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During the aftermath of World War I, the Armenian–Azerbaijani war and Russian Civil War, there were mutual massacres committed by Armenians and Azerbaijanis.

Turkish-German historian Taner Akçam criticized Azerbaijani/Turkish efforts to equate incidences of revenge killings with the previous Armenian genocide. He also criticzed the death figures in primary sources for often being "freely invented by the authors" and exaggerations of "destroyed villages" referring to settlements of 4-5 inhabitants.

Background

Following the Russian annexation of Iranian Armenia, tens of thousands of Armenians repatriated to Russian Armenia in 1828–1831, thereby regaining an ethnic majority in their homeland for the first time in "several hundred years". Despite this, the 1897 Russian Empire Census indicated there to be over 240 thousand Muslims on the territory of present-day Armenia, mostly ethnic Azerbaijanis as indicated by previous censuses (forming over 30 percent of the population). As a result of rising nationalism in the South Caucasus, ethnic clashes erupted between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in the Russian Empire between 1905 and 1907, resulting in massacres of thousands and the destruction of 128 and 158 Armenian and Tatar villages, respectively.

Tensions rose after both Armenia and Azerbaijan became briefly independent from Russia in 1918 as both quarrelled over where their common borders lay. Expert on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict Thomas de Waal wrote that Azerbaijanis in Armenia became the "collateral victims" of the Armenian genocide carried out by the Ottoman Empire years prior; also adding that despite Azerbaijanis being represented by three delegates in an eighty-seat Armenian parliament, they were universally targeted as "Turkish fifth columnists".

In the Erivan Governorate and Kars Oblast

Historian Richard Hovannisian wrote that nearly a third of the 350 thousand Muslims of the Erivan Governorate were displaced from their villages in 1918–1919 and living in the outskirts of Yerevan or along the former Russo-Turkish border in emptied Armenian homes. In 1919, the Armenian government declared the right of return of all refugees, however, this was unimplemented in emptied Muslim settlements occupied by Armenian refugees. During his tenure as minister of war, Rouben Ter Minassian transferred many Armenian refugees to replace evicted Muslims and also homogenize certain areas, such regions included Erivan and Daralayaz (present-day Ararat and Vayots Dzor provinces, respectively). Ter Minassian, displeased with the fact that Azerbaijanis in Armenia lived on fertile lands, waged at least three campaigns aimed at cleansing Azerbaijanis from 20 villages outside Erivan, as well as in the south of the country. According to French historian (and Ter Minassian's daughter-in-law) Anahide Ter Minassian, to achieve his goals, he used intimidation and negotiations, but above all, "fire and steel" and "the most violent methods to 'encourage' Muslims in Armenia" to leave. In dealing with "troublesome" Muslim bands in Etchmiadzin, Armenian militias looted Muslim villages along the railway, forcing their inhabitants to flee across the Aras river—in an instance of this, the men of six Muslim villages were massacred and the women distributed to the "Armenian warriors". Historian Benjamin Lieberman wrote in his book Terrible Fate: Ethnic Cleansing in the Making of Modern Europe that "or some 20 miles (32 kilometres) along Lake Sevan … deserted houses lay 'in ruins from internecine conflicts between Armenians and Tatars.'"

In October 1919, Muslim authorities in Kars appealed to Azerbaijan for means to transport 25 thousand refugees.

In Zangezur

Throughout 1918–1921, Armenian commanders Andranik Ozanian and Garegin Nzhdeh brought about a "re-Armenianization" of Zangezur through the expulsion of tens of thousands (40–50 thousand, most fleeing into the adjacent Jebrail and Jevanshir counties, particularly in the Barkushat–Geghvadzor valleys and southeast of Goris where nine villages and forty hamlets were "wiped out" in January 1920. A message dated 12 September from the local county chief indicated that the villages of Rut, Darabas, Agadu, Vagudu were destroyed, and Arikly, Shukyur, Melikly, Pulkend, Shaki, Kiziljig, the Muslim part of Karakilisa, Irlik, Pakhlilu, Darabas, Kyurtlyar, Khotanan, Sisian, and Zabazdur were set aflame, resulting in the deaths of 500 men, women, and children.

The number of Muslim settlements in Zangezur destroyed by Andranik and Nzhdeh is given by different authors as 24, 49 (9 villages and 40 hamlets), or 115. The destruction of these settlements and the restriction imposed by local Armenians on Muslim shepherds taking their flocks into Zangezur served as the casus belli for Azerbaijan's campaign against Zangezur in late-1919. During the 1921 anti-Soviet revolt known as the Republic of Mountainous Armenia, Nzhdeh in taking control of Zangezur drove "out the last of its Azerbaijani population".

Statistics

According to the 1897 Russian Empire Census, the territory of Armenian-controlled Zangezur was 68 percent (59,207) Armenian and 31 percent (27,031) Muslim with a total population of 87,252. According to the Armenian agricultural census of 1922, the first census after the brief independence of Armenia, it was revealed that Zangezur's population had declined to 75,994, 89 percent (67,587) of whom were Armenians and 11 percent (8,224) were Azerbaijanis. Thus, the Armenian population had increased by 14 percent whilst the Azerbaijani Muslim population decreased by 70 percent.

Aftermath

By time of Armenia's sovietisation, little more than 10 thousand Azerbaijanis remained within the borders of Armenia. By the time of 1922 agricultural census, some 60 thousand Azerbaijani refugees had been repatriated, thereby bringing their total up to 72,596. Muslims numbered 240,323 (30.1 percent of the population on the territory of present-day Armenia) in 1897, by 1922, Azerbaijanis fell to 77,767 (9.9 percent of the population).

In April 1920, the archbishop of Yerevan, Khoren I of Armenia, admitted that "a few Tatar villages under the Armenian Government have suffered" while also justifying it by stating that "they were the aggressors, either they actually attacked us, or they were being organised by the Azerbaijan agents and official representatives to rise against the Armenian Government."

International reaction

To assist the destitute 70–80 thousand Muslim refugees living south of Yerevan (50 thousand of whom were dependent on relief aid during the winter), the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic transferred large amounts of funds. It was reported in 1919–1920 that there were 13 thousand Muslims in Yerevan and another 50 thousand throughout Armenia. Muslims, in contrast with their coreligionists in the south of the country lived "acceptably" and with "generally cordial" interethnic relations in the north. The 40 thousand Muslims who had fled from Armenia to Azerbaijan were resettled through a 69 million ruble allocation by the Azerbaijani government.

Assessment

Turkish-German historian Taner Akçam posits that the massacres against the Muslim population of Armenia are exaggerated or even outright fabrications in order to "reinforce the image of the 'Armenian peril.'"

Casualties

See also

• Deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia
• Western Azerbaijan
• Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia
• Demographics of Armenia
• Armenians in Azerbaijan

Notes

1. Azerbaijanis (along with other Turkic-speaking Muslims in the Caucasus) were referred to as Tatars by the Russian administration until the formation of independent Azerbaijan.

References

1. ^ Kaufman 2001, p. 58.
2. ^ Akçam 2007, p. 330.
3. Herzig & Kurkchiyan 2005, p. 66.
4. ^ Korkotyan 1932, pp. 164–165.
5. Hovannisian 1967, p. 264.
6. Akouni 2011, p. 30.
7. de Waal 2003, pp. 127–128.
8. Ovsepyan 2001, p. 224.
9. ^ de Waal 2015, p. 75.
10. Bournoutian 2015, p. 35.
11. Hovannisian 1982, p. 178.
12. Bloxham 2005, p. 103.
13. Leupold 2020, p. 25.
14. Hovannisian 1982, p. 180.
15. Lieberman 2013, p. 136.
16. ^ Hovannisian 1982, p. 182.
17. de Waal 2003, pp. 127–129.
18. Arslanian 1980, p. 93.
19. Namig 2015, p. 240.
20. Gerwarth & Horne 2012, p. 179.
21. Hovannisian 1971, p. 87.
22. Broers 2019, p. 4.
23. ^ de Waal 2003, p. 129.
24. Chorbajian 1994, p. 134.
25. Zakharov 2017, pp. 105–106.
26. de Waal 2003, p. 80.
27. ^ Hovannisian 1982, p. 213.
28. ^ Mammadov & Musayev 2008, p. 33.
29. ^ Hovannisian 1982, p. 239.
30. Buldakov 2010, pp. 893–894.
31. ^ Balayev 1990, p. 43.
32. ^ Korkotyan 1932, p. 167.
33. ^ Korkotyan 1932, p. 184.
34. Bloxham 2005, p. 105.
35. Hovannisian 1982, p. 106.
36. ^ Chmaïvsky 1919, p. 8.
37. Hovannisian 1996a, p. 122.

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