The Karabakh Movement: Part I
PERESTROIKA (“RESTRUCTURING”) AND THE MOVEMENT
1․1
In March 1985, the leadership of the USSR changed. Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. He announced that in order to get the country out of the crisis, transformations and “restructuring” should be carried out in all spheres: socio-economic, scientific-technical, political, labor discipline, etc. One of the immediate consequences of the “restructuring” policy was the development of liberation movements in the Soviet Union. The Armenians of Artsakh were one of the first to defend their national dignity. They did not come to terms with the unjust decision of 1921 to annex their historical territories to Azerbaijan and the anti-Armenian policy implemented by the Azerbaijani authorities.
Back in the 1960s, as a result of Khrushchev’s freedoms, national life began to intensify. At that time, the people demanded from the authorities of Armenia to protect the rights of the Armenian people, to condemn the Armenian Genocide organized by the Turks and to achieve its international recognition.
In the 1980s, the dismissals of Armenian officials by Azerbaijan became more frequent. The deep crisis of the socialist system, the bankruptcy of the party ideology, many unresolved issues, especially the national ones, intensified the demands of the various nations and peoples of the Soviet Union. The Nagorno Karabakh issue and the consequences of the devastating earthquake of 1988 were added to the recorded difficulties in Armenia. The Karabakh movement began as a raising of a legal issue and a demand to resolve the issue in a legal dimension.
1․2
Before the Karabakh movement unfolded, several environmental demonstrations and rallies took place in Yerevan. The rally called on February 18 had an environmental theme. The participants of the rally moved to the CPA building, blocking the street, and waited for the arrival of the participants of the Abovyan city rally led by I. Muradyan. However, most of the posters of the environmental rally were about Karabakh. In fact, people first opposed the system, the expression of which was participation in those demonstrations. The issues raised mainly concerned the “Nairit” plant and the Metsamor nuclear power plant. According to some sources, the Soviet Union intended to build a repository for radioactive waste in the Ararat Valley.
At the origins of the environmental movement were Hakob Sanasaryan, President of the “Green Union” of Armenia, and environmentalist Karine Danielyan. The environmental movement that started in 1985-86, gradually transformed into the Karabakh movement, which immediately gained great momentum.
