Tag: khachkars

Cemeteries serve as a reflection of societal beliefs, values and ideas and impact how we live and develop our identities; there we find every human manifestation, from the subtlest to the crudest.

For decades, the Azerbaijani government has engaged in the destruction of Armenian monuments in its quest to erase all evidence of our culture. But the campaign of cultural erasure stretches beyond the physical, to the digital realm as well.

Is it necessary to assimilate or exterminate a people to affirm one's identity? Has an Azerbaijani identity been founded upon the genocide of a people, who, like in Turkey, lived side by side with the Turkic populations until the rise of nationalism?

The late Samvel Karapetyan's work goes beyond Armenian heritage: It is a luminous testimony that highlights the violence of certain states to annihilate an indigenous culture with impunity.