Formation of the Karabakh Committee
Formation of the Karabakh Committee in Yerevan in February 1988 to coordinate mass mobilisation for NKAO’s transfer to Armenia. Its members became the core of the Pan-Armenian National Movement and later independent Armenia’s first ruling elite.
- Armenian
- Azerbaijani
- Russian
Account
Background
The NKAO vote turned Karabakh from a petition into a mass Armenian movement. Demonstrations in Yerevan needed coordination, messaging and negotiation with Soviet authorities.
Formation and transformation
The Karabakh Committee emerged from intellectual and activist circles, including Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Vazgen Manukyan and others. It organised rallies, framed demands and became the visible leadership of the Karabakh Movement. Soviet authorities arrested committee members in December 1988; their release in 1989 increased their legitimacy.
The committee transformed Armenian politics. What began as a national-territorial demand became a democratic opposition to Soviet republican rule. The contradiction is that Karabakh mobilisation helped democratise Armenia while binding the new state to a territorial conflict that would constrain its sovereignty for decades editorial.