The following verses by Huseyin Cavit, the great poet of Azerbaijan, who stood accused of having pan-Turkist inclinations and was sent to Siberia in exile, provide an impressive metaphorical description of societies undergoing structural deformation as well as the impasse endured by ambitious people and nations:

Lames are practising dancing. Cowards they are, only keen on boasting- if not arrogance!

A weak and incompetent pretender aspiring to more than he is may become perilous for those in his realm at the earliest opportunity. Similarly, a relatively small nation having claims of power becomes a constant trouble to its neighbours. Even though they experienced such problematic instances, as was the case with Armenians, Azerbaijani Turks failed to learn from the disasters they were led into, and never took the due cautions to keep away from them.

The inherent Armenian aggressiveness and cruelty of a malicious character stem from their history. Armenians have always lived under the hegemony of a superior power. That is, they long lacked an established tradition of political independence. Throughout their history, their social status had been that of a servant and this involved a slavish lifestyle dominated by successive masters. The Romans, Persians, Byzantines, Arabs, Ottoman Turks, Russians... Whenever a new master took over, Armenians rebelled against the former. As reported by the Russian scholar V. L. Velichko, Armenians systematically betrayed their own masters. This perpetual sense of affinity with slavery prevailed over more human qualities -such as nobility and magnanimity, thereby allowing such negative qualities as appetite for power, jealousy, and hypocrisy to emerge.

This small nation, which created the myth of Great Armenia and chronically failed to realise this ambitious aspiration, was struck down by delusions of grandeur, and trapped itself into an ecstasy of self destruction. Armenians voraciously adopted the material and spiritual heritage of the Near Eastern people. This was realized in order to base their claims of grandeur and immortality, which stemmed from their slavish dreams, on empirically acceptable principles. In addition, they wanted to disguise their professionally fabricated lies, and turn the history of Old Age to their own advantage. In the last century, Armenians and Armenian scholars called for a nation-wide manoeuvre to create historically and scholarly acceptable arguments explaining the motives behind the map of Great Armenia faked by Russian politicians. Armenian politicians, as well as the intellectual elite, chose terrorism, a clear indication of cowardliness, weakness and fear, as their medium of struggle. They embarked on a massive destruction of the Turkish historical and cultural heritage in the area plotted as Armenia on the imaginary map mentioned earlier. Since this particular land had long belonged to Azerbaijan throughout its entire history, such acts of terrorism were, in fact, directed to Azerbaijani-Turkish cultural heritage.

Armenian attacks on Turkish cultural heritage have been carried out in several different ways:

Cultural plagiarism; promoting other peoples’ monuments as if they were Armenians’,

Armenianization; with some alterations confiscating the monuments of their neighbours,

Armenian style cultural terrorism; destroying the monuments not recognised by the international public...

Cultural plagiarism has manifested itself mostly in the field of musicology. A considerable number of folk songs and dancing tunes of Azerbaijan are introduced as Armenian even without bothering to change their names: Sari Gelin, Gocheri, Uzun Dere...

In addition, selected yallis, Turkish folk dancing figures -such as Anadolu and Nakhchivan, extend the repertoire of Armenian folk dancing.

Contemporary Armenian composers, especially A. Hachaturyan, often borrow pieces of Azerbaijani folk music in their operas and ballets. They have never had hesitations in adopting mugams -musical modes- of Azerbaijan, either. As strikingly evident from their names, the musical instruments known to be Turkish in origin are also claimed to be Armenian: Ney, zurna, keman, tar....

This situation resulted from the Armenian trend of plagiarism on the one hand, and the superior Turkish musical culture on the other. In the Middle Age, under the dominance of Turkish culture, Armenian music faded out through its own low standards of quality.

There has been a considerable destruction on Turkish decorative craftsmanship, especially on rug weaving. Turkish rugs were pillaged from Azerbaijani villages that were under occupation, and displayed at Erivan Rug Museum as if they had been samples of Armenian craftsmanship. One wonders if Armenians pride themselves on these.

The apparent disposition to change the Turkish names of tales, legends and bayatis -musical modes and rhythm- has been part of efforts to create an Armenian Folklore. The Armenian translation of our famous Koroghlu Legend is now introduced as if it was the original version. Worst of all, this clear case of cultural plagiarism has never been withstood by Azerbaijanis.

Architectural and archaeological monuments have always attracted more attention in the Armenian program of cultural terrorism since they are the best guarantee of the lands they were erected on. These lands of neighbouring countries have always been the envy of the Armenians, who, in the name of realising their myth of Great Armenia, habitually introduced the architectural monuments of their neighbours’ as their own.

At the beginning of the 20th century, V.L.Velicko wrote:

Armenians ruthlessly wiped out the history of Georgia, in the archaeological sense. They scraped off the Georgian inscriptions on the monuments. They broke into the old churches of Pravoslav, burgled and ransacked the Georgian churches.

Armenians claim themselves to be the only inheritors of the Christian culture in the Caucasus. The Caucasus Albanian monuments symbolising the Christian-Turkish civilisation founded in Azerbaijan have been carefully researched by the Armenians as if they were their own, and the results have been published internationally. The purpose behind such propaganda is to bolster up their case and create an image of an Armenian society having a deep-rooted and enduring culture.

Solid traditions of Christian-Turkish architecture have seemingly prevailed in Azerbaijan. The rich Christian architectural heritage remained within the territories of the Caucasus Albania comprises the essence of these traditions. Furthermore, in the 18th century, even when Islam reached its height, a great number of Mongolian landowners, who professed Christianity, had constructed countless number of churches and monasteries.

Mongolians providing patronage for the Christian had built new churches in Meragha and Tebriz in 1272 and 1282 respectively. In addition, they built a large monastery in the north of Meragha between 1294 and 1301. Their traditions allowed Mongolians to erect a church next to the sovereigns’ pavilion in military camps. They also built churches and monasteries in Karabagh, a favourable pastureland. In the ancient cemeteries of Karabagh, the graves having tombstones with figures of Turkish-Mongolian horsemen are that of Christian-Mongolian commanders’.

(Continue..)