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Unfreezing the "other": collective trauma andpsychological warfare over the Nagorno-Karabakh
rivalry
Trupia, Francesco

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Trupia, F. (2017). Unfreezing the "other": collective trauma and psychological warfare over the Nagorno-Karabakh
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Journal of Liberty and International Affairs | Vol. 2, No. 3, 2017 | eISSN 1857-9760
Published online by the Institute for Research and European Studies at www.e-jlia.com© 2017 Francesco Trupia
This is an open access article distributed under the CC-BY 3.0 License.
Peer review method: Double-Blind
Date of acceptance: November 22, 2016
Date of publication: January 18, 2017
Original scientific article
UDC 355.48:159.942(479.22)

Francesco Trupia
Caucasus Resource Research Centre (CRRC), Armenia
Alpha – Institute of Geopolitics and Intelligenceтrupiaf[at]yahoo.it

Abstract
This paper aims to lead an overview on Nagorno-Karabakh rivalry between Armenia and Azerbaijan in orderto highlight the frozen state of affairs through an alternative prospective left currently out within thepeacekeeping operations. Therefore, main attention is not paid to OSCE-Minks attempts to unfreeze theethnic conflict, however to the role of collective trauma and historical imaginary to point out the Other
question that will be performing a structural role when the two-decades-war will be hopefully over. Hence,
what is to be forgotten from wrenching past? How will the figure of the Other – no matter Armenian or
Azerbaijani – affect the post-conflict scenario currently negated by cultural prejudices and politicalpropaganda?
Key words: Nagorno-Karabakh; “frozen conflict”; “Otherness”; collective imaginary; psychological trauma

INTRODUCTION
The worsening conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh is the oldest war in the former Soviet
orbit and the Europe’s longest continuous military confrontation between Armenia andAzerbaijan. In the current insecurity and uncertainty scenario over the two-decadesconflict, it is surprising that neither side are ready to compromise due to a lack of social
restoration and peace agreement they should establish. However, the two Caucasian young
republics’ real grievances and legitimate claims under international law have generated a“war of law-s” by which both states have been over years clinging to their “all-or-nothing”
outlooks. Although Minsk Group’s mediation pays regular visits in the field, several
attempts to reach a peace resolution in long-term perspective have failed due to a lack ofpolitical motivations and wills in order to definitely compromise (Ayunts, Zolyan, andZakaryan 2016).
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The European Union initiatives of the Eastern Partnership (EaP), too, in which
Armenia and Azerbaijan are post-Soviet Member States, seem to be unless in their concrete
application. This paper will be threefold.
Firstly, I will try to briefly unravel the historical background over territorial conflictin order to lead a general overview regarding the most important events and to step forward
to the second key-area. Here, I will privilege more categories of culture and social
dimensions to describe the cluster of emotions, prejudices and perceptual distortions
manipulatively driven by historical imaginary and collective trauma in turn controlled byruling élites. By doing so - according to many intellectuals, cultural historians and politicalexperts - I will argue that political discourses, ideology and historical narrative ought to beprivileged categories of social analysis (Curtis 1997, 3) in order to supplant the older viewthat human societies have to be studied as a realm of competing structures, contendingclasses and groups. Few statistical analyses will be provided in order to introduce the thirdpart about the “Other question”, which would be fit best for the purpose of the paper.
Besides open sources I below mention in the paper, interviews were conducted during mypersonal visit in the de facto Minister of Intern and in the rural villages of Hadrut andShoushi with locals, of whom the majority is currently performing at the Armenian Armed
Forces alongside the Line of Contact (LoC). All participants were promised anonymity, anecessary precaution in the present political climate and situation of Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict.
Therefore, through a dismantlement of the idea of national purity and the myth of
exclusive belongingness, I will introduce the structural role of the Other that - no matterArmenian or Azerbaijani - will come to perform in the future post-conflict scenario despite
the current negation from both sides. In conclusion, by insisting on the significance role ofhistorical location and process of internally displacement, one point must be clear. Granted
territorial ruptures over Nagorno-Karabakh explore deeply the remarking of Armenian andAzerbaijani identity, this paper aims to introduce a challenging prospective within thecurrent peacekeeping operations by paving a sustainable way - at least theoretically towards a future of well-living together. However, I deal with an approach based on thephilosophical boundary between Self and the Other (Glavanakova 2016, 46) that could be
misleading with regard to this two-decades-conflict between two states, Armenia andAzerbaijan, tied partially to other two states, namely Russia and Turkey.
BACKGROUND
Since 1923, in spite the majoritarian community was Armenian before theSovietisation of the Southern Caucasus, the Nagorno-Karabakh was administratively
assigned to the Turkic-Islamic Soviet republic. Because of that, the Nagorno-Karabakh
Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) remained ethnically and culturally a hybrid and without aself-identification as well as recognition in terms of historical legacy and cultural heritage.
It followed that a psychological model and epistemological configuration of the subjects
living the enclave were considerably simplified (Tlostanova2005, 194) similarly to theentire Soviet orbit. Therefore, Armenian and Azerbaijani locals were forced to lean towards
a rigid ethno-cultural model of “one Soviet people” (Kundera 1984, 1), heavily russified
and without possibility to find their self-realization according to their religions or sociocultural patterns. Due to this overwhelming Communist reduction, attempts to unravel the31

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enclave resettlement after the collapse of the Soviet system turned negatively enough froma considered look (Griffin 2001, 1) to ethnic uprising over mountainous region. With thecollapse of Soviet system, as ideology as political regime, and the euphoria for the fall of
Berlin Wall, the ethnic turmoil of Nagorno-Karabakh began to impinge the state-buildingsof the formerly Armenian SSR and Azerbaijan SSR from within.
During the Soviet era, specifically with the Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid
Brezhnev times, in Armenia there were constant attempts by students and youths to findalternative organizations to the Communist Party. In the meantime, demands andcampaigns for recognition of the Ottoman genocide and the reclamation of the lost lands
were at the heart of the political activity. In 1966, for sample, the National Unification
Party called for an Armenia as independent state, which would include the Karabakh
enclave, the Azerbaijani exclave of Nachichevan, and the Turkish controlled Western
Armenia (Goldenberg 1994), namely the former Armenian millets of the Ottoman Empire
in Anatolia. All those demands have been always ignored by Kremlin.
When on the 20th February 1988 the Local Council of the People’s Duties ofNagorno Karabakh Autonomous Region (NKAO) decided to secede from Azerbaijan SSR,
it was not expected that the conflict between the Caucasian young republics would takeplace for so long time. Overcoming the non-Armenian resistance of Azerbaijani duties andchairperson, who were loyal to the central Azerbaijani SSR government in Baku, theArmenian declaration led clashes and broad tensions among Armenian civilians within the
territory of Azerbaijan SSR (Savin 2015, 106-107) and, in turn, among Azerbaijani
inhabitants within the collapsing Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. Since then, apoint of no-return began to negatively shape as Armenian as Azerbaijani refusals to looking
for a peaceful solution; their inability to forget and the impossibility to grasp the horror andliberation (Glavanakova 2016, 175) became collective traumas.
Throughout the sub-regional uprising, Armenia decided to bind itself to Russia,
allowing military bases to remain as open displays of muted Russian influence in light of
the Christian Orthodox alignment. On the other side, Azerbaijan took an even more risky
path (Griffin 2001, 183) due to its bickering politicians who without Russian military aids
tried to achieve benefits from the powerful economic position flirting with Turkey, UnitedStates, France, and Britain. Hence, the territorial turmoil affected deeply Azerbaijan on one
side, a post-Soviet Turkic country rooted in its Persian cultural heritage and Transcaucasian
powerhouse of global energy supplies thanks to the oil flowing in abundance from its
shores, and Armenia on the other side, the first ever nation-state to adopt Christianity as its
state religion. Although the conflict of Nagorno-Karabakh was heavily showing how ethnic
issues started to be politicised and how cultural differences interplayed a fundamental rolein the process of constructing societal identity and ugliness of ethnic cleansing, the wider
scenario cannot be taken into the arguable account of Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations.
According to the Bulgarian expert Alexandra Glavanakova, indeed, Huntington’sclassification dismisses itself out from a more largely and arbitrary criteria and, specificallyto Nagorno-Karabakh outbreak, the latter seems to be not aligned to his list alike a wide
range of worldwide ethnic riot. Nagorno-Karabakh rivalry was not triggered neither by
religious schism in the Transcaucasian region in order to reallot the former Autonomous
Oblast back to the Christian Armenia or to the Muslim kinship of Azerbaijan. However, thestress shifts on the subjective identification of individuals with their own community, inwhich ethnic issues address ontologically and respectively the idea of “ethnicity” (Krasteva
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2015, 4) in terms of a given group with objective, existence and subjective sense of
belongingness. For example, the former Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, has
rejected the idea of any religious motivation from the beginning.
Moreover, the Nagorno-Karabakh rivalry has specifically created from the
beginning a mutual separation of a non-ethnic “Us” and ethnic Others (Smith 1996, 4)
based on proper name; myth of common ancestry including the idea of common origin,which gives to the group a sense of kinship; shared memories of common past; heroes andevents; elements of common cultures, like language, religion or customs; a link with ahomeland; and, a sense of collective solidarity. In the case of Armenia and Azerbaijan, bothcommunities depict their nations as “a great family” where brothers and sisters of themotherland or fatherland evoke strong loyalties and vivid attachments. Besides, hundredsof thousands of Armenians and Azerbaijanis have lost their homes in a forced populationtransfer1 and have been living for generations outside their own republics. In details, thefirst military actions of the conflict - according to the official data from the government of
Azerbaijan - led to Azerbaijan 30.000 were injured, 7000 being disabled for life and 5000
citizens are reported as missing. Throughout the same period of war, the Armenian side lost6000 citizens, 20000 people were injured and more than 5000 Armenians have gone
missing (Kirvelyté, 2015).
In early April 2016, the so-called “Four-Day War” alongside the Lines of Contact(LoC) reminded the international community that this long-ignored “frozen conflict” hasbegun to heat drastically up without finding out a stable resolution yet. More than hundredcausalities on both sides, 150 wounded among civilians and military staff, andapproximately 15 thanks destroyed with a wide range of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV),is the result of the last peak of military escalation erupted on 2nd and ceased on 6th(Lorusso 2016, 1) after the umpteenth ceasefire agreement. Until now, over 20% of de jurerecognized territory of Azerbaijan still remains under the control of de facto Republic ofArtsakh - Nagorno-Karabakh (Kirvelyté 2015, 24-25), including neighbouring Azerbaijani
districts too. As the table indicates below, in spite it does not provide the entire scenario
after the early April 2016 escalation, after which Azerbaijani troops have been retaken thecontrol over 900 mq2 of Martakert region. Armenian armed forces have occupied several dejure Azerbaijan regions surrounding the entire Nagorno-Karabakh in order to buffer asanitary zone in protection of Karabakh Armenians.
Table 1: Nagorno-Karabakh Buffer Zone Occupied by Armenian Armed Forces (Source: The Marginsof the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: In Search of Solution, 2015)

Kelbajar-Karvacher
Lachin-Abdollyar
Kubatli-Vorotan
Jebrail-Jrakan
Zangelan-Kovsakan
Agdam-Akna
Varanda-Fuzûlî

% of de facto territorial control byArmenian armed forces
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
77%
33%

1

De Jure Azerbaijani lost territory
in Nagorno-Karabakh
1.936 km1.835 km
802 km1.050 km
707 km842 km462 kmThis phenomenon, well-known as “Internally Displaced Person-s” (IDP-s), has increased the academic literature
concerning studies about migrations and conflict scenarios.

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BEYOND THE CONFLICT:COLLECTIVE IMAGINARY AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMAS
Despite political attempts and OSCE-Minsk peacekeeping actions to unfreeze theterritorial rivalry alongside the Line of Contacts (LoC), it seems no longer possible to solve
the current situation within the framework of existing intergovernmental relations. The
Republic of Azerbaijan declares its territorial integrity unshakeable and the full liberationof lost territories occupied by Armenians as main prerequisite condition for any substantial
negotiations with Armenia, considered guilty to support an illegal occupation. Moreover,Baku claims to plenty resettle Qarabağ to de jure territory according to the Soviet-Russianrecognition that tied the enclave to Azerbaijan SSR in light to the Mongol, Turkish, andPersian legacy that the region has had even before the sovietization in 1923. On thecontrary, de facto Republic of Artsakh - Nagorno-Karabakh continues to declare that thesecession from the former Azerbaijan SSR administration, understood as the “liberation of
Karabakh”, is the legitimate result ex factis jus oritur (Krüger 2010, 89), namely a law
arises from the facts. In addition, the Republic of Armenia has stubbornly pointed out thatthe struggle for independence and recognition brought all Armenians into a safety position(Savin 2015, 112) and guaranteed justice and protection against the whimsicalappropriation of Artsakh imposed mistakenly by Stalin himself (Yunusof 2005, 28) throughan incorrect placement of Karabakh Armenians under the Turkic-Muslim Azerbaijan SSR.
In the meantime, Nagorno-Karabakh rivalry has been outlining what ethnic andmilitary hostilities come emotionally to mean for both sides. Armenians consider the 199294 war a succeed attempt to avoid the continuation of the 1915 “Armenocide” (Peachey
1993, 35) perpetuated by Ottomans from Istanbul to the region of Anatolia. It followed thatthe worldwide Armenian community began to appreciate the resistance over NagornoKarabakh – which tends to persist - because conducted on behalf of all Armenians. In few
words, the struggle over Nagorno-Karabakh seems to interplay the role of Armenians’
Armenian-ness2. In the eyes of Armenians, the pogrom of Sumgait for sample, a souldestroying town of Azerbaijan, was a turning point, and history has generally been turning
the Armenians’ spiritual and psychological wounds into a collective trauma (Grigorian
1991, 52), bleeding and festering with self-pity and vengefulness. In early February 1988,
Azerbaijani reaction to the early stages of the Karabakh Movement was to attack andmurder Armenian minority’s civilians living in Azerbaijan SSR. Such cruel events haveincreased the Armenian fear of the Turkic-Muslim enemy and rekindled their memories to
the Ottoman genocide that branded Armenian peoples’ collective consciousness in turn.
The Armenian theologian Vigen Grigorian has highlighted that the burden of traumatic
history rests nowadays on the memory of Armenians living the contemporary Caucasian
homeland, in which de facto Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is understood as part of it.
According to Nagorno-Karabakh issue, the communitarian empathy for this grieving
faith triggered by deportation from Ottoman millets and followed by Diaspora could serve
to explain why Armenian memory runs deeper over last 170 years back the division of the
Armenian Kingdom in 387 d.C. (Griffin 2002, 184). Due to all of these, Nagorno-Karabakh
became the symbol of survival and revenge after the first mass-scale genocide during the2

According to the Armenian constitution, the Article 19 regards the term Armenian-ness that draws the national identity
and its millenarian heritages with a comprehensive legal usage linked with the Diaspora.

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First World War and the Soviet takeover, and this is why Armenians maintain their intent
clear in reclaiming what they see and understand as part of their historical legacy.
Similarly, the Armenian occupation of the Lachin corridor in May 15 1992 come togeographically mean not only a conjunction between the post-Communist territory of
Armenia and the oblast of Nagorno-Karabakh, but mostly a reunification for all Armenians
who felt to psychologically be into a safety region surrounded and protected by Armenians.
What has been representing a strong argument for allocating Nagorno-Karabakh to
Azerbaijan SSR due to the lack of passable road between Armenia SSR and the Armenian
enclave of Karabakh, since 1992 began to shape a new condition for securitizing a strategic
mountain pass and interplay the national-building process of the former Soviet Armenia
and redefine the national borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan. By contrary,
Azerbaijanis feel to have been victims of theft due to the “Armenian aggression” within aregion they consider their own storehouse nurturing their finest musicians and poets andcomposers of their national anthem (Goldenberg 1994, 156). As Sumgait for Armenians,
the massacre of Khojali that broke out between 25th and 26th February 1992 was crucialfor Azerbaijanis in the bigger pictures.
By 1992, Azerbaijanis and Turkic-Meshkat minority’s members living the village of
Khojaly were expelled by Armenian armed forces from their homes, killed and several
froze overnight to death. The frighten experience has psychologically trenched a higher
barrier against Armenians, guilty for such massacre and who demonstrated their readinessto fight a full-scale war (Kirvelyté 2015, 25) while young Azerbaijani state was in a worse
military position because of the political crisis in Baku of 1991-93 that stood in the way ofmobilization3. The massacre of Khojaly could serve as historical proof to reveal Armenia’s
inability to control over its militants (Goldenberg 1994, 156) and remember how themilitary takeover of the village is still the symbol of historical betrayal conducted by“loader Armenians” (Denisenko 2015, 60) with the support of the 366th motorized infantry
regiment of the former Soviet Army troops. However, the Soviet regime neither supports
Armenian armed forces nor Azerbaijan in the territorial riot. In fact, the events following
the Sumgait pogrom have shown the Soviet inertia (Goldenberg 1994, 154) and, during theSoviet time, the Kremlin political establishment never supported the Armenian campaigns
for the Karabakh reallot back to Armenian SSR. The entire was paradoxically shown by
one of the first leaders of Karabakh Movement, Igor Muradyan, who leading Armenians tothe square by bringing portrays of Gorbachev in order to catch public attention of theformer leader of Soviet Union. “Lenin-Party-Gorbachev!” would be the slogan that he hadcome up with himself but, some weeks later, he came up with another one “Stalin-BeriaLigachev!” because no answers came from Moscow.
In sum, Khojaly tragedy and Sumgait pogrom, as well as the significant capture of
the town of Shoushi by Armenian forces on 9th May 1992, have significantly been crucial
points for the definite resettlement of Nagorno-Karabakh to de facto Armenian authority as
well as the symbol of terrible human losses and key element for claiming justice for
Azerbaijan. This is why the idea that individuals responsible for the death of civilians mustreceive an appropriate punishment is currently expressed (Denisenko 2015, 68) in theofficial confrontation timeline between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. Indeed, Khojaly
3

However, the young Republic of Azerbaijan tried to take more active role than Armenia did in the ethnic turmoil all over
the region of North Caucasus by projecting itself almost as a protector of some Turkic groups.

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tragedy is commemorated, likewise the 1915 genocide for Armenians, not only in
Azerbaijan at the “Mother’s Scream” memorial in Baku, but also abroad – Istanbul, The
Hague, Berlin, Sarajevo and Mexico City. All psychological and cultural aspects over
Nagorno-Karabakh rivalry are painlessly holding the idea of a “society of loss” (Fedoseeva
2012, 399) since the uprising of the territorial conflict. Speaking historically, bothcommunities involved in the conflict seem to highlight a new form of communicativemourning in deeply connection with a wealth of tumultuous, occupation, inquisitions,pogroms that have symbolically increased a more self-oriented collective faith andwrenching reality. Once again, symbols and images here connect a lot past experienceswith an endless rivalry understood in terms of “perpetrators-against-victims”.
The last “Four-Day War” in early April 2016, for instance, has quickly madestronger and stronger the social relationships among Armenians due to the beheading of
Karam Sloyan in the Line of Contact (LoC). The image of the Karabakh Defense Armysoldier’s head, uploaded in the social media and shown publicly off to Azerbaijani audience
as a “fish-trophy”, has pointed anew out a memory of tragedy that Armenians connect with
their own historical faith.
All of these has shown to the international community how often threats can go
forward to the sphere of human security over Nagorno-Karabakh. On one hand, for an
event to interest the public opinion and the political mainstream must be something
recognizable, it must affect people of whom we have heard spoken before (Gramsci 1912,2). On the other hand, this public kind of recognition seems wrongly to affect the OSCEMinsk operations and attempts for unfreezing the conflict between Armenia andAzerbaijan. In being hidden and concealed, collective traumas perform as structuring
principles for various public discourses, socio-cultural practices and rituals, as well as
political causes for the willingness to embroider marks of trauma into the structure ofeveryday life. In turn, by including social bonds, what arises here is an imaginary idea of“society of loss” which portrays and addresses those traumatic narratives from within. The
concept of collective trauma is widely used in modern social science in order to explain
many events in the collective mind. The concepts of psychoanalysis, especially thoseconcerning the concepts of trauma or post-traumatic disorder, such as the loss of NagornoKarabakh for Azerbaijanis and vice versa the fear of losing the region for Armenians, aretriggered by the impact of certain events connected to the feeling of pain (Ushakin 2009,23). By translating the psychoanalytical apparatus to a sociological one and in turn toNagorno-Karabakh issue, each collective trauma seems to set a pathway for the historicalnarrative, while not becoming a part of it. The traumatic experience intertwines withnational identity they mutually strengthen one another and these psychological aspects
upon the warfare exacerbate the image of the Other and his race of enemy through which
stereotypes and prejudices intensify a feeling of pain. Hence, the communication of tragic
events creates a history-oriented narrative (Glavanakova 2016, 56) because Armenians andAzerbaijanis are “imagines”, i.e. they are held together by certain common features orimagines though the resources of both antagonist narrators, who provide “images” of the
Other not by the past itself and not by the discipline of history. Rather, they give a publiccompilation of misleading images (Šutiniené 2011, 303) based on mythical and symbolic
prejudices or stereotypes. For instance, according to the Yerevan sociologist Lyudmilla
Harutyunian, who was one-time deputy in the Republic Supreme Soviet, points out that
Armenians have forgotten the noble pages of their own history and they have created an36

Journal of Liberty and International Affairs | Vol. 2, No. 3, 2017 | eISSN 1857-9760
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image of Armenians as victims, and it is a very deep image. During the twenty-five years,
Armenian artists and writers have begun to address these problems (Guroian 1991, 52), andthis is the main reason why most Armenian Church leaders have refused to recognize thatthe wrenching past brought the Armenian Christendom or secular legacy to an end.
Table 2: Question asked on approval of women of their ethnicity marrying with Armenians or
Azerbaijanis (Source: Caucasus Barometer, 2013).

MARWAZE: Approval of women marrying Azerbaijanis (%)

96

4
Approve0
Disapprove

NK/RA

Caucasus Barometer 2013 Azerbaijan
Retrived from http://caucasusbarometer.org

MARWARM: Approval of women marrying Armenians (%)
99

1
Approve0
Disapprove

NK/RA

Caucasus Barometer 2013 Azerbaijan
Retrived from http://caucasusbarometer.org

As the Table 2 shows upon (CRRC Barometer, 2013), when asked “do you approveof women of your ethnicity marrying with Azerbaijanis?” 96 % of Armenians responded
disapproving such possibility, whereas in Azerbaijan the figure shows a 99% of people
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disapproving as well. The figure in 2015, not provided in Azerbaijan, was the same in
Armenia (CRRC Barometer, 2015). In retrospect, the Table 3 below compares what
Armenians and Azerbaijanis think is the most important issue their own country faces at the
moment, within the answer regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, such as “unsolved
territorial conflicts” and internal “lack of peace”, that matters only 3 % and 2 % forArmenians, whereas 38 % for Azerbaijanis (CRRC Barometer, 2013). Despite higher %age than Armenian one, Azerbaijani result is paradoxically twofold: it is higher thanunemployment and poverty issues, respectively 25 % and 8 % (CRRC Barometer, 2013),
which are concerns in the so-called “cork” or “bottle” of the Caspian (Griffin 2001, 183),
however it is not that high alike the previous result about human relationships.
Table 3: Question asked to Armenians and Azerbaijanis about the most important issue facing theirown country (Source: Caucasus Barometer 2013).

IMPISS1: Most important issue facing the country (%)
DK/RA
Other
Lack of Peace in the Country
Unsolved Territorial Conflict
Inflation
Law Wages
Corruption
Emigration
Poverty
Unemployment

1
11
2
3
4
5
5
8
16
45
Caucasus Barometer Armenia 2013
Retrieved from http://caucasusbarometer.org

IMPISS1: Most important issue facing the country (%)
Other
Low quality of Education

62

Unsolved Territorial Conflict
Inflation

38
2

Law Wages

7

Corruption

7

Low Pensions

5

Poverty8

Unemployment

25
Caucasus Barometer Azerbaijan 2013
Retrieved from http://caucasusbarometer.org

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In the political circles, the Nagorno-Karabakh issues seem to consolidate thoseArmenian and Azerbaijani ruling élites that manipulatively controlled them by using
historical memory constructed to politically re-narrate the past and label what really
happened to the new generations who use to attend public schools and watch publicbroadcasting where this narrative against the figure of the Other is present. Although only
the 6,6% of all Azerbaijani, 7,1% of Armenian broadcastings and publications (Abasov
2003, 592) are devoted to the conflict, public school curricula and mass media continuously
exacerbate the tense relations, while the ruling elites use every opportunity to dehumanize
the other side (Ayunts, Zolyan, and Zakaryan, 2016, 1) given back to the public
consciousness. This explains the Armenian tendency to elect politicians belonging to theso-called “Karabakh Clan” (Kirvelyté 2015, 29) to the top political position. Following Ter
Petrosyan, who had no personal ties with Nagorno-Karabakh, both last two Presidents ofArmenia, Robert Kocharyan, who was previously president of de facto Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic (1994-1997) and Prime Minister of Armenia (1997-1998), as well as the current
Armenian President Serzh Sarkisyan (2008-ongoing), who the second de facto head of
Karabakh Armed Forces, come originally from the disputed region. On the other side,
Azerbaijani scenario is not even positive. Whether the Armenia’s institutional landscapeengages with public figures as well as national organizations and parties belonging to“Karabakh Clan”, the latter displays at least a political pluralism that, despite its low level,
seems to be different from the neighbouring Azerbaijan the Alyev dynasty began to rulesince 1993. Alike the Armenia’s political belongingness tied with Karabakh, the former
President Hydar Aliev (1993-2003) and his son Ilham Aliev, currently ruling as Presidentof the young Republic, belong to de jure exclave of Nackichevan, bounded by Armenia andIran with a short-border with Turkey, which continues to suffer its geographic position andthe conflict with Armenia.
A FROZEN RELATIONSHIP
Although the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was never a territorial dispute based onreligious issues, Christian and Muslim belongingness of Armenians and Azerbaijanis could
be a concern for future confrontation. Since the 1994 Bishkek Agreement, general attempts
to unfreeze the tow-decades-conflict and many sustainable projects, such as Dreaming of a
Colourful Garden4, attempted constantly to provide alternative spaces for contact among
Armenians and Azerbaijanis by replacing the Line of Contact (LoC) which physicallyseparates both sides. Main goals remain to seek peaceful transnational spaces in order tostep forward in direction of Madrid Principles and OSCE-Minsk peacekeeping operations
and guarantee the redeployment to all Erazy-Azerbaijani and Armenian internally displaced
persons to their former places of residence inside Nagorno-Karabakh. Therefore, theinevitable “Other question” will definitely come to perform a structural role for thosegenerations of Armenians and Azerbaijanis who are slowly replacing the oldest ones. Theirsocial imaginary offers negatively a counter-subjective representation of the Other througha product of the binary “Us-and-Them” opposition, which is a social construct, used in turn4

The title of the project aims to overturn the classical idea of the region negatively accounted into a “dark zone” due to theethnic conflict and the meaning of the prefix-Nagorno, which derives from Russian attributive adjective “nagorny”,
literally “highland”, and the suffix-Karabakh, a Persian word for indicating a “Black Garden”.

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to throw light on the conception of the Other in aloof way. Here, the negative mirror imageof the Other seems to be clearly privileged because often expressed in terms of monstrous
and alien Other (Glavanakova 2016, 45). “We’re the victims, you’re the perpetrators” could
briefly serve as short quote upon the common notion of the Other originating from bothsides, edited publicly out as well as partly glorified. Therefore, common empathy andsensitivity of Otherness seem thus to be internalized. Armenians bring alive for the further
generations their historical plight portraying not simply as an object of distress, but throughthe subjects of its articulation and expression, not merely as victim but as agents, actors,
and authors (Marjian 2016, 104). As the Armenian political scientist Levon MelikShakhnazarian speculated on the fortune of the Nagorno-Karabakh war of 1992-94, “in thiscase civilisation will win” (Goldenberg 1994, 154) because the Armenian past turned
finally into a winning stage. Likewise, brainwashing and overwhelming politicalpropaganda links Azerbaijani understanding with all psychological forms of war of ideas
against the Other-Armenians, where the main weapons are image and sound, whichorganize successfully a process of negative persuasion (Martišius 2010, 195) over the
territorial rivalry. All of these may affect the confrontation with the Other cementing
negatively the creation of a wealthier community due to a demonization of the Other(Lorusso 2016, 5) fraught with bloody imaginary. Hence, shall Armenians and Azerbaijanis
deal with historical memories and wrenching experiences, or will they crush once again
when they will be living together? How do they image their everyday life after thedefinitive peace agreement? What is to be forgotten from the past and what is to berecorded in order to avoid future threats? Nowadays, the figure of the Other - no matter if
Armenian or Azerbaijani – is permanently present in the social imaginary. Constructed by
the Self in a variety of way, this perception of the Other arises a complex interaction
between self-identification and definition provided by Others of oneself. On one side,
internal and external impact of Otherness is simultaneously familiar and strange toeveryone, however, according to Nagorno-Karabakh rivalry, it could hopefully affirm thatwhen perspectives will be changing such holistic imaginary of the Other (Boesh 2007, 5)
will change accordingly. Due to dynamism, relativity, continually fluctuating andceaselessly reversibility of the role and figure of the Other under certain historicalcircumstances and cultural and socio-political extents, it may be possible to ensure theNagorno-Karabakh conflict from the risky 5 % of territorial conflict assumed as unsolvable(Ayunts, Zolyan, and Zakaryan 2016, 4). Since individuals differ in their personal
experiences of intercultural exchanges and contacts, they also differ in what culturalelement they choose to adopt and internalize. However, most recent pivotal studies have
proven that the territorial rivalry between Armenian and Azerbaijani youths of Moscow, as
well as the role of their different ethnic identities and cultures, does not affect negatively
their human relationships. Interviews and discussions held in 2006-07 have pointed out thatthe existing tendencies of Armenians and Azerbaijani mourning and its social influence
driven by collective trauma are much lower than in those groups of Armenians andAzerbaijanis living the Caucasian young republics. According to the survey conducted in
Russia, ethnic identity seems to be not a concern because not eternally influenced andemotionally loaded in political rhetoric and propagandistic arguments about the atrocities of
the Other (Savin, 2015) and the reference about their ethnicity seems to have not an
important quality beside the brainwashing emotions by political power.
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Journal of Liberty and International Affairs | Vol. 2, No. 3, 2017 | eISSN 1857-9760
Published online by the Institute for Research and European Studies at www.e-jlia.com

CONCLUSION
Although the Nagorno-Karabakh rivalry is academically tagged as frozen conflict,such definition does not catch the real state of affair within the current lack of definitive
solutions and political wills. Yet, this “no-war-no-peace” limbo challenges the sphere ofhuman security for those locals living alongside the Line of Contact (LoC) on both sides, aswell as the future of both Caucasian young republics in terms of political and economic
development.
The question about the Other seems definitely to represent a challenging conflict(trans-)formation paradigm from the classical approaches upon conflict resolution
mechanisms. According to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, the role of Other may serve as a
conﬂict transformation approaches to the future peace agreement among embitteredadversaries. Definitely, future prospects for conflict transformation should focus more at
the future human relationships, which may theoretically transform the sense of ArmenianAzerbaijani Self alongside the examination of the conditioned and motivated biases of the
Self towards the Other. Over Nagorno-Karabakh, future forms of involvement with the
Other will be not reducible to simply binary opposition “us-against-them”, nowadays in thepolitical and social mainstream manifested in traumatic acts of self-identification against
the Other, but as a new relation between self-ness and Otherness based on intricate
constellation of interconnectedness (Glavanakova 2016, 19).
The mirror of wrenching situations shattered and battered by two-decades-war, inwhich it might find such answers from history and it might find also find again ourhumanity through reconciliation, hence repentance, forgiveness, healing and renewal, thatin the first instance nation-building may be at the heart of the communitarian vocation ofNagorno-Karabakh in the future.

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Journal of Liberty and International Affairs | Vol. 2, No. 3, 2017 | eISSN 1857-9760
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