ABSTRACT
The land called Nagorno-Karabagh is regarded by Armenians and Azerbaijani Turks as historic patrimony. For reasons described below, for most of the Soviet period Nagorno-Karabagh was an autonomous region within the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR), but its population was mainly Armenian. Armenian groups abroad, however, refer to the "Nagorno-Karabagh Republic". Armenian military successes characterized the spring. A series of offensives aimed at securing control of the major east-west highway running across the southern part of Nagorno-Karabagh and into Armenia. Russian historical aims included control of the Caucasus. As in Central Asia, control here was justified by the proclamation of a "civilizing mission" in the nineteenth century and "elder brotherhood" in the twentieth. The relationship of Iran to Armenia and to Azerbaijan is extremely complex. The Russian conquest of the early nineteenth century neither severed these peoples' historical ties to Iran nor obliterated their legacy. Azerbaijan has a particularly close relationship with Turkey, which both Ankara and Baku cultivated.
