The massive resettlement of the Armenians in the early 19th century in the Southern Caucasus and Azerbaijan became possible as a result of the victory of Russia in the Russo-Persian wars. Of course, the policy of resettling and patronizing the Armenians in the Caucasus was started by Peter the Great, and later by other Russian tsars continued this policy.

The Gulistan (October 12, 1813) and Turkmanchay (February 10, 1828) Treaties signed at the end of the two wars between Iran and Russia had also set tragic and horrible track on the history and fate of the Azerbaijani people. With two hundred years of occupation by the Russians, the North of Azerbaijan, mass and intense resettlement of Armenians in those lands, the history of spiritual and cultural terror against our people including its culture began.

Under the terms of Turkmenchay peace treaty, the Armenians living in Iran were provided with a right to move freely to the territory of Russia (in other words, to Azerbaijan). Thus, in reality, it paved the way for the resettlement of the Armenians in the Azerbaijani territories. So, the  Armenians were moved to Azerbaijan from Turkey, Iran, and they were mostly settled in the territories of the Nakhchivan, Irevan and Karabakh Khanates.

Russian poet, publicist and public figure V.L. Velichko also confirmed the mass influx, replacement and resettlement of the Armenians in the Azerbaijani lands in his notes: "In order to invite the Armenians, Paskevich sent his Colonel Lazarev to Persia. He told the Armenian churches to move to Iran and all the devout of a church followed them. Under the Adrianople Treaty, we received more than 100 000 Turkish Armenians. Only Etchmiadzin Archbishop Karapet led up 70 000 Armenians from Arzurum." Zori Balayan, an extremist Armenian writer, also confessed this in his book Hearth:

"If there were not the famous Turkmenchay Treaty of 1828, there wouldn't be hundreds of these newly established modern settlements and cities - Armenian hearths... Only in the last decade (in 60-70 years) more than 200 000 Armenians were moved to the homeland."

Diplomat and playwright A.S. Griboyedov also clanged a bell with similar anxiety:

"The Armenians with large units were settled in the lands of Muslim landlords." As Griboyedov stated "The immigrants are oppressing the Muslims who express their discontent."

Thus, because of mass replacements of local population- Turks were gradually forced to abandon their native lands; lands of Azerbaijani khanates (the Irevan and Karabakh Khanates) turned into the settlement of the Armenians, their 'homeland'.

 Relying on his researches conducted in Tbilisi archives, F. Valehoghlu writes: "After signing the Gulistan Treaty, that is, since the transfer of the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh under the rule of the Russian Empire, with the support of their Russian patrons the Armenians openly began their aggressive activities to oust the local Turks. In this regard, the right hand of Yermolov, Valerian Madatov, Armenian by origin, Russian prince and a lieutenant-general of the Russian Empire, the viceroy of the Caucasus, managing Karabakh, Shirvan and Sheki provinces played an role important.

After V. Madatov's death, in the archive document of 1830-31 titled "Appropriation of lands and villages by Madatov" it was reported that  Madatov had appropriated the estate of Mustafa Khan from Shirvan Khanate as soon as he escaped from Azerbaijan, as well as a letter of complaint by Mehdigulu Khan from Garabagh Khanate where he considered Prince Madatov as a perpetrator of his escape from the country and settling in Iran. It should also be noted that during Yermolov's ruling, Mehdigulu Khan was forced to donate Madatov his lands in 1819.

The Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1978 marked with the San Stefano Treaty once again raised the fictional "Armenian question". The Armenians masterfully used Article 61 of the contract concluded between Russia and the Western powers at the Berlin Congress-1878. The myth of "Great Armenia" turned to be a powerful weapon of ideological provocation against Turkey in the hands of the superpowers.

This short, slight but tragic, full of pain chronicle of our history does not show the magnitude of our huge losses and victims, but allows to imagine the whole picture of that time. It is regrettable to state that unlike the Armenians, we were not able to use these historical truths for our counter-propaganda in time.  

In 1905-1907, the Armenians with no less 'profitably'could benefit from the revolutionary situation in Russia. Armed Armenian gangs perpetrated massacres in Baku, Shusha, Irevan, Zangazur, Ordubad, Nakhchivan, Uchkilsa, Javanshir, Gazakh and other regions of Azerbaijan, expelling people from their homes.

In 1905-1906, the Armenians through incitement and intrigue, if you say it according to V. Mayevsky, a Russian diplomat, achieved the realization of one of the phase of the "Armenian question". So, they occupied hundreds of Turkic settlements and settled there; through persecution, killings and massacres they reduced the number of Azerbaijanis in those territories. Unfortunately, in Soviet times, historical sources, archives were not publicized, so we were not able to convey the truth to the world.

But the facts, testimonies confirming those bloody tragedies were reflected in the book by a prominent writer M.S.Ordubadi "Bloody years" and in the literary-publicistic works by a poet, musicologist M. M. Nevvab  'Armenian-Muslim war of 1905-1906'. 

In 1917, the Armenians, hiding behind the Bolshevik flag, could find an opportunity to realize their evil plans. The Baku Commune mostly consisted of the Armenians, headed by S. Shaumyan, and since March 1918 they had initiated a criminal eviction plan for Turks who inhabited the whole Baku province then.

Genocides in Baku, Shamakhy, Guba in 1918 left traces in the memory of the Azerbaijani people as a tragedy forever. Mirza Bala Mammadzadeh describes the enormity of those bloody days: "March 31, 1918. Today in Baku blood was spilt, houses were looted, our mothers and sisters were captivated. Today the population of Baku underwent genocide, bondage and sentence. 

Today the oil sources in the suburbs of Baku turned into blood flow. Today the Caspian Sea, washing the  coast of Baku turned into a sea of blood. Today the so-called shaumyans, sukhartsevs in order to kill aroused consciousness, self-respect of Turks turned to the Dashnak forces and procreated unforgettable bloody days. Only due to the fact that thousands of peaceful Azerbaijanis were of Turkic origin, they were killed and their houses were burnt. National architectural monuments, schools, hospitals, mosques and other buildings weren't protected from the Armenian wildness.

Launched with the blessing of Tsarist Russia, and then continued under the patronage of the Soviet-Bolshevik Russia policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Azerbaijani people were fruitful - the Armenian State was  established in 1918, as they say, the minimum program was fulfilled. At that point in time M.B. Mammadzade wrote that insidious policy had come from the North: "We have always observed: when our motherland faces danger from the North, the Armenians' passion flame."

The Armenians did not throw up their claims on Karabakh and Nakhchivan. At that time, the Acting Chairman of the Parliament of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic A. Topchibashev stated in connection with a completely baseless claim of the Armenians on Karabakh: "The Karabakh issue raised by the Armenians is not a matter of 5 or 10 villages. The dispute arose because of the whole 4 provinces - Shusha, Javanshir, Jabrail and Zangazur. This is the territory of such a khanate where the number of Armenians is not equal to the number of Muslims, but, in any case, the talk about the majority of the Armenians is also groundless, especially since they are not the local population of that place, and they are displaced persons that were moved here after the war with Russia... Finally, in Karabakh  itself Armenians do not live compactly, and they are settled among the Muslims.

 In his work  "Bloody years" M.S. Ordubadi described the reasons of this  Armenian-Russian cooperation as follows: "The first reason is that the Armenian Dashnaktsutyun Committee is such a despotic regime under whose authority a number of bloody spectacles were played in the Caucasus...

The second reason - indifference of relevant government officials during the war; due to the fear of the Armenian terror, they took one side and allowed all sorts of outrages against another one... Concerning the third reason - it is the illiteracy of the Muslims and their ignorance about what is going on around.  The fourth reason was the Armenians' desire for the autonomy; they wanted to be under the Armenian control. In order to prove these reasons, there's no need to be so clever, the Armenians' monthly visits to London, Paris, America are the best proof of that..."

The decrees of the Council of Ministers of the USSR dated  December 23, 1947, and March 10, 1948 "On the resettlement of the Azerbaijani collective farmers and other Azerbaijanis from the Armenian SSR in the Kura-Aras lowlands of the Azerbaijani SSR" signed by Stalin were another crime of the Soviet regime against the Azerbaijani people.  It was the Soviet authorities who deported Azerbaijanis from their ancestral lands in 1948-1953 and thereby mono-ethnic condition for the Armenians was created in the Armenian SSR. 

As a result of Armenian aggression started in 1988 in Nagorno-Karabakh and continuing nowadays, almost one million compatriots have been expelled from their homelands. Massacres perpetrated on January 20, 1990 in Baku and on February 26-27, 1992 in Khodjaly were the continuation of a national misfortune and genocide that had begun 200 years ago.

As a result of aggressive war, Armenia has violated the border of Azerbaijan for 360 km and has taken under its control the 198 km of the Azerbaijani-Iranian border from Horadiz settlement of Fizuli district to Zangilan district. As a result of Armenian aggression, 50 thousand Azerbaijanis living in 57 settlements of Nagorny Karabakh have been expelled from their lands. In addition, seven regions around Nagorno-Karabakh have been occupied.

Armenian aggressors had expelled from Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas up to 1 million Azerbaijani Turks who became refugees and internally displaced persons. During the war Armenia burnt and destroyed up to 890 towns, villages and settlements, 102 000 houses, 7000 thousand public buildings, 693 general education schools, 695 health facilities, auto-roads 800 km, 160 bridges, water pipes 23000 km, 156 000 hectares of arable land, 464 historical monuments and museums.

The President of the Azerbaijan Republic issued a decree on March 26, 1998 to commemorate March 31 as the Day of Azerbaijani Genocide.

Nigar Sultanly