Tragic pages of post-Soviet history. Part 2

On the threshold of 20th anniversary of the tragic events in Khojaly has been held the first round table devoted to the topic "Tragic events of postsoviet history". Ismail Agakishiev, Head of Caucasian studies center in RSUH, Alexei Vlasov, Editor in chief of Vestnik Kavkaza and Evgeny Krishtalev, News editor of Vestnik Kavkaza participated in the round table. 

"I think that this meeting attend not only by the representatives of Vestnik Kavkaza but also some representatives of MGIMO, MSU and RSUH academic community. It shows again that this is one of the leading informational agencies and three these universities that, it is not a secret, are the leading universities not only in Moscow but in the entire Russia, shows that we are not only talking about the black pages of our history. History can have good or bad events, positive and negative moments, this is life. It shows that these are blank pages. Maybe it is even good that this has not been taught to the students. If we look in the internet, not only a student but a person with professional historical education can get lost there.  There is more disinformation than information. Or it is one-sided. If you read several pages you will be lost in contradictions" - Ismail Agakishiev said. "I understand that the events that happened from 1991 until today are very politicized. The world became open so now it not only a part of regional politics but also a part of world politics. Although it is still a part of politics, 20 years have already passed. From 1992. For some events even more. I think we, people with historical education must study it comprehensively and objectively. I agree with Alexei Vlasov that we need a deep analysis and try to show the reasons of the conflicts and understand why it happened. It is said that history does not teach us anything, but I repeat that history does teach but only those people who know it. If a person does not know history he of course cannot learn from it. And of course you need to draw conclusions.  Because the continuation of these events resulting in human tragedy. This is one thing. On the other hand, there are questions connected to these problems. The best experts of the world are trying to solve it and all agree that this is a dead-end problem. Why so? Maybe exactly because we do not study the roots of these questions? Until today we do not have any clear idea about it. If there was any clear idea, not only from the side involved in the conflict, but from the experts’ community. If we treat this question without bias. Maybe through this study we would be able to find a solution to this question. It will be useful not only to historians but also to the contemporary and future generations it will be good to know the historical truth. Maybe historical truth would become a way to solve the question? This historical truth and the recognition of this historical truth would lead to the qualitative change in the human consciousness?  Generally  we are talking here about… I agree that one ideology has replaced another. I agree with Alexei Vlasov that these ideas existed also in the Soviet times. The did indeed. They existed on the level of everyday life among the certain groups of intelligentsia. It will always be so. But later exactly because of this propaganda, these false ideas… Maybe they have some point in them but one should not make them absolute. If you try to make any truth absolute and creates absurd. Because of this, because these ideas went through propaganda and became the driving force of the masses we got these tragic events. And if today one side is talking Khodzhaly, the other talks about Sumgait and Baku and vise versa. The same in Tadzhikistan. Uzbeks say one thing, Tadjiks say another. It leads to the fact that we do not have a full picture. I am convinced that if professionals will not be showing the historical truth it means that we keep supporting the people who started all this good propaganda. Their mill keeps working. From the very beginning they appealed to the idea of the utmost nationalism that lead to these tragedies and we are now just letting them to continue it. And if we do so, it will be difficult to stop these processes. I would like to repeat and to conclude my speech saying that it is extremely good that this question is being raised today, many years have passed, 20 years is a lot. But I think that from professional and human point of view historians have no right to delay it any further. We need to research" - Ismail Agakishiev said. 

According to Alexei Vlasov, "the national elites were demanding more rights in the Baltic countries, in Georgia, I would not say that in Central Asia because there the break-up of the USSR was a way to catastrophe and smart people in the region understood it. What about the USSR leadership? Maybe  there is some departing point in a sense that the weak government was unable to offer to the republics some new agenda that would have somehow satisfied the wishes for bigger independence but would have kept the field without conflicts  and allowed to avoid the blood and the pain shock the consequences of which we can feel even today".

"We are often too focused on the division of history before 1991 and after. I think we should start counting from 1985 because all the Post-Soviet space about which we are talking about started to change from 1985" - Evgeny Krishtalev said.  "Therefore we should look at not only the political factor but at the economic as well. We mentioned that not only political but the economic model was broken.  The analysis should proceed both from the side of historians and from the side of economists and those dealing with numbers. They have a field to study all these processes together with historians. The country changed in 1985 and all these processes are inseparable. We cannot say 20 years. In fact in 2015 it will be 30 years of this Post-Soviet space. And the role of personality in history here is of course enormous. And weakness of the leader is widely discussed. This topic was revived recently in connection to the 20 years since the break-up of the Soviet Union. It is connected to the fact that there was no program or understanding of where the country was going. There was a desire to change something, but what, where, how?  We can see it even today that it is difficult to make any long plans. One thing is to make a strategy and another is to make an unanimous decision to move the country in the opposite direction. The economic basis  of Russian, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and so on was conceived in 1987 or 1988. The soviet economists together with the western advisors, as it will happen again later in Russia, not only failed but also brought the country in a completely different direction. Poverty together with nationalism led to the explosion" .