ArticleOpen accesspolitical historyhistoriography

Genesıs of Azerbaıjan-artsakh Conflıct

Stepan Hasan-Jalalyan · Գիտական Արցախ / Научный Арцах / Scientific Artsakh, 2023

Collection summary

A Russian-language article written from an Armenian perspective that traces the origin of the Azerbaijani–Artsakh (Karabakh) conflict to 1918 and to the Ottoman army's entry into the Caucasus.

Stepan Hasan-Jalalyan's article in the Karabakh-based journal "Scientific Artsakh" claims to examine, through comparison of sources, when and under what circumstances the Azerbaijani–Artsakh conflict emerged. According to the source itself, the conflict arose in 1918 when the Ottoman army's advance into Transcaucasia led to the creation of the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan, which the author calls a "fake" state. Its value for the collection lies in documenting a contemporary polemical Armenian-historiographical reading of the 1918 Ottoman military presence and Azerbaijani statehood.

The source's own abstract

The purpose of the article, based on domestic and foreign sources, is to show when, for what reason and under what circumstances the AzerbaijaniArtsakh conflict arose. In order to achieve the set goal, the following problems were put forward: when was the state called Azerbaijan created, when and under what circumstances did the Azerbaijani-Artsakh conflict arise, what was the status of Artsakh at the time of the conflict arise? The article is written through a comparison and comparative study of the original sources related to the issue, as well as an examination analysis of the scientific works related to it. As a result of the joint examination of facts and documents related to the issue, as well as historical and political literature, we came to the conclusion that the Azerbaijani-Artsakh conflict arose in 1918, when the Ottoman Turkish government created a fake "state" called the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan in the South Caucasus region through the invasion of Transcaucasia by the Turkish army. 103 years ago, Soviet Azerbaijan recognized Nagorno Karabagh as part of Soviet Armenia. Besides that, 103 years ago, Soviet Azerbaijan recognized the right of the Armenians of Artsakh to self-determination. Despite that, by an illegal decision of the Caucasus Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Soviet Russia a political body of a third country of July 5, 1921 the territory of Artsakh was forcibly included into Soviet Azerbaijan, without taking into account the will of the people of Artsakh.