Despite the genocide of Azerbaijanis in Armenia in 1918-1920, mass repressions and deportations in 1930-1938, Azerbaijanis still lived along the borders of Armenia, Turkey and Iran, as well as Azerbaijan and Georgia.
Mass deportation of Azerbaijanis from the historical and ethnic lands of the Armenian SSR in 1948-1953 became the next stage in the policy of Armenians and their supporters to take advantage of the domination of the Soviet Union at the end of the Second World War.
On May 15, 1945, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia G. Arutinov sent a letter to the chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR I. Stalin with a request to make a decision on the “return” of Armenians living abroad to Soviet Armenia. On June 6, Stalin had meeting with Arutinov in the Kremlin. G. Arutinov presents I. Stalin a letter on the restoration of borders with Turkey in accordance with the situation in 1914.
At the next meeting of Arutinov and Stalin on October 27, Stalin told him that the territorial claims of the Soviet government against Turkey were still on the agenda. G. Arutinov claimed to Stalin that more than 300,000 Armenians gave their lives for the Soviet power, but primarily to eliminate the “existing injustice,” namely to unite the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region with Armenia.
On November 21, 1945, the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR signed a decree “On measures for the return of Armenians from abroad to Soviet Armenia.” A week later, the second secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, G. Malenkov, sent a petition to the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan M. Bagirov, on the inclusion of Nagorno-Karabakh in Soviet Armenia. After a harsh reply letter from M. Bagirov, the issue was closed and instead the question of deporting Azerbaijanis from Armenia arose.
In accordance with the decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of October 19, 1946, Armenians “repatriated” to Armenia from abroad received the status of citizens of the USSR from the moment they entered the territory of the Soviet Union. In 1946-1949, 96,000 Armenians were resettled in Armenia from other countries, many of whom settled in Yerevan, mainly in the suburbs of Nor Aresh, Olive, Nor Cilicia.
On December 23, 1947, the Council of Ministers of the USSR signed a decree “On the resettlement of collective farmers and other Azerbaijanis from the Armenian SSR to the Kur-Araz lowland of the Azerbaijan SSR.” The decree indicated that 100,000 collective farmers and other Azerbaijanis who lived in the Armenian SSR in 1948-1950 were to be resettled in the Kura-Araz lowland of the Azerbaijan SSR on a voluntary basis. The first paragraph provided for the resettlement of 10,000 people in 1948, 40,000 in 1949 and 50,000 in 1950. Paragraph 11 stated that the Council of Ministers of the Armenian SSR should be allowed to use buildings and houses vacated by the Azerbaijani population in connection with the resettlement of the Azerbaijani population in the Kura-Araz lowland of the Azerbaijan SSR to accommodate Armenians arriving in Armenia from abroad.
The decisions of the USSR government to resettle Azerbaijanis gave the Armenian government the opportunity to relocate existing Azerbaijani settlements around Yerevan and along the external borders of Armenia. Representatives of the Armenian government spread various rumors in order to prepare psychologically the Azerbaijani population for resettlement. In a letter addressed to M.K.Bagirov on May 3, 1948, by the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Armenian SSR, Major General Kh. Grigoryan “Certificate of the mood of the Azerbaijani population of Armenia in connection with the forthcoming resettlement to the Azerbaijan SSR”, not only the discontent of the population, but also the words of the Armenians were reflected who were interested in joining Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhchivan to Armenia.
The archival documents also contain the facts of the deportation of Azerbaijanis from the city of Yerevan. For example, 64 Azerbaijani families (253 people) were relocated from Yerevan in December 1948, and 400 families were to be relocated in 1949.
Out of 81,010 families resettled from Armenia in 1948-1950, only 3232 were provided with housing. In 1950, it was decided to build 3,500 houses for the resettled, but only 470 houses were built. Only 1,488 families were provided with homesteads. Although it was planned to build 5,000 houses in 1951, a total of 3,074 houses were built and commissioned. In 1952, it was planned to move 600 farms from the Armenian SSR to the Kur-Araz lowland, and the plan was exceeded (124.6 percent).
After the deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia, under the pretext of reducing the Azerbaijani population living there, the replacement of Azerbaijani personnel holding certain posts at the regional and national levels with Armenians began.
The first Azerbaijani secretaries of the party committees of the Karabakh, Vedinsky, Zangibasar and Krasnoselsky districts, as well as the second and third secretaries from 10 other regions were dismissed and replaced by Armenians. With the exception of the districts of Amasya, Basarkechar and Krasnoselo, Azerbaijani newspapers were closed in other areas. In 1949, the Yerevan State Azerbaijan Drama Theater named after J. Jabbarly was moved to the center of the Basarkeshar region, where Azerbaijanis did not live, and closed in 1952 due to lack of funding. Only in 1967 the Yerevan Theater resumed its activity in Yerevan.
Since 1937, the departments of education in the Azerbaijani language at the H. Abovyan Pedagogical Institute in Yerevan – linguistic, literary, historical, geographical, physical and mathematical faculties and faculties of the same name at the Armenian State Correspondence Pedagogical Institute were closed and transferred to the corresponding institutes in Azerbaijan in 1948. In 1924, the Yerevan Azerbaijan Pedagogical College was closed, and its faculties were moved to the center of the Khanlar district.
As a result of deportation in 1948-53, the Azerbaijani population of Yerevan was halved. In 1939, during the census, 6,569 Azerbaijanis were registered in Yerevan, and in 1959, 3,413 Azerbaijanis were registered (the census was not conducted in 1949).
Along with the deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia, an operation was carried out to rename settlements. In 1947-1953 alone, the names of more than 60 Azerbaijani settlements were borrowed by Armenians.
In order to provide a legal and political assessment of this situation, which is considered a historic crime against our people, and to convey it to the international community, On December 18, 1997, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev signed a decree “On the mass deportation of Azerbaijanis from historical and ethnic lands in the Armenian SSR.”
Nazim Mustafa,
Researcher at the Institute of History. A.A. Bakikhanov of ANAS
