Talk:Republic of Artsakh/Archive 5

Jan 1 dissolution date annulled?
Feel like this is better sorted out in its own section than as a side-discussion of the above section.

On December 22nd, two outlets reported that on October 19, the president of Artsakh annulled the order to dissolve remaining Artsakhi government institutions on January 1st. It is not known why it seemingly took two months for this to become publicly available knowledge.

(source 1) (source 2) (source 3).

From Hetq:

"Shahramanyan and the republic’s legislators, at the time, argued the decree was necessary to stop the hostilities and save lives.

Shahramanyan’s adviser, Vladimir Grigoryan, told RFE/RL’s Armenian language service that the Artsakh leader nullified the decree on October 19.

Grigoryan didn’t say why the nullification wasn’t publicized earlier."

Of course, this doesn't change the de facto situation. I have no idea if Artsakh still has de facto control over an inch of Karabakh anymore. But we can probably remove the claim that this order became effective on January 1st, 2024 as it seems to have been reversed.

 Vanilla  Wizard  💙 00:18, 2 January 2024 (UTC)


 * The above sources only quote Grigoryan, but I found a more direct source quoting Shahramanyan himself and then his office: Source 4.
 * From France 24:
 * "But in a surprise move on Friday, Shahramanyan rolled back on the announcement in comments given in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.
 * “There is no document... of the Republic of Artsakh (Karabakh) stipulating the dissolution of government institutions.”
 * His office told AFP separately that the September 26 decree was 'empty paper,' adding: “No document can lead to the dissolution of the republic, which was established by people's will.”"
 *  Vanilla  Wizard  💙 00:30, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Artsakh has not had any de facto control over the area since October, as far as I am aware. This is entirely about de jure dissolution, and to state that such a thing happened on January 1 we would need a source to say it did. Chessrat  ( talk, contributions ) 01:38, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I see that there's a Russian source cited in the article to claim that Artsakh dissolved. But it only cites the September decree as a source so I'm not sure it's strong enough quality to be relied on. Chessrat  ( talk, contributions ) 01:44, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * For the time being we can say that the dissolution date is according to the original decree but I am not sure if we can really say yet that it is de jure dissolved in wikivoice. Mellk (talk) 01:57, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I see that you have modified my edits to re-add the claim that it was de jure dissolved on January 1 with an edit summary stating that this is because other Artsakh politicians apparently disagreed with the president's annulling of the decree, but no such text is in the article, making the article read in a way that's kind of unclear. Are you able to cite a source to verify the assertion that the government was de jure dissolved in spite of the president reversing his prior decree? If not, could you self-revert? The sources we have indicate that no such dissolution happened on 1 January 2024.  Vanilla  Wizard </b></b> 💙 03:34, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * It is dissolved. All main post–Soviet media reported on that, , . RIA stated that president's annul try '[c]aused a negative reaction from the Armenian authorities, who believe that the functioning of Karabakh State institutions in the republic will threaten the security of Armenia'. It means that move to annul wasn't supported by any UN-recognized states, and it makes dissolution irreversible, especially with army dissolved and population fled. MarcusTraianus (talk) 09:53, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't think UN state support is that relevant here, but either way the de jure dissolution debate is a red herring. Like most states that have ended throughout history, the cause of dissolution wasn't any particular law. If reliable sources for some reason talk about de jure dissolution with any particular focus than we can see what their interpretation is, but absent that it's a minor footnote to the actual end of the functioning state. 10:17, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree that it's just a small detail, my goal here is just to make sure we get all the details right. My understanding from my reading of the sources is that the cause of dissolution was undoubtedly the takeover by Azerbaijan, not government institutions choosing to stand by the president's original decree while declining to recognize the president's later annulling of that decree. So I do think it was annulled, it just never really mattered what the president said. I think we can remove the statement that it was dissolved on January 1st because, aside from this statement being questionable and dubious, it's not really material to the story of how Artsakh ceased to exist. I appreciate that MarcusTraianus linked to some sources, but as a user said above (looks like their signature got malformed so I don't know who said it), UN-recognized states aren't really relevant here. No UN-recognized state ever officially recognized Artsakh to begin with, not even Armenia. <b style="font-family:Trebuchet MS"><b style="background-color:#07d;color:#FFF"> Vanilla </b><b style="background-color:#749;color:#FFF"> Wizard </b></b> 💙 21:04, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Universities Merge discussion
Article has been more or less a stub for over a decade and likely has no chance of further expansion. Content is poorly sourced and article fails WP:GNG as-is. Content is better kept in its parent article (the main Artsakh page), where it would improve the comprehensiveness of the article. Would like to gain a consensus on this though since this isn't as straightforward as my other mergers to this article. Cheers, Dan the Animator 22:51, 29 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Forgot to mention above but as an alternative merge destination, there's also a List of universities in Azerbaijan article that has a update orange tag currently. Dan the Animator 23:07, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi.
 * A) You forgot to add the link: List of universities in Artsakh.
 * B) Merger with Artsakh - yes, I can agree with that, maybe as a subsection of "Culture".
 * C) Merger with Azeri universities - rather not, and definitely not yet. It's not a matter of Wikipedia reorganising its material, but of Azerbaijan deciding what to do with anything connected to Artsakh. There's hardly any ethnically Armenian population left, the Az. authorities might close down a lot, and they'll most certainly rename everything and repurpose many. Keep it as part of an "Artsakh defunct project" article. RIP. What will be later is another story. Arminden (talk) 23:30, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅. Merged.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  16:25, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Law enforcement Merge discussion
Article has been more or less a stub for over a decade and likely has no chance of further expansion. Content is mostly copied from other page (which are linked in the article itself) and there is not apparent need to have a separate page for this. Content would be much better kept in its parent article (the main Artsakh page) where it would really improve the comprehensiveness and also quality of the article. Would like to gain a consensus on this though since this isn't as straightforward as my other mergers to this article. Cheers, Dan the Animator 22:51, 29 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi. Similar to topic above:
 * A) You forgot to add the link: Law enforcement in the Republic of Artsakh.
 * B) Merger with Artsakh - yes, that makes sense. Arminden (talk) 23:33, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Support Lucjim (talk) 22:46, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Infobox "Dissolution" under Independence from Soviet Union
Underneath "Capitulation" dated to 28 September 2023, I think there should be a "Dissolution" dated to 1 January 2024 675930s (talk) 08:10, 7 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Per above, the 1 January 2024 date should not be given too much prominence. CMD (talk) 01:19, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 9 February 2024
Republic of Artsakh has been de-coloured from blue for showing a linking page to black for plain text, on this page and multiple others that contain 'Republic of Artsakh' e.g. Armenia-Artsakh Relations, Artsakh Defence Force. 2A02:C7C:9B2C:9F00:2D45:FC4A:A1FB:AFD2 (talk) 11:43, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Shadow311 (talk) 14:00, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Dissolution date
The Republic of Artsakh was dissolved on 1st of January 2024, yet in the infobox it says "1991-2023" Gattor1 (talk) 15:35, 8 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Well, the Republic of Artsakh ceased to exist on 1 January 2024 at 0:00:00 am, so technically, the country's life span is from 1991 to 31 December 2023 at 11:59:59 pm.
 * The Infobox is correct. 58.160.77.124 (talk) 11:26, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I can't see how that makes sense honestly Gattor1 (talk) 14:41, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Artsakh ceased to exist some time in September 2023, 1 January 2024 was just a date given in a statement well before that time. CMD (talk) 16:49, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, then its "president" says 1 january is incorrect, it's still existing, etc. Beshogur (talk) 18:11, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * That's childish, he should grow up and talk like a man. 58.160.77.124 (talk) 03:19, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
 * It should say it stills exists but is a goverment in exile MicroSupporter (talk) 15:03, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 27 March 2024
"Armenian refugees during the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh" This statement under the 2023 exodus photo is not only untrue but also conflicts with the article belonging to the photo. The article claims the exodus was because of the "fear of ethnic cleansing" and not because of "ethnic cleansing". Ethnic cleansing never happened. Even the Armenian side never claimed there was any ethnic cleansing. Not even a threat of ethnic cleansing could be substantiated. Olmaz (talk) 08:18, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. CMD (talk) 11:01, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅: It was clear what you wanted to change, and a simple reverse image source found secondary sources republishing the original primary image with an accurate caption. I have also modified the Commons photo description to reflect this. SamuelRiv (talk) 20:58, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Museums Merge discussion
While not as old as the other articles above, this article's been a stub for over a year now and likely has no chance of further expansion. Content is poorly sourced and article fails WP:GNG as-is. Personally, I think it makes more sense to merge this content into the main Artsakh article given the museums are affiliated with Artsakh but I would also support merging to List of museums in Azerbaijan, which would benefit from the additional sourced content and also would improve the shared content imo. Would like to gain a consensus on this though since this isn't as straightforward as my other mergers to this article. Cheers, Dan the Animator 22:51, 29 December 2023 (UTC)


 * pinging involved users. Feel free to participate in the other merge discussions I started above as well! Thanks everyone and sorry for the bother, Dan the Animator 23:06, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Merging the Republic of Artsakh article with the main Artsakh article would be beneficiary to safeguard the few actually sourcable content there is, and try to create a more content-rich article. I don't see why we should merge it with the museums article. Alpha-Alpha 1890 (talk) 23:21, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the invitation. I'm not sure what the best option is. I'm inclined to merge it all with general lists related to Azerbaijan but many affected institutions may stop their operations or/and move to Armenia. All of them could be mentioned in the main article about the historic republic as well (in case some of them moved to Armenia then in Armenian general lists as well, probably stating date of the move), but I think that main merge/redirect should go to corresponding articles on Azerbaijan. You may need to update general Azerbaijani articles correspondingly. Probably including sections with former institutions and institutions which were never formally recognised under Azerbaijan law but operated in the region (e.g. Artsakh University shall definitely be a part of the List of universities in Azerbaijan list irrespective of the fact that it was probably never formally recognised by Azerbaijani authorities).--MirkoS18 (talk) 23:32, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi. Similar to topics above:
 * A) You forgot to add the link: List of museums in the Republic of Artsakh.
 * B) Merger with Artsakh - yes, I can agree with that. We already have the National Museum as a subset to "Culture".
 * C) Merger with Azeri museums - no. As I wrote about the universities and even more so regarding the museums, Azerbaijan will decide what to do with anything connected to Artsakh. With no ethnically Armenian population left, the Az. authorities will close down most, or rename everything and replace the content. So rather no, keep it as part of the Artsakh article, may the whole Artsakh project RIP. If the Az. authorities will use the buildings for their own museums, then THOSE new museums should be added to the Az. list, with a mention of the Artsakh interlude (which the Az. Wiki-patriots will instantly remove). I don't expect any cultural continuity in any domain. See that pep talk by Monte Melkonian at the end of the "Monuments" section. Arminden (talk) 23:44, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
 * We shouldn't merge lists into this article, that's overloading the article with too many items. Hard to say what to do with this, they are probably defunct. I would not be opposed to a merge into an Azerbaijan list, it already includes museums older than Azerbaijan. If it must me merged into an Artsakh specific article, the obvious choice is the more dedicated Culture of Artsakh rather than jumping all the way up to this page. CMD (talk) 02:15, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Related to, it seems reasonable to include the content from each list into multiple articles (for example Culture of Artsakh, Armenians in Azerbaijan, List of Museums in Azerbaijan...). The lists themselves may in fact be just deleted without any redirect or merge once content is moved. What I would say that it is very important to try our best to include content into general Azerbaijani lists by expanding them with "unrecognised" and/or former institutions which operated in the region. This is general English language Wikipedia so all of us should determine what belongs into those articles, they clearly and obviously don't belong to a certain group of editors alone. If there is some (probably quite justified) fear of biased or even xenophobic approach or editing conflict, it may be a constructive step (just an idea) if editors from local communities opt out from consensus building, particularly from mere vote accumulation without argument? Smart approach here would certainly show maturity and may challenge any unjustified negative preconception about local communities' capacities.--MirkoS18 (talk) 09:30, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Per CMD, I also think Culture of Artsakh might be a good merge-destination page. Even if the content is merged there, parts of the museums list can still be included on the Azerbaijan article or other locations per MirkoS18. I'll leave the discussion open a bit longer to get a better consensus but the culture article makes a lot of sense to me.
 * Also MirkoS18, to reply to your comment on who's contributing to the consensus, I don't there should be any restrictions. We're not vote counting so there can't be votestacking and consensus is usually based on the strength of an argument, not its support. Also, editors with ties to the region could bring in very helpful & perfectly valid points imo. Cheers, Dan the Animator 18:53, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Also should've posted this here earlier but I started another merge discussion yesterday at Talk:Economy_of_the_Republic_of_Artsakh. Feel free to take part in that discussion too if you can. Dan the Animator 18:55, 30 December 2023 (UTC) That merge discussion was closed & merge completed. Cheers, Dan the Animator 18:03, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Apologies if it sounded as if I am proposing any formal restrictions. Reflecting on our experiences in Balkans, it is sometimes good to take a step back and show certain restraint. No question that as a rule local editors will have comprehensively better understanding of the entire context and better knowledge of even basic factual evidence. I still believe that at least some of them may be more inclined to have certain level of (sometimes unconscious) bias towards one or the other side and it may be useful to keep it in mind to avoid disruptive arguing. Yet I am certainly not proposing any formal limitations, just maybe mistakenly assuming some of our regional experiences may be useful in this case. Apologies for somewhat long digression/clarification.--MirkoS18 (talk) 19:13, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
 * It is better to add this in the List of museums in Azerbaijan article as this land is in the Azerbaijan.
 * Oppose merge to List of museums in Azerbaijan - these were museums in the Republic of Artsakh and there is no evidence if any or all will operate under Azerbaijani control, they might be even closed and never operate again, we can't tell what will happen. So I don't agree with a merger. Vanezi (talk) 13:10, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
 * what's your thoughts on merging to Culture of Artsakh? Dan the Animator 17:59, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose This country does not exist anymore, but the museums are still there. I reckon we should change the article title from List of museums in the Republic of Artsakh to List of museums in Nagorno-Karabakh instead. 2001:8003:9100:2C01:340F:C609:235A:EFE8 (talk) 09:12, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * seems like this discussion has been dead for almost 2 months but the ugly merge banner remains; i figure i might as well put my 2 cents in. support merging with Culture of Artsakh as that's more directly relevant & practical. this article is bloated as it is & i don't see a neat way to fit that information in. ... sawyer  * he/they *  talk  05:21, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Map that automatically appears first in lead infobox
I suggest that the 1994-2020 map should be the one which automatically pops up first when you open the article, because it lasted more years than the 2020-23 borders of Artsakh and was also the largest extent of the republic's borders. Evaporation123 (talk) 21:11, 19 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Generally latest territory/map/flags are used on wiki. Beshogur (talk) 21:31, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Does that apply to states that no longer exist though? The articles on the Roman Empire, Russian State, and First Republic of Armenia, for example, all cover no longer existing polities and have maps in the infoboxes that depict their respective territorial peaks. Evaporation123 (talk) 23:02, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Can you point to an example? I can't think of a single former country where that is the case; I'd also generally argue that it's technically absurd to show the latest map of an extinct entity.
 * I guess what happened here is that it, rightly, showed the *current* map 2020-2023, and in 2023 updating "is" to "was" in the article was more important than changing the map. I concur with @Evaporation123's points, adding that Artsakh was effectively dead in 2020 already. Default map should be changed. EnTerbury (talk) 15:23, 4 April 2024 (UTC)