The Karabakh movement ( "Gharapaghyan sharjhum"), also known as the Artsakh movement (), was a national liberation movement in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh from 1988 to 1991 that advocated for the reunification of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) – an autonomous enclave within Soviet Azerbaijan – with Soviet Armenia. The movement was motivated by fears of cultural and physical erasure under government policies from Azerbaijan. Throughout the Soviet period, Azerbaijani authorities implemented policies aimed at suppressing Armenian culture and diluting the Armenian majority in Nagorno-Karabakh through various means, including border manipulations,: "The solution proposed by the [Karabakh uezdy] conference was similar to previous suggestions, but it also called for the creation of a Karabakh Oblast’, a region that would encompass both mountainous and lowland parts of Karabakh. It offered a way in which the creation of a predominantly Armenian autonomous unit in the mountainous part of the region could be avoided. During 1921, the position of the Azerbaijani leadership regarding Karabakh autonomy had been that suppression of banditry in the region would solve the ethnic conflict, and that there would be no need to grant autonomy to the Armenian-populated part of Karabakh. This tactic was successful in the short term.": "The borders were to be drawn before 15 August by a mixed commission...but without the participation of either Yerevan or Moscow. All would be presided over by Karaiev. Under such circumstances, the Armenians could expect to be grossly disappointed. On the one hand...they excluded, on the west, the 'corridor' made up of Lachin, Kelbajar, and Kedabek, which had been carefully emptied of its Armenian population to separate Mountainous Karabagh from Armenian Zangezur. On the other hand, in the north, without any justification, they removed the districts of Shamkhor, Khanlar, Dashkesan and Shahumian.. where the Armenian population was predominant (about 90 per cent)... From Shamkhor in the north to Shahumian in the south, Armenian villages in these districts have been systematically emptied...Mountainous Karabagh delimited in this way is only a portion of what had always been Armenian Karabagh, which itself is only a part of what was included in the ancient Armenian provinces of Artsakh and Utik...The spectre of ‘Nakhichevanization’ haunts...Mountainous Karabagh, which had 125,000 inhabitants in 1926 who were 89 percent Armenian. This region has become an ‘enclave’ since the ‘cleansing’ of the Hagaru Valley in order to separate Karabagh from Zangezur by a narrow strip emptied of Armenians...Azerbaijan still contained a large Armenian minority. Aside from the ‘bastion’ of the Autonomous Region of Mountainous Karabagh, Armenians were numerous in Baku and in the region north of the Autonomous Region, up to Shamkhor, where the Armenian villages had been deliberately left outside the frontiers drawn in 1923 and, thereby, subjected to direct Azerbaijani authority. From north to south, these areas had already largely been ‘swept clean,’ with the exception of the area of Shahumian, the northern gateway to the Autonomous Region. The Azerbaijani plan was clearly described in the declaration by the Karabagh Committee on 2 December 1988: 'Exploiting the anarchic situation, the Azerbaijani authorities are about to unleash a monstrous programme: to expel Armenians from their several millennia old homes in Gandzak and the areas north of Artsakh, in preparation for an invasion of Mountainous Karabagh.' Already about 120,000 Armenians have left Azerbaijan, and 50,000 have sought refuge in Armenia and the others in the North Caucasus and Central Asia." encouraging the exodus of Armenians, and settling Azerbaijanis in the region. In the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, Armenians protested against Azerbaijan's cultural and economic marginalizationBroers, Laurence, ed. The limits of leadership: Elites and societies in the Nagorny Karabakh peace process. Conciliation Resources, 2005. p.93 The concept of reunification (“Miatsum”) was so deeply embedded among Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh that the region was almost universally regarded as an integral part of Armenia rather than a distinct entity.
Armenians had petitioned Soviet authorities to transfer the mostly Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) in Azerbaijan to Armenia. By 1988, nearly one million Armenians from several regions of the republic engaged in regular demonstrations, centered on Yerevan's Theater Square (today Freedom Square).
The Karabakh Committee, a group of ethnic Armenian intellectuals from Armenia along with the Karabakh-based local group "Krunk", led the movement. After 1989, the movement transformed into the Pan-Armenian National Movement (HHSh) and won majority in the 1990 parliamentary election. In 1991, both Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence from the Soviet Union. A referendum in 1988 was held to transfer the region to Soviet Armenia, citing self-determination laws in the Soviet constitution. This act was met with a series of pogroms against Armenians across Azerbaijan, and in November 1991, the Azerbaijani government passed a motion aimed at abolishing the autonomy of the NKAO and prohibiting the use of Armenian placenames in the region. Initially, the movement relied on non-violent means, including petitions, marches, vigils, hunger strikes, demonstrations, and general strikes, and was met with anti-Armenian violence. By 1992, the conflict had escalated into the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.
Up until the 2018 Armenian Revolution, the Karabakh Movement was the largest mass movement in Armenian history. It was also the largest instance of public mobilization in the Soviet Union since its formative years in the 1920s. At one point in the movement, up to a million protestors were mobilized in Yerevan.
Azerbaijan's inability to suppress the Karabakh Movement has significantly influenced Azeri nationalism, which is widely considered institutionally anti-Armenian.
Background
During the Soviet Era, the Armenians of Nakhichevan and of Lachin were subjected to gradual ethnic cleansing by Soviet Azeri authorities resulting in the exodus of all Armenians from the region. During the Soviet Era, Armenians were scapegoated for state, societal and economic shortcomings in Azerbaijan. The Karabakh Movement is characterized as a struggle for national liberation by both Armenians and others. The concept of reunification (“Miatsum”) was so deeply embedded among Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh that the region was almost universally regarded as an integral part of Armenia rather than a distinct entity. Nagorno-Karabakh was unique in the Soviet Union as the only autonomous region whose ethnic majority matched that of a neighboring republic (Armenia) but was not allowed to join it.
Building on these grievances, Armenian intellectuals within the Karabakh Movement also rejected the long-standing belief that Armenia’s membership of the USSR was necessary for protection against Turkey. Up until Armenia's incorporation into the Soviet Union, the Republic of Turkey and its Ottoman predecessor had aimed at eliminating Armenia and transforming it into a Turkish protectorate or vassal state.Walker, Christopher J., ed. Armenia and Karabagh: The struggle for unity. Minority Rights Group, 1991. p. 134-135,106 Led by figures such as Levon Ter-Petrosyan and Vazgen Manukyan, Armenian intellectuals aimed for complete independence and the possibility of peaceful coexistence with neighboring states, marking a fundamental shift in Armenian political thought.
Suppression of Armenian culture in Nagorno-Karabakh Although the Karabakh Movement came to a flashpoint in 1988, its origins date back to the 1920s, during which it was suppressed by the Soviet authorities. For decades, an underground movement in Nagorno-Karabakh sought unification with Armenia. During periods of political easing or major change in the USSR—such as in 1945, 1965, and 1977—Armenians submitted letters and petitions to Moscow requesting that Nagorno-Karabakh be transferred to Soviet Armenia.
Between 1921 and 1990, under the control of the Azerbaijan SSR within the USSR, Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh faced economic marginalization, deportation, and cultural discrimination, leading to a significant exodus.Laurila, Juhani. "Power Politics and Oil as Determinants of Transition: the case of Azerbaijan." (1999). "The Azerbaijanis can be accused of depriving the 130 000 Armenians living in the Nogorno-Karabakh of their possibilities to watch TV broadcasts from Yerevan, of their right to study Armenian history and their access to Armenian literature. The Azerbaijani government, too, can be said to have conducted racial, cultural and economic discrimination against the Nagorno Karabakh Armenians. Over 80 000 Nagorno-Karabakh residents signed an address asking for annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. Based on this address the Council of Representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh turned to Supreme Council of the USSR, Azerbaijan and Armenia with request to transfer the Nagorno-Karabakh under Armenia." Meanwhile, authorities encouraged the inflow of Azeris from outside Nagorno-Karabakh.Starovotova, Galina Vasilevna. Sovereignty after empire: self-determination movements in the former Soviet Union. Vol. 31. No. 19. US Institute of Peace, 1997. "Limited employment opportunities and discrimination against Armenians contributed to the gradual emigration of the Armenian population from the region, while republican authorities encouraged the inflow of Azeris from outside Nagorno-Karabakh." This policy – sometimes called a "White Genocide"Tsypylma Darieva, Wolfgang Kaschuba. Representations on the Margins of Europe: Politics and Identities in the Baltic and South Caucasian States, Campus Verlag GmbH, 2007, , p. 111 "Thus, the notion of 'genocide', as perceived by the people, included the expressions 'white genocide' (bearing in mind the example of the ethnic cleansing of Nakhichevan and Nagorno- Karabagh of Armenians)...".Ole Høiris, Sefa Martin Yürükel. Contrasts and solutions in the Caucasus, Aarhus Univ. Press, 1998, , p. 234 "...the Azerbaijanization of Nakhichevan is called a 'white genocide', that is, one that operates by erasure of evidence of Armenian residence" – aimed at "de-Armenizing" the territory culturally and then physically and followed a similar pattern to Azerbaijan's treatment of Armenians in Nakhchivan. Census data from the Soviet period reflects these demographic shifts. The city of Shusha—once a major center of Armenian cultural life within Nagorno-Karabakh—became overwhelmingly Azerbaijani. In 1959, Armenians constituted 84.4% of Nagorno-Karabagh’s population; twenty years later, their share had fallen to 76%.