Monument Watch:. Azerbaijan has installed a monument decorated with the traditional Armenian "Artsvagorgi" of Artsakh in the center of "Victory Park", which glorifies the military conquest of Nagorno Karabakh and the ethnic cleansing of the Armenian population, and presented it to international observers. that the conference
As political scientist Sosi Tatikyan notes, this action is the construction of another monument glorifying military aggression and ethnic cleansing at the expense of appropriation of Armenian cultural heritage in Azerbaijan.
It should be noted that the ornament in the center of the square is the central pattern of the "Artsvagorg" descended from the carpet-making center of the Armenian feudal power in Jraberd (Dzhraberd, Jraberd) of Artsakh.
The main decorative motif of "Artsvagor" is the Eagle. According to experts, it is one of the personifications of the winged Sun or the Urartian deity Khaldi, and then the Zoroastrian Ahuramazda. This iconography of the Winged Sun has been known in Armenian art since ancient times and finds its expression also in the late medieval Armenian carpets of Artsakh-Syunik. It is known in foreign language literature as "Tschelaberd" (See Adil Besim, Mythos und Mystik, Alte und antike Textilkunst, Wien, 1998, p. 22).
Our response
It should be noted that the appropriation of Artsakh carpet traditions is a part of Azerbaijan's state policy.
The people of Artsakh, having rich traditions of carpet weaving, today, as a result of forced displacement, are deprived of the opportunity to continue their cultural practice, to contribute to the cultural life of their community, which is a gross violation of the right to culture of Artsakh Armenians, according to Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the economic, social and economic rights of the United Nations. 15 articles of the international convention of cultural rights. It turns out that, on the one hand, the practice of carpet weaving of Artsakh Armenians was stopped by Azerbaijan through forced deportation, and on the other hand, they were deprived of the opportunity to enrich and preserve their intangible heritage.
By distorting the historical facts, Azerbaijan neutralizes the real heritage tradition, depriving it of its authenticity. It violates the principle of authenticity of heritage accepted by UNESCO, because according to the document adopted in Nara in 1994, the knowledge that is the basis of heritage must be true and reliable and it must be preserved with reliable information.
Let's also remind that as early as May 2024 in Riga, the capital of Latvia, in the "Museum of Decorative Art and Design" "Azerbaijani carpets. An exhibition was opened under the title "genetic code of memory", the main exhibition of which covered the Armenian carpets of Nagorno Karabakh and the region of Armenia. It should be noted that the signs, images of animals and birds, compositional patterns in decorative design and the beliefs surrounding them are used in Armenian carpet making culture and have a centuries-old history. In addition, in November 2024, another similar exhibition was opened in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia (https://media.az/culture/v-tbilisi-otkrylas-vystavka-azerbajdzhanskih-k...).
By appropriating Armenian heritage, Azerbaijan violates the 2005 "On the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Forms of Cultural Self-Expression" and "On the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination" adopted in Paris in 1965. UN conventions.
The implementation of this state-oriented policy of Azerbaijan undermines the identity of Artsakh Armenians and the possibility of passing it on to future generations.
