Tragedy on the Araxes

by Sarah Pickman                                                                            June 30, 2006                                                                     A place of memory is wiped off the face of the Earth.

Khachkars of the Djulfa cemetery, c.1987 (Courtesy of Research on Armenian Architecture)

On the banks of the River Araxes, in the remote, windswept region of Nakhichevan, is a small area of land known as Djulfa, named for the ethnic Armenian town that flourished there centuries ago. Today, Nakhichevan is an enclave of Azerbaijan. Surrounding it on three sides is Armenia, and on the fourth, across the Araxes, is Iran.

Hundreds of years ago, almost all of Djulfa's residents were forced to leave when the conquering Shah Abbas relocated them to Isfahan in Persia. But Djulfa was not left completely empty: its cemetery, said to be the largest Armenian graveyard in the world, survived. Inside it were 10,000 or so headstones, most of them the intricately carved stone slabs known as khachkars. Long after the town was emptied, the khachkars, which are unique to Armenian burials, stood like "regiments of troops drawn up in close order," according to nineteenth-century British traveler William Ouseley.

Those stone regiments are gone now; broken down, all of the headstones have either been removed from Djulfa or buried under the soil. No formal archaeological studies were ever carried out at the cemetery--the last traces of a community long gone--and its full historical significance will never be known.

The region of Nakhichevan, situated between Armenia and Iraq. "NKR" indicates the contested region of Nagorny-Karabakh. (Courtesy of Research on Armenian Architecture)

Azerbaijan Elected to UNESCO Culture and Heritage Body

Azerbaijani soldiers photographed destroying tombstones at the Djulfa cemetry.

Courtesy Arthur Gevorgian. December 2005

BAKU (Trend.az)—Azerbaijan has been elected to a four-year-term membership of a key cultural heritage committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry reported on Thursday.

The Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage is considered among the most influential structures of the organization and deals with the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills, instruments, objects, artifacts and cultural spaces that groups and communities recognize as cultural heritage.

“Azerbaijan’s entry into the committee will allow it to fulfill an important role and be part of the discussion about the world’s intangible cultural heritage,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that the unique position will also allow Azerbaijan to nominate its own cultural heritage for inclusion in the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Armenia, which was also nominated for the 24-member body, did not get the number of votes needed to ascend to the body. 

Action against Destruction of Armenian Khachkars Held near UNESCO Mission in Ottawa

March 2, 2006 - 18:43 AMT 14:43 GMT PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenians in Canada protest against the Azerbaijani destruction of Old Julfa cemetery carrying a model of khachkar (stone cross) in front of UNESCO building in Ottawa on 25 February 2006. Tens of thousands of khachkars, some as old as the 8th century, were destroyed by the Azerbaijani government from 2000-2005. Aware of the "successful" destruction, Iranian Turks and Azerbaijanis are now calling for Armenia's destruction. Yesterday the Armenian Community of Toronto held a peaceful candlelight procession to protest against the ongoing demolition of medieval Armenian cemeteries and historic stone crosses (khachkars) in the southern Nakhichevan region of Julfa by the Azerbaijani armed forces. As the Armenian Community of Toronto told PanARMENIAN.Net the candlelight procession is organized by the Inter-Denominational Armenian churches of Toronto—the Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church, St. Mary's Armenian Apostolic Church, St. Gregory Armenian Catholic Church and Armenia Evangelical Church. The cemetery, home to more than 10,000 Armenian khachkars,was subjected to sustained attacks throughout the 20th century and again, starting in 2002,when Azerbaijani forces crushed hundreds of the crosses and shipped the destroyed crosses from the region by rail. The most recent attacks, in December 2005, have been the worst. Nakhichevan is a historic part of the Armenian homeland and was an integral part of the first Armenian Republic of 1918-1920. It was arbitrarily severed from Armenia and placed under Azerbaijani rule as part of the Soviet Union's accommodation with Kemalist Turkey and Moscow's "divide and conquer" policy. During the Soviet era, the indigenous Armenian population was pushed out of Nakhichevan due to discrimination, economic pressure, and other policies advanced by the Soviet Azerbaijani authorities. Source