‘Wedding in the mountains’: this act was the last in the fortress city. During the hottest days of the war, Hovhannes, who guarded the border, and Mariam, who held his back firmly, promised to start a new life in the St. Ghazanchetsots Church in Shuhi.
Half a year after the occupation of Shushi Ghazanchetsots' cross-bearing church hood, stretching to the sky, does not exist anymore! The country of Fake News – Azerbaijan - is spreading low-quality propaganda at the highest state level, spreading ostensibly 19th-century photos of Ghazanchetsots’ church hood bowed. With this, Baku wants to show that this is the former look of the church, and now it is restoring the old one.
“This is a 1911 photo with a church-hood like dome. We have a view of the city before the massacres of March 1920, because these buildings did not exist after the massacres. This, for example, is a picture taken after the massacres, the buildings are gone, they have been demolished, the church-hood of the dome has been removed,” expert on Azerbaijan issues Taron Hovhannisyan says.
Expert on Azerbaijan issues publishes historian Shahen Mkrtchyan’s archive of Artsakh treasures, sheds light on Azerbaijan’s dark affairs. These paintings are from March 1920, after the massacre of the Armenian population in Shushi.
“This is one of those photos. If we pay attention here, all the houses in the Armenian district around Ghazanchetsots Church are destroyed. This is actually a photo taken after the 1920 century, because the Aguletsots Church was completely destroyed in the 70s. This can never be in 1893. 1920, 2020: history severely tests Shushi, Ghazanchetsots,” Hovhannisyan says.
In the hands of the enemy, in captivity, history repeats itself. In addition to presenting Ghazanchetsots as Caucasus Albanian, Baku is still hesitant, this time they may try to convince the world that it is Russian Orthodox.
“In the case when from the middle of the 19th century 55-60% of the city’s population were Armenians, the Orthodox were a minority, of course, it is absurd to say that the city with a population of 19-20 thousand people has no Armenian church, but all the churches are Orthodox. All the sources state that the builder is an Armenian, the financing was done by Armenians, the inscriptions on the church state that it was financed by the Ghazanchetsots community,” Hovhannisyan says.
BAKU’S ANOTHER ATTEMPT TO RESHAPE HISTORY
Yan is in all the inscriptions related to the church, as well as the Arabic in the mosque of Shushi. The target of Baku is also this mosque of Shia Muslims. The thesis is circulating as if the Armenians cleared the Azerbaijani trace here with the help of Iranians.
“We do not have enough information about this, we need to study, but I can say one thing. History and Historical realities must be preserved and those who distort history must be held accountable,” says Abbas Badakhshan Zohuri, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Republic of Armenia.
While those who falsify history will answer, the architect who took part in the renovation of the Shushi mosque reminds important facts, refreshes the short memory of the country that made up history for itself.
The construction of the Lady Gohar Mosque began during Persian rule in the 1760s and was completed in 1885 during the tsarist regime.
Needless to say, there were no Azerbaijan or Azerbaijanis at that time, and no Turkish or Azerbaijani words or letters were found on the mosque.
“Giving nationality to a Muslim religious organization is contradicts the Quran, because the Quran does not recognize it. Muslim mosques can be divided into two parts: Shiite and Sunni. This mosque is Shiite, but to say it is Azerbaijani is nonsense,” Raffi Kortoshyan, Deputy Director, Architect of the Foundation for the Study of Armenian Architecture, says.
The Azerbaijani search for one’s own identity is absurd: who are they, where did they come from? They have not decided themselves yet.
“(Azerbaijanis) say that the Armenian churches belong to Udis, it wants to attribute everything to itself, and it does not understand who it is,” Raffi Kortoshyan says.
The Iranian expert also responded to the statements of the Azerbaijanis looking for them everywhere, the most impressive answer being the one who has restored Armenian and Iranian frescoes for many years.
“He is Reza Guli - a fresco specialist. Imagine, during the war, when Azerbaijan was preaching, he wrote an article saying: “How do you say that Artsakh is not Armenian? I smelled Armenian from every stone there,”” Raffi Kortoshyan says.
The Armenian scent will not disappear from Shushi.
