While the “Greater Azerbaijan” movement has employed varying strategies over time, its ultimate political objective has remained consistent. Thus, considering it impossible to occupy the Armenian territories by military means during the years of the Soviet government, leadership of Azerbaijan adopted a novel strategy. This entailed a shift from massacres, persecutions, and forced displacement to a policy of ethnic cleansing, disenfranchisement, national discrimination, distortion of the ethnographic image through ethnographic factor, statistics, and fabricated data, Turkification of toponyms, cartographic distortions, and appropriation of cultural values. It should be noted that the appropriation of new Armenian territories under the false slogan of “proletarian internationalism and friendship of the peoples” under the guise of creating nomadic economies also constituted a significant aspect in the expansionist agendas pursued by the governing bodies of the Azerbaijani SSR. According to Art. Abeghyan’s accurate definition, “...red imperialism continues the policy of white imperialism in the Caucasus. It keeps the Tatar in the state of a nomadic herder, so that the latter, perched on the heights of the Armenian world for six months, continues to hang the sword of Damocles over the head of the Armenian peasant, in a state of obedience to the Muscovite government and its Caucasian representatives.” At the same time, the author of the article emphasized that “The nomadic scourge of the past, which may be exemplified by the Armenian-Tatar conflicts of 1905–1906, brought numerous disasters to the Armenians, resulting in being the most effective weapon in the hands of the Tsarist regime”.

KeywordsGreater Azerbaijan Azerbaijani SSR expansionism pan-Turkism nomadic economy Central Executive Committee demography

Armenians and Greeks were in a dominant position and Turkish businessmen were in a less than enviable position. When the Young Turks came to power in 1908, they began to implement their plan to destroy the country's economy at the expense of Christian property. If by 1915 the Young Turks were aiming to prevent the seizure of the Armenian national properties of Constantinople, then during the First World War they began to conduct an open policy of their dispossession. The deportation, exile and murder of more than 34,000 Constantinople Armenians made their property dispossessed and facilitated their confiscation and appropriation. In 1922, following the massacre of Armenians and Greeks in Smyrna and the city's subsequent fire in September, the Kemalists sought to replicate these events in Constantinople. Despite the efforts of the allied military forces to prevent the deportation and massacre of Christians, the Ankara government remained unwavering in its stance. In its decision to deport the Christians of Constantinople, the government created a situation in the city that was so dire that it compelled the Armenians and Greeks to flee voluntarily. Following their escape, the implementation of the laws and directives passed by the Kemalist authorities enabled the government to fully seize the property left behind by the Armenians of Constantinople.

KeywordsConstantinople Armenians ethnic property arrests dislocation exile economy Turkification