Resettlement of Azerbaijanis from Armenia

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Decree on the resettlement of Azerbaijanis from the Armenian SSR (Sjunik) and settlement of Armenians from the diaspora (Syria, Iraq, Iran), December 23, 1947

The resettlement of Azerbaijanis from Armenia to Azerbaijan was an ethnic cleansing in the Stalin era from 1947 to 1953, during which around 150,000 people were relocated to make way for immigrants from the Armenian diaspora. The Azerbaijanis in Armenia remained the largest ethnic minority there until the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict .

prehistory

Before the October Revolution, Transcaucasia had a very mixed population, in which the Armenians formed the majority in some places, and in other places the Azerbaijanis, who until 1917 were known as Tatars. From 1918 to 1921, the Democratic Republic of Armenia and the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan waged war over Nakhichevan , Syunik ( Sangesur ) and Nagorno-Karabakh .

As a result of the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire and the advance of the Turkish army in 1918, tens of thousands of Armenian refugees poured into the young Democratic Republic of Armenia. Armenians from Azerbaijan fled the pogroms there, for example in Baku in 1918 and in Shusha in 1920 . In order to make room for the refugees and to get rid of the potentially hostile ethnic Azeris, Armenian paramilitary forces led by General Andranik Toros Ozanian began destroying Azerbaijani settlements in Sangesur in 1918 , accompanied by ethnic cleansing.

However, after the borders were established in the course of Sovietization in 1921, many Armenians remained in Azerbaijan and Azerbaijanis in Armenia .

The resettlement of Azerbaijanis from the Armenian SSR

After the Second World War , the leadership of the Armenian SSR tried to bring Armenians from the diaspora to Soviet Armenia . In 1947, Grigor Harutjunjan , the First Secretary of the CPSU in the Armenian SSR, succeeded in convincing the Council of Ministers of the USSR to create settlement space for the newcomers in Soviet Armenia by relocating Azerbaijanis from Armenia to Azerbaijan.

On 23 December 1947, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a "Decree on the resettlement of collective farmers and other Azerbaijani population from the Armenian SSR to the Kura-Aras lowlands of the Azerbaijan SSR" ( Указ о переселении колхозников и другого азербайджанского населения из Армянской Soviet Socialist Republic в Кура-Араксинскую низменность Азербайджанской ССР). On the basis of “Decree 4083”, between 1948 and 1953 around 150,000 Azerbaijanis were resettled from Armenia on a “voluntary basis” to Central Azerbaijan. In 1948 there were 10,000, in 1949 40,000 and in 1950 50,000 Azerbaijanis. Around 90,000 Armenians from Syria (including the family of the later President Levon Ter-Petrosyan ), Iraq and Iran were subsequently housed in the houses of the evacuated Azeris.

Today, official Azerbaijani authorities refer to the resettlement as compulsory “ deportation ”.

Azerbaijanis in Armenia after 1951

According to the official census of 1959, the number of Azeris in Soviet Armenia was only 107,748. In Yerevan , the Azeris only made up 0.7% of the population in 1959. Nevertheless, the Azeris remained the largest ethnic minority in the Armenian SSR. According to the 1979 census, 160,841 Azeris, 5.3% of the population, lived in Soviet Armenia again. The presence of the Azeris in Armenia only ended with the expulsions in the course of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict from 1988 to 1994, when all ethnic Azeris from Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh as well as all Armenians from the areas controlled by the Republic of Azerbaijan had to flee.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stuart J. Kaufman: Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War. Cornell University Press, 2001. p. 58. ISBN 0-8014-8736-6 .
  2. ↑ Andrew Andersen: Turkish-Armenian War: Sep. 24 - Dec. 2, 1920.
  3. ^ Donald Bloxham: The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2005, pp. 103-105.
  4. ↑ РГАЭ РФ (быв. ЦГАНХ СССР), фонд 1562, опись 336, ед.хр. 966-1001 (Разработочная таблица ф 15А Национальный состав населения по СССР , республикам, областям, районам..), В: Всесоюзная перепись населения 1939 года. Национальный состав населения по республикам СССР: Армянская ССР. Демоскоп (Demoscope.ru), 2017.
  5. ↑ РГАЭ РФ (быв. ЦГАНХ СССР), фонд 1562, опись 336, ед.хр. 966-1001 (Разработочная таблица ф 15А Национальный состав населения по СССР , республикам, областям, районам..), В: Всесоюзная перепись населения 1939 года. Национальный состав населения по республикам СССР: Азербайджанская ССР. Демоскоп (Demoscope.ru), 2017.
  6. ↑ a b Vladislav Zubok: Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev. UNC Press, 2007. ISBN 0-8078-3098-4 , A p. 58.
  7. ^ Anita LP Burdett: Armenia: Political and Ethnic Boundaries 1878-1948 ( Memento of September 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) ISBN 1-85207-955-X .
  8. ^ Encyclopedia of the Azerbaijani SSR, Azerbeycan Sovyet Ansiklopedisi IV, p. 81 ff, Azerbeycan Gazetesi / Azerbaijan Newspaper, March 11, 1994.
  9. ↑ Deportation of 1948-1953 . Azerbembassy.org.cn
  10. ↑ Jalal Aliyev, Budag Budagov: Turks, Azerbaijanians, Armenians, Genocide of Historical Truth. Baku 2003, pp. 16, 83 ff.
  11. ↑ Resolution of the President of the Azerbaijan Republic of December 18, 1997 “On the massive deportation of Azerbaijanis from their historical-ethnic areas in the Armenian SSR 1948-1953”
  12. ^ A b L. A. Grenoble: Language Policy in the Soviet Union . Springer Science & Business Media, 2003, ISBN 978-1-4020-1298-3 ( google.de [accessed December 20, 2017]).
  13. ↑ РГАЭ РФ (быв. ЦГАНХ СССР), фонд 1562, опись 336, ед.хр. 1566а -1566д (Таблица 3,4 Распределение населения по национальности и родному языку), в: Всесоюзнаае9лености и родному языку . Национальный состав населения по республикам СССР: Армянская ССР. Демоскоп (Demoscope.ru), 2017.
  14. ↑ РГАЭ РФ (быв. ЦГАНХ СССР), фонд 1562, опись 336, ед.хр. 6174-6238 (Таблица 9с. Распределение населения по национальности и родному языку), в: Всесоьгная Всесоьзная перепа 1979. Национальный состав населения по республикам СССР: Армянская ССР. Демоскоп (Demoscope.ru), 2017.
  15. ^ Svante Cornell: The Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh: Dynamics and Resolution Prospects. Moscow 2001. p. 439.