According to Amatuni Virabyan, the eyewitnesses said that when Anastas Mikoyan, while playing backgammon with his brother Artem Mikoyan, told him that he was against the decision to include Artsakh in the composition of Soviet Armenia, “Artem hit the backgammon on Anastas’s head.” Anastas Mikoyan’s letter to Lenin has been preserved, in which Mikoyan claims that Artsakh should be part of Azerbaijan. “Even today, there are people who are convinced that Artsakh is Azerbaijan.”
Amatuni Virabyan, Head of the Department of Museology, literary studies and Bibliography of Khachatur Abovyan Armenian State Pedagogical University, Doctor of Historical Sciences, former Director of the National Archives of Armenia, Amatuni Virabyan announced today at the “Hayatsk” club that in the Soviet Union, in 1966, the leaders of Soviet Armenia, Anton Kochinyan and Grigor Arzumanyan, raised the issue of Artsakh. Brezhnev was ready to give Artsakh to Armenia, but our compatriot Anastas Mikoyan was against it, and Artsakh was left to Azerbaijan.
According to Amatuni Virabyan, the eyewitnesses said that when Anastas Mikoyan, while playing backgammon with his brother Artem Mikoyan, told him that he was against the decision to include Artsakh in the composition of Soviet Armenia, “Artem hit the backgammon on Anastas’s head.” Anastas Mikoyan’s letter to Lenin has been preserved, in which Mikoyan claims that Artsakh should be part of Azerbaijan. “Even today, there are people who are convinced that Artsakh is Azerbaijan.”
Read also
The Soviet Union did not want to give Artsakh to Armenia because dozens of similar issues would arise in other Soviet republics. Amatuni Virabyan gave many examples, according to which, in the Soviet Union, it was common to transfer villages and pastures from neighboring republics to each other. The last such change was in 1975, that’s why Russia insists that the Armenia-Azerbaijan border should be clarified with the maps of 1975.
In the maps published before that, for example, in 1921-1923, Azerbaijan does not have enclaves in Armenia. Still, in the documents of the census conducted in Armenia in the same years, in 1922, there are no such settlements as Kyarki, Soflu, Askipara, Barkhudarlu, which were given to Azerbaijan in 1936, i.e., in 1921 have already been given to Azerbaijan. Four years later, in 1926, in the documents of the census conducted in the Soviet Union; the Kyarki community belonging to Armenia is mentioned. There is a 1929 map where Artsvashen is not an enclave; the road leading to Artsvashen is also Armenian. 1919 there was a decision according to which Artsakh is only temporarily part of Azerbaijan.
There are many such contradictions. There is also another problem. 1921-1923 the headquarters of the Soviet armed forces compiled maps and demanded clear information about the borders with neighboring republics from all republics. There is an agreement on the borders between Soviet Armenia and Georgia, but there is none between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and it is unclear how the borders were determined. However, this controversy does not change one issue: Artsakh left Azerbaijan by Soviet laws, Amatuni Virabyan noted.
Nelly GRIGORYAN
