Geghard Foundation: Azerbaijan`s deliberate and systematic  destruction of Armenian cultural heritage in Nakhichevan, Artsakh,  and other areas documented with  numerous indisputable facts

ArmInfo.Azerbaijan's deliberate and systematic destruction of Armenian cultural heritage in Nakhichevan, Artsakh, and other areas has been well documented  with numerous indisputable facts. This policy has been widely  examined and discussed on various platforms, as noted in a statement  issued by the Geghard Foundation.

Laurie Georges, a researcher at the Department of Political Science  at Ohio State University, has examined this policy from a new  perspective, noting that since the early years of the Soviet Union  one of its main objectives within the framework of nation-building  was to foster a sense of attachment among Azerbaijanis toward  Nagorno-Karabakh. The article was published in the prestigious  academic journal Nationalities Papers  under the title "Knowledges  that Cannot Be Known: Structuring Azerbaijani Attachment to  Nagorno-Karabakh."

The article shows how mechanisms of erasure and forgetting were used  to structure a sense of attachment to the territory among  Azerbaijanis. In scholarly literature, this phenomenon is defined as  "structural ignorance." This type of ignorance is not a mere lack of  knowledge on a given issue, but rather the deliberate production of  ignorance or the promotion of a dominant view through faulty  accounts.  The authors mentions that the state structures ignorance  among the core group about the symbolic significance of the state  territory and about the oppression/erasure of non-core groups  inhabiting it. This structured ignorance produces particularly rigid  attachments. Structured ignorance shapes perceptions.

Georges argues that Azerbaijanis learn to mis-see ethnic Armenians as  "barbaric," "uncivilized," "opportunistic," and not vulnerable (which  makes them incapable of reason and ineligible to justice claims).  They learn to conceive NK as Azerbaijan's cradle of civilization, and  to misinterpret the acts of ethnic Armenians as malignant.  Azerbaijanis learn to  misremember events and violence against ethnic  Armenians; accounts of anti-Armenian pogroms become conspiracy  theories.  The appropriation of territory is carried out in various  ways. The physical or material practice refers, for example, to  infrastructural changes. It is noted that during the Soviet period,  major highways bypassed Nagorno-Karabakh. More radical examples  include the physical removal of people and the destruction of  buildings and the natural environment.

More specifically, the ruins of Armenian towns and quarters from  previous episodes of violence (such as the massacres of Khaibalikend  and of Shusha in 1919-1920) were destroyed, while damaged churches  and khachkars were left in disrepair. "The narrative that Shushi is  an Azerbaijani historical place partly relies on the erasure of  Armenian traces following the 1920 massacre, which killed and  displaced the entirety of the Armenian inhabitants and destroyed the  Armenian part of the city." Another example is the creation of  unfavorable living conditions that forced Armenians to leave their  homes.

Among the ideological practices is the publication of maps,  catalogues, and books in which Nagorno- Karabakh's Christian  monuments were deliberately omitted. The next example is the  rewriting of history.  During the Soviet period, historians were  tasked to write the Azerbaijani history that was disseminated through  school textbooks. According to the author, these textbooks created an  artificial connection between Azerbaijanis and Caucasian Albania,  omitted the Armenian origins of the Albanian alphabet,  "Azerbaijanized" historically significant figures, and promoted the  idea that Armenians had never lived in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Since 1988, structural ignorance has expanded on a much larger scale.  The construction of ignorance is carried out through the erasure of  memory. The author cites two examples: the forgetting of the Sumgait  and Baku pogroms and the destruction of Armenian cultural heritage in  Nakhijevan. This approach continues today in Nagorno-Karabakh, where  Azerbaijan is destroying Armenian historical cemeteries, churches,  and other structures.

Thus, such studies demonstrate that Artsakh holds a cornerstone role  in Azerbaijan's nation-building and indigenousness propaganda in the  region. We have previously presented another extreme of Azerbaijani  nation-building: how prehistoric humans who lived millennia ago are  portrayed as Azerbaijanis, while archaeological remains preserved in  Gobustan, near the village of Azokh in Artsakh, and other sites are  presented as evidence of Azerbaijani indigeneity.

The author of that study, Uri Rosenberg, described it as "overkill  and exaggerated effort." Laurie Georges considers the Azerbaijani  case "on the extreme end of the spectrum." The fact remains that for  decades, Azerbaijan's leadership has fueled Azerbaijani  nation-building and nationalism through extreme contradiction,  hostility, and rejection of Armenians and Armenia. A vivid testament  to this is the policy of completely erasing the Armenian presence in  Artsakh, documented in numerous photographs and videos.