Armenian cultural heritage in Azerbaijan refers to historic buildings and cultural traditions of Armenians who lived in what today conforms to the territory of Azerbaijan. Armenians had a presence in what is now Azerbaijan going back to at least the 2nd century BC in Nakhchivan, which was part of the new Kingdom of Armenia established by Artaxias I.Hewsen, Robert H. Armenia: A Historical Atlas. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2001. Armenians also had presence in Baku dating back to the 7th century AD. Prior to the Karabakh Movement and the ensuing First Nagorno-Karabakh War, about 500,000 Armenians lived in Soviet AzerbaijanMemorandum from the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights to John D. Evans, Resource Information Center, 13 June 1993."Implementation of the Helsinki Accords: Human Rights and Democratization in the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union" (Washington, DC: U.S. Congress, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, January 1993), p. 118. where they had an active cultural presence. Most Armenians fled during the war and their numbers in Azerbaijan today is less than 1% of their pre-war figures.Этнический состав Азербайджана (по переписи 1999 года) After the ceasefire of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, there has been a marked increase of Anti-Armenian sentiment in Azerbaijan coupled with reports about destruction of Armenian cultural monuments there. After the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, there has been no significant cultural activity of Armenians in Azerbaijan outside of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenian communities in Azerbaijan Armenians communities in Azerbaijan are the Armenians who lived in great numbers in the modern state of Azerbaijan and its precursor, Soviet Azerbaijan. About 500,000 Armenians lived in Soviet Azerbaijan prior to the outbreak of the Karabakh Movement in 1988 and the ensuing First Nagorno-Karabakh War.
Apart from Nagorno Karabakh, Armenians historically lived in Baku, Nakhchivan, Sumgait and Ganja. They have build churches, cemeteries, schools and left a rich cultural heritage that has been largely destroyed.
Nagorno-Karabakh
The cultural heritage of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) comprises extensive tangible and intangible Armenian-associated traditions, especially religious and civil architecture, fortifications, inscriptions, and related arts, concentrated in a landscape described as exceptionally rich in monuments.A. L. Yakobson. From the History of Medieval Armenian Architecture: the Monastery of Gandzasar. In: "Studies in the History of Culture of the Peoples in the East." Moscow-Leningrad. 1960. pp. 140–158 [in Russian].Jean-Michel Thierry. Eglises et Couvents du Karabagh, Antelais: Lebanon, 1991, p. 4-6Jean-Michel Thierry. Eglises et Couvents du Karabagh, Antelais: Lebanon, 1991. p. 4 In Nagorno-Karabakh there are around 500 historical sites with about 6000 Armenian monuments. Regional artistic development broadly follows major phases of Armenian art—from pre-Christian traditions through early Christianization and a medieval peak—while expressing itself most prominently in ecclesiastical complexes (churches, monasteries, chapels) closely tied to the Armenian Apostolic Church.Volume 19: Gharabagh. Documents of Armenian Art/Documenti di Architettura Armena Series. Polytechnique and the Armenian Academy of Sciences, Milan, OEMME Edizioni; 1980, John Halajian. Armenian Church Architecture: From Dormancy to Revival. Tate Publishing & Enterprises (August 2006), , p. 28.Rev. Hamazasp Voskian. The Monasteries of Artsakh, Vienna, 1953, chapter 1Volume 17: Gandzasar. Documents of Armenian Art Series. Polytechnique and the Armenian Academy of Sciences, Milan, OEMME Edizioni; 1987,
Architectural practice generally aligns with wider Armenian building principles, favoring limestone cores faced with cut stone or tuff, and includes characteristic monastic forms such as the gavit, with major thirteenth-century centers at Dadivank, Gandzasar, and Gtichavank.Tom Masters, Richard Plunkett. Georgia, Armenia & Azerbaijan (Lonely Planet Travel Guides). Lonely Planet Publications; 2nd edition (July 2004). Volume 19: Gharabagh. Documents of Armenian Art Series. Polytechnique and the Armenian Academy of Sciences, Milan, OEMME Edizioni; 1980, Boris Baratov. Paradise Laid Waste: A Journey to Karabakh, Lingvist Publishers, Moscow, 1998 Artsakh also preserves distinctive categories of material culture, including Iron Age anthropomorphic idols, inscribed border stones (sahmanakars), khachkars,Anatoli L. Yakobson. Armenian Khachkars, Moscow, 1986 lapidary Armenian inscriptions, limited but significant fresco cycles (notably at Dadivank), and an important tradition of illuminated manuscripts and carpet weaving, including inscribed rugs.Jean-Michel Thierry. Eglises et Couvents du Karabagh, Antelais: Lebanon, 1991, p. 11Murad Hasratian. Early Modern Christian Architecture of Armenia. Moscow, Incombook, 2000, p. 5Paul Bedoukian. Coinage of the Artaxiads of Armenia, London, 1978, p. 2-14Jean-Michel Thierry and Patrick Donabedian. Les arts arméniens, Paris, 1987. p. 231
Around 180 BC, Artsakh became one of the 15 provinces of the Armenian Kingdom and remained so until the 4th century. While formally having the status of a province (), Artsakh possibly formed a principality on its own – like Armenia's province of Syunik. Other theories suggest that Artsakh was a royal land, belonging directly to the king of Armenia.Hewsen, Armenia, pp. 100–103. King Tigran the Great of Armenia (who ruled from 95 to 55 BC) founded in Artsakh one of four cities named Tigranakert after himself. The ruins of the ancient Tigranakert, located north-east of Stepanakert, are being studied by a group of international scholars. Armenian culture and civilization flourished in the early medieval Nagorno-Karabakh.
In the 5th century, the first-ever Armenian school was opened on the territory of modern Nagorno-Karabakh at Amaras Monastery through the efforts of St. Mesrop Mashtots, the inventor of the Armenian alphabet. St. Mesrop was very active in preaching the Gospel in Artsakh and Utik. Overall, Mesrop Mashtots made three trips to Artsakh and Utik, ultimately reaching pagan territories at the foothills of the Greater Caucasus. The 7th-century Armenian linguist and grammarian Stephanos Syunetsi stated in his work that Armenians of Artsakh had their own dialect, and encouraged his readers to learn it. The principal expression of Artsakh's art in the Middle Ages was through ecclesiastical architecture: churches, cathedrals, chapels and monasteries. Most other forms of art in that period, including illuminated manuscripts, khachkars (Armenian: խաչքար; unique-to-Armenia stone slabs with engraved crosses) and mural paintings were likewise tied to Artsakh's religious life and its primary institution—the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Baku
In the 7th century Armenian philosopher, mathematician, geographer, astronomer and alchemist Anania Shirakatsi in his most famous work Ashkharhatsuyts (Geography) listed Alti-Bagavan as one of the 12 districts of the Province Paytakaran (one of the 15 Provinces of Armenia), which linguist and orientalist Kerovbe Patkanov in his translation identifies as Baku.Армянская география VII века” Анании Ширакаци. Пер. К. Патканяна. СПб 1877 г., 50, 51
Orientalist and academician Vasily Bartold referring to the 15th century Persian historian Hamdallah Mustawfi, speaks about the existence of an old Armenian church in BakuВ.В. Бартольд "Место прикаспийских областей в истории мусульманского мира". Курс лекций. Баку 1925 г. http://armenianhouse.org/arustamyan/town-ru.html Many Armenians in Baku lived in the old city's Armenian quarter called Ermenikend (Armenian: Արմենիքենդ; Azerbaijani: Ermənikənd; Russian: Арменикенд, literally "Armenian village" in Azerbaijani) was a district located in the Nasimi raion of Baku, where many Armenians lived.,Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War, Thomas De Waal – 2003, p. 30, cit. "Armenian quarter Armenikend" and took up jobs as merchants, industrial managers and government administrators.Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia 2004. Europa Publications Limited. Azerbaijan. Officially the district was part of a larger district named "Shahumyan" after the Armenian Bolshevik leader Stepan Shaumyan who lived in Baku.
Armenians established a community in the city with churches, schools, and was the scene of a lively literary culture. They formed a sizeable community in Baku, following a large influx of Armenians upon the city's incorporation into the Russian Empire in 1806. The Armenian population increased further when Baku became a major center for oil production and offered other economic opportunities to enterprising investors and businessmen. Following the Sovietisation of Azerbaijan, Armenians managed to reestablish a large and vibrant community in Baku made up of skilled professionals, craftsmen and intelligentsia and integrated into the political, economic and cultural life of Azerbaijan. The Armenians were the second most numerous group in the judiciary.
During the Soviet period, Armenians of Baku were part of a multiethnic Russian-speaking urban subculture to which ethnic identity began losing grounds and with which post-World War II generations of urbanized Bakuvians regardless of their ethnic origin or religious affiliations tended to identify. Rumyantsev, Sergei. "Столица, город или деревня. Об итогах урбанизации в отдельно взятой республике на Южном Кавказе." Demoscope Weekly. 10–23 October 2005. Mamardashvili, Merab. "«Солнечное сплетение» Евразии." By the 1980s, the Armenian community of Baku had become largely Russified.
The large scale construction and expansion of the city attracted numerous Russian and Armenian architects, many of whom had received their education in Russia (in particular, Saint Petersburg) or other parts of Europe. Prominent Armenian architects included Hovhannes Katchaznouni, Freidun Aghalyan, Vardan Sarkisov, and Gavriil Ter-Mikelov. Many of the buildings they designed, influenced by Neo-Classical themes then popular in Russia and also styles and motifs taken from medieval Armenian Church Architecture, still stand today. Among the most well known examples are the Azerbaijan State Philharmonic Hall and the Commercial College of Baku (both designed by Ter-Mikelov).
The Saint Thaddeus and Bartholomew Cathedral, built in 1906–1907, was destroyed in the 1930s. The Church of the Holy Virgin, which had not been functioning since 1984 due to falling in severe disrepair, was demolished in the early 1990s.David Samvelian. . The St. Gregory Illuminator Church was set aflame during the pogrom of 1990,Implementation of the Helsinki Accords: "Human Rights and Democratization in the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union". Washington, DC: U.S. Congress, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, January 1993, p. 116. but was restored in 2004 during a renovation and was transformed into the archive department of the Department of Administration Affairs of the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan.Yeni Müsavat: "Prezident Kitabxanasının balansında olan məbəddə hələ də təmir gedir; müvafiq qurumlar isə “bu kilsə bərpa olunmayacaq” deyir...". by Günay Musayeva. 5 August 2011 During a visit of Armenian Apostolic Church's Catholicos Karekin II to Baku in 2010, he witnessed all traces of the Armenian history in the church being removed including the bells, altar, baptistery, and frescoes.