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Tens of thousands died fighting for and against it, destroying the careers of two presidents — one Armenian, one Azerbaijani — and tormenting a generation of American, Russian and European diplomats pushing stillborn peace plans.
After surviving more than three decades of on-off war and pressure from big outside powers to give up, or at least narrow, its ambitions as a separate country with its own president, army, flag and government, the Republic of Artsakh inside the internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan collapsed almost overnight.
In Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, thousands of protesters have gathered each night since last week in a central square to shout curses at Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan for not sending troops to defend their ethnic kin and chant “Long live Artsakh.”
When Nagorno-Karabakh first went from being a local Soviet quarrel to an international issue, it was so remote and obscure that “we had to look in old books to find out where and what this place was,” recalled Richard Giragosian, an Armenian-American academic who lives in Yerevan and advises the Armenian government.
Failed talks held in Key West, Fla., in 2001, with the United States among the mediators, left such a bitter taste that President George W. Bush said he never wanted to hear about the issue again, according to Thomas de Waal, the author of Black Garden, a book recounting 35 years of deadlock over the region.
Less than two weeks before their state collapsed on Sept. 20, elites in Stepanakert, the capital of the breakaway republic, were caught up in a local power struggle, forcing out their elected president after he responded to the gathering storm by erecting a tent outside the government offices and using it to stage a sit-in protest.
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