Black Garden Aflame: The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict in the Soviet and Russian Press by Artyom Tonoyan (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Black Garden Aflame: The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict in the Soviet and Russian Press by Artyom Tonoyan Konstantin Yumatov (bio) and Timur Logunov (bio) Artyom Tonoyan (Ed.), Black Garden Aflame: The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict in the Soviet and Russian Press (Minneapolis: East View Press, 2021). 483 pp., ill. Index. ISBN: 978-1-879944-55-8. This book – a collection of newspaper articles published in the USSR and Russia in English translation – will be of interest to many readers for several reasons. First, it presents the history of the confrontation over Nagorno-Karabakh through the prism of print media publications in the Russian language from the start of open hostilities in February 1988 to June 2021. Readers can thus observe the development of the conflict simultaneously with contemporaries who covered it in their publications. Second, despite the obvious Russocentrism of the book's perspective, many publications selected by the author concern the activities of regional and international organizations, thus placing the conflict in the broader contexts of international law and foreign policy relations. Third, the book is a study of periodicals as a historical source, and discusses their semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic aspects. In his introduction to the book, Artyom Tonoyan, a research associate at the University of Minnesota, substantiates the need to include Soviet and Russian periodicals in the study sources based on the fact that "the South Caucasus is not the center of the attention of Western media, … the Russian media's footprint in the region has been far larger and far deeper, if not more storied. The point made here does not mean that it was better, but that it was more. Infinitely more" (P. xxiii). This claim seems questionable, since the American press, for example, has covered the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict quite extensively. Just the four major papers – the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post – have each published on average about eight hundred articles on the topic during the period covered in the book. About half of these articles appeared in 1988–1991, which is similar to the distribution of publications in Tonoyan's sampling. The author starts with a truly simple question: "What is so special about Soviet and Russian press coverage of the conflict?" (P. xxiii). In answering it, he defines his goal as introducing "to readers the most comprehensive press coverage of the conflict apart from the press in the conflicting countries" (P. xxiv). It should have been added, however, that the texts he assembled cannot be taken at face value as neutral sources of information. First, it is necessary [End Page 312] to assess the role and political stance of periodicals featuring articles on such a complex topic, which can evolve over time. Unfortunately, both the Introduction and the Publisher's Preface to the book lack this important information. The structure of the book seems quite clear and logical, and as explicated in detail in the Introduction, the volume is divided thematically into four parts consisting of fourteen chapters, each of which is structured chronologically. Part 1 outlines the roots of the conflict during the late Soviet period starting with the rise of the Karabakh movement. Part 2 covers the period following the USSR's disintegration when the conflict acquired international dimensions involving a set of sovereign states with clashing interests. In addition, this part focuses on the international diplomatic efforts led by the OSCE Minsk Group. Part 3 concentrates on the role of four "external regional actors," Turkey, Russia, Iran, and the United States, in shaping the conflict's dynamics, "thus situating the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the broader context of regional power play. Lastly, Part Four provides extensive coverage of the prelude to the 2020 Karabakh conflict ('Karabakh War 2.0'), concluding with reportage of the war itself and the aftermath" (P. xxiv). The logic of this structure is easy to understand, as it follows the logic of the available sources – Russian newspaper publications. However, the author's original selection of sources, which vary significantly from one part to another, is nowhere explained and substantiated. For example, part 1 is largely based on publications in periodicals such as Bakinskii rabochii (19...