Thomas de Waal | |
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 De Waal at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC, 20 June 2013 | |
| Born | 1966 (age 57–58) Nottingham, UK |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | Balliol College, Oxford |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Notable work | Black Garden (2003) |
Thomas Patrick Lowndes de Waal (born 1966) is a British journalist and writer on the Caucasus. He is a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe. He is best known for his 2003 book Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War .
Thomas De Waal was born in Nottingham, England. He is the son of Esther Aline (née Lowndes-Moir), a writer on religion, and Anglican priest Victor de Waal. De Waal graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with a First Class Degree in Modern Languages (Russian and Modern Greek).
De Waal is the author of Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War (New York, 2003), a book widely referred to in the context of discussing the Karabakh conflict and its genesis. [1]
As a journalist, de Waal has reported for, amongst others, the BBC World Service, the Moscow Times , and The Times . [2] He was a Caucasus editor at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) in London until December 2008, and later a research associate with the peace-building NGO Conciliation Resources.
From 2010 to 2015, de Waal worked as a Senior Associate in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, specialising primarily in the South Caucasus region. [3] Currently he is a senior fellow with Carnegie Europe, specializing in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region. [4]
In his position as Senior Fellow for Carnegie Europe, de Waal has written extensively on the Caucasus, with commentary on ongoing events, on breakaway regions, and also larger publications on the region, including books introducing the Caucasus region, and, in The Great Catastrophe (2015), on the aftermath and politics of the Armenian Genocide, also highlighting efforts by Armenians, Kurds, and Turks to come to terms with this history. [5] In 2014, de Waal had provided the introduction to Two Close Peoples, Two Distant Neighbours, a book collecting the major writings on Armenian-Turkish relations by Hrant Dink. [6]
Next to the Carnegie Europe website, his analysis has been published in Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and various other outlets. [7] [8] Like other prominent commentators on the region, De Waal has been criticized for some of the analysis he has put forward. [9]
In 2023, de Waal published a translation of Osip Mandelstam's Tristia.
De Waal has repeatedly worked on and reported from Chechnya. He is the co-author of Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucasus (New York, 1998).
In 2006 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia had denied an entry visa to De Waal, who was due to attend in Moscow the presentation of a Russian version of his book on the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, citing a law that says a visa can be refused "in the aims of ensuring state security." [10] De Waal believes that his visa denial was retaliation for his critical reporting about the Russian war in Chechnya. [11] [12]
De Waal has written the introduction to Anna Politkovskaya's first book in English, A Dirty War (2004), which describes the atrocities and abuses of that conflict. [13]
De Waal is the brother of Africa specialist Alex de Waal, barrister John de Waal, and potter and writer Edmund de Waal.
Through his grandmother, Elisabeth de Waal (née Ephrussi), Thomas de Waal is related to the Ephrussi family who were wealthy Jewish bankers and art patrons in pre-World War II Europe and whose fortunes started in 19th-century Odessa. He had done some research on the family's Russian branch, and helped with the research of his family's history by his brother Edmund de Waal, which led to the publication of the book The Hare with Amber Eyes .
Heydar Alirza oghlu Aliyev was an Azerbaijani politician who was a Soviet party boss in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic from 1969 to 1982, and the third president of Azerbaijan from October 1993 to October 2003.
Shusha or Shushi is a city in Azerbaijan, in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Situated at an altitude of 1,400–1,800 metres (4,600–5,900 ft) in the Karabakh mountains, the city was a mountain resort in the Soviet era.
The Khojaly massacre was the mass killing of Azerbaijani civilians by Armenian forces and the 366th CIS regiment in the town of Khojaly on 26 February 1992. The event became the largest single massacre throughout the entire Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
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 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was an ethnic and territorial conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, inhabited mostly by ethnic Armenians until 2023, and seven surrounding districts, inhabited mostly by Azerbaijanis until their expulsion during the 1990s. The Nagorno-Karabakh region was entirely claimed by and partially controlled by the breakaway Republic of Artsakh, but was recognized internationally as part of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan gradually re-established control over Nagorno-Karabakh region and the seven surrounding districts.
Holy Savior Cathedral, commonly referred to as Ghazanchetsots, is an Armenian Apostolic cathedral in Shusha in Azerbaijan. It is the cathedra of the Diocese of Artsakh of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Standing 35 metres (115 ft) high, Ghazanchetsots is one of the largest Armenian churches in the world. A landmark of Shusha and the Karabakh region, and of Armenian cultural and religious identity, it is listed as cultural and historical monument of the breakaway Republic of Artsakh.
Thomas Goltz was an American author and journalist best known for his accounts of conflict in the Caucasus region during the 1990s. He spent 15 years in and around Turkey and the Caucasus.
Operation Ring, known in Azerbaijan as Operation Chaykand was the codename for the May 1991 military operation conducted by the Soviet Army, Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) of the USSR and OMON units of the Azerbaijan SSR in the Khanlar and Shahumyan districts of the Azerbaijani SSR, the Shusha, Martakert and Hadrut districts of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, and along the eastern border of the Armenian SSR in the districts of Goris, Noyemberyan, Ijevan and Shamshadin. Officially dubbed a "passport checking operation," the ostensible goal of the operation was to disarm "illegal armed formations" in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, referring to irregular Armenian military detachments that had been operating in the area. The operation involved the use of ground troops accompanied by a complement of military vehicles, artillery and helicopter gunships to be used to root out the self-described Armenian fedayeen.
This article focuses on ethnic minorities in the Republic of Azerbaijan.
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 and the destruction and process of "cultural de-Armenianization" of Nagorno-Karabakh. The number of deaths vary across sources, with the most conservative estimate being 500, and the highest estimates reaching 20,000.
The following outline is provided as an overview and topical guide of the Republic of Artsakh and Nagorno-Karabakh region:
The history of the Caucasus region may be divided by geography into the history of the North Caucasus (Ciscaucasia), historically in the sphere of influence of Scythia and of Southern Russia, and that of the South Caucasus in the sphere of influence of Persia, Anatolia, and Assyria.
Surat Davud oghlu Huseynov was an Azerbaijani military officer and politician who served as Prime Minister after ousting Azerbaijan President Abulfaz Elchibey in the 1993 Azerbaijan military coup.
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.
The anti-Azerbaijani sentiment, 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.
The Zangezur corridor is a concept for a transport corridor which, if implemented, would give Azerbaijan unimpeded access to Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic without Armenian checkpoints via Armenia's Syunik Province and, in a broad sense, for the geopolitical corridor that would connect Turkey to the rest of the Turkic world thereby "uniting it". The concept was not part of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement but was introduced to geopolitical lexicon later by Ilham Aliyev. It has since been promoted by Azerbaijan and Turkey, while Armenia has steadily objected to it, asserting that "corridor logic" deviates from the ceasefire statement, and that it is a form of propaganda.
Armenia–Artsakh relations were the foreign relations between the former unrecognized Republic of Artsakh and Armenia. The Republic of Artsakh controled most of the territory of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. Artsakh had very close relations with Armenia. It functioned as a de facto part of Armenia. A representative office of Nagorno-Karabakh exists in Yerevan.
The Agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan respecting the District of Zanghezour was a peace agreement between the short-lived Armenian and Azerbaijani republics signed on 23 November 1919 in Tiflis and brokered by Georgia. The peace treaty came as a result of an unsuccessful Azerbaijani military campaign to absorb the Zangezur region controlled by local Armenians, in order to reach and support the Azerbaijanis in control of neighbouring Nakhchivan.
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