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119-457: Shahumyan Province ( Armenian : Շահումյան , romanized :  Shahumyan , also spelled Shaumyan and Shahumian ) was a province of the breakaway Republic of Artsakh , de jure part of the Republic of Azerbaijan . The capital of the province was Karvachar . Shahumyan Province had 17 communities of which one is considered urban and 16 are rural. Its bordered Martakert Province to

238-520: A consistent Proto-Indo-European pattern distinct from Iranian, and that the inflectional morphology was different from that of Iranian languages. The hypothesis that Greek is Armenian's closest living relative originates with Holger Pedersen (1924), who noted that the number of Greek-Armenian lexical cognates is greater than that of agreements between Armenian and any other Indo-European language. Antoine Meillet (1925, 1927) further investigated morphological and phonological agreement and postulated that

357-718: A decision to make Armenian-language television available in the region was left unimplemented. One result of these policies was a continuing exodus of Armenians from Karabagh in search of greener pastures. Following the Sumgait pogrom and the exodus of Azerbaijanis from Armenia , Azerbaijanis in Stepanakert and Armenians in Shusha were expelled in September 1988. As local Armenian forces gained possession of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts (amounting to 14 percent of

476-546: A joint session of the Armenian Supreme Soviet and the National Council, the legislative body of Nagorno-Karabakh, proclaimed the unification of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. On 26 November 1991 Azerbaijan abolished the status of Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast , rearranging the administrative division and bringing the territory under direct control of Azerbaijan. On 10 December 1991, in

595-509: A large number of mercenaries from Ukraine and Russia. Between fifteen and twenty-five hundred Afghan mujahideen , along with fighters from Chechnya , participated in the fighting on Azerbaijan's side. Russia provided Armenia with heavy artillery and tanks. Many survivors from the Azerbaijani side found shelter in 12 emergency camps set up in other parts of Azerbaijan to cope with the growing number of internally displaced people due to

714-468: A loan from Armenian (compare to Armenian եւ yev , ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁epi ). Other loans from Armenian into Urartian includes personal names, toponyms, and names of deities. Loan words from Iranian languages , along with the other ancient accounts such as that of Xenophon above, initially led some linguists to erroneously classify Armenian as an Iranian language. Scholars such as Paul de Lagarde and F. Müller believed that

833-705: A military operation . On 19 September 2023, Azerbaijan launched a military offensive on Nagorno-Karabakh. One day after the offensive started, on 20 September, an agreement on establishing a complete cessation of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh was reached at the mediation of the Russian peacekeeping command in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan held a meeting with representatives of the Artsakh Armenian community on 21 September in Yevlakh to start

952-491: A narrow Russian-controlled corridor . On 19 September 2023, after a blockade lasting several months, Azerbaijan launched a fresh large-scale military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Artsakh forces collapsed rapidly, resulting in an Azerbaijani victory, the dissolution of the Republic of Artsakh, the exodus of almost the entire Armenian population from the region and the entry of Azerbaijani security forces into

1071-425: A network of schools where modern Armenian was taught, dramatically increased the rate of literacy (in spite of the obstacles by the colonial administrators), even in remote rural areas. The emergence of literary works entirely written in the modern versions increasingly legitimized the language's existence. By the turn of the 20th century both varieties of the one modern Armenian language prevailed over Grabar and opened

1190-526: A population of 147,308, 10,751 (7.3 percent) of whom were urban dwellers, and 136,557 (92.7 percent) of whom were rural residents. On 1 January 1973, the oblast had a population of 153,000. Whilst the region was a part of the Azerbaijan SSR, the Armenian share of the population dropped from 94.7 to 76.9 percent, whilst the Azerbaijani share of the population quadrupled from 5.1 to 21.5 percent as

1309-486: A referendum boycotted by local Azerbaijanis, Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh approved the creation of an independent state. A Soviet proposal for enhanced autonomy for Nagorno-Karabakh within Azerbaijan satisfied neither side and a full-scale war subsequently erupted between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh, with the latter receiving support from Armenia. According to Armenia's former president, Levon Ter-Petrossian ,

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1428-514: A result of "migratory influx" — indicative of the socio-economic difficulties local Armenians experienced under Soviet Azerbaijani leadership which led them to emigrate from Karabakh. Emeritus professor of law M. Cherif Bassiouni writes of the stagnation of the Armenian population "due to the discriminatory policies of Azerbaijani authorities that compelled Armenians to emigrate"; also adding that 600,000 Armenians from Karabakh reside in Armenia and

1547-460: A result of the Shusha massacre, 5,000–6,000 Armenians were displaced to the regions of Varanda and Dizak . By 11 April 1920, some thirty villages in Nagorno-Karabakh had been "devastated" by Azerbaijani forces as a result of the uprising, leaving 25,000 homeless (including nearly 6,000 refugees from Shusha). 1923 statistics indicate that the NKAO was 94.8 percent Armenian, numbering 149,600, whilst

1666-621: A series of short wars between Armenia and Azerbaijan over several regions, including Nagorno-Karabakh. Between 1918 and 1920, Nagorno-Karabakh's de jure affiliation with Armenia or Azerbaijan was disputed and not adjudicated by the League of Nations . In July 1918, the First Armenian Assembly of Nagorno-Karabakh declared the region self-governing and created a National Council and government. Later, Ottoman troops entered Karabakh, meeting armed resistance by Armenians. After

1785-621: Is a region in Azerbaijan , covering the southeastern stretch of the Lesser Caucasus mountain range. Part of the greater region of Karabakh , it spans the area between Lower Karabakh and Syunik . Its terrain mostly consists of mountains and forestland. Most of Nagorno-Karabakh was governed by ethnic Armenians under the breakaway Republic of Artsakh — also known as the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) — from

1904-552: Is an independent branch of the Indo-European languages . It is of interest to linguists for its distinctive phonological changes within that family. Armenian exhibits more satemization than centumization , although it is not classified as belonging to either of these subgroups. Some linguists tentatively conclude that Armenian, Greek (and Phrygian ), Albanian and Indo-Iranian were dialectally close to each other; within this hypothetical dialect group, Proto-Armenian

2023-561: Is clearly the dialect to be most closely related to Armenian. Eric P. Hamp (1976, 91) supports the Graeco-Armenian thesis and even anticipates a time "when we should speak of Helleno-Armenian" (meaning the postulate of a Graeco-Armenian proto-language). Armenian shares the augment and a negator derived from the set phrase in the Proto-Indo-European language * ne h₂oyu kʷid ("never anything" or "always nothing"),

2142-474: Is derived from Proto-Indo-European *h₂r̥ǵipyós , with cognates in Sanskrit (ऋजिप्य, ṛjipyá ), Avestan ( ərəzifiia ), and Greek (αἰγίπιος, aigípios ). Hrach Martirosyan and Armen Petrosyan propose additional borrowed words of Armenian origin loaned into Urartian and vice versa, including grammatical words and parts of speech, such as Urartian eue ("and"), attested in the earliest Urartian texts and likely

2261-415: Is not considered conclusive evidence of a period of common isolated development. There are words used in Armenian that are generally believed to have been borrowed from Anatolian languages, particularly from Luwian , although some researchers have identified possible Hittite loanwords as well. One notable loanword from Anatolian is Armenian xalam , "skull", cognate to Hittite ḫalanta , "head". In 1985,

2380-464: Is over 950 metres (3,120 ft) above sea level . The borders of Nagorno-Karabakh resemble a kidney bean with the indentation on the east side. It has tall mountain ridges along the northern edge and along the west and mountainous south. The part near the indentation of the kidney bean itself is a relatively flat valley, with the two edges of the bean, the districts of Martakert and Martuni , having flatlands as well. Other flatter valleys exist around

2499-608: Is the working language. Armenian (without reference to a specific variety) is officially recognized as a minority language in Cyprus , Hungary , Iraq , Poland , Romania , and Ukraine . It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . Nagorno-Karabakh Nagorno-Karabakh ( / n ə ˌ ɡ ɔːr n oʊ k ər ə ˈ b ɑː k / , nə- GOR -noh kər-ə- BAHK ; lit.   ' Upper Karabakh ' )

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2618-481: Is usually equated with the administrative borders of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast , comprising 4,400 square kilometres (1,700 sq mi); however, the region's historical extent encompasses approximately 8,223 square kilometres (3,175 sq mi). On 27 September 2020, the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War broke out with an Azerbaijani offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh and

2737-732: The Armenian name, but appeared in the region's official name during the Soviet era as Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast . Other languages apply their own wording for mountainous , upper , or highland ; for example, the official name used for the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic in French is Haut-Karabakh , meaning "Upper Karabakh". The names for the region in the various local languages all translate to "mountainous Karabakh", or "mountainous black garden": Armenians living in

2856-466: The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia (11–14th centuries) resulted in the addition of two more characters to the alphabet (" օ " and " ֆ "), bringing the total number to 38. The Book of Lamentations by Gregory of Narek (951–1003) is an example of the development of a literature and writing style of Old Armenian by the 10th century. In addition to elevating the literary style and vocabulary of

2975-670: The Armenian SSR , started a movement to have the autonomous oblast transferred to the Armenian SSR. In August 1987, Karabakh Armenians sent a petition for union with Armenia with tens of thousands of signatures to Moscow. On 13 February 1988, Karabakh Armenians began demonstrating in Stepanakert , in favour of unification with the Armenian republic. Six days later they were joined by mass marches in Yerevan . On 20 February,

3094-508: The Armenian genocide , mostly in the diaspora ). The differences between them are considerable but they are mutually intelligible after significant exposure. Some subdialects such as Homshetsi are not mutually intelligible with other varieties. Although Armenians were known to history much earlier (for example, they were mentioned in the 6th-century BC Behistun Inscription and in Xenophon 's 4th century BC history, The Anabasis ),

3213-727: The Elizavetpol Governorate within the Russian Empire. In 1823 the five districts corresponding roughly to modern-day Nagorno-Karabakh were 90.8% Armenian-populated. After the October Revolution , Karabakh became part of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic , but this soon dissolved into separate Armenian , Azerbaijani , and Georgian states. Over the next two years (1918–1920), there were

3332-767: The Goranboy District ), remained under Azerbaijani control from 1992 but was claimed by Artsakh. The Shahumyan District was located outside of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast , but prior to the First Nagorno-Karabakh War , its population was mostly Armenian and was expelled during Operation Ring in 1991. While the Shahumyan region was not part of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast , representatives from Shahumyan declared independence along with

3451-641: The Greek language , the Armenian language, and the Indo-Iranian languages . Graeco-Aryan unity would have become divided into Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian by the mid-3rd millennium BC. Conceivably, Proto-Armenian would have been located between Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian, consistent with the fact that Armenian shares certain features only with Indo-Iranian (the satem change) but others only with Greek ( s > h ). Graeco-Aryan has comparatively wide support among Indo-Europeanists who believe

3570-643: The Indo-European homeland to be located in the Armenian Highlands , the " Armenian hypothesis ". Early and strong evidence was given by Euler's 1979 examination on shared features in Greek and Sanskrit nominal flection. Used in tandem with the Graeco-Armenian hypothesis, the Armenian language would also be included under the label Aryano-Greco-Armenic , splitting into Proto-Greek/Phrygian and "Armeno-Aryan" (ancestor of Armenian and Indo-Iranian ). Classical Armenian (Arm: grabar ), attested from

3689-606: The Kara Koyunlu and Ak Koyunlu Turkic tribal confederations. According to Abu Bakr Tihrani , during the period of Jahan Shah (1438–1468), the ruler of Kara Koyunlu, Piri bey Karamanli held the governorship of Karabakh. However, according to Robert H. Hewsen , the Turkoman lord Jahan Shah (1437–67) assigned the governorship of upper Karabakh to local Armenian princes, allowing a native Armenian leadership to emerge consisting of five noble families led by princes who held

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3808-686: The Lachin corridor , the sole road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and the outside world. On 23 April 2023, Azerbaijani forces installed a checkpoint on the Lachin corridor. The blockade led to a humanitarian crisis for the population in Artsakh and imports of essential goods were blocked, as well as humanitarian convoys of the Red Cross and the Russian peacekeepers, trapping the 120,000 residents of

3927-542: The Mekhitarists . The first Armenian periodical, Azdarar , was published in grabar in 1794. The classical form borrowed numerous words from Middle Iranian languages , primarily Parthian , and contains smaller inventories of loanwords from Greek, Syriac, Aramaic, Arabic, Mongol, Persian, and indigenous languages such as Urartian . An effort to modernize the language in Bagratid Armenia and

4046-620: The Russian Empire by the Kurekchay Treaty , signed between Ibrahim Khalil Khan of Karabakh and general Pavel Tsitsianov on behalf of Tsar Alexander I in 1805, according to which the Russian monarch recognized Ibrahim Khalil Khan and his descendants as the sole hereditary rulers of the region. However, its new status was only confirmed following the outcome of the Russo-Persian War (1804-1813) , when through

4165-588: The Sarsang reservoir , Hadrut , and the south. The entire region lies, on average, 1,100 metres (3,600 ft) above sea level . Notable peaks include the border mountain Murovdag and the Great Kirs mountain chain in the junction of Shusha and Hadrut districts. The territory of modern Nagorno-Karabakh forms a portion of the historic region of Karabakh, which lies between the rivers Kura and Araxes , and

4284-536: The "historical Nagorno-Karabakh" region had a population of 300,000–330,000 in 1918–1920, rising to 700,000–800,000 by 1988. As a result of " Turkish - Azerbaijani aggression", the region's population declined by 20 percent in 1918–1920. In this period, Azerbaijani forces carried out massacres against Armenians in Ghaibalishen, Jamilli, Karkijahan, and Pahlul (600–700 dead ), Stepanakert (several hundred dead ), and Shusha (several hundred to 12,000 dead ). As

4403-528: The 34th session of the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Organization of Islamic Conference adopted resolution No. 7/34-P, considering the occupation of Azerbaijani territory as the aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan and recognizing the actions against Azerbaijani civilians as a crime against humanity , and condemning the destruction of archaeological, cultural and religious monuments in

4522-408: The 5th century to the 19th century as the literary standard (up to the 11th century also as a spoken language with different varieties), was partially superseded by Middle Armenian , attested from the 12th century to the 18th century. Specialized literature prefers "Old Armenian" for grabar as a whole, and designates as "Classical" the language used in the 5th century literature, "Post-Classical" from

4641-481: The Armenian language by adding well above a thousand new words, through his other hymns and poems Gregory paved the way for his successors to include secular themes and vernacular language in their writings. The thematic shift from mainly religious texts to writings with secular outlooks further enhanced and enriched the vocabulary. "A Word of Wisdom", a poem by Hovhannes Sargavak devoted to a starling, legitimizes poetry devoted to nature, love, or female beauty. Gradually,

4760-640: The Armenians began to come back to Karabagh, and they accounted for the majority of its population by the mid-19th century". Edmund Herzig and Marina Kurkchiyan present an alternative view that "Armenians had already been a majority in some areas such as mountainous Karabagh", compared to the Yerevan province which had "regained an Armenian majority for the first time in several hundred years." According to an 1823 Russian survey published in Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi ) in 1866, Armenians made up 97 percent of

4879-421: The Armenians settled in the region as early as the 7th century BC. Around 180 BC, Artsakh became one of the 15 provinces of the Armenian Kingdom and remained so until the 4th century. While formally having the status of a province ( nahang ), Artsakh possibly formed a principality on its own — like Armenia's province of Syunik. Other theories suggest that Artsakh was a royal land , belonging directly to

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4998-530: The Azerbaijani population numbered 7,700. Historian Cory Welt writes of a "discrepancy" of the Armenian population jumping by over 25,000 individuals between the 1921 and 1923 censuses, also pointing out that the Armenian population declined to 111,700 in 1926, thus indicating an "unexplained drop" of 38,000 individuals. In the 1920s, the NKAO had a population of 131,500 people, 94.4 percent (124,136) of whom were ethnic Armenians and only 5.6 percent (7,364) of whom were ethnic Azerbaijanis. In 1933, Nagorno-Karabakh had

5117-940: The Bolsheviks. After the Sovietization of Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Kavbiuro (Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) ) decided that Karabakh would remain within Azerbaijan SSR with broad regional autonomy, with the administrative centre in the city of Shusha (the administrative center was later moved to Stepanakert ). The oblast's borders were drawn to include Armenian villages and to exclude as much as possible Azerbaijani villages. The resulting district ensured an Armenian majority. With

5236-810: The Caucasus by the Iranian king Nader Shah , in return for the meliks' victories over the invading Ottoman Turks in the 1720s. These five principalities in Karabakh were ruled by Armenian families who had received the title Melik (prince) and were the following: From 1501 to 1736, during the existence of the Safavid Empire , the province of Karabakh was governed by the Ziyadoghlu Qajar dynasty, until Nader Shah took over Karabakh from their rule. The Armenian meliks maintained full control over

5355-462: The Christian heritage of the Karabakh region and all their people were admitted to the Russian suzerainty. However, according to Robert Hewsen , the Russian Empire recognized the sovereign status of the five princes in their domains by the charter of Emperor Paul I dated 2 June 1799. The Armenian meliks were granted supreme command over neighbouring Armenian principalities and Muslim khans in

5474-467: The Hurro-Urartian and Northeast Caucasian origins for these words and instead suggest native Armenian etymologies, leaving the possibility that these words may have been loaned into Hurro-Urartian and Caucasian languages from Armenian, and not vice versa. A notable example is arciv , meaning "eagle", believed to have been the origin of Urartian Arṣibi and Northeast Caucasian arzu . This word

5593-481: The Karabakh authorities. As a result, a ceasefire was reached on 12 May 1994 through Russian mediation. Despite the ceasefire, fatalities due to armed conflicts between Armenian and Azerbaijani soldiers continued. On 25 January 2005, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted PACE Resolution 1416 , which condemned ethnic cleansing against Azerbaijanis. On 15–17 May 2007

5712-482: The Karabakh leadership approach was maximalist and "they thought they could get more." The struggle over Nagorno-Karabakh escalated after both Armenia and Azerbaijan attained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. In the post-Soviet power vacuum , military action between Azerbaijan and Armenia was heavily influenced by the Russian military . Furthermore, both the Armenian and Azerbaijani military employed

5831-556: The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region with the main part of Azerbaijan. After the Nagorno-Karabakh war and the abandonment of Ağdam, the line's service was cut back to service only between Yevlax and Kətəlparaq , without any present section at the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. The former railway line between Kətəlparaq and Stepanakert has been almost completely destroyed. The ( Tbilisi – Gyumri –) Yerevan – Nakhchivan – Horadiz – Shirvan (– Baku ) main railway

5950-669: The Russian Empire), removed almost all of their Turkish lexical influences in the 20th century, primarily following the Armenian genocide . In addition to Armenia and Turkey, where it is indigenous , Armenian is spoken among the diaspora . According to Ethnologue , globally there are 1.6 million Western Armenian speakers and 3.7 million Eastern Armenian speakers, totalling 5.3 million Armenian speakers. In Georgia, Armenian speakers are concentrated in Ninotsminda and Akhalkalaki districts where they represent over 90% of

6069-404: The Russian and Ottoman empires led to creation of two separate and different environments under which Armenians lived. Halfway through the 19th century, two important concentrations of Armenian communities were further consolidated. Because of persecutions or the search for better economic opportunities, many Armenians living under Ottoman rule gradually moved to Istanbul , whereas Tbilisi became

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6188-501: The Sassanid satrapy of Caucasian Albania , which in turn came under strong Armenian religious and cultural influence. At the time the population of Artsakh and Utik consisted of Armenians and several Armenized tribes. Armenian culture and civilization flourished in the early medieval Nagorno-Karabakh. In the 5th century, the first-ever Armenian school was opened on the territory of modern Nagorno-Karabakh at Amaras Monastery through

6307-648: The Shahumyan Province. 40°06′24″N 46°02′18″E  /  40.1067°N 46.0383°E  / 40.1067; 46.0383 Armenian language Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European Armenian

6426-486: The Soviet Union firmly in control of the region, the conflict over the region died down for several decades until the beginning of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the question of Nagorno-Karabakh re-emerged. Accusing the Azerbaijani SSR government of conducting forced Azerification of the region, the majority Armenian population, with ideological and material support from

6545-833: The Soviet linguist Igor M. Diakonoff noted the presence in Classical Armenian of what he calls a "Caucasian substratum" identified by earlier scholars, consisting of loans from the Kartvelian and Northeast Caucasian languages . Noting that Hurro-Urartian-speaking peoples inhabited the Armenian homeland in the second millennium BC, Diakonoff identifies in Armenian a Hurro-Urartian substratum of social, cultural, and animal and plant terms such as ałaxin "slave girl" ( ← Hurr. al(l)a(e)ḫḫenne ), cov "sea" ( ← Urart. ṣûǝ "(inland) sea"), ułt "camel" ( ← Hurr. uḷtu ), and xnjor "apple (tree)" ( ← Hurr. ḫinzuri ). Some of

6664-492: The Soviet of People's Deputies in Karabakh voted 110 to 17 to request the transfer of the region to Armenia. This unprecedented action by a regional Soviet brought out tens of thousands of demonstrations both in Stepanakert and Yerevan, but Moscow rejected the Armenians' demands. On 20 February 1988, 2 Azeri girls were raped in Stepanakert. This caused widespread outrage in the Azeri town of Aghdam . The first direct confrontation of

6783-591: The Zamirhakan family of kings," and in the year 837–838 he acquired sovereignty over Armenia, Georgia, and Albania. The name "Khachen" originated from Armenian word "khach," which means "cross". By 1000 the House of Khachen proclaimed the Kingdom of Artsakh with John Senecherib as its first ruler. Initially Dizak in southern Artsakh also formed a kingdom ruled by the ancient House of Aranshahik , descended from

6902-402: The aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan, recognizing the actions against Azerbaijani civilians as a crime against humanity and condemning the destruction of archaeological, cultural, and religious monuments in occupied territories. On 20 May of the same year, the European Parliament in Strasbourg adopted the resolution on "The need for an EU Strategy for the South Caucasus" on the basis of

7021-514: The agreement. The agreement itself was soon annulled by the Ninth Karabagh Assembly, which declared union with Armenia in April. In April 1920, while the Azerbaijani army was locked in Karabakh fighting local Armenian forces, Azerbaijan was taken over by Bolsheviks . On 10 August 1920, Armenia signed a preliminary agreement with the Bolsheviks, agreeing to a temporary Bolshevik occupation of these areas until final settlement would be reached. In 1921, Armenia and Georgia were also taken over by

7140-425: The area often call Nagorno-Karabakh Artsakh ( Armenian : Արցախ ), the name of the 10th province of the ancient Kingdom of Armenia . Urartian inscriptions (9th–7th centuries BC) use the name Urtekhini for the region. Ancient Greek sources called the area Orkhistene . Nagorno-Karabakh falls within the lands occupied by peoples known to modern archaeologists as the Kura-Araxes culture who lived between

7259-405: The area was a part of the Azerbaijan SSR and was renamed Shahumyan ( Shaumyanovksy raion in Russian) after the Armenian Bolshevik Stepan Shahumyan , its administrative centre (Shahumyan or Shaumyanovsk) taking the same name. The population of the Shahumyan District was mostly ethnic Armenian, although the area was not included within the boundaries of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast . In

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7378-434: The center of Armenians living under Russian rule. These two cosmopolitan cities very soon became the primary poles of Armenian intellectual and cultural life. The introduction of new literary forms and styles, as well as many new ideas sweeping Europe, reached Armenians living in both regions. This created an ever-growing need to elevate the vernacular, Ashkharhabar, to the dignity of a modern literary language, in contrast to

7497-504: The citizens of Azerbaijan, condemned ethnic cleansing against Azerbaijanis and Assembly requested immediate withdrawal of Armenian armed forces from the region concerned. Several world leaders have met with the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan over the years, but efforts to maintain the ceasefire have failed. On 2 April 2016 Azerbaijani and Armenian forces again clashed in the region. The Armenian Defense Ministry alleged that Azerbaijan launched an offensive to seize territory in

7616-530: The conflict and called on both sides to deescalate tensions and resume meaningful negotiations without delay. The war ended on 10 November 2020, when a trilateral ceasefire agreement was signed among Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russia. According to the ceasefire agreement, Azerbaijan regained all of the occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh and capturing one-third of Nagorno-Karabakh proper, including Shusha and Hadrut . In December 2022, Azerbaijanis claiming to be environmental activists blocked

7735-475: The conflict occurred as a large group of Azeris marched from Agdam to the Armenian populated town of Askeran. The confrontation between the Azeris and the police near Askeran degenerated into the Askeran clash , which left two Azeris dead, one of them allegedly killed by an Azeri police officer. Fifty Armenian villagers and an unknown number of Azeris and police officers were injured. Large numbers of refugees left Armenia and Azerbaijan as violence began against

7854-463: The countries of the CIS . According to historian Deon Geldenhuys, "[t]his was due to Baku's deliberate promotion of Azerbaijani settlement in Karabagh as part of a policy of 'cultural de-Armenization' of the region"; further adding that Azerbaijan "neglected the economic needs of the territory". Stuart J. Kaufman, a professor of political science and international relations, writes of the difficulties of Karabakh Armenians: … Armenian-language education

7973-533: The defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, British troops occupied Karabakh. The British command provisionally affirmed Khosrov bey Sultanov (appointed by the Azerbaijani government) as the governor-general of Karabakh and Zangezur , pending a final decision by the Paris Peace Conference . The decision was opposed by Karabakh Armenians. In February 1920, the Karabakh National Council preliminarily agreed to Azerbaijani jurisdiction, while Armenians elsewhere in Karabakh continued guerrilla fighting, never accepting

8092-404: The earliest Kings of Caucasian Albania. In 1261, after the daughter of the last king of Dizak married the king of Artsakh, Armenian prince Hasan Jalal Dola , the two states merged into one Armenian Principality of Khachen . Subsequently, Artsakh continued to exist as a de facto independent principality. In the 15th century, the territory of Karabakh was part of the states ruled subsequently by

8211-426: The east, Kashatagh Province to the south, Gegharkunik and Vayots Dzor provinces of Armenia to the west and Dashkasan , Goygol and Goranboy districts of Azerbaijan to the north. The western part of the province, corresponding to the Kalbajar District of Azerbaijan, was controlled by Artsakh from 1993 to 2020, while the northern part, originally the Shahumyan District of the Azerbaijani SSR (now part of

8330-483: The efforts of St. Mesrop Mashtots , the inventor of the Armenian alphabet . St. Mesrop was very active in preaching the Gospel in Artsakh and Utik. Overall, Mesrop Mashtots made three trips to Artsakh and Utik, ultimately reaching pagan territories at the foothills of the Greater Caucasus . The 7th-century Armenian linguist and grammarian Stephanos Syunetsi stated in his work that Armenians of Artsakh had their own dialect, and encouraged his readers to learn it. Around

8449-478: The end of the first Nagorno-Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1994 to the announcement of the dissolution of the republic in September 2023. Representatives from the two sides held numerous inconclusive peace talks mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group regarding the region's disputed status, with its majority-Armenian population over time variously advocating either for Artsakh's independence from both states or for its integration into Armenia. The region

8568-580: The existence of the two modern versions of the same language was sanctioned even more clearly. The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (1920–1990) used Eastern Armenian as its official language, whereas the diaspora created after the Armenian genocide preserved the Western Armenian dialect. The two modern literary dialects, Western (originally associated with writers in the Ottoman Empire) and Eastern (originally associated with writers in

8687-423: The first Nagorno-Karabakh war. By the end of 1993, the conflict had caused about 30,000 casualties and created hundreds of thousands of refugees on both sides. By May 1994, the Armenians were in control of 14% of the territory of Azerbaijan. At that stage, for the first time during the conflict, the Azerbaijani government recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as a third party in the war and started direct negotiations with

8806-420: The former Artsakh capital of Stepanakert , known as Khankendi by Azerbaijan. On 1 January 2024, the Republic of Artsakh was formally dissolved. The prefix Nagorno- derives from the Russian attributive adjective nagorny ( нагорный ), which means "highland". The Azerbaijani names of the region include the similar adjectives dağlıq (mountainous) or yuxarı (upper). Such words are not used in

8925-425: The hypothetical Mushki language may have been a (now extinct) Armenic language. W. M. Austin (1942) concluded that there was early contact between Armenian and Anatolian languages , based on what he considered common archaisms, such as the lack of a feminine gender and the absence of inherited long vowels. Unlike shared innovations (or synapomorphies ), the common retention of archaisms (or symplesiomorphy )

9044-488: The inhabitants of Nagorno-Karabakh — then part of the province of Artsakh — were confirmed by Ancient Greek and Roman sources "long before our era" to be Armenian. In the early 15th century, German traveller Johann Schiltberger after visiting the region stated that "although the Muslims had taken possession of Karabagh, there were still Armenian villages in the region". Historian Victor Schnirelmann writes that "In

9163-470: The interests of the population at large were reflected in other literary works as well. Konsdantin Yerzinkatsi and several others took the unusual step of criticizing the ecclesiastic establishment and addressing the social issues of the Armenian homeland. These changes represented the nature of the literary style and syntax, but they did not constitute immense changes to the fundamentals of the grammar or

9282-521: The internationally recognised territory of Azerbaijan) during the First Nagorno-Karabakh war , hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis were expelled from their lands. During the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War , Azerbaijan regained control over the surrounding districts and southern parts of the former NKAO, thus displacing approximately 70,000 Armenians. During the rule of the Soviet Union, the Yevlakh – Aghdam – Stepanakert line connected

9401-582: The king of Armenia. King Tigran the Great of Armenia (who ruled from 95 to 55 BC) founded in Artsakh one of four cities named "Tigranakert" after himself. The ruins of the ancient Tigranakert , located 50 km (30 mi) north-east of Stepanakert , are being studied by a group of international scholars. In 387 AD, after the partition of Armenia between the Roman Empire and Sassanid Persia , two Armenian provinces — Artsakh and Utik — became part of

9520-434: The late 5th to 8th centuries, and "Late Grabar" that of the period covering the 8th to 11th centuries. Later, it was used mainly in religious and specialized literature, with the exception of a revival during the early modern period, when attempts were made to establish it as the language of a literary renaissance, with neoclassical inclinations, through the creation and dissemination of literature in varied genres, especially by

9639-590: The loss in the war, Persia formally ceded Karabakh to the Russian Empire per the Treaty of Gulistan (1813), before the rest of Transcaucasia was incorporated into the Empire in 1828 by the Treaty of Turkmenchay , which came as an outcome of the Russo-Persian War (1826-1828) . In 1822, 9 years after it passed from Iranian to Russian control, the Karabakh Khanate was dissolved and the area became part of

9758-601: The mid 7th century, the region was conquered by the invading Muslim Arabs through the Muslim conquest of Persia . Subsequently, it was ruled by local governors endorsed by the Caliphate . According to some sources, in 821 the Armenian prince Sahl Smbatian revolted in Artsakh and established the House of Khachen , which ruled Artsakh as a principality until the early 19th century. According to other sources, Sahl Smbatian "was of

9877-464: The mid-18th century, … Turkic tribes … gained access to the highland territories [of Karabakh] and began to settle in Shusha … by the end of the 18th century, a substantial number of its former Armenian inhabitants had left Nagorny Karabagh. Just at the turn of the 19th century, the Turkic population significantly outnumbered the local Armenians, but this only lasted … [until the] end of the 1820s, [when]

9996-599: The minority populations of the respective republics. On 7 July 1988, the European Parliament passed a resolution that condemned the violence employed against Armenian demonstrators in Azerbaijan, and supported the demand of the Armenians for reunification with the Soviet Republic of Armenia. On 29 November 1989, direct rule in Nagorno-Karabakh was ended and the region was returned to Azerbaijani administration. The Soviet policy backfired, however, when

10115-413: The modern Armenia-Azerbaijan border. Nagorno-Karabakh in its modern borders is part of the larger region of Upper Karabakh. Nagorno-Karabakh does not directly border Armenia but is connected to the latter through the Lachin corridor , a mountain pass under the control of the Russian peacekeeping forces in Nagorno-Karabakh . The major cities of the region are Stepanakert , which serves as the capital of

10234-504: The morphology of the language. Often, when writers codify a spoken dialect, other language users are then encouraged to imitate that structure through the literary device known as parallelism . In the 19th century, the traditional Armenian homeland was once again divided. This time Eastern Armenia was conquered from Qajar Iran by the Russian Empire , while Western Armenia , containing two thirds of historical Armenia, remained under Ottoman control. The antagonistic relationship between

10353-403: The now-anachronistic Grabar. Numerous dialects existed in the traditional Armenian regions, which, different as they were, had certain morphological and phonetic features in common. On the basis of these features two major standards emerged: Both centers vigorously pursued the promotion of Ashkharhabar. The proliferation of newspapers in both versions (Eastern & Western) and the development of

10472-556: The oblast, and the proclamation of Artsakh includes the Shahumyan region within its borders. In antiquity the territory was a part of the province of Artsakh of Greater Armenia . In the Middle Ages it was part of the principality of Khachen ; in the 17th and 18th centuries, the territory formed part of the Melik-Abovian dynasty's melikdom of Gulistan , with its capital in the fortress of that name. During Soviet times

10591-643: The occupied Azerbaijani territories". On 14 March of the same year the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution No. 62/243 which "demands the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of all Armenian forces from all occupied territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan". On 18–20 May 2010, the 37th session of the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Organization of Islamic Conference in Dushanbe adopted another resolution condemning

10710-558: The occupied territories. The 11th session of the summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference held on 13–14 March 2008 in Dakar adopted resolution No. 10/11-P (IS). In the resolution, OIC member states condemned the occupation of Azerbaijani lands by Armenian forces and Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan, ethnic cleansing against the Azeri population, and charged Armenia with the "destruction of cultural monuments in

10829-486: The official status of the Armenian language. Eastern Armenian is the official variant used, making it the prestige variety while other variants have been excluded from national institutions. Indeed, Western Armenian is perceived by some as a mere dialect. Armenian was also official in the Republic of Artsakh . It is recognized as an official language of the Eurasian Economic Union although Russian

10948-639: The oldest surviving Armenian-language writing is etched in stone on Armenian temples and is called Mehenagir . The Armenian alphabet was created by Mesrop Mashtots in 405, at which time it had 36 letters. He is also credited by some with the creation of the Georgian alphabet and the Caucasian Albanian alphabet . While Armenian constitutes the sole member of the Armenian branch of the Indo-European family, Aram Kossian has suggested that

11067-483: The parent languages of Greek and Armenian were dialects in immediate geographical proximity during the Proto-Indo-European period. Meillet's hypothesis became popular in the wake of his book Esquisse d'une histoire de la langue latine (1936). Georg Renatus Solta (1960) does not go as far as postulating a Proto-Graeco-Armenian stage, but he concludes that considering both the lexicon and morphology, Greek

11186-407: The path to a new and simplified grammatical structure of the language in the two different cultural spheres. Apart from several morphological, phonetic, and grammatical differences, the largely common vocabulary and generally analogous rules of grammatical fundamentals allows users of one variant to understand the other as long as they are fluent in one of the literary standards. After World War I ,

11305-508: The population in the five districts ( mahals ) of Nagorno-Karabakh, thus proving, contrary to claims in Azerbaijani historiography , that Armenians formed an overwhelming majority of Nagorno-Karabakh prior to 1828. Historian George Bournoutian writes that Russian statistics from 1810 show that Armenians made up 21 percent of the Karabakh region's population; In 1823, the Armenian population of Karabakh had increased by 30 percent "after

11424-570: The population. The short-lived First Republic of Armenia declared Armenian its official language. Eastern Armenian was then dominating in institutions and among the population. When Armenia was incorporated into the USSR, the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic made Eastern Armenian the language of the courts, government institutions and schools. Armenia was also russified . The current Republic of Armenia upholds

11543-506: The process of re-integrating the region into Azerbaijan. Ceasefire violations by Azerbaijan were nonetheless reported by both Artsakh and local residents in Stepanakert on 21 September. In the aftermath of the offensive, an exodus of Armenians from the region started. On 28 September 2023, the Republic of Artsakh agreed to dissolve itself by 1 January 2024. Nagorno-Karabakh has a total area of 4,400 square kilometres (1,699 sq mi). Approximately half of Nagorno-Karabakh terrain

11662-533: The region until the mid-18th century. In the early 18th century, Iran's Nader Shah took Karabakh out of control of the Ganja khans in punishment for their support of the Safavids , and placed it under his own control In the mid-18th century, as internal conflicts between the meliks led to their weakening, the Karabakh Khanate was formed. The Karabakh khanate , one of the largest khanates under Iranian suzerainty,

11781-523: The region. Limited traffic had been conducted by Russian peacekeepers and the International Committee of the Red Cross to transport patients in need of medical care and provide humanitarian supplies. However, starting on 15 June 2023, Azerbaijan intensified the blockade, blocking all passage of food, fuel, and medicine from the Red Cross and the Russian peacekeepers through the Lachin corridor. On 19 September, Azerbaijan launched

11900-445: The region. At least 30 soldiers were killed during the fighting and a Mil Mi-24 helicopter and tank were also destroyed, with 12 of the fallen soldiers belonging to the Azerbaijani forces and the other 18 belonging to the Armenian forces, as well as an additional 35 Armenian soldiers reportedly wounded. On 27 September 2020, a new war erupted in Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding territories. The United Nations strongly condemned

12019-590: The region. The operation involved ground troops, military, armored vehicles and artillery. The deportations of Armenian civilians were carried out with gross human rights violations documented by international human rights organizations. Armenian forces recaptured most of Shahumyan in fall 1991, and the region was included in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic when it declared its independence in December 1991. However, Armenian forces lost control of Shahumyan in summer 1992 after an Azerbaijani offensive . The town of Shahumyan

12138-601: The report by Evgeni Kirilov , the Bulgarian member of the Parliament. The resolution states in particular that "the occupied Azerbaijani regions around Nagorno-Karabakh must be cleared as soon as possible". On 26 January 2016, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted Resolution 2085 , which deplored the fact that the occupation by Armenia of Nagorno-Karabakh and other adjacent areas of Azerbaijan creates humanitarian and environmental problems for

12257-436: The representation of word-initial laryngeals by prothetic vowels, and other phonological and morphological peculiarities with Greek. Nevertheless, as Fortson (2004) comments, "by the time we reach our earliest Armenian records in the 5th century AD, the evidence of any such early kinship has been reduced to a few tantalizing pieces". Graeco-(Armeno)-Aryan is a hypothetical clade within the Indo-European family , ancestral to

12376-405: The return of those who had fled the region", and by 1832, the Armenian population had increased to one-third of Karabakh. Moreover, the "one-third" of the population of Karabakh composed of Armenians resided in one-third of the territory of Karabakh, the mountainous territory (i.e. Nagorno-Karabakh), where they "constituted an overwhelming majority of the population." According to Armenian sources,

12495-468: The similarities between the two languages meant that Armenian belonged to the Iranian language family . The distinctness of Armenian was recognized when philologist Heinrich Hübschmann (1875) used the comparative method to distinguish two layers of Iranian words from the older Armenian vocabulary . He showed that Armenian often had two morphemes for one concept, that the non-Iranian components yielded

12614-556: The spring/summer of 1991, Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev ordered Operation Ring in which the Soviet Red Army and Azerbaijani OMON surrounded some of the area's Armenian villages (as well as Getashen and Martunashen in the neighboring Khanlar District of the Azerbaijan SSR) and deported their inhabitants to Armenia. Approximately 17,000 Armenians living in Shahumyan's 23 villages were deported from

12733-574: The surrounding territories. Azerbaijan made significant gains during the war, regaining all of the occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh and capturing one-third of Nagorno-Karabakh, including Shusha and Hadrut . The war ended on 10 November 2020 when a trilateral ceasefire agreement was signed between Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russia, under which all the remaining occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh were formally returned to Azerbaijani control. The Republic of Artsakh became an isolated rump state connected with Armenia only by

12852-519: The terms he gives admittedly have an Akkadian or Sumerian provenance, but he suggests they were borrowed through Hurrian or Urartian. Given that these borrowings do not undergo sound changes characteristic of the development of Armenian from Proto-Indo-European , he dates their borrowing to a time before the written record but after the Proto-Armenian language stage. Contemporary linguists, such as Hrach Martirosyan , have rejected many of

12971-572: The titles of meliks . These dynasties represented the branches of the earlier House of Khachen and were the descendants of the medieval kings of Artsakh. Their lands were often referred to as the Country of Khamsa ( five in Arabic). In a Charter (2 June 1799) of the Emperor Paul I titled "About their admission to Russian suzerainty, land allocation, rights and privileges", it was noted that

13090-475: The town of Kalbajar (Karvachar) and its surrounding district were returned to Azerbaijani control. The initial deadline of 15 November 2020, but this was extended to 25 November 2020. It was the second region to be returned to Azerbaijan per the ceasefire agreement, after Aghdam. Armenians constituted 73.2% of the population of the Shahumyan District of the Azerbaijan SSR in 1979, and the majority of

13209-399: The two rivers Kura and Araxes . The ancient population of the region consisted of various autochthonous local and migrant tribes who were mostly non-Indo-Europeans. According to the prevailing western theory, these natives intermarried with Armenians who came to the region after its inclusion into Armenia in the 2nd (or possibly earlier, the 4th) century BC. Other scholars suggest that

13328-569: The unrecognised Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, and Shusha , which lies partially in ruins. Vineyards, orchards, and mulberry groves for silkworms are developed in the valleys. Nagorno-Karabakh's environment vary from steppe on the Kura lowland through dense forests of oak , hornbeam , and beech on the lower mountain slopes to birchwood and alpine meadows higher up. The region possesses numerous mineral springs and deposits of zinc , coal , lead , gold , marble , and limestone . Historically,

13447-457: The villages within the Shahumyan district and the Getashen village had an Armenian majority prior to the First Nagorno-Karabakh war and Operation Ring , with the exception for some Azerbaijani-majority villages (as well as some smaller localities), which are mentioned as such in the following list. The Shahumyan district and Getashen subdistrict are claimed by the Republic of Artsakh as part of

13566-540: Was also dismantled from the NKR between Ordubad and Horadiz , as well as a by-line from Mincivan to the Armenian city of Kapan . Currently, the Azerbaijani trains only travel to Horadiz. The Ordubad–Horadiz section has been demolished, leaving the NKR with no intact, active railway line in their territory. The railway at the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic still operates, but it is separated from

13685-410: Was headed by Panah-Ali khan Javanshir . For the reinforcement of the power of Karabakh khanate, Khan of Karabakh, Panah-Ali khan Javanshir, built up “ the fortress of Panahabad (today Shusha)” in 1751. During that time, Otuziki, Javanshir , Kebirli, and other Turkic tribes constituted the majority of the overall population. Karabakh (including modern-day Nagorno-Karabakh), became a protectorate of

13804-486: Was not easily available, Armenian history was not taught at all, and those who went to Armenia for training were discriminated against in competing for jobs in the province, … Underinvestment in the region—also blamed on Baku—meant less economic development and poor infrastructure even by Soviet standards, and therefore fewer jobs overall, especially for Armenians. Cultural ties with Armenia were strangled in red tape in Baku, and

13923-405: Was situated between Proto-Greek ( centum subgroup) and Proto-Indo-Iranian ( satem subgroup). Ronald I. Kim has noted unique morphological developments connecting Armenian to Balto-Slavic languages . The Armenian language has a long literary history, with a 5th-century Bible translation as its oldest surviving text. Another text translated into Armenian early on, and also in the 5th-century,

14042-488: Was subsequently renamed to Aşağı Ağcakənd by Azerbaijan in 1992 and partially repopulated by Azerbaijanis, mostly representing internally displaced persons deported from Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts . Armenian forces captured the Kalbajar District of Azerbaijan in 1993 and administered it as a part of Shahumyan Province. As part of an agreement that ended the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War ,

14161-682: Was the Armenian Alexander Romance . The vocabulary of the language has historically been influenced by Western Middle Iranian languages , particularly Parthian ; its derivational morphology and syntax were also affected by language contact with Parthian, but to a lesser extent. Contact with Greek, Persian , and Syriac also resulted in a number of loanwords. There are two standardized modern literary forms, Eastern Armenian (spoken mainly in Armenia) and Western Armenian (spoken originally mainly in modern-day Turkey and, since

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