United Armenia
Armenian irredentist concept / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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United Armenia (Armenian: Միացեալ Հայաստան, romanized: Miats'eal Hayastan),[lower-alpha 2] also known as Greater Armenia or Great Armenia, is an Armenian ethno-nationalist irredentist concept referring to areas within the traditional Armenian homeland—the Armenian Highland—which are currently or have historically been mostly populated by Armenians. The idea of what Armenians see as unification of their historical lands was prevalent throughout the 20th century and has been advocated by individuals, various organizations and institutions, including the nationalist parties Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF or Dashnaktsutyun) and Heritage, the ASALA and others.
The ARF idea of "United Armenia" incorporates claims to Western Armenia (eastern Turkey), Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), the landlocked exclave Nakhchivan (Nakhichevan) of Azerbaijan and the Javakheti (Javakhk) region of Georgia.[1][2] Javakhk is overwhelmingly inhabited by Armenians. Western Armenia and Nakhchivan had significant Armenian populations until the early 20th century, and Nagorno-Karabakh until 2023, but no longer do. The Armenian population of Western Armenia was almost completely exterminated during the 1915 Armenian genocide, when the millennia-long Armenian presence in this region largely ended and Armenian cultural heritage was mainly destroyed by the Ottoman government.[9][10] In 1919, the ARF-dominated government of the First Republic of Armenia declared the formal unification of Armenian lands. The ARF bases its claims to Western Armenia, now controlled by Turkey, on the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, which was effectively negated by subsequent historical events. These territorial claims are often seen as the ultimate goal of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and as part of Armenian genocide reparations.[11][12]
The most recent Armenian irredentist movement, the Karabakh movement which began in 1988, sought to unify Nagorno-Karabakh with then-Soviet Armenia. As a result of the subsequent war with Azerbaijan, Armenian forces established effective control over most of Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts, thus succeeding in the de facto unification of Armenia and Karabakh.[13][14] Some Armenian nationalists consider Nagorno-Karabakh "the first stage of a United Armenia."[15]