A Vicious Circle of Cultural Erasure in Azerbaijan

On Feb. 3 the Azerbaijani authorities introduced that it might goal a whole lot of sacred websites that bear witness to Armenian Christian historical past within the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh area. “A working group of specialists,” pro-government media quoted tradition minister

Anar Karimov

as saying, “has been set as much as take away the fictional traces written by Armenians.”

Fictitious traces? Armenian presence within the space goes again hundreds of years and will be seen in innumerable monuments. Some church buildings have roots within the early fourth century, and no critical scholar disputes their authenticity. However Azerbaijan, a majority-Muslim nation that conquered a lot of the area in a 2020 warfare, is deploying a government-promoted conspiracy idea that casts Armenian cultural monuments as faux. Because the Cornell College-based Caucasus Heritage Watch exhibits in its satellite tv for pc analysis, even Armenian cemeteries haven’t been secure from Azerbaijan’s wrath since 2020. Tombstones, new and outdated alike, are bulldozed within the title of development.

Azerbaijan proclaims that Armenians didn’t exist in Nagorno-Karabakh till the nineteenth century. This conspiracy idea references Caucasian Albania, a kingdom northeast of Nagorno-Karabakh that ceased existence within the ninth century. Through the Soviet period, to compete with Armenian and Georgian narratives, Azerbaijani students claimed Caucasian Albanians as their ancestors, finally extending the discredited idea to proclaim that Armenian heritage is stolen Caucasian Albanian heritage. In 2020, Azerbaijan launched a brand new conspiracy idea, claiming that Armenian khachkar monuments are “artificially aged.”

Between 1997 and 2006, Azerbaijan covertly flattened each hint of Armenian Christianity in traditionally disputed areas it managed already. Azerbaijan now says that the hundreds of destroyed monuments, together with the outstanding church buildings of Agulis and the celebrated necropolis of Djulfa, by no means existed. That Baku would lengthen this venture to its new dominions is brazen however unsurprising.

In December, the Worldwide Court docket of Justice ordered Azerbaijan to “take all crucial measures to forestall and punish acts of vandalism and desecration.” The group was notably involved with Azerbaijan’s follow of relabeling Armenian monuments as Caucasian Albanian. After some backlash, Azerbaijan’s Tradition Ministry walked again a part of the Feb. 3 announcement in a brand new textual content that was much less threatening, however the milder language ought to idiot nobody. A 2005 fee created by the Azerbaijani authorities in Nakhichevan recognized an inventory of surviving Armenian monuments for erasure however didn’t explicitly point out destroying them. The monuments had been swiftly flattened.

As a natural-gas producer, Azerbaijan is profiting from the warfare in Ukraine: European nations seeking to scale back dependence on Moscow are turning to Baku. A number of the isolation it confronted from Brussels and Washington after the 2020 warfare is ending. Because the world is distracted with the bloodshed in Ukraine, Baku initiatives energy over newly conquered territory by destroying cultural artifacts.

The objective is to push Armenians out solely. As their sacred websites are focused—and their secular infrastructure is intentionally broken—many will turn into demoralized and voluntarily go away. On this a part of the world, in the event you don’t have a spot of reminiscence, you don’t have anything.

Azerbaijan’s authorities would possibly forged the destruction of Armenian monuments as revenge for harm precipitated to Islamic monuments that had been underneath Armenian management in Nagorno-Karabakh till 2020. However it is a false equivalence. Many websites sustained harm, however there isn’t a proof of systematic, not to mention state-sponsored, erasure. That’s why the Worldwide Court docket of Justice rejected Azerbaijan’s counter-accusation towards Armenians final 12 months.

Not that Armenians are innocent. Earlier than the warfare, Azerbaijanis couldn’t entry their sacred websites within the space managed by Armenians. Now the roles are flipped. Had Armenian and Azerbaijani non secular leaders promoted mutual pilgrimages after the primary Nagorno-Karabakh warfare resulted in 1994, maybe extra monuments would have survived. Concepts for sensible confidence-building measures, like putting in public video screens at church buildings and mosques, stay concepts.

As a researcher of cultural politics who needs to forestall extra erasure, I attempt to encourage dialogue. In February, I despatched an e mail to Azerbaijan’s Sheikh-ul-Islam Allahshukur Pashazade. “Your Advantage,” I requested the non secular chief of Azerbaijan, “did you approve the constructing of a mosque in your honor on the positioning of a destroyed church?” Caucasus Heritage Watch satellite tv for pc photos confirmed {that a} mosque constructed a number of years in the past in Nakhichevan in his honor changed a medieval Armenian church that when stood there. Earlier, he attended the opening of at the very least one different mosque constructed rather than an Armenian church in Abrakunis.

I didn’t obtain a response, however I nonetheless pray that the sheikh will use his voice to advocate for resuming Armenian pilgrimages to Dadivank, probably the most sacred Armenian websites to return underneath Azerbaijan’s management in 2020.

The follow of erasing a tradition solely feeds battle. Azerbaijan’s non secular chief, regardless of successfully serving on the pleasure of the president, has extra energy than world establishments just like the European Parliament to cease cultural erasure in Nagorno-Karabakh. He has a possibility to finish this vicious circle—if he has the braveness to behave.

Mr. Maghakyan is a visiting scholar at Tufts College and govt director of Save Armenian Monuments.