Azerbaijan discusses damage caused to its library and information sphere as result of Armenia's aggression

By Trend

An online scientific conference "Azerbaijani monuments of material culture destroyed in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh region: libraries, museums, educational institutions" was held in the Central Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan (ANAS), a source in the library told Trend.

Director of the library, professor Mammad Aliyev stressed that the Central Scientific Library of the academy will contribute to the creation of a library and information network in the liberated Azerbaijani districts, cities, villages, and settlements upon a joint initiative of volunteer groups.

Director of the Institute of History, Ethnography and Archeology of the Nakhchivan Branch of the academy, Corresponding Member of the academy Hajifahraddin Safarli emphasized at the event that after the creation of an Armenian state on the historical Azerbaijani lands in 1918, the material and cultural heritage of Azerbaijanis in Armenia was subjected to vandalism.

“All historical monuments in Irevan fortress, including the Khan's palace and the Sardar mosque, were destroyed,” Safarli said. “The Pir Hussein mausoleum, in which head of one of Garagoyunlu tribes of Saadlu Turkic tribe Amir Saad has been buried, near Yerevan, has been presented as a "Turkmen monument".”

“The attempts were made to distort history and erase the belonging of the monuments in Urud village of Armenia’s Garakilse district to the Azerbaijani culture by adding additional letters to the inscriptions on them,” Safarli said.

“Inscriptions with verses in the Azerbaijani language on monuments are being destroyed, as historical realities contradict the distorted information spread by the Armenians in the world,” Safarli added.

While mentioning the destruction of images of the Azerbaijani material culture as an example, Deputy Director for Scientific Work of the Institute of Caucasian Studies of the academy, Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor Ramilya Dadasheva spoke about the international crimes committed by the Armenians against the Azerbaijani statehood and people.

“The Hague Conventions, the protocols to these conventions and other similar conventions, in case of a military conflict, put forward an obligation for the participating parties to protect material and cultural samples located both on their own territory and on the territory of the opposite side,” Dadasheva added.

“The vandalism committed by the Armenians against the Azerbaijani historical monuments completely contradicts the obligations within these conventions,” Dadasheva said.

Head of the "Preparation of bibliographic resources" section of the bibliography department of the Central Scientific Library of the academy Tarana Rustamova, working for degree of doctor of the Institute of Manuscripts of the academy, stressed that the Armenians plundered nine centralized library systems, 927 libraries with 4.6 million copies of books in the Nagorno-Karabakh region and adjacent districts, which are ancient Azerbaijani lands.

There were 13 historical and cultural monuments of world importance (six architectural and seven archaeological monuments), 292 monuments of national importance (119 architectural and 173 archaeological monuments), 330 monuments of local importance (270 architectural monuments, 22 archaeological monuments, 23 garden and park statues, memorial monuments, 15 examples of decorative art) in the liberated Azerbaijani districts, which were under the Armenian occupation for about 30 years.

In accordance with the approximate estimates, material damage in the amount of $20.8 million was caused to Azerbaijan’s library and information sector.

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