June Books 5) Black Garden
5) Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War, by Thomas de Waal
This is a really good book. Even if you don't have a professional interest in the Nagorno-Karabakh question (and let's face it, not a lot of people do), I think the studies of how a historical dispute over a very small patch of land destroyed two countries and helped to destroy the Soviet Union are of worldwide, human interest. The narrative of the conflict is interspersed with either interviews with today's survivors or historical reflections on how we got there.
The first few chapters are also particularly interesting because of the light they throw on Gorbachev, especially from research in the Politburo archives. In a week when we have all been debating the extent to which Ronald Reagan deserves any credit at all, I found this September 1988 exchange between the General Secretary and the hapless official in charge of preventing the conflict illustrative of the fantasy world in which the leadership of the other superpower lived: [Gorbachev] rang and said:"... Tell them that if they don't stop this, we will expel them from the Party!" I said, "Mikhail Sergeyevich, they've already trampled on their party cards. The members of the committee are all the organisers of these demonstrations!... What Party methods are you talking about?"
Two years later, of course, the Soviet Union suddenly collapsed completely. This was one of the few warning signs. (Also the August 1990 coup attempt in Moscow had a direct effect on the outcome of the war.)
It was also interesting for me to see someone else's take on some of the personalities I met in the region last month - President Kocharian and his predecessor Levon Ter-Petrossian in Armenia, Leila Yunusova and Isa Gambar (and President Aliev the younger) in Azerbaijan. But the more interesting human story is what happens to people who used to live in a society that has been destroyed. The chapters about the massacre in Sumgait in early 1988, and about the children of Azerbaijan's 750,000 refugees, are particularly vivid.
This is a really good book. Even if you don't have a professional interest in the Nagorno-Karabakh question (and let's face it, not a lot of people do), I think the studies of how a historical dispute over a very small patch of land destroyed two countries and helped to destroy the Soviet Union are of worldwide, human interest. The narrative of the conflict is interspersed with either interviews with today's survivors or historical reflections on how we got there.
The first few chapters are also particularly interesting because of the light they throw on Gorbachev, especially from research in the Politburo archives. In a week when we have all been debating the extent to which Ronald Reagan deserves any credit at all, I found this September 1988 exchange between the General Secretary and the hapless official in charge of preventing the conflict illustrative of the fantasy world in which the leadership of the other superpower lived: [Gorbachev] rang and said:"... Tell them that if they don't stop this, we will expel them from the Party!" I said, "Mikhail Sergeyevich, they've already trampled on their party cards. The members of the committee are all the organisers of these demonstrations!... What Party methods are you talking about?"
Two years later, of course, the Soviet Union suddenly collapsed completely. This was one of the few warning signs. (Also the August 1990 coup attempt in Moscow had a direct effect on the outcome of the war.)
It was also interesting for me to see someone else's take on some of the personalities I met in the region last month - President Kocharian and his predecessor Levon Ter-Petrossian in Armenia, Leila Yunusova and Isa Gambar (and President Aliev the younger) in Azerbaijan. But the more interesting human story is what happens to people who used to live in a society that has been destroyed. The chapters about the massacre in Sumgait in early 1988, and about the children of Azerbaijan's 750,000 refugees, are particularly vivid.