Anti-Armenian sentiment in Azerbaijan
Anti-Armenian sentiment or Armenophobia is widespread in Azerbaijan,[9] mainly due to the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.[10] According to the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), Armenians are "the most vulnerable group in Azerbaijan in the field of racism and racial discrimination."[11] A 2012 opinion poll found that 91% of Azerbaijanis perceive Armenia as "the biggest enemy of Azerbaijan."[12] The word "Armenian" (erməni) is widely used as an insult in Azerbaijan.[13] Stereotypical opinions circulating in the mass media have their deep roots in the public consciousness.[14]
Throughout the 20th century, Armenian and the Turkic-speaking Muslim (Shia and Sunni; then known as "Caucasian Tatars" , later as Azerbaijanis)[a] inhabitants of Transcaucasia have been involved in numerous conflicts. Pogroms, massacres and wars solidified oppositional ethnic identities between the two groups, and have contributed to the development of national consciousnesses among both Armenians and Azerbaijanis.[16] From 1918 to 1920, organized killings of Armenians occurred in Azerbaijan, especially in the Armenian cultural centers in Baku and Shusha.[17]
Contemporary Armenophobia in Azerbaijan traces its roots to the last years of the Soviet Union, when Armenians demanded that the Soviet authorities transfer the mostly Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) in the Azerbaijan SSR to the Armenian SSR.[18] In response to these demands, anti-Armenian rallies were held in various cities, where Azeri nationalist groups incited anti-Armenian sentiments that led to pogroms in Sumgait, Kirovabad and Baku. From 1988 through 1990, an estimated 300,000-350,000 Armenians either fled under threat of violence or were deported from Azerbaijan, and roughly 167,000 Azerbaijanis were forced to flee Armenia, often under violent circumstances.[19] The rising tensions between the two nations eventually escalated into a large-scale military conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh,[1] in which Azerbaijan lost control over around 14%[20] of the country's territory to the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.[18] Ever-increasing tensions over the loss of the territory, which sparked more anti-Armenian sentiment.[11]
The Armenian side has accused the Azerbaijani government of carrying out anti-Armenian policy inside and outside the country, which includes propaganda of hate toward Armenia and Armenians and the destruction of Armenian cultural heritage.[21][22][23] According to Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of the journal Russia in Global Affairs, "Armenophobia is the institutional part of the modern Azerbaijani statehood and Karabakh is in the center of it".[24] In 2011, the ECRI report on Azerbaijan stated that "the constant negative official and media discourse" against Armenia fosters "a negative climate of opinion regarding people of Armenian origin, who remain vulnerable to discrimination."[25] According to historian Jeremy Smith, "National identity in post-Soviet Azerbaijan rests in large part, then, on the cult of the Alievs, alongside a sense of embattlement and victimisation and a virulent hatred of Armenia and Armenians".[26][27]
There have been numerous cases of anti-Armenianism in Azerbaijan throughout history. Between 1905 and 1907, the Armenian–Tatar massacres resulted in the deaths of thousands of Armenians and Azerbaijanis. According to historian Firuz Kazemzadeh, writing in 1951: "it is impossible to pin the blame for the massacres on either side. It seems that in some cases (Baku, Elizavetpol) the Azerbaijanis fired the first shots, in other cases (Shusha, Tiflis) the Armenians."[28]
(1918, 1990)
