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Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast

Coordinates: 39°48′55″N 46°45′07″E / 39.8153°N 46.7519°E / 39.8153; 46.7519
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(Redirected from NKAO)
For the geographical region, see Nagorno-Karabakh.

Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast
Autonomous oblast of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic
1923–1991

CapitalStepanakert
Area 
• 1989[1]
4,388 km2 (1,694 sq mi)
Population 
• 1989[1]
189,085
 • TypeAutonomous Oblast
History 
• Established
7 July 1923
• Abolished
26 November 1991
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Transcaucasian SFSR
Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh
Azerbaijan
Today part ofAzerbaijan

The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO)[a] was an autonomous oblast within the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic that was created on July 7, 1923.[2] Its capital was the city of Stepanakert. The majority of the population were ethnic Armenians.[3]

History

[edit]
Principal cities of the oblast

The area was disputed between the First Republic of Armenia and Azerbaijan Democratic Republic during their short-lived independence from 1918 and 1920. After the Sovietization of both republics, the Kavbiuro of the Bolshevik Party decided to keep the area within the newly-formed Azerbaijan SSR, whilst granting it broad regional autonomy.[4] Initially, the principal city of Karabakh, Shusha, and its surrounding villages were to be excluded from the autonomy as they were predominantly Azerbaijani, particularly after the massacre and expulsion of the majority Armenian population of Shusha—this decision was later reversed in 1923 when Shusha was decided to join the NKAO despite protests from Muslim villages who favoured its inclusion into the Kurdistan uezd instead.[5]

On July 7, 1923, Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast was created and the capital was moved to Stepanakert, named after the revolutionary Stepan Shaumian.[3] At the time of its formation, its area was 4,161 km2 (1,607 sq mi).[2] According to the 1926 Soviet census, the population of the oblast was 125,200 people, among whom Armenians accounted for 89.2 percent. However, by the 1989 census, the share of Armenians dropped to 76.9 percent of the population.[6] Reasons for this include the policy of Soviet Azerbaijani authorities to settle Azerbaijanis in the region and some out-migration of Karabakh Armenians, as well as the generally higher birthrate among Azerbaijanis than among Armenians.[7]

Although the question of Nagorno-Karabakh's status did not become a major public issue until the late 1980s, Karabakh Armenian activists, Armenian intellectuals, and Soviet Armenian leaders periodically appealed to Moscow for the oblast's transfer to the Armenian SSR. In November 1945, Armenian First Secretary Grigory Arutinov appealed to Joseph Stalin to attach the NKAO to Soviet Armenia, a proposal vetoed by Azerbaijan's Mir Jafar Baghirov.[8][9] Following Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" in 1956, Armenian Catholicos Vazgen I raised the matter of the NKAO's status in a letter to Nikolai Bulganin.[8] In 1962, Karabakh Armenian residents appealed to Khrushchev, "enumerating their grievances with official Baku and requesting the transfer of their territories from the jurisdiction of Soviet Azerbaijan to that of either Soviet Armenia or the Russian SFSR."[8] The demands from the NKAO were boosted in 1966 by an appeal signed by 1,906 Soviet Armenian intellectual and cultural figures, including Martiros Saryan, Yervand Kochar, Hamo Sahyan, and Paruyr Sevak.[8] Although their appeal was endorsed by Armenian First Secretary Anton Kochinyan and Badal Muradyan, it was vetoed by Baku, "reportedly with backstage support from Mikhail Suslov."[8]

The rise of Heydar Aliyev to the leadership of the Azerbaijani SSR in 1969 saw increasing attempts to tighten Baku's control over the autonomous oblast and alter its demographics.[7] In 1973–74, Aliyev purged the entire NKAO leadership, who Baku regarded as "Armenian nationalists." He appointed Boris Kevorkov, an Armenian from outside the NKAO, as the oblast's First Secretary.[10] In 1977, the prominent Armenian author Sero Khanzadyan wrote an open letter to Leonid Brezhnev calling for Nagorno-Karabakh's annexation to Soviet Armenia.[11][12]

Influenced by Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms of glasnost and perestroika, the Karabakh Armenians began a democratic movement to unite their region with the Armenian SSR. On February 20, 1988, the Supreme Soviet of the NKAO voted to unify with Soviet Armenia.[13][14] Open conflict soon broke out between the local population and the government of the Azerbaijan SSR. The fighting escalated into the First Nagorno-Karabakh War by the end of 1991. On November 26 of that year, the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan formally abolished the autonomous status of the oblast.[15] In response, the majority Armenian population declared their independence as the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic on December 10, with the support of Armenia.[16]

Administrative divisions

[edit]

There were five administrative divisions or raions in the NKAO:

Demographics

[edit]
Main article: Nagorno-Karabakh § Demographics
Historical ethnic composition of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast in 1921–1989
Ethnic group 1921[17][18] 1923[19][17] 1925[19] 1926[19][20] 1939[19][21] 1959[19][22] 1970[19][23] 1979[19][24] 1989[25]
Number % Number % Number % Number % Number % Number % Number % Number % Number %
Armenians 122,715 88.62 149,600 94.8 142,470 90.28 111,694 89.24 132,800 88.04 110,053 84.39 121,068 80.54 123,076 75.89 145,450 76.92
Azerbaijanis[b] 15,444 11.15 7,700 4.9 15,261 9.67 12,592 10.06 14,053 9.32 17,995 13.80 27,179 18.08 37,264 22.98 40,688 21.52
Russians 307 0.22 500 0.3 46 0.03 596 0.48 3,174 2.10 1,790 1.37 1,310 0.87 1,265 0.78 1,922 1.02
Ukrainians 30 0.02 35 0.03 436 0.29 238 0.18 193 0.13 140 0.09 416 0.22
Belarusians 12 0.01 11 0.01 32 0.02 35 0.02 37 0.02 79 0.04
Greeks 68 0.05 74 0.05 67 0.05 33 0.02 56 0.03 72 0.04
Tatars 6 0.00 29 0.02 36 0.03 25 0.02 41 0.03 64 0.03
Georgians 5 0.00 25 0.02 16 0.01 22 0.01 17 0.01 57 0.03
Others 151 0.12 235 0.16 179 0.14 448 0.30 285 0.18 337 0.18
TOTAL 138,466 100.00 157,800 100.0 157,807 100.00 125,159 100.00 150,837 100.00 130,406 100.00 150,313 100.00 162,181 100.00 189,085 100.00

First Secretaries

[edit]

The First Secretary of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan was the Communist Party of Azerbaijan's head and highest executive power within the oblast. The position was created in July 1923, and abolished on August 27, 1990. The position of First Secretary was de facto appointed by the Politburo of the Soviet Union or by the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Below is a list of office-holders:

Name Term of Office Lifespan
Start End
First Secretaries of the Oblast Committee of the Communist Party
Sero Manutsyan July 1923 December 1923
Akop Bendzhanyan December 1923 April 1924
Nikolai Sarkisov April 1924 October 1924
Hayk Silanyan October 1924 1925 ?–1938
Artvazd Saakyants 1925 1929 1895–1939
M.K. Danilyan 1929 December 1929
Ashot Karamyan 1929 May 1930 1898–?
? May 1930 1937
Mikhail Manukyants 1937 1940 1909–1968
? 1940 1942
Yegishe Grigoryan October 1942 1946 1902–?
Tigran Grigoryan 1946 ?
Yegishe Grigoryan 1952 December 1958 1902–?
Nikolay Shakhnazarov December 1958 October 1962 1908–
Gurgen Melkumyan October 1962 June 1973 1915–
Boris Kevorkov June 1973 February 24, 1988 1932–1998
Genrikh Poghosyan February 24, 1988 January 20, 1989 1931–2000
Vagan Gabrielyan January 20, 1989 August 27, 1990 1936–

See also

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Notes

[edit]
  1. ^
    • Russian: Нагорно-Карабахская автономная область (НКАО), romanized: Nagorno-Karabakhskaya avtonomnaya oblast' (NKAO)
    • Azerbaijani: Dağlıq Qarabağ Muxtar Vilayəti (DQMV)
    • Armenian: Լեռնային Ղարաբաղի Ինքնավար Մարզ (ԼՂԻՄ), romanized: Lerrnayin Gharabaghi Ink’navar Marz (LGhIM)
  2. ^ Until 1936, Azerbaijanis were registered as Tyurki.

References

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  1. ^ (in Russian) НАГОРНО-КАРАБАХСКАЯ АО (1989 г.) Archived September 16, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ a b Атлас Союза Советских Социалистических Республик [Atlas of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics]. Moscow: Central Executive Committee of the USSR. 1928. The Autonomous Region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is part of the SSR of Azerbaijan, was formed by the decree of the AzCEC 7 / VI 1923 from Armenian parts of the former Jevanshir, Shulgan, Karyaginsky, and Kubatly uyezds. The territory of the Region is 4.161 sq. km. According to the administrative division on 1 / I of 1927, it is divided into 5 sections or parishes. Its administrative and political center is mountains. Stepanakert (formerly the village of Khankendy). Another city of the Region is Shusha.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  3. ^ a b Hewsen 2001, pp. 264–265.
  4. ^ Saparov 2015, pp. 110–111.
  5. ^ Həmid, Tural (December 15, 2020). "Dağlıq Qarabağın sərhədləri necə cızılırdı?" [How were the borders of Nagorno-Karabakh drawn?]. Azlogos. Archived from the original on January 13, 2023. Retrieved August 23, 2022.
  6. ^ "All-Union Population Census of 1926. Ethnic composition of the population by regions of the republics of the USSR". demoscope.ru. 1926. Archived from the original on November 28, 2020. Retrieved January 13, 2023.
  7. ^ a b Saparov 2015, pp. 162–164.
  8. ^ a b c d e Shakarian 2025, pp. 104–106.
  9. ^ Goff 2020, p. 81.
  10. ^ Malkasian 1996, p. 6.
  11. ^ Suny 1993, p. 195.
  12. ^ Sanjian, Ara (January 6, 2021). "The Armenian Diasporan Press on Mountainous Karabagh, 1923-1985". entriessas.com. Entries of the Society for Armenian Studies. Archived from the original on January 13, 2023. Retrieved January 21, 2021. This 'silence' was only broken in the Diaspora with the publication of Yerevan-based novelist Sero Khanzadyan's open letter to the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in 1977, demanding Mountainous Karabagh's annexation to Soviet Armenia.
  13. ^ Malkasian 1996, pp. 30–32.
  14. ^ Suny 1993, p. 198.
  15. ^ Tsutsiev 2014, p. 113.
  16. ^ Chrysanthopoulos 2002, p. 11.
  17. ^ a b Cory D., Welt (2004). Explaining ethnic conflict in the South Caucasus: Mountainous Karabagh, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia (PDF). Massachusetts Institute of Technology. p. 77. OCLC 59823134. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 11, 2022. Out of a population of approximately 20,000, at least several hundred were killed; the rest were forced to flee. In the fighting that followed, several nearby villages were also razed.
  18. ^ "Перепись населения АзССР в 1921 г." [Census of the population of the AzSSR in 1921]. karabagh.am. Archived from the original on May 26, 2011. Retrieved June 26, 2022.
  19. ^ a b c d e f g Beglaryan, Ashot. "The population of Nagorno-Karabakh for a year. Union of Armenians of Russia - Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Excursion into history". losevskaya.ru. Stepanakert. Archived from the original on October 31, 2022. Retrieved October 31, 2022.
  20. ^ Всесоюзная перепись населения 1926 года. Национальный состав населения по регионам республик СССР Archived June 5, 2016, at the Wayback Machine Демоскоп
  21. ^ Всесоюзная перепись населения 1939 года. Распределение городского и сельского населения областей союзных республик по национальности и полу Archived June 5, 2016, at the Wayback Machine Демоскоп
  22. ^ Всесоюзная перепись населения 1959 года. Городское и сельское население областей республик СССР (кроме РСФСР) по полу и национальности Archived June 5, 2016, at the Wayback Machine Демоскоп
  23. ^ Всесоюзная перепись населения 1970 года. Городское и сельское население областей республик СССР (кроме РСФСР) по полу и национальности Archived June 5, 2016, at the Wayback Machine Демоскоп
  24. ^ Всесоюзная перепись населения 1979 года. Городское и сельское население областей республик СССР (кроме РСФСР) по полу и национальности Archived June 5, 2016, at the Wayback Machine Демоскоп
  25. ^ Всесоюзная перепись населения 1989 года.Распределение городского и сельского населения областей республик СССР по полу и национальности Archived June 5, 2016, at the Wayback Machine Демоскоп

Bibliography

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39°48′55″N 46°45′07″E / 39.8153°N 46.7519°E / 39.8153; 46.7519

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