“Stalin,” a man sitting next to me adds, “Stalin knew the Caucasus well. He was himself from the Caucasus, after all. He knew that a hundred nations live in these mountains, nations that have always waged wars against one another. It is a back alley of the world, quadruple locked: cut off by two seas, the Black and the Caspian, barricaded behind two towering mountain ranges. Who will come here? Who will have the courage to venture deep inland? Stalin knew how to add fuel to the fire. He knew that Nagorno-Karabakh will always be a bone of contention between Turks and Armenians. That is why he did not unite Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, but left our district in the middle of Azerbaijan, under the control of Baku. In this way Moscow assumed the position of the highest arbiter.”
“Despite the fact that we live so far from Paris and Rome,” says an older man from the end of the table, “we are part of Christian Europe, or — strictly speaking — its tail end. Let us look at the map. The western part of Europe ends with a distinct line of coasts — beyond that is the Atlantic. But in the East? Where should one draw the borders? In the East this isn’t at all clear. Here Europe melts away, thins out, dissipates. We have to adopt some kind of criterion. In my opinion, the criterion should not be geographical, but cultural. Europe extends to the easternmost place inhabited by people faithful to the ideals of Christianity. We, Armenians, are such a nation, the most southeasterly.”
“There are two lines of confrontation between Islam and the rest of the world,” someone from the same end of the table adds. “One runs along the Mediterranean Sea, and the second along the crests of the Caucasus. If one considers that more and more Turks and Algerians are coming to live in Europe, one can assume that our children will live to see the day when Stepanakert will be one of the few Christian cities in the world.”
“If we last that long,” several voices speak up simultaneously. To demonstrate the uncertainty of the proposition, my host leads me to the window. It is already dark. Rows of lights are suspended high in the sky. “Up there on the mountain,” he says, “lies the Azerbaijani town of Shusha. They have us in the palm of their hand, they can shoot at us at any moment.”
Uncertainty, fear, hatred. That is what one breathes here.
“Armenians,” says someone, “have never reconciled themselves to the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh. Every few years riots and insurrections have erupted in Armenia over this matter. Despite Stalin’s cruelties, despite Brezhnev’s repressions. In June of 1988, the Supreme Council of Armenia complied with the request of the Supreme Council of the District of Nagorno-Karabakh for joining us to Armenia. Baku said no. Moscow will always take the side of the stronger, and Azerbaijan is much stronger than we are. Nagorno-Karabakh occupies barely five percent of the surface area of Azerbaijan, and barely three percent of the population of the Republic lives here. Moscow took advantage of the fact that Baku threatened to occupy Nagorno-Karabakh, declared a state of war, and installed its own troops here. We are in a trap. We are under occupation by Moscow, but if Moscow departs from here, we will fall under occupation by Baku.”
AS THIS DISCUSSION was taking place, we heard a sudden commotion in the stairwell, the door opened, and Starovoytova entered with a small entourage. She appeared tired and tense, but attempted to remain calm and to create a cheerful, cloudless atmosphere. She told us her story. She had barely left the plane when she was arrested by several officers — envoys of the military commander in chief of Nagorno-Karabakh. They declared that she had no right to fly into Stepanakert and tried to persuade her to return to Yerevan. But Starovoytova refused and announced that she would not return unless they carried her back onto the plane. The officers realized that this would be a problem. First, because Starovoytova is a woman of a certain physical stature, and, second, because an international scandal would break out. Endless consultations and deliberations began — what to do? As it turned out, the catalyst of the whole affair had been the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party — Ayaz Mutalibov (until 1992 the president of Azerbaijan), who telephoned Gorbachev from Baku and vowed an offensive against Stepanakert if Starovoytova was not expelled. For its part Moscow wanted to maintain good relations with Mutalibov, with Islam, with Turkey, with the Near East, and so on; who cares about Starovoytova and Nagorno-Karabakh! Starovoytova was playing for time, for she wanted at all costs to remain here and meet with the people. She wanted them to feel that someone remembered them. She had one strong argument: the pilots, seeing what was happening and taking advantage of the confusion, had flown off. They knew that the airport in Stepanakert was not illuminated and that it was already too dark for them to be forced to attempt another landing that same day.
STAROVOYTOVA had opponents in Baku, because Azerbaijanis, like Armenians, divide mankind into two opposing camps.
For Armenians, an ally is one who believes that Nagorno-Karabakh is a problem. The rest are enemies.
For Azerbaijanis, an ally is one who believes that Nagorno-Karabakh is not a problem. The rest are enemies.
The extremism and finality of these positions is remarkable. It isn’t merely that among Armenians one cannot say, “I believe that the Azerbaijanis are right,” or that among Azerbaijanis one cannot maintain, “I believe that the Armenians are right.” No such stance even enters the realm of possibility — either group would instantly hate you and then kill you! In the wrong place or among the wrong people even to say, “There is a problem” (or, “There is no problem”) is enough to put oneself at risk of being strangled, hanged, stoned, burned.
It is also unimaginable to make the following speech in either Baku or Yerevan: Listen. Decades ago (who living among us can even remember those times?), some Turkish pasha and the savage Stalin threw into our Caucasian nest this terrible cuckoo’s egg, and from that time on, for the entire century, we have been tormenting and killing one another, while they, in their musty graves, are cackling so loudly one can hear them. And we are living in so much poverty, after all, there is so much backwardness and dirt all around, that we should really reconcile our differences and finally set about doing some work!
This person would never make it to the end of his speech, for the moment either side realized what he was driving at, the unfortunate moralist and negotiator would be deprived of his life.
Three plagues, three contagions, threaten the world.
The first is the plague of nationalism.
The second is the plague of racism.
The third is the plague of religious fundamentalism.
All three share one trait, a common denominator — an aggressive, all-powerful, total irrationality. Anyone stricken with one of these plagues is beyond reason. In his head burns a sacred pyre that awaits only its sacrificial victims. Every attempt at calm conversation will fail. He doesn’t want a conversation, but a declaration that you agree with him, admit that he is right, join the cause. Otherwise you have no significance in his eyes, you do not exist, for you count only if you are a tool, an instrument, a weapon. There are no people — there is only the cause.
A mind touched by such a contagion is a closed mind, one-dimensional, monothematic, spinning round one subject only — its enemy. Thinking about our enemy sustains us, allows us to exist. That is why the enemy is always present, is always with us. When near Yerevan a local guide shows me one of the old Armenian basilicas, he finishes his commentary with a contemptuous rhetorical question: “Could those Azerbaijanis build such a basilica?” When later, in Baku, a local guide draws my attention to a row of ornamental, art nouveau houses, he concludes his explanations with this scornful remark: “Could Armenians construct such apartment buildings?”