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What is being done to Armenian monuments in Artsakh now is not new and it is not vandalism. Seda Parsamyan traces the demolition policy of the Hamidian massacres of the 1890s and puts the legal question directly: when a state sets out to erase a people's churches, at what point does that become cultural genocide? She works through how the concept has been defined, redefined and quietly narrowed by people who would rather it did not apply. The frame she builds is the one now being reached for over Artsakh.

Mass Destruction of Armenian Cultural Heritage during the Hamidian Massacres (1894-1896)

Parsamyan, Seda A. · 2023 · International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 5–34 (AGMI, Yerevan); DOI 10.51442/ijags.0043
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Topic:cultural genocide
Showing 1 of 1 matching publications (200 total) · catalogue updated 2026-07-22
Journal ArticleOpen Access

Mass Destruction of Armenian Cultural Heritage during the Hamidian Massacres (1894-1896)

Parsamyan, Seda A., 2023
International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 5–34 (AGMI, Yerevan); DOI 10.51442/ijags.0043

Parsamyan argues that the destruction of Armenian cultural heritage in the Ottoman Empire began with the conquest of Western Armenia and has continued to the present, with Armenian culture repeatedly destroyed outright or 'neutralised' by successive Turkish regimes. The first part reviews how genocide theorists have defined and redefined 'cultural genocide,' including attempts to revise or rename the concept. The second sets out a chronology of the destruction of Armenian cultural heritage. She then gives a detailed account of the demolition policy pursued during the Hamidian massacres of 1894–1896, assessing whether it is best characterized as vandalism or as cultural genocide.

cultural genocideHamidian massacrescultural heritage destructionchurches and monasteriesstate policy
English

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Peer-reviewed and institutional scholarship on Armenian subjects — history, the Armenian Genocide, Artsakh, language and literature, the church, and the diaspora — in any language and from any country. Journal articles, books, book chapters, theses and institute publications are all in scope. Entries are chosen for what they contribute to an Armenian student's understanding, not for how recent or how famous they are.

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