Moshkin Sergei V.,
Doctor of Political Sciences, Institute of Philosophy and Law of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yekaterinburg, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Forgotten Deportation. Forced Resettlement of Ethnic Azerbaijanis from the Territory of the Armenian SSR in 1948–1953
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2020-4-9
The article focuses on little-known aspects of the forced deportation of 53,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis from the territory of Soviet Armenia in 1948–1953, and on the political background of these events. In those years, the Soviet Union, having emerged victorious from World War II, in the wake of its increased military strength and high international political prestige, decided to take advantage of the situation and regain the lands voluntarily transferred by Soviet Russia in 1921 to Kemalist Turkey. One of the arguments adduced by official Moscow in connection with the revision of the Soviet-Turkish border was the statement on the necessity of vacating places in Armenia for foreign repatriates, who, at Moscow’s invitation, rushed en masse to the USSR from abroad to reunite with their fellow countrymen and to reaffirm their national identity in the territory of the Armenian SSR. To achieve this aim, Soviet institutions abroad launched a large-scale propaganda campaign to encourage the Armenian population living worldwide to move to the USSR. However, over the period 1946–1949, no more than 90 thousand Armenians were repatriated, instead of 350–400 thousand planned. At the same time, it turned out that there was nowhere to live: Turkey, relying on the political support from the United States and Great Britain, did not cede its territories to the Soviet Union, and there was no free fertile land for resettlement of returnees in the territory of the Armenian SSR. These events proved to be a harbinger of the widening ideological divide that would soon become the Cold War. Under these circumstances, the Soviet government adopted a decree on eviction of ethnic Azerbaijanis from five regions of the Armenian SSR. The decree allowed foreign Armenians to use the buildings and houses, which were vacated by Azerbaijani population in connection with their resettlement. Although the forced migration of Azerbaijanis was not a punishment for sins before the Soviet regime (as it happened with many other ethnic groups during the war), and although it was carried out as sparingly as possible, it turned into a real tragedy for thousands of families. In fact, deported Azerbaijanis became hostages of Stalin's aspirations for the territorial restructuring of the world after World War 2.
Publishing: 29/08/2020
How to cite: Moshkin S.V. Forgotten Deportation. Forced Resettlement of Ethnic Azerbaijanis from the Territory of the Armenian SSR in 1948–1953 // Historical Courier, 2020, No. 4 (12), pp. 120–130. [Available online:] http://istkurier.ru/data/2020/ISTKURIER-2020-4-09.pdf
Links: Issue 4 2020
Keywords: Soviet-Turkish relations; territorial claims; Cold War; repatriated Armenians; deportation of Azerbaijanis