Armenia

**Armenia**, officially the **Federation of Armenia**, is a West Asian nation situated in the Caucasus and eastern Anatolia, with outlets to the Black and Mediterranean Sea.

## The Russian Civil War

The sudden declaration of a new Polish state had dominoed into a violent and bloody civil war in Russia, and violence escalated as the Red Russians began to rapidly take over Eastern European land. Although they were pushed back it did nothing from stopping multiple states from ceding and starting conflicts with the Russians. The Armenian provinces were skeptical of a Russian defeat in the war in the first year, and as a result stayed aligned with the Russian state, but demands for an independent Armenia grew. In March, Georgia and Azerbaijan declared independence, further pressuring the Russian-Armenian government to step down.

It wasn’t until May 14th that the Russian government officially stepped down in the Erevan province, and there the first Armenian republic was proclaimed by the provisional Armenian National Council. In the course of 2 weeks multiple provinces joined the republic, including provinces in eastern Anatolia, as well as Zangezur and Karabakh. However, Armenia had laid claims to Nakhichevan and the Georgians held Lori and Javakheti provinces, being mostly populated by Armenians thus claimed by the ANC. Azerbaijan for their part had also claimed Karabakh and Zangezur. Not to mention Georgia also claimed the Azerbaijani held Zaqataly province. As most imagined the Caucasus erupted into open conflict and so began the Caucasus Conflict.

## A time of peace and instability

In the time following the Caucasus Conflict and before the Erevan Coup, Armenia was seeing an increasing amount of polarization within the liberal-conservative coalition that dominated politics in Erevan. After the Caucasus Conflict, Armenia issued several decrees which, on paper protected Azerbaijani citizens in newly conquered territories, but in reality many were forced to flee due to radical Armenians forcing Azerbaijanis to leave, while the Armenian government did little to stop it. After the Caucasus Conference and the borders were established the Armenian military was sent into Anatolia to crush the various Kurdish and Turkish separatist activity that dominated the cities of Van, Karin and Sivas. Importantly, the conflict in the Caucasus and in Anatolia brought various military commanders like Garegin Nzhdeh and Drastamat Kanayan into the spotlight. Their excellence was one of the main reasons Armenia gained Karabakh and was able to crush the Anatolian Uprisings without it leading to civil war. They were seen as heroes, which culminated in a growing split between the military and regular government.

The Armenian military was increasingly becoming radicalized by figures like Garegin Nzhdeh, who began forming a cult of personality around himself for others to idolize him and support him. And while the separatist activity died down, the balance of power between Armenians, Kurds and Turks were very weak, which only collapsed after the Erevan Coup.

## The Erevan Coup

In May, when the second general elections resulted in Nzhdeh’s alt-right campaign being suppressed resulting in him loosing the election, he, Kanayan and other generals and commanders took things into their own hands and planned a coup to take place. In August, after a few months of planning, Nzhdeh’s plan was set into motion and marched on Erevan as the army and navy mutinied. The army took control of Erevan, forcing the government to flee to Ghars as the country prepared for civil war. After 3 days however, not wanting another bloody conflict to ravage their country the government in Ghars surrendered and fled into exile in Greece, while Nzhdeh quickly consolidated his power and took control of the rest of Armenia within 2 weeks.

## An era of Armenian fanaticism

After power was consolidated within the country and Nzhdeh’s rule was stabilized, he set out an effort to “de-liberalize” the nation. He reversed laws of universal suffrage, granting it only towards men and not women, reversed several laws granting Armenian minorities and non-Christians certain rights, reconnected the church and state and severed ties with Azerbaijan and Georgia. 2 months later he moved the Armenian capital from Erevan to Karin (Erzurum), and his reasoning was to “control East and Western Armenian efficiently”. Importantly, his policies of the military and that of ultra-nationalism severed any sort of good relations Armenians had with Turks and Kurds. Because of this, it is expected that before the decade ends conflict between the Turks and Kurds are now inevitable, as separatist activity began around early 1932 and has only grown since then.