Nagorno-Karabakh’s Myth of Ancient Hatreds (2020) | Hacker News Reader

Nagorno-Karabakh’s Myth of Ancient Hatreds (2020)

historytoday.com

62 pointsdiodorus61 comments

A balanced summary of the lead-up to the First (1988-1994) and Second (2020) Nagorno-Karabakh war.

Note that this is article is NOT about the recent escalation on 2022-09-13 when Azerbaijan attacked inside Armenia's internationally-recognized territory, in territory unrelated to the Nagorno-Karabakh question, clearly well past ridgelines used for the border. Technically the border is "undemarcated", but it's a cheap claim that this is a mere border dispute.

Instead, many of the actions of Azerbaijan since the November 2020 ceasefire agreement have been applications of Salami Slicing and Borderization: occupying chunks of the Republic of Armenia bit by bit, to pressure Armenia for a settlement more favorable to Azerbaijan. Specifically, Azerbaijan wants a route between its mainland and its longstanding exclave Nakhchivan (which borders Turkey).

Article 9 of the 2020 ceasefire agreement provides for such a transport connection, but does not use the word "corridor" in reference to it. This is contrasted with the 'Lachin Corridor', mentioned several times in the ceasefire agreement, which provides a connection between Armenia and the Armenian-ethnicity areas of Nagorno-Karabakh. Since 2021, Azerbaijan has unilaterally begun using the term 'Zangezur Corridor' to refer to their desired connection, anchoring their expectation that its guarantees would be similar to that of the ceasefire-defined 'Lachin Corridor'. Despite several rounds of working groups and mediation, no progress has been made on a solution acceptable to both Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan has the upper hand, with superior military and economy, less democratic government (top-down leadership), and a better geopolitical situation. And it's been steadily bullying Armenia to get its way.

Very strange article, seeing as the Azeris are a Turkish people and this ancient hatred is in fact real.

The pogroms didn't start up in 1988 for no reason, but because there was in fact a racial hatred against Armenians among Azerbaijanis, and one which they probably won't ever let go of, so the hatred survived very intact through the entire Soviet era.

First off, I do have family in the region.

Secondly, I completely agree with you that the article is a little strange. My first impression was that it doesn't really matter how 'ancient' the hatred is. The facts on the ground is that the hatred is very real today, and so embedded in the culture that it's not going anywhere.

I like academic arguments, but this one just doesn't seem to serve anyone. I admit that's possibly because I'm a bit biased to the situation.

I have nothing to do with the region myself, I'm a Swede, but even I know that places like this (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Ani_seen...) were once great cities and that they aren't depopulated for no reason-- and these places, it's a huge region in what is now Turkey.

Expansionism, while repulsive, is perhaps comprehensible as greed, but to then go after the remainder, those three million who have survived up in the mountains, that is not comprehensible.

Why it’s perfectly comprehensible when you have the special book and your neighbors do not. Then your atrocities are merely expressions of god’s will.

Always eye-rolling when those from the West - the same West that pillaged and depoulated entire continents argue that violence is an intrinsic characteristic of another group.

always eye-rolling when people degrade discussion by throwing people into few simplistic categories which don't represent reality (ie there are tons of western countries these days, only few participated in colonization, slavery etc. and muslim ones participated during that time too)

These are the only Western European countries which didn't participated in colonization/empire building:

  Vatican* (questionable)
  Malta (but not Sovereign Military Order of Malta)
  Monaco
  San Marino
  Andorra
  Liechtenstein
  Luxembourg
  Switzerland
  Ireland** (only after independence from UK)

Under some classifications Scandinavia is also counts as Western Europe, and even there Denmark-Norway colonized Iceland and Greenland, and Sweden expanded its empire into Finland, Baltics and Northern Russia.

I read it as a generalization that included the west, the far east, pretty much anywhere our extended group of cousins has been able to survive. And we are all cousins. But apparently much like you shouldn't have a kid with your 1st cousin. It is for some reason very important to kill anyone further out than your 1000th or so. At least if they have something you want. Then our huge brains kick in and give us a good reason to do what we already wanted to. Often we write it in a book to make it more legitimate. Might be God told us, or we might come up with something scientific (interpreting data with a motive is super flexible) if we aren't feeling particularly religious.

A lot of the west’s most atrocious actions were also validated by their special books.

It’s a good thing that as the west developed god-like military/industrial power, it also went through some serious reformations in its belief systems.

Odd how God's will always turns out to be human greed or human lust for power in the end. I think the original thesis stands.

Yeah don’t worry, I don’t think this is the actual desire of any actual god. But that doesn’t mean religion is irrelevant to how you get so many people with very little to gain to sacrifice their lives and/or humanity for someone else’s greed/lust for power.

It is much mure than that. Greed and lust for power are only motivators as long as it is profitable. Ideology goes way beyond and can motivate extreme hatred. Because ideology can turn a non-issue or a minor issue into an existential threat in the mind of the believers.

The article doesn’t claim that the pogroms started in 1988 at all; it claims they aren’t ancient because they originated in the 20th century, and even softens that claim by saying

“To locate the origins of the current conflict in the 20th century is not to suggest that deeper histories do not matter.”

Yes, but that is not what I wrote. What I attempted to convey was that they re-started 'started up again' in 1988 because they had survived the entire Soviet era, and are in fact very ancient.

You can't just one day sit up and decide to hate Armenians or anybody else for that matter, as hard as the Azerbaijanis hate Armenians. This is why I have the remark that the Azeris are in fact a Turkish people-- i.e. the people which depopulated the entire region, where a tiny number of survivors happened to be able to hide away and eventually get a country.

>so the hatred survived very intact through the entire Soviet era.

where is your evidence that this hatred predates the Soviet era?

I live in ex-Yugoslavia where myths(perceived from outside) of "ancient ethnic hatred" are pervasive, while in reality they cannot be traced earlier then the 20th century.

The peoples here yearned for a united country of the south slavs (Jugoslavia) for centuries, then started killing each other within a few decades of forming that country for quite prosaic reasons mostly related to personal liberties and dividing state incomes and expenses

I doesn't take ancient ethnic hatred to start a war, scarce water or land resource will do it just as well, and it will create enough "new ethnic hatred" to last a century

Anti-christian pogroms, both against Armenians and Greeks are a major thing through the Ottoman empire. At least these (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamidian_massacres) are pre-1900.

However, there's certainly a more well-established hatred of Christians than a specific hatred of Armenians; and I think the Armenians were first hated because they were Christians, and then later on hated because they were Armenians.

Overall I agree with your points, but not specifics. Pan-slavic movement for south slavs was really a mid-19th century development as far as not being limited to singular figures and even then it is questionable how popular it was.

I also disagree with reasons given for killings in early 90s because it both trivialises the reasons for internal tensions and completely ignores the question why you had plenty of ethnic violence "already" in WW2.

> where is your evidence that this hatred predates the Soviet era?

Really? You actually have to ask that question when talking about the relations between Christians and Muslims in this region?

- Hamidian massacres (1894)

- Armenian–Tatar massacres (1905-1907)

- Adana massacre (1909)

- Armenian genocide (1914–1923)

- September Days (1918)

- Khaibalikend massacre (1919)

- Destruction of Armenian part of Shusha (1920)

Preceding that you also have the Russian conquests in the Caucasus during the first half of the 19th century. The Circassians (amongst other groups) who survived the genocide and settled in the Ottoman probably probably weren't particularly fond of Christians either.

I suspect 1000 years of hatred vs 100 years makes no difference. It probably is enough to brainwash some generations (so the living majority would be affected) to have them hate even harder than if that would have been real history.

State-level hatred propaganda (what took place in Russia during the recent years is an example but it's a more or less common practice worldwide - there are many rival countries teaching their peoples to hate each other) should be made a number-2 international crime on the UN level, straight after using biological weapons.

There is no state-level propagation of ethnic hatred in Russia.

If anything, Russian Federation tries to downplay any ethnic differencies since its constituent ethnicities are of very diverse backgrounds and that would be throwing stones in a glass house.

If you were projecting the Azero-Armenian conflict on the current Russian war, you are mistaken and if you don't believe me, you can refer to the thread by Kamil Galeev, who I mostly don't agree with but who still makes his point: https://nitter.it/kamilkazani/status/1516162437455654913

This is not unlike the American wars which were motivated not by ethnic hatred towards people in Middle East but rather by desire to transplant some "better ideas" (such as democracy) there.

That was one very interesting thread, very compelling.

> There is no state-level propagation of ethnic hatred in Russia.

Perhaps, but there obviously is state-level propagation of hatred (that's you who added "ethnic"). It's enough to watch some recordings of top political shows on Russian state-ran channels to clearly see they express hatred (and do that on a regular basis), you don't even have to understand the words they speak.

Good for them if they don't propagate open racism, but they certainly do propagate hatred towards other countries (not necessarily ethnicities), their own citizens having different point of view, hatred towards sexual minorities (and that's not about the classic conservative stance to refuse accepting sexual minorities as a norm, that's open propagation of violent hatred).

Well, there is certainly strong disdain for some governments of the world, but not towards the people who they manage, whom are potrayed as victims.

But government is not the same as citizens and I'm quite confident that any of those speakers would agree with that (since they learned to parrot the politically correct things).

And that's exactly the picture which the developed countries have in mind when they talk about other countries, save for the details of regime preference.

>but not towards the people

that is not true. On state TV they openly incite hatred toward Ukrainians, call to destroy "Ukrainness", celebrate that school lessons will be only in Russian on the occupied territories. Basically you replace Ukrainian with Jewish and you'll get speeches well familiar from the history.

And this is a typical example of what is openly posted and expressed by the patriotic "elites" (and de-facto encouraged by the current political regime), and you don't want to hear how the same ideas sound from the mouths of the "non-elites"

https://tgstat.ru/channel/@aftericonproject/1037

"... built into the body of the culture understanding of the totality of intellectual and spiritual superiority of Russians over Ukrainians. ... [as a result of Ukrainian military victories] Ukrainians start to be perceived as a nation comparable to Russians, and that is true nightmare."

It is basically Goebbels (with Russians as the "master nation") all over the place these days in Russia.

>there is certainly strong disdain for some governments of the world, but not towards the people who they manage, whom are potrayed as victims.

That is myth that Soviet and now Russian propaganda have always wanted you to believe. For example Finnish war of 1939 was stated to be against the Finnish imperialist government oppressing Finnish people and not against Finnish people. Well nothing could be more telling than indiscriminate fire bombing of Finnish cities with cluster fire bombs. The same BS about Ukraine war supposedly being waged only against "nazist" Kiev regime and not against Ukrainian people - to the propaganda of ethnic hatred i already described above add the actual genocide and ethnic cleansing that has been going on in Ukraine in the last 7 months - and one can see what it really is.

These people hold the opinion that Ukraine has spent 30 years actively trying to destroy Russianness, so I can see how some amount of such flamboyant rhetoric may exist. But overall it's not true, Russian Federation is keeping options to study Ukrainian (and in Ukrainian) on the lands that it now holds.

I'm not sure how representative that is, and it is mostly about bad ideas ("Ukrainian state fruitlessly leaning towards the West") being replaced with good ideas ("Ukraine realizing that it has to play ball with Russia") and not about harming people by their ethnic situation.

Behind the link is some anonymous Telegram channel. I can create one, and so can you. But the idea is sound, Russians do not want their ambitions of grandeur challenged. Still it has very weak correlation with ethnic hate.

I'm not denying that propaganda creates and propagates myths because that's what it for.

Ethnic per se possibly no, but religious definitely yes, racial more on level of ignoring / feeding racism and neonacism. Also what US does is a bit more complex than some naive spread of democracy over and over, everybody saw how it just doesn't work for past 60 years.

There is a lot of racism in Russia towards people from ethnic minorities. While Russian authorities try to hide it on TV, even there one hears racist jokes in talk shows. When Putin had a talk in a stadium in the spring, the local authorities instructed that people there should be of Slavic type.

And then all talks in Russian propaganda about Slavic brotherhood among Russians and Ukrainian and Belarussians always subtly imply that Russians are the big brother.

Yes there's a lot of ethnic tensions in Russia, and that's why the Russian government will avoid playing the 'ethnic hate' card - until it wants to have the country to rule that is mostly intact.

Well, Russians got to be the big brother because they're rather... big. Not just in numbers - they also have the two beating hearts that are Moscow and St. Petersburg. Having said that, on the Ukrainian side there are a lot of historically important places such as Kiev the mother of all Russian cities. And Belarus really has the legacy of Lithuanian Commonwealth which can be viewed as an East Slavic state as a competitor to Russian states.

> even there one hears racist jokes in talk shows.

I believe grouping racist jokes together with real racism (real hatred, discrimination, violence) is a strategic mistake. This silently replaces non-racism with political correctness. A diverse society can live in harmony with racist jokes laughing at themselves and their pals. A society standing on political correctness can be full of hypocrisy, prejudice and hatred.

> Russians are the big brother.

They sort of are, from the economical point of view, but that, allegorically, is a wicked abusive big brother (or cousin perhaps) nobody wants to maintain family ties, let alone live in one house with. Even in real life a younger sibling may happen to be a much nicer person and the elder sibling doesn't have right to keep the younger by force when he wants to move away.

Thinking jokes can't be part of "real racism" or that you can draw a clear, distinct and universal line between the two is absolutely foolish. When you look at the worst genocidal atrocities in history or the present world, they don't come out of nowhere. And a gradually escalating normalization of mockery and othering is a clear part of that pattern time and time again.

It's not that all racial jokes are terrible on the same level as the worst things you can do here, but when you look at situations where the worst things are happening, the jokes are too and they always came first.

> racist jokes in talk shows

It's a slippery slope to judge a foreign culture by what is acceptable in their jokes.

One would think that things like race-hate crimes, lynching, segregation and apartheid, or at least access education facilities or similar welfare distribution metrics would be much better examples. Being real life and everything.

> the local authorities instructed that people there should be of Slavic type.

Source?

> there are many rival countries teaching their peoples to hate each other

I'm not sure about this, what countries were you thinking of? In many cases that seems like a one-way-thing.

I think it takes 2-3 generations, and almost as long to undo it - Tito in Yugoslavia almost broke the cycle, another generation and they probably would have made it. Northern Ireland is a bit of a miracle, I grieve for what Israel is doing to Palestine, they're on the cusp, or maybe too late

It should also be noted that while it has been highly publicized that Azerbaijan receives military tech from Turkey, it also received 100s of millions of dollars of “security support” from the US over the last few years.

(2020) talking about the September war in NK. This september's invasion was within armenia's proper

Notably an American, Monte Melkonian, was responsible in part for commanding the retaking of this territory by Armenians in the 90s.

"Melkonian had no prior service record in any country's army before being placed in command of an estimated 4,000 men in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War."

From the surname, Melkonian sounds ethnic Armenian. So it may not be a case of "a random American".

I have an Irish surname despite having never been to the island in my life. What would you call it if I was leading a division of the Irish army to try and retake Derry?

The average Armenian-American has more connections to Armenians in Europe than the average Irish-American has to Ireland.

May be true, but generally Americans outside of a few backwater racist areas will consider it valid to refer to someone as an 'American' if they were born here, unless they renounced citizenship. And doubly so if they were born here and spent the vast majority of their childhood here.

I'm curious why you put "random" in quotations.

Melkon is the Armenian form of the name "Melchior", so yes.

Melkonian was member of ASALA, a military group that is considered a terrorist organisation in the US and the EU.

By the end Melkonian also considered it a terrorist organization, which is why he left and fought for in Nagorno-Karabakh instead. "My Brother's Road" is a decent read that explains much of his thoughts.

I think if you trace back long enough a lot of the ancestors of Azerbaijanis are probably Armenians, Georgians, Circassians, and other long standing Caucasian peoples who were assimilated by both force and persuasion to some degree or other into Persian influenced Turkic tribes.

Likewise in their rise to a regional linguistic group the Armenians assimilated and absorbed other groups (like much of the Caucasian Albanian population).

I’m not sure what that means in the grand scheme of things but I tend to be skeptical of the idea that land exclusively ought to belong to one group when a region historically has had many groups whose populations and histories are intertwined.

Of course the nature of the nation state being what it is and the history of blood letting in the region, as a practical matter even if you discard ideals of who the land “ought” to belong to, a peaceful solution is tricky

I don't understand why, but it's common for people to make this kind of claim about ethnic conflicts. "Ethnic hostilities in this area are just a recent phenomenon," is a claim I've heard about Palestine, Yugoslavia, the Mekong, the Levant, parts of Africa, etc.

If I had to guess, I think the reason some people make this claim about some ethnic conflicts is usually because they think that the claim is true.

Ancient hatred is is irrelevant Armenia took a sizable part of Azerbaijan and said country got rich enough to get it back. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Honestly what were Armenians thinking? This was inevitable. Now they are reduced to begging America to save them.

The reason why Armenia managed to capture a lot of land from Azerbaijan around Karabakh in 1991-1994 was that Russia supplied a lot of military equipment to Armenia. One can speculate for reasons, but it is clear without Russian "encouragement" the conflict would be significantly smaller.

Ancient hatred is very relevant. If Azeris were not so prone to murdering Armenians that live in their lands, Armenians wouldn't want to secede. After NK voted to separate from Azerbaijan, Azeri response was the Sumgait pogrom [0] and later the Baku pogrom [1].

What were Azeris thinking? That Armenians would just say okay, ethnically cleanse us?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumgait_pogrom

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku_pogrom

Turkey just can't get enough of screwing over Armenia

Apparently Armenians tried to reclaim historic lands from Ottomon Turkey in WW1 with allied help (vastly overestimating themselves). This led to their genocide at the end of war and subsequent Turkish and Soviet collusion to oppress them for a century.

the genocides happened before the war

I beg your pardon, what? :D The genocide at first happened before the WW1

Wikipedia says otherwise, giving the starting date as 1915 for genocide, while WW1 started in 1914. Basically it looks like the same as USA dropping 2 nuclear bombs on innocent civilians in Japan during WW2 when Japan attacked them.

The Hamidian massacres massacres were basically a smaller scale Armenian genocide which occurred in the 1890's, only a few hundred thousand died instead of millions though, so I suppose it doesn't count...

Anti-Christian violence continued intermittently afterwards, erupting whenever the government was unstable and could not prevent it or needed to shift the blame for it's incompetence on someone else.

>Basically it looks like the same as USA dropping 2 nuclear bombs on innocent civilians in Japan during WW2 when Japan attacked them.

What? That's a beyond nonsensical comparison. Many of the areas affected by the genocide weren't even close to the front lines, it would be the same as US dropping nukes on North Dakota because too many German Americans lived there.

You better call it Turkiye

Nonsense. It has been called Turkey for centuries. You could also say "you should call Germany Deutschland, and Spain España and French shouldn't be allowed to call England Angleterre and BTW Moscow really is Moskva...". This never stops.

Does anyone else get the feeling when reading political history, that you are really reading a science fiction?

This article is not correct and gives diffused information on the topic. The general point is that recent attacks are on sovereign territory of Republic of Armenia. I live 110 km away from the shellings, and it is not Artsakh (Nagorno - Karabakh). This post is just misguiding.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com