Azeri soldiers destroying an Armenian Cemetary

Cultural Crime in Silence

GENOCIDE - Cultural Genocide

Cultural genocide is the complete destruction of a culture for political, racial, or military reasons. That includes language, art, music, traditions, religions and anything else unique to that specific culture. While it can include the murder of people of a certain ethnicity, the phrases is usually used to describe when a group of people is forced or coerced to change who they are and so they lose their original culture. It often includes the destruction of religious or traditional objects or buildings.This type of genocide is the one most overlooked or ignored. The destruction of a culture however is the same as the destruction of a people, a civilization, a way of life. Our world is full of differences, ones that we may not see every day but ones that we should embrace rather than fear.

Although genocide is recognised as a crime under international law, cultural genocide is not. Genocide, the actual murder or eradication of numbers of people because of their ethnic, religious or national identity at least results in physical evidence in the form of actual bodies and falling populations, but cultural genocide is far more difficult to proscribe.



The cultural genocide is a way to cancel a people in a more subtle and less visible way, without massacres, deportations and assassinations, but eliminating their culture, language and religion.Various authoritarian and nationalist regimes have choosen this system when they wanted to resolve the problems created by ethnical minorities within their borders without making too many mess, arousing the horror and blame of international public opinion, for image and diplomacy reasons.

The term 'cultural genocide' comes from the word ‘gens’, meaning a clan or community of people related by common descent.

The idea of cultural genocide implies the process of undermining, suppressing, and ultimately eliminating, native cultures.

The deliberate destruction of the cultural heritage of a people or nation for political or military reasons is also termed as cultural genocide.

Old Jugha

Jugha was an eyewitness to all the historical events which took place on the territory between Nakhichevan and Vaspurakan. In the Middle Ages, this densely populated, prosperous town was often subjected to invasions by foreign forces and was devastated, plundered and set on fire. It was in 1605 that Jugha finally lay in ruins and its population was forced to migrate. The name "Jugha" has not as yet been etymologically studied. Chronologically, the oldest Armenian names of this site from the fifth through 17th centuries were Jughah, Chojha, Jugha. To differentiate it from Nor (new) Jugha in the 17th through 20th centuries, it was called Hin (old) Jugha (it is pronounced "khin" in local dialect). Historians and travelers have called it Djoulfa, Ciulfa, Iulfa, Zulfa, Usulfa, Sulfa, Diulfa, Tulfa, Iula, Chiulfa, and Zugha.

Jugha was founded on an important crossroad of the well known trade and military transit routes of the Old World, through which, routes from the far East passed on their way to the shores of the Mediterranean. It is later found in records of the seventh century, connected with Arab invasions of Armenia. Ghevond, the historian, wrote that the Arabs, attacking the lands of the Armenians, occupied Goghtn and its surrounding provinces "... many men were put to the sword, and others with their wives and children were enslaved, taken over the Yeraskh to the roots of Jugha..."4. Then the Arabs again attacking the lands of the Armenian in 688 "...performed many unlawful acts in Marats, and Khram, in Khoshakunes and in Jugha".



Historical sources speak of the fact that beginning from the X - XII centuries, trade grew equally rapidly with crafts in Jugha. In the XI century it had its center and in rank and fame Jugha was placed along with Nakhichevan. Being located on an important trade route, called the :royal" or merchant route, Jugha became outstanding within a short period of time, as a storehouse and trade exchange center of transit goods in the Arax (Yeraskh) valley. Beginning from the XV century, it achieved unprecedented prosperity. Therefore, the people of Jugha considered being a merchant the main, prime, hereditary occupation - a profession. Thus in the XV - XVII centuries there were many Jugha merchants in Armenian economical life, who called themselves "khojas". They were famous for the tremendous wealth and resources they had accumulated and also as organizers of printing and publishing among Armenians. They were devoted patriots. It was during those centuries, a period of considerable downfall for Armenia politically, economically, and culturally, that Jugha attained great fame: its wealth was known everywhere. The riches of Jughaites were fabulous: decorations and furnishings in the homes and mansions of "khojas" were mostly gold and silver. It was for these reasons that in 1541 Catholicos Grigor XI in his pastoral letter spoke about Jugha as a "divine village"15. In the XV - XVI centuries, Hakob Jughayetsi, the famous miniature painter, when copying the colophon of a Gospel in 1587 called the town a "great religious capital"16. Khachatur Khizanetsi, the merited scribe, in the colophon of the Menology he copied in 1594 wrote that he had copied it in "the capital Jugha, the shelter and pride of the Haigazian family; we beseech the Creator to always keep it prosperous".

In the middle of the XIX century, with the erection of state customs services, garrisons, post office, etc., three kilometers east of Jugha, a new settlement arose on the bank of the Arax which was call Julfa. It is now the center of the district. (The name the Jughaites used to give Julfa was Kraktin.) During wars between neighboring peoples in 1918 - 1818, the Jugha battalion, consisting of Jughaites, heroically opposed and fought to save its native village from destruction. However, in July 1919, to prevent the entry of an army consisting of more than 500 regularly armed fighters into Jugha, a group of 32 brave Jughaites fought self-sacrificingly; after that the whole population was compelled to migrate to Tabriz. In July 1920, when Soviet power was established in Nakhichevan, those Jughaites who had migrated to Tabriz returned to live in their native village.

The Armenian Cemetery of Julfa, Nakhijevan

The violence against the memory and history of the Armenian people reached its climax with the total destruction of the historical cemetery of Julfa (known as Jugha' in Armenian) located in Yernjak District.
Julfa Cemetery used to extend over three hills on the left bank of the river Arax. Boasting a special place in the treasury of world heritage, this extensive depository of spiritual and artistic monuments aroused the admiration of both Armenian and foreign travellers and art historians for many centuries. French traveller Alexandre de Rhodes, who visited the cemetery in 1648, saw 10,000 standing khachkars and ram-shaped tombstones there. By 1904, however, their number had been reduced to 5,000.
The khachkars of Julfa Cemetery fall into three groups. The first group dates from the period between the 9th and 13th centuries; the second group from the 14th to 15th centuries, and the third covers the time span between the early 16th century and the year 1605.
All the khachkars were carved of pink and yellowish stone. Having equal width from top to bottom, they were between two and two and a half metres high. Their central parts were more deeply-engraved, the crosses and double-layer reliefs creating a peculiar contrast of light and shade. The khachkars were adorned with fine rosettes, as well as reliefs of plants, geometrical figures and scenes of daily life. Their upper parts often bore the representations of Christ, the Evangelists and the Holy Virgin. Most of the khachkars and grave-stones of the cemetery had embossed or engraved Armenian epitaphs.

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