The Wars of Nagorno Karabagh – Stage and Backstage

Jean-Marie Lorge

• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781398460805
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Nahostpolitik

At the end of September 2020, the Azerbaijani army launched a sudden and massive assault against the Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabagh.
Over six weeks, the Azerbaijani army (fully supported by Turkey) and the Armenian armies (from the Republic of Armenia and Nagorno Karabagh) violently clashed amidst artillery fire, deadly drone ballets and tanks attacks… In early November 2020, the Armenians were defeated. The world then suddenly remembered that the Caucasus is as complicated as it is explosive.
The Wars of Nagorno Karabagh – Stage and Backstage is intended to help better understand this crisis – its historical background, implications and pitfalls (first prize in the last category would go to the regional political map redrawn by Stalin) as well as the geopolitical interests of Russia, Iran, and Israel… Particular attention is given to the new game played by Turkey which is now spurred on by the ambition of again becoming, at all costs, a member of the club of world powers.

Chapter I
History – Some Milestones
in an Endless Sequence of
Calamities and Twists

Introductory Note

The same remark regarding the mosaic pattern emerges from a brief glance at the Armenian history. This pattern is illustrated by the change in the names of the Armenian provinces over the centuries:

• Satrapies: Persian and Hellenic-Persian world (“Seleucids” in the wake of the conquests of Alexander the Great).
• Marzapans: Persian from the fifth to the seventh century AD (border provinces).
• Themes: Byzantium.
• Khanats: Turco-Mongolian, then Persian.
• Melikhats: Persian.
• Vilayets: Ottoman Empire.
• Governments, Republics and Oblasts: Tsarist Russia, then USSR.
• Marz: Each of the ten current administrative regions of the country.

1. The Pre-Armenian Era

• The Kingdom of Urartu (ninth century to sixth century BC) roughly occupies the eastern part of Turkey.
• Non-Indo-European language (ergative, like Georgian or Basque, and agglutinative like Turkish).
• Brilliant civilization, enemy of the Assyrians. It must also repel Scythian and Cimmerian assaults.
• Renowned for the metallurgy of copper and its wine production (perhaps we owe them the invention of this drink!), horse breeding…
• Like Assyria, Urartu falls under the power of the Medes between the seventh and the sixth century BC.
• It disappeared in the sixth century BC. Its territory is then occupied by Illyrian people from the Balkans, of Indo-European language, who gradually merge with the people of Urartu, to give birth to the Armenian people.

2. The Armenian Kingdom

• The two populations complete their melting 1 and 2 the Persian influence 3 is overriding (Persians, Medes, Parthians).
• The Armenian kingdom asserts itself, shines, falters and collapses (from the second century BC to the beginning of the fifth century AD). This kingdom constitutes a never-ending stake during centuries between Rome and Persia.

Some examples:

1. In 190 BC, with the support of Rome, a satrap of the Persian Empire proclaims himself king of Armenia. This king, Artaxias, welcomed a refugee furiously wanted by Rome – Hannibal.
2. The Armenian kingdom is at its peak under king Tigran the Great (first century BC) placed on the throne by the Parthians (it covers current Armenia, almost all of Lebanon and Syria, Eastern Turkey and North-western Iran).
3. Armenia Minor (Trebizond) leaves the Persian orbit in the first century BC and becomes a vassal kingdom of Rome4, before it is purely and simply annexed to the Roman Empire in 72 AD.

3. Sixfold Swing – Foreign Dominations from the Fifth Century

Persian domination (repeatedly, nothing has changed!), Byzantine (Byzantium replacing Rome), Arab, Turco-Mongol, Ottoman and Russian (Tsarist then Soviet).

• The Armenian Kingdom disappears at the beginning of the fifth century AD. The western part (including Lesser Armenia – Trebizond – already incorporated into the Roman Empire) switches from Roman to Byzantine domination.
• The western part of Armenia Major (south of the Araks River, around Lake Van – current Turkey) and this Lesser Armenia (or “Lower Armenia”) will later fall under Ottoman rule. Their “Armenianity” will be constantly eroded until it is completely erased during the genocide of 1915.
• The eastern part of Armenia Major, north of the Araks river, comes under Persian domination from the beginning of the fifth century to the middle of the seventh century, then under Byzantine domination (in the seventh century – for a few years, the whole of Armenia will be Byzantine), then again Persian. This part of Armenia will be referred to as Persian Armenia5. It encompasses the current Armenia, the region east of Mount Ararat, Nakhchivan6, the current Nagorno Karabakh and its adjacent territories7. This Persian Armenia roughly corresponds to the territory of the three Armenian Khanates of the 17^th century’s Persian Empire.
• Arab invasion, mid-seventh century: capture of the capital, Dvin (a few km from Erevan, or “Yerevan”) later abandoned following Mongol invasions. The Armenian Prince Rechtouni8, leader of the Armenian armies, must accept the Arab domination.
• Then, the waves of Tatar and Tatar-Mongol invasions overwhelm Russia, the Caucasus and break through Central Europe.
• The Armenian kingdom of Cilicia, (from the 11^th to the 14^th century) in South-eastern Turkey (north of Cyprus), is founded by Armenians fleeing Turkish invasions (Seljuks). It is an ally kingdom of the Crusaders.
• The Byzantine Empire (or rather, the surviving rump state that still subsisted at that time) collapses in 1453. The expansion of the Ottoman Empire is dazzling.
• In the 16^th century, the country is a battleground where Persian and Ottoman empires clash with obstinacy. These wars, as well the deportation of thousands of Armenians to Persia in the beginning of the 17^th century, will result in a substantial depopulation.
• From the middle of the 17^th century to the beginning of the 19^th century, the Persian Armenia returns to Persian rule (the rest of Armenia continues to be part of the Ottoman Empire). This Persian Armenia is divided into three “khanates”:

• Khanate of Yerevan
• Khanate of Nakhchivan
• Khanate of Karabakh

These three khanates are divided into a swarm of “melikdoms”9.

Five melikdoms cover the entire territory of the current Nagorno Karabakh and its adjacent territories, while overflowing to the east.

• Russian Tsarist Period

Note:

In the early years of the 19^th century, Russia, according to a number of European observers, remains a backward country: awful rate of illiteracy, absence of internationally renowned philosophers, mathematicians, architects, painters, writers, etc.

Yet, it should be underlined that this country:

1. proves its power by crushing the greatest conquerors of that time (Charles XII of Sweden, Frederick II of Prussia and Napoleon).
2. reckons, at least since Ivan the Terrible (16^th century), that the best way to protect its borders is to constantly enlarge them. This is the first of the major rules of Russian geopolitics until the collapse of the USSR. The second is the quest of access to the so-called “warm” seas.

The conquest of the Caucasus (Russo-Persian and Russo-Ottoman wars) by Russia in the 19^th century is obviously within the logic of these two rules and will be one of the episodes of the “Great Game”10.

Following the two Russo-Persian wars of the beginning of the 19^th century (1804–1813 and 1826–1828) – both won by Russia, the treaties of Gulistan and Turkmanshaï (1828) namely end up with:

1. The transfer from Persia to Russia of:

• part of the Persian Azerbaijan (north of the Araks river) and the khanate of Talysh11^.
• the Persian Armenia (the three khanates of Yerevan, Nakhchivan and Karabakh)
• the southern part of Dagestan (part of the current Russian Federation, north of Azerbaijan)
• the eastern part of Georgia (the rest of Georgia was already under Russian control)

b.

The authorization given to Armenians in Persia to migrate without hurdles to the former Persian Armenia, which became Russian following this transfer of territories. Thousands of Armenian families will then settle in the former khanate of Yerevan, the future Yerevan province and the core of the future Armenia.

In 1868, the creation of the “Government of Elizabethpol” encompasses the northern part of the Russian Azerbaijan, Karabakh, Syunik and Nakhchivan. This creation inaugurates a policy against ethnically homogeneous provinces. In this case, this “government” sets forth a juxtaposition of territories of Armenian majority and others of Azeri or Kurdish majority.

• Soviet ...