ATHENS (Panorama.am) — On March 28, the Armenian Embassy in Greece, in collaboration with the Greek-Armenian Friendship Association, hosted an event titled “Identity Transformation and the Destruction of Armenian Monuments in Artsakh.” The event featured a report by historian and cultural heritage expert Armine Tigranyan, a lecturer at Yerevan State University, who stressed the urgent need to protect Artsakh’s cultural heritage from systematic erasure and appropriation by Azerbaijan.
“This was a crucial event because the issue of Artsakh’s endangered monuments was raised not just within Armenian circles but on an international platform,” Tigranyan told Panorama.am in an interview. “After years of global silence, we have reignited awareness of the destruction of Artsakh’s heritage.”
She highlighted that the Armenian Embassy in Greece explicitly condemned Azerbaijan’s policies and sent a clear message to UNESCO, urging it to take action.
In her report, Tigranyan detailed Azerbaijan’s deliberate destruction, desecration and appropriation of Armenian heritage sites, including churches, historical cemeteries and khachkars (cross-stones).
“The hostility towards Artsakh’s cultural heritage is not merely an attack on monuments; it is a denial of identity and an infringement on individual and collective rights,” she asserted.
The historian emphasized that Azerbaijan’s multi-vector strategy seeks to erase every aspect of Armenian cultural identity. It includes physical destruction of spiritual and cultural heritage (churches, khachkars, inscriptions, relief sculptures), erasure of victory and genocide memory (monuments from Artsakh’s independence era, memorials dedicated to the Artsakh Liberation War, the Armenian Genocide and World War II), elimination of historical traces (cemeteries, entire districts and villages) and destruction of global heritage sites (museums and contemporary cultural landmarks).
