Without A Country: Stateless Armenian Refugees in the U.S.S.R and Russia, 1987-2003

Abstract

The focus of this theses is the inter-ethnic conflict in Azerbaijan that led to the exile of Armenian refugees and subsequently their struggle to gain citizenship rights in the newly formed Russian Federation. The political tensions in the Nagorno-Karabakh region were relatively calm until they exploded in late February 1988, leading to an inter-ethnic conflict in Sumgait, Azerbaijan. Almost seven months later, in November 1988, the vigorous unrest intensified in the town of Kirovabad, leading again to the massacre of Armenian minorities. As a result, the pogroms coincided with increased anti-Armenian feelings in the capitol of Azerbaijan, Baku. On January 20th, 1990, pogroms broke out in Baku and continued for seven days, during which the majority of the ethnic Armenian population in Azerbaijan was beaten, tortured, or murdered. Some Armenians managed to flee before the pogroms took place, but many were trapped in the city until Soviet authorities evacuated them. Seeking refuge, many Armenians fled to the capitol of the Soviet Union, Moscow, where they remained in temporary accommodations in hotels and dormitories. In 1991, when the Soviet Union, as an internationalist state, suddenly broke up into smaller national formations, the legal status of internal refugees like the Armenians was left in doubt. The research looks at a significant trend of refugees who fled directly to the capital of the Soviet Union, Moscow as a means for understanding why, while trapped in social and economic circumstances, they were deemed ineligible for citizenship of the newly formed Russian Republic. Armenian refugees in Moscow fell into a legal gap and became effectively stateless, hence, they were not recognized as citizens of any country. The intent of this theses is to emphasize the fact that deprived of citizenship and human dignity, Armenia refugees in Moscow were persecuted because of a growing nationalism, xenophobia and racism in Russia. While focusing on ethnicity policy during the Soviet era and the Russian Federation, I will emphasize the fact that the Soviet government used citizenship to maintain power, whereas officials of the new Russia privileged ethnicity in a new way. In the new Russia, ethnicity was essentialized and became the defining factor for citizenship.