Armenian cross-stones art. Symbolism and craftsmanship of Khachkars

Inscribed in 2010 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity

Country: Armenia

Description

Armenian cross-stones art. Symbolism and craftsmanship of Khachkars

©UNESCO

Khachkars are outdoor steles carved from stone by craftspeople in Armenia and communities in the Armenian diaspora. They act as a focal point for worship, as memorial stones and as relics facilitating communication between the secular and divine. Khachkars reach 1.5 metres in height, and have an ornamentally carved cross in the middle, resting on the symbol of a sun or wheel of eternity, accompanied by vegetative-geometric motifs, carvings of saints and animals. Khachkars are created usually using local stone and carved using chisel, die, sharp pens and hammers. The carvings are then ground using fine sand. Small breaks and rough surfaces are eliminated by plaster of clay or lime, and then painted. Once finished, the Khachkar is erected during a small religious ceremony. After being blessed and anointed, the Khachkar is believed to possess holy powers and can provide help, protection, victory, long life, remembrance and mediation towards salvation of the soul. Among more than 50,000 Khachkars in Armenia, each has its own pattern, and no two are alike. Khachkar craftsmanship is transmitted through families or from master to apprentice, teaching the traditional methods and patterns, while encouraging regional distinctiveness and individual improvisation.

Decision 5.COM 6.1

The Committee (…) decides that [this element] satisfies the criteria for inscription on the Representative List, as follows:

• R1: The symbolism and craftmanship of Khachkars, Armenian cross-stones, are transmitted from generation to generation and continuously recreated to satisfy the artist’s creativity, constituting a distinctive symbol of the identity of Armenian communities at home and abroad;
• R2: Inscription of the element on the Representative List could raise awareness of intangible cultural heritage and encourage dialogue with other communities with similar crafts and practices;
• R3: Safeguarding measures are proposed focusing particularly on strengthening transmission, encouraging research and documentation, and providing public recognition, with the participation and support of Khachkar makers, institutions and authorities;
• R4: Master craftspeople of the Khachkar tradition participated in elaborating the nomination and provided their free, prior and informed consent for possible inscription, which also enjoys wide support of Armenian communities worldwide;
• R5: The symbolism and craftmanship of Khachkars are inscribed in the State inventory of intangible cultural heritage established by the Ministry of Culture.

http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?lg=en&pg=00011&RL=00434

Old Jugha cemetery destroyed by Azerbaijani Turks.




















Photo from Argam Ayvazyan's book - "Jugha"

http://jugha-fr.blogspot.com/

What is cultural genocide?

Cultural genocide is the complete destruction of a culture for political, racial, or military reasons. That includes language, art, music, traditions, religions and anything else unique to that specific culture. While it can include the murder of people of a certain ethnicity, the phrases is usually used to describe when a group of people is forced or coerced to change who they are and so they lose their original culture. It often includes the destruction of religious or traditional objects or buildings.
This type of genocide is the one most overlooked or ignored. The destruction of a culture however is the same as the destruction of a people, a civilization, a way of life. Our world is full of differences, ones that we may not see every day but ones that we should embrace rather than fear.
Cultural genocides can take place in a variety of ways. They range from material destruction, such as religious buildings or artifacts, to attacks on ideas and customs.

http://www.helium.com/items/1364680-cultural-genocide

http://armartproject.blogspot.com/

http://culturalgenocide.blogspot.com/

http://culturalgenocide-julfa.blogspot.com/

http://jugha-fr.blogspot.com/

http://jughaculturalgenocide.blogspot.com

http://khachkar-khachkar.blogspot.com/

http://discorsiculturali.blogspot.com/

http://jugha.blogspot.com/

http://armsymbol.blogspot.com

The destruction of Armenian Historical Monuments

Genocide is the physical annihilation of not only an ethnic or religious group but also its national and spiritual culture.

During it's centuries-old history the Armenian people has erected numerous and diverse cultural monuments. Most of them are currently located on the territory of Armenia - the historical cradle of Armenians. About 1/10th of the territory of the ancient Armenia is involved in the present territory of the Republic of Armenia due to historical events, while the rest is part of the territories of neighbouring countries.

That's why the majority of Armenian historical monuments are located outside the borders of the present Republic of Armenia.

The destruction of the Armenian stone crosses (khachkars) by the Azerbaijani government is ignored. In December 16 2005, a group of 200 Azerbaijani soldiers began destroying the surviving architectural treasures of Old Jougha (Julfa), a centuries-old Armenian cemetery located in Nakhichevan (now, a part of Azerbaijan). Back in 1648, some 10,000 khachkars at the 1,600 square meter site of the Old Jugha cemetery were recorded, many as old as the 8th century. Thousands of the Armenian graves were destroyed here in 2002 by the Azerbaijani government. The vandalism was ignored by the world.

In the recent decades, Armenian culture has faced so much vandalism that the world has developed immunity against it. Almost every other day an act of cultural genocide against the Armenian civilization happens in the neighbouring countries of Armenia, excluding Iran. Armenian churches and stone crosses suddenly "become" Georgian in Georgia; in Turkey, there is not much left to destroy (over 2000 churches and cathedrals were ruined during the Armenian genocide in 1915), but a few surviving monuments are still being converted to Mosques or to secular buildings; in Azerbaijan, the Armenian monuments are either being wiped out or "becoming" Albanian. Let alone Russia, where Armenian cemeteries are being desecrated almost every other day.

Many acts of cultural genocide against the Armenian culture have been documented, but now the world has a video to look at; a "hot action" that shows Azerbaijani soldiers erasing the last memories of the Armenian past in Nakhichevan.

To view this video, go to www.hairenikradio.com

http://anc.org.au/destruction_!.htm

http://anc.org.au/in_azerbaijan.htm

Cultural genocide is the systematic destruction of traditions, values, language, and other elements which make a one group of people distinct from other groups.

As late as the mid-twentieth century our planet was blessed with great cultural diversity with thousands of distinct languages, hundreds of unique religions, and thousands of variations in traditions and ways of life.

Of course not all traditions were worthy of admiration and respect. Cannibalism, infanticide, female circumcision, slavery, suppression of women, exploitation of children, ritual slaughter, and tribal warfare were among the cultural traditions practiced by some groups, the loss of which would not be mourned.

Tragically however we have tended to destroy the beautiful traditions which made the world a bright, colorful and cheerful place to live in and explore.

Tragedy on the Araxes

	June 30, 2006
by Sarah Pickman

A place of memory is wiped off the face of the Earth.

Khachkars of the Djulfa cemetery, c.1987 (Courtesy of Research on Armenian Architecture)

On the banks of the River Araxes, in the remote, windswept region of Nakhichevan, is a small area of land known as Djulfa, named for the ethnic Armenian town that flourished there centuries ago. Today, Nakhichevan is an enclave of Azerbaijan. Surrounding it on three sides is Armenia, and on the fourth, across the Araxes, is Iran.

Hundreds of years ago, almost all of Djulfa's residents were forced to leave when the conquering Shah Abbas relocated them to Isfahan in Persia. But Djulfa was not left completely empty: its cemetery, said to be the largest Armenian graveyard in the world, survived. Inside it were 10,000 or so headstones, most of them the intricately carved stone slabs known as khachkars. Long after the town was emptied, the khachkars, which are unique to Armenian burials, stood like "regiments of troops drawn up in close order," according to nineteenth-century British traveler William Ouseley.

Those stone regiments are gone now; broken down, all of the headstones have either been removed from Djulfa or buried under the soil. No formal archaeological studies were ever carried out at the cemetery--the last traces of a community long gone--and its full historical significance will never be known.

The region of Nakhichevan, situated between Armenia and Iraq. "NKR" indicates the contested region of Nagorny-Karabakh. (Courtesy of Research on Armenian Architecture)

A History of Violence

The oldest burials in the Djulfa (Jugha in Armenian) cemetery date to the sixth century A.D., but most of the famed khachkars are from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when the town was at its most prosperous as a stop on the silk and spice trade routes between Asia and the Mediterranean. After the forced resettlement of 1604, the graveyard endured, and was visited by travelers from within and outside of the Caucasus over the next few centuries. They saw slabs of pink and yellowish stone, between six and eight feet high, intricately carved in relief. Most khachkars, which were believed to aid in the salvation of the soul, were decorated with crosses and representations of Christian holy figures, as well as depictions of plants, scenes of daily life, geometric designs, and epitaphs in Armenian.

By the twentieth century, the carved stones that had survived the forces of time and nature faced a human threat. In 1903 and 1904, part of a railroad line connecting Djulfa to the Armenian city of Yerevan was laid through the cemetery, and a number of khachkars were demolished to make room for the tracks. In 1921, the newly established Soviet government, which had recently gained control over the Caucasus, gave the regions of Nakhichevan and Nagorny-Karabakh, historically part of southern Armenia, to Azerbaijan as part of a divide-and-conquer strategy for controlling the Caucasus. After the new borders were drawn, Nakhichevan was separated from the ruling government of Azerbaijan by Armenian territory. Over the next 70 years, the Azeri population in Nakhichevan grew and almost all of the remaining Armenians emigrated because of political pressure and economic hardship. The Azeris often broke down the stone memorials of Djulfa for use as building material, and by 1998, according to the nonprofit organization Reserch on Armenian Architecture (RAA), there were only 2,000 khachkars left.

RAA, an Armenia-based awareness organization which documents Armenian architectural monuments located outside the borders of the modern republic of Armenia, has studied and published material on the recent history of the Djulfa cemetery. According to RAA, the destruction continued after the fall of the Soviet Union, and local vandals were no longer the only group accused of contributing to the demolition. In 1998, the Armenian government claimed that Nakhichevan's Azeri authorities were deliberately wrecking the cemetery in an act of symbolic violence and had destroyed 800 khackhars. The Armenians appealed to UNESCO and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), trying to get "the entire international community up in arms," according to deputy culture minister Gagik Gyurdjian. UNESCO responded by ordering an end to all destructive activity in Djulfa. However, the demolition began again in 2002, according to RAA and local witnesses. The last remains of the cemetery were obliterated this past December. Over a period of three days beginning on December 14, 2005, a large group of Azeri soldiers destroyed the remaining grave markers with sledgehammers, loaded the broken stones onto trucks, and dumped them into the waters of the Araxes. That is what witnesses who watched the devastation from across the river in Iran say happened. Among them were representatives from the Armenian Apostolic Church Diocesan Council in the Iranian city of Tabriz, who were able to take photographs, and an Armenian film crew, which captured a significant amount of the event on camera. The video footage from this has been broadcast online through the Armenian community news service, Hairenik.

Intricate designs on a broken khachkar. Photo by Zaven Sargissian, 1987. (Courtesy of Research on Armenian Architecture)

The Djulfa episode is only the latest in a string of controversies and tragedies that have marred the relationship between the modern nations of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Tensions have run high between the two countries since soon after the fall of the Soviet Union, when, as they asserted their independence, the nations laid competing claims to the Nagorny-Karabakh region, which was under Azeri authority but whose population had remained largely Armenian. The region's local parliament voted to secede and join with Armenia, and fighting erupted between the secessionists and Azeri authorities. The conflict escalated into a full-scale war that involved both armies and unofficial citizen militias from Armenia and Azerbaijan and left thousands dead on both sides. Precariously positioned, Nakhichevan escaped being engulfed in the violence largely because its Armenian population had dwindled to less than 4,000 people and thus was not viewed as a threat by Azeri authorities.

Though a ceasefire was declared in 1994, Armenia and Azerbaijan have not yet reached a permanent agreement regarding Nagorny-Karabakh, and the hostility between the two countries makes the Djulfa destruction even more contentious. There can be little doubt that historical grievances and political land claims have played a part in this attempt to eradicate the historical Armenian presence in Nakhichevan.

A standing row of khachkars. Photo by Zaven Sargissian,1987. (Courtesy of Research on Armenian Architecture)

Reacting to the Ruins

Outraged at the destruction of the historic site, Armenians and members of the international Armenian community launched a public and political campaign to bring the issue to the eyes of the world. RAA published print materials and created online exhibits to raise awareness of the incident and its repercussions for Armenians. One RAA brochure states that, "Following the example of the Taliban who destroyed the statues of Buddha in Bamian, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan is obliterating Nakhichevan's centuries-old historical monuments, thus hoping to prove that the region was never an Armenian territory." Armenian foreign minister Vartan Oskanian protested in a letter to UNESCO dated December 16, 2005, calling the destruction "tantamount to ethnic cleansing." The Armenian National Committee of America led a fax campaign to American secretary of state Condoleeza Rice, demanding the United States condemn the devastation.

Azeri authorities wasted no time in firing back. After U.S. Congressional Armenian Caucus co-chairmen Joe Knollenberg (R-MI) and Frank Pallone (D-NJ) condemned the Djulfa incident in letters to Azeri officials, Azerbaijan's ambassador to the United States Hafez Pashayev responded with his own letter, dated January 9, 2006. In it, he asserted that it was impossible to identify either the cemetery as Armenian or the perpetrators as Azeri based on the videos shown on Hairenik. "Any accusation can be made against anybody based on that footage," he wrote, adding that the Azeri Ministry of Defense confirmed that none of its personnel had been involved with the Djulfa incident. He affirmed his nation's commitment to protecting the cultural heritage of all peoples. Pashayev then concluded that the Armenian accusations are "groundless" and meant to divert attention from Armenian destruction of Azeri heritage sites, destruction that includes, according to his count, 1,585 mosques, 20 museums, and 969 libraries. A few Azeri cultural and political organizations do list names of mosques and other sites allegedly destroyed by Armenians on their websites (see for example, this site), with a large portion of the destruction said to have happened during the Nagorny-Karabakh war. However, these claims have not yet been verified by international news services.

Khachkars and a carved ram's head stone. Photo by Zaven Sargissian,1987. (Courtesy of Research on Armenian Architecture)

Adding to the contrversy over Djulfa is the widespread belief in Azerbaijan, whose population is majority Muslim, that the Christian burial monuments were the work of the Caucasian Albanians (unrelated to the Albanians of the Balkans), and not the Armenians. Speaking to the BBC last December, Hasan Zeynalov, the permanent representative of Nakhichevan in the Azeri capital of Baku, strongly dismissed all concerns over Djulfa. "Armenians have never lived in Nakhichevan, which has been Azerbaijani land from time immemorial, and that's why there are no Armenian cemeteries and monuments and have never been any," he explained.

Despite this dramatic war of words and the best efforts of Armenian organizations, the coverage of, and response to, the incident by international news services, organizations, and Western governments has largely been tepid. The European Parliament issued a resolution condemning the events at Djulfa in February 2006. As for the United States, deputy assistant secretary of state Matthew Bryza called the incident a "tragedy" at a press conference in Armenia the following month, but added "the United States cannot take steps to stop it as it is happening on foreign soil." American ambassador designate to Azerbaijan Anne Derse, at her confirmation hearing in May 2006, responded to questions concerning Djulfa by saying that she "encouraged Armenia and Azerbaijan to work with UNESCO to investigate this incident." Not surprisingly, these statements have created little increase in concrete action or major news coverage, with articles from the London Times and The Independent being the lone exceptions. Clearly, the international community would rather sacrifice cultural heritage for stability, however temporary and precarious, in a region that has seen so much violence recently.

Khachkars broken down, probably for use as building material. Photo by Zaven Sargissian, 1987. (Courtesy of Research on Armenian Architecture)

Beyond the Armenian community, many archaeologists and scholars have also decried both the razing of the cemetery and the lack of response from the international community. The destruction of the cemetery at Djulfa is "a shameful episode in humanity's relation to its past, a deplorable act on the part of the government of Azerbaijan which requires both explanation and repair," says anthropologist Adam T. Smith of the University of Chicago, who has excavated in Armenia.

Smith, along with other archaeologists and students from six Western nations, sent a letter to Armenian cultural associations and sent copies to American and international archaeological and preservation organizations, members of the United States Congress and UNESCO. In it, they expressed their anger over the destruction of the historic cemetery, calling it "a violation of the memories of ancestors and an assault upon the common cultural heritage of humanity." At the same time, the signers condemned the Armenian government for decrying the loss of the cemetery while failing to protect cultural heritage sites within its own borders that are threatened by industry, development, and the weak authority of its ministry of culture. As of mid-June 2006, the scholars have received no responses to their letter.

One section of the cemetery, cleared of its khachkars. Other stone monuments remain standing higher on the hill. 1998. (Courtesy of Research on Armenian Architecture)

Searching for the Truth

Four months after the last of the khachkars were broken up and removed from the cemetery, according to observers in Iran, outsiders finally traveled to Djulfa to investigate. In April 2006, an unamed staff reporter from the nonprofit, London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting, the first outside journalist to investigate the issue on site, traveled to the Djulfa area. Accompanied at all times by Azeri security officers, and not permitted to visit the actual site of the cemetery, he was close enough to see that the landscape had been entirely stripped of any monuments. Where earlier photos had indicated that there were magnificent stone grave markers, there was only bare ground.

Later that month, ten European Union Members of Parliament (MEPs) were denied access to Djulfa by Azeri authorities after they traveled to Nakhichevan to investigate the eyewitness reports. Azerbaijan insists that it will not allow such a delegation to view the sites unless it also visits alleged sites of Armenian destruction of Azeri cultural heritage. This refusal aroused suspicion among many Armenian and international observers of Azerbaijan's claims of non-involvement. Said Hannes Swoboda, an Austrian MEP and member of the barred delegation, in The Independent, "If something is hidden we want to ask why. It can only be because some of the allegations are true."

The cemetery, partially cleared of khachkars. According to eyewitnesses, railroad cars like the one in this photo were used to cart away broken stones. Photo by Arpiar Petrossian, 1998. (Courtesy of Research on Armenian Architecture)

Regardless of any conclusions drawn from the video footage and eyewitness accounts, Djulfa sits just across the Araxes from Iran. As it is a border zone, Azeri government forces patrol the area heavily, and it is unlikely that such an incident could have occured without their knowledge, if not complicity or involvement. As the European Parliament noted in its February declaration, Azerbaijan ratified the UNESCO World Heritage Convention in 1993. By failing to safeguard the khachkars and other headstones it has violated its agreement under that convention to preserve and protect cultural heritage. Azerbaijan, a member of the Council of Europe, is also held to the statutes of the Valetta Convention of 1992, which requires member states to protect archaeological heritage within their borders. Thus, regardless of the identity of the perpetrators, the events of December 2005 represent Azerbaijan's violation of, or failure to live up to, the international agreements it has signed. Even if, as Pashayev asserts, the Azeri government did not commit the desecration at Djulfa, it was still responsible for protecting the khachkars.

Khachkars knocked to the ground. 2002. (Courtesy of Research on Armenian Architecture)

Breaking the Pattern

The politically motivated desecration of cultural sites, including cemeteries, is not unique to the southern Caucasus. During the recent war in Kosovo, Muslim Albanian extremists destroyed numerous Serbian Christian cemeteries and accompanying churches. In several instances, remains were disinterred from graves and scattered around the cemeteries, in a powerful message to discourage the ethnic Serbs from returning to their villages.

In March 2003, graffiti was discovered on a large memorial at the Etaples Military Cemetery in Pas-de-Calais, France, where 11,000 British soldiers, most of whom died during World War I, are buried. Messages spray-painted on the monument attacked England and its ally in the war in Iraq, the United States, and included the phrases "Dig up your rubbish, it's contaminating our soil," "Rosbeefs [a derogatory slang term for the British] go home," and "Sadam [sic] will win and spill your blood." A majority of French citizens oppose the war in which England and the United States are engaged, and the vandals attempted to air their political grievances against modern people by attacking their opponents' sacred past.

Last year in Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia, the local government strongly condemned the vandalism of a colonial-era cemetery, where the bodies of more than 700 Italian expatriates were exhumed and scattered. Regional governor Abdullah Hassan Firimbi, speaking with the online daily Arab News, said that the vandals who committed these acts were anti-government rebels, and the desecration was a protest against the new Somali government, which is dependent on foreign aid from Italy.

Another field of broken, scattered khachkars. 2002. (Courtesy of Research on Armenian Architecture)

The recent destruction in Djulfa is one example of many where symbolic violence against the dead is used as an expression of modern enmity. In the southern Caucasus, a bizarre Soviet geopolitical relic has fueled animosity, violence, and cultural devastation. But is there a way forward from the events at the Djulfa cemetery?

In their letter, Smith and his fellow scholars called for the Azeri government to immediately commission an international team of conservators and archaeologists to restore the cemetery as much as possible. They also called for a conference on heritage management in the south Caucasus that would write and enforce guidelines for the preservation of historic sites and materials in the region, thus "bring[ing] a positive commitment to heritage preservation from a tragic event." The damage to the Djulfa cemetery is irreversible, but it could mark the end of such tragedies and be the starting point of a fresh commitment to preservation here and elsewhere.

Despite the back-and-forth blaming between the Armenians and Azeris, and questions surrounding the ultimate perpetrators, the graveyard at Djulfa, a place of unique beauty and cultural importance to the Armenian community, has been erased. It is important that the perpetrators are brought to justice, but it may be more important that this event receive much greater attention from the international community than it has. It is a cautionary tale, and the destruction of priceless cultural sites, like this cemetery on the Araxes, must not be allowed to happen again.

Sarah Pickman, an intern at ARCHAEOLOGY, is an undergraduate student at the University of Chicago pursuing a major in anthropology and a minor in art history.

http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/djulfa/index.html

Армянские кресты вычеркнуты из истории

Флавия Амабиле, La Stampa

В конечном итоге, в четверг в ситуацию был вынужден вмешаться Европейский парламент, чтобы официально потребовать от правительства Азербайджана "прекратить уничтожение средневековых армянских кладбищ и исторических крестов, высеченных из камня". Эти кресты, хачкары, армянские символы, устанавливались рядом с церквами, монастырями или кладбищами. Это священные кресты, в том смысле, что для армян священным является сам камень, который становится объектом почитания и культа. Таким образом, их разрушение превращается в святотатство.

Акты вандализма происходят в таких местах, как Джульфа, древний армянский город, теперь расположенный на территории Азербайджана в районе, который, как говорят, облюбовал Ной (Нахичевань считают селением Ноя). Город находился на берегах реки Аракс и процветал до тех пор, пока в 1605 году шах Аббас I не вынудил армян переселиться в Персию. Армяне ушли и основали большое поселение, которое назвали Новая Джульфа. Между тем шах, чтобы помешать возвращению жителей, разрушил старый город, но оставил в неприкосновенности его средневековые кресты.

Четыре века спустя, заявляет Collectif VAN (Vigilance Arménienne contre le Négationnisme, армянская организация, выступающая против исторического ревизионизма), "с 10 декабря несколько десятков азербайджанских солдат с лопатами, молотками и бульдозерами, разрушают хачкары и сбрасывают их в реку Аракс. Возможно, молчание ООН, ЮНЕСКО и международного сообщества объясняется тем, что здесь проходит нефтепровод Баку-Джейхан?" Армянская община Франции сразу же направила петицию, чтобы предупредить весь мир о том, что происходит. Фото, видеозаписи распространяются по сайтам армянских общин всего мира. Но в данном случае, вероятно, статистика более действенна, чем видеоизображение: из 12 тысяч крестов сегодня осталось лишь несколько сотен, да и те в плачевном состоянии.

Армянский мир отреагировал, забив тревогу, требуя вмешательства ЮНЕСКО, мобилизуя правительства Соединенных Штатов и Великобритании. В конце декабря, члены конгресса США обратились к правительству Азербайджана, требуя положить конец этим разрушениям. Согласно данным Национального комитета армян Америки, в жестком письме, направленном президенту Азербайджана, представитель конгресса Адам Скиф осудил действия азербайджанской стороны, назвав их оскорбительным нарушением международных договоренностей: "Позволяя и таким образом поддерживая подобные акты, Республика Азербайджан не только обесчестила мертвых, похороненных на этом кладбище, но и сам Азербайджан и азербайджанский народ". В Великобритании баронесса Кэролайн Кокс и Джон Маркс представили запрос в палату лордов с требованием, чтобы британское правительство вместе с представителями ЮНЕСКО рассмотрели этот вопрос. В Италии армянская община поступила аналогичным образом, назвав эти действия "ударами молота по истории".

Молодые представители армянской общины в бюллетене на Akhtamar on-line сообщили о том, что в акции участвовали почти 200 солдат, они "с ожесточением обрушились на те каменные кресты, что уцелели в ходе предыдущих акций. Солдат было слишком много, чтобы рассматривать новую агрессию как отдельный поступок нескольких легкомысленных людей. Это удары молота по истории, так мы это называем, потому что существует специальный план по планомерному уничтожению следов армян в этом районе, были использованы даже железнодорожные вагоны, на которые грузили стелы".

http://jesuschrist.ru/news/2006/1/23/9937

16th General Assembly of ICOMOS
Quebec, Canada
30 September – 4 October 2008
RESOLUTIONS OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY*

Composition of the Committee - President: Werner von Trützschler (Germany); Rapporteur: Joan Domicelj (Australia); Members: Beverley Crouts-Knipe (South Africa), Francois Leblanc (Canada), Michèle
Prats (France), Ruth Shady Solis (Peru), Jordi Tresseras (Spain).
A. CURRENT ISSUES

5. The destruction of the historic cemetery of Jugha (Autonomous Republic of Nachitchevan, Azerbaijan).

One of the famous Armenian sites, Jugha, was the hub of commerce and crafts since historic times.
In the 15th and 16th centuries it was recognized as a center of vernacular architecture, epigraphy, writing, the processing of precious stones and tapestry. The historic cemetery of Jugha, as one of the outstanding examples of historic monuments, was composed of tens of thousands of khatchkars (cross stones) that bore witness to the talent of construction and to the artistic skill of the master masons of Jugha.
Given that in recent years the historic and cultural heritage has suffered from wars, conflicts and
political tensions, this heritage that once enjoyed its worthy place among the treasures of the
world's heritage can no longer be transmitted today to future generations,
Considering that despite international efforts in heritage protection, and particularly the measures taken by ICOMOS in the field of World Heritage in Danger, as recommended by the 15th General Assembly of ICOMOS on the protection of cultural heritage outside borders,With the aim of preventing that such events are repeated, the 16th General Assembly of ICOMOS,
meeting in Quebec, Canada, in October 2008 resolves to:

• Draw the attention of the Azerbaijani authorities, as a State Party to the Convention on the

Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage, to the destruction of the Jugha cemetery and to transmit to them the concern of the international community of conservation experts,

• Ask the Azerbaijani authorities to facilitate the access of an expert delegation from UNESCO and/or ICOMOS in order to study the site and inform the international community of the results.

http://ecovast.ru/images/Canada/GA_08Resolutions.pdf

Parliamentary questions
29 April 2010	E-2867/10
WRITTEN QUESTION by Bart Staes (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

Subject: Destruction of Armenian heritage in Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan has been a member of Unesco since June 1992. Moreover, the EU has had a partnership and cooperation agreement with Azerbaijan since 1999. In Julfa, in the province of Nakhchivan (Yernjak district) is a centuries-old Armenian cemetery. Even though the province has been annexed by Azerbaijan, Armenians have lived there for centuries and are also buried there. In November 1998 the Azerbaijani authorities began destroying the cemetery. Unesco was able to halt this vandalism only temporarily. In 2005 the cemetery was virtually destroyed. Historically important headstones were broken up manually and mechanically and used as building material. At the beginning of March 2006 the whole area became a military site. Changing the use of a former cemetery containing thousands of human remains shows a lack of moral scruple by the Azerbaijani authorities. Is the Commission aware of these facts? Is the Commission considering taking action in the framework of the cooperation agreement and asking for an explanation in Azerbaijan? Is the Commission willing to urge the Azerbaijani authorities to restore this heritage site (for example by reopening the site to the public and placing a memorial)? What action can and will be taken so that such incidents do not happen again in the future? http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2F%2FEP%2F%2FTEXT+WQ+E-2010-2867+0+DOC+XML+V0%2F%2FEN

CULTURAL DIVERSITY
AND HUMAN RIGHTS

ARTICLE 4 Human rights as guarantees
of cultural diversity

The defence of cultural diversity is an ethical imperative, inseparable from respect for human dignity. It implies a commitment to human rights and fundamental freedoms, in particular the rights of persons belonging to minorities and those of indigenous peoples. No one may invoke cultural diversity to infringe upon human rights guaranteed by international law, nor to limit their scope.

ARTICLE 7 Cultural heritage
as the wellspring of creativity

Creation draws on the roots of cultural tradition, but flourishes in contact with other cultures. For this reason, heritage in all its forms must be preserved, enhanced and handed on to future generations as a record of human experience and aspirations, so as to foster creativity in all its diversity and to inspire genuine dialogue among cultures.

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001271/127160m.pdf

“The cultural wealth of the world
is its diversity in dialogue”

The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity was adopted unanimously in a most unusual context. It came in the wake of the events of 11 September 2001, and the UNESCO General Conference, which was meeting for its 31st session, was the first ministerial-level meeting to be held after those terrible events. It was an opportunity for States to reaffirm their conviction that intercultural dialogue is the best guarantee of peace and to reject outright the theory of the inevitable clash of cultures and civilizations. Such a wide-ranging instrument is a first for the international community.
It raises cultural diversity to the level of “the common heritage of humanity”, “as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature” and makes its defence an ethical imperative indissociable from respect for the dignity of the individual.
The Declaration aims both to preserve cultural diversity as a living, and thus renewable treasure that must not be perceived as being unchanging heritage but as a process guaranteeing the survival of humanity; and to prevent segregation and fundamentalism which, in the name of cultural differences, would sanctify those differences and so counter the message of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Universal Declaration makes it clear that each individual must acknowledge not only otherness in all its forms but also the plurality of his or her own identity, within societies that are themselves plural.
Only in this way can cultural diversity be preserved as an adaptive process and as a capacity for expression, creation and innovation. The debate between those countries which would like to defend cultural goods and services “which, as vectors of identity, values and meaning, must not be treated as mere commodities or consumer goods”, and those which would hope to promote cultural rights has thus been surpassed, with the two approaches brought together by the Declaration, which has highlighted the causal link uniting two complementary attitudes.
One cannot exist without the other.The Declaration, accompanied by the main lines of an action plan, can be an outstanding tool for development, capable of humanizing globalization.
Of course, it lays down not instructions but general guidelines to be turned into ground-breaking policies by Member States in their specific contexts, in partnership with the private sector and civil society.
This Declaration, which sets against inward-looking fundamentalism the prospect of a more open, creative and democratic world, is now one of the founding texts of the new ethics promoted by UNESCO in the early twenty-first century. My hope is that one day it may acquire the same force as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Koïchiro Matsuura
Director-General


http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001271/127160m.pdf

Surviving Khachkars from Djulfa.

Cultural genocide

Cultural genocide refers to the deliberate destruction of the cultural heritage of a people or nation for political, military, religious, ideological, ethnical, or racial reasons.

Article 7 of a 1994 draft of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples uses the phrase "cultural genocide" but does not define what it means. The complete article reads as follows:

Indigenous peoples have the collective and individual right not to be subjected to ethnocide and cultural genocide, including prevention of and redress for:

(a) Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of their integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values or ethnic identities;

(b) Any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their lands, territories or resources;

(c) Any form of population transfer which has the aim or effect of violating or undermining any of their rights;

(d) Any form of assimilation or integration by other cultures or ways of life imposed on them by legislative, administrative or other measures;

(e) Any form of propaganda directed against them.

Cultural advocates have leveled charges of "cultural genocide" in connection with various events:

• In reference to the Axis powers (primarily, Nazi Germany) policies towards some nations in World War II (ex. destruction of Polish culture)

• In 2007, a Canadian Member of Parliament criticized the Ministry of Indian Affairs' destruction of documents regarding the treatment of First Nations members as "cultural genocide."

• The destruction by Azerbaijan of thousands of medieval Armenian gravestones at a cemetery in Julfa, and Azerbaijan's subsequent denial that the site had ever existed, has been widely written about as being an example of cultural genocide.

• When Turkey's Minister of Cultural Affairs re-opened the medieval Armenian Aghtamar church in eastern Anatolia as a museum, critics objected to the use of its Turkified name, seeing in it a denial of the region's Armenian heritage and as a sort of "cultural genocide".

• Some scholars have discussed whether "cultural genocide" properly describes Japan's suppression of Korean language, traditions, and names, and the teaching of Korean history during the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_genocide

Sacred Stones Silenced in Azerbaijan

When, in the summer of 2005, Scottish researcher Steven Sim visited the region of Nakhichevan, an exclave of the South Caucasus republic of Azerbaijan, in order to study medieval Armenian monuments, he found out his trip was in vain — there was nothing there for him to research. After being detained and questioned by security police, Sim was asked why he expected Armenian Christian churches in a region where only Muslims lived. A villager, too, told him Armenians had never lived in Nakhichevan. When the researcher explained that a book had directed him to the ancient Armenian church in the village, an old man blasted out words in what Sim thought was German. The translator explained that the man was talking to him in Armenian, apparently to see if Sim was an Armenian spy. Knowing Armenian in a place where no Armenians ever lived seemed too awkward.

But Sim did not confront Azeris in Nakhichevan about history. Neither did he resist orders to put his camera away in a military zone at the Azerbaijani-Iranian border when his train was passing by world’s largest surviving Armenian medieval cemetery — Djulfa (Jugha in Armenian). Sim might have done otherwise if he knew back then he was going to be the last known outsider in this remote area — on the border with Iran — to glance at the thousands of sacred and beautifully handcrafted khachkars (literally, cross-stones) — up to eight feet tall burial monuments with intricately carved surfaces — before they were going to be reduced to dust in less than half a year.

More than 350 years ago, a foreign traveller to Djulfa estimated 10,000 khachkars in the cemetery. By 1998, less than eight decades after a Soviet agreement with Turkey placed Nakhichevan under Azerbaijan, there were only 2,000 remaining. Still, the surviving stones were stunning and irreplaceable, and a screaming statement to the aged presence of the Armenian people in Nakhichevan who were forced to leave their ancestral homes as Azerbaijan took over. Archaeology Magazine writes, ‘The oldest burials in the Djulfa cemetery … date to the sixth century AD, but most of the famed khachkars are from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.’ According to the International Council on Monuments and Sites, the Azeri authorities destroyed much of the cemetery in 1998 and in 2002 followed by limited international protest. But as late as August 2005, as Sim witnessed, Djulfa was not entirely wiped out. He says that ‘most of the stones were still there and had only been toppled’.

On December 15th, 2005, Russia’s Regnum News Agency was the first international outlet to quote reports of approximately ‘100 Azerbaijani servicemen … crush[ing] Armenian graves and crosses ….’ An Armenian film crew in northern Iran, where the cemetery was visible from, had videotaped dozens of men in uniforms in the Azerbaijani border hacking the khachkars down with sledgehammers, using a crane to remove some of the largest monuments from the ground, breaking the stones into small pieces, and dumping them into the River Araxes by a large truck. The destruction, which also amounted to desecration of Armenian remains beneath the stones, had reportedly started on December 14th and lasted for a few days giving the world media enough time to report it as it was happening. But it was not until April 2006 when Azeri journalists from the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting confirmed that the cemetery had vanished. The Times reflected on April 21st, ‘[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.’

While the bombing of the Bamiyan Buddhas had received worldwide coverage at the eve of the war on terror, the destruction of Djulfa was barely noticed. The only Associated Press article quoted Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev as denying the demolition report as ‘an absolute lie, slanderous information, a provocation’ and accusing Armenia of destroying Azeri monuments. The US administration’s response to the vandalism came only after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her assistants were asked about America’s reaction. While in her reply to a US legislator Rice urged Azerbaijan to ‘take appropriate measures to prevent any desecration of cultural monuments,’ her assistant Matthew Bryza said at a news conference it was ‘not really up to the United States to take steps to stop it’ because it was ‘happening in a foreign country’. Thomas de Waal, an expert on Armenian-Azerbaijani relations says, ‘Foreign investors and diplomats in Azerbaijan are very sensitive towards anything that touches on the Armenian-Azerbaijani issue and the peace process and are therefore very timid about raising the issue of the destruction of cultural monuments.’

Although, today, Armenia’s victory in the war with Azerbaijan over Nagorno Karabakh in the early 1990s is understood generally to be the reason for Djulfa’s destruction, the concern for Azerbaijan’s Armenian heritage has its roots in the beginning of the unresolved conflict itself. One reason for Karabakh’s breakaway from Azerbaijan, writes security analyst Emmanuel Karagiannis, was the fear ‘that the Armenian character of Karabakh would disappear as it had in Nakhichevan over the decades. The Armenian population in Nakhichevan had all but disappeared and Armenian monuments there were systematically removed and reportedly destroyed by the Azerbaijani authorities.’ The assertion that Nakhichevan’s native Armenian heritage has been completely cleansed is indirectly affirmed by Azeri officials. Hasan Zeynalov from Nakhichevan, for instance, has told the BBC, ‘Armenians have never lived in Nakhichevan, which has been Azerbaijani land from time immemorial, and that’s why there are no Armenian cemeteries and monuments and have never been any.’

Azerbaijan’s denial of Djulfa’s destruction followed by refusal to allow international observers to visit the cemetery site questions the effectiveness of a number of international laws. While a February 16th, 2006, European Parliament resolution condemning Djulfa’s demolition provided a list of international conventions violated by Azerbaijan, the vandalism was not mentioned in the US State Department’s 2006 International Religious Freedom Report on Azerbaijan released on September 15th, 2006. Identical to the wording of at least five-year-old reports, the State Department proclaimed that ‘all Armenian churches, many of which were damaged in ethnic riots that took place more than a decade ago, remained closed.’ Even outside Nakhichevan the statement did not reflect actuality. A church in central Azerbaijan’s Nizh village, for instance, was reopened in early 2006 for the Udi Christian minority after a publicized restoration eliminated the Armenian letters on church walls and nearby tombstones.

Today’s screamers to Djulfa’s lost treasure are the handful of surviving sacred stones that are scattered around the world similar to the forgotten Armenian exiles of Nakhichevan. These few khachkars were transferred from the cemetery before the 1990s and are found today in the yard of Armenia’s St Etchmiadzin Holy See, at the Hermitage Museum of St Petersburg and other places. Once medieval Armenia’s largest cemetery and rich with thousands of khachkars only years ago, the sacred graveyard of Djulfa has been erased and replaced, as March 2006 and later photographs testily, with a military rifle range.

Excerpts from Simon Maghakyan’s “Sacred Stones Silenced in Azerbaijan” article in History Today Magazine, November 2007. The full article is available at Britannica Online Encyclopædia.

"This cross-stone doesn't exist anymore, because of CULTURAL GENOCIDE".

http://armartproject.blogspot.com/

“There are thousands of khatchkars (cross-stones) here. Each khatchkar could very easily become a rare exhibit in any of the most famous European museums… If all of Europe’s millionaires were to enter the old Djulfa forest of khatchkars and come out bankrupt, the forest would not be endangered in any way.” – A European scholar on the Djulfa cemetery before the destruction

“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 Times, London

http://www.djulfa.com/

Step of destruction.

Stones were speaking about nation that lived there before azeries, and they decide destroy everything that can remind about another culture.