The Second Nagorno Karabakh War resulted in the influx of over 90000 Armenians from Nagorno Karabakh to the Republic of Armenia. Most of them were old people, women and children. At the end of the war (November 2020), the old city of Shushi was captured by Azerbaijani forces and the local Armenians had to leave the city. However, Shushi case had its peculiarities because even at the beginning of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict (1988), Shushi Armenians were forced to leave the city.
This article is based on ethnographic data gathered in the summer of 2020 in Nagorno Karabakh and biographies of Armenian refugees from Nagorno Karabakh collected in Armenia over the past two years. The biographies of Shushi exiles of the 2020 war will be contrasted with the diaries of Shushi Armenian refugees who were forced to leave Baku and Sumgait after the Armenian pogroms in Azerbaijan and took refuge in Nagorno Karabakh, as well as with the recollections of Shushi Armenian exiles of 1988. We argue that, although in 2020 the trajectories and lived experiences of Shushi refugees were different because the city’s fall was unexpected, yet elderly people, children and women were temporarily moved to Stepanakert, Nagorno Karabakh capital, or in Armenia on their own initiative before the city fell. The move was perceived as temporary for people did not believe the city would ever fall. For this they lost everything, including books, photos and other personal items.
