Kim Kardashian's Azerbaijani Heritage: Exploring Her Roots

Kim Kardashian is an American media personality, socialite, and businesswoman. She is also an Armenian-American and has been politically active in recent years, advocating for the recognition of the Armenian genocide. In 2020, she urged diplomatic measures to resolve escalating tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan in a tweet. She also donated $1 million to the Armenia Fund, a humanitarian organisation that supports Armenia's development. This led to backlash and accusations of supporting terrorism from some Azerbaijanis, who claim that the organisation provides military aid to carry out offensives against civilians in Azerbaijan.

Kim Kardashian's Armenian heritage

Kim Kardashian is an American media personality, socialite, and businesswoman. She was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1980, to Robert and Kris Kardashian (née Houghton). Her father, Robert, was of Armenian descent, while her mother is of Scottish and Dutch ancestry. Robert Kardashian was best known for representing OJ Simpson during his murder trial in 1995.

Kardashian has frequently lobbied the American government to recognise the Armenian Genocide and has visited Armenia on several occasions. She has also had all her children baptised in the Armenian Church. In 2019, she was baptised in an Armenian Apostolic ceremony and given the Armenian name Heghine.

Kardashian's Armenian heritage has been a topic of interest for many, especially in Armenia, a country with a small population of just three million. Some Armenians are proud of her success and feel represented by her global fame, while others distance themselves from her due to cultural and traditional issues. There is also a generational divide, with younger Armenians viewing her more favourably than the older generation.

Kardashian's stance on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has caused some controversy. She pledged a $1 million donation to the Armenia Fund, which some Azerbaijanis speculated provided military aid to carry out offensives against civilians in Azerbaijan. Hashtags such as '#KimKardashianFundsTerrorism' and '#KimKardashianSupportsTerrorism' trended on Twitter, highlighting the mixed reactions to her support for Armenia.

The 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

The war was a major escalation of an unresolved conflict over the region, involving Azerbaijan, Armenia, and the self-declared Armenian breakaway state of Artsakh. The conflict has its roots in events following World War I, with the region being de jure part of Azerbaijan, although large parts were de facto held by the internationally unrecognized Republic of Artsakh, supported by Armenia.

The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War began on the morning of September 27, with an Azerbaijani offensive along the line of contact established in the aftermath of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988-1994). Clashes were particularly intense in the less mountainous districts of southern Nagorno-Karabakh. Turkey provided military support to Azerbaijan, and the conflict was marked by the deployment of drones, sensors, long-range heavy artillery, missile strikes, state propaganda, and the use of official social media accounts in online information warfare.

Numerous countries and the United Nations strongly condemned the fighting and called on both sides to de-escalate tensions and resume negotiations. Three ceasefires brokered by Russia, France, and the United States failed to stop the conflict.

The war resulted in a significant shift in territorial control, with Azerbaijan regaining control of much of the territory it had lost in the earlier war, including the seven districts adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh and a substantial part of Nagorno-Karabakh itself. The rest of Nagorno-Karabakh is patrolled by a Russian peacekeeping force but is still governed by self-proclaimed local authorities.

The conflict resulted in high casualties, with officially thousands of troops and civilians killed and wounded on both sides. Infrastructure damage was also extensive, with civilian areas, including major cities, hit by shelling and drone strikes.

The peace agreement and the end of the war were celebrated as a victory in Azerbaijan, with President Ilham Aliyev declaring a Memorial Day and Victory Day to commemorate the victory. However, the conflict also had a significant impact on the wider region, and the relative success of Azerbaijan in meeting its strategic goals may have influenced the Russian decision to invade Ukraine in 2022.

Kim Kardashian's $1 million donation to the Armenia Fund

Kim Kardashian, who is of Armenian descent, has been vocal about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In October 2020, she donated $1 million to the Armenia Fund, a humanitarian organisation dedicated to helping those in Armenia and the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh.

Kardashian announced her donation in a video posted to social media, where she revealed her support for the cause and encouraged her followers to donate what they could or share information about the fund. She said:

> "I've been speaking out about the current situation in Armenia and Artsakh, and having conversations with so many others to bring further awareness to the crisis that we can not allow to advance. [...] We need to remember that despite the distance that separates us, we are not limited by borders. We are one global Armenian nation together."

Kardashian's stance and donation attracted criticism and accusations of supporting terrorism from some Azerbaijanis, who alleged that the Armenia Fund provides military aid and that she had ignored the impact of the conflict on civilian areas in Azerbaijan.

The Armenian genocide

Causes

In the early 20th century, there were about 2.5 million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire, with a significant number also living beyond the eastern border in Russian territory. Armenians had a strong sense of communal identity, embodied in their language and the Armenian Church, and enjoyed significant administrative and social autonomy under the Ottoman millet system. However, they were often treated harshly by the dominant Kurdish nomads and received little recourse from local courts, which tended to favour Muslims. Armenians also faced resentment and suspicion from Muslims, who perceived them as a foreign element within the empire and harboured fears that they would eventually betray the empire and form an independent state.

These suspicions were stoked by the activities of Armenian revolutionary parties, which sought to protect their compatriots by agitating for an independent state. In 1914, the European powers imposed a major reform on the Ottomans that required supervision by inspectors in the east, which was seen by the Young Turks as further proof of Armenian collusion with Europe to undermine Ottoman sovereignty. As World War I began, the Young Turks joined the Central Powers against the Triple Entente and proposed that the leading Armenian political party, Dashnaktsutyun, convince Russian and Ottoman Armenians to fight for the Ottoman Empire. Dashnaktsutyun replied that Armenian subjects would remain loyal to their respective empires, which was seen as an act of treachery by powerful Young Turks.

Events of the Genocide

Fearing that invading enemy troops would induce Armenians to join them, the Ottoman government began the deportation of the Armenian population from its northeastern border regions in the spring of 1915. In the months that followed, the Ottomans expanded deportations from almost all provinces, regardless of their distance from combat zones. Victims of the Armenian Genocide include people killed in local massacres, those who died during deportations under conditions of starvation, dehydration, exposure, and disease, and Armenians who died in or en route to the desert regions of the southern Empire. In addition, tens of thousands of Armenian children were forcibly removed from their families and converted to Islam.

The deportation of Armenians amounted to a death sentence, as the authorities planned for and intended the death of the deportees. Overall, national, regional, and local levels of governance cooperated with the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) in the perpetration of genocide. The Directorate for the Settlement of Tribes and Immigrants (IAMM) coordinated the deportation and the resettlement of Muslim immigrants in the vacant houses and lands. The IAMM, under the control of Talaat Pasha's Ministry of the Interior, and the Special Organization, which took orders directly from the CUP Central Committee, all closely coordinated their activities.

During World War I, the CUP identified Armenian civilians as an existential threat and held them collectively guilty for betraying the empire, beliefs that were crucial to deciding on genocide. The genocide was intended to permanently eliminate any possibility that Armenians could achieve autonomy or independence in the empire's eastern provinces. Ottoman records show that the government aimed to reduce Armenians to no more than 5-10% of the local population in the sources and destinations of deportation, which could not be accomplished without mass murder.

Aftermath and Legacy

The genocide had a catastrophic impact on the Ottoman economy, leading to the deportation of skilled professionals and famine in districts that had lost their farmers. It paved the way for the formation of an ethnonationalist Turkish state, the Republic of Turkey, and the dispossession and exile of Armenian competitors enabled many lower-class Turks to rise to the middle class. The proceeds from the sale of confiscated Armenian property often funded the deportation of Armenians and resettlement of Muslims, as well as government and military spending.

As of 2023, 34 countries have recognised the events as genocide, concurring with the academic consensus. However, the Turkish government maintains that the deportation of Armenians was a legitimate action and does not recognise it as genocide.

Kim Kardashian's political activism

Kim Kardashian has become increasingly politically active in recent years, lobbying for prison reform and clemency. She has worked in the area of prison reform, advocating for the commutation of the sentence of Chris Young and Alice Marie Johnson, a woman who received a life sentence for a first-time drug offence. Johnson's sentence was granted by then-President Donald Trump in 2018, and Kardashian has since stated that she has "no regrets" about working with Trump to secure Johnson's release.

Kardashian has also advocated for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide on numerous occasions and encouraged US governments to officially acknowledge it. She has Armenian heritage and visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial Tsitsernakaberd in Yerevan in 2015. In 2020, she donated $1 million to the Armenia Fund, a humanitarian organisation that has been suspected by some of providing military aid to carry out attacks on civilians in Azerbaijan. This led to a backlash, with hashtags such as '#KimKardashianFundsTerrorism' trending on Twitter.

Kardashian has also been criticised for cultural appropriation, particularly in relation to her hairstyles, and for performative activism. In 2019, an opinion piece in the *Commonwealth Times* argued that Kardashian's advocacy work on issues such as gun violence and mass incarceration of African-Americans did not seem genuine. The article pointed out that Kardashian had not posted about Alice Johnson since featuring her in an episode of *Keeping Up with the Kardashians*.

Kardashian has also been vocal about her support for "freedom of speech" and her opposition to "cancel culture". She has stated that she is "not about politics at all" and is "willing to work with anybody" to achieve what she believes is right.

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