Kirovabad pogrom

The Kirovabad pogrom was an Azeri-led pogrom that targeted Armenians living in the city of Kirovabad (today called Ganja) in Soviet Azerbaijan during November 1988. [Ethnic Fears and Ethnic War in Karabagh Article - Scholar - SJ Kaufman] [Armenia in Crisis: The 1988 Earthquake By Verluise] [cite book | title = Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia | uear = 2004 | pages = Page 131 | author = Imogen Gladman | publisher = Taylor & Francis Group ]

The Kirovabad pogrom was succeed by the appearing of extremist slogans like "Glory to the heroes of Sumgait" [ [http://poli.vub.ac.be/publi/ContBorders/eng/ch0102.htm Contested borders in the Caucasus. Ethnic Conflicts in the Caucasus 1988-1994, Chapter 1, by Alexei Zverev] ] . An unidentified Armenian press editor said the commander of the Soviet troops asked the Interior Ministry in Moscow for permission to evacuate some of the city's Armenian population of 100,000.cite news
title = Soviets Ask Halt In Ethnic Unrest In 2 Republics
publisher = The New York Times
date = 1988-11-25
page = A1
url = http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE5D7113EF936A15752C1A96E948260
accessdate = 2007-06-08 ] However, attempts by Soviet troops to defend Armenians during the pogrom were to no avail. [Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War By Stuart J. Kaufman - Page 77] The conflict intensified in the fall of 1988, as the Armenians of Kirovabad and the surrounding countryside were driven from their homes and forced to seek haven in Armenia. From Richard G. Hovannisian, “Etiology and Sequelae of the Armenian Genocide,” In George J. Andreopoulos1 (ed.), Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994, pp. 111-140.]

On November 23, an attempt of pogrom against the building of the city's Executive committee took place. During the clashes between the aggressive crowd and the armed forces who tried to keep the order and to defend the Armenian citizens three soldiers were killed, and 67 people were wounded. Hooligans burned down and damaged the military machines. [ [http://glory.rin.ru/cgi-bin/article.pl?id=405&page=2&lb=1 Армяно-азербайджанский (Карабахский) вооруженный конфликт (1988-1994 гг.)] ]

At the time, Soviet human rights activist Andrei Sakharov, in Massachusetts during the unrest, said he had received reports from the Soviet Union that more than 130 Armenians were killed and more than 200 wounded in the violence. [cite news
title = 130 Died, Sakharov Says
publisher = The New York Times
date = 1988-11-26
page = 6
url = http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE5D91239F935A15752C1A96E948260
accessdate = 2007-06-08 ] In 1990, Yuri Rost Yuri Rost, "Armenian Tragedy", London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1990, p. 82.] mentions forty deaths, one third of whom were ethnic Azeris killed in clashes with the Soviet troops, however in the same year Sakharov admitted in his memoirs that releasing the figures about the numbers of Armenian causalities was a deplorable mistake. He writes [ru icon [http://orel.rsl.ru/nettext/russian/saharov/sach_fr/gorkiy4_1.htm Memoirs of Andrei Sakharov] ] :

According to the high ranked KGB officers who were involved in these events, pogroms and violence were prevented due to the efforts of the Soviet army and local authorities, and there were no casualties among the civil population. [ru icon [http://www.trud.ru/trud.php?id=200102010200801 Trud. 10 points on Politburo scale] ]

References

See also

* Sumgait pogrom
* Khojaly Massacre
* Maraghar Massacre
* Nagorno-Karabakh War
* Anti-Armenianism

External links

* [http://www.hayastan.com/armenia/history/armenia/index12.php Pogroms in Kirovabad - MIATSUM]