Armenian cemetery of Agulis
The Armenian cemetery of Agulis served a historically Armenian town in southern Nakhichevan whose population was destroyed in 1919 and whose built Armenian traces were later removed. The cemetery's loss belongs to the same heritage pattern as St Thomas Monastery and the wider Nakhichevan khachkar fields: destruction of funerary evidence, not only church buildings. Cemeteries are especially important because they carry names, dates, kinship lines and inscriptions that make historical presence difficult to deny. Their erasure therefore changes the evidentiary landscape itself. Armenian accounts treat Agulis as a case of cultural cleansing following demographic destruction; Azerbaijani official discourse generally disputes systematic erasure or places such monuments under a Caucasian Albanian frame.
The Armenian cemetery of Agulis served a historically Armenian town in southern Nakhichevan whose population was destroyed in 1919 and whose built Armenian traces were later removed. The cemetery's loss belongs to the same heritage pattern as St Thomas Monastery and the wider Nakhichevan khachkar fields: destruction of funerary evidence, not only church buildings. Cemeteries are especially important because they carry names, dates, kinship lines and inscriptions that make historical presence difficult to deny. Their erasure therefore changes the evidentiary landscape itself. Armenian accounts treat Agulis as a case of cultural cleansing following demographic destruction; Azerbaijani official discourse generally disputes systematic erasure or places such monuments under a Caucasian Albanian frame.