Translation by Armen Ayvazyan

Editing by Armen Ayvazyan

A. Adibekyan, A. Elibegova

The idea of this book came after the presentation of Azeriсhild project which represented a systematized compilation of works by Azerbaijani authors intended for children audiences along with a series of examples of works created by children themselves, which gave a clear demonstration of the gap between the real situation in the Azerbaijani society about anything relating to Armenia and the declared tolerance for diversity of cultures and religions.

Naturally enough, we tend to label this hatred as armenophobia often without full awareness of the pivotal role it plays in shaping the ethnic identity of Azerbaijanis; such hatred channeled against all that pertains to Armenia stands as the nemesis of their psychological model and fuels the juxtaposition of us vs. them which is fraught with repercussions for Azerbaijanis themselves.

The large archive compiled by the authors of this book a) serves as a thesaurus for an analysis of ongoing processes in the Azerbaijani society and b) allows building a temporal perspective on three levels by covering the past history, current situation and expected ramifications of the armenophobic policy pursued at the state level in Azerbaijan.

The book contains necessary factual evidence and theoretical premises that can be viewed as illustrative of the psychological and social basis underpinning the processes that occur in the Azerbaijani society and have some bearing on us. The chance to scrutinize online the phenomenon of armenophobia in the social milieu of Azerbaijan facilitates the work of specialists and becomes a continuous resource for analysis.

The authors are certainly far from the allegation that the Armenian society – if taken under a rigorous scrutiny – will not display similar traits. However, it must be emphasized that the scale and level of such propaganda defy all reasonable comparison in the first place.

The book provides overwhelming evidence attesting to a widespread armenophobia in Azerbaijan and beyond its borders – orchestrated and inspired by the state while represented by its existing political forces with the full approval and support of the intellectual elite and the society as a whole. In this context, there is a blatant contradiction between the verbal statements declaring commitment to certain values and a very specific line of action that nullifies them. Secondly, the book aims exclusively to narrate facts without recourse to any hasty conclusions, partial assessments or biased analysis.

It must be stressed that all examples included in the book are taken from Azerbaijani or neutral sources. The limitations of this publication warrant the inclusion of only the most typical and common manifestations of armenophobia in Azerbaijan. Besides, considering the frequent practice employed by the Azerbaijani media consisting in removal of materials from original sources, the authors have prepared screen shots for all examples used in the book.

The book is intended for a wide audience, and does not exclusively target Armenian readers. We address this book to the international community, the people of Azerbaijan and its religious leaders.

It is incumbent on us to warn that showing retaliatory xenophobia is inadmissible; therefore, this book is not intended for use as a teaching material in schools and is not recommended for highly sensitive readers.

And, of course, we wish to express our special gratitude to all those whose assistance and support contributed to the publication of this book.

The authors also recommend several thematic websites created upon the initiative of the Information and Public Relations Center of the Administration of the President of the Republic of Armenia by its experts

http://karabakhrecords.info

http://maragha.org

http://azerichild.info

http://xocali.net

http://ermenihaber.am

http://xocali.tv

http://justiceforkhojaly.tv

The complex notion of xenophobia can lend itself to a scrutiny under diverse perspectives of such sciences as biology, medicine, psychology, sociology, ethnology, political science, cultural studies and other related disciplines, yet regardless of its aspects it boils down to an antagonistic perception of others vs. your own kind.

No real threat from the ‘others’ must necessarily be present to trigger off the xenophobia complex as it is intended to bring together the members of any specific community, therefore any similar marking will suffice to serve a key indicator distinguishing between ‘us’ and ‘them’.

The sense of affiliation with a community (i.e. family, tribe, religious, professional, cultural or ethnic group) is a core human need.¹ Being part of an ethnic community ranks high among top needs in the self-identification of any individual. Therefore, everything that cannot be framed into the historical concept of ethnic self-identification may elicit individual feelings of rejection, negation, exclusion and opposition.

The conflictologist Christopher Mitchell² in his study of primary self-identification comes up with the following socio-psychological findings.

• Affiliation with a large group meets the need felt by every individual to be accepted by others.

• Identification with any particular group is instrumental in building self-esteem and sense of security; therefore it is of preference that the group in question be successful from the perspective of its individual members.

• Individuals shun any negative opinions in respect of their own group, as it relates to their wish to maintain a high self-esteem; In their ambition to build a high self-esteem individuals are likely to glorify their group and overlook information on its actions or qualities that can put the group or its members in a bad light.

• The division into ‘us’ and ‘them’ is almost inevitably bound to debase ‘them’ so that ‘us’ can be hailed by the same token;

• Group identification is often so strong that the values and objectives of the group are internalized and assimilated by its individual members.

• Any threat to the group or any of its values and goals will be regarded by its members as a personal threat putting their own values at risk.

Originating, evolving and spiraling among the Caucasian Tatars at the turn of the 20th century along the same tracks as anti-Semitism in Russia, armenophobia now represents an institutional component of Azerbaijan’s modern statehood.⁶¹ This means that we come to deal with a case of a profound rejection of Armenians in a context where the Azerbaijani perceive them today as educated, successful and wealthy people, whose very existence “stripped” the indigenous majority of their privileges and turned them into “uneducated”, “disadvantaged”, “impoverished” people and so forth.

Historically, Armenians became the axis, around which the ethnic and national identity of Azerbaijanis evolved⁶². At each point in history, the political and social discourse, the statements of public figures and researchers drew contrasting comparisons between the Muslim identity and Armenians.

The Armenian population with its relatively higher standard of living and higher level of education was seen by the local Muslims as alien and hostile which far from constituting any threat to their survival became a source of permanent sense of “inferiority” further exacerbated by the satirical, public and social discourse of the scant Muslim (Azerbaijani)⁶³ intellectuals.

The profuse literary works, political and social discourse, pamphlets and satire, which laid bare their own backwardness, obscurantism and the absence of a national identity, mainly used comparison and contrast with the Armenians, rarely Russians and Jews, but were far from favoring the Muslim (Azerbaijani) population.

Overall, three main levels can be identified in the Azerbaijani perception of Armenians:

• Idealizing Armenians and setting them as a role models;

• Regarding Armenians as equals;

• Debasing and rejecting Armenians on the brink of an unabashed policy of xenophobia and bigotry against Armenians.

Pre-Soviet period

At the turn of the 20th century writers, public and artistic figures marked a clear borderline in their perception of Armenians and the local Muslim (Azerbaijani) population by viewing Armenians as a standard and example to emulate; this tendency is readily traceable in the works of Azerbaijani intellectuals.

The self-criticism that hinged on a contrasting comparison with Armenians found expression in all significant areas of public and social life. By the early 20th century, the education among the Muslim (Azerbaijani) population was still at a rudimentary level, while regions with the Armenian population had primary schools that had been offering joint education to children of both sexes as early as in the mid-19th century. Thus, the first school opened in Shemakh in 1863. The need to school the children was seen by the local Muslim population as something alien that collided with their customs and traditions and led to a greater exclusion of Armenians.

In 1875, Hasan bey Zardabi⁶⁴ addressed his compatriots with these words: “Muslims! Don’t you regret that the whole world, and even our neighbors, seeks enlightenment, while we remain dead in our tracks waiting to “have everything stuffed in our mouths and chewed for us”? Muslims, who care for the fate of their nation, open up your eyes!”⁶⁵

Such comparisons and efforts to hoist the Muslim (Azerbaijani) population to the level of Armenians drew from the local population led by the Muslim clerics strong feelings of aggression and rejection towards Armenians. The clergy sought to keep the population within the confines of the ummah⁶⁶, while the intellectuals fought for the nascent national identity.

Lack of education was the decisive factor that tilted the scales against the intellectuals and by extension – against Armenians. The latter were frowned upon as catalysts of all woes associated with these changes.

Here is how the famous composer Uzeyir Hajibekov⁶⁷ describes the comparison between the Muslims (Azerbaijanis) and Armenians:

Look, my friend, Armenian or Russian children do not go to school before they turn seven and receive a home education, while Muslim children stay away from school at home even after they turn seven, eight or nine years of age. <…> Armenian or Russian children are nurtured at home by intelligent and educated mothers who put them to sleep and let them out for a walk in due time, who fill their leisure with toys useful for both spirit, morals and physical health. Not a single bad or pernicious word reaches the ears of these children. What do they hear then? Music splendid for the mind and body, stories, poems and legends written specifically for children by famed pedagogues, correct instructive words of their parents, conversations of well-mannered and educated guests who visit their houses. What do they see then? The walls of their homes are decorated with paintings and pictures of flowers that please the eye, there are beautifully illustrated magazines and books on their tables, cleanliness and order surround them and so forth. <…> And what about our children? May Allah have pity on them! All they hear is obscene language, swearing, foul talk and intrigues! What do they see? They see nothing but the evil doings of their elders; they are surrounded by ubiquitous dirt and waste. Places of their games are full of dust and mud, and their playing is about… strangling cats, hurting dogs, dipping mice in oil and setting them ablaze.

It must be noted that parallels between Armenians were drawn not to “hail Armenians as superior” to Muslims. On the contrary, such parallels were acrimonious along these lines: “we are unlike them”, “we should resemble them”, and “we do nothing to become more educated and civilized like them”.

Mirza Alakbar Sabir

Thank God, we are not Armenians, to send our boy to school.

There, look at our praised beanpole of the son-in-law who was a swat at school, and what is there to gain from him?

No, I won’t allow my baby boy to be schooled! He is still a tot!

Let my boy continue swearing, he is just but a little one!

25 August, 1908⁶⁸

This backfired as phobias in respect of Armenians did not abate; instead, they were heated up and intensified. Considering the illiteracy factor of the population, it can be rightfully claimed that there was virtually no direct link between ‘the people and the intellectual elite’, and all communication was mediated through the clergy or a state authority which protected the interests of the business and had a stake in maintaining the ignorance and therefore their ability to control the masses and sought to eliminate their Armenian competitors.

During my stay in Baku I was extremely surprised by the vehement acrimony of foreigners against Armenians; apart from a couple of isolated cases, their sympathies were entirely in favor of Tatars. I must confess that I was impressed by this unanimity. I came to Caucasus without any biased judgment; however, I was inclined to believe that the sufferings of Armenians were greatly exaggerated by the European press which blackwashed Tatars. Agayev to whom I paid a visit convincingly proved the righteousness of Tatars, while the English, Russian and other disinterested observers were almost unanimous in their condemnation of Armenians. Even plain Russian soldiers and policemen who were asked to give their opinion on who was responsible for the unrest responded without the slightest doubt: Armenians. Where racial and religious hatred was white hot, it was hard to weigh all pros and cons at once. I had no choice but to rely on statements of those who knew well this land and seemed neutral. But I gradually came to the conclusion that foreigners were not as unswayed in their judgments as it seemed at first. Let along the Muslim skill of impressing, the position of foreign financial and business circles was influenced by their competition with Armenians. But for Armenians, foreigners could lay their hands on the entire oil industry of this place, instead, they must deal with an able, industrious and resourceful opponents <…> all of the above explains the rancor of foreigners against Armenians. A prominent English factory owner told me quite straightforwardly that all Armenians must be annihilated.⁶⁹

The nascent small bourgeoisie under the guiding hand of Pan-Turanian ideologists benefited the ignorance of the population to advance their objectives, i.e. consolidation of the population of various ethnic backgrounds around the idea of the single ethnic self-identification based on the image of Armenian enemy rather than the common religion. The image of the Armenian enemy has become the very impulse that was necessary for the consolidation of the society and formulation of ethnic traits.⁷⁰

A. Agayev wrote during the clashes between Armenians and Tatars of 1905-06: “It is thanks to these clashes that all Tatars of Transcaucasia came to realize that they belong to a single kind and related with one another by close ties, and that there is no difference between Tatars of Nakhichevan and Tatars of Baku”.⁷¹

A correspondent of ‘Kavkazskoe slovo’ (‘Caucasian Word’) newspaper S. Rafalovich wrote in his memories: “In my presence, the Minister of the Internal Affairs, Behbud Javanshir, said: “Today I received Tagionosov. I told him that it was in the best interests of Armenians not to come pleading to me. When I talk to Armenians, I feel such resentment that I forget myself which is surely to make things worse for Armenians”. When asked why he chose to accept the post of such responsibility, the Minister of the Internal Affairs, Behbud Javanshir responded: “Why? I became a minister only to do away with Armenians”.⁷²

Dr. Khosrov bey Sultanov (Minister of Agriculture and State Property), along with many others, openly declared that in Azerbaijan there would be either no Armenians altogether, or they would be given the status of the Turkish rayah (rightless creatures). “Armenians have nothing to do here, let them go to their own country”, vehement nationalist voices were heard.⁷³

Asad Karayev: We rejoice in your success. We have no doubt that the sum of around 100 million allocated from Baku will not be spent without benefit. May Allah bless the power of the money that can do more than mighty troops. Those who know the thinking of Armenians will always know how to become their masters. There is no Armenian who wouldn’t sell everything for money. This nation holds nothing sacred except money. This explains the large number of Armenian spies and agents as in no other country money can achieve as much as in case of Armenians. It is a fact of life. Wretched (poor) Jews are unjustly accused of this.⁷⁴

The 20th century – Soviet period

With higher level of education and with equal conditions and the absence of the need to take personal part in the process of education, ethnonym and alphabet⁷⁵ creation, historiography, etc., in the context of the rhetoric dictated by the epoch, Armenians came to be viewed as an attained benchmark. This found its expression in the thesis of “Armenian-Azerbaijani equality and brotherhood’’, “friends for centuries” and “companions in arms in the struggle”, etc.

It must be noted that in daily life and at subconscious level comparison and contrast were still quite common and were later on transferred into the areas of academic studies and administration. The perception of Armenians and the behavioral patterns that ensued formulated at several levels.

Outward – at the level of slogans and propaganda which were based on communist values and represented as a whole a showcase where recent tragic events came to be termed as “fratricidal war provoked by the tsarist regime”. In this sense, a footnote to the poem by Sabir appearing in a publication in 1983 is quite illustrative.⁷⁶

Dedicated to clashes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis provoked by tsarist regime in Caucasus in 1905 and published in ‘Hayat’ newspaper along with the letter of Sabir in which the poet responded to the invitation for cooperation appearing in the newspaper to mark the commencement of its activities. “For people who made a bloodbath” etc.⁷⁷ The reference is made to the fratricidal massacre between Armenians and Azerbaijanis.⁷⁸

Or, the public statements of communist leaders of Azerbaijan:

Ex-president of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev: Comrades! The entire life, short but vivid and full of profound meaning, the life of a professional revolutionary, versatile party and state activities of Stepan Shahumyan are a symbol of his selfless fight for freedom and the welfare of the working people, for the triumph of the communism ideals. <…> Back in March 1918, Musavatists provoked an anti-Soviet rebellion in Baku intending to quench the Soviet authority. Thanks to the resolute and firm measures taken by Bolsheviks, the rebellion was suppressed. Bolsheviks of Azerbaijan spared no effort in their struggle for the development of socialist revolution in all directions. Despite intrigues of the bourgeois nationalists, in defiance of a mortal danger they propagated in masses – in plants and workshops, in villages and provinces – the truth of the Lenin doctrine. The titanic labor of the chairman of the council of popular commissars of Baku could be seen in all reforms of the commune. Sultan Majid Afandiyev dedicated this figurative statement on him: “Stepan Shahumyan is the guiding hand of the Commune of Baku, its mastermind, knowledge, and thought… The compelling logic of his discourse hit and crushed the enemies of the Commune. He is the favorite leader of the army of oil industry workers” <…> the noble image of Stepan Georgievich Shahumyan is an inspiration for all generations of workers <…>. And today, with pride and love we say that this great son of the Armenian people, Stepan Shahumyan, is also a son of the Azerbaijani people, all peoples of the Transcaucasia, all multinational and united Soviet people (long and thunderous ovation).⁷⁹

Latent perception implies the use of administrative resources with clear armenophobic tendencies against the background of ‘friendship’, ‘brotherhood’ and ‘solidarity’. This very administrative resource became the instrument of self-assertion in the region and, particularly on Armenian territories, and became the locomotive of the ambition to rewrite one’s own history, to find more ancient roots, ancient statehood, to define one’s own unique place and contribution into the treasury of the human civilization as well as to change the regional demographics. And all this occurred in contrast and comparison with Armenians.

Ex-president of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev: In the future, we must create works so as they continuously and constantly prove the claims of Azerbaijan to the lands that host today’s Armenia. We must do this. We must pave the way for generations to come.⁸⁰

These words uttered back in 1999 are a telltale evidence of the succession of the policy initiated back in the Soviet period as confessed unequivocally by H. Aliev.

Heydar Aliyev, ex-president of Azerbaijan: “<…> I speak of the period when I was the first secretary and contributed a lot to the development of Nagorno-Karabakh. At the same time I sought to change the demographics of the region. Nagorno-Karabakh raised the issue of establishing an institute, a university there. <…> I thought and I decided to do so. But with one condition; there should be three sectors: Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian. <…> Azerbaijanis from the neighboring regions were directed not to Baku but there. We also sent Azerbaijanis from the adjoining regions. I took this and other measures trying to increase the number of Azerbaijanis in Nagorno-Karabakh and to crop the number of Armenians.⁸¹

This was reflected not only in words but in actions: curtailing the rights and possibilities of Armenians as an ethnic unit to favor the Azerbaijani population. This was not the first but the most flagrant fact of mass discrimination in the history of the Soviet Azerbaijan, and it was quite purposeful and targeted.

Perception in the daily life: along with the development and progress of Azerbaijan, the country became caught between two worlds. On the one hand, there was Baku with its Europe-oriented upper class with its flexibility, moderation and openness; on the other hand, was the remaining part of the country, a huge social stratum that was retrograde and remained at the level of ‘ummah’, with its typical apathy and impassiveness towards the secular authority, with the traditional practice of docility and the customary religiousness.

A very illustrative example of xenophobia in daily life is described in an autobiographic essay by Vahid Ghazi.⁸²

My grandmother used to tell us stories: “When we were kids, Armenians massacred many Turkic people. At the time, they called us Turkic. They killed us everywhere. They cut off the nipples of the women, laced them in strings and threw into our trenches. Those who could not stand it and stepped forward were shot down. They tied hot samovars on the backs of the people and made them run…”

But my grandmother never told me: “You must also hate Armenians!” I know, I heard that Armenians bring up their children with a feeling of hatred to Turkic peoples and Azerbaijanis. We did not have any such practice. The hatred links to memory and ours retained no vestige of it.

It must be noted that in their interactions with Azerbaijani who referred to facts based on their personal experience, all tentative of the Armenian side to hear a single confirmed example of Armenian children brought up “in the spirit of hatred to all Turkic” remained without response.

The testimony narrating the reaction of ordinary Azerbaijanis to the devastating earthquake of 1988 in Armenia is quite illustrative in the context of aggressive armenophobia.

General Alexander Lebed: The events unfolded with a relative calm up to December 7. In the evening of December 7, the news release of ‘Vremya’ announced that Armenia suffered a tremendous earthquake. <…>. The silence was suddenly broken by a sound, or to be more precise, by an entire roar of sounds that merged into a single general howl of triumph and glee that increased in intensity. <…> In an attempt to ascertain the nature of these sounds, I went out on the balcony along with another five or six officers.

<…> On the opposite side of the street, right across the building of the Regional Executive Committee there was a big nine-story residential block. All windows in the building were alight without exception; people on the balconies yelled, screamed, hooted and roared with wild laughter. Down went empty bottles, burning paper and some other objects. This nine-story residential block was not alone in its expression of cannibalistic mirth. The picture was identical in all adjoining buildings. The entire district beamed and howled in a frantic frenzy.

People that considered themselves civilized, educated to a certain extent and well-mannered, some of them supposedly religious and following the covenants of the Quran were united in this inappropriate barbarian celebration of a tremendous human tragedy. I felt a strong urge to cross out this cursed residential block with a long burst of my assault rifle. This could be the only way to make people degraded to apes claim back their humanity. How many merry, kind reasonable, hospitable people I met among Azerbaijanis! The discourse of many of them was so full of passion and conviction! Where have all these reasonable and kind people gone? How could it be possible that they all dissolved in this scum yielding to an impulse, the extent of heinousness of which is hard to define? This was a riddle to me. There can be only one interim and sad conclusion: any stage of civilization, any upper form of social and economic life is separated from feudalism and even the savage horde by a single step backwards, only one step… It takes just certain conditions, and people immediately prove themselves capable of showing that they climbed down the trees only very recently.⁸³

Vardges Bagratovich Artsruni, head of the construction complex of Armenia: The Soviet Union still existed, and help streamed into the disaster zone from all parts of the country. Azerbaijan too had sent some fuel tanks by railway. The fuel tanks bore writing: “Congratulations with the earthquake! We wish you another one!” The train was sent back, and it became clear that there would be no reconciliation. This is impossible to forget. A little later, it became known that trains carrying food and humanitarian aid which passed by railway through Azerbaijan were rolled over to reserve tracks at Azerbaijani stations. Refrigerators were turned off for several days, and after meat and other foodstuffs became spoiled the train was sent on into the disaster zone. Mix trucks carrying cement were filled with water and after staying idle for 2 or 3 days were sent into the disaster zone. The construction and other machinery loaded onto platforms reached the regions of Armenia hit by the earthquake not only with shattered windshields but with everything else that could be broken (doors, windows, etc.). Following that, full blockade of the railway and road communication ensued.⁸⁴

In December 1988, Armenia was hit by a disastrous earthquake that destroyed entire cities and claimed a death toll of many thousand lives. The entire world stretched a helping hand with humanitarian cargoes reaching Armenia from different parts of the world. Azerbaijan too sent trains, but they were loaded with crutches and nails for coffins.⁸⁵

The parallel existence of three separate sets of values which were equally fostered and promoted ultimately led to an internal conflict within the Azerbaijani society which at the outburst of the first conflicts with Armenia revealed itself in line with the non-Soviet ideology instilled in the minds of the people in the following fashion: to take revenge on Armenians, to show them their place, to destroy them.

Decline of the Soviet period – Independent Azerbaijan

By the late twentiеth century as the Soviet Union collapsed, with a conflict between Armenian and Azerbaijan and a de-facto military, another round of rethinking history, self-identification, comparison (or contrast) with Armenians commenced, but this time it was on different precepts. Now Armenians were portrayed in a new quality as “not indigenous people”, as “weeds that must be pulled out”, as a “cancerous tumor” etc.

We shall not dwell on the chronological order of the conflict and all ensuing consequences, but we shall examine the ideology that served as the background against which these events unfolded. Considering the fact that the Soviet press was still censored, nationalistic ideas were instilled in the minds of the people through the ideologist-consumer system on public rallies, in self-published leaflets or through rumors.

The first public rallies were held with anti-Armenian slogans of Khalil Rza Uluturk, the poet of freedom and patriotism:

Original ⁸⁶

Bakımızı əzizləyək.Əqrəblərdən təmizləyək!Şölə versin bu ləl, mərcanErmənisiz Azərbaycan!

Translation

Let us cherish our Bakuand purge it of scorpions!Let it glim, our ruby of Azerbaijanwithout Armenians!”

The Russian historian Andrey Polonskiy in his article Islam and Establishment of National Self-identity by the 1980-90s writes that “Azerbaijan had a less significant share of relaxed humanism compared to the majority of the Soviet republics. The crisis of Karabakh and increasing level of armenophobia contributed to shaping a well-defined image of the enemy which had a known impact on the character of this new identity (it was originally based on aggression and was victory-oriented)”.⁸⁷

The tendencies and notions of denigrating Armenians and repudiating completely any contexts, comparisons or benchmarks with them going as far as to deny their very presence in the region were recalled to life and put into practice. The new historiography that swarmed with unabashed falsifications ranked very high in this policy of instilling and propagating armenophobia.

The most favored practice of Azerbaijani authors was renaming medieval Armenian political figures, historians and writers who lived and worked in Karabakh turning them into Albanians. In this way, Movses Kaghankatvatsi who had written in the Armenian language metamorphosed into the Albanian historian Moisey Kalankatuyski. The same lot was reserved for the Armenian prince Sahly ibn-Sumbat (Armenians preferred to call him Sahl Smbatyan) who underwent a transmutation becoming half-Albanian, half-Azerbaijani.⁸⁸

The academician Farida Mamedova who is a fiery preacher of the myth on Albanian (that is Azerbaijani) origin of Karabakh abuses the fact that the Azerbaijani readership does not know Armenian to deliberately mislead it. Thus, in her book entitled The History of Caucasian Albania, as evidence of “Armenian falsifications” she publishes a photograph of a stone slab carrying an inscription in Armenian which is rotated at 180 degrees⁸⁹ and tagged as a “fragment of a genuine (Albanian) slab from the church in the village of Dash Salakhli of Qazakh region”⁹⁰. The inscription is so crisp that any person familiar with Armenian and Armenian script can read it without any special training.

Without dwelling on numerous scholarly self-contradictions,⁹¹ we must only underscore that using her feigned knowledge of the Armenian language and misleading her readership is the keynote of her entire scientific activity and scholarly works. In this way, in an attempt to prove the Albanian origins of Gandzasar Monastery⁹² located in Nagorno-Karabakh, she resorts to the same trick used earlier and passes the Armenian language for Albanian:

I saw the inscription in Gandzasar in 1978 when I was there along with Azerbaijani scientists accompanied by Armenians of Karabakh for this very purpose. On my way there I already knew of the existence of this inscription in the Gandzasar monastery made at the behest of Hassan Jalal which reads specifically as follows: “… I built this cathedral for my Albanian people” (in Albanian: – imaguvaniazgn).⁹³

The scholar that claims knowledge of the Armenian and ‘Albanian’ languages affirms that imaguvaniazg is an Albanian word while, actually, it contains three Armenian words: ‘im’ – my (իմ), ‘aguanits’ from Aghvan (Աղվանից) and ‘azg’ clan (ազգ) merged into a single word ‘in Albanian language’, and with the same meaning for that matter. But the most interesting thing is that no such inscription has ever existed in Gandzasar.⁹⁴ This is a blatant example of an egregious falsification of the modern times.

The school curriculum was purged from Armenian authors (this particularly refers to the works of the first people’s writer of Azerbaijan, Alexander Shirvanzadeh⁹⁵). The literary works by Azerbaijani authors of the turn of the 19th century viewed as classics of Azerbaijani literature which portrayed Armenians in the positive light and contained appeals for brotherhood and peace (works of Sabir, Hajibekov⁹⁶, and Mirza Jalil⁹⁷) were expunged.

Enlightenment advocates of the early 20th century were replaced by the partisans of ideology and propaganda that appealed to a national unity balked by Armenians.

“Glory to the heroes of Sumgait” was the slogan of the public rallies bringing together thousands of people in the city of Baku.

Bakhtiyar Vahabzadeh, people’s writer of Azerbaijan: The time will come when we will realize the courage and heroic deeds of plain Azerbaijani guys in Sumgait who started the purge of our country from the Armenian filth.⁹⁸

In his book entitled Polygon of Azerbaijan, Aris Kazinyan notes an essential role of rumors as a main propaganda weapon of all times in shaping the behavior of ignorant popular masses.⁹⁹

It is very illustrative that at the beginning of the past century many journalists, missionaries and diplomats who worked either in the Ottoman Empire or in the Transcaucasia noted that the very fact of rumors about violent acts against Muslims at the hands of Armenian was the symptom of a forthcoming massacre, an anticipation of new Armenian pogroms. There is an amazing continuity not only in the rites of violence, but also in the pretexts for perpetrating it. On the eve of every Armenian massacre Ottomans and Turkish Tatars spread false rumors about carnage of Muslim populations at the hands of ‘gyavurs’ in some remote areas, about Armenian plans to attack Turkish districts in specific cities. <…> In 1905, the newspaper Tiflis Leaflet (Тифлиский Листок) published a report on the situation in the Eastern Caucasia: “In the mid-August, the provinces of Aresh, Jevanshir and other places were upset by a gruesome rumor: it was claimed that Armenians attacked peaceful nomads near the village of Vank and massacred many women and children. Three hundred armed horsemen from Aghdam moved into the area only to find out that there had been a skirmish about seven stolen sheep, with two Tatars killed and several Armenians wounded. Such conflicts happened every year and involved more severe bloodshed. But the formal pretext was found (Tiflis Leaflet, 21.08.1905)¹⁰⁰.

On the eve of the Sumgait massacre, the same traditional scenario came into play: certain individuals appeared in Baku, Sumgait and other regions of Azerbaijan telling the stories of Azerbaijani pogroms in Kapan (Kafan) region of Armenia and displaced compatriots.

A similar scenario was staged in January 1990 during the massacre of Armenians in Baku. An eyewitness of these events, the Colonel V. Anokhin reported: “I am sure that the more fantastic the lie is, the higher are the odds that people will be taken in. The deception techniques are sometimes monstrous. For instance, a public rally is held in the neighboring district to commemorate 1000 dead in Kurdamir. When I tell the residents of Kurdamir about it, they are astounded; they surely know that there is not a single loss of life there. However, they themselves go around telling stories of forty thousand Azerbaijanis killed in Baku”.¹⁰¹

As a result, all things that caused the alarm and concern of Azerbaijani thinkers again led to the frustration of Azerbaijani intellectuals rather than consolidated it.

Mirmehdi Agaoghlu, writer: My views of Armenians were shaped amid the famous slogan: “He, who does not sit, is Armenian”. The events on the central square began with millions of people squatting and standing up following this command. Just like the grown-ups, we, the kids, had a slogan of our own: “Wherever you see Armenian, hit him on the head with a pail”. We had but one enemy: the Armenian enemy. We heard this propaganda from the Azerbaijani television, we were taught this at school. The Armenian ‘dyga’¹⁰² were our enemies. We grew up amid this hatred towards Armenians. The state machinery of propaganda portrayed Armenians as a fictitious people that never had statehood, parasites and cheap prostitutes who lived off other countries. <…> Do you want to know the truth? In the past 20–25 years, your own historians and authors of propaganda told you lies. On the top of it, Armenian sources also indulge in exaggeration. Now try to distinguish fiction from reality. Every time I saw Armenian actors, scientists or representatives of other spheres of life on Russian channels, I felt resentment but still asked myself the question: If they are indeed such a tiny little nation that we can easily be done with, why do we come across them everywhere? Why are we not like them?

So, gradually the hatred inside me transformed into a complex of inferiority. And I felt angry because I had been deceived all this time.¹⁰³

Journalist Farheddin Hajibeyli: Why do we always suffer a defeat? There is no one to blame except us, boycott YOURSELVES!

Nobody is head over ears in love with black eyebrows and eyes of Armenians. They accomplished what they have today after decades of hard work. Let us consider them our enemies cursing and abusing them, but for the sake of justice we must recognize their right to all these victories, as they have been accomplished due to their intellect and foresight. <…> Now, let us be honest: who is more worthy of victories? Us or them?¹⁰⁴

After the country’s independence, the Azerbaijani quest for national identity and consolidation through inculcation and cultivation of the image of the external Armenian enemy by manipulating the public mind was given free rein through self-expression.

One of the main propaganda tricks employed by the official Baku in disseminating the myth of its tolerance and commitment to multiculturalism – the one that becomes a fertile ground for cultivation and indoctrination of armenophobia – rests upon the assumption that 30 thousand Armenians live in Azerbaijan.

This myth of 30 thousands Armenians in Baku is quite actively exploited by the Azerbaijani propaganda. The late national leader Heydar Aliyev was the first to come up with this statement.¹⁰⁵ Later, this figure fluctuated depending on the situation at hand and the needs of the day. For example, in 2008 Ziyafat Asgarov, the vice-speaker of the parliament stated: “Presently, there are approximately 50,000 Armenians living in Azerbaijan, and they face no problems”.¹⁰⁶ In his turn, Araz Alizadeh, the chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Azerbaijan, curtails the number of Armenians by 10 thousands and brings up a figure of 40,000 Armenians living in the country.¹⁰⁷ In the meantime, Elnur Aslanov, the head of the Division of Political Analysis and Information Support of the President’s Administration of Azerbaijan speaks about some 20,000 Armenians.¹⁰⁸ Ganira Pashayeva, member of the Azerbaijani parliament, confined herself to invoking “thousands of Armenians” without specifying their precise number.¹⁰⁹

Meantime, according to the official census of 1999, there were about 645 Armenians living on the territories controlled by Azerbaijan,¹¹⁰ while the census of 2009 placed the number of Armenians at 193.¹¹¹ In this reference, the Azerbaijani side brandishes the argument that the Armenians who live in Azerbaijan do so in a stateless capacity and, therefore, are not covered in the census.

It must be noted that this refusal to issue documents on the ground of ethnicity,¹¹² which dates back some 20 years, is in itself indicative of an ongoing apartheid and segregation policy against Armenians.

In the study Ethnicity as a social status and stigma: Armenians in the post-soviet Azerbaijan, published by Heinrich Böll Foundation,¹¹³ Sevil Huseinova notes that after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, ethnic Armenians who had lived in Baku were stripped of their status of equal members of the local urban community. This was determined not only by ethnic demarcation of the population. Their status of equal community members was lost during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, as Armenian ethnicity virtually became synonymous with the concepts of enemy and alien. This occurred as the ongoing conflict came to stigmatize the ethnic identity of Armenians. Being Armenian and living in Azerbaijan represented a contradiction and no longer met the standard of a ‘good citizen’. The self-perception of Armenians living in Baku crystallized in this context.

In addition, the ideology stating that the stigmatized Armenian residents of Baku constitute a threat or provoke negative emotions permeates the information space of Baku and Azerbaijan, as a whole. The borderline between stigmatized and correct persons is clearly marked. “The media and the daily life swarm with concepts of stigma: “historical enemies”, “a small Armenian bastard”, the derogatory term “Khachik” and so forth. You can say that ethnicity becomes the quality which sets apart the Armenians of Baku and distinguishes them from the other residents of the city and other citizens of Azerbaijan”.¹¹⁴

Following a spate of pogroms on the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan and attempts to completely purge the country of ethnic Armenians, some of them had to remain in Azerbaijan for various reasons.

They can be conventionally divided into several categories since they often migrate from one category into another.

1. Elderly, sick and lonely people are those who were not in position to leave the country and did not envisage their lives elsewhere, as Azerbaijan was the place where they had been born and raised; they had no other place to go and no one to host them.

There are no data on the number and later fates of those who had been stranded on the territory of Azerbaijan. However, it can be reasonably assumed that by now most of them have already passed away due to their health condition, age and lack of proper care and social protection.

2. Persons bound by intermarriage: those included under this category can be ranked as the most ‘problem-free’ as they enjoy protection from their husbands and children. As Sevil Huseinova notes in her research,¹¹⁵ these were Armenian women who had married the Azerbaijanis, and whose husbands and children could warrant their safety. As a rule, their lives were less endangered during the pogroms, their houses were not seized, and many of them could keep their jobs and property.

However, as evidenced by scarce publications and reports by international organizations, these women, too, had to face manifestations of extreme, moderate or latent xenophobia. For personal safety reasons, they had to alter their appearance¹¹⁶, last and first names, place of residence and work; they also concealed their origin to fully accommodate the realities of the modern Azerbaijan, but on the whole they had no regrets about the choice they made.

However, this relatively unscathed category of women includes those who found themselves marooned in the Azerbaijani society and had to go through their share of trials and tribulations reserved for Armenians. Manush Khujoyan, the representative of the Saved Relics organization, told the story of the sister of one of their organization members who had remained in Baku.

3. The term Homo soveticus refers to those who had hoped that the “tide” would subside, and the things would resume their ordinary course. Account must be taken of the fact, that the pogroms were perpetrated as the Soviet Union was still alive and kicking, and it could not possibly occur to a number of people that the soviet government would not find a way to remedy the situation. A year later, as the Soviet Union disintegrated, the ensuing economic collapse and the war against Nagorno-Karabakh Republic made travel impossible as crossing the border meant disclosing one’s ethnic origin and therefore was unsafe.

4. Persons completely integrated into the Azerbaijani society and not wishing to live elsewhere. They are linked to the Armenian ethnicity in name only, but not in self-awareness. An example: The father of Elvira Movsesyan who doomed his family and children to decades of trials and tribulations, or Anzhela Oganova.

No one, not even Azerbaijani researchers¹²⁵, know the real number of such people and their subsequent fate. Yet, a small number of publications and reports prepared by international organizations can give a glimpse of their living conditions.

After examining the problems of ethnic Armenians living in Azerbaijan, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) in its report for 2011¹²⁷ states that the number of people of Armenian descent in Azerbaijan fluctuates between 700 and 30,000¹²⁸ persons. These people are divested of the opportunity to exercise their rights as citizens of Azerbaijan and do not enjoy social protection. They never applied to receive Azerbaijani passports in exchange for Soviet passports and today can be virtually described as stateless persons.

Considering that the report reflects the official statements, this last point that the persons in question never applied to receive documents of their own accord is quite contestable. The cases of Zhanna Shahmuradyan and Elvira Movsesyan attest to the contrary; they duly applied to receive documents, but were turned down. As a result, one of them filed a court petition, and the other had to break the law and use the documents of another person. And these are not isolated cases. The Azerbaijani press reports another 30 court petitions to obtain a passport.¹²⁹

In Azerbaijan, ethnic Armenians face threats in their daily lives. Born in mixed families of Armenians and Azerbaijanis, they prefer to take up the last name of the Azerbaijani parent to avoid bureaucratic hassles, and those who are unable to do so seek to prove their ‘Azerbaijani descent’ in a court of law to be allowed to integrate into the society. The case of Firuza Bagirova¹³⁰ provides an illustrative example; at an advanced age of 74, she was forced to repudiate her Armenian father and portray her mother in what the traditional morality of the Caucasus views as disgrace only to be allowed to leave the country. The name of her Armenian father appearing in her identification documents keeps 74-year-old Bagirova stranded in Azerbaijan.

The absence of documents bars their access to basic civil rights: social assistance, employment, health care, pensions and the ability to leave the country.

Here is how an unnamed author describes the situation of Armenians on Day.az:

The ECRI report notes that as a result of the media policy and official ideology of Azerbaijan, being Armenian has become an insult, and claims of an Armenian descent can become a subject of litigation causing the person to lose his/her job. Azerbaijani news outlets teem with voices exhorting to fire not only Armenians, but also those who have Armenian lineage (i.e. have an Armenian mother, grandmother or spouse).

Apart from copious adversities and perils of their life in Azerbaijan, ethnic Armenians become a daily target of abuse and vilification from the representatives of the authorities, intellectuals and other citizens in the press, official statements, social and political discourse as well as in the social media. In addition, the disparaging and insulting rhetoric against Armenians as ethnic group is profusely fomented by the authorities of Azerbaijan.

Here, the reaction of the Azerbaijani community in social networks and forums presents a greater interest than the process itself. At grass roots level, many Azerbaijanis are genuinely surprised that “these insolent Armenians” dare to lay down the law, as if it were not enough that they lived in Azerbaijan. This rush of aggressive rhetoric among the regular Internet users from Azerbaijan is quite elucidating. Some demanded to have the addresses of the Armenian women to lynch them, and some others suggested “using these Armenians for propaganda”. It is of interest to examine both factions as they reveal the true attitude towards Armenians that Azerbaijan is so carefully trying to sweep under the carpet.¹³⁵

It is no secret that Azerbaijan can be hardly described as a country where common European values thrive, with its increasing incidence of corruption, misrule in the military, spiraling crime rate and hard-pressed social situation. To make matters worse, the propaganda keeps shifting the responsibility for everything that happens in Azerbaijan on Armenians who live there.

For the sake of fairness, it must be noted there are opinions which accurately reflect the bewilderment of ordinary citizens about the discrepancy between the declared values and calls on the one hand and the true state of affairs on the other.

With this onslaught of armenophobic policy that Azerbaijan has long sought to conceal, the surviving Armenians who had not been able to leave the country in time for various reasons found themselves virtually marginalized and excluded as low-grade citizens who stand as a constant reminder of a dented dignity and are continuously made to answer for sins they never committed.

The custom of banning names is quite common in the world. Such bans have their rationale based on the interests of children, protection of the current ideology and set of values.

Thus, many countries have a strict state-regulated procedure for assigning names to the children by their parents who often chase the tendencies in vogue and choose quite exotic names, such as: Kanalizatsia, Tractor, Lucifer, Number 16 Bus Shelter, Biological Object Human descendant of the Voronins and Frolovs born on June 26, 2002, digital names, etc. For instance, China has long maintained a ban on naming children after representatives of the imperial family, particularly those of the dynasty in power; such names had to be changed. Some countries taboo names related to religious views; for instance, certain countries place a ban on such names as Lucifer and alike.

The restrictions and bans in Azerbaijan have to deal with the ethnic origin of the name.

In 2011, the Academy of Sciences and the Government of Azerbaijan approved a principle of the traffic light, according to which the state authorities themselves determine the list of trustworthy and prohibited names for children that Azerbaijan parents can choose from.

The Director of the Institute of Information Technologies of ANAS, Rasim Aliguliyev, has noted that based on the principle of the traffic light, the names which “correspond to the national, cultural and ideological values of Azerbaijan” will be included in the green list and can be assigned without any restrictions.

The second category will be comprised of names included in the yellow list. These names are neither desirable nor recommended; they cause derision and sound inappropriate in other languages.

Names of the third category will be included in the red list; assigning of these names will not be allowed. “Such names include the names of persons who have perpetrated aggression against the people of Azerbaijan, names whose meaning is offensive in the Azerbaijani language”.¹⁴¹

Armenian names were included in the red list of prohibited names. According to Rasim Aliguliyev, “it is unacceptable in Azerbaijan to name your baby Andranik”.¹⁴² That comes to say that if a Lezgin wants to name his son Arsen – a name very popular both among Armenians and Lezgins, or if a Talysh wants to name his son Armin – a name quite popular among both Armenian and Talysh people, he will have to apply to the commission for a special authorization.

Russian names, too, came under attack. According to Sayali Sagidova, the chairman of the Commission, “not every Azerbaijani family would marry their daughter off to somebody named Dmitry”.¹⁴³ A ban will be also placed on such names as Maria, Ekaterina, Alya and other Russian names.

Also, a special commission of the National Academy of Sciences approved a bill imposing changes in the last names used in Azerbaijan where endings with – ov and – ev would be substituted by their Turkicized variants of – lu, – li, -beyli, etc.

Nizami Jafarov, Chairman of the Azerbaijani Parliamentary Committee on Cultural Issues, when asked how this new law would affect the national minorities of Azerbaijan, such as Lezgins, Talysh, Avars, Tats and representatives of other ethnic groups gave this answer: “The question on the agenda is as follows; every person who considers himself/herself Azerbaijani – and most of the ethnic minorities of Azerbaijan have merged with the Azerbaijani people and consider themselves Azerbaijani – will have to change his/her last n a me”.¹⁴⁴

This lays a very interesting groundwork not only for fast-tracking the assimilation processes of the indigenous population of Azerbaijan, but is in direct contravention of the country’s declared set of values, such as tolerance and cultural diversity, the commitment to which the myth of 30,000 Armenians living on the territory of Azerbaijan purports to illustrate.

It appears that the ethnic Armenians who live today on the territory of Azerbaijan are automatically divested of any chance to keep and develop their cultural traditions by naming their children Andranik¹⁴⁵, Armen, Hrayr or alike.

Azerbaijan’s appetite for integration of the Armenian-populated territory of Nagorno-Karabakh inevitably leads to a series of conclusions, such as:

(a) Armenians of Karabakh and citizens of Azerbaijan will be prohibited from using their own ethnic names entered into the red list. This will violate their rights, or they will be outlawed;

(b) Azerbaijan is working out an option of returning Karabakh without Armenians populating its territory which means that they will have to face a forceful assimilation or banishment, which is in contradiction of the promised concept of the widest autonomy possible;

(c) The Azerbaijani power elite have ceased to view Karabakh as an integral part of their country on a subconscious level; therefore, in adopting certain laws, they completely disregard the interests of the population which itself has long lost the feeling of affiliation with Azerbaijan.

An extraordinary manifestation of armenophobia and incitement to hatred take form of banning the entry for ethnic Armenians who are not Armenian residents or nationals.

The practice of banning entry is quite common worldwide. Thus, certain conflicting, warring or ideologically opposed countries impose similar bans (Israel and Muslim countries), significantly complicate the entry visa issuing procedure (India and Pakistan) and sometimes go as far as imposing fines or arresting the person concerned (Georgia and Abkhazia or Southern Ossetia).

Azerbaijan, in its turn, has mimicked the practices of other countries amalgamating their methods into an arrangement that above all is in contradiction with its commitment to the principles of tolerance avowed domestically and internationally. The emotional character of this decision along with its chaotic application and insufficient elaboration made the enforcement of this mechanism quite perplexing. This latter circumstance frequently leads to scandals and some singular incidents.

First, the self-ascribed commitment to the principle of tolerance prevents Azerbaijan from placing a legislative ban officially proscribing the entry of ethnic Armenians into the country. Second, the absence of an unambiguous regulatory document such as a law or a sublegislative act lends absurdity to the actions of the Azerbaijani officials. Third, the citizens of Azerbaijan themselves and the officers of international agencies have hard time pinpointing where the denied entry, removal, detainment or deportation of a specific person is legitimate and where it is not so.

Another essential component of the blocking policy against Armenia and inculcation of armenophobia implying a complete dehumanization of Armenians is the ban on any references that may potentially showcase the human qualities of Armenians and portray them as possessing creative and benevolent traits. All potential avenues towards personal contacts apt to cause the shattering of propaganda clichés, which translate into a huge cost in terms of money, resources and time, are shut off.

The representatives of the country’s intellectual, political and cultural elite are recruited to partake in this process, administrative leverage is exercised, while all recalcitrant persons take heavy punishment becoming obstructed and divested of any opportunity to pursue their professional activities.

Or, inversely, upon accomplishment of the public repudiation of Armenians as a concept, feelings of sympathy towards Armenians can be used as a sufficient ground to ostracize an out-of-favor opponent often in political and not infrequently in professional, social and daily life.

Techniques to impact the public perception of Armenians can be distinguished according to their object, extent and form.

The authorities of Azerbaijan are hypersensitive to criticism or to any negative manifestation or assessment from both the international community and the domestic audience. The entire state machinery is geared up to create an image of successful, tolerant, decent, transparent and creative system.

According to the reports of international monitoring organizations or relatively independent local researchers and the media, the portrayal offered by the Azerbaijani authorities is quite far from the reality.

While the authorities of Azerbaijan accuse the international organizations of their “biased judgment” and application of “double standards”, the local, mostly opposition-oriented news outlets expose on a regular basis “disgraceful” facts that are at odds with the country’s image advertised by the authorities. The authors of such publications draw fire from state-controlled media, members of the parliament, researchers and non-governmental organizations which wage a war against dissidents using their familiar arsenal of techniques; they search and detect traces of Armenian involvement (lobby) or dig up Armenian roots in those who circulate these “disgraceful” facts or commit deeds blackwashing the country’s bright image.

It is no secret that Azerbaijanis at grass roots level live a hard life “in the richest country of the region”. The ubiquitous corruption, violations of human rights and freedom of speech, tyranny and persecution, the unresolved issue of “reclaiming Karabakh”, incessant and never materializing promises of war lead to some legitimate questions. Who is to blame?

The answer is always ready at hand; it is all about external enemies who are jealous of Azerbaijan’s prosperity and seek to discredit it. This “campaign against Azerbaijan” is invariably ascribed to ethnic Armenians who are the instigators, masterminds and guiding hands behind it. This holds true for inside and outside Azerbaijan.

Overall, the efforts of the authorities to play down their own guilt and to duck any responsibility can be conventionally divided into several categories:

– omnipotent Armenian lobby;

– the domestic population of overt or covert Armenians (the same “30,000 Armenians” who still live in Azerbaijan);

– Armenian lineage, spouses or business partners, etc.

According to the reports of the Azerbaijani press, persons attributable under the above categories can be classified by a number of characteristics.

Any authority that holds instruments and potential for shaping ideology, public opinion, vision and perception of the reality is responsible for the consequences of its statements and any acts committed on their basis.

Therefore, with reference to the armenophobia rampant in Azerbaijan at the level of official propaganda and ideology, it is appropriate to point out that it is public officials who mainly set the tone for this: members of the parliament, functionaries of various levels, including the country’s president, and the consequences of their statements translate into a public consciousness and line of conduct.

Azerbaijan’s political establishment is the main supplier of public moods and the country’s trendsetter which covers, inter alia, armenophobia. It is of note that their thinking and actions are absolutely void of self-reflection; the same people who profess aggression and bigotry are genuinely convinced of their own tolerance and find it ludicrous to suggest that their actions amount to racism and xenophobia.

The range and variety of inculcated stereotypes covers virtually all aspects of social, political, cultural, mental, historical and moral image of Armenians and Armenia.

Recommendations on how to resolve issues related to Armenians and Armenia

Another much admired form of inculcating armenophobia consists in parading one’s own personal input or details of one’s life necessarily depicting episodes related to humiliating, insulting or harassing Armenians.

The unabashed propaganda of armenophobia at the highest level could not but draw the attention of the international community. Global Post, an American online newspaper notes that the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev not only doesn’t like Armenia, but is not afraid to say it, nor to tweet it. President Ilham Aliyev’s Twitter followers were treated to a string of more than 30 messages about his neighbor that were distinctly undiplomatic and, in fact, can be considered as downright abusive. “It’s tempting to imagine Aliyev hunched in solitude over a laptop like so many an online troll”.²⁷⁴

Foreign Policy, an American magazine, asks: “What do Azerbaijan, Estonia and Rwanda have in common? Not very much, you say? Au contraire! All three countries, it seems, have presidents who are prone to picking fights on Twitter”. “The lesson in all this for world leaders? If you’re going to pick a fight with somebody and want people to notice, you’d better do it in 140 characters at a time”, says the journal.²⁷⁵

The process of intensifying anti-Armenian propaganda and planting hatred in the society must be viewed in the context of an aggression targeting the Armenian identity and the Armenian statehood.

The mass media and journalists have carved out a special niche in this process as they are on the one hand active consumers of this state propaganda and ideology, being at its forefront in dealing directly with their patrons and masterminds without any mediation unlike general public, and on the other hand, they act as the very partisans and agents who translate the propaganda and ideology into the reality.

In this context, the Azerbaijani journalism is under double pressure; after taking its fair share of hatred and aggression, it runs them through itself to pour into the masses now clad in their own judgments and vision tinged and worded as they deem fit.

With the fueling of the aggressive sentiments and incessant but empty promises of a looming showdown, the problem of venting the bottled up charge of the negative feelings still persists. Without this vent, the aggression and hatred get channeled inwards which leads to rampant crime, spiking suicide rate and other social calamities.

All of this can bring about a frustration aggression, i.e. the aggression aimed against those who become an obstacle in achieving the significant goal. And the significant goal in the modern Azerbaijani society is shifted from the primary to secondary needs; that is to say, the solution to problems related to social and living conditions, legal issues, culture and education has been ousted by armenophobia and its ensuing mission of “reclaiming Karabakh”. And until the return of Karabakh and the annihilation of Armenians,²⁷⁷ the age of happiness will not dawn on land of Azerbaijan.

The journalists, who unlike the general public enjoy an opportunity to express their emotions, but lack direct access to target of their hatred, displace their aggression from the frustration dimension into the verbal plane. In this way they meet the needs of their patrons (the authorities), their consumers (the people) and their own.

The blatant manifestation of the verbal aggression is the barrage of verbal abuse from the leading Azerbaijani press, which can be defined as an active direct verbal aggression²⁷⁸. The active direct verbal aggression is a form of an aggression that amounts to inflicting psychological damage using mostly such components of speech as insults and humiliation of another person, group or community.

It must be noted that, apart from their own analysts, the Azerbaijani mass media actively quote experts, historians and artists from both Azerbaijan and abroad; foreigners are invited to Baku and are willingly given platform for airing disparaging comments about Armenians. And the grosser and harsher the outrage, the more positive response it meets from the Azerbaijani community, civil society and power structures.

The range of free wording choices and the set of categories is quite extensive.

The “enemy” appears as a visitant form the “antiworld”, an alien inverted space, and is portrayed as a being of “demonic” origin, knave or rogue.³²⁰

Arlene Audergon in her book The War Hotel: Psychological Dynamics in Violent Conflict³²² gives this definition of terror tactics: “Dehumanization is a widely used tactics which consists in depicting a person or a group of persons as vermin to be destroyed”.

“Dehumanization is a language of threats and violence.

It makes the human being less sensitive and more imperturbable, apathetic and indifferent; it facilitates the killing and makes it look legitimate”.

The tactic of dehumanization subdues humanity, sensitivity, sympathy and receptivity to events.³²³ In this setting, people may actively pour scorn upon the dehumanized group and show willingness to commit atrocities against it.

The demonization, in its turn, stokes up the society’s fear of the unknown.

Demonization of the image is an instrument of propaganda used to shape public opinion and create deeply ingrained stereotypes about a person, group, state ideology or a concept.

The political dictionary defines the concept of demonization as portrayal of the subject as a being apt by its nature for immoral and antisocial behavior possessing some supernatural and sometimes magical powers to carry out its immoral role and appearing as a source of perils and troubles for others as well as inciting them to engage in an immoral conduct.³²⁴

The demonization suggests and lays down the response to one of the eternal questions: who is to blame? In a society ruled by an elite internally bound by mutual and collective responsibility and protection, the notions of demonizing and giving somebody away have become all but synonyms.³²⁵ It significantly facilitates removing from the agenda the ‘What to do?’ question and makes it possible to abdicate all responsibility for the situation at hand.

It is common to view the demonization as a weapon of both political and ideological strife between opponents. However, there are many factors attesting to the fact that it is used to mask the real problem, a red herring to divert attention, and betrays an internal lack of confidence and fear, primarily in respect of the inner circle, whose ire needs to be channeled away elsewhere against an “alien” foe, so as to retain their loyalty.

Seeking to apportion blame externally is typical of vulnerable groups who are not willing to face the problem and refute their personal role in causing it to happen.

Strictly speaking, it is an instrument of creating a climate of fear where people are demonized based on a specific characteristic: ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, physical capacity, etc. Its main goal is to plant fear, breed and fuel hatred and disdain for a specific category of persons; it also seeks to convince others that those who possess a specific set of traits that embody evil must be punished.

Demonization is intentional and deliberate shaping of a negative image based on cultivation of myths with injections of ‘real’ details (personal experience, reference to a first-hand account from a third person, description of details, indication of names, etc.).

This practice was widely used in Nazi Germany for the development of the racial theory. In Azerbaijan, the shaping of the Armenian image has been analogous with the infamous notions on the Jewish people.

The recent decades spawned a panoply of writers, public and political figures, painters and journalists whose activities serve to demonize Armenians.

Here, several reasons can be isolated for using the instrument of demonization for instilling armenophobia.

There are several genres for demonizing Armenians:

“Confessions of Armenians themselves”. These are letters, diaries and literary works by fictitious persons describing the “atrocities”, containing confessions and revealing mechanisms of “anti-Azerbaijani” deeds:

‘Personal involvement or eyewitness account’ of the episode described, with a reservation that no proof survived, and the report must be taken on trust:

‘Quoting the eyewitnesses’ who are not alive or who are impossible to contact, with written testimony “destroyed” by either their authors or holders:

The first timid steps towards disseminating the “horror stories” were made through forums and blogs. Later, they leaked into the mass media taking the form of interviews, references to named and unnamed sources, books and paintings on the ‘subject’. These stories were ultimately exported onto international platforms, the media and foreign television, while a member of the Azerbaijani parliament Ganira Pashayeva even ventured to read out extracts from a “book” by Zori Balayan presumably entitled “Revival of Our Spirit”³³⁵ from a rostrum at one of the PACE sessions.³³⁶

A distinctive feature of all these “confessions” is that they are published exclusively in the form of extracts, hearsay and retelling the words of dead relatives or protagonists, with sources “destroyed” either by authors themselves of by thoughtless relatives of the person who held the rarity.

Paranoia is a variety of a thinking disorder. People who suffer from paranoia have exasperated distrust of people around them, susceptibility to offense, suspiciousness, jealousy, tendency to see conspiring ill-wishers in random occurrences, inability to forget and forgive grievances or to handle criticism. They may conceive obsessive ideas leading a paranoid person to develop intricate and logically coherent conspiracy theories against him/her.

Individual incidents of paranoia are easily diagnosed, as the paranoid person is surrounded by people with healthy perception of the reality.

Collective paranoia is quite a different matter. Even the clear-headed, if any, must feign to share the collective delusion. In rare cases, they attempt to stand up for their cognizance of the reality and become targets to persecution and ostracism from those around them.

Apart from this, Azerbaijan relentlessly bans any positive mention or depiction of Armenians, with domestic information space bursting with pieces of information which, as we have seen above, are not only far from the reality, but are both fantastic and inconceivable. Any negative occurrence – from natural phenomena to socio-economic problems – are attributed to the insidious hand of Armenians or envious evil-wishers sponsored by Armenians.

Frequently, such paranoia takes preposterous forms. In this sense, any goods made in Armenia or by ethnic Armenians get a special treatment and are prohibited. A huge hullabaloo is raised over any commodity accidentally landing on the shelves of Azerbaijani shops.

At the outset of this strife, before the alleged reasons and motives became attuned to the ideology and logic, the most absurd reasons were brought up to justify the ban and destruction of any such merchandise. For example, this was the case with the Armenian brandy and coffee which were seized and destroyed.

Later, after bringing the set of categories into alignment with the official propaganda to furnish more or less logical rationale, the presence of the Armenian merchandise came to be portrayed as a manifestation of terrorism deliberately targeting the population of Azerbaijan. It must be noted that frequently, such information is either not true or intentionally distorted to further aggravate the situation.

All merchandise doubtful or harmful for the consumer is scrutinized in the first place to establish the “ethnic composition of supplier’s management”. The range of wares was further extended to include any mention of similarity or suspected Armenian origin of the goods, going as far as to cover the regional language labeling.

The tendency of barring entry for any literature published in Armenia, irrespective of its content, holds a special place.

The underlying reasons for such line of conduct are quite explicable. Feelings of tolerance and sympathy are in the first place based on knowledge and sufficient information on the subject. The presence of production is an indication of a demiurgic core, and if the commodity is of quality into the bargain, this is bound to develop some sort of a liking or at least a positive attitude to the manufacturing country or nation. For instance, high-quality machinery and equipment from Germany, French perfumes or Chinese silks impact to some extent the country’s recognizability and perception of its citizens in a positive light. The availability of Armenian wares on the shelves of Azerbaijani shops is detrimental to the propagandized image of a hungry and decaying country that is far from any constructive endeavor and void of any capacity for production.

This is the reason for waging a war on Armenian goods and their subsequent destruction for show. To explain the underlying reasons to their consumers, a myth of “food and goods terrorism” is concocted as it is best taken up by the masses, with its potential of affecting everyone. The real purpose behind this clamor in news reports is not an attempt to protect the population from food or goods terrorism. Here, a series of other objectives are pursued:

• preventing the recognizability and emergence of the image of creative Armenians;

• barring the potential dissemination of alternative sources of information;

• intimidating population and whipping up armenophobia as it instills fear and distrust and results in a hatred which can be later exploited by the authorities to advance their agenda;

• producing a conspiracy theory to consolidate the society in the face of a common enemy.

The philosophical categories of the good and evil and the quest for choosing between them represent the basis of the human civilization. These categories rest on the essence of the humanity at large and individuals in particular.

Good is the central category of any moral system.

The good is the supreme moral value, and to do good is the main regulating force of a moral line of conduct.

The evil represents the antithesis of the good. It is the anti-value, i.e. something incompatible with the moral line of conduct.

Good is the goal that must be attained, cultivated and created. The evil, in its turn, is something that one ought to dissociate oneself from.

The good and evil do not stand on equivalent footing. The evil is secondary to the good; it is only the reverse side of the good, a deviation from it. It is for a reason that the God (good) in Christianity and Islam is omnipotent, while the devil (evil) is solely capable of abetting the violation of God’s commandments by some individuals.³⁹²

Not only deeds can be attributable to the category of the evil. The evil can be used to describe the character of various objects and phenomena which elicit negative sentiments of taste, smell, pain, bad experience and state. The good represents the goal that must be attained, cultivated and created. The evil is something that one ought to dissociate oneself from, refute, neutralize and overcome. A. Voloshina, in her drawing of a borderline between the good and the evil, wrote: “The good along with pleasure, beauty, truth and benefit represents the main component of the welfare, i.e. an absolute goal that cannot serve as a means to achieve any other end, while the evil encompasses suffering, lie, harm, deformity and immorality”.³⁹³ Spinoza analyzed the traditional ethical categories of good and evil in correlation with the concepts of pleasure and pain. Thus, the good, inasmuch as it represents benefit and use, is perceived positively (pleasure), while the evil, inasmuch as it inflicts damage and is of no use, is appraised negatively (pain).³⁹⁴

Awareness of the essence of good and evil, understanding the extent of their antagonism and the ability to differentiate between them underlie the public morals manifested through moral judgments.

Moral judgments are judgment (statements) which express the moral appraisal or norm or prescription.³⁹⁵

The moral appraisal represents a set of structured judgments and significant priorities based on the internal needs of the society developed through tradition, culture and code of conduct. Values are perceived and appraised as moral good within the confines of established rules and traditions.

After series of studies, the philosopher Joshua Knobe³⁹⁶ revealed the dependence between moral judgments and the perceptions of the world. The Azerbaijani society provides a sufficiently illustrative example of this statement, with its shaping of quite specific moral judgments and the surrounding world viewed through the prism of Armenia and Armenians. This gives rise to a distinctive Knobe effect³⁹⁷:

The moral evil is defined in contrast to the moral judgment and moral appraisal as going beyond socially established value benchmarks and the breakdown of rooted public morals. Each society shapes its own perception of the good and evil in line with its traditions and set of values. At the junction of good and evil with slight shifts to either side, an extensive field of action opens up for ideology and propaganda. A universal technique employed by the propaganda of all countries consists in a clear delimitation between the world of good implied to include the world of the subject and the world of evil encompassing the object. The denigration of the latter occurs through comparison with animals, spawn of hell or subhumans depending on the world view.

Similar notions of good and evil are cultivated in the society of today’s Azerbaijan where the evil is represented by Armenians, and the good is represented by those who wage a struggle against them “by all available means”. This phenomenon is showcased by Ramil Safarov, a personification of the “good”, who hacked a sleeping Armenian officer with an axe,³⁹⁸ and Akram Aylisli, a personification of the “evil”. In his novel entitled The Stone Dreams, the author draws parallels between the massacre of Armenians in Nakhichevan in early 20th century and the pogroms of Armenians in Baku of the late 20th century through the prism of his own feelings.

351. «İnşallah, Azərbaycanda görüşərik!!! -Qənirə Paşayevadan Ramil Səfərova təbrik. Modern.az. 25.08.2011. http://modern.az/articles/16595/1/ (az)

352. «Зеркало», 28.02.2004, newspaper, (rus)

353. Ibid

354. Ramil Səfərova Milli Qəhraman adı verilsin. Zaur-Aliyev.info. 16.12.2011 г. http://zaur-aliyev.info/?p=269 the original was removed from source, a cashed copy can be found here: http://peeep.us/982db60a (az)

355. ООК предложила присвоить медаль «За отвагу» Рамилю Сафарову. Day.az. 22.02.2005. http://news.day.az/politics/20906.html (rus)

356. Акиф Наги: «Азербайджан способен освободить Карабах так же, как освободил Рамиля Сафарова». Salamnews.org. 31.08.2012. http://ru.salamnews.org/ru/news/read/162037/akif-nagi-azerbaydan-sposoben-osvobodit-karabax-tak-je-kak-osvobodil-ramilya-safarovanbspnbsp/. the original was removed from source, a cashed copy can be found here: http://peeep.us/3fd152bf (rus)

357. Байрам Сафаров: «Армяне должны понять, что освобождение Рамиля Сафарова – очередная победа Азербайджана». АПА. 31.08.2012. http://ru.apa.az/news/230232 (rus)

358. Указ президента страны о помиловании Рамиля Сафарова достоин наивысших похвал – представитель Минобороны. Salamnews. 31.08.2012. http://ru.salamnews.org/ru/news/read/162054/ukaz-prezidenta-strani-o-pomilovanii-ramilya-safarovanbspdostoin-naivisshix-poxval-ndash-predstavitel-minoboroninbspnbsp, the original was removed from source, a cashed copy can be found here: http://peeep.us/b0c082dd (rus)

359. Достойны похвалы те, кто приложил усилия для экстрадиции Рамиля Сафарова в Азербайджан – Иса Гамбар. Salamnews. 31.08.2012. http://ru.salamnews.org/ru/news/read/162060/dostoyni-poxvali-te-kto-prilojil-usiliya-dlya-ekstradicii-ramilya-safarova-v-azerbaydan-ndash-isa-gambarnbspnbsp/. the original was removed from source, a cashed copy can be found here: http://peeep.us/fad2ac8e (rus)

360. Новруз Мамедов: «Благодаря решимости и воле Президента Азербайджана Рамиль Сафаров доставлен в Азербайджан». Newtimes.az. 31.08.2012. http://www.newtimes.az/ru/r0/s4/d8/2/n467/Новруз-Мамедов%3A-«Благодаря-решимости-и-воле-Президента-Азербайджана-Рамиль-Сафаров-доставлен-в-Азербайджан» the original was removed from source, a cashed copy can be found here: http://peeep.us/64c57d6a (rus)

361. Двойные стандарты в вопросе освобождения азербайджанского офицера вызывают сожаление – вице-спикер. Trend. 03.09.2012. http://trend.az/news/politics/2061197.html (rus)

362. Омбудсмен встретилась с Рамилем Сафаровым. 1.news.az. 03.09.2012. http://1news.az/society/20120903104550617.html (rus)

363. Фуад Алескеров: «Возвращение Рамиля Сафарова в Азербайджан стало возможно лишь благодаря личному авторитету президента Ильхама Алиева». АПА. 31.08.2012. http://ru.apa.az/news/230240 (rus)

364. Эксперт: Передача Рамиля Сафарова Азербайджану – это следование обычной практике в международных отношениях. Aze.az 01.09.2012. http://aze.az/news_ekspert_peredacha_ramilya_81557.html (rus)

365. Турецкий полковник обратился к президенту Азербайджана для установления памятника Рамилю Сафарову. Apa.az 18.09.2012. http://ru.apa.az/news/231429 (rus)

366. В Азербайджане празднуют освобождение Рамиля Сафарова – ВИДЕО. Day.az 01.09.2012. http://news.day.az/society/352460.html (rus)

367. Молодежь Азербайджана выразила благодарность президенту страны за помилование Рамиля Сафарова. Salamnews. 31.08.2012. http://ru.salamnews.org/ru/news/read/162074/molodej-azerbaydana-virazila-blagodarnost-prezidentu-straninbspnbsp/. the original was removed from source, a cashed copy can be found here: http://peeep.us/9dc54f79 (rus)

368. Освобожденному азербайджанскому офицеру Рамилю Сафарову присвоено звание майора. Trend. 01.09.2012. http://trend.az/news/society/2060860.html (rus)

369. Минобороны Азербайджана предоставило Рамилю Сафарову квартиру. Trend. 01.09.2012. http://trend.az/news/society/2060909.html (rus)

370. В Милли Меджлисе обсудили вопрос по поводу Акрама Айлисли. Baku.ws. 02.02.2013. http://baku.ws/index.php?newsid=17897 (rus)

371. Murad Köhnəqala yazır. Kulis.az. http://kulis.az/news/3980 (az)

372. Qaçqınlar Cəmiyyəti Əkrən Əylisli ilə bağlı təkliflər irəli sürdü. Modern.az. 04.02.2013. http://modern.az/articles/34118/1/ (az)

373. Əkrəm Əylisli ilə bağlı daha bir qalmaqal. Bizimyol. 19.02.2013. http://bizimyolinfo.com/?sehife=1&xeber=7409 (az)

374. Afaq Məsud: ‘Əkrəm Əylislinin bu əsəri ədəbiyyatımıza qara ləkədir’. Azxeber.com. 30.01.2013. http://azxeber.com/news/27186.htm (az)

375. Азербайджанские депутаты осудили скандальный роман Акрама Айлисли. Trend. 01.02.2013. http://trend.az/news/politics/2114547.html (rus)

376. Байрам Сафаров: «Акрам Айлисли играет чувствами людей, потерявших близких или ставших инвалидами». Salamnews. 01.02.2013. http://ru.salamnews.org/ru/news/read/56341/bayram-safarov-akram-aylisli-igraet-chuvstvami-lyudey-poteryavshix-blizkix-ili-stavshix-invalidami/ (rus)

377. Роман Акрама Айлисли наносит большой моральный удар по азербайджанскому народу – Али Ахмедов. 1news.az. 01.02.2013 (rus)http://1news.az/politics/20130201124841041.html (rus)

378. Депутаты предложили лишить Айлисли гражданства. Turan. 01.02.2013. http://contact.az/docs/2013/Politics/020100026828ru.htm (rus)

379. Историки Азербайджана выразили недовольство произведением писателя Акрама Айлисли. Trend.az. 06.02.2013. http://trend.az/news/society/2116187.html (rus)

380. Группа НПО подает в суд на Акрама Айлисли. Apa.az. 06.02.2013. http://ru.apa.az/novost_gruppa_npo_podaet_v_sud_na_akrama_ajlisl_240706.html (rus)

381. Шейх: Айлисли оскорбил Гейдара Алиева. Turan. 13.02.2013. http://contact.az/docs/2013/Social/021300028297ru.htm (rus)

382. Жители Айлиса: «Смерть Акраму Айлисли». Haqqin.az. 09.02.2013. http://haqqin.az/news/3722 (rus)

383. Вся Гянджа сжигает книги Акрама Айлисли. Haqqin.az. 11.02.2013. http://haqqin.az/news/3764 (rus)

384. Акция перед домом Акрама Айлисли. Радио «Азадлыг». 01.02.2013. http://radioazadlyg.org/content/article/24889448.html (rus)

385. В Баку группа молодых писателей «похоронила» книгу «Каменные сны» Акрама Айлисли. Trend. 01.02.2013. http://trend.az/news/society/2114644.html (rus)

386. Балыг Хафиз: «Отрежем правое ухо А.Айлисли, но тут же окажем медицинскую помощь». Haqqin.az. 12.02.2012. http://haqqin.az/news/3784 (rus)

387. Ильхам Алиев подписал распоряжения о лишении Акрама Айлисли президентской пенсии и почетного звания. Trend. 07.02.2012. http://trend.az/news/politics/2116863.html (rus)

388. Təhsil Nazirliyi: «Əkrəm Əylisli dərsliklərdən çıxarılacaq». Veteninfo.az. 19.02.2012. http://veteninfo.az/siyaset/10364.html (az)

Ramil Safarov was pardoned and rewarded, with his years of imprisonment compensated with an apartment and 8-years’ pay,³⁹⁹ while Akram Aylisli was stripped of his awards⁴⁰⁰ becoming a target for ostracism and persecution.

In June 2013, a retaliatory story by Zafar Aliyev was published entitled Stone Truth⁴⁰¹, in which the author replicated the events described by Akram Aylisli in a mirror setting. The plot of the story is built around the idea that Aylisli is an Armenian and a son of Dashnak. The story concludes with the fiery speech by a professor:

<…> It seems that you welcome this to some extent. What sin are you speaking about?! What do you call a sin? Attempted self-defense? The wish to protect you from Armenians paid with the blood and lives of our soldiers? Or, do you call it a sin to protect our native land from the Armenian occupying forces? Is this a sin?! Would you agree that Armenians took away our land and home? Are you satisfied with that?!

<…> Through this novel, Akper Ayishli insulted the whole nation. With this novel, Ayishli exerts psychological pressure on the entire nation. He slandered and abused our memory of those who died at the hands of Armenians. You seem to agree with that? And when those who suffered at the hands of Armenians protest against such lie and slander of Akper Ayishli, do you consider it to be a psychological pressure on an elderly man? And do you protest against it?

<…> Only those, who have lost their honor or have never had any, can agree to what was written by Akper Ayishli! <…>

<…> Do you really think that after all of this he must keep the title of a People’s Writer and receive a considerable presidential scholarship to continue writing such filth? I’m sure that in this case, many of you would have been outraged. <…>

<…> It seems I have clearly exposed my position on the novel. The only question that remains unclear is who is the author of the novel? An Azerbaijani or an Armenian? I am more than confident that an Azerbaijani could not have written this. This could be written only by an Armenian, only by one who carries the hatred for Turks in his heart and genes.

<…> The professor completed his speech and went down heading for the monument of Nizami, shaking his head in discontent.

<…> Many of those gathered rolled down the banners and portraits of Akper Ayishli and threw them into garbage bins. The action disintegrated into groups, and its participants scattered engaging in a heated argument.

The ethical principles are shaped in accordance with certain norms established in the society and shaping interpersonal relationships within the society.

At the end of the day, “the good” gained the upper hand over “the evil” in Azerbaijan.

Any ideology, however perfect it may seem to be, cannot be considered full-fledged, if it does not enjoy the support and approval of the outside world. It is especially so, if we consider certain peculiarities of the character calling for a constant praise, admiration and rapture.

Thus, the victory over the common sense and civilization in Azerbaijan cannot be deemed complete inasmuch as the ideology of armenophobia does not seem to enjoy much of a support from anybody else in the outside world. From the perspective of Azerbaijani figures, the outside world underestimates and misjudges “the true essence of Armenians”, with Azerbaijan taking up the mission of “exposing the truth to the world”.

After forming a perfectly armenophobic top-down hierarchy going all the way from the authorities to the lowest social strata, Azerbaijan has embarked upon its mission of disseminating its philosophy of “tolerance with preconditions” across the globe. During international meetings, conferences, workshops and conventions, apart from sharing their experience in reinforcing tolerance with their foreign colleagues, Azerbaijani figures rub in the “truth about Armenians” with a missionary zeal.

The onus for exporting armenophobia is placed on every patriot of Azerbaijan, from representatives of the authorities to plain citizens, irrespective of their sex, age, social status and intellectual capacity.

Several forms of taking a “civic stand” and exposing the truth about Armenians can be identified from the press.

The destruction of monuments of Armenian culture and history on the territory of Azerbaijan fulfills an important psychological task: the obliteration of historical symbols sacred for the enemy delivers a blow to the most vulnerable spot of the community. Arlene Audergon in her book entitled The War Hotel: Psychological Dynamics in Violent Conflict notes that the destruction of culture has always been and continues to be one of the main terror tactics purporting to strip the victim of any memories linking him/her to the community.⁴²⁷

Here, the collective spirit as a whole is at stake. One way to erase human memory and retouch the history comes down to destroying monuments, statues and temples. The war on the historical legacy of Armenians waged on the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan employs precisely this approach. A renowned orientalist and academician N. Y. Marr particularly noted with reference to Armenian khachkars: “this monument reflects each step of development of national architecture, and often combines both currents of the Armenian architecture: the spiritual and the secular. Khachkar truly represents the “memory of the land of our fathers” communicating with an extraordinary force and precision the spirit of the Armenian art”.

The sad fate of the Armenian memorial cemetery of Jugha, pearl of the world culture on the territory of the Armenian Nakhijevan, which was destroyed by order of the Azerbaijani authorities, must be viewed in this context.

Throughout the 20th century, especially after the transfer of Armenian Nakhijevan “under the patronage” of the Soviet Azerbaijan, a program of de-Armenizing the region was launched, including a complete obliteration of ancient Armenian material culture. Incidentally, the Muslim population in Nakhijevan was so scant that even in the early nineteenth century there were only six mosques in the area. Meanwhile, the region had over 200 Armenian monasteries, churches and chapels.⁴³¹

The khachkars of Jugha, the well-known cross-stones⁴³² predominantly dating to the XIII–XVIII centuries, are marvelous monuments and distinctive specimens of Christian memorial architecture.

The French traveler Alexandre de Rhodes (1591–1660), who visited the area in 1648, wrote: “Beyond the walls of that city (Julfa), which is now only desert, I saw a beautiful monument to the ancient piety of Armenians. This is an extensive territory in which there are at least ten thousands of marble tombstones, all amazingly well engraved. A large white marble slab twelve feet height and eight feet wide can be seen at each grave with many beautiful shapes engraved around a large cross. It is very pleasing to see such a large number of marble slabs”.⁴³³

In 1603, one of the first British travelers to Persia and Armenia John Newbery, left the following entries in his memoirs:

It is widely known that in Middle Ages Jugha was a thriving Armenian city. However, in 1604, the Persian shah Abbas forcibly resettled its inhabitants to Isfahan, which to this day has an Armenian quarter known as New Jugha. Many travelers visited the ruins of the destroyed city and its cemetery over the years.

The British orientalist Sir William Ausley, who visited the city in 1812 and found the city fallen into a state of decay, wrote about the following: the largeness of its former population is evidenced by a rich and full cemetery placed on a sloping riverbank and covered with multiple rows of vertical tombstones, which, if looked not from afar, remind a gathering of people or even a regiment set in a close formation.⁴³⁵

The first steps in the scheme for obliteration of the Armenian monuments were taken in November 1998, when it was observed from the Iranian side of the border that some khachkars had been taken off their bases and smashed to pieces. Shortly after, they were all toppled.⁴³⁶ According to International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the Azerbaijani government eliminated 800 khachkars in 1998. Although the destruction was halted after protests from UNESCO, it, nevertheless, resumed four years later. By January 2003, a “1500-year-old cemetery was completely razed to the ground”. The President of ICOMOS Michael Petzet notes: “Now that all traces of this highly important historic site seem to have been extinguished all we can do is mourn the loss and protest against this totally senseless destruction”.⁴³⁷

To this end, a special archaeological expedition was mounted to compile the list of the Armenian monuments to be obliterated. Later, Najaf Museyibli, deputy scientific director of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan, noted: “The expedition was created at the direct behest of Heydar Aliyev and worked until 2003”.⁴³⁹ He also notes that “there is not even the slightest trace of Armenians in the Southern Caucasus. In the Caucasus, since ancient times and to the present day, mass graves of a different anthropological type were found representing the ancestors of the Azerbaijani people. This land has never had any Armenian root whatsoever”.⁴⁴⁰

It should be specifically underscored that the operation of ultimately obliterating the traces of the Armenian ethnic and cultural presence was carried out by the units of the Azerbaijani army.⁴⁴¹

In December 2005, the Azerbaijani regular troops smashed to pieces the khachkars of Jugha and loaded what remained of them into dump trucks. The trucks drove up to the riverbank and dumped the debris into the river. In a very short time, the medieval cemetery was flattened, and a military firing range was constructed in its place.

In 2006, the European Parliament formally exhorted Azerbaijan to halt the destruction in violation of the UNESCO Convention on the World Heritage;⁴⁴² however, in the spring of the same year Baku debarred the commission of the European parliament from inspecting the site of the former cemetery.⁴⁴³ Charles Tannock, British spokesman in the European parliament, gave the following commentary of the events: “This is very similar to the Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban. They have concreted the area over and turned it into a military camp. If they have nothing to hide then we should be allowed to inspect the terrain”.⁴⁴⁴ Nevertheless, the international community has long demonstrated а remarkable indifference to the obliteration of khachkars, while Yerevan’s appeal for sending a mission of observers to the site of destruction was barred.⁴⁴⁵

In 2006, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) published a report Azerbaijan: Famous Medieval Cemetery Vanishes,⁴⁴⁶ in which it confirmed that nothing had been left of the famous stone-crosses of Jugha.

The historian Argam Ayvazyan, a specialist of Armenian monuments in Nakhijevan, notes that Jugha was a unique monument of medieval art and the largest of the existing Armenian cemeteries. There were unique tombstones in the form of ram heads, a church and the ruins of a massive stone bridge. The historian notes that nowhere in the world was there such a large concentration of thousands of khachkars in one place. “All over Nakhijevan, there were 27,000 monasteries, churches, khachkars, tombstones and other Armenian monuments. Today, they are all destroyed”, said Ayvazyan.⁴⁴⁸

Before XI century, Nakhijevan had as much as 218 Armenian Christian places of worship (monasteries, churches, chapels), 41 fortresses, 26 bridges, 4,500 khachkars and 23 thousands tombstones. In the early 1990s, the monasteries and churches in Agoulis, Aproukunis, Shorot, Krna and Tskhna, and in other Armenian-populated settlements of Nakhijevan were dynamited and razed to the ground.⁴⁴⁹

In the book entitled Architecture of ancient and early medieval Azerbaijan published in 1986, its author Davud Akhunov declares that all khachkars of Julfa in Nakhijevan are Albanian monuments.⁴⁵⁰ Nevertheless, even the declaration of these khachkars (tombstones) as Albanian heritage did not balk the Azerbaijani authorities from obliterating the medieval cemetery.

The Azerbaijani propaganda employs an identical artifice in respect of Armenian historical monuments in Artsakh. Specifically, the Azerbaijani side steadfastly ignores the existence of numerous Armenian records of donations on the walls of the Gandzasar monastery, to which the renowned art and architecture historian A. Jakobson refers to as the “encyclopedia of XIII century Armenian architecture”. They equally disregard the fact that the construction of the Gandzasar complex occurred in the XIII century, when Aghvank (Albania per the Azerbaijani version) had already ceased to exist as a state. Meanwhile, apart from the fact that the monastery was built in the Armenian architectural tradition, its founder Hasan Jalal was an Armenian as testified by medieval historians and evidenced by inscriptions on the monastery itself.

А remarkable example was recorded in 2004, when the Norwegian Humanitarian Enterprise, supported by the Norwegian ambassador in Baku Steiner Gil, decided to restore and renovate the St. Elisaeus Church built in 1823 in the village of Nij. The works had to be carried out by local Azerbaijani authorities.

The Norwegian ambassador gave the following account of the events: By the end of 2004 or early 2005, all Armenian inscriptions on the walls of the church or on the tombstones around it were erased with scraping equipment. The Norwegian embassy and the Norwegian Humanitarian Enterprise issued a joint press release voicing their protest against this act of vandalism. Restoration works were suspended for a while, but, after receiving a letter with apologies from the Udi community, Norwegian Humanitarian Enterprise agreed to resume the funding of the restoration works. Personally, I believe this apology is essentially unsatisfactory also because the apology was not been made public. In addition, no one has been held accountable for this act of vandalism. Together with the other ambassadors in Baku I was invited to the opening ceremony. I told my colleagues that because of the vandalism and the lack of appropriate response, no one from the Norwegian embassy would attend the opening ceremony. None of the ambassadors was present at the ceremony.⁴⁵¹

The vandalism scandal was exposed on February 17, 2005 in the Worldwide Religious News magazine under the heading “Christian minority in Azerbaijan gets rid of the Armenian eye sore” covering the incident in detail.⁴⁵²

Another particularly illustrative example is the church in Dashkesan, which the authorities preferred to destroy, at the same time putting the blame for this on… Armenians.

That comes to say that as long as Armenians lived in Dashkesan, and the church was considered (and in fact is, author’s note) Armenian, it was heartlessly exposed to sack and pillage. In line with its new Albanization policy of the Christian heritage on the territory of Azerbaijan, the church was declared Albanian, and its destruction condemned with perpetrators readily found: Armenians.

The importance and the role of Armenians in shaping the historical architectural look of Baku in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – as the economic growth propelled the city through an urban development boom – are now passed over in silence. In many ways, the architectural look of Baku was formed thanks to the active and effective involvement of St. Petersburg-educated Armenian architects and builders. The architects below made an especially significant contribution into the construction of Baku: G. Ter-Mikayelyan, V. Sargsyan (Sarkisov), N. Bayev, H. Ter-Hovhannisyan (Qajaznuni), F. Aghalyan, A. Kandinyan, M. Ter-Grigoryants. The Armenian architects gave an overhaul to the new style stemming from Russia and created in Baku some distinctive specimens of architecture and construction.⁴⁵⁴

One of the founders of Baku architectural style is Gabriel Ter-Mikayelyan, who was the author of public buildings erected in the early twentieth century. Ter-Mikayelyan drafted the facade of the main building of the city magistrate. He designed (1910–1912) the building of the Center for Public Gatherings (now the Philharmonic Hall of Azerbaijan), the maternity hospital (1899), the building of the Baku branch of the Commercial Bank of Tiflis (1902–1903) which presently houses the shop “Detskiy Mir” and the College of Commerce (1905–1910). An important aspect of Ter-Mikayelyan’s work was the construction of churches.

Another major contribution to the architecture and urban development of Baku in the early twentieth century was made by N. Bayev. In 1911–1918, he was the chief architect of Baku. In 1913, he designed the building of Mailyan Brothers Theater (now the State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater), a hospital complex (19 infirmaries and 24 buildings), several schools, a grammar school, residential buildings of Salimanov, Sheremetyev and others, Sabunchi railway station (1927), surgical hospital after Semashko, the Armenikend district and others.

The Armenian architect V. Sargsyan designed over 10 buildings in the oil industry city of Baku. F. Agalyan designed the buildings of the grammar school, the maternity hospital, the treasury, the Workers House and many others. A number of buildings were also designed by H. Qajaznuni, M. Ter-Grigoryants and many others. The buildings designed by Armenian architects, still beautify Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan.

The psychological warfare frequently includes the use of myths.

The myth is the information which accounts for the origins and further development of various phenomena based on real or fictitious events or facts, with subsequent exaggeration of distortion of the cause and effect relations.

The human perception of the surrounding reality through myths is based on beliefs and opinions held by representatives of a specific culture, ethnic or social group rather than scientific knowledge.⁴⁶⁸

People usually resort to social myths, which are warped notions of the reality deliberately inculcated in the public mind to shape the required social responses. The most singular element about social myths is that the bulk of the society views them as a natural state of affairs rather than pieces of fiction. As a rule, under the impact of social myths, the history of origin and development of states and ethnic groups becomes distorted to such extent that its impartial analysis is possible only through critical juxtaposition of various sources.

Specialists consider that myths have the capacity to:

• affect simultaneously the intellectual and emotional aspects of the human consciousness. This makes people believe in the reality of the mythical content;

• turn a hyperbolic depiction of an individual case into an ideal model of the desired line of conduct. It is thanks to this peculiarity that the content of myths can affect the human conduct;

• rely on a specific tradition existing in the society.

Due to social and cultural peculiarities, women as mothers, educators and teachers play the main role in the process of educating generations.

In the Azerbaijani society, women have historically been the repositories of traditions who continue to cultivate values in daily and family life (but then, such picture is characteristic of all Oriental countries). The educational level, spiritual and moral potential of women as well as their educational effort determine in many respects what the future community members will look like. The shaping of the person in line with the moral code, culture, world view and code of conduct is influenced in the first place by women.

The role of the mother holds a special place in this context. The relationships between the mother and her child have a fundamental significance for human interaction. Understanding the notions of security, freedom and self-appraisal depends on how the relationship between the mother or the person acting in her lieu evolved or will evolve with their children. It is the female and maternal figure that lays the groundwork for the first attitudes, value benchmarks, preservation of traditions and their development.

In the modern world, with a wider range of duties the role of a woman extended beyond the family to cover virtually all aspects of the child’s life. As a matter of fact, children, irrespective of their sex, obtain the lion’s share of information, attitudes, stereotypes, prejudices and images through women: mothers, kindergarteners and teachers. The information is communicated to children through books read out to them, fairy tales narrated to them and songs sung to them.

In this context, the role of the woman in the society and in intersocial links can be defined as the forefront that allows envisaging the future prospects of this society as well as ideological and moral makeup of its future generations.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict made its adjustments in the world view and the set of values of the Azerbaijani society. The fervent zealotry and yearning to partake “in the struggle against Armenians” soared among women. More importantly, these feelings are directed against an ethnic group rather than citizens of Armenia or those who are personally responsible for purported or real human suffering.

Inasmuch as the female role was historically confined to home and family, with women shielded from having to resolve vital issues and rarely facing the cruelty of the outside world, it is generally assumed that the woman is the embodiment of the mercy and compassion. However, at the turn of the 20th century, the stereotypes prevalent in Azerbaijan remain the same, while the philosophy of the modern Azerbaijani woman has changed.

However, at the turn of the 20th century, the stereotypes prevalent in Azerbaijan remain the same, while the philosophy of the modern Azerbaijani woman has changed.

Overall, the inculcation of xenophobia dispensed from the lips of women follows a classic scenario added to the armory of the official ideology, the only difference being that its female version is more emotional in character and stands at the outset of the nascent personality.

For the mother, “picking the words carefully” means a choice of terms and phrases understandable for a 4-year-old child rather than the semantic content of the answer to her question. It is important for the author that the girl learns a lifetime lesson that “Armenians are vile and filthy”.

Women exert impact on future generations through laying the groundwork for the child’s socialization and social adaptation.

Socialization is the process of learning the social roles, cultural adaptation and acquiring the skills of social interaction. This is the process of entering the society by an individual through acquired social experience, meeting social expectations, following norms and values which are in demand for a successful life in the given society.

It is in the process of socialization that personal traits, knowledge and skills formulate enabling the individual to partake in social relationships. Socialization occurs as the individual becomes spontaneously influenced by various life circumstances as well as through deliberate shaping of the individual makeup.

The spontaneous socialization covers companies of children and teenagers, the impact of various prejudiced opinions, old customs and traditions.⁴⁹⁹ The depictions of children’s games by female Azerbaijani writers Umm-El-Banine and Shabnam Kheyrulla in the early 20th and in the early 21st centuries respectively provide illustrative examples of the spontaneous socialization.

Spontaneous impact may include one-time, non-recurrent emotional publications in the press, single watching of a video, etc. They have a much weaker acceleration effect, but may exert dramatic impact, especially if they can shock the child.

Deliberate socialization: this category covers special institutes of socialization, such as nurseries, kindergartens, schools (with mandatory secondary education), vocational schools, technical schools and universities. This list can be supplemented by all kinds of public organizations. “All of these serve a single goal: align a young individual to the ideal personal standard established by all societies. To a lesser or greater extent, it is always a forcible process”⁵⁰²

The sociologist names five principle ways of how an individual reacts to deliberate socialization: submission, renewal of environment, ritualism, escapism, and creative revolt.

In the new Azerbaijani society with its warped set of values, children are brought up in line with the new patriotic philosophy translated into the maxim: “If you love your motherland, hate Armenians”.

The groundwork for socialization is laid in early childhood starting from the moment of forging relationships with peers, developing the perception and sense of self.

The socialization encompasses the process of indoctrinating mindsets, precepts and dictates setting up a lifetime program.

It is amazing how the author of these lines genuinely believes herself to be a conscientious and tolerant person.

The next stage of building armenophobia in Azerbaijan targets the young people and hinges on natural fears already inculcated in childhood. The main message goes along these lines: “Armenians take our places”, “they bewitch our men”, “Armenians are deformed and depraved”. In other words, this represents a classical form of demonization and dehumanization of Armenians.

The statement of the people’s artist of Azerbaijan and Armenia, singer Zeynab Khanlarova in her commentary of the ethnically motivated gruesome murder by Ramil Safarov⁵¹² is a glaring example of dehumanization, i.e. unabashed expression of contempt and readiness to back and commit atrocities.

Along all of the above, the woman’s status of a mother and a respected community member is used to marginalize all interaction with Armenians.

The capacity to feel kindness and empathy, love or hatred, calm or aggression as well as many other personal traits are instilled in an individual during childhood and remain ingrained for a lifetime. In other words, the state armenophobic policy and propaganda are planted into a fertile soil tilled by armenophobia and dating back to the years of childhood.

Shirin Kerimbeyli, Ahriman⁵¹⁶ of the Globe

Children acquire behavioral stereotypes in the early years of their lives, i.e. the sense of affiliation to an ethnic group is not innate but is gained through socialization.⁵¹⁸

The shaping of the national identity conventionally occurs in three stages.

1) At the age of 6–7, a child gains his/her first knowledge, albeit fragmentary and unsystematic, of his/her ethnic affiliation. At this stage, the child’s family and immediate social environment have the utmost significance for the child rather than his/her country and ethnic group.

2) At the age of 8–9, a child already clearly identifies himself/herself with his/her state, can recognize the fundamentals of such identification (the nationality of his/her parents, the place of residence and the mother tongue); dormant national feelings surface.

3) At the age of 10–11, the national identity is fully shaped, the child knows the peculiarities of various peoples and can designate the uniqueness of their history, the specific character of their daily life, including their ethnic culture.

A textbook is a book that systematically lays down fundamental knowledge in a specific domain at the current level of the scientific and cultural achievements and represents the main and leading type of academic literature.⁵²⁰

A school textbook plays an important role in securing the personal and intellectual development of students. The ultimate mission of a textbook is to aid the shaping of a personal attitude of the student to the course of study.⁵²¹

The education underlies the raising of future generations and communication of accumulated ancestral knowledge. In the modern world, where the system of education is overall standardized and controlled by the state, its function consists not only in counteracting illiteracy, but also in instilling and indoctrinating the values and ideologies intrinsic to the society in question.

In this context, the study of didactic materials gives an insight into the ideological constituent of the society and a rough forecast of its future.

Following the attainment of independence, the Azerbaijani textbooks draw both domestic and international criticism. Most of the critical voices raised domestically refer to errors, typos, inaccurate translation, etc.

However, if blunders of grammar and style are acknowledged by the compilers (scholars, pedagogues, Ministry of Education) and can be corrected, the ideological constituent of the academic literature remains unchanged as testified by the authors themselves.

It can be claimed that the educational process in Azerbaijan is made contingent on the ideology that cultivates armenophobia.

Arif Yunusov, conflictologist, in his publication entitled The myths and the images of the ‘enemy’ in historical science and in the history textbooks of the independent Azerbaijan notes that “amid the Karabakh conflict, the schoolbooks in Azerbaijan had the mission of “breeding patriots who know how to distinguish friend from foe and are prepared to take part in another conflict if need be”.⁵²⁶

According to Yunusov, the patriotic education holds a significant place in the Azerbaijani textbooks and directly ensues from the doctrine of “fighting the enemies”, represented by the Armenians, as well as the willingness to sacrifice own lives for the motherland and in the “heroic struggle” against the enemies.

Aleko Partsvaniya, journalist, notes: “Peacefulness and tolerance are other characteristic features of Azerbaijanis. Here, people do not like aggression and resort to it in very rare cases. With one exception. The name of this exception is Armenia. Armenia is hated. They do so with all their heart and their entire state. I do not know all the details of the story with Karabakh and I do not think that most of the Azerbaijanis do, but Armenia is hated for Karabakh. They are taught to hate Armenia from the primary classes. I won’t be surprised if the situation is similar in Armenia, but here things can get ridiculous. In Baku it is even impossible to find the CDs of a Western group, if any of their performers is of Armenian origin”.⁵³⁰

In April 2012, at the session of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly held in Baku, during the meeting of the Committee on Social Affairs, Education and Culture, the question of the Azerbaijani textbooks was brought up for discussion. The Armenian deputy, Aram Safaryan asked: “Is it true that your schools and textbooks contain propaganda of hostility and hatred to Armenians?” To that, the Minister of Education, Misir Mardanov⁵³¹ replied: “There is a vast chasm between our societies. And today’s event is a step towards bridging this chasm. I don’t know what is written in your books, and you don’t know what is written in our books. Therefore, it is hardly possible to find an answer to this question in a single day or during a single event. Questions of this nature call for very serious studies by specialists”.⁵³²

The website Musаvаt.соm conducted a survey among scholars, pedagogues, psychologists and deputies on the subject of “whether the Azerbaijani textbooks contain propaganda of hatred against Armenians”. Venerable respondents did not refute the presence of armenophobia and set about expatiating upon the question why armenophobia became reflected in the academic literature”.⁵³⁴

The dualist approach taken by the psychologist Elmira Qasimzadeh is worthy of a note. On the one hand, she believes that “a textbook should not be turned into an instrument of vengeance” and “instead, attention must be paid to forming historical thinking in pupils. The textbooks must contain essential points enabling to assess one’s country and motherland correctly. I wouldn’t like our patriotism to be measured in the extent of our hatred”. On the other hand, she says the following: “In our textbooks, I never saw any appeals to kill Armenians or the ideas that Armenians are our enemies. My own child goes to school. Indeed, children are well-informed of the wrongdoings perpetrated by Armenians from television and books. How can we conceal from children the tragedies of January 20, Khojaly and the occupation of our lands?⁵³⁶ Or, children must learn the whole truth about the history through a factual language: you can’t teach children a false history”.⁵³⁷

A pupil of the 11th grade, Hasan Nagizadeh, expressed his full agreement with both the author of the textbook and its content.

With reference to the above, we offer the reader a few extracts from the Teacher’s guide on patriotic education of preschool and schoolchildren and Teacher’s guide for the patriotic education of children.⁵³⁹

Fiction and academic literature represent one of the most extensive forms of propaganda and indoctrination of ideology.

The literature, particularly the children’s literature, is at the core of shaping the world outlook, moral principles and set of values at the very outset of life. It shapes the sense of morality and appraisal, the code of moral conduct and instills aesthetic perception.⁵⁶⁷

The assessment of the values underlying the future-oriented Azerbaijani society of our day calls for a scrutiny of the literary works which shape certain attitudes, views and ensuing line of conduct in respect of Armenians.

The factors of the territorial vicinity and a long history of coexistence secure a central place in the Azerbaijani literature for the subject of the relationships between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. A comparison of literary works on the subjects of the relationships between Georgians and Azerbaijanis, Azerbaijanis and Russians, Azerbaijanis and Iranians as well as Azerbaijanis and Armenians reveal the salience of the latter in terms of sheer numbers and representative variety. Over recent years, the number of works containing a negative appraisal of Armenians has noticeably increased.

The inculcation of armenophobia occurs in 2 ways: direct and indirect methods.

The direct method represents an open and unabashed propaganda and a straightforward hate speech. Its incidence increased in recent years compared to the rule of Heydar Aliyev, the father of the current president in office.

The indirect method represents a method that does not explicitly designate the ethnic origin in its depiction of the image and its distinctive traits, but makes the reader guess to whom the reference is made based on the events of the narration and the signature style.

Leyla Sayfutdinova who studied specimens of the modern Azerbaijani literature discerned certain patterns. The author notes that the literature draws a very clear borderline between Armenians and Azerbaijanis: “I don’t recall a single case when the national identity of an Armenian character remains unknown or is absolutely irrelevant to the story and therefore, to the relations between Armenians and Azerbaijanis”.⁵⁶⁸

The author notes that there is a distinction not only in terms of contrasting Armenians and Azerbaijanis, but also in terms of tagging them as “good our” and “bad other” Armenians, which comes to mean those who live in Azerbaijan and visitors, respectively. “Good” Armenians are those who live in Azerbaijan and are fond of their Azerbaijani friends. “Bad” Armenians are their opposites. Most frequently, foreign Armenians, i.e. Armenians who came to Azerbaijan and Caucasus from other places are portrayed as “bad”.⁵⁶⁹

The study of 22 latest literary works dated after 2008 made it clear that the image of “our” Armenians is portrayed as “pretenders”, and their sincerity raises doubts or calls for vigilance. Thus, the children’s story entitled Spy by Shabnam Kheyrulla⁵⁷⁰ is quite illustrative in terms of the educational process; the plot contains the character of aunt Aliya, an Armenian woman portrayed through the prism of the Azerbaijanis characters, through the eyes of children and the author herself.

Or, heirs to their legacy, they secretly plot against good-natured Azerbaijanis:

The prevailing stereotypes about Armenians planted in the Azerbaijani society certain notions about a “typical Armenian” behavior: the Armenian character must necessarily be envious, feigning and ultimately treacherous (deception and betrayal).

The plot of Ilham and Fariza told the story of a couple that fell victim to the soviet troops moved into Baku after a week-long Armenian pogrom, which in Azerbaijan is referred to as the Black January. It is emblematic in a context where a use of fictional devices and propaganda makes the modern Azerbaijani youth believe that on January 20th, the Armenians and Russians “killed the Azerbaijani heroes”. This is clearly shown in a video report⁵⁷⁵ in which the schoolchildren answer the reporter’s questions, such as: “what happened on January 20, 1990 in Baku?”, “who did our shekhids fight against and whom did they protect?”, “why did they kill us?” The children gave the following answers:

Also, Armenians are portrayed as having a characteristic and typical toolbox such as “underhand killing” and “stabbing in the back”.

Samvel Martirosyan, a member of the Xenophobia Prevention Initiative, believes that Azerbaijan’s raising generation is targeted by the state propaganda which foments feelings of hatred towards Armenians. This means that the state propaganda infiltrates a domain where it is not supposed to be, and this issue must be raised internationally.

We have attempted to review most, if not all significant aspects of the public life of Azerbaijan that displays a premeditated and far-reaching cultivation and indoctrination of armenophobia at state policy level.

It infiltrates all aspects of the country’s life on both horizontal and vertical planes engulfing all groups irrespective of sex, age and social status. The level of involvement in the fight against “the world Armeniandom” encompasses all most significant areas of country’s socio-economic and intellectual life, such as its science, economy, politics, upbringing, education, culture and sport.

Fallacious practices are employed along with the distortion and arbitrary interpretation of the universal set of values. The core meaning of certain categories is replaced to impose a form that is essentially in contradiction with universal concepts. This comes to discredit such concepts as patriotism and tolerance, law and morality, good and evil.

It is the missing tolerance that sets conditions for an emerging aggression. Unacceptable in a civilized society, it nonetheless exists in today’s Azerbaijan, which, in its turn, signals the continuing existence of a fertile soil for the emergence of a xenophobic propaganda.

However, the ethnic intolerance must not be regarded in isolation from the progression of the Azerbaijani national self-awareness, as it forms an integral part of the process, rather than an individual social and psychological phenomenon.

Yet, it must be noted that the anti-Armenian propaganda which targets the Azerbaijani society carries serious risks for Armenia as well.

Modern.az has conducted a poll among the three generations of Azerbaijanis; the respondents included grandparents, parents and children. Contrasted to a more or less adequate appraisal of Armenians on behalf of adult respondents, the children’s aggression is a matter of concern for the future of our own youngsters.⁵⁸⁰

Sooner or later, the peace will be restored in the region. What will be the face of such peace, if the next generation treads heavy with hatred to another people, and the murderous intent becomes part of its identity?

Will the feelings of hatred towards Armenians dissipate? Will it take years before generations change and those harboring feelings of armenophobia disappear as a form of perceiving the surrounding world?

Yet, such policy of inciting hatred for Armenians is no less prejudicial for the Azerbaijani society in short and long perspective. Unable to show real aggression against the Armenians, the new generations of Azerbaijanis develop psychological phenomena known as transference, when the hatred is directed against a more readily available and weaker entity, and sublimation, when an aggressive impulse takes an entirely different form against an entirely different object.

Raising entire generations in a spirit of hatred for Armenians based on false stereotypes, the rulers of Azerbaijan attack the minds of their children robbing them of any chance to follow a natural path of development and personal growth. Instead, the resulting product of such policy is a citizen who takes an aggressive stance against his arch enemy – the Armenian – fully prepared to take ruthless action against Armenians. The heroization of Ramil Safarov by the leadership of Azerbaijan sets a precedent for generations to come which raised under the heavy load of the anti-Armenian propaganda are pushed towards similar ‘heroic deeds’ by all means available.

We would like to conclude this book with a quote from Akram Aylisli appearing in his interview to the Azadlyg radio station on July 19, 2013:⁵⁸²“If we had carefully studied the legacy of Mirza Jalil, Sabir⁵⁸³ and others, we would not have been in the moral abyss, in which we are now. But Mirza and Sabir wrote about exactly the same things, of which I write now”.

You will also be interested to read this:

– Armenophobia in the Textbooks Used in Azerbaijan http://azerichild.education/en/index.html

– Armenophobia in children's literature, prose, poetry, games, proverbs and sayings http://azerichild.info/

– Caviar diplomacy of Azerbaijan http://caviar-diplomacy.net/azerbaijan/en_US/

1

Буртовая Е. В. (сост.) Конфликтология. Учебное пособие. 2002. http://vipstudent.ru/index.php?q=lib&r=16&id=1195230045&p=0 (rus)

2

C.R.Mitchell, “The Structure of International Conflict”), NY, 1989 (rus)

3

Солдатова Г.У, Макарчук А.В… Может ли другой стать другом? Тренинг по профилактике ксенофобии. – М.: Генезис, 2006. (rus)

4

Э. Фромм. Анатомия человеческой деструктивности. кн, Пер. с англ. Э. М. Телятникова, Т. В. Панфилова. Изд. АСТ, Москва, 2004. 635. (rus)

5

И. Кон. Психология предрассудка. О социально-психологических корнях этнических предубеждений, Чернявская Ю. Психология национальной нетерпимости. Хрестоматия. Минск, «Харвест», 1998. – 560. (rus)

6

Г.У. Солдатова, А.В. Макарчук. Может ли другой стать другом? Тренинг по профилактике ксенофобии. М.: Генезис, 2006. (rus)

7

Солдатова Г.У. Психологические механизмы ксенофобии, ст. Психологический журнал, No.006 Vol.27, 2006, http://lib.convdocs.org/docs/index-198579.html (rus)

8

А. Белояр. Толковый словарь демократического новояза и эвфемизмов, http://politike.ru/dictionary/472 (rus)

9

Алексей Цюрупа. Ксенофобия как проявление инстинкта этнической изоляции, Чернявская Ю. Психология национальной нетерпимости. Хрестоматия. Минск, «Харвест», 1998. – 560. (rus)

10

Архангородский, М. Любовь нечаянно нагрянет… (О психологии личности при тоталитарных и автократических режимах), Книга-хрестоматия, http://proza.ru/2011/10/28/1769 (rus)

11

Op.cit.

12

Op.cit.

13

Краткий психологический словарь. – Ростов-на-Дону: «ФЕНИКС». Л.А.Карпенко, А.В.Петровский, М. Г. Ярошевский. 1998. (rus)

14

Here and later in the text, original spelling and syntax were preserved.

15

Hale, Alisahib Erogul, Baku. «Tekhnur», 2011 г. 608 p. http://azerichild.info/HALE. pdf (az)

16

Events related to the tragic deaths of Meskhetian Turks near the city of Aghdam in 1992, which are interpreted differently by Armenian and Azerbaijani sides.

17

İçimdəki erməni, Mirmekhti Agaoghlu, http://www.kulis.az/ xeber_İçimdəki_erməni__4572.html, the original was removed from source, a cashed copy can be found here: http://www.peeep.us/516a38d8 (az)

18

Почебут Л. Г. Кросс-культурная этническая психология. Учебное пособие, 1 издание, 2012, 336 р. (rus)

19

Кенан Гулузаде. Моя первая ненависть. 1news.az. 26.04.2013. http://1news.az/authors/142/20130426033057752.html (rus)

20

«Эхо Сумгайыта». Азад Шариф. 25.01.2007. Зеркало. the original was removed from source, a cashed copy can be found here: http://www.peeep.us/8f193140 (rus)

21

Умуд Хазар. К войне. Kultura.az. 23.10.2012. http://kultura.az/articles.php?item_id=20121022070442617&sec_id=46 (az)

22

Жмуров В.А. Большая энциклопедия по психиатрии, 2-е изд, 2012. (rus)

23

Психоаналитические термины и понятия Словарь. Под ред. Борнесса Э. Мура и Бернарда Д. Фаина, Москва «Класс» 2000 (rus)

24

Свои пороки в других я вижу. Misinformative.info. http://misinformative.info/?p=1923 (rus)

25

Сиявуш Новрузов: «У некоторых правозащитников Азербайджана имеется примесь армянской крови». Day.az. 23.02.2008. http://news.day.az/society/109257.html (rus)

26

Анар Мамедханов – армян надо убивать в Карабахе. Day.az. 08.03.2004. http://news.day.az/politics/5101.html (rus)

27

Hay is a self-designation of Armenians.

28

Алекпер Алекперов. «Будьте осторожны!!! Армяне/хаи – этнос-разрушитель». Карабах в документах http://karabakh-doc.azerall.info/ru/armyanstvo/arm5.htm (rus)

29

Вугар Гасанов. «Азербайджанский солдат погиб в день казанской встречи президентов», статья. 04.07.2011. Vesti.az. http://vesti.az/news/82012 (rus)

30

Вердербер Р., Вердербер К. Психология общения. – СПб, 2003, глоссарий по книге. (rus)

31

Крылов Альберт. «Психология: учебник (2 е издание)»: Издательство Проспект; 2005 (rus)

32

Op.cit.

33

Op.cit.

34

Оксфордский толковый словарь по психологии, Под ред. А.Ребера, 2002. (rus)

35

For more information, see the chapter Dehumanization and Demonization of Armenians.

36

Rwanda: A Brief History of the Country, Сайт ООН. http://www.un.org/en/ preventgenocide/rwanda/education/rwandagenocide.shtml (en)

37

Yelena Sinyavskaya – Russian historian, doctor of history, professor, leading researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. She specialized in the military history of the twentieth century, social history, alltagsgeschichte, historical psychology, military psychology and military sociology. She is the founder and leader of the scientific discipline called Military and historical anthropology and psychology.

38

Психология войны в 20 веке: Исторический опыт России. – М.: Российская политическая энциклопедия (РОССПЭН), 1999. – 383 p. (rus)

39

Хоруженко В. А. Концепты «война» и «враг» в современной русскоязычной публицистике. автореф. дис. канд. фил. наук / МИУ. – М.: МГИ, 2010. – 20p. (rus)

40

Президент Ильхам Алиев: «По всей стране осуществляются программы развития, и бакинские поселки также не должны остаться в стороне от них». Day.az. 21.04.2011. http://news.day.az/politics/263203.html (rus)

41

Т. Адорно. Р. Невитт Сэнфорд, Э. Френкель-Брюнсвик, Д. Дж. Левинсон Исследование авторитарной личности. Под общей редакцией д. филос. н. В.П. Култыгина, перевод Л. К. Латышева – М.: Серебряные нити, Академия исследования культуры, 2001. (rus)

42

Гейдар Алиев – созидатель независимого Азербайджана. статья. 1news.az. 15.06.2012. http://1news.az/analytics/20120615102518817.html (rus)

43

Архангородский, М. Любовь нечаянно нагрянет… (О психологии личности при тоталитарных и автократических режимах): Книга-хрестоматия http://proza.ru/2011/10/28/1769 (rus)

44

Айтен Алиева. «Культ личности» или «народная любовь»? Баку, для BBCrussian.com 19.12.2003. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/russian/news/ newsid_3331000/3331965.stm (rus)

45

Арлин Одергон. «Отель «Война». Психологическая динамика вооруженных конфликтов» – М: 2008. (rus)

46

Крысько В.Г. Секреты психологической войны (цели, задачи, методы, формы, опыт), Мн.: Харвест, 1999. – 448 p. (rus)

47

Нежданов И. Ю. Аналитическая разведка для бизнеса. Издательство: Ось-89, Москва, 2008 г, 336 p. (rus)

48

О роли дезинформации в современных конфликтах и войнах ч. 1. Полковник Серов. http://pentagonus.ru/publ/o_roli_dezinformacii_v_sovremennykh_konfliktakh_i_vojnakh/102-1-0-1855 (rus)

49

UN Security Council resolutions No. 822 (1993) of 30 April 1993, No. 853 (1993) of 29 July 1993, No. 874 (1993) of 14 October 1993 and No. 884 (1993) of 12 November 1993.

50

Политолог Мубариз Ахмедоглу: «Нагорно-карабахский конфликт может урегулировать только ООН». Day.az. 4.10.2012. http://news.day.az/politics/358803.html (rus)

51

Владимир Казимиров. «Карабах и резолюции Совета Безопасности ООН». http://www.vn.kazimirov.ru/k100.htm (rus)

52

Продажа Арменией органов азербайджанских военнопленных недопустима – ВОЗ. Trend.az.13. 09. 2011. http://www.trend.az/news/karabakh/1930887.html (rus)

53

ВОЗ осуждает незаконную трансплантацию органов. APA. 13.09.2011. http://ru.apa.az/news/202135 (rus)

54

Ричард Морнингстар: «Выращивание наркотиков на оккупированных территориях – правда». Salamnews. 14.06.2013. http://salamnews.org/ru/news/read/79880/richard-morningstar-laquovirashivanie-narkotikov-na-okkupirovannix-territoriyax-pravdaraquonbspnbsp/ (rus)

55

Татьяна Чаладзе подала в суд на Эйнуллу Фатуллаева за клевету о Ходжалинской трагедии. APA.az. 1.02.2007. http://news.bakililar.az/news_tatyana_chaladze_podala_5045.html (now Aze.az) (rus)

56

Ex-president of Armenia. 1998–2008.

57

Day.az. Житель Ходжалы: «Во время Ходжалинского геноцида меня пытал Роберт Кочарян», 22.02.2007. http://news.day.az/politics/71401.html (rus)

58

Rambler.ru. Армянский католикос Гарегин II такой же террорист и кровопийца, как глава государства Серж Саргсян. 11.11.2011 г. http://news.rambler.ru/11764381/ (rus)

59

Молодежная организация правящей партии призывает изгнать Рустама Ибрагимбекова и Акрама Айлисли из Азербайджана. Haqqin.az. 29.04.2013. http://haqqin.az/news/5413 (rus)

60

Виктор Каган. Homo xenophobicus: психология «своего и чужого». Национальный Психологический Журнал № 2, 2011 г. Издательство: Московский государственный университет им. М.В. Ломоносова (Факультет психологии) (Москва) статья в журнале – научная статья. Pages: 40–45, (rus)

61

Федор Лукьянов, главный редактор журнала «Россия в глобальной политике». Первый и неразрешимый. Статья. 02.08.2011 г. http://vz.ru/opinions/2011/8/2/511811/p2/ (rus)

62

At the beginning of the twentieth century, shaping of this identity occurred around the confessional core of “Muslims” or the ethnic core of “Caucasian Tatars”, while the process of ethnic consolidation around the ethnonym “Azerbaijani” was initiated as late as in the 1930s.

63

It is incorrect to employ the ethnonym of “Azerbaijani” with reference to the pre-Soviet period, however, we must use this term for the sake of clarity.

64

Azerbaijani educator and publicist.

65

Ева-Мария Аух. Между приспособлением и самоутверждением. Ранний этап поисков национальной идентичности в среде мусульманской интеллигенции и возникновение нового общества на юго-восточном Кавказе (1875–1905 гг.), http://old.sakharov-center.ru/publications/azrus/az_003.htm, (rus)

66

The Muslim community.

67

Ordan-Burdan, Uzeyir Hajibekov, http://uzeyir.musigi-dunya.az/az/publicism_70. html (az)

68

Mirza Alakbar Sabir, Избранные произведения, Издательство «Советский писатель», 1983, http://azeribooks.narod.ru/poezia/sabir/sabir_izbrannoe.htm (rus)

69

А. Казинян. «Полигон Азербайджан». Ереван, 2011 г. Центр общественной связи и информации. 611 p. (rus)

70

Т. Варданян. Азербайджанцы. История одного неоконченного этнопроекта. Москва 2012. p. 51–52 (rus)

71

Гюлханданян Абраам. Армяно-татарские столкновения. Т. 1 – Париж, 1933. p. 175–176 (rus)

72

«Кавказское слово», № 262, 1918 (rus)

73

Б.Л. Байте. Воспоминания о революции в Закавказье (1918–1920 гг.). Опубл. в сб.: «Архив русской революции», т. IX, Берлин 1923 г. (Издатель Г.В. Гессен). See also: «Голос Армении», 6 апреля 2005 г. (rus)

74

РГАСПИ, ф. 64, оп. 1, д. 19, л. 9. Заверенная копия. Б. Барсегов. Нагорный Карабах в международном праве и мировой политике. Документы и комментарии. Том 1. М, Кругъ, 2008. (rus)

75

Dozens of letters have survived in which Mirza Fatali Akhundzadeh (Akhundov) asks his Armenian friend Mirza Malkam Khan, a prominent educator and reformer, founder of the Iranian drama, publicist and diplomat, to create an alphabet for his wretched people. In a letter dated March 8 1871, he writes: “Please, keep all my letters from the very first to the very last and compile them into a book. After we are gone, these letters will become notable historical documents for future generations” <…> “With your idea to create and reform the alphabet you fulfilled your duty to the humanity and cultural development. The history will keep your name, and our descendants will remember it with gr atitude and respect”. Axundovun erməni əsilli mütəfəkkir dostu, http://dilqemehmed.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/axundovun-erməni-əslli-mutəfəkkir-dostu/ (az)

76

Мирза Алекпер Сабир, Избранные произведения, Издательство «Советский писатель», 1983, http://azeribooks.narod.ru/poezia/sabir/sabir_izbrannoe.htm (rus)

77

A line from the poem “Glory to Thee, my Lord!”

78

Ibid.

79

Алиев Г.А. Мужественный борец за дело Ленина, за коммунизм. К 100-летию со дня рождения С.Г. Шаумяна. Доклад на торжественном собрании, посвященном 100-летию со дня рождения С.Г. Шаумяна. Баку. 11 октября 1978 года. Баку. 1978. p.16. (rus)

80

«Бакинский рабочий» 11 февраля 1999 года (rus)

81

Гейдар Алиев: «Государство с оппозицией лучше» «Эхо» от 24 июля 2002 г. № 138 (383), http://echo-az.com/archive/2002_07/383/facts.shtml#11 (rus)

82

Вахид Гази. Размышления о геноциде. Mediaforum.az. 05.03.2010. http://www.mediaforum.az/az/2010/03/05/şahmat-taxtasinda-beysbol-oyunu-035208469c04.html (az)

83

Лебедь А.И. За державу обидно… – М.: «Московская правда», 1995. «Военная литература»: http://militera.lib.ru/memo/russian/lebed_ai/index.html (rus)

84

На цистернах было написано: «Поздравляем с землетрясением! Желаем повторения!». Интервью. Голос Армении. № 92 (20165) 6.09.2011. http://golosarmenii.am/ru/20165/home/13141/ (rus)

85

Клише антиармянской пропаганды идентичны антиеврейским… Голос Армении № 51 (20404). 16.05.2013. http://golosarmenii.am/ru/20404/world/26789/ (rus)

86

Azadlığı istəmirəm Zərrə-zərrə, qram-qram. Elpress.az. 08.08. 2010. http://elpress.az/index.php?option=com_content&id=1043:azadl-istmirm-zrr-zrr-qram-qram-&catid=116:er&Itemid=304 (az)

87

Полонский А. Ислам в контексте общественной жизни современного Азербайджана. Газета «История». № 28/1999. Издательский дом «Первое сентября». http://his.1september.ru/1999/his28.htm (rus)

88

Шнирельман Виктор. Войны памяти: мифы, идентичность и политика в Закавказье. – М.: Академкнига, 2003. С. 216–222 (rus)

89

Фарида Мамедова и перевернутые надгробья. Misinformative.info. http:// misinformative.info/?p=961 (rus)

90

Фарида Мамедова. «История Кавказской Албании» http://bakililar.az/ca/photos/dashsalahli.html (rus)

91

Фарида Мамедова и перевернутые надгробья. Misinformative.info. http://misinformative.info/?p=961 (rus)

92

Gandzasar (Arm. «Գանձասար», literally a mountain of treasures, Gandzasar Monastery) is an outstanding Armenian cultural monument, an active monastery of the Armenian Apostolic Church, on the left bank of Khachen river near the village of Vank, Nagorno-Karabakh. The Armenian Catholicos Anania Mokatsi first mentioned Gandzasar in the mid-10th century. Prince Hasan-Jalal Dawla, “a pious, devout and humble man of Armenian descent” built the currently known church on the site of the old one mentioned back in the 10th century and consecrated it in a solemn ceremony on July 22, 1240. According to legend, the head of John the Baptist severed at the behest of Herod rests in the burial vault of the church brought here from Cilician Armenia during one of the Crusades; therefore, the church got the name of Surb Hovhannes Mkrtich (St. John the Baptist).

93

Азербайджанский ученый рассказала об истинном происхождении армян Карабаха. ст. Day.az. 6.03.2012. http://news.day.az/politics/319932.html (rus)

94

Академия мошенников. Voskanapat.info. http://voskanapat.info/?p=83 (rus)

95

His real surname was Movsisyan. Armenian writer and playwright, the first people’s writer of Azerbaijan

96

Ordan-Burdan, Uzeyir Hajibekov, http://uzeyir.musigi-dunya.az/az/publicism_70. html (az)

97

Cəlil Məmmədquluzadə. Axund ilə keşişin vəzi. Azadliq.org 27.02.2010. http://www.azadliq.org/content/article/1970188.html (az)

98

Выступление по телевидению 19 ноября 1988. (rus)

99

А. Казинян. «Полигон Азербайджан». Ереван, 2011 г. Центр общественной связи и информации. 611 p. (rus)

100

Op.cit.

101

МП, 11.02.1990; см. также А.Каменев, «Детонатор спокойствия» (rus)

102

“lads” (distorted Armenian word)

103

İçimdəki erməni, Mirmekhti Agaoghlu, http://www.kulis.az/ xeber_İçimdəki_erməni__4572.html, the original was removed from source, a cashed copy can be found here: http://www.peeep.us/516a38d8 (az)

104

Ermənilər və müsəlmanlar, Fəxrəddin Hacıbəyli, http://kulis.az/xeber_ Ermənilər_və_müsəlmanlar__3654.html, the original was removed from source, a cashed copy can be found here: http://www.peeep.us/66d78b41 (az)

105

Sevil Huseynova. Ethnicity As Social Status And Stigma: Armenians In Post-Soviet Baku. Published by Heinrich Böll Foundation http://ge.boell.org/downloads/Sevil.pdf (en)

106

Зияфет Аскеров, первый вице-спикер парламент. Армяне в Азербайджане не сталкиваются с проблемами религиозной и этнической нетерпимости. Trend. 2.05.2008. http://trend.az/news/politics/1190225.html (rus)

107

Араз Ализаде: «Власти Армении двуличны и продажны». 28. 01.2011. Day.Az http://news.day.az/politics/250207.html (rus)

108

Эльнур Асланов: «Для нас информационная война – это национальная идея, для армян же генетическая неприязнь». 1news.az. 24.01.2011. http://1news.az/interview/20110124110955665.html (rus)

109

Депутат Ганира Пашаева обратилась с призывом к ПАСЕ. Trend. 27.01.2011. http://news.day.az/politics/250223.html (rus)

110

Юнусов А. Этнический состав Азербайджана (по переписи 1999 года). Опубликовано на сайте Института этнологии и антропологии РАН. 12.03.01. http://demoscope.ru/weekly/2004/0183/analit05.php (rus)

111

Ethnic composition of Azerbaijan 2009. Tim Bespyatov, 2008–2013. http://popstat.mashke.org/azerbaijan-ethnic2009.htm (en)

112

«Новое Время». N2234 (136), 22 декабря суббота, 2012 (rus)

113

Sevil Huseynova. Ethnicity As Social Status And Stigma: Armenians In Post-Soviet Baku. Published by Heinrich Böll Foundation http://ge.boell.org/downloads/Sevil.pdf (en)

114

Ibid

115

Ibid

116

Sevil Huseinova (op. cit.): “Another woman said that she felt ashamed if someone in the street pointed a finger at her and called her Armenian. This sense of shame resulted in an urge to change one’s appearance, which, for example, took the form of dying one’s hair in bright colors, to emphasize the ‘Russian origin’. Also, they changed their names and middle names, so that these could sound more familiar to the local ear,” writes the author.

117

Лиана-Лейла: «Не жалею, что осталась в Азербайджане». Туран. 04.02.2011, http://contact.az/docs/2011/Want%20to%20Say/101000027296ru.htm (rus)

118

Азербайджанцев в Армении сегодня немало, более того, живут они даже в Арцахе, и живут вполне неплохо. Panarmenian.net. 1 октября 2011. http://panarmenian.net/rus/news/79741/ (rus)

119

Хочу, чтобы все вернулись в Баку. Туран. 15.02.2011, http://contact.az/docs/2011/Want%20to%20Say/101000027794ru.htm (rus)

120

В Баку начали выдавать удостоверения личности армянам. Salamnews. org. 20.11.12. http://ru.salamnews.org/ru/news/read/39891/v-baku-nachali-vidavat-udostovereniya-lichnosti-armyanam/ (rus)

121

In plain language, they seized her apartment and kicked her out.

122

В Азербайджане армянка подала в суд на управление полиции. APA. 06.05.2009. http://ru.apa.az/news_В_Азербайджане__армянка__134223.html. the original was removed from source, a cashed copy can be found here: http://peeep. us/258209cb (rus)