6 months ago this week, we released the results of our satellite investigation into the destruction of Armenian cultural heritage in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, Azerbaijan. To mark the occasion, today we share one of our most surprising findings.
Our forensic research showed that 108 Armenian churches, monasteries and cemeteries were destroyed in a state-sponsored program of cultural erasure beginning in 1997 (or 98% of the sites we could assess). Two of the destruction incidents are particularly noteworthy.
In that work, we reviewed parts of the 1988 monuments list of AzSSR. Listed on those pages are two so-called “Albanian temples” (#2853, #2854), a term that relates to a distorted Soviet historiography that appropriates Armenian churches to a fictional Azerbaijani origin myth.
In fact, “Albanian temple” 2853 was the Armenian St. Grigor Church of Kyolk (Kyulus), founded in the 13th or 14th centuries and destroyed between 1997 and 2009.
And “Albanian temple” 2854 was St. Yerrordutyun Church of Nors, an Armenian church founded in the 13th or 14th centuries and destroyed between 1997 and 2009.
The destruction of Armenian churches incorrectly classified in Azerbaijan’s heritage lists as “Albanian” is an ongoing phenomenon. In July 2022, CHW reported the destruction of the 19th century Armenian church of St. Sargis in Mokhrenes/Susanlıq.
St. Sargis, we subsequently learned, is listed on Azerbaijan’s current official monument list (#232) as an “Albanian temple”. This fictional reclassification did not save it from destruction.
To review 106 other StoryMaps for the destroyed Armenian monuments of Nakhchivan, see our ‘Silent Erasure’ website.
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