Black January 1990
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 20 January 1990 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1990 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | Post-1945 (1946 onwards) | derived from year |
| Location | Azerbaijan | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Asia | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | dissolution of the Soviet Union | Wikidata P361 |
| Coordinates | 40.3729, 49.8521 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
Black January (Azerbaijani: Qara Yanvar), also known as Black Saturday or the January Massacre, was a violent crackdown on anti-Soviet and anti-Armenian sentiments, Azerbaijani nationalism, and irredentism in Baku on 19 and 20 January 1990, as part of a state of emergency during the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party Mikhail Gorbachev and Defence Minister Dmitry Yazov asserted that military law was necessary to thwart efforts by the Azerbaijani independence movement to overthrow the Soviet Azerbaijani government. According to official estimates of Azerbaijan, 147 civilians were killed, 800 people were injured, and five people went missing.
In a resolution of 22 January 1990, the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan SSR declared that the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 19 January, used to impose emergency rule in Baku and military deployment, constituted an act of aggression.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Black January (revision 1380212680), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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Browse more: battles in Azerbaijan · Asia · Post-1945 battles