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Nagorno-Karabakh
A region in the southern Caucasus, formally a
part of the republic of Azerbaijan, but with an
Armenian majority, that in 1988 erupted as the
first flashpoint of the ethnic conflict that would
mark the final years of the Soviet Union. An
independent khanate in the 18th century,
Nagorno-Karabakh became part of the Russian
Empire in 1828. By the time of the Russian Rev-
olution of 1917, the region's population was
about 75 percent Armenian. In 1923, at the cre-
ation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,
Nagorno-Karabakh was given the status of an
Autonomous Region and placed under Azerbai-
jani control. Further territorial changes in 1930
isolated Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia, leav-
ing it entirely within the borders of Azerbaijan.
In February 1988, inspired by Mikhail
GOR
-
BACHEV
's reformist rhetoric, Armenians in the
Karabakh region began a series of demonstrations
requesting to be united with the Armenian S.S.R.
When the Soviet government offered to hold
high-level discussions about the region's status,
thousands of demonstrators in the Armenian cap-
ital of Yerevan marched in solidarity with the
Karabakh Armenians. As the Soviet government
hesitated, the demonstrations in Yerevan grew in
frequency while the number of demonstrators
reached the hundreds of thousands. The Azerbai-
janis responded in kind to a perceived threat to
the integrity of their republic, but on February
28-29, 1988, at Sumgait, an industrial town north
of Baku, events took an ugly turn, leading to
attacks on the town's Armenian population and
the deaths of more than 30 people. As the crisis
became more intractable, the possibility of a com-
promise disappeared and the Soviet government
placed Nagorno-Karabakh under direct presiden-
tial rule from July 1988 to November 1989. But
this also failed to solve the crisis. The discontent of
both Armenians and Azerbaijanis with the
Nagorno-Karabakh situation gave voice to both
Armenian and Azerbaijani nationalist demands in
the final two years of the Soviet Union.
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in
December 1991, the region declared its indepen-
dence and sought to join the now independent
republic of Armenia. War broke out between
Armenia and Azerbaijan, and by 1994 the
Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians had seized con-
trol of most of the region's territory to the west,
linking up with Armenia. By the time a cease-fire
agreement was negotiated later that year, about
15,000 people had been killed in the conflict and
over 1 million had been displaced from their
homes.
Nakhimov, Pavel Stepanovich
(1802-1855)
admiral
The commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet
during the
CRIMEAN WAR
, Nakhimov distin-
guished himself for his heroism during the
unsuccessful defense of
SEVASTOPOL
, during
which he was killed. Prior to his service in the
Crimean War, Nakhimov had circumnavigated
the world in 1822-24. As commander of the
Black Sea Fleet, however, he gained notoriety in
the West as the officer behind the destruction of
a Turkish flotilla at Sinop in 1853, soon after the
Ottoman Empire had declared war on Russia in
October 1853. Nakhimov's destruction of the
Turkish flotilla, which was anchored at the time
of the attack, was denounced by the British in
particular as a massacre and an atrocity. It con-
tributed to turning a Russo-Turkish conflict into a
broader one that brought Great Britain, France,
and Sardinia to declare war on Russia. Together
with admirals V. A.
KORNILOV
and V. I. Istomin
and General E. I. Totleben, a talented military
engineer, Nakhimov led the resistance of 18,000
Russians, mostly sailors, to the siege of the naval
base of Sevastopol begun in September 1854, the
centerpiece of the allied campaign in the Crimea.
Of the four, only Totleben survived, although he
was seriously wounded. Nakhimov took over the
command after Kornilov and Istomin had per-
ished, but he too was killed in July 1855. The
siege continued until September 1855, when
after one year of bombardment, the allied troops
finally broke through the city's defenses.
In 1944, as part of its campaign to rehabilitate
czarist military officers such as
SUVOROV
and
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