Genrikh Poghosyan

Genrikh Poghosyan
Հենրիք Պողոսյան
First Secretary of the Nagorno–Karabakh Communist Party
In office
24 February 1988 – 26 November 1991
Preceded byBoris Kevorkov
Succeeded byposition abolished
Second Secretary of the Nagorno–Karabakh Communist Party
First SecretaryBoris Kevorkov
Personal details
Born
Genrikh Andreyevich Poghosyan

1931
Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, USSR
Died2000
Moscow, Russia

Genrikh Poghosyan (Armenian: Հենրիք Պողոսյան) was the First Secretary of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast Committee of the Communist Party of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. He was appointed in February 1988, succeeding Boris Kevorkov. The government of the Azerbaijan SSR abolished the autonomous oblast in 1991.[1]

Biography

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Poghosyan was the Deputy Secretary of the CPSU committee for the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast up until 1988. Secretary Boris Kevorkov was very loyal to Azerbaijani leaders in Baku, and was resented by the Armenian community.[2][3]

During the Karabakh movement, 87 Armenian deputies from the Regional Soviet called an emergency session of the assembly on 20 February 1988 in response to Armenian demonstrations in Stepanakert calling for the unification of Karabakh and Armenia. Kevorkov had tried and failed to stop the session's taking place,[4] and when 110 Armenian deputies voted unanimously for the resolution, calling for Nagorny Karabakh to join Soviet Armenia, tried to swipe the stamp needed to confirm the resolution.[5] Kevorkov was removed from office by Moscow emissaries and succeeded by Poghosyan on 24 February 1988.[5]

Poghosyan was much more popular among Karabakh Armenians.[6] A few months later he began to support the campaign for unification with Armenia.[6] Poghosyan held his position as secretary until the autonomous oblast was abolished on 26 November 1991, at which time the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic had been declared two months prior and the First Nagorno-Karabakh War had turned full-scale.

References

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  1. ^ Malkasian 1996, p. 87.
  2. ^ Kaufman 2001, p. 59.
  3. ^ de Waal 2003, p. 152.
  4. ^ de Waal 2003, p. 13.
  5. ^ a b de Waal 2003, p. 14.
  6. ^ a b de Waal 2003, p. 15.

Bibliography

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  • Malkasian, Mark (1996), Gha-ra-bagh!, Wayne State University Press, ISBN 0-8143-2604-8
  • de Waal, Thomas (2003). Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 9780814719459.
  • Kaufman, Stuart J. (2001), Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War, Cornell University Press, ISBN 0-8014-8736-6