Nagorno Karabakh

The essential difference in the cases of Nagorno Karabakh and Kosovo lies in the histories of both regions. Nagorno Karabakh — Artsakh in Armenian — is one of the cradles of Armenian statehood and the birthplace of a latemedieval emancipatory movement in Eastern Armenia. Artsakh contains a large number of key landmarks of Armenianhistory, and is important to the Armenians in the same way Kosovo is important to the Serbs.Armenian settlements and a distinct political entity have existed in Artsakh since the second century BC.Ancient Greek and Roman historians, including Pliny the Elder, Plutarch, Ptolemy and Dio Cassius stated in their writings that Armenia's eastern border with the neighboring region of Caucasian Aluania (Aghvank) was demarcated by the River Kur, engulfing Artsakh in Armenia. Greek historian Strabo in his "Geography" mentionsArtsakh as a fertile province of Armenia known for its exceptional cavalry.In the 1st century BC, the ruler of the Armenian Kingdom Tigran II the Great founded one of four cities, named "Tigranakert" after himself, in Artsakh; its ruins are found on the eastern border of the contemporary Nagorno Karabakh Republic. Artsakh, codified as the 10th province of the ancient kingdom of Armenia Major(Armenia Greater or Metz Haik, in Armenian),was brought into focus at the end of the 4th century, when Christianity was spreading to Armenia's eastern provinces, in the aftermath of the missionary activities of St. Gregory the Illuminator.In the 5th century, Artsakh became the place where the creator of the Armenian alphabet St. Mesrob Mash tots, set up the first Armenian religious school in the Amaras Monastery (now in Martuni district of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic) where the Armenian alphabet was first probated for teaching purposes. Later, between 480 and 483 AD, Movses Khorenatsi, one of Mesrob Mash tots' students, wrote his monumental "History of the Armenians" under the auspices of Prince Sahak Bagratuni — a manifestation of the importance of Artsakh in Armenian civilization during the reign of Artsakh’s king Vachagan II the Pious.After the disintegration of the Kingdom of Greater Armenia into several autonomous feudal entities, Artsakh formed a state of its own, the Kingdom of Khachen. This medieval monarchy, ruled most prominently by the Smbatian, Vakhtangian-Jalalian, and Dopian Armenian royal dynasties and which embraced today's Nagorno Karabakh and neighboring regions at the height of its power between 12th and 14th centuries, was also referred to by European travelers as Lesser Armenia.It was at that time when the medieval scholar Mkhitar Gosh wrote his legal treatise "The Code of Laws" in the newly built Gandzasar Monastery in central Artsakh (currently, in Mardakert district of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic). "The Code of Laws" subsequently became the main official document on the legal principles of the state and a manual for courtroom procedures across medieval Armenia. Thus, it was in the land of Artsakh where the pre-modern legal framework of the Armenian state was conceptualized. The Kingdom of Khachen, a stronghold of Armenian nationhood in the Middle Ages, existed between the 10th and 16th centuries; its name derived from the Armenian word “khach,” meaning "cross."

Armenians from many areas to the west gravitated to the Kingdom of Khachen (and its later successor, Five Duchies), considering it a safe haven. And when the last independent Armenian state — the Kingdom of Cilicia — collapsed in late 14th century, the land of Artsakh remained among the few places on the Armenian Plateau where Armenians preserved their relative independence, until the second half of the 18th century, and were able to successfully defend themselves from the encroachments of the invading nomadic hordes from the East.The regular Armenian armed forces of the commonwealth of the five Armenian principalities of Nagorno Karabakh known as the Five Duchies (namely: Khachen, Jraberd, Varanda, Dizak and Golestan), and the neighboring principalities of Zangezur (Siunik) in the beginning of the 18th century numbered at 40,000 musketeers and horsemen. They were successful in repulsing and crushing not only the gangs of occasional Turkic tribal infiltrators from Central Asia and Iran — ancestors of today's Azeris — but also the invading foreign armies in periodic Turko-Persian wars. In this respect, Artsakh resembles the Slavs in Montenegro, in the Balkans, who withstood all attempts of the invading Ottoman Turks to conquer their lands. And both Montenegro and Artsakh, at certain points in their history, were ruled by the Orthodox bishops-turned-generals — Vladikas and Catholicoi of Gandzasar, respectively — who not only provided their subjects with spiritual services but also managed the political life of their states and organized national defense.

the dukes of Artsakh as "Principes et Primores, Magistratus Armeniae."The landscape of Nagorno Karabakh and the regions of the former Azerbaijani SSR that lie in between Nagorno Karabakh and Armenia is covered by more than 2300 Armenian architectural and cultural monuments, including churches, monasteries and khachkars (memorial cross-stones). Specific to the region are the so-called sahmanakars(border-stones), found on the eastern fringes of Mardakert district of Nagorno Karabakh. These ancient monuments were used to mark Armenia's frontiers and to date feature well-preserved texts inscribed in Armenian, whose purpose was to notify the travelers of the past that they had reached Armenian borderlands. In total, in Artsakh there are approximately 7,600 ancient stone-borne texts in Armenian (5th-16th centuries), found on the walls of churches and monasteries as well as on the surfaces of more than 1,260 officially registered khachkars.Besides the monasteries of Amaras (4th century) and Gandzasar (1216-1238), among the most important historical monuments of Artsakh are the monastic complexes of: Gaghivank (2nd-13th centuries), Tzitzernavank (4th century), Dadivank (founded in the 1st century, expanded in 1210), Getamej (7th century), Erits Mankants (Three Infants, 14th century), St. Targmanchats (St. Translators, 987-989), Gtich-vank (1241-1246), Khadavank (1188-1204ã.), Okhta-Trne (7th century), St. Hakob (St. Jacob, 8th century), Kusanats Anapat (17th century), Khatravank (10th-11th centuries), St. Yeghishe Araqial (St. Elisha the Apostle, 5th-12th centuries), Kusanats (1818), Kataro, Havaptuk and Horek (all three founded in the 5th century); as well as the churches of Bri (1270, in Varanda province), Cathedral of Holy Savior (1868-1887, in Shushi), Green Church (1847, in Shushi), Ptkes Berk St. Gevork (St. George, 10th century, in Khachen province), Chartar Church (in Varanda province), Spitak Khach (St. White Cross, in Dizak province) and St. Stepanos (16th century, in Dizak province).

According to renowned Russian scholar A. L. Yakobson of St. Petersburg's Hermitage, the 13th century Gandzasar Monasteryis "the encyclopedia of Armenian architecture," while the Gaghivank Monastery is the "oldest preserved Christianmonument in the world."Professor Charles Diehl of Sorbonne, a prominent French art historian and specialist of Byzantium, called Gandzasar the third most important artifact of Armenian monastic architecture that is on the list of world architectural masterpieces. Hovhannavank Monastery, near Yerevan, and Harich Monastery in Armenia's western Shirak Province replicate.Nagorno Karabakh's Gandzasar in many important details. In contrast to the Yugoslav region of Kosovo, there are no Muslim architectural monuments not only on the territory of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic (including its northern Shahumian district and Getashen enclave) but also in the adjacent Kelbajar, Lachin, Qubadli, Zangelan, Jabrail, Fizuli, Khanlar, and Dashkesan districts of the former Azerbaijani SSR. The exceptions are two mid-19th century Persian-built mosques in the town of Shushi (Shousha).The mountainous part of Artsakh — contemporary Nagorno Karabakh and historic Gardman-Hayots district("Northern Artsakh"), located to its north — from the ancient times and up to the mid-1930s were the regionswith the most homogeneous Armenian population among all Armenian lands, including the territories comprisingtoday's Republic of Armenia. The ethnic composition of 220 historical Armenian settlements in Nagorno Karabakhand Gardman-Hayots remained largely unchanged throughout last two millennia. The comeback of Armenians fromPersia and resettlement of Armenians from the Ottoman Empire in the Transcaucasus, which took place under Russian auspices in the aftermath of the Russian-Persian and Russian-Turkish wars of 1826-1829 and later, did not touch the Armenian-populated uplands of Artsakh, while temporarily affecting some of its lowlands. However, those eastern territories, also called Karabakh Steppe, were left outside the borders of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region.Armenians of Artsakh retained their thick dialect, registered as such since the 5th century AD. This unique, difficult dialect of Eastern Armenian is among the few that gave birth to an independent literary tradition, with several medieval Artsakhi chronicles written in it. The Artsakhi dialect is not spoken anywhere else on the Armenian Plateau and stilluses a large number of words and grammar patterns of Grabar (Old Armenian). Several dozens richly illustrated manuscripts produced in Artsakh in the Middle Ages reached us in their full exuberance.

(Daskhurantsi), the 7th century historian and author of "History of the Aghvank Country (Aluania);" Iohannes Sarkavag, encyclopedias' of the 11th-12th centuries; Kirakos Gandzaketsi, the 13th century author of "History of Armenia;" legal scholar David Alavkavordi of Gandzak (first half of the 12thcentury), and historiographer Hovhannes Tzaretsi (16th century).Artsakh presents a unique example of the homogeneity and continuity of ethnic Armenian statehood in a single historical-geographic area. However, this tradition was breached once when short-lived Karabakh Khanate, a political entity created in Nagorno Karabakh in 1752 by Turkic-speaking nomads from the plains of Central Iran, emerged on the political map of the Southeastern Caucasus. While the Karabakh Khanate was a phenomenon that flashed briefly in the two-thousand-year-old history of Armenian rule in Artsakh, leaving little trace of material culture, it is still remembered by Artsakh’s inhabitants with bitterness and resentment, as a self-imposed parasitic formation that used to prey on the native population of the region. The chieftains of the Karabakh Khanate were liquidated together with their fiefdom in the course of the Russian military campaigns in the Caucasus, in 1805, never managing to assert direct authority over the demographically preponderant

contemporary Azeris, or were, much like the Hyeroum (or Airum) nomads of northwestern Azerbaijan, the descendantsof the previously islamized Greek-Orthodox (Chalcedonite) Armenians.Similarly to the case of Nagorno Karabakh, the regions of Kosovo and Metohija were an important part of the older Serbian kingdom, which peaked in the 14th century. It is also the area where the most significant Serbian religious and cultural centers are located, including the historical Patriarchate of Pec — the Serbian analogue of Amaras — and the battlefield of Kosovo Polje. But while the Serbs in Kosovo became a demographic minority, the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh preserved their numerical preponderance, comprising, according to the 1989 census, 77% of the entire population. Armenians, however, also suffered a demographic decline compared to the situation in 1928, when they constituted 95% of the entire population within the borders of their autonomous region.[20] At the same time, as a result of the Azeri government's policy of ethno-demographic aggression directed against Nagorno Karabakh, the number of ethnic Azeri migrants in the region boomed, from 3% in 1923 to 25% in 1988. As for the Serbs, in 1989 they constituted slightly more than one-tenth of the entire population of the Autonomous Region of Kosovo.