Культурный геноцид в Армении, оставшейся без армян

Культурный геноцид, термин, введенный во второй половине XX века, используется для обозначения преднамеренного создания социально-культурных условий для искусственного стирания национальной и культурной идентичности народа. Согласно официальным данным, составленным и представленным армянской Патриархией Константинополя турецкому правительству в 1912-1913 годах, на территории Османской империи насчитывалось более 2000 церквей и монастырей (в том числе уникальные ранние христианские памятники IV-V веков). Их большая часть была ограблена, сожжена и разрушена во время Геноцида армян. С прекращением этнических чисток армян политика младотурков, направленная на разрушение их культурного наследия с каждым годом набирала обороты. После массового убийства и изгнания армян турецкие власти продолжали удалять, камень за камнем, свидетельства тысячелетней армянской архитектурной и художественной истории. Большое количество памятников архитектуры были разрушены или преобразованы в мечети и караван-сараи.

Один из свидетелей армянских погромов - арабский юрист Файез эль Гусейн пишет в своих воспоминаниях: "После армянских погромов правительство учредило комиссии, которые занимаются продажей брошенного имущества. Армянские культурные ценности продаются по ничтожной цене... Однажды я пошел в церковь, чтобы увидеть, как осуществляется продажа этих вещей. Двери армянских школ закрыты. Научные книги используются турками на рынках для упаковки сыра, хурмы, семечек..."

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The roughly 1500 years-old cemetery of Djulfa before the destruction of its c. 5000 cross stones.

In 1998 about 800 Katchkars were removed, a process temporarily halted following protests from UNESCO.

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Destruction of Armenian Monuments in Nakhichevan Cultural Genocide

The destruction of the Armenian monuments in Old Djulfa is cultural genocide, Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Gegham Gharibjanian stated at news conference in Yerevan April 5, 2006 . Laying an emphasis on the difference between Iran, the representative of an ancient civilization, and Azerbaijan he remarked that Azerbaijan keeps on the destruction of the Armenian cultural monuments on its territory. "I want to mark the fact that the Iranian authorities treat the maintenance of the monuments belonging to other nations with great responsibility," he said, reported Novosti-Armenia.


Source:

''GLOBAL VOICES'' about Jugha (Julfa)

Azerbaijan: Destruction of Ancient Cemetery Commemorated

Three years after a cemetery dating back to the 9th Century was deliberately destroyed in the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan, bloggers recall an ancient culture annihilated and condemn the world for closing its eyes to what many consider to be an official attempt to rewrite history.

NoThingfjord, a Turkish blog, writes:

Today is the commemoration of the 3rd anniversary of Djulfa's destruction. …This [is] not only a crime against Armenian culture, but against our collective cultural heritage as humankind. Don't let it go unnoticed.

 Between 10-16 December 2005 over a hundred uniformed men were videotaped destroying the Djulfa cemetery using sledgehammers, cranes, and trucks. The video was taken from across the border in Iran.


More than just a loss to global culture, Ivan Kondratiev [RU] says that Djulfa's destruction was meant to change the story of Nakhichevan's indigenous heritage.

Азербайджанские власти на протяжении всего советского периода старались уничтожить этот некрополь, поскольку для них он был всего лишь свидетельством о том, что именно армяне были хозяевами этой территории на протяжении веков, вопреки тому, что говорилось в азербайджанских советских мифах о собственной “древности”… Это кладбище, вполне достойное названия чуда, было даже не внесено в реестр архитектурных памятников Азербайджана… После распада СССР, во время карабахского конфликта, продолжалось разорение кладбища, и, наконец, оно было окончательно уничтожено….

 The Azeri authorities throughout all Soviet period tried to destroy this necropolis as for them it was only a testament that Armenians were owners of this territory throughout centuries in spite of Azerbaijan's Soviet myths about own “antiquity”… This cemetery, quite worthy to be called a wonder, was not even placed on the register of architectural monuments of Azerbaijan… After USSR's collapse, during the Karabakh conflict, the cemetery's demolition continued, and, at last, definitively destroyed….

An Iranian blogger also argues that Djulfa was undesirable evidence of an inconvenient past.

آنان از سنگ قبر ارامنه هم نگذشته اند و با تخریب دوازده هزار قبر با سنگ قبر هایی منحصر به فرد که متعلق به چند قرن پیش بوده و جزئی از میراث فرهنگی ارامنه به حساب می آمد، هیچ اثری از ارمنی نشین بودن آنجا، بجا نگذاشته اند.

 [After acquiring Nakhichevan, Azeris] did not even tolerate Armenian gravestones. They destroyed twelve thousand Armenian graves. These unique gravestones with several centuries’ history were part of Armenian cultural heritage. However, through destruction of these gravestones, [Azeris] destroyed all signs indicating the existence of Armenians in that land. [translated by Loosineh M.]

 iArarat, remembers Djulfa by discussing Robert Bevan’s The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War, a book that was “part of a class I teach at a Texas university on nationalism and ethno-political conflicts.”

[…]

While reading Bevan’s book I was inevitably reminded of the destruction of the medieval Armenian cemetery in Jugha, presently in Azerbaijan. Azeri soldiers at the command of their superiors without as much as blinking an eye would embark at destroying and erasing the last vestige of the Armenian civilization in that territory as if the Armenians had never as much as existed there, as if Armenians had never as much as created anything, something to celebrate their faith and commemorate their dead…

 The Stiletto, an award-winning blog posts a well-researched account of Djulfa's destruction and attempts by Azerbaijan to deny it ever existed.

Azerbaijan is being blamed for the destruction of a unique cemetery

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 Taleban blowing up the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001.

The Jugha cemetery was a unique collection of several thousand carved stone crosses on Azerbaijan’s southern border with Iran. But after 18 years of conflict between Azerbaijan and its western neighbour, Armenia, it has been confirmed that the cemetery has vanished.

The Institute for War and Peace Reporting, a London-based non-governmental organisation that supports independent journalism, said that one of its staff had recently been to the highly restricted site.

Destroying of Armenian khachkars by azeri soldiers

Where once stood between 2,700 and 10,000 intricately carved headstones — khachkars — dating from the 9th to the 16th centuries, there was only a dry patch of earth, said the institute (www.iwpr.net). It was the first independent confirmation of what Armenia has long alleged — that Azerbaijani authorities have razed the cemetery since the two former Soviet republics began a bloody border war in 1988.

The war ended in a ceasefire in 1994, with 30,000 dead and a million displaced, but still simmers over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is held by Armenia but internationally recognised as Azerbaijan. Foreign organisations had been unable to visit the cemetery because it is in Nakhichevan, a tiny enclave of Azerbaijan cut off by Armenia and Iran and accessible only by air.

Azerbaijan has repeatedly dismissed Armenia’s allegations as scaremongering and in turn accused Armenia of destroying hundreds of Muslim sites. President Aliyev of Azerbaijan angrily dismissed reports

JUGHA ERASED FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH

Tuesday, October 17th, an international delegation comprised of representatives of different National Parliaments and a Scottish history-of-art specialist, were received by Mr.Kotchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, from whom they will be solemnly requesting an international investigation and open denunciation of the crime perpetrated on the memorial site of Jugha (Djoulfa/Julfa) by the army of Azerbaijan.

• The delegation was formed at the behest of the Parliamentary Group Switzerland-Armenia – mainly the Co-Chairmen – the National Councillors Dominique de Buman (Vice-Chairman of the Christian Democratic-Party) and Ueli Leuenberger (Vice-Chairman of the Green Party) – with the support of Mr. Charles Aznavour, Ambassador of Armenia to UNESCO. The Parliamentarians will submit to the Director-General exhaustive documentation on the subject, as well as a signed Memorandum in which five recommendations will be presented to the state of Azerbaijan, among which, the construction of a Christian memorial on the site of the old cemetery. If Azerbaijan did not answer these recommendations, the delegation of the members of Parliament will ask the exclusion of Azerbaïdjan of UNESCO with arbitration of the European governments, Switzerland, Russia and Canada.
  
  
  
  Moreover, the organizers of this exceptional meeting, regretted not assistance of the Armenian government.
  /Jean Eckian – Paris, France/
  On January 23rd, 2006, French deputy François Rochebloine (UDF),recalled in his intervention at the Council of Europe:[…] «We have

Destruction of the Armenian Cemetery at Djulfa

For a long time there have been complaints about the destruction of Armenian monuments and sites in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, three of the neighbouring countries of Armenia. A particularly sad example is the destruction of the Armenian cemetery in the former town of Djulfa, situated in the south of Nachitchevan, a region under the sovereignty of Azerbaijan. This cemetery, which had been in use from the early Middle Ages to the destruction of the town in 1605, was an outstanding testimony of Armenian culture because of thousands of tombstones mostly from the 15th and 16th centuries in the shape of so-called Khatchkars. The destruction process, which began in 1998 when 800 Khatchkars were removed, was temporarily halted following protests from UNESCO, but in November 2002 it was taken up again. When ICOMOS was informed and given photos of this barbaric act in a remote frontier area by RAA (Research on Armenian Architecture) in January 2003 and by ICOMOS Armenia in February 2003, the destruction, which cannot have been carried through without the consent of the Azerbaijan government, was already completed: "On January 10th Mr Haghnazarian [author of the following report] was called by the very distressed Armenian Bishop of Tabriz (Iran) who informed him that he went to the Iranian side of the river Araxes opposite the cemetery of Djulfa some days ago to see with his own eyes what had seemed incredible to him: The 1500-year-old cemetery had completely been flattened in the meantime."

There only remains the hope that under the guidance of UNESCO it will be possible to investigate the situation on the spot and to take care of the remains of the tombstones, transported away by Azerbaijan railways probably to be used as material for building measures. Hopefully, strong protest will at least prevent the demolition of more Armenian heritage sites in Azerbaijan in the future. The intentional destruction of the cemetery of Djulfa should be considered as a crime against the common heritage of humanity. Apart from that all that remains is deep sorrow for the irreplaceable loss.
Here is the report of RAA: