27 October 2025 | 6:00pm | Rose Library
Strassler Center
Speaker: Anna Ohanyan (Richard B. Finnegan Distinguished Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Stonehill College)
Moderator: Dr. Elyse Semerdjian (Robert Aram and Marianne Kaloosdian and Stephen and Marian Mugar Chair of Armenian Genocide Studies; Professor, Department of History)
In September 2023, Azerbaijan expelled the entire indigenous Armenian community of Nagorno-Karabakh after nearly a year under blockade. This was not a “victor’s peace” like those in Sri Lanka, Chechnya, or Tigray, where minorities were subdued but remained in place. Instead, the community was uprooted, its institutions dismantled, and its politics erased.
Why did this outcome prevail over alternatives such as negotiated autonomy within Azerbaijan or secession, as in Kosovo or Timor-Leste? Why did the conflict end through mass expulsion, defying the global trend toward power-sharing settlements? And what does this signal for the future of regional stability and the international order?
Sponsored by the Friends of the Robert Aram and Marianne Kaloosdian and Stephen and Marian Mugar Professor in Armenian Genocide Studies
