under provisional Azerbaijani administration. Armenian reactions became even more heated when Thomson confirmed the nomination of Khosrow Sultanov as governor of the two areas. Thomson's comment was that the British occupation was not an opportunity for revenge.
For all the protests that greeted him, Sultanov succeeded over the next several months in getting the Armenian Assembly in Nagorno Karabagh to formally accept Azerbaijani rule, an act that recognized the realities of geography, economy, and transportation that linked this ethnic enclave with Azerbaijan rather than with Armenia beyond the mountains. This major breakthrough remained subject to some conditions restricting the size and deplacement of Azerbaijani garrisons in peacetime.
Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russia and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition. ISBN: 0231070683
The Armenians of Karabagh could expect help from no one, and so, on August 22, 1919, their leaders signed an agreement with the Republic of Azerbaijan, accepting its authority until the final decision on Mountainous Karabagh was made at the Paris Peace Conference. By this agreement, the Armenians of Karabagh were granted cultural autonomy. This agreement established an important precedent concerning the relations of Mountainous or Nagorno-Karabagh and Azerbaijan.
In the same month, August 1919, the British began their withdrawal from Azerbaijan. But the effects of their short stay in that region are felt to the present day. It is as a result of British support of the Azeri-Turkish position on Karabagh, despite the predominant Armenian majority in the area, that this region was included in the independent Republic of Azerbaijan.
Official website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia
Circular by colonel D. I. Shuttleworth of the British Command
Even after widespread criticism, the British refused to remove Sultanov from his post; and the Armenians sickened by the prospect of further bloodshed, eventually agreed to Azerbaijan's provisional control of Karabagh. Provisional, however, it never was; and Mountainous Karabagh with its large Armenian majority remained Azerbaijani throughout the pre-Soviet and Soviet period, being an autonomous region of the Azerbaijani SSR today; all dating from Andranik's trust of the word of a British officer, and the partiality of that officer and his successor to Azerbaijani landowners.
Christopher J. Walker. Armenia: The Survival of a Nation. ISBN 041504684X (extremely pro-Armenian and anti-Turkish/anti-Azeri source)
The Azerbaijani government had managed to overcome the stigma of its Turkish birth to win the sympathy of influential British military and political officials. In the bitter contest over the highlands of the Elisavetpol province (guberniia), it had registered a major victory by establishing provisional jurisdiction over Mountainous Karabagh.
Richard G. Hovannisian. The Republic of Armenia, Vol. III: From London to Sèvres, February-August 1920 ISBN 0520088034
Caucasus Bureau resolution[edit]
The original text of resolution:
Proceeding from the necessity of national peace among Muslims and Armenians and of the economic ties between upper (mountainous) and lower Karabakh, of its permanent ties with Azerbaijan, mountainous Karabakh is to remain within AzSSR, receiving wide regional autonomy with the administrative center in Shusha, which is included in the autonomous region.
http://www.nkr.am/rus/history/kavb.htm
Tim Potier. Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia: A Legal Appraisal. ISBN 9041114777
On 4 July, a meeting of the Kavburo, (Caucasian section of the Soviet communist party) voted in Stalin’s presence to include Karabakh in the Armenian SSR. The very next day, Narimanov protested against this decision and the Kavburo once again reversed its decision, and agreed to Karabakh’s remaining in the Azerbaijani SSR, although the region was to be granted substantial autonomy.
The process of deciding whether Karabakh should remain within Azerbaijan or be adjoined to Armenia can only be described as disrespectful and distasteful to both the Azerbaijani and Armenian people, and provides a typical example of the disregard and insensitivity of Soviet nationality policy during this time.
Ironically, it was Armenia herself that was to renounce its claims to Karabakh in its treaty, later that month, with the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR).
Tim Potier. Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia: A Legal Appraisal. ISBN 9041114777
Although Soviet Azerbaijan agreed, in a fraternal gesture, to hand over to Soviet Armenia the disputed regions of Mountainous Karabagh, Zangezur and Nakhichevan, of those territories only Zangezur was actually attached.
Within the Soviet Caucasus itself, the status of Karabagh was discussed. In early June 1921, after the whole of Transcaucasia had become Soviet, the Kavburo (or Bureau of Caucasian Affairs) voted by five to two in favour of the union of Mountainous Karabagh to Armenia. But the link between the two territories was never made. Some days later a Plenary Session of the Kavburo, under the influence of Stalin, decided that it should be an autonomous region, but should remain part of Azerbaijan.
Christopher J. Walker. Armenia: The Survival of a Nation. ISBN 041504684X (extremely pro-Armenian and anti-Turkish/anti-Azeri source)
The Bolshevik leaders initially seemed to promise to unite Karabakh with the new Soviet Armenian Union Republic. A resolution of the Caucasian Bureau in Moscow on July 4, 1921, confirmed the transfer. But a leader of Soviet Azerbaijan, Nariman Narimanov, protested the proposed union. On July 5, after barely twenty-four hours of Armenian “unity”, Moscow declared that Karabakh would remain a part of Azerbaijan, “with wide regional autonomy.” In July 1923 Moscow created the Autonomous Region of Nagorno-Karabakh inside the Azerbaijan Union Republic.
Dov Lynch. Engaging Eurasia's Separatist States: Unresolved Conflicts and De Facto States. ISBN-10: 1929223544