Amid the empire-wide revolutionary crisis, intercommunal violence between Armenians and Azerbaijanis burns through Baku, Nakhchivan, Shusha and the countryside — thousands die and mixed districts burn in the first mass violence between the two communities.
Why it mattersThe template for 1988–90: the same cities, the same mixed geography, the same speed with which imperial breakdown converted coexistence into pogrom. Both national movements date their armed self-organisation to this period.