Mass deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia took place several times throughout the 20th century, and sometimes some of them have been described by some authors as acts of forced resettlement and ethnic cleansing.[1][2][3][failed verification][4]
Prior to the October Revolution, Azerbaijanis had made up 43 percent of the population of Yerevan.[5] [better source needed] The Tatar (i.e. Azerbaijani) population endured a process of forced migration from the territory of the First Republic of Armenia and later in the Armenian SSR several times during the 20th century.[6] [better source needed] Under Stalin's policies, approximately 100,000 Azerbaijanis were deported from the Armenian SSR in 1948.[5] Their houses were subsequently inhabited by Armenian repatriates who arrived in the Soviet Union from abroad.[7][8]
Azerbaijanis continued to live in the Armenian SSR until the outbreak of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 1988–89, when practically all Azerbaijanis in Armenia left or were expelled concurrently with the expulsion/flight of Armenians from Azerbaijan.[3] The deportation was done largely without bloodshed[3] and it was partially in response to Armenians being forced out of Azerbaijan; it was also the last phase of the gradual homogenization of the Armenian republic under Soviet rule.[2]
In late 1988, the entire Azerbaijani population (including Muslim Kurds) – some 167,000 people – was kicked out of the Armenian SSR. In the process, dozens of people died due to isolated Armenian attacks and adverse conditions. This population transfer was partially in response to Armenians being forced out of Azerbaijan, but it was also the last phase of the gradual homogenization of the republic under Soviet rule. The population transfer was the latest, and not so "gentle," episode of ethnic cleansing that increased Armenia's homogenization from 90 percent to 98 percent. Nationalists, in collaboration with the Armenian state authorities, were responsible for this exodus
A second reason for Armenian unity and coherence was the fact that progressively through the seventy years of Soviet power, the republic grew more Armenian in population until it became the most ethnically homogeneous republic in the USSR. On several occasions local Muslims were removed from its territory and Armenians from neighboring republics settled in Armenia. The nearly 200,000 Azerbaijanis who lived in Soviet Armenia in the early 1980s either left or were expelled from the republic in 1988-89, largely without bloodshed. The result was a mass of refugees flooding into Azerbaijan, many of them becoming the most radical opponents of Armenians in Azerbaijan.
Prior to the Revolution, Azerbaijanis had made up 43 percent of the population of Erevan, but approximately 100,000 were deported from the Armenian SSR in 1948 (Dragadze 1990:166–7).