1939-1989 figures include data from the city of Baku proper and the Baku municipality (gorsovet).
Armenians once formed a sizable community in Baku, the current capital of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Though the date of their original settlement is unclear, Baku's Armenian population swelled during the 19th century, when it became a major center for oil production and offered other economic opportunities to enterprising investors and businessmen.
Their numbers remained strong into the 20th century, despite the turbulence of the Russian Revolutions of 1917, but almost all the Armenians fled the city between 1988 and January 1990.[7] By the beginning of January 1990, only 50,000 Armenians remained in Baku compared to a quarter million in 1988; most of these left after being targeted in a pogrom that occurred before the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the early stages of the first Nagorno-Karabakh War.[8]
Later, in the 7th-century Armenian philosopher, mathematician, geographer, astronomer and alchemist Anania Shirakatsi in his most famous work Ashkharhatsuyts (Geography) listed Alti-Bagavan as one of the 12 districts of the Province Paytakaran (one of the 15 Provinces of Armenia), which linguist and orientalist Kerovbe Patkanov in his translation identifies as Baku.[9]
Orientalist and academician Vasily Bartold referring to the 15th-century Persian historian Hamdallah Mustawfi, speaks about the existence of an old Armenian church in Baku[10] and the 15th-century Arab geographer Abdar-Rashid al- Bakuvi in his writings mentions that the majority of the population of Baku (Bakuya) were Christian.[11]
Baku saw a large influx of Armenians following the city's incorporation into the Russian Empire in 1806. Many took up jobs as merchants, industrial managers and government administrators.[12] Armenians established a community in the city with churches, and schools, and was the scene of a lively literary culture.
The favorable economic conditions provided by the Imperial Russian government allowed many Armenians to enter the burgeoning oil production and drilling business of Baku. Armenians along with Russians constituted the financial elite of the city and local capital was concentrated mainly in their hands. The Armenians were the second most numerous group in the judiciary.[13]
By 1900, Armenian-owned businesses formed nearly one-third of the oil companies operating in the region.[14] The growing tension between Armenians and Azeris (often instigated by the Russian officials who feared nationalist movements among their ethnically non-Russian subjects) resulted in mutual pogroms in 1905–1906, planting the seed of distrusts between these two groups in the city and elsewhere in the region for decades to come.[15][16]
Following the proclamation of Azerbaijan's independence in 1918, the Armenian nationalist Dashnaktsutyun Party became increasingly active in the then Bolshevik-occupied Baku. There were, according to Russian statistics, at this time 120,000 Armenians living in the Baku Province.[17]
Several members of the governing body of the Baku Commune consisted of ethnic Armenians. On April 1 1918, after the Ottoman forces had launched their Transcaucasian campaign in February, clashes broke out between various factions of the city.
Despite the efforts of Stepan Shaumian, the Armenian head of the Baku Commune to forge an alliance between Bolshevik, Armenian, and Muslim factions, the alliance soon fell apart.[18]
Situation escalated when the Muslims, alarmed by the growing power of the Armenians, tried to seek help from outside, inviting the former tsarist all-Muslim Savage division into the city.[19] This caused alarm in the city, and soon the civilian fighting between the factions broke out. Despite the Armenian efforts to stay neutral and be ready only for self-defence, soon a decision was made to join the forces with the Bolsheviks to resist the Muslim military attack. The fighting resulted in the victory of the Armenian-Bolshevik coalition, which left thousands of casualties from both sides, among which many were Muslims (3000 according to the estimates of Shaumian, and 12000 according to the Azerbaijani sources).[20]
Five months later, the Armenian community itself dwindled as thousands of Armenians either fled Baku or were massacred at the approach of the Turkish–Azeri army (which seized the city from the Bolsheviks).[21] Regardless of these events, on 18 December 1918, ethnic Armenians (including members of the Dashnaktsutyun) were represented in the newly formed Azerbaijani parliament, constituting 11 of its 96 members.[22]
Soviet era
Following the Sovietisation of Azerbaijan, Armenians managed to reestablish a large and vibrant community in Baku made up of skilled professionals, craftsmen and intelligentsia and integrated into the political, economic and cultural life of Azerbaijan. The community grew steadily in part due to the active migration of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians to Baku and other large cities.
The mainly-Armenian populated quarter of Baku called Ermenikend grew from a tiny village of oil workers into a prosperous urban community.[23] At the outset of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 1988, Baku alone had a larger Armenian population than Nagorno-Karabakh.[24] Armenians were widely represented in the state apparatus.[25]
The multi-ethnic nature of Soviet-era Baku created the conditions for the active integration of its population and the emergence of a distinct Russian-speaking urban subculture, to which ethnic identity began losing ground and with which post-World War II generations of urbanized Bakuvians regardless of their ethnic origin or religious affiliations tended to identify.[26][27] By the 1980s, the Armenian community of Baku had become largely Russified. In 1977, 58% of Armenian pupils in Azerbaijan were receiving education in Russian.[28] While in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, Armenians often chose to disassociate themselves from Azerbaijan and Azeris, cases of mixed Azeri–Armenian marriages were quite common in Baku.[29]
The political unrest in Nagorno-Karabakh remained a rather distant concern for Armenians of Baku until March 1988, when the Sumgait pogrom took place.[30] The anti-Armenian feelings were aroused because of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh resulting in the exodus of most Armenians from Baku and elsewhere in the republic.[31] However, many Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan later reported that despite ethnic tensions taking place in Nagorno-Karabakh, the relationships with their Azeri friends and neighbors had been unaffected.[32]
The massacre in Sumgait came as a shock to both Armenian and Azerbaijanis of the cities, and many Armenian lives were saved as ordinary Azeris sheltered them during the pogroms and volunteered to escort them out of the country, often risking their own lives.[33][34] In some cases, the Armenians who were leaving entrusted their houses and possessions to their Azeri friends.[32]
The Baku pogrom,[35][36] which broke out on 12 January 1990, lasted for seven days during which many Armenians were beaten, tortured or murdered, and their apartments were raided, robbed or burned, resulting in the flight of almost all of the Armenians from the city and marked the effective end of the Armenian community of Baku.
Non-official sources estimate that the number of Armenians living on Azerbaijani territory outside Nagorno-Karabakh is around 2,000 to 3,000, and almost exclusively comprises persons married to Azeris or of mixed Armenian-Azeri descent.[37] The number of Armenians who are likely not married to Azeris and are not of mixed Armenian-Azeri descent are estimated at 645 (36 men and 609 women) and more than half (378 or 59 per cent of Armenians in Azerbaijan outside Nagorno-Karabakh) live in Baku and the rest in rural areas. They are likely to be elderly and sick, and probably have no other family members.[37]
Economic life
Armenians seen pictured among the other oil barons of Baku.
The discovery of oil in Baku in the mid-19th century attracted a large number of Armenians to the city. In 1871, the first successful well was drilled by Ivan Mirzoev, an ethnic Armenian.[14] He was followed by oil tycoon Alexander Mantashev, whose A.I. Mantashev and Co. trading house opened branches in major cities in Europe and Asia and established majority control (51.3%) over the total stock of oil and an overwhelming majority (66.8%) of the oil content in the Caspian Sea.
He financed the construction of an east–west pipeline which extended 500 miles from Baku to the Black Sea port of Batumi.[38] With rising competition against the Nobel Brothers and the Rothschilds, the A. I. Mantashev and Co. ultimately merged with several other Russian companies to form the Russian General Oil Company (OIL) in 1912. OIL eventually bought several oil production companies in Baku, including Mirzoev Brothers and Co., A. S. Melikov and Co., the Shikhovo (A. Tsaturyan, G. Tsovianyan, K. and D. Bikhovsky, L. Leytes), I. E. Pitoev and Co., Krasilnikov Brothers, Aramazd and others.[39]
The prominent Armenian businessman and philanthropist Calouste Gulbenkian also began to build ties and invest heavily in the Baku oil industry, the fortunes he made there being the source for his nickname of "Mr. Five Percent."[40] Other notable Armenian businessmen in the oil industry in Baku included Stepan Lianozyan (owner of G.M. Lianozov Sons, which became one of the largest oil industry firms in Russia),[39] the Adamov Brothers (of A. Y. Adamoff Brothers; M. Adamoff, the eldest of the brothers, went on to become one of the wealthiest men in Baku),[41] and A. Tsaturyan, G. Tumayan and G. Arapelyan, who were proprietors of A. Tsaturov & Co., which was later bought out by Mantashev. Around 1888, out of the 54 oil companies in Baku, only two major oil companies were Azeri owned.[42] Out of the 162 oil refineries, 73 were Azeri owned but only seven of them had more than fifteen workers.[42]
Other Armenians in Baku tended to enter the workforce as foremen and white-collar employees.[14]
Baku's Armenian community grew alongside the city's development through the course of the 19th century. The large-scale construction and expansion of the city attracted numerous Russian and Armenian architects, many of whom had received their education in Russia (in particular, Saint Petersburg) or other parts of Europe. Prominent Armenian architects included Hovhannes Katchaznouni, Freidun Aghalyan, Vardan Sarkisov, and Gavriil Ter-Mikelov.
There were three Armenian churches in Baku, but they were demolished or closed down following the establishment of Soviet power in 1920. The Saint Thaddeus and Bartholomew Cathedral, built in 1906–1907, was destroyed in the 1930s, as part of Stalin's atheist policies. The Church of the Holy Virgin, which had not been functioning since 1984 due to falling in severe disrepair, was demolished in the early 1990s.[43]
The St. Gregory Illuminator Church was set aflame during the pogrom of 1990,[44] but was restored in 2004 during a renovation and was transformed into the archive department of the Department of Administration Affairs of the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan.[45]
During the Imperial Russian period, the community enjoyed a vibrant literary culture, as seen in the publication of dozens of Armenian-language newspapers, journals, and magazines. The first Armenian periodical to be published in Baku, in 1877, was Haykakan Ashkharh (The Armenian World), a literary and pedagogic journal established and edited by Stephannos Stephaney, while other popular Armenian periodicals included Aror (The Plough), an illustrated calendar published from 1893–1896, Sotsial Demokrat (The Social-Democrat), an economic-political-public journal, with editors V. Marsyan and Lazo at its helm, Banvori Dzayn (The Voice of the Laborer, 1906, with Sarkis Kasyan as the editor), and Lusademin (At the Dawn), a literary collection published from 1913-14 by A. Alshushyan.[46]
Also the Armenian Community of Baku built the first Philanthropic Society of Azerbaijan, maintaining the then-richest library of Transcaucasia,[47] but then was shut down by the Soviet Government.
Armenian district
Armenikend[48] (Armenian: Արմենիքենդ; Azerbaijani: Ermənikənd; Russian: Арменикенд, literally "Armenian village" in Azerbaijani) was a district located in the Nasimi raion of Baku, where many Armenians lived.[48] The settlement was developed in the 1920s on the sparsely populated outskirts of Baku as one of the earliest Soviet experiments in the integrated development of a large urban area.[49]
The village of Ermenikend existed in Baku in 1918 when 15,000 Armenians were killed during the September Days.[50] The reconstruction and modernization of Ermenikend started later, when Baku further expanded, when Azerbaijan, after a brief period of independence as the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan during 1918–1920 with the collapse of Czarist Russia (and also Armenia which went through the same brief stage as well) was invaded and annexed by the Soviet Union as the newly formed Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic in 1920.
The former suburb Ermenikend has been transformed into a model town consisting exclusively of new blocks.[51] Several famed Constructivist architects worked on the Ermenikend model village, which started in 1925.[52] The settlement became part, with the steady expansion of the city of Baku. Officially the district was part of a larger district named "Shahumyan" after the Armenian Bolshevik leader Stepan Shaumyan who lived in Baku, while the name of Ermenikend always was mentioned next to it.[53] Ermenikend was designed to be the home of oil workers.
The Soviet architects Samoylov A.V. and Ivanitsky A.P supervised the architecture of Ermenikend in the 1920–1930s.[54] The central part had 3–4 storied buildings in the style of Soviet socialist realist architecture (near the Mughan hotel). Connected by tram lines with the coastal part of Baku, Ermenikend quickly became one of the main parts of the city.[55] With the influx of many other nationalities and with the dispersal of the Armenian community to other districts of the city, the district lost this distinction and the nickname gradually disappeared.
Until the 1980s, the Armenians in Baku were concentrated in Ermenikend, and it was known for this.[56][57] After the Armenian pogroms on 13–20 January 1990, the enclave came to end, when the Armenian community of Baku fled the country.
1 2 3 Suny, Ronald Grigor. "Eastern Armenians Under Tsarist Rule" in The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times, Volume II: Foreign Dominion to Statehood: The Fifteenth Century to the Twentieth Century, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997, p. 125.
↑ Suha Bolukbasi. "Nation-building in Azerbaijan." in Identity politics in Central Asia and the Muslim world, Willem van Schendel and Erik Jan Zürcher (eds.). I. B.Tauris, 2001. "Until the 1905–6 Armeno-Tatar (the Azeris were called Tatars by Russia) war, localism was the main tenet of cultural identity among Azeri intellectuals."
↑ Joseph Russell Rudolph. Hot spot: North America and Europe. ABC-CLIO, 2008. "To these larger moments can be added dozens of lesser ones, such as the 1905–06 Armenian-Tartar wars that gave Azeris and Armenians an opportunity to kill one another in the areas of Armenia and Azerbaijan that were then controlled by Russia..."
↑ Hopkirk, Peter (1994). Like Hidden Fire: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire. Kodansha International. p.282. ISBN1-56836-020-7.
↑ Hopkirk, Peter (1994). Like Hidden Fire: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire. Kodansha International. p.283. ISBN1-56836-020-7.
↑ Hopkirk, Peter. Like Hidden Fire. The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire. New York: Kodansha International, 1994, p. 283-7. ISBN1-56836-127-0
↑ Hovannisian. Armenia on the Road to Independence, pp. 225-27, 312, note 36.
↑ Swietochowski, Tadeusz. Russian Azerbaijan, 1905-1920: The Shaping of National Identity in a Muslim Community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, p. 145.
↑ (in Russian) Baransky, Nikolai. Экономическая география СССР [An Economic Geography of the USSR]. Moscow: Government Educational-Pedagogical Publishing, 1938, p. 305.
↑ (in Russian) Bilodid, Ivan. Русский язык как средство межнационального общения [The Russian Language as a Means of International Communication]. Moscow: Nauka, 1977, p. 164
↑ Implementation of the Helsinki Accords: "Human Rights and Democratization in the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union". Washington, DC: U.S. Congress, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, January 1993, p. 116.
↑ SSSR., Soi︠u︡z pisateleĭ. Театр и Драматургия. Орган Союза советских писателей СССР. год изд. 1-4. июль 1933-дек. 1936. OCLC504160025.
1 2 Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War, Thomas De Waal – 2003, p. 30, cit. "Armenian quarter Armenikend"
↑ Pioneers of Soviet architecture: the search for new solutions in the 1920s and 1930s, Selim Omarovich Khan-Magomedov, Catherine Cooke, 15 January 1987, p. 276
↑ Le nettoyage ethnique: terreur et peuplement, Stéphane Rosière – 2006 – p. 146
↑ The petroleum excursion: The Azerbaijanian Soviet Socialist Republic. A. I͡A. Krems, A. I︠A︡ Krems, A. J. Krems, Chief Editorial Office of the Mining-Fuel and Geological-Prospecting Literature, 1937, p. 30
↑ Tattooed mountain women and spoonboxes of Daghestan: magic medicine symbols in silk, stone, wood and flesh, by Robert Chenciner, Gabib Ismailov, Magomedkhan Magomedkhanov, Alex Binnie, Bennett & Bloom, 2006, p. 82
↑ История советской архитектуры, 1917–1954 гг, Николай Петрович Былинкин, Александр Васильевич Рябушин, Стройиздат, 1985, p. 26
↑ Russian avant-garde art and architecture, Vol. 53, Academy Editions and Architectural Design, 1983, p. 55
↑ Баку: архитектурно-художественные памятники, Л. С Бретаницкий, Л. С Бретаницкий – 1965 – cit. "Связанный трамвайными линиями с прибрежной частью Баку, Арменикенд быстро превратился в один из основных районов города."
↑ Азербайджан: конец второй республики (1988–1993), Расим Гусейнович Агаев, Зардушт Али-Заде – 2006, cit. "Он сказал, что в горкоме опасаются повторения попытки повести толпу на компактно заселенную армянами часть города – «Арменикенд» и устроить погром по сумгаитскому сценарию."
↑ Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War, Thomas De Waal – 2003, p. 30, cit. "Armenian quarter Ermanikand"
Stepan Georgevich Shaumian was an Armenian Bolshevik revolutionary and politician active throughout the Caucasus. His role as a leader of the Russian Revolution in the Caucasus earned him the nickname of the "Caucasian Lenin", a reference to Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin.
The First Nagorno-Karabakh War was an ethnic and territorial conflict that took place from February 1988 to May 1994, in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in southwestern Azerbaijan, between the majority ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh backed by Armenia, and the Republic of Azerbaijan with support from Turkey. As the war progressed, Armenia and Azerbaijan, both former Soviet republics, entangled themselves in protracted, undeclared mountain warfare in the mountainous heights of Karabakh as Azerbaijan attempted to curb the secessionist movement in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Sumgait pogrom was a pogrom that targeted the Armenian population of the lakeside town of Sumgait in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic in late February 1988. The pogrom took place during the early stages of the Karabakh movement. On February 27, 1988, mobs of ethnic Azerbaijanis formed into groups and attacked and killed Armenians on the streets and in their apartments; widespread looting occurred, and a general lack of concern from police officers allowed the violence to continue for three days.
Martyrs' Lane or Alley of Martyrs, formerly known as the Kirov Park, is a cemetery and memorial in Baku, Azerbaijan dedicated to those killed by the Soviet Army during Black January 1990 and in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War of 1988–1994.
The March Days or March Events was a period of inter-ethnic strife and clashes which took place between 30 March – 2 April 1918 in the city of Baku and adjacent areas of the Baku Governorate of the Transcaucasian Commissariat.
Nagorno-Karabakh is located in the southern part of the Lesser Caucasus range, at the eastern edge of the Armenian Highlands, encompassing the highland part of the wider geographical region known as Karabakh. Under Russian and Soviet rule, the region came to be known as Nagorno-Karabakh, meaning "Mountainous Karabakh" in Russian. The name Karabakh itself was first encountered in Georgian and Persian sources from the 13th and 14th centuries to refer to lowlands between the Kura and Aras rivers and the adjacent mountainous territory.
The Baku Governorate, known before 1859 as the Shemakha Governorate, was a province (guberniya) of the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire, with its center in the booming metropolis and Caspian Sea port of Baku. Area (1897): 34,400 sq. versts, population (1897): 789,659. The Baku Governorate bordered Persia to the south, the Elizavetpol Governorate to the west, the Dagestan Oblast to the north, and the Baku gradonachalstvo to the east on the Absheron Peninsula.
The Armenian-Azerbaijani war (1918–1920) was a conflict that took place in the South Caucasus in regions with a mixed Armenian-Azerbaijani population, broadly encompassing what are now modern-day Azerbaijan and Armenia. It began during the final months of World War I and ended with the establishment of Soviet rule.
The September Days refers to a period during the Russian Civil War in September 1918 when Armenian inhabitants of Baku, Azerbaijan, were massacred by Enver Pasha's Army of Islam and their local Azeri allies when they captured the soon-to-be capital of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. According to most estimates, approximately 10,000 ethnic Armenians were killed in the violence, although some sources claim the number to be as high as 30,000. The massacre is said by some scholars to have been carried out in retaliation for the earlier March Days, in which Dashnak and Bolshevik forces had massacred Azerbaijani inhabitants of the city in March 1918. It was the last major massacre of World War I.
Karabakh is a geographic region in southwestern Azerbaijan and eastern Armenia, extending from the highlands of the Lesser Caucasus down to the lowlands between the rivers Kura and Aras. It is divided into three regions: Highland Karabakh, Lowland Karabakh, and the eastern slopes of the Zangezur Mountains.
The Shusha or Shushi massacre, also known as the Shusha pogrom, was the mass killing of the Armenian population of Shusha from 22–26 March 1920. The number of deaths vary across sources, with the most conservative estimate being 500, and the highest estimates reaching 20,000.
Armenians in Azerbaijan are the Armenians who lived in great numbers in the modern state of Azerbaijan and its precursor, Soviet Azerbaijan. According to the statistics, about 500,000 Armenians lived in Soviet Azerbaijan prior to the outbreak of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1988. Most of the Armenians in Azerbaijan had to flee the republic, like Azerbaijanis in Armenia, in the events leading up to the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, a result of the ongoing Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. Atrocities directed against the Armenian population took place in Sumgait, Ganja and Baku. Armenians continued to live in large numbers in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which was controlled by the break-away state known as the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic from 1991 until the region was forcibly retaken by Azerbaijan in 2023. After the Azerbaijani takeover, almost all Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh left the region.
The Baku pogrom was a pogrom directed against the ethnic Armenian inhabitants of Baku, Azerbaijan SSR. From January 12, 1990, a seven-day pogrom broke out against the Armenian civilian population in Baku during which Armenians were beaten, murdered, and expelled from the city. There were also many raids on apartments, robberies and arsons. According to the Human Rights Watch reporter Robert Kushen, "the action was not entirely spontaneous, as the attackers had lists of Armenians and their addresses". The pogrom of Armenians in Baku was one of the acts of ethnic violence in the context of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, directed against the demands of the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians to secede from Azerbaijan and unify with Armenia.
The Jebrail uezd, also known after 1905 as the Karyagino uezd, was a county (uezd) of the Elizavetpol Governorate of the Russian Empire with its center in Jebrail (Jabrayil) from 1873 until its formal abolition in 1921 by the Soviet authorities.
Anti-Armenian sentiment or Armenophobia is widespread in Azerbaijan, mainly due to the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. According to the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), Armenians are "the most vulnerable group in Azerbaijan in the field of racism and racial discrimination." A 2012 opinion poll found that 91% of Azerbaijanis perceive Armenia as "the biggest enemy of Azerbaijan." The word "Armenian" (erməni) is widely used as an insult in Azerbaijan. Stereotypical opinions circulating in the mass media have their deep roots in the public consciousness.
Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment, Azerophobia, Azerbaijanophobia, or anti-Azerbaijanism has been mainly rooted in several countries, most notably in Russia, Armenia, and Iran, where anti-Azerbaijani sentiment has sometimes led to violent ethnic incidents.
The 1988 violence in Shusha and Stepanakert was the expulsion of the ethnic Armenian population of Shusha and the ethnic Azerbaijani population of Stepanakert, in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast in the Azerbaijani SSR, Soviet Union, from September 18 to 20, 1988. During the violence, 33 Armenians and 16 Azerbaijanis were wounded, more than 30 houses hed been set on fire, and a 61-year-old Armenian was killed. At the end of the violence, 3,117 ethnic Azerbaijanis were forced to leave Stepanakert.
Armenian cultural heritage in Azerbaijan refers to historic buildings and cultural traditions of Armenians who lived in what today conforms the territory of Azerbaijan. Armenians had a historic presence in Azerbaijan going back to at least the 2nd century BC in Nakhchivan, which was part of the new Kingdom of Armenia established by Artaxias I Armenians also had presence in Baku dating back to the 7th century AD. Prior to calls for independence from Azerbaijan by Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh in what is now called the Republic of Artsakh, and the ensuing First Nagorno-Karabakh War, about 500,000 Armenians lived in Soviet Azerbaijan where they had an active cultural presence. Most Armenians have fled during the war and their numbers in Azerbaijan today is less than 1% of their pre-war figures. After the ceasefire of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, there has been a marked increase of Anti-Armenian sentiment in Azerbaijan coupled with reports about destruction of Armenian cultural monuments there.
The Zangezur uezd was a county (uezd) of the Elizavetpol Governorate of the Russian Empire with its administrative center in Gerusy from 1868 until its formal abolition and partition between the Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1921. The area of the Zangezur uezd corresponded to most of the contemporary Syunik province of Armenia, and Lachin, Gubadly, Zangilan, and the westernmost parts of Shusha districts of Azerbaijan.
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