Armenians in Azerbaijan (; ) are the Armenians who lived in great numbers in the modern state of Azerbaijan and its precursor, Soviet Azerbaijan. According to the statistics, about 500,000 Armenians lived in Soviet Azerbaijan prior to the outbreak of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1988.Memorandum from the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights to John D. Evans, Resource Information Center, 13 June 1993."Implementation of the Helsinki Accords: Human Rights and Democratization in the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union" (Washington, DC: U.S. Congress, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, January 1993), p. 118. Most of the Armenians in Azerbaijan had to flee the republic, like Azerbaijanis in Armenia, in the events leading up to the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, a result of the ongoing Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. Atrocities directed against the Armenian population took place in Sumgait (February 1988), Ganja (Kirovabad, November 1988) and Baku (January 1990). Armenians continued to live in large numbers in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which was controlled by the break-away state known as the Nagorno-Karabakh RepublicDemographic indicators: Population by ethnic groups from 1991 until 2023 when the region was incorporated into Azerbaijan using military force. After the Azerbaijani takeover, almost all Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh were expelled to Armenia.
Before the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Armenians were Azerbaijan’s third-largest minority but by 1999 their official number outside of Nagorno-Karabakh had dropped to 645, while the true figure is estimated to be about 3000,Matveeva, Anna. The South Caucasus: nationalism, conflict and minorities. London: Minority Rights Group International, 2002. p.15 since many have changed their names due to mixed marriages or to avoid harassment.Этнический состав Азербайджана (по переписи 1999 года) Many of the Armenians that remain in Azerbaijan are likely to be elderly, sick, or with no other family members.
Armenians in Azerbaijan are at a great risk as long as the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict remains unsettled.Razmik Panossian. The Armenians. Columbia University Press, 2006; p. 281Mario Apostolov. The Christian-Muslim Frontier. Routledge, 2004; p. 67Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. 2001Barbara Larkin. International Religious Freedom (2000): Report to Congress by the Department of State. DIANE Publishing, 2001; p. 256 In Azerbaijan, the status of Armenians is precarious.Azerbaijan: The status of Armenians, Russians, Jews and other minorities, report, 1993, INS Resource Information Center, p. 10 Armenians in Azerbaijan face severe limitations on cultural expression, freedom of speech, and political participation, and often conceal their identity by changing names and avoiding public visibility. Those who remain in Azerbaijan keep a low profile, refraining from practicing their religion or speaking Armenian in public. They live with persistent fear, isolation, and exclusion, relying on anonymity or social integration for safety. Armenian churches remain closed because of the large emigration of Armenians and fear of Azerbaijani attacks.United States Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1992 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, February 1993), p. 708
History
Armenians in Baku
Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh
Up until August 2023, Armenians had lived in the Karabakh region since the period of antiquity.Hewsen, Robert H. Armenia: A Historical Atlas. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2001. In the beginning of the 2nd century BC. Karabakh became a part of Armenian Kingdom as province of Artsakh. In the 14th century, a local Armenian leadership emerged, consisting of five noble dynasties led by princes, who held the titles of meliks and were referred to as Khamsa (five in Arabic). The Armenian meliks maintained control over the region until the 18th century. In the early 16th century, control of the region passed to the Safavid dynasty, which created the Ganja-Karabakh province (beylerbeydom, bəylərbəylik). Despite these conquests, the population of Upper Karabakh remained largely Armenian.Cornell, Svante E. The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict . Uppsala: Department of East European Studies, April 1999.
Karabakh passed to Imperial Russia by the Kurekchay Treaty, signed between the Khan of Karabakh and Tsar Alexander I of Russia in 1805, and later further formalized by the Russo-Persian Treaty of Gulistan in 1813, before the rest of Transcaucasia was incorporated into the Empire in 1828 by the Treaty of Turkmenchay. In 1822, the Karabakh khanate was dissolved, and the area became part of the Elizavetpol Governorate within the Russian Empire.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Karabakh became part of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, but this soon dissolved into separate Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Georgian states. Over the next two years (1918–1920), there were a series of short wars between Armenia and Azerbaijan over several regions, including Karabakh. In July 1918, the First Armenian Assembly of Nagorno-Karabakh declared the region self-governing and created a National Council and government.The Nagorno-Karabagh Crisis: A Blueprint for Resolution , New England Center for International Law & Policy In September 1918, Azerbaijani–Ottoman forces captured the city of Shusha, the capital of the Karabakh Council, however, were unable to penetrate the countryside due to the efforts of local Armenians. Following the Armistice of Mudros on 30 October 1918, Ottoman forces were obligated to withdraw from the South Caucasus, including Shusha, after which their garrison was supplemented by the British. On 15 January 1919, the British governor of Baku, General Thomson appointed Khosrov bey Sultanov the "Governor-General of Karabakh and Zangezur" within Azerbaijan, despite neither region being completely under Azerbaijani control. On 5 June 1919, due to the refusal of the Karabakh assembly to submit to Azerbaijani authority as prescribed by British command, 2,000 mounted Kurdish irregulars led by the Sultan bey Sultanov—the brother of Khosrov—looted several Armenian villages in the outskirts of Shushi including Khaibalikend, Krkejan, Pahliul, Jamillu, and several remote hamlets resulting in the deaths of some 600 Armenians. As a result of the bloodshed, the Karabakh Council was compelled to sign a provisional accord with the Azerbaijani government on 22 August 1919, submitted to their rule pending their final status decided in the Paris Peace Conference.
As the Paris Peace Conference was inconclusive on the issue of the South Caucasus territorial disputes, on 19 February 1920 Khosrov bey Sultanov issued an ultimatum to the Karabakh Council to consent to the region's permanent incorporation into Azerbaijan. During meetings of the Eighth Assembly of Armenians of Karabakh from 28 February to 4 March, the delegates expressed discontent with the Azerbaijani administration and warned that they would resort to countermeasures if their existence was threatened. In the uprising that followed, due to the unsuccessful attempt by local Armenian forces to disarm the Azerbaijani garrisons in Shusha and Khankend, the former befell a pogrom which saw the Armenian half of the town looted and destroyed, with its Armenian inhabitants evicted and 500–20,000 massacred."The British administrator of Karabakh Col. Chatelword did not prevent discrimination against Armenians by the Tatar administration of Gov. Saltanov. The ethnic clashes ended with the terrible massacres in which most Armenians in Shusha town perished. The Parliament in Baku refused to even condemn those responsible for the massacres in Shusha and the war started in Karabakh. A. Zubov (in Russian) А.Зубов Политическое будущее Кавказа: опыт ретроспективно-сравнительного анализа, журнал "Знамья", 2000, No. 4, http://magazines.russ.ru/znamia/2000/4/zubov.html "massacre of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh's capital, Shushi (called Shusha by the Azerbaijanis)", Kalli Raptis, "Nagorno-Karabakh and the Eurasian Transport Corridor", https://web.archive.org/web/20110716225801/http://www.eliamep.gr/eliamep/files/op9803.PDF"A month ago after the massacres of Shushi, on 19 April 1920, prime-ministers of England, France and Italy with participation of the representatives of Japan and USA collected in San-Remo..." Giovanni Guaita (in Russian) Джованни ГУАЙТА, Армения между кемалистским молотом и большевистской наковальней // «ГРАЖДАНИН», M., # 4, 2004 http://www.grazhdanin.com/grazhdanin.phtml?var=Vipuski/2004/4/statya17&number=%B94
In April 1920, while the Azerbaijani army was locked in Karabakh fighting local Armenian forces, Azerbaijan was taken over by Bolsheviks. Subsequently, the disputed areas of Nagorno-Karabakh, Zangezur, and Nakhchivan came under the control of Armenia. During July and August 1920, however, the Red Army occupied mountainous Karabakh, Zangezur, and part of Nakhchivan. Later on, for basically political reasons, the Soviet Union agreed to a division under which Zangezur would fall under the control of Armenia, while Karabakh and Nakhchivan would be under the control of Azerbaijan. In addition, the mountainous part of Karabakh that had come to be named Nagorno-Karabakh was granted an autonomous status as the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, giving Armenians more rights than were given to Azerbaijanis in ArmeniaTobias Debiel, Axel Klein, Stiftung Entwicklung und Frieden. [Fragile Peace: State Failure, Violence and Development in Crisis Regions]. Zed Books, 2002; p.94 and enabling Armenians to be appointed to key positions and attend schools in their first language.
With the Soviet Union firmly in control of the region, the conflict over the region died down for several decades. The Armenians in Karabakh were not repressed to a substantial extent. Local schools offered education in Armenian but taught Azerbaijani history and not the history of the Armenian people; the population had access to Armenian-language television broadcast by a Stepanakert-based channel controlled from Baku, and later directly from Armenia as well, though in an unfavourable manner.T.K.Oommen. Citizenship, nationality, and ethnicity . Wiley-Blackwell, 1997; p. 131 Unlike in Baku, cases of mixed Armenian-Azerbaijani marriages in Nagorno-Karabakh were very rare.Алла Ервандовна Тер-Саркисянц, Современная семья у армян Нагорного Карабаха. В: В.К. Гарданов (ed.). Кавказский этнографический сборник. Ter-Sarkisiants, A. A. "Sovremennaja semja u armjan Nagornogo Karabaxa". In: V. K. Gardanov (ed.). Kavkazskij ètnografičeskij sbornik, 6: 11-46; p. 34. The autonomy of Nagorno-Karabakh led to the rise of Armenian nationalism and the Armenians' determination in claiming independence. With the beginning of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the question of Nagorno-Karabakh re-emerged.
Armenians in Ganja In 1918, 69,000 Armenians of the Elizavetpol uezd (modern-day Dashkasan, Gadabay, Goranboy, and Shamkir districts) submitted to Azerbaijani demands to disarm due to their geographic isolation from Armenia, which was unable to incorporate the region. As they had cooperated with Nuri Pasha's ultimatum, the local Armenians were spared from massacre, however, they experienced difficulties in tending to their fields (100 of whom were killed whilst doing so) and traversing roads where they were attacked by "disgruntled refugees" and "lawless bands" who were also raiding the properties of local khans and beys ("chiefs"; "lords"). On 9 April 1920, at the height of the Armenian–Azerbaijani war and the clashes in the Kazakh uezd, Azerbaijani soldiers burned the Armenian villages of Badakend (Balakend) and Chardakhly (Çardaqlı) in the region.