From: sera@zuma.UUCP (Serdar Argic)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.soviet,soc.culture.soviet,soc.culture.turkish,talk.politics.mideast,soc.rights.human,soc.culture.europe
Followup-To: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: The province of Erivan was 80% Muslim before 1828: The Azeri Genocide.
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 92 11:19:25 EST
Reply-To: sera@zuma.UUCP (Serdar Argic)
Distribution: world

In article <1992Dec10.195223.27020@mail.cornell.edu> Mark Lipsits <ml12@cornell.edu> writes:

>Couldn't stand the heat of the mess you've started?  Why don't you ask
>the armenian community in L.A. to help? -- I am sure they're just waiting
>for an opportunity to invest into their motherland.

Right on the money, Mark. However, it is not their motherland.
In the 1700s, the Russians began their conquest of the lands of the
Crimean Tatars, expending their conquests in the 1800s to include 
Caucasus. The overwhelming majority of the population of both areas was 
Muslim. As part of their colonial policy, the Russians set out to change
the demographic makeup of the area. The Russian policy had two facets - 
the deportation of Muslims and the importation of Christians. 
Deportation was advanced vigorously during both peace and wartimes. 
Between 1828 and 1900, more than two million Muslims were forcibly 
evacuated and an unknown number killed. Those who fled found refuge in 
the Ottoman Empire and Caucasus. The area became the new homeland for 
the Crimean Tartars. Likewise, the Abkhazians and the Circassians 
suffered equally. The other mainstay of the Russian colonial policy was 
the importation of Christians to the Crimea and the Caucasus. Slavik 
Christians were brought to the Crimea and North Caucasus. Armenians 
were welcomed to the South Caucasus. Beginning with the war of 1828-29, 
the Russians promised privileges and autonomy to the Armenians, in return 
of Armenian support against the Turks. Twice, in 1828 and 1854, the Russians 
invaded Eastern Anatolia, each time favoring local Armenians, and twice 
they left, taking 100,000 Armenian sympathizers with them to the Caucasus, 
where the Armenians took the place of emigrant and deceased Turks. (The 
province of Erivan, the present-day Soviet Republic of Armenia, was 80% 
Muslim before 1828). Anyway, the historical truth is that Russian 
Imperial expansion upset the traditional balance of the peoples of the 
Crimea and Caucasus. Thousands of Crimean Muslims (Tartars) were forced 
to flee from their homeland to the Caucasus and Eastern Anatolia. 

Source: W. E. D. Allen and Paul Muratoff, "Caucasian Battlefields," 
Cambridge University Press, 1953, p. 481.

"As the Armenians found support among the Reds (who regarded the Tartars
 as a counter-revolutionary elements) the fighting soon became a massacre
 of the Tartar population." 

A Final Goodbye in Azerbaijan:

[Photo by Associated Press]: "At a cemetery in Agdam, Azerbaijan, family 
members and friends grieved during the burial of victims killed in the 
fighting in Nagorno-Karabagh. Chingiz Iskandarov, right, hugged the 
coffin containing the remains of his brother, one of the victims. A copy 
of Koran lay atop the coffin."
The New York Times, 3/6/92

Final Embrace :

[Photo by Associated Press]: "Chingiz Iskenderov, right, weeps over 
coffin holding the remains of his brother as other relatives grieve 
at an Azarbaijani cemetery yesterday amid burial of victims killed 
in fighting in Nagorno-Karabagh."
The Washington Post, 3/6/92

Nagorno-Karabagh Victims Buried in Azerbaijani Town :

"Refugees Claim Hundreds died in Armenian Attack...Of seven bodies seen 
 here today, two were children and three were women, one shot through 
 the chest at what appeared to be close range.  Another 120 refugees 
 being treated at Agdam's hospital include many with multiple stab 
 wounds."
 Thomas Goltz
 The Washington Post, 2/28/92

Serdar Argic

                     'This war quickly developed into one of extermination. 
                      We closed the roads and mountain passes that might 
                      serve as ways of escape for the Tartars [Turks] and 
                      then proceeded in the work of extermination.'
                                                       (Ohanus Appressian)

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