Why No One Should Believe Reports of Armenians' 'Voluntary' Exodus from Artsakh

Mashinka Firunts Hakopian
Shushan Karapetian

Over the last two weeks, thousands of vehicles have lined a serpentine road stretching for three miles in the South Caucasus Mountains near the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan. At times, the multitude of cars was so dense that it could be seen from space. The travelers — refugees — survived extreme deprivation for nine months and a harrowing military assault against their homeland.

The road, known as the Lachin Corridor, is the sole escape route out of the Armenian Republic of Artsakh, also called Nagorno-Karabakh, situated on territory Azerbaijan claims is its own. As of Monday, more than 100,000 Artsakh Armenians, the Indigenous people of the region, had fled from the land their ancestors lived on for millennia. They face an uncertain future.

Bad Neighbor

 Milena Baghdasaryan

To best understand the obstacles to peace in Artsakh, one just needs to look at the contents found in the Azerbaijani education system, which not only reflect the Azerbaijani government’s general attitude toward the Armenian nation but also serve as a powerful force perpetuating the vicious cycle of Armenophobia among Azerbaijani youth. The falsification of history and the aggression toward Armenians are vividly pronounced not only in the history textbooks of Azerbaijan but across a wide spectrum of subjects and disciplines, among which literature is a very powerful one. 

Azerbaijani Propaganda and Falsifications of Alexander Tamanyan’s ‘Russian Period’ Heritage

 Valeria Olyunina

Today we once again raise the issue of the destruction of Christian monuments in Nagorno-Karabakh, set before the international community by the new barbarians, who came to us from yesterday’s Soviet Republic, destroying not only the heritage of Armenians, but also that of the other ethnic groups of the Caucasus: Lezgins, Talyshes, Udins, and more. Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and his authoritarian regime is equally biased toward destroying both Christian Armenian churches, as well as monuments to the heroes of the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945) and heroes of socialist labour of Armenian origin. 

Intellectuals of Armenia and Diaspora: The Quest for a New Paradigm

 Tigran Yegavian

In the 20th century, a large part of Armenian literary production took place outside the borders of Armenia. In the diaspora, the philosopher and editor-in-chief of the GAM Literary Magazine, Marc Nichanian, reminds us of the injustice that the Armenian literary world suffered by the censoring of Western Armenian by the Soviet regime. Access to important literary figures such as Hagop Oshagan, Indra or even the writers of the Paris School (Chahan Chahnour, Nigoghos Sarafian, Zareh Vorpuni, etc.) were limited. This question, which has been relegated to secondary importance in the face of the existential challenges facing the Armenian world, has one merit: It implicitly calls for a new paradigm in the relationship between the literary elite of Armenia and the diaspora.

Do Armenians Have Any Friends in Turkish Civil Society?

 Harout Ekmanian

It is human nature, that one turns to friends and dear ones in difficult times. For Armenians who built friendships with Turkish colleagues in civil society, art, journalism, academia and other related fields, these friends were out of sight for the 44-day long aggression and ethnic cleansing against their kin in Artsakh. They were nowhere to be found to counter the State mandated hate propaganda against Armenians. They weren’t even able to send a couple of comforting words let alone any public action. 

Azerbaiyán da nuevo ímpetu al genocidio cultural contra Armenia

 Avedís Hadjián

Después de la guerra no provocada contra Armenia que lanzó con el apoyo de Turquía y que dejó miles de muertos y destrucción en el territorio armenio de Artsaj o, como es más conocido, Nagorno-Karabaj, Azerbaiyán ha emprendido una campaña periodística y relaciones públicas promoviendo su presunto carácter tolerante y multiétnico. En particular, Azerbaiyán parece estar sensible a los testimonios del genocidio cultural que está llevando a cabo no solamente desde el inicio de esta guerra el 27 de septiembre pasado, sino desde antes de su propia independencia.

An Open Letter to Members of the International Association of Genocide Scholars

Regarding Recent "Genocide Watch" Pronouncements on the Situation in and around Nagorno-Karabakh

Henry Theriault

Dear IAGS Members,

I do not write what follows in my capacity as president of International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), but as a member of IAGS and a scholar of genocide, including its denial and the complexities of long-term post-genocide perpetrator-victim asymmetrical domination relations. I am also half Armenian; at the same time, for years I have been clear that any human rights violations by Armenians against Azeris should be investigated and go through an appropriate legal process, with appropriate punishments for all who committed them. I am unaware of any parallel call for Azeri accountability by any scholar (or other person) of Azeri descent, but hope there has been or will be at least one.

A Cocktail of Falsehood and Intellectual Dishonesty

 Vartan Matiossian

The Istanbul bureau chief of The New York Times, Carlotta Gall, appears to have been in her latest destination long enough to learn and internalize some of the crassest tactics of Turkish denialism.

She could not refrain from turning her dispatch from Baku, “Roots of War: When Armenia Talked Tough, Azerbaijan Took Action” (The New York Times, October 27, 2010), into the usual mix of reporting and opinion that characterizes “journalism” these days. One wonders if she used to do the same when reporting from Chechnya and Afghanistan. In any case, this article will hardly earn her a prize for journalistic fairness. She omitted the point already raised by Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalın in last May, who extended greetings to Azerbaijan on its Republic Day, wishing “more beautiful, brighter and stronger days” in the future as “one nation, two states,” to hammer on its Armenian equivalent “Artsakh is Armenia” (mentioned by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in August) as unofficial spokesperson to Azerbaijan president’s foreign policy adviser Hikmet Hajiyev’s lame justification for Azerbaijan’s aggression: “The final nail in the coffin of the negotiation process was when he said that Nagorno-Karabakh was Armenian.”

Nagorno-Karabakh conflict: its meaning to Armenians

Avedis Hadjian

With hundreds dead on both sides, the war between Armenian and Azeri forces in Karabakh — in Armenian, Artsakh — a mountainous enclave in the Southern Caucasus, is now anything but ‘frozen’, as it has long been described. A tenuous ceasefire had held since 1994, when the population of this historically Armenian region secured its de facto independence, in close cooperation with the Republic of Armenia. Peace has mostly prevailed since then, except for a four-day war in 2016 and a major flare-up last July.

The immediate cause of the fighting that broke out on 27 September is Azerbaijan’s attempt to reclaim territory that was within its borders during the Soviet period. After the Caucasian Bureau of the Bolshevik Party initially recognised Karabakh’s right to autonomy and promising it to Armenia following the republic’s sovietisation in 1920, Joseph Stalin, then commissar of nationalities of the Soviet Union, intervened, and the Soviets gave Karabakh to Azerbaijan in 1921. Armenians argue that this decision flies in the face of its history of continuous autonomy under Armenian princes since at least the eighth century and, more importantly, its population being more than 90% Armenian. In 1923, the Soviet government proclaimed the enclave an autonomous region within the Socialist Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan.

Israeli academics ask Israel: Stop arms sales to Azerbaijan

 Uzay Bulut

Since September 27, Azerbaijan has launched a major offensive against the Armenian Republic of Artsakh, also known as Nagorno-Karabakh, located in the South Caucasus. Azerbaijan has since indiscriminately bombed civilians, with the direct support it receives from Turkey, who recruited jihadists from Syria and elsewhere.

The Israeli government, it seems, continues to sell weapons to Azerbaijan during the height of this war. In an open letter on October 5, a group of academics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem called upon the Israeli government to immediately cease these arms sales. The letter reads, in part:

“From a reading of independent accounts and analysis we have concluded that this outbreak of violence in the last few days is due solely to aggression of the Republic of Azerbaijan, supported by Turkey and backed up by fighters from elsewhere in the region.”

Armenian Gandzak: Historical Background

Henrik Bakhchinyan
Translated by Artsvi Bakhchinyan

Gandzak (from the Armenian word gandz – treasure; Persian-Turkish pronunciation is Ganja) is located in the Utik province of Greater Armenia. It is both historically and geographically part of the eastern region of Armenia, in particular, the historical Gardmank and Northern or Plains Artsakh provinces. 

Naturally, the main information about Gandzak is provided by Armenian sources. According to them, the city was founded in 846 and was surrounded by many Armenian villages and monasteries. The Dasno monastery, built earlier (in 751), where the great scholar, writer, Mkhitar Gosh (1130–1213) wrote his “Code Book,” was especially famous. 

Armenia’s Revolution Will Not be Monopolized

Maxim Edwards

 

MASIS, Armenia — “Who will we vote for? Nikol Pashinyan, of course!” said Karen Karapetyan and Aghavni Tovmasyan, incredulous. This couple in their thirties arrived at a polling station here last Sunday to vote in snap parliamentary elections. Their candidate won by a landslide: Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party took 70.5 percent of the vote. “Mighty, mighty, mighty people!” wrote Pashinyan on his Facebook page the morning after the results. “I love you all, I’m proud of you, I bow before you.”
Pashinyan was swept to power on a platform of combating corruption, widespread poverty, and unemployment. All those problems are on show in this town of 18,000 in the shadow of Mount Ararat. Locals in Masis work in agriculture or two large tobacco factories; most of the town’s industry was shuttered after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Armenia’s Revolution: A Flickering Light in a Darkening Europe

Marc Cooper

 

Next Sunday, on December 9, Armenians are expected to further consolidate their unique and vastly underreported “Velvet Revolution.” On that day, acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s “My Step” alliance is expected to win a large governing majority in the country’s parliament.(*)

Though this has been barely reported, if it all, in most of the Western media, for the past seven months, landlocked Armenia, with only 3 million inhabitants, has flickered as a small light of hope and progressive democratic change in a Europe increasingly shadowed by authoritarian and dictatorial forces—especially in most of the former Soviet-bloc states of Eastern Europe.

Palabra final - Last word - Վերջին խօսք

Hovhannes Grigorian
ՅՈՎՀԱՆՆԷՍ ԳՐԻԳՈՐԵԱՆ

Hovhannés Grigorián (Gumrí, 1945-Ereván, 2012) fue uno de los más notables poetas de Armenia en la época postsoviética.
Hovhannes Grigorian (Gumri, 1945-Yerevan, 2012) was one of the most remarkable poets of Armenia in post-Soviet times.
Յովհաննէս Գրիգորեան (Գիւմրի, 1945-Երեւան, 2012) յետխորհրդային Հայաստանի ամենէն ականաւոր բանաստեղծներէն մէկը եղած է։

About the ‘Armenia!’ exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of New York

 Claude Mutafian

A distinguished art historian and well-known specialist of Byzantium, Mrs. Helen Evans has been working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for many years. Among the exhibitions she has organized, let us mention ‘The Glory of Byzantium (843-1261)’ in 1997 and ‘Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557)’ in 2004. Such topics involved necessarily neighboring Armenia, and Mrs. Evans’ growing interest for Armenian art was finally materialized by the present widely publicized exhibition called ‘Armenia!’, where the curious exclamation mark may reflect some kind of admiration. More important is the absence of any mention of period in the title, contrary to the two abovementioned Byzantine exhibitions. At first glance, it suggests that the exhibition should cover the three millennia of Armenian history, or at least, if one decides to exclude Urartu, the period from 500 B.C. to our days. This is not the case: it begins at the dawn of the 4th century, with the Christianization of Armenia, and ignores totally one millennium of pagan Armenia. As an example, the absence of the name of the most famous of all Armenian kings, Tigranes the Great (1st century B.C.), in an exhibition called ‘Armenia!’ looks strange, if not unacceptable. It would have been fair to call the exhibition ‘Christian Armenia!’, and briefly explain on an introductory panel that Armenia did exist long before, and that Christianization opened a new artistic era. Such was the case of the exhibition properly called ‘Armenia Sacra’ in Paris (musée du Louvre, 2007).

Why Syrian Armenians Are Avoiding Turkey

Sibil Hurtas

In large part because of the Syrian civil war that began in 2011, today there are 3,585,738 Syrians in Turkey, according to official numbers.

As a result of the war, Kurds and Turkmens sought refuge in neighboring countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. All Syrian ethnic groups flowed into Turkey save for Syrian Armenians. This attracted the attention of journalist Serdar Korucu, who has been doing research into refugee communities along the border. Korucu told Al-Monitor last week that when he saw there were practically no Armenians among the refugees, he told himself, “This can’t just be because of the low ratio of Armenians to the overall Syrian population. There has to be another reason.”

The Prophets, Angels, & Churches of ‘Armenia!’

 Gini Alhadeff

One small display in an exhibition can grab you by the collar. In the case of “Armenia!” at the Metropolitan Museum, it was the image of a spherical wide-eyed crab in a ridged armor swallowing Alexander the Great, along with his ship and retinue, set against a wavy sea that might have been drawn by a child. It is attributed to Zak‘ariay of Gnunik and appears in an illuminated manuscript of the Alexander Romance (1538–1544), the legends surrounding the exploits of Alexander the Great, much loved by Muslims, Orthodox Christians, and Armenians alike. Dr. Helen Evans, the Met’s curator of Byzantine Art, told me, “That crab is too good not to be recognized as the type of art we don’t expect from East Christians.” And it most definitely wasn’t, she added, “the stiff art of the Byzantines that Vasari disapproved of.” Giorgio Vasari, the Italian architect, painter, and historian, author of Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects (1550) Western culture’s first art historian, who coined the use of the term “Renaissance,” unfairly saw in Byzantine abstractions, coming after Greek and Roman art, a decline in skills rather than an artistic choice.

Hrag Papazian Explores Armenian Identity in Turkey

Aram Arkun

 

Hrag Papazian, a Lebanese-Armenian graduate student in his late 20s, is studying the Armenians of Turkey. He came to the United States recently to give a series of lectures at the Institute of Armenian Studies at the University of Southern California. On his way back across the Atlantic, he stopped by in Boston to give a lecture on the Nor Zartonk movement of Istanbul (see https://mirrorspectator.com/2018/10/11/hrag-papazian-to-speak-at-inaugural-zoravik-event/) and gave an interview on his work.

Papazian graduated from Hamazkayin’s Melankton and Haig Arslanian College (formerly called Hay Jemaran) in Antelias, Lebanon, in 2010 and then attended American University in Beirut, from which he received a bachelor’s degree in communication arts. Deciding to switch his focus to anthropology, he went into a master’s program at the University of Oxford in 2013. He wrote on the Christian Armenians citizens of Turkey living in Istanbul for his thesis, but upon starting the doctoral program at the same university in 2015, decided to broaden his topic to include two other types of Armenians, migrants from the Republic of Armenia to Istanbul who came beginning in the 1990s due to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Muslim Armenians, who began to come to media attention in the early 2000s.

Kemal Oksuz’s Controversial Past Raises Eyebrows

Kevin (Kemal) Oksuz, the Turkish-born American citizen wanted by the United States who was arrested in Armenia by Yerevan police, was engaged in anti-Armenian lobbying in the US before coming to Armenia. Moreover, Oksuz’s lobbying was sponsored by Azerbaijani oil dollars.

Armenpress looked into Oksuz’s past, and the story began to appear more intriguing, to say the least.

According to a document of the state registry of Armenia, Oksuz founded The Sena Group, a destination and event management company, in 2017 in Armenia.  The address of the company is listed as 12 A Vagharshyan St, Arabkir district, Yerevan.

Armenia and Israel: The road to better relations

James Hasso

 

The Eastern Mediterranean region is not known for having the easiest of political situations. Two nations not typically focused on in tandem, but share similar struggles are the states of Armenia and Israel.

From both experiencing genocides, to being minorities surrounded by what can be considered hostile neighbors, Armenia and Israel have similar backgrounds. Despite that, due to geopolitics, including Israel’s relationships with Azerbaijan and Turkey, relations between the two nations are not where they would be expected to be.

Israel’s recent motion to recognize the Armenian Genocide (and the concurrent Assyrian and Greek Genocides) committed by Ottoman Turks and Kurds is commendable and certainly a great step in the right direction.