Soviet Union Levon Ter-Petrosyan Vazgen Manukyan Movses Gorgisyan Babken Ararktsyan Igor Muradyan Mikhail Gorbachev Kamran Baghirov Abdurrahman Vazirov Ayaz Mutallibov Yerevan: 200,000 (24-25 February 1988)[2][3] 1 million (26 February 1988)[4][3] 300,000 (May 1988)[5] 400,000 (January 1990)[6] Stepanakert: The Karabakh movement (Armenian: Ղարաբաղյան շարժում), also known as the Artsakh movement[7][8] (Armenian: Արցախյան շարժում), was a national mass movement[9] in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh from 1988 to 1991 that advocated for the transfer of the mainly Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast of neighboring Azerbaijan to the jurisdiction of Armenia.

It transformed into the Pan-Armenian National Movement (HHSh) by 1989 and won majority in the 1990 parliamentary election.

[citation needed] Miatsum (Armenian: Միացում, romanized: Unification)[23] was a concept and a slogan[24][25] used during the Karabakh movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which led to the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1992–1994.

From the 1970s, with the support of the first secretary of the Central Committee of Communist Party of Azerbaijan SSR, Heydar Aliyev, a policy of settling NKAO by Azerbaijanis was being implemented.

The Armenian pogroms in Sumgait and Baku only exacerbated these trends, which led to military clashes between troops of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the forces of the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army (Artsakh).