The Karabakh movement has become a topic of discussion in Armenian public discourse, moderated by the current Armenian authorities. Ashot Ghulyan
The Alternative Projects Group presents an article by Ashot Ghulyan, former Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Artsakh.
The Karabakh movement has long been a topic of discussion in Armenian public discourse, moderated by the current Armenian authorities, with the goal of downplaying the role and significance of the movement.
This seems incredible at first glance, but from a contemporary perspective, this latest revision of values aims to complement the narratives surrounding the fateful events of the 44-day war, the blockade of Artsakh, and the exodus of Armenians, as well as to deepen the persistent disagreements surrounding these topics in public discourse. The extremely dangerous nature of this topic and the tendency to falsify history compel us to re-present the truth based on facts.
What would have happened to Artsakh without the national movement?
We will attempt to outline a framework within which we will guide readers in their independent search for an answer to the question posed in the article’s title and the basis for its publication.
I am confident that, at the very least, there is no need to explain that the Karabakh movement did not begin in a day or two, and similar outbreaks occurred before 1988. However, it is perhaps worth recalling that the Karabakh issue, as a subject of conflict, emerged 100 years ago, in 1918. In 1921, when Nagorno-Karabakh was annexed to Azerbaijan by an initially illegal decision of a party organ of a third country, this issue became an integral part of the security architecture of the South Caucasus. I am also convinced that many remember the 1945 letter from Grigor Harutyunyan, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Republic of Armenia, to Stalin, in which the Armenian leader asked the leader of the USSR, who had won the Patriotic War, to annex Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. However, perhaps few people know that in 1935-36, serious protests were registered in Nagorno-Karabakh itself against the plans of Azerbaijani leaders to resettle the region’s Armenian villages to the Mugan steppes.