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Nagorno
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The name Nagorno-Karabakh is a relatively recent combination of the Russian word Nagorno, meaning mountainous, and the Turkic-Persian word Karabakh, meaning black garden. The de-facto authorities of Nagorno Karabakh (hereinafter: N-K) as well as most Armenian sources use the historical name of the region: Artsakh, meaning strong forest. The origin of both names seems to be linked to geographical features: elevation, cooler climate and, in ancient times, forests rich in game and fruit.
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Nagorno Karabakh is a small tight-knit community where people know each other or about each other. They view themselves as having already achieved de facto independence. Their overriding goal is to secure their independence through international recognition. This contributes to a strong feeling of national unity and the perceived need to project this unity to outsiders, which tends to mute criticism and submerge other social and economic issues.
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The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh has surprising similarities to the dispute between Israel and Palestine, and equally disturbing strategic implications. The region provides a toxic mixture, combining oil, Islamic fundamentalism, old-fashioned cold-war alliances, a religious holocaust, claims of genocide and an irredentist movement by ethnic Armenians, stranded on a Christian island, in an Islamic sea. Azerbaijan claims Nagorno-Karabakh (N-K) is an integral part of Azerbaijan, Armenia has declared N-K part of Armenia and N-K has declared independence from all. Meanwhile, Russia, Turkey, Iran and the U.S. lurk in the background, supplying financial and military backing in pursuit of their own national agendas.
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Nagorno-Karabakh has a population of 130,000; virtually all the people are Christian Armenians. The largest city is the capital, Xankändi (known as Khankendy before 1923, and Stepanakert from 1923 to 1991), located roughly in the center of the region.
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The cases of Kosovo and Nagorno Karabakh ... differ due to the presence or absence of legislative acts by their respective federations, which stipulated the legal order of secession of autonomies from their union republics. In the case of Nagorno Karabakh, the legal acts of the Soviet Union in the pre-disintegration period played a key role in the political transformation of the status of the former Soviet autonomy in Karabakh. In 1990, the USSR Supreme Council adopted the "Law on the Resolution of Issues of Secession of Union Republics from the USSR" (later in the text — "Law on Secession").
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Beginning in 1988, the events in Nagorno Karabakh exposed the rotten structure of the Soviet Union which for seventy years had suppressed numerous domestic inconsistencies and conflicts. The policy of glasnost and perestroika unleashed the grievances and injustices accumulated during the seventy years of Soviet power, while the national revolutions in Eastern Europe showed that the Communist regime could be successfully replaced. In 1989, it became obvious that at least some of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union – the Baltic States, Georgia, and Armenia – would soon push for national independence. Azerbaijan, on the other hand, continued to be ruled by a pro-Moscow Communist regime.
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