Intro Music 1:55

[inaudible]

Vic Aslanyan 1:56

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Mer Herosner podcast. I'm your host, Vic Aslanyan. And as always, I'm joined by my co- host Mike Balian, where we dive into our great Armenian history and discuss different era's kingdoms and topics and great people. Um, this is episode three, it is a live recording. We are also on the clubhouse. Um, our, our topic is the history of Artsakh, actually the ancient history of Artsakh and our guest is , uh, a great historian from Armenia Gevork Nazaryan. Uh, how are you? Gevork?

Gevork Nazaryan 2:33

I'm doing fine. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

Vic Aslanyan 2:36

No problem. It's a pleasure to have you on the show. Um, we're excited. We want to cover this topic because it's so important, especially what's going on now. Um, why don't you introduce yourself to our audience and , and , uh, you know, talk about yourself, what your background is, how you ended up , um, you know , uh, studying history and so forth.

Gevork Nazaryan 3:00

Great. Thank you. Um, yeah. I'm , as you said, I'm a historian and I'm actually based in LA, but , uh, for the last few years I've been living in Armenia in our Homeland. And , uh, I have been doing research or academic research on Armenian history in the , in the archives here in Armenia. Uh, and you know, obviously I found out that you guys are , have started launched this amazing show, dedicated to Armenian history , uh, through a mutual friend. And, you know, I was more than happy to be part of it. And , um , you know, I , I suggested us doing this show on the history of Artsakh, because it's so pertinent to what is going on today with Armenia and the war that would just, you know, it's, it's , it's actually, what's a recent thing that, you know , we faced off against this Azeri aggression and, you know, over Artsakh, and unfortunately, as you guys know, it's still very much an ongoing thing because, you know, our borders are still being violated every day . So, you know, I actually suggested it was, you know, doing something on , on the ancient history of Artsakh because unfortunately there's areas have been falsifying so much of that history. Um, so yeah, I guess that's as a, as a , as an intro to, we're going to cover on the history of ourselves .

Vic Aslanyan 4:28

Great. Great. And, and, and , uh, talk about , uh , talk a little bit about your background. Like how, how, when did you start , uh, studying history and what, what was , what made you go into the Armenian history?

Gevork Nazaryan 4:40

Right. Um , well, I've been fascinated with Armenian history since childhood and , uh , I actually decided to go in Armenian history from early age. I, you know, I completed my BA and ma in Armenian history in Armenian studies in UCLA. And then I continued my PhD studies here in Armenia a few years ago, as I said, working in the archives because I've been researching on , uh, the Armenian question. And there are a lot of documents on the Armenian question , uh, that as you guys know, it's very much related to Armenian genocide and what happened at the end of the 19th and early 20th century. So there are a lot of documents in different languages here in the local national archives of Armenia. Uh, so I've decided to dedicate it dedicate dedicated few years to that endeavor. Uh, uh, but you know, as, as I said, you know, I'm very much interested in all different periods of Armenian history, including our origins , ancient history, kingdom, avant on earth , and, you know, all the way to the present times . Of course ,

Vic Aslanyan 5:56

Those are definitely , um , areas that we're going to be covering. Our , our goal is to dissect our history as much as possible. And every episode dive deep into , uh, like I said, kingdom, certain people , um, uh, events that took place. So , uh, we have a lot of work to do a lot of work to do. And there's so much

Mike Balian 6:14

World history, actual world history that ties into so many of the events from that time era, you know , two , three millennia ago. Yeah, of course.

Vic Aslanyan 6:24

Well , um , we have a lot to cover, so , um, let's, let's dive into , um, kind of like the beginning. Um, I know that , um , you know, if you go back all the way to Darmian Highlands before kingdoms, you know, the , uh, the natives , uh, as you call them , uh, that lived in that area , uh, they knew them as the Kuda Audex , uh, Alexis civilization, which was , um, you know , uh, that, that kind of inhabited that , that area , um, when was [inaudible] first mentioned in historical records.

Intro Music 7:00

Uh, that's it , yeah , very good question. I mean , uh,

Gevork Nazaryan 7:04

The earliest written sources that we have mentioning arts are in its tuner form form a are from the eighth century BC by king Saul duty, the second of kingdom of Vaughn on and up also known as grant to , as you guys know. Uh, so that's the earliest time . And , and what is interesting is basically king saw duty notes that art saw his act . He basically states that it's an important Eastern flank of his kingdom. So, and , and that's like a cuneiform early measuring of art saw , uh, in the form of art there , he or they, he, you know, it depends how you actually read the cuneiform, but it's, it's the earliest mentioning that we have of the name, art soft , the historic Armenian name of this region , uh , from the eighth century BC, you can say almost, you know , 3000 years ago in a written inscription that, but , uh, as you rightly noted , uh, you know, the Armenian presence, the , uh, inform of the [inaudible] civilization is much earlier, you know, dated to second, third, fourth millennia BC. So, so basically , uh, you know , uh, the , our presence has been there from prehistoric times, but the first mentioning in the written scriptures that we have is still pretty archaic. If you think about it, I mean, 3000 years ago, you have the name, a variation of the name [inaudible] written in the cuneiform inscriptions of king SAR duty . The second is it's , it's quite amazing actually,

Speaker 5 8:46

You know, interestingly enough, I mean, I, Vic knows I'm a history buff myself. And , um, just recently of course, being more opened up to Armenian history, I've discovered in my personal venture that , um, history is a set of lies agreed upon. So you have a lot of falsifications out there, depending on what part of the world you look at, whether it's army and history or whatnot. And my question to you is with so many falsifications with mainstream narratives , um, what have we been taught in schools or lack thereof that are Armenian sources and non-Armenian sources and what the differences are between those , um, um, sources let's say that, that , um, you know, provide said information , um, that's does that make any sense,

Gevork Nazaryan 9:38

Right? It does. It does. I mean, you make a good point, Mike, actually , uh , uh, I mean , uh , this, this is the thing, like, unfortunately, when we're dealing with the history of ourself , obviously since the issue is so politicized [inaudible] are , have been, you know , very adamant and falsifying , uh, uh, that part of Armenian history. So it's very important for us actually, first and foremost, use non-Armenian sources to outline that, you know, actually , uh, uh, art south being part of Armenia is first and foremost recorded, is that in these ancient non-Armenian sources, Greek and Roman, primarily because as you guys know, during the classical times, these were the two important civilizations. The Greeks followed by the Roman sometimes collectively referred to as the Greek or Roman sources. So on when we actually look at the evidence , uh, Mike , uh, we see that, you know, these classical historians, geographers scholars, they actually, you know, repeat and state that arts off is part of Armenia and arts are as well as bordering provinces of a province of UPI and PICA around those. Those were the three main provinces are actually forming a border between Armenia and the neighboring kingdom of all Benia or sometimes referred to as Caucasian obedient and these, so these historians and these scholars , uh, namely scribble Pliny, the elder , uh, Paula MI [inaudible] and use , these are Greek and Roman scholars from first sanctuary BC, all the way to second, third century, 80 , they state that arts are, which in the Greco-Roman inscriptions , they actually use the Greco-Roman name or Hispanic is a province of Armenia and Armenia extends all the way to the cor or Cora river. So this is a very important thing that they actually know that the border of Armenia, a neighboring state of Albania is the Cora river, which includes the territory of arts . Uh, so, so I mean , I mean, you made a great point that, you know , uh, you know, we have these important, important sources that actually state that, you know, arts is part inseparable, part of Armenia. And again ,

Mike Balian 12:07

Uh , just a quick followup question to that, I guess more of a for conversation's sake is when you have these written inscriptions in QA form, that proved that our talk was a part of our culture. And, you know, there's even DNA that's proved that we are a part of this land for what, four or 5,000 years maybe further back, right? Yeah . So how, how easy is it? And this is my personal question to you is how easy is it for someone like, let's say Azerbaijan or Turkey or whoever else to suppress this kind of information with the international community? You know, you have so many people, so many scholars from so many different places around the globe that, that, you know, do excavations and archeological findings , um, for their own research, Brits, British , uh , Italians, Germans, et cetera. But yet you have one or two powers let's say lack or lack thereof for, you know, I don't want to call them powers, but they're kind of suppressing of this information.

Gevork Nazaryan 13:01

Right. Right. Well , uh, yeah, I mean, in academia, even in Western academia is it's much harder for those areas to actually fall supply history, but unfortunately, you know, they , they have been using the power of so-called purse to actually advance their interests . I mean, just recently, unfortunately we, we heard that, you know, through the Ali a fund, which, which , uh, Johann , Mali has established in, in Babu , uh, you know, they, they offered money to Oxford university to, you know, to advance so-called Azeri studies and things like that. So you're absolutely right. Unfortunately, you know, using these, you know, financial perks, they're actually trying to subvert , uh , history that the historic narrative and , and, and , uh, you know, basically subvert academic integrity to their own ends. But, you know , uh , I have to be honest, I D I think for most part, a lot of the academics that ha have, you know, standards and integrity, they obviously refuse to follow, you know, what Ali would dictate, you know , so , but unfortunately there are others who would be willing , uh, you know, like a lore tier kind of scholarly , uh, set that would actually take that money and actually, you know , falsify history. Uh, so, but I think, you know , it's actually to the credit of this high end universities, these, you know, I don't know Ivy league in the, in the, in the state universities that will never actually take money and actually discredit the name of their own, you know, educational establishment to just for the sake of few million dollars, you know, but this, this isn't a problem that we have been facing for the last, what 10, 20 years, you know, Azeris and Turks

Vic Aslanyan 14:51

With these , uh , Caucasian Albania. I mean, you know, first of all, the, the Caucasian Albanians have been extinct for a very long time. And even there people that , that the , you can call them descendants of the, which they called them self to UDIs , uh, you know, there's, there's such a small population in Azerbaijan that them themselves, there's only 10,000 of them in the entire world. So , um, you know, they, they need some kind of narrative to, to push their agenda, but, you know, fortunately there's so much information out there, but the, like you said, the biggest problem is right now with these powers with , uh , with money and influence, they're able to push this forward and we have to fight back. And the only way to do that is to educate everybody, including our own, our own. Everybody needs to know our history. It is so important once we know our history, then nobody can argue with us. I mean, it could be a social environment. It could be gatherings, anything, when this topic comes up, you are prepared, you have old ammunition to , um , you know , uh, fight them with it basically. And it's been coming up a lot over the last year,

Gevork Nazaryan 16:01

Right? Yeah. I mean, that's what I usually say, right ? Like, you know, truth and evidence is on our side. We just have to know it, you know, I mean, there's areas , Alia is going to try to basically falsify and use all kinds of tricks, but like, if , if your verse is in, in historic fats and truth of the matter, you , you're not gonna, you're not gonna have any issues with that. Right . But like I said, you know, it's, it's, it's very important that basically we understand that , uh, that, you know, these important facts with regards to classical historians outlining , uh , that, you know, arts are on the border of, of, of the kingdom of greater Armenia and Caucasian Albania was the cool river, which included, which completely included the province of lots of straight bow actually mentioned. It says that, you know, all of greater Armenia is Armenian speaking and populated by Armenian speakers, Armenians, you know , even makes that point. You know, so it's , it's not only, it's not only politically within Armenia , but it's Armenian populated. As you guys know, stray boy is considered the father of geography, his first century, BC first century 80 , a Greek geographer historian . So that's a very important , uh, evidence that we should actually use to, you know , educate , uh,

Vic Aslanyan 17:33

Also I think , uh , uh, from the research we've done, even during the , uh, uh, the reign of, of , um, Alexander, the great , um, do you know that there's mentions of actually [inaudible] yeah. And because they, they ruled that area.

Gevork Nazaryan 17:49

Yes, yes, yes. As I said, you know, Greco-Roman sources, so you can say like, with the start of the, of the Hellenic , uh , influence in the fourth century, BC, all the way, you know, until the fall of the kingdom of greater Armenia in the fifth century, ed , you know, these, these a number of sources actually mention , you know, it's Armenian populating

Vic Aslanyan 18:14

Now, now to , to kind of the second part question, what Mike asks was ni , you know , when we talk about the non-Armenian sources , um , that , that talk about , uh, the borders of arts often just historical Armenia , but what about within Armenia? Um, like what do ancient army sources tell us about our own borders , uh , from, from, from Armenia?

Gevork Nazaryan 18:35

Yeah, that's a good point. Uh, like we have our , our own sources actually know that, you know, the kingdom of greater Armenia was divided into 15 provinces. Uh , we are holding outsi , we have , uh, different , uh, parcels , Busan and other , uh, you know, Armenian classical historians from the fifth century 80 and the following periods. And they actually are very much clear that, you know, greater Armenia was divided into 15 provinces and our stuff was actually the 10th province of the kingdom of greater Armenia. Uh, so they're , they're , they actually basically repeat what the Greek and Roman sources tell us that art stuff was an important province of, of greater Armenia. And , uh, not only it was just a province, but it was an important Armenian cultural and learning center because , uh, mess Mesereau Marshall's after he actually revived the use of the Armenian offer. Bet . He basically established the first Armenian school in our saw . He established it in the monastery of Almaraz after 4 0 5 80 . So he basically began the revival in four or five ABD for the use of the Armenian alphabet. And he actually established his first learning center in Arthur . Can you guys imagine that means like art sup was not only just the constituent province of Armenia, but it was an important province of Armenia . I mean , it was , uh, it was an important educational, cultural, spiritual center of Armenia . You can argue even the heart of Armenia that he actually decided to establish his first learning center. [inaudible] in art , in the monastery of Almaraz , uh, which luckily is still even today, its Armenian controlled, you know, we retained control of that Southern arts region , uh, when hardwood fell to the advancing , uh , Zuri aggression.

Vic Aslanyan 20:38

Um, now let's, let's kinda go a little bit further. Like what , uh , what was the historic course of arts off? Um, let's say during the middle age Aminah ages . Right,

Gevork Nazaryan 20:50

Right , right . Uh, you know, as I said, basically , uh, it was, it was a very important province of Armenia and it remained so until the fifth century and uh , in the fifth sanctuary , uh, the kingdom of greater Armenia unfortunately fell in 4 28 80 , the [inaudible] dynasty, which was the ruling dynasty of greater Armenia actually fell and Armenia was converted by neighboring Iran. Sasanian Iran into , uh, one of its like provinces. But actually if we take a sort of like a semi-autonomous rule, so basically Armenia was ruled by local rulers, but it was basically kind of like within the influence of society in Iran after 4 28 EDD . And , uh, and this is the time when , uh, in our , of proper as well, local Armenian printers , basically they were the rulers of this land under this overall Iranian, Suzanne Suzanne guarantee . There were the rulers of, of arts and these, these , uh, Armenian Kings known as Arusha heaps. This, this was the dynasty dynasty yet . They, they ruled autopsy tops . Right? Exactly. Exactly. Yes. Watch a gun, watch a gun, the devout, he was one of the, you know, orange shy Kings in the fifth century 80. So yeah, and this lasted basically until the seventh century when Iran in its turn and also Armenia as well was invaded by the, you know, Arabs and , uh, you know, again, the status of local Armenian rulers remained unchanged, but basically it was under the caliphate. The Arab caliphate basically switched from , uh , Iranian rule to the Arab caliphate. But locally, still arts off was ruled by the local Armenian princess from this orange guy dynasty.

Vic Aslanyan 22:50

Yeah . Now during that time also , uh, it's uh, it's good to mention that [inaudible] was part of , uh, uh, during the whole , uh, you know, battle with [inaudible] . Um, they actually did join and help and after the , the, you know, obviously it was a loss, but in theory, we did a lot of damage to them. Um, they actually took in a lot of the , uh , the soldiers and warriors and , and , and, you know, kept them, they hidden them because obviously they were after them.

Gevork Nazaryan 23:19

Right, right. Yeah. I mean, obviously the period in 4 50, 180 that we'll talk about [inaudible] was the Supreme commander of the armed forces of Armenia rebelled against this Iranian rule , uh , to overthrow this, this , uh, basically society in New York , uh, also being a constituent part of Armenia also like also mobiles joining forces with Bart on Mamiko neon . And, you know, they actually played a decisive role in the battle of [inaudible] in 4, 4 50, 180 in may or 4 50, 180 in the swing of our tournaments war against the Iranian domination. And, you know, in four , uh, eighties , uh, the Armenians actually, you know , uh, were able to restore their local rule in the bond , uh , war. So basically what Wharton , mommy Gonia began this, you know, national liberation struggle , uh, there was completed by his successor bond, mommy Conan in four eighties with the 3d of [inaudible] with the Persians , uh, under which Armenia retained its autonomy. So basically Armenia was to be ruled by local Armenian governors and princess, but within this sort of like, you know, recognizing Iranian influence, but ruled locally and art, as you rightly noted , the Nobles of arts are also are recorded by our Asian classical sources. I are as playing a vital role in this national liberation struggle. Yeah .

Vic Aslanyan 24:56

Um, I also, you know , uh, as we dive into the next question before we do that , um, everyone on clubhouse, if you have a question, feel free to raise your hand and we'll bring you up , uh , you can ask your question , uh, to give her , uh , director

Speaker 5 25:10

So demo . You mentioned something earlier , um, that I wanted to ask a question about is after the fourth or fifth century a D when, you know, sock kind of that there , that area established itself after the battle of Obadiah , what was, what is the cultural and historical significance of autocam within Armenian history in that area? Like when you said mess it up, marsh it's , um, kinda established a school there in, in a fifth century, what, what began to develop during this time in terms of education and in terms of cultural , uh, impact.

Gevork Nazaryan 25:50

Right, right. Yeah. I mean, that's a very good question. I mean , art stuff, like when we look at the medieval Armenian , uh, surviving , uh, sources and even , uh, manuscripts, we see that also plays an important cultural role in the history of Armenia. So, you know, obviously if you have a school that is established by mess marshals , you're going to have like , uh, scholars, if they're , uh, you know, prepared for, for all, all of the monasteries and learning centers of Armenia. So arts are served as an important cultural learning center for all of our media, the scholars that were educated in Almaraz monastery , uh, which even today is a site of pilgrimage for many Armenians worldwide. Uh, it was this learning center that the scholars, the deal logins and what have you all these , uh, pupils that graduated from the Almaraz monastery later on, basically spread all over Armenia and became important, you know , lights in their own. Right. Uh, so, so obviously , uh, the fact that art was not only a constituent part of Armenia, but was the heart of, of cultural, spiritual, you know, life of ancient Armenia is documented through this evidence. Uh, and, and, you know, we have some of the most amazing quite cars , manuscripts from arts , and [inaudible] joining, you know, Armenian provinces, because sometimes we'll also include the OT province, which was one of the provinces to the north of arts are also as, you know, our , but actually it was a promise in its own, right. And widows rich cultural heritage, unfortunately today, again, devout, and depopulate always native Armenian population by those Aries , you know, the last Armenians from [inaudible] , uh , deported , uh, between 1980 and 1990, which is not of ourselves in today's

Vic Aslanyan 28:03

Or otherwise knows as a [inaudible] province .

Gevork Nazaryan 28:08

Yeah . And , uh , Mike, and a little bit even not have Sean , you know, get guns up gauze up it's , it's known as Godman also. I don't know if you heard of the god-mom province. Uh, we had a lot of villages. There is not of our south north of ghetto north of [inaudible] . We had hundreds of villages, Armenia villages that were deported of his native, you know, god-mom population, Armenian population when, when the first clashes began between Armenians and there's Aries . So, you know, unfortunately has been devoted of Armenians ever since, but, you know, returning back to your original question, you're absolutely right. Arts are all the evidence pinpoints that was very important, crucial learning center of ancient Armenia.

Vic Aslanyan 28:54

Yeah. Well, since you mentioned about like the clashes with the, with the Azaris and , and, you know , just in general Armenians and Azeris , uh, th the question I have for you is when did the first , uh, Turkey tribes , um, kind of started moving in and settle into the Asaf area? Uh , basically in general, right?

Gevork Nazaryan 29:16

That's a , that's an interesting question. So the first Tokyo tribes invaded , uh , uh, just Armenia and our region in general at large, starting in the 11th century , uh, and, you know , uh, but they never actually penetrated the mountainous area of specifically art . So starting in the 11th and subsequent centuries, they actually establish their presence in, in , in, in the valleys and the flatlands adjoining arts , but never also of mountainous parts of art stuff, which is very mountainous area. Uh, they , they didn't establish themselves even at that time and believe it or not, it wasn't until the 18th century , 18th century , where for the first time the ancestors of today's, you know , Azeris who at that time weren't hold as it as areas. I hope maybe we'll have a chance to talk about the name of the area and where it comes from and how it relays to so-called pres present as very people, you know , um, but, you know, they established themselves these Turkic tribes as, as late as, can you imagine 18th century, mid 18th century, that this is the first time that they established themselves in parts of sushi . And what have you, before that they actually migrated from the east, from the territory known as all Thai , which is like in central Asia, Southern Washa area adjoining . So the ancestors of the Turkey tribes were nomadic people. They migrated in the 11th century, starting in the 11th century. And the migrations continued well into the late middle ages. Uh, these people from the all Thai region of central Asia, they started their evasions and migrations into our, our region. But like I said, you know, they, first of all, they established themselves in the valley state in established themselves in the mountainous areas , uh, of ourself and other wise, it wasn't as late as the mid 18th century. We're talking about around 250 years ago that the ancestors of present day Azeris were actually established themselves in places , uh, in, in all soft , proper.

Vic Aslanyan 31:38

Yeah. Uh, you mentioned , uh , I mean, you can elaborate, like how, how did they end up, you know, how did they come up with the name of Jerry's ? Like, what , what was, how did they, you know , uh, decide that this is what we're going to be called?

Gevork Nazaryan 31:50

Yeah, that's a, that's a very good question. Uh , the name Azeri actually , uh , it's , it's, it's, it's , uh , Arabic Islamic version of the name [inaudible] , which , uh , like Arabic and Islamic literature was cited as Azerbaijan or Azerbaijan . Uh, and, and, you know, attra petite is first recorded in the fourth century II , uh , I'm sorry, BC fourth century BC when , um, one of the Mead needs were an ancient, you know , Iranian people, one of the Meijer generals, governors of media that's, that was the name of the region south of the , uh, aurochs river, which is today Northern Iran , uh, in this area , um, uh , Northwestern Iran to be actually specific,

Vic Aslanyan 32:44

Which is also referred to as [inaudible] by John territory , different pronunciation. Correct.

Gevork Nazaryan 32:52

You're making a great point. This is the real Azerbaijan, but in 1918, in 1918, I know maybe we're jumping a little bit forward , but yeah, I know . No, it's okay. Yeah. It's important to actually, you know, put it in his context. Um , uh, when , uh, in 1918 , uh, perks invaded , uh, Armenia and actually , uh , a Turkish Sheryl by the name of Ludy Pasha was broader of embedded Pasha . One of the mass organizers of the Armenian genocide. He actually invaded Armenia and he had this pant Panther , his ideology of uniting all the Turkic speaking peoples into one huge tool on the sort of Turkey empire ruled by Turkey known as Tuan . So this Rudy Porsche was actually broader of the organ . One of the three main organizers of the Armenian genocide, Amber Pasha. He actually suggested to these so-called pot Azerbaijanis before that they were known as Turks or simply potters . You suggested to them that, you know, let's name it, name your newly created Republic north of Audex river, as us incorporating parts of historic Armenia and historic Albinia, which had nothing to do with the Turkey people. You know, let's name this area north of Audex river as Azerbaijan. And then you can actually claim that the real Azerbaijan, which is south of RX river is also part of this greater Azerbaijan. And we can actually incorporate it into the so-called first, first , uh, in, you know, first proclaimed firstly proclaimed in 1918 Republic of Azerbaijan, and then made this huge country as part of our newly created Turkey empire. So this Turkey, Turkish general by the name of moody Pasha is actually the one who coined this erroneous and false term of Azerbaijan for this territory. Uh , and what is interesting to note , uh, Iran, the government of Iran in August of 1918, the so-called Azerbaijani Republic with the appropriated name of historic Iranian province, which never was part of this territory. Actually, the Iranian government sent a note of protest to the Turkish government, to the so-called newly proclaimed Azeri government in August of 1980, saying that you basically appropriated the name or ancient Iranian promise, which has nothing to do with your so-called Republic of Azerbaijan, which had just proclaimed for the first time in history. So this is, again, a very important and crucial element of history that we have to constantly repeat, because like, even the name Azerbaijani was appropriated from Iran, which has nothing to do with this territory north of the RX RX river. And is today used by, you know, these people before that the Azeris were known as Turkey , Turkey, eggs , uh, you know, just simply Muslims potters . If , if you will get the ancient, like , uh, censuses when different nationalities and people are listed, you would never see like a nationality or a country by the name of Azerbaijan, never, ever. It was a prop,

Mike Balian 36:27

They were a mixture of, I mean, so many different people and it wasn't anybody that was specifically a dominant over the other. It was almost like you had a S I lack for a better word, trying to be a little funny. It was like a salad bowl of people that they just brought in or migrated into the area,

Gevork Nazaryan 36:44

Correct? Oh , absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, it's like even the name of Zeri wasn't used until 1936 for the first time, the name [inaudible] was used in Stalin's constitution for a nationality before that, if you look all the, at the, all of the censuses, they're listed by various names, the so-called Azeri people of today, they're all listed by different other names. They will never list it as Azeri . They were listed as at Turks Turkey pop stars . You know, that was one of the name that the Russian government assigned to in potters , like as a Turkey people, they even use the name Muslim. I know it's like a religious connotation, but for them even like, as a nationality and language, it will use Muslim people, simply Muslim people living in area, you know, joining the Caspian sea. That that was a designation because, you know, there, there wasn't a specific , uh , name for these people. And like you said, the salad bowl of people, you know, they, you had to Polish the tots , you know, which are Iranian people, you know, they're like Farsi speaking, Iranian speaking people, they were also listed as Azeris. Can you imagine, like, these people, like the thoughts that Polish, these , these people were in the millions and they will simply after 1936 by Stalin's orders, they were all these people listed as so-called Azerbaijanis. But before that, you had all these like different Caucasian people, like the lesbians, like the Avara and other people that, you know, would this think all these people today in olives , other so-called Azerbaijan are today listed as Azeris, but, you know, they have, their roots are very much different from each other.

Speaker 5 38:31

Now, now leading into my next question, since we're in this time period , um , kind of backing up a little bit too, and, and we can kind of come back to the time era that we're speaking of now, I want to know a little bit more about how the Russian empire had their impact on the region , um , between Automic Armenia. I mean, what is now known as Georgia and oil , and what's now known as other by John, how did that play such a significant role in the 19th and 20th century? Right.

Gevork Nazaryan 39:02

So , uh, yeah, I mean , uh, Russia, basically the history of Russian presence in installed caucuses begins , uh , in early 19th century when , uh, you know, Russian empire expanded and conquered salt campuses in early 19 sanctuary and established itself. Uh, it actually, first of all , uh, you know, the annex, the what is Georgia and later moved on to, you know, like you said, what is today Azerbaijan, but also including Armenian also . So Armenian also was incorporated in 18 in the Russian empire, by the , uh , 3d of beauty Stan, the 3d of Gulistan signed in 1813 between the Russian SAR . And Nicole was the first and the Shah of Iran, the Persian Shaw. So because, you know, it was a purse personal , uh , Russian war and the Russian side was the Victoria side . And they actually annexed , uh, south Caucasus , including Eastern Armenia into the Russian empire. And what is interesting to know , uh, Mike that, you know, Russian sources are very much clear that Allsop was still, even during this time, it was ruled by local Armenian Nobles known as the Maleek's, the Armenian Maleek's . So specifically there were five Armenian Princeton's known as Nellie dorms. Maleek is basically like a king or a prince, you know, so , uh , these five Armenian Princeton's ruled the territory of arts off. So when the , uh, Russians actually, you know , conquered this territory and won arts are still this , the semi-autonomous Armenia rule over autumn had remained by, by these Maleek's. And it basically only terminated with this , uh, final incorporation of art saw and this OT and all these army new populated areas into the Russian province. So the Russian presence begins during this time. And , uh, according to these two important treaties , 3d of beauty, Stan, and 3d of , uh , two main try site in 18, 13 and 1828, respectively , uh, Russia became the master of south campuses and the border between Iran and the Russian empire , uh, was the aurochs , uh , river. Uh, so aurochs river became the borderline between, you know , Russian presence in south caucuses, including Eastern Armenian and Iran. Uh, that's that's, that's when the Russian presence , uh , firmly established itself and remained . So until you can say the Russian revolution of 1970 .

Vic Aslanyan 42:03

Yeah, no , no . Speaking of borders , um, what were the borders of the Republic of Armenia and Azerbaijan when the latter country was established , um, in history , uh, basically for the first time in 1918,

Gevork Nazaryan 42:18

Right? So basically , uh, as I said, Russia and empire , uh, remained intact until 1917. And then , uh, after the Russian revolution, which happened in Russia , uh, actually there were two revolutions, you know, one was in February of 1917 and they had the provisional government and that was followed by the Bolshevik takeover in November of that same year, 1917. So basically the collapse over Russia created this instability and old , uh, the countries of the salt caucuses, namely, you know, Armenia, Georgia. And , uh, for the first time in history , uh , proclaimed so-called Republic of Azerbaijan with the appropriated Iranian name, as we talked about , uh, suggested by Nudie Porsche , this Panther gets genocide, brought all , um, general brother of Amber who orchestrated Armenian genocide. So these three republics proclaimed their independence because of the turmoil of Russia taking place in Russia and the Russian revolution. So this was , uh, in may of 1918. So when this happened , uh, actually , um, arts Armenians also said that, you know, they , they obviously, they, they , they are going to be part of the newly proclaimed Republic of Armenia. So at this time, this is very important point , uh, via that, you know, art stuff was still 95% Armenia populated region. So not only historically was an Armenian territory, but still in terms of its demographics, it had a 95% Armenian population. So obviously the Armenia is a lots of, they obviously said, you know, we're going to be with the Republic of Armenia, but unfortunately from the get-go the Zeri side Aries , they said, no, we're going to annex this territory. We're going to basically extend our influence as much as we can. And they said, you know, our stuff is also part of, you know , our territory. And , and this is, you can, you can say that, you know, this is the, these are the roots of modern conflict that we have with the Azeri side, because, you know, the arts of Armenians said that , uh, we have a right to self-determine our own future, as Armenians were living on the territory of Armenia. And we want to be part of the Republic of Armenia, but the Azeris simply out of nowhere, they didn't , you know, they didn't have the numbers historically, this was not Azerbaijan, but obviously they just wanted to extend their influence as much as they can and incorporate it incorporate as much as Armenian territory in their newly proclaimed Republic as they could. So they said, no, you know, we're going to incorporate it, incorporate arts into Azerbaijan. And from the origin of these three republics , uh, basically unfortunately clashes began because the Azeri side began attacking , uh, Armenia's of arts are starting in may and June, July of 1918. When these three republics were proclaimed in order to annex this territory and drive the local native Armenian population of arts out of this territory.

Speaker 5 45:44

No , uh , give , uh , sorry, sorry to intervene really quick. But there was there's , uh , with some of the research that we'd both done, it was really interesting to me. Um, how were the British involved in some sort of control of Baku in this timeframe? Um, maybe, maybe it has some sort of significance. I , I was still trying to wrap my mind around it. So this is a genuine question in terms of trying to fully understand for myself , um, how were they so involved in this area? How did that, how did that happen? Right ? post-World war one. Of course .

Gevork Nazaryan 46:16

Yeah. Yeah. So as I said, Nudie Pasha was this Ottoman Turkish general, who basically you can say is actually one of the key founding fathers of so-called Azerbaijan. He suggested the name of this Panter gets name , fake name. And, but , uh, you know , uh, they Turks were defeated in world war one, but unfortunately prior to their defeat, they also did a very , uh, gruesome act when they actually invaded their army of moody Pasha in September of 1918 evaded Bob cool and slaughtered the Armenians of Bach who some 30,000 Armenians of BALCO in mid September were slaughtered by this new repercussions army . Uh, you know, Turco , so-called, Azeri army slaughtered 30,000 Armenians of Baku, but that wasn't September of 1918 by already October and late October, the Turkish side was losing on other fronts in world war one against the allies. So once the Turks, by the end of , uh, October of 1918 were defeated by the allies and they signed the armistice of Moodles , uh, against , uh, and, and, you know, they actually acknowledged their defeat in , uh, October 31st, 1918. Um , so , uh, after that, basically the British as the Victoria side as being one of the sides of the allies, they, they send a small expeditionary force to Baku and actually occupied Babu in mid November of 1918. So after that , uh, the British war as a victorious size, the ally allied side actually won against the Turks and other powers, their allies, including Azerbaijan. That's an important thing because Azerbaijan says they actually joined with the perks in the so-called Islamic army of caucuses of new Porsche. They were actually considered as, as, as, as you know, the defeated side that actually fought against the allies. This is also an important point while the Armenia is , were given a star status of allied site

Intro Music 48:36

Because Armenia volunteer detachment also served on different , uh , France fighting with the allies. So Armenia is more considered as, as you know, the allied side, does there spot against the allies? Uh , but the British were the Victoria side and they actually occupied Babu. And , um, uh, you know, they, they had a provisional government , uh, installed in Baku, British , uh, provisional government ruled by general , William Thompson was a British general and also like the high commissioner and military governor of Azerbaijan. Uh, and this is, this is right. So this is how the British actually got involved into all these, you know, political nuances and played, played a role. And, you know, you can say sometimes the British would, would, you know , actually stake two decisions that were basically fair, but sometimes obviously under pressure, unfortunately by the Azeris, they, they, they would, you know, suggest things that weren't as S S you know , uh , proper in terms of like recognizing the rights of the Armenian population of arts , for example, Colonel Thompson, he actually suggested, well, you know, perhaps temporarily quote unquote, temporarily arts can be part of this , uh, Baku government Azari government until the Paris peace conference would set things straight. And then you would have a decision in 19, 19 as, you know, the Paris peace conference was set up by victorious allies to sort of, you know, finalize all these border, you know, disputes and things like that, you know? And , uh, and , and, but a very important point that journal prompts has said is like the Paris peace conference would actually decide and , and bring about a final decisions decision that will recognize arts are being part of , uh, you know, Republic of Armenia or perhaps Republic of Azerbaijan. But as we know, historically, that never happened. And , uh, allies and the peace conference actually decided , uh , for , for opted, for arts of being included or , uh, in the territory of Republic of Armenia, because, you know, they made a simple point. They said, look , it's it's 95% historic Armenia populated region, which is historic Armenia. You should be followed by the principle of self-determination. So if the population of arts off of heart above, which, you know, was one of the names non-Armenians names that later on came up after the middle ages, if this territory decides to be part of Armenia, you should let it be part of Armenia. The people themselves have to decide, this is the principle of self-determination. So when you have a region with a 95% plus Armenian population, obviously these people are, you know , in a referendum or a vote, they're going to vote to be included in a, in a country that they want to be part of. You know, it's only democratic unfair to do that. And this was the position taken by the allies and even the British. And what is interesting, you know, as you know, there, there was an organization known as the league of nations, which the league of nations was like the predecessor of the UN exactly. It's a legal predecessor and the, the, the league of nations, you know, it , it said we should follow on this principle. And in , uh, February 24th, 1920, they actually, you know, had this, you know , uh, decision by the league of nations saying that Luke , that , you know, these people through self determination , they , they have to decide to be part of the country that they want to be. And so it's going to be Armenia. So the league of nations in February 24th, 1927, you know, our staff and adjoining Armenia populated territories, according to the principle of self-determination have to be part of the Republic of Armenia. These people are, you know, those parts of so-called Azerbaijan Azeri populated, let them be part of Azerbaijan, but not these 95% plus of people. They're obviously not going to be happy under foreign domination. They want to be with their own mother country with their own people. That's only fair and very democratic thing to do

Vic Aslanyan 53:16

Before we jump into, I think Mike, you have a question, but , uh , I do want to mention we are live on clubhouse. Um, we are speaking with historian, Kevlar Nazaryan , uh, from Armenia live and , uh, we're basically covering the ancient history of OTs off to pretty much , uh, what's going on today. Uh, if you do have a question, please feel free to raise your hand, we'll bring you up. And , um, you can ask your question.

Speaker 5 53:45

Yeah. So Gabba , um, I know you briefly mentioned , um, some of the pogroms or massacres that occurred during this time after the Bolshevik revolution. post-World world one. Uh , it's a dark topic. I do understand, but , um, what , can you elaborate further on some of the events that occurred outside of the border shifting and the, and a diplomatic or political talks that we've been kind of going over over the last few minutes?

Intro Music 54:13

Absolutely. Yes. Uh, well , uh , between the period of 1918 to 1920 , uh, there were series of massacre of Armenians of arts , uh , joining areas. And I said all the way , uh, uh, up to Bob who the Armenians were living there and, you know, Turkish Turkle Azeri armies, which is quite interesting , uh , Mike, this, this sort of, when the Azeris attack, the Turkish , uh ,

Speaker 6 54:41

Forces were , uh, active

Intro Music 54:44

With them. It was like Terkel Azeri forces. And we see, we saw the same thing, like in the recent war, you know, when they attack, it was like a coalition of the Turks and Azeris fighting against Armenians, you know, maybe made the arguments that, you know , there is, wouldn't be able to have , uh, some of their so-called quote unquote success, successful campaigns that they did without the Turkish support with all the advanced, you know, aircraft and the drones, and what have you. And the same thing happened between 1918 , uh , in 1920, as I said, you know, naughty Pasha is Turkish general broader of this genocidal. Enver Pasha on suggested the name Azerbaijan. He actually he's armies massive or old Armenia's all the way until they marched all the way to Bach who , uh, until September of 1918, when I said, you know, tens of thousands of Armenians were massacred, and this continued onwards until as late as , uh, March of 1920, there was a huge massacre of Armenians in shushie when Azeri forces in March of 1920, they attacked Armenia city or shushie, which was an important cultural center, not only of [inaudible] , but all of Armenia, they attacked and massacre some again, 20, 30,000 Armenians were put to the sword by these Azeri , uh, forces. And , and , and what is interesting after this massacre, who she was leveled to the ground, all of the Armenian inhabitants were killed on driven away and , and through this , uh, means a series actually shifted the demographic of the city. And from 1920 onward, they, you know , brought in Azeri who actually settled in this homes of the Armenians , uh , Hershey in all of arts up was the only city after the massacre of 1920. We have to be very clear after they killed off the Armenians of the city. It became a majority Azeri populated city after the massacre of the Armenia is a Nike. And today Ali is , you know, saying that look, you know, we had a majority in , uh, shushie Azeri majority, but it's not talking about how does Erez actually establish that majority, you know , uh , through massacre and the killing of the native Armenians of shushie . This is how they established the so-called majority after 1920. So, so , uh, this policy of killing off the driver , driving away, the Armenian native population was clearly a policy of, you know, ethnic genocide, ethnic cleansing , uh, you know, and I would say in a greater picture of things, it definitely also fits in into the picture of the Armenian genocide. You know, because , because, like I said, continuation of the Armenian genocide, because like I said, Nudie Pasha is the brother of vendor . Pasha is, you know , pursuing the same pattern is policy. You know, Armenia is sort of this Armenia and Armenians are aware that are dividing the Turkey peoples , uh, and this where Chaz to be destroyed. So these people can unite and create this vast Turkey Panter guessed empire known as so-called run .

Vic Aslanyan 58:08

Yeah. Now , uh , I know you touched on this a little bit, but can you elaborate more as how we're , uh, Armenia and Azerbaijan uh sovietised and w was the faith of Auditel because of that.

Intro Music 58:23

Right, right. Uh, so , um, basically , uh, Bolsheviks after, as I said, after 1917, they did come to power in late 1917 in November of 1970 , but they weren't able to establish the rules throughout much of Russia or the Russian empire. You know, there was Russia itself was engulfed in a civil war. So it took them couple of years before they actually, you know , uh, entrenched themselves into Russia proper. And after that date expanded into the territories of former Russian empire, and, you know, this included , uh, south campuses as well, the republics that were mentioned that just briefly established where we establish their independence, Georgia Armenia and Azerbaijan, which , uh , in history was proclaimed for the first time in 1918. So basically they expanded into this area of salt promises and the Bolsheviks actually, they established the rule first and foremost in Azerbaijan with the help of believe it or not Turks. So Mustafa Kemal was who was so-called Turkish nationals leader. He actually collaborated with the Bolsheviks collaborated with the Lennon government , uh, to actually solve your ties Azerbaijan. And , uh, Azerbaijan became Soviet in late April of 1920. And, but Armenia still had remained independent. So Republic of Armenia still retained its own government while Azerbaijan was already by late , uh , April of 1920 was Soviet ties . So what happened is , uh , after this, the Soviets basically started the Bolshevik government favoring more , uh, the Azeri side, because it was sovietised. And unfortunately these two entities collaborated against the Republic of Armenia yes , independent Armenia, and they actually invaded this already Soviet and Azeri armies invaded [inaudible] invaded territories or Eastern parts of Eastern Armenia, and they annex this territory. But again, the Armenian population never recognized this , uh, this, this sort of like turmoil lasted until late 1920, when Soviet forces marched into , uh , Republic of Armenia and in collaboration, this is very important with the Turks Mustafa chemos forces . So basically Armenia in this pincer movement was invaded and partition between Kemalists on one side. So parts of Republic of Armenia were occupied by the tamales , uh , to the west. And parts of , uh, in the east of the Republic of Armenia were occupied by the Soviets . Uh, after that in , uh, November of 1920 Armenia became, became a , um , a very small portion of the Republic of Armenia proclaimed itself as a Soviet , uh , Soviet Armenia, which only form a fraction of the Republic of Armenia, you know, Republic of Armenia was about at least 70,000 square kilometers, but actually with the wills will Sonia and arbitrary award made by American president Woodrow Wilson. It was actually more than 160,000 square kilometers, which included four provinces of Western Armenia , uh , in its territory. But because of this illegal invasion and occupation of Armenia by this camera list and Bolshevik forces Armenia was illegally occupied by, by the Bolsheviks and , uh, and the KMR lists . And , uh, after that, which is quite interesting , uh, the local Armenians in, in places like autocross Sunni , they obviously resisted this evasion. And what is interesting, the Azeri Soviet government by Nadima naughty mano said, you know what, in order to quell this Armenian resistance, we recognize after Soviet possession of Armenia itself, we recognize that also Sunni , which they call [inaudible] believe it or not, which is another Armenian territory today, you know , annex Plaza by John OnStar or , or horrible [inaudible] are integral parts, integral parts of , uh , Soviet Armenia. This was made by , uh , Azeri , uh, uh, Soviet Azeri leader stated in December 1st, 1920 naughty naughty Monaco who made this declaration. So can you imagine if we actually have a declaration by the Azeris themselves stating that, you know, also in all, even now are integral parts of Armenia, but what happened is in , uh, June and July of 1921, once again , Soviet leaders , uh, brought this , uh, question on the agenda and, you know, in, in , uh, July on July 4th, 1921, it was decided that, you know, art stuff would remain part of Armenia Soviet army already Soviet dies . But what happened is on the other day on July 5th , uh, Stalin Joseph Stalin, who was already a , you know, a key Soviet leader, he actually interfered and said, no, no, no, you know what? Our staff would stay or horrible as they called it. What about would stay or actually be placed within Azerbaijan Soviet Azerbaijan, which was never part of an independent Azerbaijan, would you place the Soviet Azerbaijan? However, we would grant Armenia's local autonomy. So they, they would have Armenian autonomy, but within like Soviet Azeri rule, this happened as a direct result of interference, which is actually illegal because he himself, he was not part of Armenia's government or [inaudible] government. And so he interfered for Moscow and actually forced this decision, which placed [inaudible] , uh , we within Soviet Azerbaijan with local Armenian autonomy. But, you know, we saw that local autonomy was just on paper.

Mike Balian 1:04:58

No, he just, he , he didn't waste any time. I mean, the next day, one day later, right.

Intro Music 1:05:06

And guys, I mean, this is a different topic, but I think this was related with the broader picture that because, so which Soviets were trying to appease the Turks and Mustafa came a government on their side, because even at this time, the Turks were interfering and basically presenting themselves as sort of this arbitrary site to the Azeris. They would actually defend the interest of the Azeri side in the Soviet government. So the Soviet at this time wanted the Turks on their side. They were hoping that Mustafa Kamal eventually would join their side and a Bolshevik government would even be established in Turkey. So as you can see, this was part of a greater scheme of things, unfortunately, which the Armenian side, Armenian, you know , uh, reality and Armenian people were subjugated to because of these greater schemes and political machinations by these powers,

Mike Balian 1:06:05

Keep that rapid expansion of communism going in the area and a firmer grip. No,

Intro Music 1:06:10

Exactly, exactly. So , so this , this is an important, I mean, a thing that we have to point out that, you know, at , at the greater scheme of things was always this Turkey, which acted as a sponsor, the Kemalists Kemalists acted as sponsors of Azerbaijan. Remember . And what is interesting is they were the ones who actually basically you can save a betrayed as their budget because they negotiated them bargain away. Azeri independence for their own ends with the Soviets. I mean, Soviet army Azerbaijan was independent until late April of 1920, but Kemalists actually played a role in Soviet visitation of Azerbaijan, which lasted independence. And today's as can you imagine, and as there is today, they still praise the Turks as their , you know, big brothers, I don't know, whatever, you know, but, but it's , it's, it's quite interesting. The Turks actually, they, for their own aunts , they actually were willing to, you know , uh, basically strike a deal with the Lennon government , uh, during this time. So, you know, this, this, this, this , but, you know , uh, and , and in 1923, the so-called, you know, status of mountainous, autonomous region of the heart above was finalized. Uh, this so-called, you know, no , what about all blast as you know, that status was finalized. So it would become an Armenian autonomy within Soviet Azerbaijan, but again, an important point within a super state of the USSR, you know, it was never, ATAP was never part of independent Azerbaijan. It was part of Soviet union as a state because Soviet Azerbaijan in itself was an administrative division of the USSR. It wasn't an independent country. That horrible was part of karma was within the, you know, USSR as a country. It wasn't part of independent Azerbaijan. It was part of Soviet Azerbaijan, which was just an administrative division of the Soviet union.

Speaker 5 1:08:18

Now segwaying into the next topic, which would probably jump a few decades, right from we're talking about post-World war one , pre-World war II moving forward , um, upon many failed attempts, as what we understand , um, in Britain doctrine that, you know, Armenia tried to regain control of our talk and whatnot, or maybe they should try to the be independent. The something interesting happened sometime during the eighties with Gorbachev's Perestroika and Glasnost , um, which kind of brought in a reformation of communism, if you will , um, during this time, and kind of allowed some of these republics to perhaps have a little bit more of a voice, right. And this is kind of what was a catalyst that led into what happened post Soviet collapse. You want to maybe talk about that a little bit and where, what, what happened that basically started eventually led to the first , um, laudable war,

Intro Music 1:09:18

Right ? Right. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, so , uh, you you're right. Uh, these policies by the lake, by Baba , I mean in late Soviet period by , uh , premiere Mikhail Gorbachev, who said that, you know, we can actually talk about some of the thorny issues that our country feast , you know, we can actually have more sort of like a freedom of speech , uh , kind of environment and people can actually voice their grievances. So this led to the belief by the Armenian side , like , you know what we have all these issues, you know , uh, Armenia is constituted more than 95% of our staff , but during the Soviet time, that number dropped to some 70, 75% of , uh , Barnabas or you population. Obviously this was a slow drive of driving away, the Armenian population, you know, an artificially increasing those area population by , by does [inaudible] meet . Meanwhile, another important, as I talked about Armenian territorial knowledge , Yvonne , which had a significant, still significant army new presence in 1920, where it was when it was sovietised by late 1980s, that number dwindled to few percent. Can you imagine, I mean, these policies were so successful. These , uh, Azeri fication policies by the Soviet Azeri Azeri government were so successful that in knowledge upon Armenians virtually disappeared , disappeared , uh, eh, you know, and our last remaining monuments, there were simply wiped out in front of our eyes. You might, you guys might have seen those , uh , video of Armenian Dua , uh , hardcore cemetery cross . Those are medieval Armenian monuments are being bulldozered and destroyed by the Azeri army. You know, it was , uh, you know, actually videoed from the Iranian side of the border anyway, but , uh, you know, so, so the Armenia side basically hope that, you know, Gorbachev was actually sincere and, you know, they can actually say, you know, that, you know, the Armenians of arts are the native or in your population is being discriminated by this Soviet Azeri government. And obviously them being Armenian, they would actually feel more comfortable, which even Soviet Armenia, because at that time in 18 87, 88 , it was still Soviet Armenia. So this, this movement, this democratic movement of, of, of, you know, arming your rights , uh, of defending the rights of the people of arts, of the Armenians of arts of war about , and , uh, we're basically just protests . You know, people protesting the same, you know, what we're being discriminated against, you know , uh , uh, Soviet Azerbaijan is not, is not investing into these so-called autonomous army, your region it's it's, it's, it's driving people away. It's making, it's investing money in Baku and saying, you know what? Armenia is of arts. Have you come over to Baku ? You look , you live here. You don't have to live in step on a Garret. You don't have to live , they're not opening factories, they're not opening businesses. So that way the Armenians are artificially basically go to Armenia, go to Russia, go to, I don't know, Bob , whoever, you know, so Armenia said, you know, we realized that this is, this is , uh, this part , this anti Armenian policy would only end if this autonomous region returns to the fault of its , you know , mother country, which is Armenia. So in late 1987, actually in more like in early 1988, it really took off, you know, and like February of 1988, you had these huge protest of [inaudible] , which is the capital of arts . Uh , and , and in, in, in quickly in Yeti , avant and other parts of Armenia as well, of hundreds of thousands of Armenians showing their solidarity with Armenia is lots of of saying yes, you know, autumn as an Armenian region has to reunite with Soviet Armenia. But what , what happened is like army is, was totally taken off guard and we're never ready for this MC when basically the Azeri site answered in , in a fashion that was reminiscent of earlier times, you know, they just attacked Armenians in cold blood and slaughtered Armenians in, throughout Azerbaijan, in cities like [inaudible] in , uh ganza or , uh , or , or at that time known as kilobar bod in BARR ,

Mike Balian 1:14:04

Which was, which was going to lead me to my next followup questions was about the pilgrims, the pilgrims that fall out during this time between, what was it, 88 to about 91 before the war started, correct.

Intro Music 1:14:16

Right, right. Correct. Correct. Absolutely. Yeah. So basically the Azeris resorted to this violence and , and basically massacres , uh, and, you know, Armenian side was totally caught off guard because, you know, they, we basically are ways the question in a democratic way, people protested, purpose side petitions, signed petitions through the garbage of government to the Azeri government. And they did all of this , uh , you know , uh , according to the law, according to the constitution of the USSR, this is an interesting thing, like the local Soviet or the console of a lot about what arts are , they actually proclaimed. And they had like a legal vote that, you know, they , uh, are you reunited with Soviet Armenia and the Soviet Armenian console , uh, the parliament that the same thing, you know, they , they said, yes, you know, we, we accept the decision of the people, the majority of , of what about to be reunified. I mean, it was, it was like a democratic ward . And according to the Soviet constitution, you can actually, it was allowed, I mean, even an autonomous region was allowed to succeed from a constituent Soviet Republic from one constituent Soviet republics Republic enjoin another Soviet Republic. So all of this was done according to law, according to the constitution of the Soviet union. But like you said, the Azeri site completely disregarded and they resorted to these massacres and to violence, killing tens and hundreds of Armenians throughout Azerbaijan. And this unfortunately led to the events that we know so well, you know, in late 1991 , uh, already the Soviet union collapsed and the [inaudible] side, not only resorted to massacres, but you know, their armed formations , uh, and their army basically started to attack Armenian settlements or arts . And this is how it began first with the massacre of the civilian population of arm , uh, Azerbaijan and parts of Alta , and then basically an outright attacks , uh, of their military units on , on the Armenian, you know, settlements of arts and from 1991, where basically we're engaged in this brutal and bloody war until 1994 against the Azeri site .

Vic Aslanyan 1:16:48

Wow. That's, it's unbelievable day, you know, it's like, they, they always have that disregard to law that just in general, I mean, imagine at that point, you know, when the Soviet union collapsed, there was no, I guess, call it big brother , but even before that, you know , kind of looking over and kind of regulating things right. Wiser by John was just like a loose cannon at this point. Yeah. Yeah. Well , um, let's, let's talk about the developments after the 94 ceasefire , um, that ended the fighting and , uh, basically just in generally around auto , what, what type of developments took place, right. Right . So,

Intro Music 1:17:29

You know , between 1991 and 1994, the Armenian side basically , uh, you know, was able to actually not only defend itself, but actually, you know, when, when, when these attacks continued on, was able to actually secure , uh , joining areas , uh , which served as this attack , uh , basis for the Azeri army. So when, when the ceasefire , uh, took place in may of 1994 , uh, obviously the Armenian side was the winning side. And , and, you know, and the Armenians had pointed out that, you know, as a winning side, basically , uh, we, we still want peace with the Azeris, as long as the Azeri side recognizes the legal lawful , uh, right. Of the Armenians, or art's off to self-determination. I mean, that's incorporated in international law, the right to self determination and , uh, henceforth the Ms group, which is like , uh , uh, OSE Ms . Group OSC is the organization for security and cooperation in Europe. It's an important , uh, European union entity, which actually basically, you know, Mon , uh , not only monitors, but actually regulates this conflicts in and around Europe, the OSC group there . So the EU set up this way , Boise , uh, Ms. Group in 1992, which actually , uh, was tasked with , uh, you know, regulating , uh, the conflict and putting an end to it by reaching a sustainable and just solution, you know, for all the parties involved. And obviously the principle of self-determination was in shrined in the documents that were put forward by the [inaudible] group. Uh, and the co-chairs of the main scope and C group were Russia, France, and the United States, and they remain so until the very day, until, until now. And what is interesting , uh, via that, you know, Azerbaijan actually agreed that, you know , they would actually have a negotiated and peaceful settlement with the Armenian side . So when they signed the ceasefire of 1994, which was brokered by Russia and way they signed a number of documents with the OSC Ms group, they actually in , uh , in these documents, they stated Ali have stated that , uh, first, and then the son, the father, and then the sambal actually did you know that , uh, or, you know, they would actually seek a peaceful solution to the conflict and that military solution is never an option. And there you go. And , you know, even before that, obviously we know they violated that in, in 2016, as you know , uh, basically in 2016, that was like a mini test drive of the war that happened in , uh , September of 2020. They attacked arts, they invaded arts , uh, in , in April of 2016. Uh, but they then they'd stop. And obviously they waited for the more proper time, which for them was , uh, September of 2020 Mike . And that's when so-called, I don't know , second arts of war that's sometimes what is referred to, or the 2020 war. Once again, broke out with the results that, you know, I think we're all of us are familiar with, but, you know, I did, we may have to make this important point that they violated the misc OAC groups principle that, you know , they would not resolve to a military solution to this conflict and they will stay to the negotiated settlement and to the negotiations that were ongoing since 1992, Evelyn , you know, not even 1994,

Mike Balian 1:21:33

Which is basically where we were headed next is, you know, where, and how, or why did they do what they did to cause the second Nagorno-Karabakh war, which, I mean, we've seen through history thus far, they are aggressors. They don't want to follow any guidelines that they themselves have agreed upon. You know, and it's kind of part of the reason throughout the last, what, 20, 25 years, even prior to the second war we all saw, there was little skirmishes and flare ups along some of the Eastern borders. And it was, it, they, they , more or less violated a lot of these treaties and eventually they decided we're going to take matters into our own hands. You know, and it's this again, if you, if you want to maybe elaborate a little bit more on to my , I guess, micro information as to what led to what happened, you know, last year.

Intro Music 1:22:27

Yes, yes. Yeah. Uh, that's a very good question. I mean, I think first of all , uh , an important thing that the Armenian side was actually pointing out that, you know, throughout these years, you know, Ali of government Isla Ali was, you know, using the oil revenue money that he's getting from his, you know, Wells in Bob Baku to buy these huge , uh, you know, supplies of arms. So he spent, he spent in the last , uh, 15 years or so , uh, around 30, $35 billion just on arms, you know, this army, can you imagine? Yeah, just, are you just basically, you know, so he, when he was arming to that extent, a lot of, you know , uh , analysts , um , you know, no political analysts , they were saying like, obviously Azerbaijan is heading for a war. Uh, and obviously the Armenian side was also preparing for that, but this is an important thing that there was a , this balance, this balance, because he invested so much of this, you know , oil money into the arms , uh, this in itself created a disbalanced , but also he also considered the geopolitical realities, you know, Turkey under air though on starting to pursue more aggressive policies, which are sometimes referred to as new Ottoman policies. So this big tater of , uh , Turkey who considers himself as, I don't know , elder brother, or what have you, of, of, of Ilan or live , uh, he basically starting around 20 15, 20 16. And, and especially in more recent years, he vouched and basically , uh, whilst 2d zero side , that, you know, what, in the next war you are going to have our support, you're going to have our support militarily, politically diplomatically. And this is exactly what he did. Uh, Mike, he just basically , uh, I mean , uh , a key example of this would be like Turkish , military F sixteens were actually guiding and coordinating the Turkish drones by rockstar drones that were attacking our positions. Can you imagine, I mean, Turkey, a needle country was , uh , an active participant of this war without this participation. Let me tell you, I mean, definitely the results of this world would be totally different. So what had, yeah, so what had she does actually Turkey coming much strongly on the side of, of, of, of, of the Azeri side , uh, and, and , and another important player you would say Russia again, like, you know , uh, unfortunately during the first war, it made it very clear that Turkey cannot interfere in, in arts of war and a number of key high ranking. Russian officials made that clear. You know, if you interfere, it's going to be like a third world war, but this time around my , this time around at best, it had like a neutral position, so to speak. I mean, it made it known to the Turkish and Azeri side that, well, you know, it's a conflict, but you know, that's a conflict that, you know, it's not taking place in Armenia. It's taking place in this vague territory. It's, it's, it's not, you know , it's not part of our responsibilities. We don't have armed forces there. We don't have an Alliance there. So basically they use this as sort of like a pretext, which you send a very bad, in my opinion message to the Turks and there's areas that, you know, at least we're going to be neutral, but I would say not even neutral, unfortunately, because remember we talked about a lot of those arms being bought by the Zeri sidewalk . Guess what a you chair of that was actually Washington produced weaponry that was sold to the Azeris.

Speaker 7 1:26:26

Well, Russia has always sold both sides. So

Intro Music 1:26:29

Exactly. So what Armenia is, we're saying like, you know, if you're an ally and, you know, we have this alliances, I mean, we can take other examples of countries being allies that they don't sell weapons to the enemy side, which is not technically in an Alliance with another side, you know, I mean, United States would never sell weaponry that to its ally country. I mean, I'm sorry to the enemy it's ally country that would be used against its own ally. Yeah ,

Speaker 7 1:27:00

Well, actually the United States has sold weapons to was their allies at the time. And in some way, somehow turned into their enemy or whatnot over time. But like, you know, it's a common practice with a lot of these major superpowers. If they're trying to try to make money, it's not making money on one side, you're making money on all sides.

Vic Aslanyan 1:27:18

Yeah . Now my question to you give look is, is , is as far as Turkey being a NATO member, I mean, obviously there's laws that, you know , uh, like you said, they, they, they weren't allowed as a needle member to get involved. What happened? How, how did they get away with this?

Intro Music 1:27:36

Yeah. I mean, this is the thing , uh, via they , they, they would basically what they did is they , they would never formally part of the conflict. This is the thing, this is how they actually, you know, but obviously we know that for example, to be , uh , a drone operator, this, you know, Stripe drone , this BIRAC tars , which are there , you know, it's basically, again, American technology just basically modified it . They presented as Turkish, but the core of it is America. And, you know, even the producer, this Celgene by tar who was [inaudible] , who is incidentally son-in-law of , uh , Airedale on Sandra [inaudible] with the , is that supposedly the , the , you know , invented this. Yeah. He actually studied at MIT in the United States. This is where he actually picked up the technology anyway in early two thousands. So, so basically , uh, you know, these drones you need for the operator to actually operate them, you need like, at least a year or couple of years to operate them. These drones basically came to Azerbaijan in mid 20, 20 and summer of 2020. And they were already used in September of 2020, obviously the operators weren't Azeris okay. There are Turks Turks so that , you know, but obviously it's, it's like, you know, like you say, you know, they, they were never part of formal part of this conflict. It was a , you know, assist thing . Or they would say like, oh, you know what? Yeah, we have our F sixteens in Azerbaijan. You, you even have these, you know , uh, shots of these F sixteens, but, you know, they were just therefor training and they did, they remain thereafter, you know, military drills that we had with Azeris , you know,

Vic Aslanyan 1:29:20

There's also proof of , of , of radar showing like the Turkish , uh, you know, well , military planes in the air for like six , 10 hours something doing loop , which is, you know, that that's a clear sign that they're monitoring they're , they're controlling their

Intro Music 1:29:36

Yeah. [inaudible] exactly. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah . And I mean, even, even a lot of people point out that, you know, I mean, even , uh , this was documented, you know , by the United States and many even governments, they pointed this out, they actually imported these Jihadi fighters from like Syria, Libya, thousands of them. They paid them as mercenaries to actually, you know, to serve as cannon father . So these geodes would a first line that would attack Armenian positions. And we even have videos of these GRD fighters fighting kill. We actually Armenia side actually corporate , uh , arrested a few of them. You know, a couple of them were basically basically arrested by Armenian site . They're still in Armenian custody of these Jihadi fighters. This is again, you know, violation of international law Turkey should be held accountable for doing strange things for like bringing these terrorists, you know, they're Al Qaeda, affiliated fighters, Jihadi fires , Al-Qaeda fighting against the Armenian side. Can we met ? And they openly admitted after getting caught that they were paid a certain sense. Yes, yes, yes. I mean, we have all the evidence this, and I'm sure this will all go to, you know, to the international court of justice, to other UN bodies. You know, th this is , uh, Armenia side just recently, actually. And a lot of, a lot of there's a lot of evidence that these fighters are still in these territories, occupied arts of territories, these Jihadi fighters, they even , uh , there were even skirmishes with Iranian side. Can you imagine, so these geodes , they would even attack the Iranian border guards and have like, you know, shootouts and skirmishes with the Iranian side and they publish these photos of these GRD fighters. Yeah.

Vic Aslanyan 1:31:34

Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's very frustrating when you think about this stuff , um, uh, before , uh, we have one more last question for you. And then , um, I do want to remind everyone on clubhouse, that's listening. Uh, we are speaking with historian giver . Nazaryan , uh, if you missed the beginning , uh , we will have this up on , uh , all the podcast platforms tomorrow. Uh, we began with, you know , the early beginning of history of OTs off , and now we're kind of talking about the recent war. Um, and , and after this question , uh, we'll , you know, if you have any questions, please raise your hand and clubhouse, and , uh, you can ask any question , uh , regarding this topic to give directly. Um, my, my final question to you is, you know , uh, how and why do zeros and Turks falsify the history and, and also what can we do to fight against this,

Intro Music 1:32:32

Right? So, yeah, unfortunately, like I said, you know , uh , all you have is, you know, you using the power of the purse is , is billions of dollars oil money to , uh, try to , uh, you know, influence, especially academia political circles and what have you. And he, he puts out like his side, his , his side puts out this false narratives, basically falsification, complete false falsification of history. You know, they would , uh, try to erase or , you know, facts like , uh , Armenian negate, the reality of Armenian presence, which as I said, all the evidence shows and we have all the most Asian sources clearly stating that. Uh, so basically he's utilizing that, but like, I think in the beginning of show, you made a very good point that, you know, Armenians themselves first and foremost, have to educate themselves and become these beacons beacons of truth. You know, if we, we, ourselves, we don't know our own history that we just talked about it this last hour, you know, about arts are about, you know, how the names come comes form about the Armenian population in art . So if we ourselves don't know these historic facts, we can't actually combat against these, you know, full suppliers that are paid, you know , uh, by the, by the Ali , uh, you know , uh, government to, to falsify history. So I think first and foremost, we have to educate ourselves. Then we have to take a more active role in actually, you know , uh, having, you know, academic conferences, you know, wrong tables and what have you, that we actually , uh , discuss these important and pertinent topics. And we have like academics with integrity who actually, you know, just state history as it is, because, like I said, history is on our side. Truth is on our side . Well , you know ,

Vic Aslanyan 1:34:38

Yeah . The biggest problem when you say history is on our side, but a lot of people don't understand that their , the way their agenda works is if you take , uh, you know, if you have native people that have been there for thousands of years, I mean, how do you eliminate them by making the rest of the world believe that they're not native, they're just, you know, just let's say a tribe of people that somehow moved in and we gave him the, you know, we said, okay, you can stay here for now and now they're making trouble. Uh, they're not behaving and we need to get rid of them . And that's why, you know, you're talking about destruction of the Hodge. God has the churches to even engravings. And this is a bogus Caucasian Albanian history, which is, you know , a complete BS. Um, and this is what we need to fight against. And , and, and I've had it from the first episode to the second one to this one. And I'll continue to say the reason we do this, why we have this podcast and these amazing historians on is because we want to educate ourselves, our audience, our next generation to youth, even the elderly who don't know about this stuff, we need to know, so we can be armed and ready when they come at us with, you know , uh, their , their churches and this and that.

Intro Music 1:35:54

Exactly, exactly. Uh , I , I completely agree. I mean, like , uh , you know, there that if we're educated, I think enough of are educated, you know, and in turn become, you know , activists of, of, of truth. You can say of , of history. We can actually confront all these lies, but if we're ignorant of these realities, if we're ignorant of our own history and history in general , uh, we, we can't confront them. I mean, they have like, even they have like conferences, they , especially in the universities when we have a lot of Armenian students and we have to be, you know, vocal, we have to, you know, actually confront these attempts by Ali , by the Turks , you know, to, to pay off the so-called quote unquote scholars. Uh, you know, I mean, Turks , as you know, until recently for the last decades , they focused a lot of , a lot on falsifying history with regards to the Armenian genocide. Yeah . But now it's obviously harder for them when, you know, it has been acknowledged by all the branches of the us government, you know, by the president, by the Congress, by the Senate. So it's , it's harder for them to have this fake scholars pay by the Ancora by Erewhon to basically falsify history for all the us . It's a little bit easier via because like a lot of people, unfortunately , like non-Armenian people, you know, they simply don't know, you know, they're , they're, they're ignorant of , of, of historic facts. So he just presents it . Like he wraps this full city , these falsifications in, in , in such a way that a lot of the time it's hard for like someone who's not very well versed or completely ignorant of our region or history to, you know, understand that basically this, this doesn't, this is not corresponding to historic facts. And this is where the army and people have to come into the play because we have to play a more active role in saying, you know, this is, this is the reality. This is how things are. So basically they put out a lot of these, you know , books, a lot of videos, a lot of, I don't know, they organize these conferences, events, colloquia, and things like that. If we're not confronting that are , you know, we don't have enough people who know the truth, we're actually, you know , uh, actually speak out. We, you know, in a right way, in a proper way, you have to, first of all, be armed with knowledge. You have to know these academic and historic facts to actually, you know, confront these falsifications. And , and I would argue via like , uh , like a lot of, you know, our own people, they mean well, but they, first of all, they have to learn of these facts. I mean, how many people that we just talked about this history are very well versed in these facts. They know somethings, maybe they know some things like bits and pieces from here and there, but they need to have a complete picture to , I , we try to trace, I don't know, three, 4,000 years of history of arts in one show, they have to know this, you know, they have to know from the origins to our present, they have to know all these facts and how things develop . So they can actually confront is false appointments .

Vic Aslanyan 1:39:12

We need to start doing these seminars. And I think also one of the problems is , um, th th it Armenia, or even here schools , Armenian schools, they don't teach this stuff. And, and it needs to be taught a from , from the first grade, I think they should start, you know? So , uh, you , you have what 18,000 years to cover. So , um, it , it needs to, to, to be , uh , you know, imprinted in our next generation. So they know, and I think just knowing, you know , uh , that self , um, the rejuvenation of knowing who you are, where you came from your ancestors , um, and now next , uh, I mean , uh, if you have anything to add to that I was going to go to ,

Intro Music 1:39:57

Oh, no, I, I completely, I completely agree. And like I said, you know, that's why I think what you guys are doing is so important. And I hope more Armenians worldwide understand the importance because like our identity, without our own knowledge of ourself , you know, we can't have, you know, we can't speak of an Armenian identity if you don't know your own history and culture. So you have to, first of all, learn of your own, you know, roots, you have to know your history or culture in order to speak of you. I don't know, like, you know, being proud of your identity , uh, you know , uh , defending your identity and then unfortunately, or I dunno, maybe fortunately for Armenians , it's much harder because we have this aggressive , uh, false will basically try to, you know , uh, in, in many ways , uh, not only sort of like falsify that identity, but also maybe even erase it , but you have to stand strong when you can stand strong and be proud of yourself. And in , in many ways, be a productive member of society of your own people. When you actually know your roots, you know, your history, know your culture. So, you know, be history of arts that, you know, it's actually part and parcel inseparable part and parcel of Armenian history. You don't have any IEPs doubts. I don't know what have you, because, because yeah, because even Armenia is , are bombarded with this, you know, Ali of propaganda is bombarded it's . Yeah . I mean, they , they just, he basically from his budget, maybe he spends annually. I dunno , like this X amount of hundreds of millions of dollars just to falsify history. And that's okay for him to set up a special fund to , to do just that. You know, we have to realize that this is how, you know, how they're working in terms of this prop strong, very strong propaganda. You, you guys probably have aside during the war, I mean, they don't

Speaker 8 1:42:00

Attacking us on all fronts on the information warfare information warfare. Exactly. And full certification is Armenian history is part of that because even the United nations , there are United nations charters that, you know, indigenous people have rights, Armenian people as an indigenous people, to their native land, be evaded, colonized, subjugated, and wiped out. You know, they have rights that, you know, we have to uphold yet . You can't put the invader and the attack or the aggressor on the same scale as someone who has been living there for 3000 years. Yeah ,

Vic Aslanyan 1:42:38

No , that's why we need to get , uh, besides us learning, w th the end result of this is by educating ourselves is bringing the international community to get involved in, you know, the learning about part of history by doing seminars. Like you said, just , uh, books need to be translated. There's amazing books out there. I keep saying this , uh , Armenian books about our mean history that needs to be translated into English. It's very important. Um, I know myself since me and Mike started this MEDHOST project and everything we've learned together about our history. I mean, we all knew the small, you know , snippets of things that have happened and you make yourself feel proud. Yeah. But just doing the research and diving deep into these topics, and we're going to continue to, I honestly, I feel stronger for some reason. Um, and like, you know, the word rejuvenation is so important. Like, I don't know, like, I feel like I took a , a breath of fresh air by, by learning so much. Um, we do have a question from , uh, Luke Mula on clubhouse Mina , if you want to unmute yourself.

Speaker 8 1:43:46

Hi, thank you for this book , uh , about , um , how we can , yes, hello. I think she spoke about how we can , um, we can , um, fight against , uh , uh, height up with them . Get that every time then , uh , that , um , uh, uh, uh, uh, outgoing comment and I won't take it back long yet . Uh [inaudible] um , [inaudible] Lucia has done that for me . How much , um, biotic

Gevork Nazaryan 1:45:27

Thank you . Let me know . Uh, we'll translate it later, but , uh, okay. Well, I should, I , uh , I can answer in English or whatever, because you know, our audience is mostly well w you know , audiences mostly English. Right , right. Uh, okay. Uh, thank you for that, for these two questions, a new meter . So basically the first question was , uh, how are I ? Our media and academia in Armenia is how much of it is , uh, pretty much in line of, of, of, of pointing all these truths and some of these falsifications, perhaps they also gradually creep by the, by the Turks and the Aries . They gradually have crept into , uh, Armenia and academia of Armenia , uh, you know, or, or, or have they, that , that was what lewd Mila was wandering in on the first question I answered the second one as well. Um, so in my opinion, honestly, you know, in Armenia , uh , the , there were some attempts of , of , of sort of like exerting the soft power because in Armenia, now we can actually refer to this tradition as the earliest attempt as soft power is probably guys know what soft power is like, basically influencing a nation through these different information war, and basically like , uh, perks and things like that basically influencing the way that you want through a econ economy or what have you. But , uh, in my opinion, no, I mean, academia in Armenia, we have very credible, very good scholars here in, in like that, you know, have been doing amazing work , uh, with regards to Armenian history. So this is my opinion that, you know, these attempts w war and will be made, but luckily for most part, Ludmilla overwhelmingly Armenian academia and the academicians historians professors, what have you are very upstanding. And, you know, in my opinion, it would never have, have a major foothold is attempt, you know, so in , in my humble opinion be addressed , I know many of these professors, I know these, you know, the deans and what have you, and, and, you know, they're extraordinary people, very, you know, they have that integrity.

Intro Music 1:47:56

No, I don't think these attempts would go far , uh, you know , uh, by the Turks and there's areas , uh, referring to your second question. And that, wasn't also interesting question that we briefly touched up. I know maybe it might be touchy for some people. She actually pointed out that what war Russia played and plays with regards of , uh , you know , acting as the ally, because like we have treaties with Russia that, you know, it's , it should , it's an ally of Armenia there, you know, Armenia is part of this joint , uh , collective security treaty organization, which is a military organization CSTL and like a lot of Armenians have been pointing , pointing out that Russia should play a more active role in putting a check to these Azeri and Turkish , uh, sort of like aggression and provocation. You know , this is my opinion. I know you guys can disagree, but I think, I think Ludmilla is making a good point. I mean, unfortunately Russia is, is sort of not , uh , obviously, you know, made out of its own interest or what they consider their own interests or , or , or the leadership of Russia, which I could maybe, you know , make the argument that it's not , uh , you know, like you can argue that it's actually not even to their own interests. You know, I wouldn't be the guy that are actually telling them what their interest is, but, you know, long term interest of Russia, in my opinion, this is my opinion. Like it would be putting a check to these , you know, certification of therapy , uh, stronger Turkish influence installed promises . But what we have seen is the opposite Turkey has been actually , uh , like Russia has been actually collaborating and cooperating with, oh, no, I was there by John . So, you know, there are a lot of issues and concerns with regards to Washington cooperation with Turkey. And I was there by John. I mean, you guys probably know they established in all them in Oregon region, they established a monitoring center, which is like half Russian, half Turkish. So they established this joint monitoring center for enforcing the peace in a horrible, which is basic collaborative joint Turkish. Well, Turkey is pretty clear. It wants to extend it flawless . And it has this new automobile policy of extending its influence into territories formerly under the influence Russia. So as, as you know, you know, two powers, Turkey and Russia, they can't share same geo strategic goals and interests, actually their geo strategic interests and goals, clash, because both want to extend their influence on the same region. You can have like cooperation long-term cooperation. If you claim same as, you know, having being under your own influence. It, obviously there has to be a more dominant power, strong power that actually extends that influence. Um, and you know, this is more of a political thing, but I think like , uh, Armenia has to also balance just as Russia. For example, when Armenia is, unfortunately are saying this concerns to the Russian side is they're saying, you know, we have this multi-vector policy, you shouldn't be concerned well, in that case, the Armenian side has to say, you know what? Then the Armenian side also has to pursue a multi-vector balancing policy, which includes countries like France and United States, which time. And again, have clearly shown that, you know, they're, they're not indifferent to the plight of the army new people. Uh, for example, you know, the Lin Tracy , the ambassador in the , uh , of us in Armenia has visited parts of Armenia that have been under this , uh, Zeri aggression in Gearhart , Cooney province, Sunni province that, that showed , you know, her solidarity and , uh, and, and concern. So like , you know, obviously we have a lot of room to collaborate on that front as well. Like, like I said, you know, if, if, if multi-vector policies pursued by one country that says, you know, it's an ally then absolutely Armenia has the same, right. Even more so to do the same with countries such as France and the United States, which also happened to be, as I remember guys, I said, these two countries are the co-chairs of the main school se group . So they're very important countries. These are the countries that today are saying that the auto conflict will never be settled until the status, the status of arts are and determining the right for the self-determination of the people are , is respected. Uh, Russia has never made such a statement after the war only France, the United States made , made these statements. These are very important. So , you know, th this is my kind of expanded , uh , uh, answer to what Mila pointed out in terms of our law .

Vic Aslanyan 1:53:06

Thank you for the question, Mila . Uh, we have echo , uh, who has a question if you want to unmute yourself.

Speaker 8 1:53:14

Yeah. Hello. Give her around here from people of we know each other.

Intro Music 1:53:19

Yes, yes. Love to hear you.

Speaker 8 1:53:22

Yeah , yeah. Yes , sir. I have a question. Does the becoming of any influence on the loss of our and the current situation European? Yeah .

Intro Music 1:53:36

Right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Nice to hear . You're a good friend, you know, thank you for the question. Uh, well, I have to respectfully say for most part, no , uh, uh, again, let me say why look, we know what happened, the stationing of Russian, you know, they call them peacekeepers troops. And this, this plan was all blind during like around 10 years ago. Give or take. Okay. So what happened as a result of this war was the so-called Lavrov plan . Latrobe is the foreign secretary of Russia. As you guys know Sergey Lavrov, and, you know, there was this informal plan now known as the Sergey Lavrov plan , which would say, you know, Armenians return, the so-called occupied several regions around the autonomous region, former autonomous region of Araba and Russian peacekeeping troops would be stationed in these areas. This plant was put together 10 years ago on the Russian side was very active in pushing this. Okay. Even before that , they exerted very strong pressure on a former like Sarah Sarkisyan government who was empowered before PASHI Yan . So this plan comes about Sarah's action at that time resisted because obviously Armenian side was not prepared to simply hand over these territories for, you know, Aaliyah's promise or what have you, which obviously doesn't even work the paper that he would, you know , sign. Uh, so I would bring this as an evidence if such plan never existed, if Russia would never pressure Armenia, even before pushing young, coming to power, I would say, yeah, maybe you have a point, but what we saw in a very worst scenario implementation of the Loughborough plan that happened as a result of this war, Russian troops were stationed Armenia site was forced to hand over those regions. So let me make that point clear. We actually handed back more territory as a result of the November 9th, 2020 agreement then was lost during fighting during the conflict. Can you imagine when we hand it over without fight cargo jar [inaudible]

Speaker 8 1:56:04

And give her compassion has nothing to do with this go with a more thorough , there is an even the level of Flint.

Intro Music 1:56:15

I'm not, you know, obviously I'm not here to justify or defend on our , I mean , you know, our loss speaks for itself, you know , uh, but w you know, I just hope you can put it into its context, pushing you and use it for just as previous governments are also at fault for not doing more to strengthen a lot of our positions on the diplomatic on the military and other fronts are . Um , but you know, obviously at the end of the day, this, this, this, this scenario is, is , and the roots of this, unfortunately much

Gevork Nazaryan 1:56:50

Deeper than the part passion is also very much at fault for signing the November nine agreement. Absolutely. Something that never before, you know , for handing off those territories, you know, there were people

Speaker 8 1:57:05

[inaudible] . Yes, yes,

Gevork Nazaryan 1:57:07

Yes, yes,

Vic Aslanyan 1:57:09

No , thank you. Thank you for the question. Uh, echo or autumn, I should say. Um, uh, we have , um, uh , the next question is from Christine, Christina , if you want to unmute yourself ,

Speaker 8 1:57:26

Uh, I don't have question right now, but I would keep going because I interned in the middle of the discussion, so we could go. And if I have a question I will discuss about , I will talk . Okay . We can go .

Vic Aslanyan 1:57:38

Thank you. Um, anyone else, anyone else have any questions , uh, to , uh, give look ?

Speaker 8 1:57:52

So it's not a question, but you look , I found out that in ancient Rome, the word sushi means a temple. They're interesting . They're

Gevork Nazaryan 1:58:07

Interesting. They're interesting. That's interesting. You know, shushie is , is very , uh , west Shaw bear. It's very archaic ancient. And again, like Zara's falsify and claim, you know, it's , it's Azeri. And, but obviously, as I said, you know, the first time that one of their rulers [inaudible] entered this area basically bribed himself into this area was in mid 18th century. And all the ancient, Armenian , uh, monuments and descriptions you have with Armenian inscriptions are, you know, from historic times. And, you know, and that's what incidentally, that's another thing. That's why they're, you know, they're destroying Armenian monuments because that's the evidence, you know, with the Armenian letters, that's why they destroyed the [inaudible] cars with all the Armenian carvings, because it's clearly, you know, showing that this, this area belongs to people, you know, to the Armenian people, you know, they have cemeteries, their ancestors are buried here, you know, it's like , uh, you know , uh , so that's why they're destroying it. But, you know, obviously there were so stupid data and think that, you know, it was documented in secret from the Iranian side, and you can actually search on YouTube destruction of Armenia cemetery of Juul, or Julphar on YouTube. And, you know, they're doing the same now in the occupied territories of hardwood , they Shashi , you saw that, you know, they're the Hassan Trestles cathedral. They're actually completely, even we changing the shape. It looks now more like a mosque. Can you imagine if they

Intro Music 1:59:48

Destroyed the dome? If you look at it now, it has like a raw mosque. So when you look at the city, it doesn't have this typical chronic Armenian, a dome that would actually be a SIG. That was the signature of the Armenia signature of the town. So by destroying it and having this , this sort of like , uh , uh, the chronic dome , having this wrong dome, it looks like a mosque from when you look at it from afar. I mean, this is the , how far, and, you know, agencies like UNESCO and things like that. They have to speak out. I mean, this, this is unacceptable

Mike Balian 2:00:24

And that's, and that's really good point that you just brought up is someone like , uh , organizations such as UNESCO in a world world known world renowned . Why haven't they been more active in stepping in and protecting some of these sites? Well , regardless of treaty or regardless of armors this , whatever the case is. Yeah,

Intro Music 2:00:43

Well, I'm sure that's why I said like that . What Zara's fear is the restarting of the negotiation process, which is, which is something that the army is site will never, never give up to like that . When we begin these once again, negotiations with the Ms OSC group, which France and the United States have pointed out that have to restart all of this, you can bet Mike, it's going to be put on the table. So Ali have made the statement that the conflict is all war we won. There's no more hard about , there's no more question, a lot about that's it, the conflict is over, but the Ms . Boise group told them no, the conflict is not over. And it will never be over until the rights of self-determination of the native population of art staff are fully met. And this final status of [inaudible] is finalized. That was like a slap in his face. It was just shocked. Yeah . That's why we have to very closely made sure on work with two , especially, unfortunately, I mean, especially with the France and United States, which are the co-chair countries of the OSC group and have me, these important official statements of, with regards to finalization of conflict can only take place when the rights just rights of the Armenians of arts are met based on principles of international law self-determination and then, and only then we can speak of resolution final resolution of conflict, which is an interest of the people that are actually living there. Yeah. That's yeah. We have a question

Mike Balian 2:02:35

From Andy, and if you want to meet

Intro Music 2:02:37

Yourself yeah . Just real quick. So why do you think for the, a historical lesson that was incredible.

Speaker 8 2:02:46

Why do you think the admins group hasn't done anything simple one . Oh , no .

Intro Music 2:02:53

Andy . Okay. Okay. Did you hear that? That's it? Yeah, I did. I did. I did. I actually did what Andy is saying. Why hasn't mist group done anything? Well , uh, you know, thanks for the question, Andy. I actually, I respectfully disagree. Ms. Group, the co-chairs have actually said we have to start the negotiations. And like I said, like, w we will, we start those negotiations pretty soon and it's going to happen and guess what they will be, they will do a lot, you know, once those negotiations, we start, they're gonna, for example, like I said, when Ali have signed on their documents, that said, you know , um, you know, we're gonna , we're going towards negotiated, negotiated non military settlement. And he actually broke that, you know, he actually signed that, you know, he's willing to , uh, you know , uh, continue with the pat of negotiated peaceful settlement. Then he actually turns her arguing. We broke it . No, not, not the , no, no, not the Ms group. I mean, Azeris can say whatever Ali can say, whatever you want, Andy, but the Ms . Doesn't have that view. The [inaudible] co-chairs don't have that view. And let me tell you another very interesting and important thing olive to show to , to , you know, as a propaganda piece, he actually invited a bunch of , uh, ambassadors that are , uh, would credentials in his inbox, who from different countries and the three OFC Ms. Group chairs, co-chairs Russia, France, and United States. They did not attend to that meeting of ambassadors in shushie siding that since that conflict is not settled, we will not venture into a city of shushie was status status is yet to be determined. This is , this was a very important signal and message to the Ali of regime. That means school is C group is not favoring. What he has done. There is no military solution to the final settlement of the conflict.

Speaker 8 2:05:04

So realistically, just a pony on that answer. So what do you think, let me go back to the negotiating table, what would possibly be thrown on the table, so to speak, like what could be a possible solution to this that you think , I mean, you're a historian, right? So we can kind of historical perspective and try to kind of ,

Intro Music 2:05:26

Right. Right. Well, I mean, I'm not going to predict, but like I said, most importantly, me , the Ms. Group has made it clear , uh , Annie , that basically , uh, when we speak of self-determination, obviously the self-determination of arts of people is ultimately, you know, independence. And ultimately, you know, after that, who knows, you know, but most importantly, the right for self-determination of the people, which make up the majority of this territory, who happened to be Armenian has been fixed inscribed by the [inaudible] Boise group. So if the people themselves are led in a democratic way through referendum, which they actually have met, and that is recognized by the Zuri side as well, you know, they have that right. It's, it's enshrined in international law, and this is what the Ms . Boise group actually supports. You know, it's, it's, it's, you know, you, can't, what [inaudible] is doing is basically saying, you know, I want, I'm going to use military to enforce my own vision on this region. If I have to drive Armenia's away, kill them, I will do it. And the Ms . OSA group is saying, no , this is not how international law works. You know, you have to respect the rights of the people that are living on this land.

Vic Aslanyan 2:06:41

Yeah, that's true. Um, everyone, we have only a few minutes left. Uh, we've been on for over two hours now and , uh, yeah. And give is in Armenian . I know it's , uh , getting late over there. Um, I do want to mention a few things before we end the show. Um, you can , uh, give , he has an amazing website, which is called Armenian highland.com uh, some amazing articles , uh, any, I mean, I think you cover pretty much everything as far as history and, and , uh, I have a lot of studying to do, or we , we have a lot of studying to do , um, also , uh , the give work has, and I've, I've ordered these myself. Yes . Two books. Uh, first one is a 10 outstanding Armenian Kings , uh, and then another one called 10 ounce Downing, Armenian Queens. Uh, they are on Amazon. If you guys are interested , uh, please go ahead and purchase it to educate yourself. Um, do you want to mention anything about those?

Intro Music 2:07:42

Uh, yeah. I just want to point out , uh, Y thank you. It was more like the , those are , uh, by , uh , my good friend [inaudible] and I translated them into English. So those are his books. I translated. It was like he was a friend, you know, I respect them a lot. Unfortunately we lost him by, as, during this COVID pandemic, you know , um, he just passed away. So sadly in October of last year, can you imagine during the war of all things , um, so we lost him. It was a dear friend [inaudible] so that was my humble way of paying my homage to this great historian , uh , colleagues . So, yes, but most importantly, those two are obviously, they're not like definitely volumes on Armenian history, but they will give you a lot 10 outstanding bombing in Kings and 10 outstanding Armenian Quinns . Look that up for Amazon. Uh , they will give you like an important backdrop to, you know, for you to dive in more into Armenian history, you know, so it's like an important stepping stone in that regard those two books , uh, and , and make sure to buy them in English because the, you know, they're available in, in Armenian as well. So we make sure it's okay .

Vic Aslanyan 2:08:56

I was just going to mention that version. Um, so , uh, again, make sure you check out the website, Armenian hyland.com , um, uh , uh, as far as , uh, anything else you want to mention before we wrap this up?

Intro Music 2:09:13

No. Um , I'm just very much thankful for the opportunity, again, my honor, and pleasure, and thank you guys for doing this via and Mike, you guys are great and, you know, I hope more Armenia's realize , uh , what great work you're doing and just people at large, I mean, is this, you know, even non-Armenian our friends, you know, like, you know, God bless them. You know, it's like , uh, you know , uh , history is such a fascinating thing. And , uh, the more you guys share what you're , you're a very important voice. Well , let me just say, and I hope this voice , uh, resonates all over the world, you know, just Armenian diaspora worldwide, picks it up and, you know, and you need to be supported in your own rights . So hopefully as S DC , how much of you input yourselves input into this, they start supporting you in so many ways that they can, you know, in different ways that they can. So my , my , my , yeah ,

Vic Aslanyan 2:10:11

Um, well, we're, we're, we're, we're doing the best we can and , and, you know, we're proud of the show and, and w we're thankful from , uh, you know, people like yourself and, and , uh, humbled , humbled by, you know, Dr. Vaughn city on , uh, who , um , is, he's a , he's a cohost , uh, but he's obviously very busy with, especially this COVID situation right now. Um, and he's dealing with the native American , um, society. I think he , he works in the healthcare industry as well. Um, but a couple of other things I want to mention if you guys heard our last show , um, there is the project that we're doing with Bobo animation, and [inaudible] , uh, where we , uh, donated , uh, computers for a D two , um, labs that were opening up, which kids will get to learn , uh , 3d animation for free, which will eventually secure them a job in the studios. And , um, we'll also also bring in a lot of outsourcing work from the United States and other relevant countries that have a, you know, quite a prominence when it comes to media arts and whatnot. And , and , uh, we, we basically , uh , have about $20,000 and we were trying to get up to 35. Um, we've already donated a bunch of it there . They started to process over there in [inaudible] . And , uh, if you are interested in helping out, you can go to Meow scene.org , uh, slash bulk , bulk , and donate any amount helps. Uh, this is a great project, and this is eventually going to help us to take what we do with the sculptures. Uh production-wise design-wise to Armenia. Um, so that's the thing, and also always visit us at [inaudible] dot com. If you're interested in what we do with the sculptures, the collectibles , you know , uh, uh, those from , uh , whatever sculpture you purchase, we do donate $30 to me.org , who by the way, is the organization that helps , uh, the families who've been displaced , uh, during the war , uh, they help with the soldiers , uh, to recover. So it's an amazing organization. Again, that's Mia scene.org . You can just Google it, you'll find them. Um, and , um, having said that our next episode, our next guest will be Dr. Christina [inaudible] who , uh, who is a great historian. And we're going to talk about the Armenian arts and architecture in the medieval era. So again, I want to thank you, give , uh, for, for doing this , uh, hopefully we'll have you again , uh , soon to talk about a different subject , uh, for everybody who missed it. Uh, in the beginning, we will have this up tomorrow on all the major , uh , podcast platforms . So you can go ahead and listen to it , uh, subscribe, share, get the word out there, listen to our previous episodes. Uh, w we want this to become a huge movement, get involved too . We , we also have a website. You can email us , um , you know, any questions you guys have any suggested topics that you guys might want us to discuss in the future. We're very open. If you have questions you want us to answer on the podcast , uh, you can always email us, which is pod P O D at med Hedo, snare.com . It's spelled just the way you hear it. Um, and then you can also on Instagram at med Hedo snotty , you can send us a message. We're very active. Uh, we'll take your question and answered on the next show. If you had a question that, you know, you couldn't get to today, we can cover that , uh, um , next week. And , uh, we might do the clubhouse again with Christina. We'll see you live with, so that shows we're going to be recording next Saturday, 10:00 AM. So , uh, we'll see if she, if she is open to the clubhouse, we'll go ahead and , uh, let everyone know about it again. Uh, thank you very much. And , uh , until next time

Speaker 9 2:14:38

[inaudible] .