The deportation of Azerbaijanis from Yerevan in 1988-89 was the final stage of the Armenian policy of the ethnic composition of the city, implemented by Russia since 1828, and the subsequent ethnic cleansing policy carried out by the Armenian government. In our section called” population of the city of Yerevan " we gave detailed information about the dynamics of the population of the city. Preparations for the last mass deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia, including from the city of Yerevan, began in the mid-1960s. Anti-Turkish and anti-Azerbaijani propaganda was launched in Armenia at that time. In 1964, with the consent of Moscow, the Central Committee of the CPSU of Armenia adopted a decision to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the fictitious “great massacre”(instead of the now used term “Armenian genocide” at that time, the term “great massacre” (“Medz yegherni”) on April 1965, 24. All mass media, publishing houses and editorial offices of Armenia were engaged in propaganda of the fictitious massacres of 1915. At that time, a new attempt to reunite Armenia was created in Yerevan. The 100th anniversary of Andranik Ozanyan, who led the murder of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijani and Turkish civilians, was solemnly celebrated in February 1965, and then a statue of him was erected in the village of Ujan. The “Dashnaktsutyun” Party, which had been operating in secret until that time, took advantage of the opportunity and went into a kind of open activity. Russian historian Vladimir Kozlov “Неизвестный СССР. Противостояние народа и власти. 1953-1985 гг."in his work, he writes that the State Security Committee (KGB) arrested a group of young people who wanted to hold a rally in Yerevan on April 24 with slogans of nationalism and a demand for territorial claims, but could not prevent the riots that took place that day. On those events, the chairman of the KGB of the USSR V.Semichastny Sov.Secretary of the CPSU central committee P.In his message to demichev, he stated: "on April 24, from 3 to 8 thousand people took part in spontaneous rallies in the Lenin Square and other places in Yerevan from morning till night. Those who spoke there declared the return of Armenian lands (obviously, Nagorno-Karabakh-Kozlov V.), a fair solution to the”Armenian question " and 7 arrested young people (we mean members of the nationalist group arrested in 1964-Kozlov V.) they demanded the liberation, as well as the acceleration of the resettlement of Armenians from abroad and their placement in Nakhchivan, as the population density in Armenia reached the crisis point. These requirements are included in the appeal drawn up on the Square and are provided by Sov.It was addressed to the central committee of the CPSU, the Council of Ministers and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR."During the day, the participants of the rally made these demands in different parts of the city, and in the evening, after the official part of the memorial event held in the building of the spendiarov theater together with the Echmiadzin church, they broke the doors of the theater and entered it, demanding the leadership of the Republic to make an official statement For the first time since the establishment of Soviet power in Armenia, a territorial claim was publicly made against Azerbaijan and Turkey in front of the crowd. After the events of April 1965, the policy of discrimination against Azerbaijanis was strengthened, as a result of which hundreds of Azerbaijani families from the city of Yerevan and surrounding regions were forced to move to Azerbaijan, not succumbing to pressure. This meant the beginning of the end for the Azerbaijanis living in Armenia. In the 60-70s of the XX century, the Armenian leadership repeatedly raised the issue of annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhchivan to Armenia. Armenian separatism in Nagorno-Karabakh was raging by Armenian officials and intellectuals. Periodically, under the signature of the Armenian intelligentsia living in Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, appeals were sent to various instances of the USSR to “restore historical injustice” – that is, to satisfy the territorial claims of Armenians against Azerbaijan and Turkey. In parallel with all this, official Yerevan used all means to oust the Azerbaijanis from their historical and ethnic lands in the territory of Armenia. Despite the fact that Armenia's economy and its industrial enterprises feed on Azerbaijan as a whole, the Armenian intelligentsia, cultural and art figures regularly strengthen anti-Turkish and anti-Azerbaijani propaganda and germinate the seeds of enmity between the Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples. In April 1983, on April 24, Armenians, under the pretext of Genocide Day, made raids on houses inhabited by Azerbaijanis in the center of Masis (Zangibasar) district (Ulukhanli) adjacent to the city of Yerevan, and smashed and destroyed gravestones in the cemetery in the settlement. The defenseless population was forced to take refuge on the Turkish border. It was only after the military got involved that the debauchery ended. Such events took place at different times, in different forms, in the city of Yerevan and in 22 districts of Armenia, where Azerbaijanis lived compactly. In Armenia, a ban was imposed on the promotion of Azerbaijani cadres to responsible positions. While more than two hundred thousand Azerbaijanis lived in Armenia at that time, they were represented by one inspector at the мэ Council of Ministers in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia. Only the Azerbaijani editors of the newspaper “Soviet Armenia”, an organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia, the Supreme Soviet and the Council of Ministers, published in Azerbaijani, were traditionally elected deputy chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Armenian SSR on public grounds. And in the Central Committee of the Komsomol, only since 1981, one Azerbaijani instructor worked. The policy of national discrimination against Azerbaijanis in Armenia, their suppression under various pretexts, has finally come to the conclusion of the Sov.The CPSU central committee was forced to react. Sov.In the resolution of the central committee of the CPSU dated October 17, 1984, it was indicated that works that have recently stirred up the nationalist mood in Armenia were written, historical facts were distorted, the language and culture of the minority nations were not allowed to develop, their representatives were not represented in party, Soviet and economic structures, etc. In comparison with all this, Armenians living in Azerbaijan at that time were appointed to responsible positions in all instances. In Azerbaijan there were ministers of Armenian nationality and several deputy ministers, secretaries of regional party committees, chairmen of executive committees, heads of Republican departments. In particular, the Armenians were too entrenched in law enforcement agencies. In Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijanis, who made up about 30 per cent of the population, were represented in the administration of the region at a level much lower than that rate. In March 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev's Sov.After the election of the general secretary of the central committee of the CPSU, the Armenians became much more active. M.Gorbachev's declared principles of” perestroika “and” Publicity " contributed to the re-emergence of Armenian separatism in Nagorno-Karabakh. In the Kremlin, M., who is fully surrounded by high-ranking Armenians.Gorbachev succeeded in dismissing Heydar Aliyev from the First Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers and member of the Politburo in October 1987. In 1987, on November 16, M. Abel Aganbekyan, Gorbachev's adviser on economic affairs, in his speech to the representatives of Armenians living in France at the Intercontinental Hotel in Paris, said that he would feel happy to “return” Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, as an economist, he said that Nagorno-Karabakh is more connected to Armenia than to Azerbaijan, and added that he had already put forward such a proposal, In August 1987, the Armenians collected 75 thousand signatures from Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia and sent them to the Kremlin. Two delegations from Nagorno-Karabakh were sent to Moscow. On October 18, the first rally under the cover of “environmental problems” was held in Yerevan. Slogans were raised at the rally demanding the annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. The tension in Yerevan gradually began to cover the regions of Armenia. Azerbaijanis living in Armenia were required to sign leaflets drawn up for the annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, otherwise they were beaten, cursed and insulted. The Armenian Lobby in the Kremlin, the Armenian elite in Russia and Armenia had mobilized all their strength for the annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. In November of the same year, M. During Gorbachev's visit to the United States, his wife Raisa Gorbacheva met with representatives of the Armenian diaspora. Liana Zavenovna Dubinina, wife of the USSR ambassador to the United States Yuri Dubinin, was particularly active in organizing the meeting. The Armenians, who knew Raisa Gorbacheva's greed, presented her with valuable gifts, M.Gorbachev was asked to defend the demands of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh. As a result of Armenian raids on Azerbaijani settlements, in 1988, on January 25, the first Azerbaijani refugees from Gafan and Megri districts of the Armenian SSR arrived in Azerbaijan by train and were stationed in Absheron district. However, this was kept secret from the public. In 1988, on February 12, the first rally was held in Khankendi (former Stepanakert). On February 18, the events began to unfold rapidly in accordance with the wishes of the Armenians when Gorbachev appointed Georgi Shahnazarov, one of the descendants of Karabakh meliks, as his new assistant. On February 20, at a session of the Council of people's Deputies of the NKAO held in Khankendi with the participation of only Armenian deputies, the autonomous region adopted a decision to withdraw from Azerbaijan and include it in Armenia. After the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR rejected the unconstitutional decision of the NKAO CPSU, Armenian nationalist leaders began to implement the Dashnaktsutyun Party's “Armenia without Turks” program. In 1988, on February 20, mass rallies began in Yerevan. The rally participants said, " Armenia must be cleared of the Turks!", "Armenia is only for Armenians!"they put forward slogans like. Demirbulag mosque operating in Yerevan on the second day of the rallies (there were 8 mosques in the city at the beginning of the XX century) and M.F.Azerbaijani secondary school named after Akhundov, J.The equipment of the Yerevan State Drama Theater named after jabbarli was burned. They set fire to the Houses of Azerbaijanis protesting against these events in Yerevan. On February 26, the head of the Armenian Lobby in the Kremlin, M.Gorbachev's assistant Georgy Shakhnazarov and Sov.Accompanied by Alexander Yakovlev, Secretary of the central committee of the CPSU (the brother-in-law of Sergo Mikoyan, editor of the magazine"Латинская Америка", was Yakovlev's assistant), Sov.Secretary General of the CPSU central committee M.Gorbachev had received Silva Kaputicyan and Zori Balayan. In half an hour they were M.Gorbachev was presented with a map of the Turkic world and false historical references, trying to convince him of the impossibility of the NKAO to remain part of Azerbaijan. However, Gorbachev does not promise them the transfer of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. He promises to allocate 400 million rubles for the socio-economic development of the NKAO, which is a huge amount for the scale of that time. Gorbachev knew that there were 19 potential hotbeds of national conflict on the territory of the USSR, and the transfer of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia through the change of borders could lead to the collapse of the USSR. Shakhnazarov tells them to go and tell them in Yerevan that an all-union conference will be held soon, which will be devoted to the national issue, and then a decision will be made. [125] on February 27, Sov.Karen Brutens, first deputy head of the International Relations Department of the central committee of the CPSU, visited Khankendi and held a confidential meeting with the leaders of the Armenian separatists, advising them to increase pressure and not to retreat from their demands. M.The Armenians, convinced that Gorbachev did not dare to cede Nagorno – Karabakh to Armenia, put into operation the plan they had prepared in advance-they committed the Sumgayit riots. The purpose of the Armenians in the riots, which began on February 28 and lasted two days, spontaneously joined by Azerbaijani youth, was to bring to the attention of the world community the impossibility of living together with the “wild” Azerbaijanis and justify the Armenian separatism in Nagorno-Karabakh. Levon Ter-Petrosyan, one of the leaders of the “Karabakh” movement created in Yerevan, and later the first president of Armenia, said in one of his interviews that after the events in Sumgayit, the Azerbaijani people were in a state of shock. If the country's leadership had taken advantage of this point and decided to annex the NKAO to Armenia, the Azerbaijani people would not have been able to object to it. The Sumgayit riots, which resulted in the murder of 26 Armenians (the investigation found that 5 of them killed an Armenian named Eduard Grigoryan, one of the organizers of the riots) and 6 Azerbaijanis, gave the Armenian nationalists an additional opportunity to commit murders and robberies against Azerbaijanis living in Armenia. Sov.During the discussion of the issue on Nagorno-Karabakh and Sumgayit at a meeting of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee held on February 29, M. Gorbachev said: "leaflets have spread in Yerevan: Armenians, stop rallies, take away weapons and drive away the Turks!."The heads of different regions used methods of economic pressure against Azerbaijanis and limited the supply of food and daily necessities to the villages. Azerbaijanis who are forced to go to cities and Regional Centers for any business are insulted, beaten and robbed. Unbearable conditions were created for Azerbaijanis living in regional centers, especially in the city of Yerevan. One secondary and one eight-year Azerbaijani school, the Yerevan Azerbaijani Drama Theater, the Azerbaijani branch of the philological Faculty of the Yerevan Pedagogical Institute were closed, and the intelligentsia was forced to leave the city.
In 1988, on June 15, the session of the Supreme Soviet of the Armenian SSR adopted a resolution on the annexation of the NKAO to Armenia and appealed to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to agree to it. After the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR rejected this illegal request on June 17, the situation of Azerbaijanis in Armenia was aggravated. On June 17-20, armed Armenian detachments gathered at The Theater Square in Yerevan made raids on the center of Masis (Zangibasar) region, where Azerbaijanis live compactly around Yerevan, in the villages of Zangilar, Zahid, Demirchi, Dostlug, Nizami, Sarvanlar. More than ten thousand defenseless Azerbaijanis gathered on the Soviet-Turkish border and were forced to spend the night there. 20 the [one] having the bride is [the] bridegroom. More than 3 thousand Azerbaijanis were evicted from their homes in the district center Masis. During all these riots, the forces of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs in the region were content with observing the events. In 1988, on July 18, at a meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the issue on the NKAO was discussed and a decision was made on the inadmissibility of changing the borders between the republics. After that, Armenian nationalists began to organize rallies everywhere to expel Azerbaijanis from Armenia. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of Armenia, one of the leaders of the “Karabakh” movement Rafael Kazaryan said at a rally held in Yerevan in 1988 on November 4: "emigration (i.e. expulsion of Azerbaijanis with the help of gangs - N.M.) need to provide. For the first time in all decades, we have been given the opportunity to clean up Armenia. I consider it the greatest achievement of our ten-month struggle. [126] Russian historian Yuri Pompeev describes the deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia in the fall of 1988 as follows: “defenseless, unarmed Azerbaijanis were usually driven out of their homes naked and unarmed, saying: “Turks who came to the Laan, get out of Armenia!"The hardest situation in Armenia among the cities and villages inhabited by Azerbaijanis was in the city of Yerevan. Because the rallies continued for weeks and without interruption, the Azerbaijanis could not go out of their homes, go to workplaces and bazaars and shops. Armenians leaving Sumgayit and arriving in Yerevan find out the addresses of Azerbaijani families, expel them from their apartments with the help of armed groups and settle in them. Cars loaded with household goods from families who changed their apartments with Armenians living in Azerbaijan were stopped on the roads by Armenian militants, robbed or burned them, or killed or inflicted grievous bodily harm on the Azerbaijanis accompanying the car. In mid-November 1988, more than 80 thousand refugees from Armenia took refuge in Azerbaijan. On November 17, during a rally in “Azadlig Square”in Baku, about half a million participants gathered, a resolution was adopted demanding autonomy for Azerbaijanis living in Armenia. Armenian television immediately showed fragments of the rally and repeatedly voiced the demands of the resolution. Concerned about these demands, the Armenian leadership interrupted the session of the Supreme Soviet held on November 22 at the request of the Karabakh Committee and sent deputies and heads of districts to “restore order” on the ground. In fact, they were instructed to carry out an action to clear Azerbaijanis from Armenia within a week. On November 25, in an appeal addressed to the Armenian workers on behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia, the Supreme Soviet and the Council of Ministers, it was noted that clashes took place in different regions, and state bodies are taking all measures to reduce tension. In fact, there was no collision. As in 1918-1920, Armenian armed groups attacked Azerbaijani settlements, expelled the population by force of arms and plundered their property. The curfew was introduced in the city of Yerevan that day, but the situation did not change. Well-established residents of the city of Yerevan, the last Azerbaijani families were leaving the city. The last decade of November 1988 was the last stage of the last deportation of Azerbaijanis in Armenia. There were almost no Azerbaijanis left in Armenia, with the exception of more than 10 thousand Azerbaijanis who remained in the blockade in the Amasia region. Official Yerevan wanted the publication of the newspaper” Soviet Armenia " and the continuation of the program broadcast on Yerevan radio in Azerbaijani for half an hour a day. Thus, they wanted to create the impression that Azerbaijanis allegedly not only live in Yerevan in safe conditions, but also publish newspapers and broadcast radio programs. However, the last days of the Azerbaijanis living in the city of Yerevan can be clearly seen from the letters sent by the editor of the newspaper “Soviet Armenia” Zarballi Gurbanov to the central committee of the Communist Party of Armenia in those days. On August 14, the Second Secretary of the central committee of the Communist Party of Armenia Y.In the letter addressed to Kochetkov, it was stated that only 24-25 Azerbaijani families remained in the city of Yerevan. In a letter sent by the editor to the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia on November 25, it was stated that the normal functioning of the newspaper is impossible as a result of the events taking place in the NKAO and its environs. Z.Gurbanov stated that 32 of the editorial staff of 23 employees left Azerbaijan for permanent residence only in June-July after the pressure on them and direct threats from irresponsible elements, and on November 22, after a sharp change in the situation, 5 more employees (typists, proofreaders and literary workers) left the Republic internally and wrote about the impossibility of publishing the newspaper “Soviet Armenia”. After the end of the process of ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis from Armenia by force of arms, in 1988, on December 2, deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers B.Under the leadership of Shcherbina, a government commission was created to provide assistance to refugees. In 1988, on December 6, Sov. The central committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a resolution “on the inadmissible actions of individual officials of the local authorities of the Azerbaijan SSR and the Armenian SSR in the forced departure of citizens from their permanent places of residence.” But it was too late. Of the approximately 3.5 thousand Azerbaijanis living in Yerevan, only 4-5 Azerbaijani families remained, who could not leave the city because they could not exchange their apartments for Armenians. The most terrible of the massacres committed against Azerbaijanis in Armenia was the Misgarov family living in the city of Yerevan at House 12/1, apartment 56, Estonakan Street. The children of” Soviet Armenia “newspaper employee Jafar Misgarov, Elza Misgarova, born in 1955, and her brother Vidadi, born in 1956, were deceived by the sweet tongues of their Armenian” friends " and stayed in Yerevan looking for a suitable option to change their apartments to Baku. The Armenians tortured Elza and Vidadi to death, and then took the bodies of both of them and threw them into the Azat reservoir in Artashat (Gamarli) region. A few months later, their bodies were found. Two more Azerbaijanis were killed by Armenians in Yerevan in 1988. Although the deportation of Azerbaijanis from Yerevan and Armenia in general was almost completed at the end of 1988, Armenians lived in normal conditions in Azerbaijan, especially in Baku, until the riots in January 1990. In general, in the period from November 1988 to December 22, in 22 districts inhabited by Azerbaijanis, 170 purely and 94 mixed (with Armenians) settlements were evacuated, as a result of which 250 thousand Azerbaijanis were expelled from their historical and ethnic lands. At that time, 216 Azerbaijanis were brutally murdered, thousands of women, children and old people were injured, and tens of thousands of families ' property was robbed. Some time after the deportation of Azerbaijanis from Yerevan in 1988, another process was completed. The traces of Azerbaijanis, who for centuries created a rich cultural heritage and monumental historical and architectural monuments in the city of Yerevan, have already been erased by Armenians who are trying to present themselves to the world as “the most ancient and cultural people.”
Nazim Mustafa
doctor of philosophy in history