Vestnik Kavkaza has hosted a round-table conference entitled “Tragic events of post-Soviet history. The Khojaly Massacre” dedicated to the collapse of the Soviet Union and regional conflicts that followed on its former territories.
The conference was attended by Leonid Gusev, an academic member of the Institute for International Studies of MGIMO, Ismail Agakishiyev, head of the Center for Caucasus Studies of the Russian State University for the Humanities, Alexey Vlasov, head of the Center for Post-Soviet Studies of Moscow State University and Yevgeny Krishtalev, an expert for South Caucasus.
Vlasov said that 20 years had passed since collapse of the Soviet Union but little had been contributed to studies of events causing the collapse and the first years of states becoming independent from the USSR.
This concerns the South Caucasus, Central Asia and Transnistria, as well as millions of people forced to migrate. The expert reminded about unresolved conflicts of Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, Kyrgyzstan, Osh and communities of Uzbeks and Kyrgyz.
Alexey Vlasov questioned why the people had lived peacefully in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union and had suddenly ended up in confrontation. The question is how the mechanism of self-destruction at state and public levels was launched. The expert called for impartial opinions on the tragic events so as not to offend any sides in the conflicts.
He recalled the Khojaly Massacre of February 1992, which has not been given an impartial rating by political analysts, historians or experts. Vlasov believes that a scientific approach is needed. He called for an honest and open discussion and expression of opinions on complicated issues. ‘We may consider Khojaly a reason for talks on topical issues,” the expert said. Another question is why are events in Khojaly, Baku in 1990s and Sumgayit beyond the interests of their witnesses and the generations following them.
Concluding the introduction, Alexey Vlasov set the question of what historians, teachers, journalists could do to keep the new generation interested in the creative, humanitarian aspects. “Maybe it is because we have not fulfilled the duty of forming an honest and fair image of our history”, the expert concluded.
