Armenian Ornament at Azerbaijan's 'Victory Park'

The monumentwatch.org website, which monitors the cultural heritage of Artsakh, has reported that Azerbaijan has installed a monument adorned with traditional Armenian ‘Atsvagorg’ ornamentation at the center of the ‘Victory Park,’ which glorifies the military conquest of Artsakh and the ethnic cleansing of the Armenian population. This monument was presented to international observers at the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP 29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Political scientist Sosi Tatikian notes that this action represents the construction of yet another monument in Azerbaijan that celebrates military aggression and ethnic cleansing at the expense of Armenian cultural heritage. The main ornamental motif of the ‘Atsvagorg’ is the Eagle, which, according to experts, symbolizes the Winged Sun or the Urartian deity Khaldi and later the Zoroastrian Ahura Mazda. This iconography of the Winged Sun has been known in Armenian art since ancient times and is also reflected in the late medieval carpets of the Artsakh-Syunik region. In foreign literature, it is known as ‘Tschelaberd.’

Recently, this policy of cultural appropriation has been gaining significant momentum on international platforms. It is also noteworthy that in May 2024, an exhibition titled ‘Azerbaijani Carpets: The Genetic Code of Memory’ was opened at the Decorative Arts and Design Museum in Riga, the capital of Latvia, featuring primarily the carpets from the Artsakh and Armenian territories.

By appropriating Armenian heritage, Azerbaijan is violating the UNESCO conventions adopted in Paris in 2005 regarding the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions and the 1965 UN convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination.