Prof. Tessa Hofmann, a noted German scholar of Armenian and Genocide studies, is a research scholar at the Free University of Berlin. Her most recent book, Das geopolitische Schicksal Armeniens:Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (Armenian’s Geopolitical Fate: Past and Present), was just printed. Earlier this month, she interviewed Siranush Sargsyan, a Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh) native, who along with all Armenian citizens of that enclave, had to flee. Sargsyan is a freelance journalist and has her stories published in regional and international media, including Newsweek, the Armenian Weekly, the Armenian Mirror-Spectator and the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR). She is currently completing an internship at the Tageszeitung (taz) in Berlin.
On September 19, 2023, the complete expulsion and mass exodus from the de facto Republic of Artsakh began. How did you experience that day?
Despite being under starvation siege for almost 10 months and realizing that hope was fading, we still couldn’t imagine there would be a large-scale attack by Azerbaijan. You never want to imagine that war will start tomorrow. Although it only lasted one day, it felt like an eternity. During those twenty-four hours, explosions were heard every two minutes. With the first explosion, they even targeted the limited-use power plant, and the lack of communication made the situation even more unbearable. Parents ran to schools under explosions to find their children, while children tried to run home. On the way, 10-year-old Gor’s heart stopped out of fear. A few hours later, thousands of citizens who had barely escaped from villages through forests reached Stepanakert, but the city was already unable to help them due to lack of food and medicine. Wives and mothers had no information about their loved ones at military positions. Even after the end of military operations, thousands of soldiers were still surrounded and could only reach their relatives a few days later. Their families waited in uncertainty for several days.
Flight, expulsion or both? How did the mass exodus take place?
When it was decided after the capitulation that all Armenian soldiers should disarm, no one felt safe anymore. First the villagers and then the capital’s residents, seeing Azerbaijanis already in the city’s outskirts, realized they couldn’t stay. After months of suffering and deprivation, they decided to leave to at least save their families. The forced displacement was comparable to a real hell. From Stepanakert to the Armenian border, which normally took two hours, we passed for two to three days. It was reminiscent of the Der Zor in some ways. Hungry, emaciated, frightened, some having lost relatives and unable to bury them, they had to endure this unbearable journey. 64 people died on that hellish road, unable to withstand the intolerable conditions. Children were also born on the way. Almost all men had the mindset that Azerbaijanis would capture them at the border, because for months Azerbaijanis had been spreading rumors that they would arrest all men who had participated in any war.
What does Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh mean to you personally? What do you miss most?
