Without a thorough grounding in the pre- and post-1917 historical dimension of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, one will have difficulty comprehending the depth of sentiment, indeed passion, it arouses among the disputing parties, in this case among Armenians, whether inside or outside the Soviet Union.

The roots of prying Nagorno-Karabakh from Muslim control via Russian intervention go back to the seventeenth century when Armenian emissaries contacted the Romanovs and urged them to liberate fellow Christians from Muslim domination. This, in part, led to the eighteenth century Russian campaign to conquer Transcaucasia, the Tsarist court encouraged by the possibility of local Christian support. Through Muslim eyes (a conviction held to this day), this was an act of political sabotage casting the Armenians in the role of political collaborators in collusion with the new Tsarist overlords, a suspicion that finds its modern echoes today as Armenia and Azerbaijan compete for Moscow's support in determining the status of the autonomous region.