The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) was an autonomous oblast within the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic that was created on July 7, 1923. Its capital was the city of Stepanakert. The leader of the oblast was the First Secretary of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan. The majority of the population were ethnic Armenians.
History
The area was disputed between Armenia and Azerbaijan during their short-lived independence from 1918 and 1920. After the Sovietization of Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Kavbiuro organisation decided to keep the area within the Azerbaijan SSR whilst granting it broad regional autonomy. Initially, the principal city of Karabakh, Shusha, and its surrounding villages were to be excluded from the autonomy as they were predominantly Azerbaijani, particularly after the massacre and expulsion of the majority Armenian population of Shusha—this decision was later reversed in 1923 when Shusha was decided to join the NKAO despite protests from Muslim villages who favoured its inclusion into the Kurdistan uezd instead.
On July 7, 1923, Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast was created and the capital was moved to Stepanakert. At the time of its formation, its area was . According to the 1926 census, the population of the region was 125,200 people, among whom the Armenians accounted for 89.2 percent. However, by 1989, the share of Armenians dropped to 76.9 percent of the population of the autonomous region. Reasons for this include the policy of Soviet Azerbaijani authorities to settle Azerbaijanis in the region and some out-migration of Karabakh Armenians, as well as the generally higher birthrate among Azerbaijanis than among Armenians.
Although the question of Nagorno-Karabakh's status did not become a major public issue until the mid-1980s, Armenian intellectuals, Soviet Armenian and Karabakh Armenian leadership periodically made appeals to Moscow for the region's transfer to Soviet Armenia. In 1945, the leader of Soviet Armenia Grigory Arutinov appealed to Stalin to attach the region to Soviet Armenia, which was rejected. In 1965, thirteen Karabakh Armenian party officials wrote to Soviet leadership with their grievances about the attitude of Soviet Azerbaijani officials towards the NKAO. Many of these Karabakh Armenian officials were dismissed or moved to Armenia. The rise of Heydar Aliyev to the leadership of the Azerbaijani SSR in 1969 saw increasing attempts to tighten Baku's control over the autonomous region. In 1973–74 Aliyev purged the entire leadership of the NKAO, who were regarded as Armenian nationalists. He appointed Boris Kevorkov, an Armenian from outside Karabakh, as the First Secretary of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan.
In 1977, the prominent Armenian author Sero Khanzadyan wrote an open letter to Leonid Brezhnev calling for Nagorno-Karabakh's annexation to Soviet Armenia.
Administrative divisions
There were five administrative divisions or raions in the NKAO :
Mardakert District (NKAO) Martuni District (NKAO) Shusha District (NKAO) Askeran District (NKAO) Hadrut District (NKAO)
Demographics
Abolition
A conflict between the Armenians in the oblast and the government of the Azerbaijan SSR broke out in 1987. The fighting escalated into the First Nagorno-Karabakh War by the end of 1991. On 26 November 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan Republic abolished the autonomous status of the oblast. Its internal administrative divisions were also abolished, and its territory was split up and redistributed amongst the neighbouring administrative rayons of Khojavend, Tartar, Goranboy, Shusha, and Kalbajar. In response, the majority Armenian population of the oblast declared their independence as the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic which was supported by Armenia.
See also
Nagorno-Karabakh
Karabakh
Notes
External links
Law of the Azerbaijan Republic of November 26, 1991 No. 279-XII About abolition of the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region of the Azerbaijan Republic