Cultural Heritage of Nagorno Karabakh

“A lie has speed, truth has endurance”

Edgar J. Mohn, attrib.

In the thirty years that Nagorno Karbakah, or Artsakh (as it is known to Armenians), has been an independent republic, it has been possible for scholars to document all the ancient monuments which make this an especially important place culturally; not just for the ethnic Armenians, who have almost entirely populated the region for millennia, and for the Republic of Armenia itself, but for the world as a whole. A list produced by the Republic of Artsakh¹ shows an extraordinary 4,000 monuments; churches, fortresses, houses, bridges, etc, in the region: 10% are pre-Christian, just over 1% are Islamic and the rest are Armenian, dating from the 1st–19th centuries. There are also valuable archaeological sites, most notably the ancient city of Tigranakert of Artsakh in today’s Aghdam region, which dates to 2nd-1st century BC Hellenistic period.

Under the trilateral peace agreement of 9th November 2020 between the Republic of Armenia, Republic of Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation, at least 1,456 overwhelmingly Armenian historical and cultural immovable prominent monuments have been transferred to Azerbaijani control, including 161 Armenian churches, the archaeological sites of Tigranakert, the Azokh Palaeolithic caves, the Nor Karmiravan tombs in Mirik, Keren and architectural monuments such as palaces, bridges, and historic quarters. In addition to the territories which came under Azerbaijani control, there are eight state museums and galleries with 19,311 exhibits, as well as the “Shushi Carpet Museum” and “Shushi Armenian Currency Museum” which until the agreement operated on a private basis.²

The transfer of these historical sites to Azerbaijani control raises serious concerns over their preservation. Given Azerbaijan’s practice of the systematic destruction of Armenian cultural heritage in its territories over several decades, these concerns are not misplaced. The most troubling example of this to date is the total destruction of the Armenian cemetery in Julfa, in the Azerbaijani-controlled enclave of Nakhichevan. Between 1997-2006, a total of 28,000 monuments, including 89 medieval churches; 5,840 khachkars (hand-carved cross stones, unique to medieval Armenian Christian art) and 22, 000 ancient tombstones, were destroyed. The Times newspaper reported on 21st April 2005

“A medieval cemetery regarded as one of the wonders of the Caucasus has been erased from the Earth in an act of cultural vandalism likened to the Taliban blowing up the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001.”

Another example is the destruction of Armenian monuments in Tsar village in Karvachar (Kelbjar) region in 2002.³

Historical revisionism by Azerbaijan is rampant in the region, which has been carried out through systemic “Albanisation” of Armenian cultural property since the 1950s. In an effort to strengthen its ties to these lands Azerbaijan revises and rewrites history by claiming that the Armenian churches and khachkars were in fact made by Caucasian Albanians, of whom Azerbaijanis claim to be direct descendants. The Caucasian Albanians had already begun to convert to the Islamic faith in the 8th century and had been almost completely assimilated in to that faith by the 11th century. Azerbaijan’s assertion, therefore, that its people are the rightful heirs of many of these Christian religious artefacts holds little authority and furthermore did not, and does not, prevent Azerbaijan from destroying them. The underlying reason for this argument is to eradicate the Armenian peoples’ historical roots to the region and thereby diminish their entitlement to live in and govern these areas (while at the same time fabricating an Azerbaijani historical presence). Lawyer and historian Yelena Ambartsumian, a refugee of Baku herself, sums up the situation:

“Azerbaijan employs its Caucasian Albanian argument to tie itself to a vanished Christian civilisation in the South Caucasus in order to remove a living one: the Armenians.”⁴

Although the signing of the Trilateral Agreement may have stopped the bloodshed, it has seen the escalation of another war which has been and is being fought worldwide and in cyberspace - for the cultural heart and soul of Artsakh.

“I feel that we are entering a civilisational crisis” comments Lusine Karakhanyan,⁵ Minister of Education and Science of the de facto Artsakh government about the situation. A “civilisational crisis” is certainly what best describes the deliberate falsification of history and ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan in order to further their claims over Armenian monuments and the lands on which they survive.

Turkey, affirming that the two countries are “two states, one nation”, explicitly supported Azerbaijan morally and militarily in the 2020 war and continues to do so. Anyone who knows anything about the atrocities Armenians have suffered at the hands of Turkey in the 19th and 20th centuries will know this goes some way to explain the fear Armenians all over the world have for their cultural heritage in the lands now in Azerbaijan’s control.

Amongst the first cultural losses suffered by any losing side in a war comes with the displacement of people. There are an estimated 70,000 ethnic Armenians⁶ forced out of their ancestral homes in Artsakh under the terms of the Trilateral agreement, some of  whom have returned but most of whom now live in Armenia. With this displacement comes an intangible cultural loss – the loss of dialects, the loss of the oral histories of the region, the traditions of music and dancing, the loss even of traditional regional recipes and these are cultural losses which should be acknowledged here. The immediate name changes as in Hadrut (now re-named Hunerli),  Karvachar (Kelbajar) and even with Artsakh’s cultural capital Shushi now being re-named Shusha further erode the cultural ties of a displaced people to their homeland.

Intentional targeting of Armenian historical sites during the war

(in violation of The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in Wartime 1954)

Several buildings have been destroyed/damaged deliberately during the war: there is reported damage to the Hadrut and Martakert museums, damage to Vankasar, a 7th century Armenian church in the Aghdam region, to Martuni’s House of Culture, as well as the deliberate destruction of khachkars in Vorotan and Talish.

Ghazanchetsots Cathedral (1868-88) was bombed twice during the conflict. The Cathedral is nowhere near any military targets and these were deliberate attacks, the second of which was from a missile-laden drone. Mothers and children were hiding in the basement of the Cathedral. Azerbaijan’s justification for this attack was that they had information soldiers were in fact hiding there. It is worth remembering that during the first Karabakh war (1991- 1994), when Shushi was under Azernbaijan’s control, Ghazanchetsots Cathedral was used as a munitions store by the Azerbaijanis, so confident were they that Armenians would never deliberately bomb a religious building. Ghazanchetsots is especially beautiful, having borrowed its plan from Echmiatzin Cathedral in Armenia – though with more slender bell towers and higher windows.

The beautiful green domes which gave St John the Baptist Church (1818) in Shushi the epithet “Ganach Zham” (the green chapel) were also destroyed. Ganach Zham, located just uphill from Ghazanchetsots Cathedral was very seriously damaged during the conflict. Military experts have deduced that drones deliberately targeted the building as there were no traces of blast waves from an explosion on or near the church, i.e. could not have been collateral damage. The church was also subject to graffiti in the Azeri language to the interior of the building.

Tigranakert of Artsakh (1st c. BC -13th c. AD) This is an archaeological site in the Aghdam region of Artsakah. Tigranakert is an Armenian city dating back to the Hellenistic period, built by Tigranes the Great in the early 1st century BC and an important part of the ancient Kingdom of Armenia. The remains of Tigranakert were discovered in 2005 and major archaeological work has taken place there since. The site was shelled by Azerbaijan on 6th November 2020. There was no valid military target anywhere near this site. The director of the Tigranakert archaeological site Dr Hamlet Petrosyan has voiced his deep concerns over the safety of the area and of the future of the project, particularly in light of the destruction of Julfa.⁷ As Azerbaijan will not allow experts in to Tigranakert, Dr Petrosyan is concerned that even if it is not destroyed, Tigranakert will fall in to neglect and disrepair. It may also be the subject of another Albanisation project by Azerbaijan. In a lecture given in June 2020 Dr Petrosyan affirmed that there was about another twenty years’ worth work left do at Tigranakert, as it is such a huge find and of such importance to both Armenian and world heritage. Dr Petrossyan had also been confident of finding other important relics in the immediate vicinity. All archaeological work has now been halted by Azerbaijan.

Concerns have also been raised for other buildings for which there is currently little information, particularly the Spitak Khach Basilica (14th c.) in Hadrut.⁸ Though the Human Rights Ombudsman for Artsakh has transferred the khachkars, icons and other religious paintings from the Spitak Khach to safe-keeping in Stepanakert, the church has been the victim of vandalism by Azerbaijani soldiers, who have raised the Azerbaijani flag on the cross on the church’s dome.⁹

Destruction/Desecration of Armenian Cultural Property since the cessation of hostilities in November 2020

Since the occupation of Shushi by Azerbaijan further damage has been caused to Ghazanchetsots Cathedral. The main entrance doors to the building have been graffitied in the Azeri language, and a stone angel at the entrance gate has been destroyed. Video evidence^10 proves that the Cathedral did not suffer such damage during or immediately after the war, which indicates that it has been deliberately vandalised in “peacetime” for no reason other than to cause disruption and pain to Armenians.

Ganach Zham, (St John The Baptist Church)  The Human Rights Ombudsman for Artsakh has confirmed that Kanach Zham has now been completely destroyed, again, not during but after the end of the war. Satellite images taken on 15th February 2021 were published by Armenian news sources, showing the destruction of the church. This was fact-checked and confirmed in an official statement of 18th March 2021 by Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

“…the church was destroyed months after the hostilities. The concerns that the Armenian side has been expressing since the very first days about the Armenian historical-cultural monuments which fell under Azerbaijani control are being materialised. These facts demonstrate that Azerbaijan’s assurances that it will preserve the Christian historical-cultural heritage and is willing to co-operate with UNESCO are completely false…”

Soorp Zoravor Astvatsatsin Church (Holy Mother of God, 19th c.)in Mekhakavan village, Jabrayil has been completely razed to the ground. BBC reporter Jonah Fisher¹⁰ investigated the disappearance of the 19th century Armenian church, with video footage in his possession, showing that the church was intact at the end of November 2020. Interviewing an adviser to President Aliyev, who claimed not to know of such destruction, the answer was both a falsification and a contradiction:

“In Jabrayil, never, ever Armenians lived. And building religious sites or changing the religious nature of the region is a violation of International law.”

Destruction of Genocide Memorial in Shushi (21st c.) ¹¹Russian news portal Mediaport posted aerial images on Telegram social media (30th March 2021) site showing an empty spot where the 12 year old memorial dedicated to the victims of the Genocide and the first Karabakh war had stood. Reports suggest that the memorial was razed to the ground by Azerbaijani forces currently occupying Shushi.

St. Yeghishe Armenian Church (19th c.)  A video posted on Arman Tatoyan’s (Human Rights Defender for Armenia) Facebook¹² page shows Azerbaijani soldiers in military uniforms with the Turkish flag visible on them, entering the church. The building, already in a state of some disrepair, is then subjected to the soldiers sneers and desecration of religious pictures and church furniture. The soldiers are clearly heard to say, “This belongs to the Armenians, everything here belongs to the Armenians, and we have destroyed it!”

Areas Identified as being at Particular Risk

1. Vankasar (7th c.)¹³ satellite imagery has emerged (19th April 2021) showing that Azerbaijan has deployed heavy equipment close to Vankasar, igniting concerns for what this equipment may be used for, particularly as Vankasar sits very close to Tigranakert. Vankasar is noted for its beautiful cream-coloured stone and for being visible from its hilltop perch from several miles around.
2. Tigranakert of Artsakh (see above)
3. Dadivank (12th -13th c.) Currently guarded by Russian peacekeepers, this is one of the largestbuilding complexes of the medieval world and, again, of great significance to world history and culture. Founded by St. Dadi, a disciple of St. Thaddeus the Apostle, Dadivank is also a place of great religious significance to Armenians. There are twenty buildings here, divided into three sections for worship, housing and activities of the brotherhood. The Abbot of Dadivank, Hayr Hovanness has been able to bring bells, crosses, khachkars and manuscripts back to Yerevan. However, Azerbaijan has called this “an illegal activity”¹⁴ and added that it would take legal action for the return of the items, suggesting that it claims ownership of the same. The concern for Dadivank is that it may be on Azerbaijan’s programme of Albanisation – on December 4th 2020, members of the Udi community of Azerbaijan entered Dadivank and held a prayer service (though Armenian clergy have been able to return since). It has also been the subject of an Azerbaijani poster campaign (see below).
4. Tziternavank (5th c.) In the Lachin region and only five kilometres from the border with Armenia, Tziternavank is an extraordinary example of an intact early Christian basilica. Inscriptions around the church bear witness to Armenians having a continuous presence in the region for centuries. Names of children, parents and patrons show the history of the people who worshipped in Tziternavank and a particularly moving inscription on a pre-10th century khachkar reads in Armenian: “Dear Lord, remember the prayers of your servant, the undeserving Grigor, for his beloved brother Azad.” Again, fears have been expressed that Tziternavank will be “Albanised” and the inscriptions erased and replaced with words in the Azeri language.¹⁵
5. St. Grigoris Mausoleum (489AD).  Fully restored by Armenians in 1988, St Grigoris, in Amaras, Martuni region, is one of the oldest of all Armenian monuments. It is the resting place of St Gregory the Illuminator, built by his grandson St Grigoris. This complex of buildings also includes the school where Mesrob Mashtots’ first Armenian script was taught. A place of huge significance for Armenians and for the history of the Caucasus as a whole.¹⁶

Azerbaijan’s  Programme of falsification and Misinformation

As Azerbaijan actively promotes a programme of Armenophobia, (and has done so throughout the 20th century) Armenians have little faith that their historical buildings and artifacts are safe in Azerbaijan’s keeping.  Attached to Azerbaijan’s destructions is a dark narrative which seeks to diminish and even deny Armenians’ existence. For example, after the complete destruction of the cemetery in Julfa, Nakhichevan, the razed ground was turned in to a military firing range in order to have a valid justification as to why UNESCO or any other body is barred from entering and investigating the site. The account coming out of Azerbaijan, despite all evidence to the contrary, is that Armenians were never really part of Nakhichevan at all. The “restoration” of St Yeghishe Church in the Azerbaijan village of Nij in 2004 is another shocking example of falsification. Armenian inscriptions in the St Yeghishe Church and nearby tombstones were deliberately erased by Azerbaijan as part of a restoration project. This “restoration” was funded as part of a cultural project by the Norwegian Humanitarian Enterprise. The destruction of the Armenian inscriptions prompted a protest by the Norwegian Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Steiner Gill, who refused to attend the re-opening of the church. Ambassador Gill furiously compared what had happened here to the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas (a recurring motif in discussions of Azerbaijan’s destructions) and called it “an act of  vandalism.” ¹⁷ St Yeghische was re-named St Elisaeus and is now known to be another of the Caucasian Albanian churches, despite being built in 1823. In May 2018, in a report submitted to the UN General Assembly by the Permanent Mission of Armenia to the United Nations, the erasing of the Armenian inscriptions at Nij was cited as evidence that “all restoration work of Christian architectural monuments in Azerbaijan was carried out in such a way as to destroy the traces of Armenian architecture, as well as the Armenian inscriptions”.¹⁸

On 16 March 2021, mirroring of the fate St Yeghiche Church in Nij,  President Aliyev visited the 17th century church of St Virgin in Tsakuri, Hadrut, built on the consecrated ground of an earlier church of the same name in 12-13th centuries (again, after the Caucasian Albanians had been assimilated). The church had particularly beautiful and intricate inscriptions in Armenian on the portal, giving information about the patrons and builders, and family names of members of the congregation. Aliyev considers this, of course, to be an Albanian Temple:

*“This is our ancient temple, the temple of our Udi brothers; they will come here, too. They (Armenians) falsified everything,”

Ilham Aliyev, President of Azerbaijan

The video of Aliyev’s visit shows that the cross is removed from the church, and the Armenian inscriptions are annihilated and replaced. ¹⁹

Anar Karimov, Azerbaijan’s Minister of Culture tweeted on 11 November 2020, less than two weeks after the Trilateral Agreement, that Dadivank (or Khudavank as he called it) was occupied  in 1992 by Armenian forces and alterations made to falsify its roots – The monastic complex of #Khudavang later was occupied by #Armenian armed forces in 1992 and was subject to alteration and falsifications aimed to change its origins and character in violation of @UNESCO Hague Convention of 1954

Mr Karimov’s Twitter feed is littered with falsifications about Armenian culture, the behaviour of Armenians before and during the war, and promises to set right all the wrongs done to Azerbaijan by the Armenians. The hate speech, which comes from Mr Karimov and, indeed, all senior members of Aliyev’s government, confirms that Azerbaijan is not interested in building a lasting peace with Armenia and Artsakh.

In February and March of this year, a poster campaign appeared in 46 stations on the London Underground, with images showing Azerbaijan to be multicultural and welcoming. Of particular concern to Armenians in London and worldwide, was the use of the image of Dadivank to promote Azerbaijan, and the underlying fears that this was another step in its Albanisation. After a swift and determined drive, the Armenian community of London and the UK were able to have these falsifications removed.²⁰

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1. Official list published by the Republic of Artsakh and quoted by Dr Hamlet Petrossyan, Yerevan State University, in The Armenian Cultural Heritage of Artsakh, 14 Nov. 2020. ↩︎

2.  A Plea to Save Artsakh’s Armenian Heritage | Christianity Today; [Armenian monuments in line of fire in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict | The Art Newspaper](https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/monuments-in-line-of- fire-in-nagorno-karabakh-conflict). ↩︎

3. The Human Rights Ombudsman of the Republic of Artsakh Ad Hoc Report, The Armenian Cultural Heritage in Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh): Cases of Vandalism and At risk of Destruction by Azerbaijan, 26 Jan. 2021 ↩︎

4. Why Armenian Cultural Heritage Threatens Azerbaijan’s Claims to Nagorno Karabakh, Hyperallergic, 28 Feb. 2021 ↩︎

5. Fears for Armenian Cultural Heritage in Karabakh, Institute for War and Peace Reporting, 18 Jan.2021 ↩︎

6. Reported in The Independent, online,  17th April 2021 ↩︎

7. A Regime Conceals Its Erasure of Indigenous Armenian Culture ↩︎

8. Human Rights Ombudsman Of The Republic Of Artsakh, Ad Hoc Public Report On The Azerbaijani Targeted Attacks Against The St. Holy Saviour Ghazanchetsots Cathedral Of Shushi, Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) As A Warcrime And Crime Against Humanity, 20 October, 2020; ↩︎

9. Karabakh Records, Twitter 7th Dec. 2020 (photograph of the church Azerbaijani flag). ↩︎

10. Cornell University Professor Lori Khatchadourian and her Caucasus Heritage Watch satellite investigation team have corroborated, in a tweet featuring fresh geospatial imagery, the BBC’s “Missing Church” field report on the complete destruction of the Holy Mother of God church in Jebrayil / Mekhakavan under Azerbaijani control. ↩︎

11. Azerbaijanis Destroy Armenian Genocide Memorial in Shushi ↩︎

12. Armen Tatoyan, facebook, Human Rights Defender Of The Republic Of Armenia; Azerbaijanis Continue Vandalizing Armenian Churches in Artsakh ↩︎

13. Djulfa: Sacred Stones Reduced to Dust and Caucasus Heritage Watch issues satellite imagery of Tigranagert. ↩︎

14. BBC Azerbaijani Service(in Azerbaijani). 16 December 2020. Retrieved 16 December 2020. ↩︎

15. Armenians displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh fear their medieval churches will be destroyed ↩︎

16. ibid. ↩︎

17.  Azeri church sparks political row (BBC World News 10 March 2005). ↩︎

18. Memorandum of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh on the state of the historical and cultural monuments in Artsakh and Azerbaijan, page 5/21. ↩︎

19. Artur Khachatryan, 1 News, (Yerevan) 19th March 2021 ↩︎

20. Pro-Azerbaijan posters removed from tube stations after protest from Armenians ↩︎