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Lachin

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For other places with the same name, see Lachin (disambiguation) and Laçın (disambiguation).

Lachin / Berdzor

Laçın / Բերձոր
Berdzor060.JPG
Lachin / Berdzor is located in Azerbaijan
Lachin / Berdzor
Lachin / Berdzor
Coordinates: 39°38′27″N 46°32′49″E / 39.64083°N 46.54694°E / 39.64083; 46.54694Coordinates: 39°38′27″N 46°32′49″E / 39.64083°N 46.54694°E / 39.64083; 46.54694
Country Azerbaijan (de jure)
 Artsakh (de facto)[disputed – discuss]
DistrictLachin (de jure)
ProvinceKashatagh (de facto)[disputed – discuss]
Government
 • MayorNarek Alexanyan[1] (de facto)
Population
 (2021)[2]
 • Total100−120
Time zoneUTC+4 (AZT)

Lachin (Azerbaijani: Laçın, About this sound(listen), lit. 'falcon'; Kurdish: Laçîn‎) or Berdzor (Armenian: Բերձոր) is a town within the strategic Lachin corridor, which connects Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, and is under the supervision of the Russian peacekeeping force following the ceasefire agreement, ending the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. The town is the de jure centre of the Lachin District of Azerbaijan, and it was under the de facto occupation of the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh since 1992, administrated as part of its Kashatagh Province.[3]

History

Early history

Cuneiform inscriptions dating back to the Urartian period have been found in the caves surrounding the town.[4] The area was first mentioned by Armenian sources as Berdadzor (Armenian: Բերդաձոր), a canton of the historic Artsakh province of Greater Armenia;[5][6] it was alternatively transcribed as Beradzor, Berdzor, or Berdzork.[7] The reputed author Movses Kaghankatvatsi mentions a so-called Berdzor horse purportedly indigenous to the region, as does Makar Barkhudaryan, an Apostolic bishop, traveler, polymath, and ethnographer from Shusha.[8] During the medieval period, the town Berdzor was mentioned as being a part of the Artsakh province within the domain of the Armenian Bagratid Kingdom.[9]

Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu's private secretary Shihab ad-Din an-Nasawi referred to the settlement as both Berdadzor and a new name, Kaladara.[10]

Berdzor had its own local Meliks during the 15th-17th centuries and fell under the jurisdiction of the Armenian Melikdom of Kashatagh.[11] The Armenian settlement of Berdzor was eventually abandoned. Following the displacement of the Armenian population, the area was then repopulated with Kurdish tribes.[12] The modern settlement was built using the stones from the ancient Armenian settlement.[13]

The town was formerly also known as Abdallar, named after the Turkic Abdal tribe. In 1914, Abdallar was a small relatively insignificant village of about 124 Turkic-speaking Kurds.[14] It was granted town status in 1923 and then renamed Lachin (a Turkic first name meaning falcon) in 1926.[15][16]

In the early 1920s, Vladimir Lenin's letter to Nariman Narimanov "had implied that Lachin was to be included in Azerbaijan, but the authorities in Baku and Yerevan were given promises that were inevitably contradictory."[17]

Red Kurdistan

Main article: Kurdistansky Uyezd

The town of Lachin on 7 July 1923 became the administrative centre of Kurdistansky Uyezd of Azerbaijan SSR, often known as Red Kurdistan before it was moved to Shusha.[18] It was dissolved on 8 April 1929: Kurdish schools and newspapers were closed.[19]

On 30 May 1930, the Kurdistan Okrug replaced the uyezd. It included the territory of the former Kurdistansky uyezd, as well as Zangilansky District and a part of Dzhebrailsky District. The okrug, like the uyezd before it, was founded to appeal to Kurds beyond Soviet borders in Iran and Turkey, but the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs would ultimately protest this policy due to its negative effect on relations with Turkey and Iran. Due to these concerns, the okrug was abolished less than a month after its foundation, on 23 July 1930.[20]

In the late 1930s, Soviet authorities deported most of the local Kurdish population as well as much of the Kurds elsewhere in Azerbaijan and Armenia to Kazakhstan.[21]

To its Kurdish population, the city was known as Laçîn.[22][23]

First Nagorno-Karabakh War

Town of Lachin and the surrounding district were the locations of severe fighting during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1990–1994, and the town has not wholly recovered from the destruction of that war.[24] Lachin has significant importance because of the Lachin corridor, which links Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh.[25]

Following the city's capture by Armenian forces, it was burned down[26] and all of its original 7,800 Azerbaijani and Kurdish populations became internally displaced people as a result of forceful deportations.[27]

Armenian occupation

From 1992, Lachin was administrated by the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh as part of its Kashatagh Province. Artsakh repopulated the city by attracting ethnic Armenians from Armenia and Lebanon.[27][26]

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs had noted that "Lachin has been treated as a separate case in previous negotiations." The Lachin corridor and the Kalbajar district had been at the centre of Armenian demands during the Nagorno-Karabakh peace talks with Azerbaijan.[28]

On 16 June 2015 European Court of Human Rights passed a judgement in the case of "Chiragov and Others v. Armenia", which concerned the complaints by six Azerbaijani ethnically-Kurdish refugees that they were unable to return to their homes and property in the district of Lachin, in Azerbaijan, from where they had been forced to flee in 1992 during the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. The Court confirmed that Armenia exercised effective control over Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding territories and thus had de facto jurisdiction over the district of Lachin, however, the Court also found that the denial by the Armenian Government of access to the applicants’ homes constituted an unjustified interference with their right to respect for their private and family lives as well as their homes.[29]

2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war

Following the ceasefire agreement ending the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, the Lachin District was set to be returned to Azerbaijan on 1 December, with Russian peacekeepers securing the Lachin corridor which passes through the town.[3] However, the unclear and unstable situation in the region have caused many Armenians to evacuate from the city.[26]

The Artsakh mayor of Lachin, Narek Aleksanyan, first called on the ethnic Armenian population of the town to evacuate. However, later Aleksanyan stated that the agreement had been changed and that Lachin, Sus, and Zabux which are located inside the Lachin corridor would not be handed over to Azerbaijan, urging the Armenian population to stay in their homes. Despite Aleksanyan's calls, the vast majority of Armenians in Lachin, as well as Lebanese-Armenians in Zabux fled the region.[30][1]

Azerbaijani MP Zahid Oruj, the chairman of the Center for Social Research, which is linked to the Azerbaijani government, denied that the Lachin district would not be handed over in its entirety.[30]

On December 1, Azerbaijani forces, with tanks and a column of trucks, entered the district,[31] and the Azerbaijani MoD released footage from the Lachin district.[32] On December 3, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence released video footage from the town of Lachin.[33]

Following the ceasefire, only around 200 Armenians remained in the Lachin corridor, with 100-120 of them being in Lachin.[2]

According to the Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev, a new corridor will be built in the region as the Lachin corridor passes through the city of Lachin, and when this corridor is ready, the city will be returned to the Azerbaijani administration.[34]

Demographics

Year Population Ethnic groups Source
1914 124 100% Kurds Caucasian Calendar[14]
1926 435 37.7% Turks (now Azerbaijanis), 25.3% Kurds, 15.2% Armenians, 13.1% Russians Soviet census[35]
1939 1,063 80.7% Azerbaijani, 11.6% Armenians, 6.4% Russians Soviet census[36]
1959 2,329 94.5% Azerbaijani, 4.3% Armenians 1% Russians Soviet census[37]
1970 4,990 95% Azerbaijani, 2.7% Russians & Ukrainians, 1.1% Armenians Soviet census[38]
1979 6,073 99.1% Azerbaijani Soviet census[39]
1989 7,829 Soviet census[40]
2005 2,190 ~100% Armenians NKR census[41]
2015 1,900 ~100% Armenians NKR estimate[42]
2021 100-120 ~100% Armenians

Terrain

The town is scenically built on the side of a mountain on the left bank of the river Hakari.[43]

Twin cities

Lachin is twinned with:

Gallery

  • View of the town

  • Former WW2 memorial turned into Nagorno-Karabakh conflict memorial

  • Playground in the town

  • View of part of Lachin

  • Road in Lachin

  • Building of Armenian mobile operator company

  • Holy Ascension Church in Berdzor opened in 1998.

References

Notes

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1036360/D090D180D0BCD0B5D0BDD0BFD180D0B5D181D181
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b Sara Petrosyan (February 22, 2021). "Փոքրաթիվ հայեր դեռևս բնակվում են Քաշաթաղում, բայց դա ռուսների քմահաճույքով է պայմանավորված". hetq.am. Hetq. Retrieved February 23, 2021.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b "Rusiya Müdafiə Nazirliyi: Laçın dəhlizində hərəkətə sülhməramlılar nəzarət edir". BBC Azerbaijani Service (in Azerbaijani). December 1, 2020. Retrieved December 1, 2020.
  4. ^ A.E. Movsisyan (2016). "Damaged Cuneiform Inscription of Berdzor Cave". Спелеология и спелестология (in Russian). Yerevan State University (7): 248–249.
  5. ^ Hewsen. Armenia, pp. 100–103.
  6. ^ Մեծ Հայքի վարչական բաժանումը
  7. ^ The Dictionary of the toponyms of Armenia and the adjacent regions, Volume 3, Yerevan State University, YSU Publishing House, Yerevan, 1988, p. 665.
  8. ^ Barkhudaryan, Makar (1895). Aghuanitsʻ erkir ew dratsʻikʻ ; Artsʻakh. Baku: Gandzasar Astuatsabanakan Kentron. ISBN 99930-70-01-7. OCLC 44548270.
  9. ^ Minorsky, Vladimir (1953). "Caucasica IV" (PDF). Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. London: Cambridge University Press. 15 (3): 504–529. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00111462. JSTOR 608652.
  10. ^ Шихаб ад-дин ан-Насави. Сират ас-султан Джалал ад-Дин Манкбурны (ЖИЗНЕОПИСАНИЕ СУЛТАНА ДЖАЛАЛ АД-ДИНА МАНКБУРНЫ), М. 1996, стр. 270
  11. ^ Карагезян А. К локализации гавара Кашатаг // Вестн. обществ. наук АН АрмССР. 1987. № 1. С. 44—45.
  12. ^ Шнирельман В.А. Войны памяти: мифы, идентичность и политика в Закавказье. — ИКЦ «Академкнига», 2002. — С. 199. — ISBN 5-94628-118-6
  13. ^ Karapetyan, Samvel (2001). "Berdzor (Lachin)". Armenian Cultural Monuments in the Region of Karabakh (PDF). "Gitutiun" Publishing House of NAS RA. p. 169. ISBN 5-8080-0468-3.
  14. ^ Jump up to: a b “The Caucasian Calendar for 1915” Tblisi: 1914, p.82 (in Russian)
  15. ^ "ЛАЧИН". dic.academic.ru.
  16. ^ Pospelov, p. 23
  17. ^ Alexandre Bennigsen and S. Enders Wimbush. Muslims of the Soviet Empire. C. Hurst & Co Publishers, 1986, pp. 202, 286. ISBN 1-85065-009-8.
  18. ^ McDowall, David. A Modern History of the Kurds, 3rd. ed. London: I.B. Tauris, 2004, p. 492.
  19. ^ Catherine Cosman, "Soviet Kurds Face Loss of Their Identity," New York Times, May 13, 1991/June 2, 1991.
  20. ^ (in Russian) Партизаны на поводке.
  21. ^ (in Russian) Russia and the problem of Kurds Archived February 12, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  22. ^ Leezenberg, Michiel (2014). Soviet Orientalism and Subaltern Linguistics: The Rise and Fall of Marr's Japhetic Theory. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. p. 107.
  23. ^ "DAĞLIK KARABAĞ – Kürt'ün evine turist olarak bile gidemediği yer..." www.rudaw.net. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  24. ^ "Азербайджан взял под контроль Лачин спустя 28 лет". Caucasian Knot (in Russian). December 1, 2020. Retrieved December 1, 2020.
  25. ^ "Azerbaijani troops enter Lachin district in Nagorno-Karabakh". TASS. November 30, 2020. Retrieved December 1, 2020.
  26. ^ Jump up to: a b c Vendik, Yuri (November 17, 2020). "Армяне оставляют Лачин, несмотря на конец войны в Карабахе и прибытие российских миротворцев". BBC Russian Service (in Russian). Retrieved December 1, 2020.
  27. ^ Jump up to: a b "Laçın – məğrur rayonun hekayəsi". BBC Azerbaijani Service (in Azerbaijani). December 1, 2020. Retrieved December 1, 2020.
  28. ^ CountryWatch - Interesting Facts Of The World Archived September 28, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  29. ^ Press release issued by the Registrar of the Court. "Azerbaijani refugees' rights violated by lack of access to their property located in district controlled by Armenia". European Court of Human Rights. Retrieved June 21, 2015.
  30. ^ Jump up to: a b "Laçın şəhəri ermənilərdəmi qalır? Ermənilərə belə deyilib, amma onlar şəhəri tərk edir". BBC Azerbaijani Service (in Azerbaijani). November 30, 2020. Retrieved December 1, 2020.
  31. ^ "Azerbaijani Forces Enter Third District Under Nagorno-Karabakh Truce". RFERL.org. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. December 1, 2020.
  32. ^ "Azərbaycan Müdafiə Nazirliyi Laçında dövlət bayrağının asılması barədə video yayıb". BBC Azerbaijani Service (in Azerbaijani). December 1, 2020. Retrieved December 1, 2020.
  33. ^ "Laçın şəhərinin videogörüntüləri".
  34. ^ "İlham Əliyev: "Yeni dəhliz hazır olandan sonra Laçın şəhəri bizə qaytarılacaq"". BBC Azerbaijani Service (in Azerbaijani). December 1, 2020. Retrieved December 4, 2020.
  35. ^ "Курдистанский уезд 1926". www.ethno-kavkaz.narod.ru.
  36. ^ "Лачинский район 1939". www.ethno-kavkaz.narod.ru.
  37. ^ "Лачинский район 1959". www.ethno-kavkaz.narod.ru.
  38. ^ "Лачинский район 1970". www.ethno-kavkaz.narod.ru.
  39. ^ "Лачинский район 1979". www.ethno-kavkaz.narod.ru.
  40. ^ "Демоскоп Weekly - Приложение. Справочник статистических показателей". demoscope.ru.
  41. ^ http://census.stat-nkr.am/nkr/1-1.pdf
  42. ^ "Urban communities of the NKR" (PDF). stat-nkr.am. National Statistical Service of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. January 1, 2015. p. 13.
  43. ^ Лачин, Great Soviet Encyclopedia
  44. ^ "Azerbaijan Protests California Town’s Recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh." RIA Novosti. December 6, 2013.

Bibliography

  • Е. М. Поспелов (Ye. M. Pospelov). "Имена городов: вчера и сегодня (1917–1992). Топонимический словарь." (City Names: Yesterday and Today (1917–1992). Toponymic Dictionary." Москва, "Русские словари", 1993.

External links

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