10.1.Readers' Forum - Crimea - Regional Conflicts

Spring 2002 (10.1)
Page 10

Readers' Forum
Crimea - Regional Conflicts

I'm a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution of George Mason University in Virginia. I'm about to go to Simferopol, Crimea, to teach a conflict resolution course and conduct a graduate level seminar at the National Taurida University. My students will be mostly Russians, Ukrainians and some Crimean Tatars and Armenians.

I was in Crimea last April and realized that students and even professors did not know much about the conflicts taking place in their own region. One social psychology professor asked me if Azeris were Christian and Armenians, Muslim! I couldn't believe it. That's why I feel that it's so crucial for me to include this topic on my syllabus.

I'm looking for a good objective book (or good articles) on the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict over Nagorno-Karabagh. I know of Thomas Goltz' book [Azerbaijan Diary], but I'm curious to see if there are other good materials out there.

On your website - AZER.com - I found the Topkhana Forest article to be very powerful ["When A Tree Isn't a Tree: The Topkhana Demonstrations of 1988" by Azar Panahli, AI 2:3, Summer 1994]. Since my main seminar topic focuses on identity formation, this will be a very good article to show the importance of symbolism in identity formation and ethnic identification in general. Thank you.

Idil Noyan-Izmirli

Editor: Azerbaijan International magazine's Web site - AZER.com - devotes an entire section to the Karabakh Conflict. All of our articles since we started, beginning in 1993, may be accessed through the strong Search Engine on the site. We also recommend the Web sites AZERIGENOCIDE.org and KARABAKH.org if you're looking for an Azerbaijani perspective.

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