Erasing the past: Nagorno-Karabakh’s vanishing Armenian cultural heritage6 min read
Since the 2020 war—and especially since Azerbaijan regained Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023—Armenians have been cut off from their cultural heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh. Documented cases show how Baku has enacted a strategy of systematic destruction and appropriation of Armenian cultural heritage sites. Meanwhile, Yerevan may be overlooking the issue in service of political normalization.
A long-disputed region
In the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire conquered the South Caucasus, including the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh (“Artsakh” in Armenian). According to later Soviet census data, Armenians formed the demographic majority in 1923. Even so, when drawing the borders of the Caucasian republics, the Soviet authorities placed Nagorno-Karabakh within the Azerbaijani SSR as an autonomous oblast. In 1988, during the Soviet Union’s final years, Nagorno-Karabakh’s regional council sought unification with Armenia, setting off violence that escalated into a war, which lasted until 1994. Armenia ended up controlling the region and the adjacent Azerbaijani districts, displacing large populations on both sides. In the aftermath, the UN General Assembly emphasized the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan within its internationally recognized borders, treating the land it lost in the war as occupied territory.
During the following decades, tensions remained high and Baku, having accumulated economic and military leverage, launched an attack in 2020 on the disputed region. The offensive lasted 44 days, and Baku reconquered the former Azerbaijani territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh. The conflict ended with a Russian-brokered ceasefire leaving Armenia connected to Nagorno-Karabakh through a single road known as the “Lachin Corridor”. In December 2022, Azerbaijan organized a blockade of Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh. Russian peacekeeping forces present in the area, under a mandate issued by the previous ceasefire agreement, did not intervene. In September 2023, while the people of Nagorno-Karabakh were cut off from Armenia, Azerbaijan attacked and took control of the region, pushing over 100,000 Armenians to leave their homes (almost the entire population of the area), setting off a major refugee crisis.
The war after the war: Azerbaijan’s cultural offensive
The disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh hosts more than 4000 Armenian cultural sites, 370 of which are churches, and has become the theatre of a new cultural clash. These monuments hold deep political significance, and are directly connected to the recent struggles of the Republic of Armenia. Azerbaijan sees this heritage as a threat to its claims over the area, and has advanced policies aimed at erasing Armenian identity and reshaping the land to serve its own political interests. Since the 1950s, historians in Baku have pushed the theory claiming that many churches in Nagorno-Karabakh were not, in fact, Armenian, but “Caucasian Albanian”. These claims came to justify the “restoration” of the religious sites, promoted in order to erase Armenian writings considered false by Azerbaijan. Alternative narratives have also described Nagorno-Karabakh as the “heartland of Azerbaijan’s cultural identity”, with the Azerbaijani government promoting the idea that “Karabakh is the cradle of Azerbaijani culture”.
Baku has also promoted tourism in Nagorno-Karabakh to showcase its control, hosting foreign delegations, journalists and ambassadors. This effort focused on Shusa, regained by Azerbaijan during the 2020 war and transformed into a key cultural center. Here, Armenian cultural heritage sites and a Genocide memorial were destroyed, while the city itself was branded as the “Cultural Capital of the Turkic World in 2023.” Across Nagorno-Karabakh more broadly, new mosques are being built in an effort presented as cultural restoration, but aimed at erasing “Armenian-ness” and reframing the area as historically Islamic and Azerbaijani. Azerbaijan has destroyed cultural sites, demolished churches, statues, memorials, monuments, Khachkars (carved memorial stones, whose symbolism and craftsmanship are recognized as Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO) and even razed Armenian cemeteries and entire villages.
The mere existence of Armenian legacy is an act of political resistance for Azerbaijan, and in response Baku has erased and damaged Armenian landmarks, while simultaneously boasting narratives of multi-culturality and tolerance. The EU condemned the actions of Azerbaijan and UNESCO expressed its concern about the events, but no meaningful intervention has followed.
Diplomacy at the cost of memory?
In June 2025, Armenia’s PM Pashniyan advocated for a new vision of “Real Armenia”: advocating for the abandonment of narratives of historical grievance towards Baku and Ankara, with renewed focus on establishing security through improved relations with its neighbouring countries. In August 2025, an improvement of relations was achieved with the Armenia-Azerbaijan Deal. However, this agreement only expresses the will to “build good neighborly relations” and does not address the question of heritage protection. This suggests that Armenia’s government might accept silence on Nagorno-Karabakh’s cultural erasure in exchange for better diplomatic and economic ties with Turkey and Azerbaijan. This is also symbolized by the recent decision of Armenia’s government to stop using Mount Ararat on its passport stamp: the mountain is nowadays in Turkey, but it is still considered a sacred symbol of Armenia and the cradle of its civilization. This approach is bearing fruit, since Turkey recently announced that it was considering reopening its land border with Armenia sometime in the next six months, after more than three decades of closure—but it remains a lopsided arrangement, where Turkey makes requests, and Armenia accepts them, rarely the other way around.
We are our Mountains: a symbol of national identity
Every act of destruction or preservation shapes what a society will be able to remember in the future, and what it will no longer be able to see. In this case, the destruction of landmarks means the erosion of memory and identity. The Armenian legacy in Nagorno-Karabakh matters because it carries an enormous political and symbolic weight: it represents part of the history of the region and the Armenian people, but also the broader struggle for recognition and the preservation of identity. If Armenians are left without any legacy in Nagorno-Karabakh, this will mean the disappearance of a unique piece of history.
The most famous Armenian landmark of Nagorno-Karabakh is “We are our Mountains” (Menq enq mer sarere), also known as “Grandmother and Grandfather” (Tatik Papik). A monument built in 1967 on a hill close to Stepanakert, the former capital of autonomous Nagorno-Karabakh, representing the connection that the Armenians have to their mountains and their ancestors. The sculpture is today broadly used as a symbol of Nagorno-Karabakh and even Armenia as a whole, and its representation is often employed to evoke the region’s deep Armenian cultural roots.
How the past becomes the future
This battle over heritage is not only related to symbols of the past, but also to who owns the future of the region. Azerbaijan is attempting to write a new history that can root and legitimize its control over Nagorno-Karabakh, with the risk that their narrative may prevail on historical truth. This does not mean that Armenia should fuel antagonism, but Azerbaijan should try to acknowledge the significance of Nagorno-Karabakh’s cultural sites and the deep implications of overlooking such a crucial part of the region’s legacy.
Genuine peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan cannot be built on silence or amnesia, and protecting cultural sites is not an act of hostility, but one of preservation. For Armenians, each destroyed church or Khachkar is not only a loss of memory but also a wound, and abandoning cultural heritage now may fuel hatred in the future. That is why defending and giving relevance to this heritage is crucial to protect history against distortion and to make sure that the collective memory of Nagorno-Karabakh lives on.
