The Caucasian Knot

The South Caucasus today is the site of major power rivalries for geostrategic position and access to labour, markets, and resources, most importantly oil and natural gas in the Caspian Basin. Yet the potential for mega-profits is stalled with the continued instability of the region and the failure to resolve numerous conflicts in the Caucasus region. At the heart of these conflicts rests Nagarno-Karabagh.

This territory, Artsakh to the Armenians, is a small historically Armenian enclave that was separated from Armenia by Stalin in the early 1920s and arbitrarily ceded to Turkic Azerbaijan. The large Armenian majority never reconciled itself to this denial of its self-determination, and struggles for unification with Armenia came to a head in 1988 with huge, unprecedented public demonstrations and general strikes.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Armenia and Azerbaijan went to war over Nagarno-Karabagh. Over 25,000 lives have been lost, and there are nearly a million unsettled Armenian and Azeri refugees from this conflict. Today, Armenian forces occupy nearly all of Nagarno-Karabagh, but there has been no final peace settlement to the Karabagh conflict. The future of the Karabagh Armenians, Armenia and Azerbaijan’s strategic options, the fate of the refugees, and the future of foreign investment all remain on hold.

This path breaking and now classic volume covers the history of Nagarno-Karabagh from the earliest pre-Christian records down through the early 1990s, and makes an irrefutable case for Nagarno-Karabagh as an Armenian land throughout recorded history. This is a detailed, thorough, and meticulously documented study.