Table Of ContentTitle Pages
Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry
Laurence Broers
Print publication date: 2019
Print ISBN-13: 9781474450522
Published to Edinburgh Scholarship Online: May 2020
DOI: 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474450522.001.0001
Title Pages
Laurence Broers
(p.i) Armenia and Azerbaijan
(p.iii) Armenia and Azerbaijan
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Title Pages
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Epigraph
Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry
Laurence Broers
Print publication date: 2019
Print ISBN-13: 9781474450522
Published to Edinburgh Scholarship Online: May 2020
DOI: 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474450522.001.0001
Epigraph
Laurence Broers
(p.ii) If the Homeland is small, one dreams it large.
Rubén Darío, Retorno
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Acknowledgements
Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry
Laurence Broers
Print publication date: 2019
Print ISBN-13: 9781474450522
Published to Edinburgh Scholarship Online: May 2020
DOI: 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474450522.001.0001
(p.vi) Acknowledgements
Laurence Broers
For authors writing on conflict acknowledgements are always fraught. Many of the dozens of
people who helped me on the path to this book may disagree vehemently with the argument
herein. I can only emphasise its provisional and contestable nature, and underline that
responsibility for its flaws remains mine alone.
This book came out of my work at Conciliation Resources (CR), a London-based peacebuilding
organisation (www.c-r.org). I am greatly indebted to the vision and counsel of CR’s executive
director, Jonathan Cohen, conversations with whom led to the germination of this project. I am
grateful to Andy Carl, Rachel Clogg, Rhona Miller, Mira Sovakar and Juliet Williams for their
moral support. It has also been a privilege to work with Marc Behrendt, Jenny Norton and
Siegfried Woeber, to whom I give thanks. In surviving to book stage, the project owes a great
deal to the inspiration, advice and support at critical junctures of the following individuals:
Bhavna Dave, Thomas de Waal, Salpi Ghazarian, Tabib Huseynov and Gerard Toal. I am deeply
grateful to each of them.
In Armenia, I would like to thank Konstantin Geodakyan, Natalie and Hakop Harutyunyan, Levon
Kalantar, and Harutyun Mansuryan of the Media Initiatives Center, with special thanks to Nune
Sargsyan for advice, perspective and hospitality. For a generous supply of analytical insight and
for sharing office space I am grateful to Richard Giragosian. I am likewise greatly indebted to
the Caucasus Institute and the insights of its director Alexander Iskandaryan and former deputy
director Sergey Minasyan. My thanks also go to Tatul Hakobyan of Civilitas for sharing his
encyclopaedic knowledge. I would also like to thank the (p.vii) following individuals who
helped me in myriad ways while in the field in Armenia: Lara Aharonyan, Jonathan Aves, Artak
Ayunts, Laura Baghdasarian, Judith Farnworth, Mark Grigorian, Nina Iskandaryan, Edgar
Khachatrian, Hranush Kharatyan, Kathy Leach, Charles Lonsdale, Roubina Margossian, Ashot
Melyan, Tigran Mkrtchyan, Oksana Musaelyan, Artur Sakunts, Alex Sardar, David
Shahnazaryan, Araik Shirinyan, Timothy Straight, Naira Sultanyan, Gevorg Ter-Gabrielyan and
Maria Titizian. (In spelling Armenian surnames I have tried to be consistent with personal
preferences, common usage or original sources, hence I use both -ian and -yan.)
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Acknowledgements
In Azerbaijan, I give special thanks to Avaz Hasanov and Mehriban Mammadova for sharing
wisdom and hospitality. I am greatly indebted to Arif Yunusov and Leyla Yunus for their
generosity in sharing their knowledge, intellect and insight over many years. My thanks go too
to Ilham Safarov and his colleagues: Myrsadyg Agayev, Naila Babayeva, Rahman Badalov, Aliya
Haqverdi, Toghrul Jufarli, Shahin Rzayev and Ayaz Salayev. I would also like to thank the
following individuals for assistance in the field in Azerbaijan: Arzu Abdullayeva, Shamkhal
Abilov, Leila Alieva, Sevinc Aliyeva, Zardusht Alizade, Bakhtiyar Aslanov, Akram Aylisli, Rauf
Garagozov, Ilgar Gasimov, Maryam Haji-Ismayilova, Jamil Hasanli, Novella Jafaroglu-Appelbaum,
Kerim Kerimli, Ceyhun Mahmudlu, Kamal Makili-Aliyev, Polad Mammadov, Xamis Masimov, Tofig
Musayev, Eldar Namazov, Atakhan Pashayev, Gulshan Pashayeva, Akif Nagi Qazakh, and Irfan
Siddiq. I am particularly grateful to Adalet Tahirzade for his kind permission to feature the cover
of his 2003 book The Path to Liberation and Unity as an illustration, and to Turgut Gambar for
helping me with translation.
In Nagorny Karabakh I would like to thank Gegham Baghdasarian and his colleagues at the
Stepanakert Press Club, with special thanks to Anahit Danielyan for hosting me in September
2014. I am very grateful to the following individuals for their unfailing assistance over many
years: Svetlana Danielyan, Masis Mayilian, Karen Ohanjanian, Karine Ohanyan and Albert
Voskanyan. I also thank Iosif and Karine Adamian, Armine Aleksanyan, Artak Beglaryan, Vera
Grigorian, Naira (p.viii) Hayrumyan, Margarita Karamyan, Tigran Kyureghyan and Saro
Saroyan.
For conversations and exchanges that have enriched my thinking about the issues dealt with in
this book I would like to thank the following individuals: Caner Alper, Karena Avedissian,
Günther Bächler, Donnacha Ó Beacháin, Mehmet Binay, Carey Cavanaugh, Roxana Cristescu,
Jacques Faure, Martha Freeman, Magdalena Frichova Grono, Phil Gamaghelyan, Arzu Geybulla,
Sevil Huseynova, Sossie Kasbarian, Arsen Kharatyan, Sergey Markedonov, Cigdem Mater, Anna
Matveeva, Marina Nagai, Murad Nasibbeyli, Craig Oliphant, Kevork Oskanian, Amanda Paul,
Dennis Sammut, Arsène Saparov, Gwendolyn Sasse, Silvia Serrano, Anahit Shirinyan, Zaur
Shiriyev, Jale Sultanli, Ronald Grigor Suny, Olesya Vartanyan, Cory Welt, Ulrike Ziemer, Mikayel
Zolyan and Christoph Zürcher. I am greatly appreciative of the scholarly collaborations I have
been fortunate to enjoy with Ceyhun Mahmudlu, Anna Ohanyan, Jean-François Ratelle, Mairbek
Vatchagaev and Galina Yemelianova: thank you for broadening my horizons.
I also thank all those in public office who facilitated research they had no reason to believe
would support their positions on the conflict. I wish to acknowledge the openness to my
enquiries of the Armenian and Azerbaijani embassies in London, and the Ministries of Foreign
Affairs in both states. The representatives of the de facto Nagorno-Karabakh Republic in
Stepanakert, and Robert Avetisyan of its representation in Washington, have been similarly
helpful.
Those who read and generously commented on draft chapters helped me to clarify my thinking. I
am very grateful to Nina Caspersen, Thomas de Waal, Tabib Huseynov, Armine Ishkanian, Famil
Ismayilov, Harrison King, Jo Laycock, David Lewis, Elene Melikishvili, Emil Sanamyan, Licínia
Simão, Gerard Toal, Bettina Vaughan, Siegfried Woeber and Eliza Wright. At Edinburgh
University Press I thank Jen Daly, Joannah Duncan, Sarah Foyle and Adela Rauchova for their
enthusiasm for this project and support in seeing it to fruition. I am grateful to Glory Hall for
designing the maps and Alfonso and María-Paola Rizo for advice on the epigraph. Lastly and
most of all, I would like to (p.ix) express my profound gratitude to my parents Robert and
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Acknowledgements
Patricia for their considerable forbearance and steadfast support of this and many other
endeavours. I dedicate this book to the memory of my sister, Anita.
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Maps, Figures and Tables
Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry
Laurence Broers
Print publication date: 2019
Print ISBN-13: 9781474450522
Published to Edinburgh Scholarship Online: May 2020
DOI: 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474450522.001.0001
(p.x) Maps, Figures and Tables
Laurence Broers
Maps
1 The South Caucasus xiv
2 Nagorny Karabakh xv
Figures
2.1 Visualising ‘Greater Azerbaijan’: President Elchibey stares out from an expansive
Azerbaijani homeland on the cover of this 2003 book, whose title reads The Path to
Liberation and Unity 61
2.2 A 2015 wall calendar commemorating ‘Wilsonian Armenia’ 70
3.1 A and B Policing ‘augmented Armenia’: graffiti at bus stops in Yerevan, 2015 103
3.2 Visualising Azerbaijanism: poster board of Heydar Aliyev, Sheki, 2011 113
5.1 Armenia and Azerbaijan Freedom House Ratings, 1991–2018 156
5.2 World Bank Governance Indicators: Voice and Accountability in Armenia and
Azerbaijan, 1996–2016 157
7.1 Russia’s pivotal deterrence between Armenia and Azerbaijan 246
8.1 Rejecting ‘compliant Armenia’: school classroom wall, Lachin, 2014 271
(p.xi) 9.1 Poster-board, Meghri, Armenia, 2015. The legend reads: ‘Armenians, Meghri
is the door to your home!’ 290
Tables
2.1 Traditions and territorialisations in Azerbaijani geopolitical culture 78
2.2 Traditions and territorialisations in Armenian geopolitical culture 79
3.1 Territorial visions and conceptions of Nagorny Karabakh in post-Soviet Armenian
geopolitical culture 91
3.2 Territorial visions and conceptions of Nagorny Karabakh in post-Soviet Azerbaijani
geopolitical culture 105
4.1 General development indicators in early Soviet Armenia and Azerbaijan (%) 128
4.2 Armenian (ArmCP) and Azerbaijani (AzCP) Communist Party membership by
nationality (%) in major census years 131
4.3 Azerbaijani population growth in regions of the ArmSSR, 1959–79 136
6.1 Armenian and Azerbaijani demographic indicators compared, 1990–2015 194
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Maps, Figures and Tables
7.1 Schemas of Russian policy towards the Armenian– Azerbaijani rivalry 240
8.1 Domestic income, expenditure and interstate credits in the de facto Nagorno-
Karabakh Republic, 2007–16 (in current US dollars) 259
8.2 Traditions and territorialisations of Nagorny Karabakh, 1991–present 270
9.1 Armenian–Azerbaijani peace proposals discussed by the Minsk Group, 1997–present
286
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Terminology
Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry
Laurence Broers
Print publication date: 2019
Print ISBN-13: 9781474450522
Published to Edinburgh Scholarship Online: May 2020
DOI: 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474450522.001.0001
(p.xii) Terminology
Laurence Broers
In my earlier work, I used the term ‘Nagorny Karabakh conflict’ because it avoided embroilment
in the naming and numbering of the belligerents, and because it underscored that the conflict is,
in essence, territorial. However, the space and scope of the conflict have never been limited to
Nagorny Karabakh itself, and as I argue in this book, it is the interstate dimension that has
become dominant since the 1994 ceasefire. In this work, I therefore refer to the Armenian–
Azerbaijani conflict, while being aware that this term conflates distinct inter-communal, intra-
state, and interstate layers.
The terminology describing the territory at the heart of the conflict is confusingly diverse and
politically fraught. I prefer Nagorny Karabakh as – from a Russian point of view – linguistically
more correct, although it is more widely referred to as Nagorno-Karabakh. This is an adaptation
into English from the Russian adjectival form Nagorno-Karabakhskaya Avtonomnaya Oblast’,
literally meaning the ‘autonomous region of mountainous Karabakh’ and describing the Soviet-
era autonomous region that existed from 1923 to 1991. Nagorny Karabakh denotes a smaller
territory than a pre-twentieth-century understanding of Karabakh encompassing both highland
and lowland areas. However, in order to avoid laborious repetition of the word ‘Nagorny’, I use
the terms ‘Karabakh’ and ‘Nagorny Karabakh’ interchangeably.
I use the ‘Nagorno-Karabakh’ form only when it is part of an official name or title, for example
when referring to the unrecognised republic that exists in the area today, the Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic. This entity changed its name in 2017 to the Republic of Artsakh, evoking an ancient
Armenian province, although both terms were and remain official. I retain the earlier term in
this (p.xiii) book as the still more widely used name at the time of writing. I do not use the
qualifiers ‘de facto’ or ‘unrecognised’ at every mention of the republic and its institutions, but
underscore here that no United Nations member-state – including Armenia – recognises it.
Since the ceasefire of 1994 place-names in and around Nagorny Karabakh have become
intensely politicised, as Armenians and Azerbaijanis have developed rival topographies for the
same space. Armenian and Azerbaijani maps today depict cartographies that are distinct in
every way, from district boundaries to the names of settlements. Outsiders have few palatable
options, other than to continue using the place-names in most popular use at the beginning of
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Terminology
the conflict in 1988. I therefore refer to the capital of Nagorny Karabakh by its Armenian name,
Stepanakert, and not its Azerbaijani variant, Khankendi. I refer to what was the territory’s
second city by its Azerbaijani name, Shusha, and not its Armenian variant, Shushi. Place-name
choices were not always so zero-sum. Before the conflict some settlements in Karabakh were
widely known by two names, such as the village of Dashalty/ Karintak. Duality in place-naming
can thus also be read as a local tradition reflecting distinct but compatible geographies.
This is not the case, however, in the occupied territories within the de facto jurisdiction of the
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, where the effacing of what were Azerbaijani settlements has been
ongoing for twenty-five years. Previously overwhelmingly Azerbaijani-populated towns, such as
Lachin and Kelbajar, are now known to their settler inhabitants by Armenian names (Berdzor
and Karvajar respectively). In this work I use the Azerbaijani nomenclature for these areas, and
indicate at first usage their current Armenian equivalent in brackets. I acknowledge that this
will be objectionable to more partisan readers, as either the imposition of a retrograde
geography that no longer meaningfully exists, or the legitimation of an occupational regime. My
intent is neither, but to juxtapose place-names that are currently experienced in complete
isolation from each other. The imagined worlds of Lachin and Berdzor, for example, could not be
further apart today, and this distance is set only to grow for the foreseeable future. Resolution of
this conflict, however, requires that one day these worlds become more aware of one another,
and eventually meet.
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