The Azerbaijanis named one of their metro stations in Baku 20 Yanvar, there are avenues and squares that have this name too. It is a date of great significance to the nation. It is also key to understanding why the Azeris turned their backs on the Russians quite so singularly after the collapse of Communism.
The last months of the Soviet Union were dark for many of the republics, particularly those of the Southern Caucasus. The events of 20th January 1990, sometimes referred to as ‘Black’ January, were a culmination of months of unrest, protests and killings in Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The seeds of the current frozen conflict were first planted in 1988. The Soviet administrators in Stepanakert applied for the boarders of the autonomous region of Nagorny Karabakh (of which Stepanakert is the Capital) to be transferred from Azerbaijan to Armenia. The area had a clear majority Armenian population, yet contains several key Azeri cultural sites including Susha.
Susha was once one of the great cities of the Southern Caucasus, becoming an Azeri centre of culture in the Karakakh. It was destroyed rebuilt and destroyed all over again. Today it is something of a ghost town.
In 1988 the Nagorny Karabakh became the Soviet Union’s first dissident region. Protests, rallies and previously unheard of displays of no confidence in Moscow were organised by the resident Armenians whilst the stunned Azeris looked on. Gorbachev ignored and dismissed all demands. When the local administration took their request for the boarder transfer to the Politboro it was rejected as serving to ‘contradict the interests of the working people in Soviet Azerbaijan and Armenia and damage interethnic relations’ That one slap down revealed the so called devolved power of the local administrations to be a front. It confirmed what everyone already know, that control was very firmly from the top down.
Gorbachev perhaps felt that any accession to ethnic concerns would open the floodgates all across the Soviet Union. His silence fuelled utter chaos throughout Armenian and Azerbaijan. Now known as Pogramms, raging Azeri-led violence saw 32 Armenians killed and thousands displaced in the ethnically mixed industrial town of Sumgait.
In December 1988 a huge earthquake hit Armenia causing mass devastation and killing 25,000 people. Armenia became the focus for, not only the Soviet Union, but the world, as aid flooded in. The Azerbaijan Popular Front, a non-governmental peoples organisation, blew up bridges, railways and road, effectively isolating huge areas and sections of the population. In 1989 there were still tens of thousands of Armenians still living in a multi-ethnic Baku, but in January more anti-Armenian pogroms broke out. 90 people died. This total would have been much higher but for the presence of ferries in the Caspian Sea that allowed thousands of refugees to escape.
The Azerbaijan Fronts ensuing control of the Baku streets was unacceptable to the Politburo and in the dead of the night of 20th January 1990 Soviet tanks rolled into Baku. Buildings were destroyed, cars crushed and civilians were shot at. Death totals are disputed but at least 130 Baku civilians and 21 soldiers were killed. It was the Red Army’s worst episode of killing during Gorbachev’s Perestroika.
At the top of Martyr’s Lane high above the Bay of Baku there is an open plaza with an eternal flame. The headstones of each of the dead are engraved in detail with the portrait in black granite. They sit in rows, one after the other. Being there and seeing the portraits give the site a real feeling of closeness in time. It was only 22 years ago.
Azerbaijani hatred for the Russians and the Red Army runs deep and the events of 20 January 1990 will live long in their memories. Even before the official dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Azeris and Armenians were engaged in all-out war. It was a war every bit a vicious and deadly as the conflicts of the Balkans yet the international community were never exposed to it in the same way. In terms of a media interest story the more European and photogenic Balkans won, there was no room for any other headlines. The Azeri and Armenian conflict caused the displacement of some 750,000 people. The biggest since the Second World War.
A cease-fire was reached uneasily in 1994 and the region sits in limbo to this day. Before the oil runs out it is likely that Azerbaijan will make an attempt to recolonise what they see as theirs. Armenia will turn to their Russian allies and Azerbaijan will look west to their oil customers for support.
It will never go away but there is no easy answer.
The last months of the Soviet Union were dark for many of the republics, particularly those of the Southern Caucasus. The events of 20th January 1990, sometimes referred to as ‘Black’ January, were a culmination of months of unrest, protests and killings in Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The seeds of the current frozen conflict were first planted in 1988. The Soviet administrators in Stepanakert applied for the boarders of the autonomous region of Nagorny Karabakh (of which Stepanakert is the Capital) to be transferred from Azerbaijan to Armenia. The area had a clear majority Armenian population, yet contains several key Azeri cultural sites including Susha.
Susha was once one of the great cities of the Southern Caucasus, becoming an Azeri centre of culture in the Karakakh. It was destroyed rebuilt and destroyed all over again. Today it is something of a ghost town.
In 1988 the Nagorny Karabakh became the Soviet Union’s first dissident region. Protests, rallies and previously unheard of displays of no confidence in Moscow were organised by the resident Armenians whilst the stunned Azeris looked on. Gorbachev ignored and dismissed all demands. When the local administration took their request for the boarder transfer to the Politboro it was rejected as serving to ‘contradict the interests of the working people in Soviet Azerbaijan and Armenia and damage interethnic relations’ That one slap down revealed the so called devolved power of the local administrations to be a front. It confirmed what everyone already know, that control was very firmly from the top down.
Gorbachev perhaps felt that any accession to ethnic concerns would open the floodgates all across the Soviet Union. His silence fuelled utter chaos throughout Armenian and Azerbaijan. Now known as Pogramms, raging Azeri-led violence saw 32 Armenians killed and thousands displaced in the ethnically mixed industrial town of Sumgait.
In December 1988 a huge earthquake hit Armenia causing mass devastation and killing 25,000 people. Armenia became the focus for, not only the Soviet Union, but the world, as aid flooded in. The Azerbaijan Popular Front, a non-governmental peoples organisation, blew up bridges, railways and road, effectively isolating huge areas and sections of the population. In 1989 there were still tens of thousands of Armenians still living in a multi-ethnic Baku, but in January more anti-Armenian pogroms broke out. 90 people died. This total would have been much higher but for the presence of ferries in the Caspian Sea that allowed thousands of refugees to escape.
The Azerbaijan Fronts ensuing control of the Baku streets was unacceptable to the Politburo and in the dead of the night of 20th January 1990 Soviet tanks rolled into Baku. Buildings were destroyed, cars crushed and civilians were shot at. Death totals are disputed but at least 130 Baku civilians and 21 soldiers were killed. It was the Red Army’s worst episode of killing during Gorbachev’s Perestroika.
At the top of Martyr’s Lane high above the Bay of Baku there is an open plaza with an eternal flame. The headstones of each of the dead are engraved in detail with the portrait in black granite. They sit in rows, one after the other. Being there and seeing the portraits give the site a real feeling of closeness in time. It was only 22 years ago.
Azerbaijani hatred for the Russians and the Red Army runs deep and the events of 20 January 1990 will live long in their memories. Even before the official dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Azeris and Armenians were engaged in all-out war. It was a war every bit a vicious and deadly as the conflicts of the Balkans yet the international community were never exposed to it in the same way. In terms of a media interest story the more European and photogenic Balkans won, there was no room for any other headlines. The Azeri and Armenian conflict caused the displacement of some 750,000 people. The biggest since the Second World War.
A cease-fire was reached uneasily in 1994 and the region sits in limbo to this day. Before the oil runs out it is likely that Azerbaijan will make an attempt to recolonise what they see as theirs. Armenia will turn to their Russian allies and Azerbaijan will look west to their oil customers for support.
It will never go away but there is no easy answer.
