Stop the Destruction of Nagorno-Karabakh Monuments – Global Bar Magazine

NOTICE. Azerbaijan has taken control of the entire Nagorno-Karabakh region and there are no Armenians left in this region. Thousands of Armenian historical and cultural monuments are at risk of being destroyed. If this happens, it will be a loss for all humanity, writes Anzhela Mnatsakanyan, political researcher and coordinator of A Demand for Action in Armenia.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.

Armenia, a small landlocked country nestled between powerful neighbors, lacks natural resources, access to the sea, and has a population of just 3 million. Despite these geographic and demographic limitations, Armenia is a rich historical and cultural fabric, representing one of the world’s oldest civilizations. It has the distinction of being the first nation to adopt Christianity as its state religion. Exploring Armenian history often reveals a profound parallel: just as Jesus Christ sacrificed himself for the sins of humanity, Armenia, as the first Christian nation, apparently bore a comparable burden for the sins of the Christian world.

In 1915, 1.5 million Armenians, 500,000 Assyrians/Chaldeans/Syriacs, and approximately 350,000 Greeks suffered genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Empire, now modern Turkey. These tragic events marked some of the darkest chapters in human history, shaping the fate of entire communities and leaving lasting scars in the regions they once called home. The residual genetic trauma of this tragedy has been passed down through generations to survivors and their descendants. In 2023, 105 years after the Armenian Genocide, history has tragically repeated itself in Artsakh, also known as Nagorno-Karabakh, an integral part of historical Armenia with a rich Armenian cultural and religious heritage, but which was passed to Azerbaijan during the Soviet era by Stalin’s decision taken in a single night. After enduring a nine-month blockade by Azerbaijan, the Armenians of Artsakh were forcibly displaced from their ancestral homeland.

In 2020, Azerbaijan, supported by Turkey, launched a war against Nagorno-Karabakh. After 44 days of intense fighting, Azerbaijan took control of 70% of the territory. Throughout the conflict, Azerbaijan openly violated the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property during Armed Conflict, despite being a state party to it, by deliberately targeting cultural sites. On 8 October 2020, Azerbaijani forces launched precision rocket attacks on the “white pearl” of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in the city of Shushi. This assault, carried out with a double-booby-trap bombing tactic, caused serious injuries to journalists covering the initial shelling and inflicted significant damage to the cathedral. Numerous videos released by Azerbaijani soldiers show desecration, vandalism and graffiti on its walls, with a statue of an angel being badly damaged. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev then banned UNESCO from accessing it and controversially announced the “restoration” of the cathedral without consulting Armenian experts or UNESCO. During this operation, the entire dome was dismantled and the cross was removed from the cathedral of the first Christian nation, an act considered deeply shameful. This incident is not isolated: many churches have been vandalized by Azerbaijani soldiers who, feeling safe, documented their desecrations on their smartphones and shared them on social media.

A threatened heritage

Now that Azerbaijan has taken control of the entire Nagorno-Karabakh region and there are no Armenians left in the region, the entire cultural heritage of the region is under threat. Despite calls from US member states and injunctions from the International Court of Justice to respect cultural heritage and condemnations from the European Parliament, Azerbaijan has failed to comply with these mandates. Some churches, jewels of Armenian and Christian cultural heritage, no longer exist. For example, the Church of St. John the Baptist, built in 1847 – a unique and precious site for many – was destroyed. The Church of St. Zoravor Astvatsatsin in Mekhakavan suffered the same fate, having been completely demolished. Later, the Church of St. Sargis in Mokhrenes and the Church of St. Ascension in Berdzo met similar ends. Shockingly, all of these churches were intact when Azerbaijan took control of the territory.

It is important to note that the destruction is not limited to churches alone, but extends to cemeteries, schools, sacred sites, entire villages, and thousands of khachkars, carved Armenian tombstones, each a unique piece of medieval Armenian Christian art. Many of these intricately carved khachkars have already been destroyed or damaged, and many of them date back to the 9th to 13th centuries. It is also important to recall that Azerbaijan, under the direct supervision of President Aliyev, has systematically erased more than 25,000 items of Armenian Christian cultural heritage in Nakhchivan. This includes the destruction of the world’s largest and oldest Armenian cemetery in Julfa, which originally housed approximately 10,000 funerary monuments consisting mainly of khachkars.

Azerbaijan has adopted a policy of outright destruction and “Albanization” of Armenian religious sites and cultural heritage in the territories under its control. Azerbaijani government officials have launched a massive campaign to claim that Armenian heritage sites do not exist or belong to “Caucasian Albanian” culture, despite the lack of support from international research. The vast majority of experts in art, architecture, and archaeology in the region have refuted Azerbaijan’s revisionist claims as baseless. Nevertheless, the promotion of Caucasian Albanian narratives has spurred efforts to remove Armenian imagery and inscriptions from buildings and monuments through iconoclastic acts, aimed at eradicating traces of the Armenian presence in their historical homeland.

Today, thousands of Armenian historical and cultural monuments remain in the territories under Azerbaijani occupation. These treasures date back to antiquity, and many archaeological sites date back to before Christ. Imagine the losses that would be for humanity if these monuments continued to be destroyed.

Anzhela Mnatsakanyan
She holds a PhD in political science and is the coordinator of A Demand for Action (ADFA). She is an accomplished policy researcher and author of numerous academic and research articles, specializing in the Eastern Partnerships, Russia and the EU.

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