Historical Chronology of Armenian-Russian Relations

Historical Chronology

In 1722, Peter the Great urged the Armenians and Georgians to jointly struggle against the Turks and Persians. But two months later, he canceled his Caspian campaign and broke the promise of a joint struggle.

On June 12, 1724, in Constantinople, Ibrahim Pasha and the Russian ambassador Neplyuev concluded an agreement, according to which the Caucasus was to be divided into zones of Russian and Turkish influence. The Turkish army received an opportunity to organize a large-scale offensive in the region. As a result, powerful Armenian melikdoms (princedoms) soon disappeared.

After an unsuccessful attack on the Yerevan fortress during the Russian-Persian War of 1804, the Russian army plundered Etchmiadzin while retreating to Tiflis. The same thing happened a year later.

During the Russian-Turkish War of 1810, General Tormasov robbed and expelled Armenians from Akhaltsikhe.

In 1828, after the annexation of Eastern Armenia to Russia, the authorities refused to launch the program of Armenian students in St. Petersburg on the autonomy of Armenia.

In 1829, after the Russian-Turkish War and as a result of the Adrianople Treaty concluded on September 2, Russia returned the occupied lands of Western Armenia to Turkey. This was done so that Turkey would give its consent to the independence of Greece.

On March 11, 1836, the tsarist government adopted a set of rules on the rights and obligations of the Armenian Church called the “Regulations”. According to these “Regulations”, the rights of the Armenian Church were limited, and the authority of the approval of the Catholicos of all Armenians was given to the Russian Tsar.

In 1840, the tsarist government abolished the Armenian Oblast in Eastern Armenia.

In 1856, according to the 3rd paragraph of the Paris Peace Treaty, His Majesty the All-Russian Emperor pledged to return the city of Kars along with the fortress to His Majesty the Sultan, as well as those territories of the Ottoman Empire which had been invaded by Russian troops.

In 1885, the royal authorities in the Caucasus closed down hundreds of Armenian schools.

In the 1890s, Russian Foreign Minister Alexei Lobanov-Rostovsky in the period of Armenian pogroms said: “To prevent a new Bulgaria from coming to the region, we need Armenia without Armenians.”

On June 12, 1903, the tsarist government passed a law on the confiscation of the property of the Armenian Church.

On December 17, 1903, by the order of the royal authorities, the parochial school in Shushi was shut down.

In the winter of 1905, Armenian-Tatar clashes began at the instigation of the tsarist authorities.

In July 1915, after Van’s brilliant self-defense, Russian troops without any explanation made a false strategic retreat, refusing to leave weapons and ammunition to Aram Manukian’s defending military groups. As a result of the retreat, part of the population of Van left with the Russian army, while the rest was massacred by the Turks. It is characteristic that shortly after this, the Russian troops again captured Van, where no Armenians remained.

In May 1920, officials of Soviet Russia Mekhonoshin, Kirov, and Lewandowski sent an ultimatum to the government of the Republic of Armenia, demanding the withdrawal of Armenian troops from Artsakh and its transfer to Azerbaijan.

In the summer of 1920, the 11th Russian Red Army occupied Artsakh, Zangezur, and Nakhichevan.

On August 24, 1920, a Russian-Turkish treaty was concluded. It is not by chance that this treaty involved the provision of 200.4 kilograms of gold and armament to Turkey. Later, the Turks were provided with military detachments for the war against the “Armenian imperialists”, as the Bolsheviks said.

In September 1920, the Congress of the Peoples of the East was held in Baku, where a decision was made to attack Armenia. The Turkish side was to commence the attack, while the Russian side was to invade and Sovietize whatever remains after the attack.

On November 29, 1920, the Russian 11th Red Army invaded Armenia from the territory of Azerbaijan.

In December 1920, after the Soviet occupation, arrests of Armenian public and military leaders began. Those arrested would later be sentenced to death or exile.

On January 24, 1921, the 11th Red Army of Soviet Russia and the Armenian Revolutionary Committee began the deportation of 1,400 Armenian officers to Russia.

On March 16, 1921, a “Friendship and Brotherhood” agreement was signed between Soviet Russia and Turkey in Moscow. In accordance with this agreement, many Armenian territories were given to Turkey, and Nakhichevan was placed under the protectorate of Azerbaijan.

In July 1921, in accordance with the decision of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s Central Committee of the Caucasus, Artsakh was given to Azerbaijan.

On October 13, 1921, the Kars Treaty was signed, which was a repetition of the Moscow Treaty.

On the night of June 13-14, 1949, 15,000 people were sent to Siberia.

In 1988, the Soviet authorities declared that the Artsakh movement was extremist. In March of the same year, Soviet tanks appeared in Yerevan.

From February 27 to February 29, 1988, the pogroms of the Armenian population took place in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait with the criminal connivance and full political support from the Soviet government.

In December 1988, members of the “Karabakh” committee were arrested.

On May 27, 1990, the 7th Soviet Army commanded by General Surkov with the support of armored vehicles attempted to invade Yerevan. Naturally, the Armenian people again rose against the Soviet tanks. As a result, the criminal Soviet military killed 27 militiamen and civilians at the Yerevan railway station and in Nubarashen.

On April 30, 1991, the top leadership of the USSR together with the authorities of the Azerbaijan SSR and with the support of the 23rd division of the 4th Soviet Army stationed in Kirovabad and the forces of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs under the command of the commander of the Baku regiment Colonel Mashkov launched the criminal Operation Ring in Artsakh.

In 1992, the 23rd Division of the Russian Army stationed in Ganja (Gandzak, Kirovabad) launched an attack on the Armenian territories of Artsakh and against our army.

David Fidanyan

One thought on “Historical Chronology of Armenian-Russian Relations

  1. Knowing what the treacherous Russian governments whether Tsarist or Communist have perpetrated on us, why on earth are we still aligned militarily with these Russian governments and continue to buy arms from then, instead of aligning ourselves with the US military, buy arms from them and ideally join NATO.

    So when will our Armenian officials come to their senses and stop repeating our historical outrageous strategic, tactical, political, geopolitical, military and socioeconomical decisions on the expense of the Armenian people who have been subjugated over their almost entire history to moronic, scheming, vile, uncivilized aggressors who have committed unforgivable, unjustified, genocidal blood thirsty crimes against innocent, decent and the righteous inhabitants of our ancestral lands that they have usurped from us.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *