Embassy of Armenia to the United States

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Armenian national liberation movement of Artsakh. The national awakening became a turning point in the modern history of Armenia and the first, since Polish Solidarnost, major democratic movement, that eventually led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Back in 1988 the democratic and peaceful movement of the people of Artsakh for freedom met with the Azerbaijani government-orchestrated brutal Pogroms against the Armenian civilian populations in Azerbaijan with hundreds killed and hundreds of thousands uprooted from their homeland. World’s 13th Chess Champion Garry Kasparov was among those who narrowly escaped the Baku massacres in 1990.