Nakhichevan Cries Beyond the Grave (Summer 08)

Sarin Kodchiaan
bruinsrk@ucla.edu

The Southern Nakhichevan region of Julfa, located on the bank of the Araxes river and bordering Armenia, Turkey and Iran, was home to more than 10,000 individual khatchkars.
These carefully engraved, large pieces of stone stood as a testament of the Armenian presence in the region.

The cemetery was the largest in the world of its kind and dated back to the fifteenth century. Sustained attacks on the region began as early as the seventeenth century, when the Persian King Shah Abbas forcibly relocated over 150,000 Armenians to Isfahan during the Persian-Ottoman war.

Abbas destroyed the town of Julfa to prevent the Armenians’ return, but left the cemetery untouched in reverence.

Up until the start of twentieth century, 10,000 khatchkars remained reclining or standing. The area was at last rid of its entire Armenian population by the implementation of soviet policy when the historical Armenian province was given away to the Azerbaijani Republic, together with Nagorno Karabakh. The Azerbaijani government, set on preventing another "Karabakh", instituted cultural genocide.

Determined to erase even the slightest Armenian existence in its exclave, Azerbaijani forces began the systematic cleansing of Armenia’s cultural past. A systematic, state sponsored desecration of the medieval carved stones was carried out by Azerbaijani forces.
In 1998, 800 khatchkars were removed, but the destruction of the cemetery was temporarily ceased following protests from UNESCO, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The destruction continued again in November 2002, with videotapes from across the Araxes river of Azerbaijani forces crushing thousands of khatchkars.

ANCA, along with others who were outraged by the atrocities against this historical monument reached out to the international community for relief.

But by the time the International Council on Monument and Sites (ICOMOS)—the leading non-governmental organization working to preserve world’s cultural and religious landmarks—was informed in early 2003, the ancient cemetery had been completely flattened; remains were shipped away as rubble to be used as building materials.

The final cleansing of Armenian culture from ancient lands will lie heavy on the conscience of generations to come.

The richly decorated engraved stones were a testimony to Armenian presence and beauty. The outstanding and unusual number of khatchkars was a unique glimpse into our ancient past. The khatchkars, engraved with Christian symbols and subjects from daily life, were invaluable to Armenian history.

If the greater community is to consider the genocide of Armenians to be a crime against humanity, the intentional destruction of the culture is nothing short of a crime against the common heritage of humanity.

All that can be done now is to prevent the further destruction of historical sites in other places in the world. When the atrocities occurred, most were not even aware of their existence.
We have been robbed of the opportunity to experience and appreciate our own culture, making us all the more defined by our loss. This is the continuing genocide of the Armenian people.