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27 September 2024

The Armenian catastrophe The small nation chose war, not compromise

Grigor Atanesian

For the first time in over a millennium, there are no Armenians left in Nagorno-Karabakh. They survived the Mongol and Arab invasions and the age of empires, when tsars, shahs and sultans fought for this strategic intersection of trade routes and military roads between the Black and the Caspian Seas. But they failed to find their place in the brutal geopolitics of the 21st century, following Azerbaijan’s blitzkrieg a year ago.

Armenia’s leaders believed it was their special connection to the land that secured their 1994 victory in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War against Azerbaijan. They thought they could win another one too, in 2020, pushing for maximalist demands while failing to obtain a reliable ally in either Russia or the West. They substituted diplomacy and military strategy with dreams of romantic nationalism.

In the Eighties, as the Soviet empire entered its death spiral, a movement for the rights of the majoritarian Armenians in autonomous Nagorno-Karabakh within Soviet Azerbaijan was gaining momentum. The Karabakh movement believed ethnic Armenians had a right to live on their ancestral land after years of harassment and discrimination. But the Soviet Azerbaijanis saw it as separatism, and a crackdown followed.

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