Zoom-based lecture by Artyom Tonoyan, Ph.D.

Tuesday, January 24, 2023
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM (Pacific Time)

For a few brief weeks in fall 2020, Western media buzzed with news of the intense war in Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-populated region that declared independence from Azerbaijan in 1991. The conflict had been “frozen” since 1994, so the new outbreak of violence caught many journalists unawares.

By contrast, the conflict has been a mainstay in the Soviet, and then the Russian press. The sheer volume of published material – including eyewitness accounts, interviews with notable figures, and incisive, well-researched analyses – far exceeds anything produced by Western media.

Moscow’s knowledge of the region is as strong as it is permanent, dictated mainly by geopolitical interests. The present collection of articles – carefully translated, edited, and culled from a vast repository of Russian-language press presents some of the most important material that has appeared from 1988 to the present. Dr. Tonoyan's talk will focus on some of the most interesting and critical themes emerging from the decades-long Soviet and Russian press coverage of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

A native of Gyumri, Armenia, Dr. Artyom Tonoyan is a sociologist and Visiting Professor of Global Studies at Hamline University, in St. Paul, Minnesota. His research interests include sociology of religion, religion and politics in the South Caucasus, and religion and nationalism in post-Soviet Russia. His articles have appeared in Demokratizatsiva: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, Society, and Modern Greek Studies Yearbook, among others. He has been a frequent guest on the BBC, Deutsche Welle, France 24, and other outlets. He is the editor of the recently published volume Black Garden Aflame: The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict in the Soviet and Russian Press.

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