| Armeno-Tartar War | |||||||
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 A Cossack military patrol near the Baku oilfields, ca. 1905. |
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The Armenian-Tatar massacres (also known as the Armenian-Tartar war and the Armeno-Tartar war) refers to the bloody inter-ethnic confrontation between Christian Armenians and Muslim Tartars throughout the Caucasus in 1905—1907.[1][2][3]
The massacres started during the Russian Revolution of 1905, and claimed hundreds of lives. The most violent clashes occurred in 1905 in February in Baku, in May in Nakhichevan, in August in Shusha and in November in Elizavetopol, heavily damaging the cities and the Baku oilfields. Some violence, although of lesser scale, broke out also in Tbilisi. According to professor Firuz Kazemzadeh, "it is impossible to pin the blame for the massacres on either side. It seems that in some cases (Baku, Elizavetpol) the Azerbaijanis fired the first shots, in other cases (Shusha, Tiflis) the Armenians".[4] The clashes were not confined to the towns, and, according to an Armenian estimate, 128 Armenian and 158 Muslim villages were destroyed or pillaged, while the overall estimates of lives lost vary widely, ranging from 3,000 to 10,000, with Muslims suffering higher losses.[5]
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After the Baku clashes, the Moslem communities in the Nakhichevan district began smuggling in consignments of weapons from Persia. By April the murder of Armenians there began to assume alarming proportions and they applied to the Russian authorities for protection. However, Villari describes the district's governor as "bitterly anti-Armenian", and the vice-governor in Yerevan as an "Armenophobe". [6]
On the 25th May, acting on a prearranged plan, bands of armed Tartars attacked the market area in the district capital, the town of Nakhichevan, looting and burning Armenian businesses and killing any Armenians they could find. About 50 Armenians were murdered and some of the shopkeepers were burnt alive in their shops. On the same day, Tartar villagers from the countryside began attacking their Armenian neighbours. Villari cites official reports mentioning that out of a total of 52 villages with Armenian or mixed Armenian-Tartar populations, 47 were attacked, and of that 47, 19 were completely destroyed and abandoned by their inhabitants. The total number of dead, including those in Nachichevan town, was 239. Later, in a revenge attack, Armenians attacked a Tartar village, killing 36 people.
Clashes started in early February 1905 over the killing of a Tatar schoolboy and shopkeeper by Armenians.500 Tatars and 40 Armenians died.[7]
 A Tatar victim of the massacres in Baku |
 The village of Djagry in Nakhichevan district: "the house of a rich Armenian burnt by Tartars".[8] |
 An Armenian church in Gyaz village in Nakhichevan district "plundered and desecrated by Tartars".[9] |
 A monument in Berdadzor, Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, to Armenian victims of the 1905-1906 Armenian-Tatar Massacres. |
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The Armenian-Tatar massacres is when both people committed massacres on each other.
| “ | The resistance of the Armenians in Baku is described by Victor Berard in his book: “The attacks against the Armenians in Baku started on February 19, 1905 and turned into downright massacre during February 20-21. The Armenians requested the support of the Russian government, but the local government, which was in collaboration with the Tatars, refused to intervene. So the Armenians of Baku were forced to defend their own destiny. On February 21, the Armenian young men, armed with grenades and rifles which they had hastilygathered, marched towards the streets and quarters which were controlled by armed Tatar bands. The Russian forces, which until that moment refused to intervene and were only spectators of the events, now tried to disarm the Armenians who were thereby forced to fight on two fronts, in other words, to escape being arrested and simultaneously fight the aggressors. Despite this difficult situation, they managed to launch an offensive. At the end of the day, the Tatars were driven away from all the streets around the Armenian church and the city railway station. The following day, the Armenians continued to the other quarters in the city and dispersed all Tatar bands on their way. The acts of vengeance were bloody and Tatar corpses in the streets were increasing in number for each hour that passed. Thus the Tatar leaders turned to the ruler of the city and begged him to put an end to the fighting.” | ” |
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