CULTURAL GENOCIDE IN THE CAUCASUS REGION
Cultural genocide or ethnocide reflects the deliberate and systematic act of an ethnic group to deprive another one of the right to enjoy, develop and transmit its own culture and language, whether collectively or individually. Whereas the genocide assassinates the people in their body, cultural genocide kills them in their spirit.
A recent example of cultural genocide is the one that caused the complete destruction of an important heritage place is the ancient city of Julfa at the border between Azerbaijan and Iran. Indeed, Between the 1970s and early 2000s, over 10,000 medieval gravestones from the Armenian cemetery of Julfa were fully destroyed by the Azeri army. The papers below provide more details on this event and the lost heritage of Julfa.
Haghnazarian, A. and Wickmann, D. 2003. Report on the destruction of the Armenian Cemetery at Julfa , ICOMOS Heritage at Risk 2002-2003.
Haghnazarian, A. and Wickmann, D. 2007. Report on the destruction of the Armenian Cemetery at Julfa , ICOMOS Heritage at Risk 2006-2007, 37-38.
GTHRP 2010. High-Resolution Satellite Imagery and the Destruction of Cultural Artifacts in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan, AAAS 2010, 1-8.