Kanach Zham chapel. Shushi, Artsakh 1998. All images courtesy of the author

When I was 19, I joined a volunteer group and spent the summer living and working in Karin Tak, a village in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh). Karin Tak, an Armenian village near Shushi, is named “under the rock” due to its location beneath the white cliffs that form Shushi’s southern edge. 

One of the guys in my group, Robert, took a liking to me, and I to him, and we started talking. During the second week, he gave me a rose from a bush growing behind the elementary school our group was renovating. I brought the rose back to the one-room house we all shared, lined with old metal beds typical of Soviet villages, each with our sleeping bags. I stuck the rose in a metal part of my bed. He was growing on me.

After our work for the day was done, Robert and I would sometimes take walks into the village, with its patchwork of homes, gardens and trees. A cool breeze would sway the tall poplar trees and break the summer heat. We would stop at a little stand to buy Coca-Cola and cigarettes to bring back to the house where we would hang out with the rest of the group in the evenings. Afternoons often brought dramatic thunderstorms that echoed from the cliffs above the village.

The villagers, typical for Artsakh, were reserved but kind. Whenever we encountered someone on our walks, we would pause to say hello. If Nelson, another group member from Tatev in southern Armenia joined us, he would switch to his dialect, similar to the Artsakh one. The villagers would smile in recognition of his familiar speech.

The village house where all twenty of us stayed was visited three times a day by Donara, a woman whose husband had been killed defending the village in the First Karabakh War. She prepared our meals and sometimes sat down to talk with us. Her three sons also visited. The eldest, Seyran, would bring his one-year-old son, whom Donara would cradle after feeding us. Her middle son, Mkhitar, a quiet and gentle 17-year-old, would smile shyly, enjoying our company.

In September 2020, Azerbaijan attacked Nagorno-Karabakh. In November, a week before the ceasefire, Karin Tak was evacuated ahead of the Azerbaijani advance. Only three men remained to defend the village, among them Donara’s middle son Mkhitar, who had since become village mayor. All three were killed. Azerbaijan captured the village and the town of Shushi atop its cliffs. 

Azerbaijan wasn’t able to take the entire territory until 2023,  after a blockade that lasted nearly a year. Azerbaijan launched a final assault on Artsakh, conquering it and forcibly displacing its entire population. For the first time in over two millennia, Artsakh is devoid of Armenian life.In April 2024, Caucasus Heritage Watch reported the complete destruction of the village of Karin Tak. The entire village –– including those same houses and gardens, the house we stayed in, Donara’s home and her husband’s grave –– was razed to the ground. 

Since the forced displacement of its indigenous Armenian population last year, Caucasus Heritage Watch's June 2024 report documents that Azerbaijan's destruction of Armenian heritage has accelerated by 75% between their Fall 2023 and Spring 2024 missions. This destruction includes heritage sites dating back to at least the 9th century.To quell international outcry, Azerbaijani officials have made statements claiming they are “ready” for Armenians to come back. In December 2023, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s chief spokesperson and propagandist Hikmet Hajiyev told the BBC, “Azerbaijan ensures all the possibilities and also the security and safety for their return.” The statement was made in the period of time that Caucasus Heritage Watch researchers showed Karin Tak was destroyed.

Azerbaijan does not want Armenians back.

Getting to Know the Village

Every morning, all twenty of us would get up, have breakfast, and walk the five minutes to our work site for the summer: Karin Tak’s elementary school. Working alongside the locals, we reinforced, plastered and painted the walls of the building. Later, we fixed the chalkboards back onto the classroom walls, ready for the village kids coming in September. We’d take a midday break and walk back to the house where Donara had lunch waiting for us. Sometimes she would serve tea made of herbs picked from the hills around the village. Afternoons we’d return to the site and work more slowly, and often not at all. Locals would sometimes make their way to come see us, get to know us, curious about this group of youth who’d chosen their home village – not quite remote, but not often visited, to live and work in.

I liked Donara. I remember once I grabbed an iron skillet off the gas stove, only to drop it back immediately after slightly burning my hand. She smiled, then held out her hands–– calloused and thick from years of caring for others. Without hesitation, she grabbed the same skillet deftly, her tolerance for heat clearly far greater than mine. Another day, I was sitting outside the house, freshly showered, trying to read under the sun. Someone from our group had left the boombox outside blaring Prodigy’s “Firestarter”, a song I’d always hated. My annoyance finally grew enough to get me up to turn it off. Just as I reached it and pressed “stop”, Donara stepped out of the house, chuckling, and said, “thank you,” clearly just as fed up with the noise as I was.

One day, we were hosted at the village’s community center and told a brief history of the village, which ended with a retelling of its defense in 1992. On the walls around us were around two dozen portraits of the village men and women who gave their lives defending their homes. They included Seyran, Donara’s husband and Mkhitar’s father.On another occasion, a small group of us volunteers were invited to Donara’s eldest son Seyran’s house for dinner. It was my first time in an Artsakhtsi home. We sat at long tables with Seyran’s family, friends, and neighbors, and were served vegetable dishes, some meat, freshly baked lavash bread, and the local speciality: homemade mulberry vodka. When someone stood to make a toast for the fallen, a solemn silence filled the room. Donara looked down as everyone stood to drink in silence. 

A few weeks later, the 1998 World Cup final between France and Brazil took place. Those of us who wanted to watch were invited to Spartak’s house – a man from the village who had one of the only working televisions with an antenna. The game started at midnight local time, so around 11:30 pm we walked over. Spartak greeted us and showed us to his living room, where he had a small, black and white CRT TV. A couple other village men had arrived as well and greeted us, excited about the match. We all found seats wherever we could,  passed around peanuts and beer as the match began. We were all rooting for France, not only because the country traditionally had good relations with Armenians, but also because France’s midfielder Youri Djorkaeff and midfielder Alain Boghossian were Armenian. The picture quality was so poor, though, that following the match became nearly impossible, so we gave up and got drunk. We knew champions Brazil was widely expected to win, but when France somehow triumphed, beating Brazil 3-0, Spartak and the other local men jumped up from their seats, cheering. I’d never seen people from Karin Tak so carefree. 

Silence Around Heritage Destruction

Azerbaijan’s 2023-2024 destruction of Karin Tak and the ongoing destruction of other Armenian heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh, including whole apartment blocks in former capital Stepanakert, would not have been possible without the lack of international outcry. Neither the Armenian government nor international bodies responsible for protecting cultural heritage, such as UNESCO, have denounced this documented destruction of Armenian heritage. Armenia’s government, weakened and under constant threats of aggression from Azerbaijan, is doing everything it can to avoid provoking Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. UNESCO, meanwhile, remains conspicuously absent, in large part due to Azerbaijan’s resistance to any fact-finding visits.

Perhaps most surprising however is the lack of response from Western analysts, experts, and peace-builders who have long been deeply involved in analyzing this conflict. These experts have had a near-monopoly on shaping the dominant narratives around the conflict. As a group, they don’t spend a significant time in the region and typically don’t speak Armenian or Azeri, though some may speak Russian. Predominantly white and male, they live in Western Europe, far removed from the areas directly impacted by the conflict. They have authored books, columns, and analytical reports on the topic, significantly influencing international perceptions and the behavior of international actors. Whenever the conflict escalated, audiences turned to them for insights to make sense of the developments.

Their silence now contributes to the ongoing destruction of Armenian heritage in the region. 

Karin Tak – Bonding  

Our volunteer group and some of our same-aged peers from the village, gathered to walk to a spot outside the village for a BBQ. We were all aged 17 to 20 years old, recent high school graduates, and excited to be together. A few of us carried plastic bags with fresh meat, while others brought tomatoes, peppers, and the famous homemade mulberry vodka.

We headed southeast from the village towards Hunot Canyon. The local youth, familiar with the terrain, navigated the rocky, uneven trail with ease and knew the perfect spot to stop and build a fire. The girls paused to pick herbs and flowers along the way, recognizing the flora as if they were old friends. At one point, we had to cross the river that ran through the canyon. The boys carried us girls on their backs across the river to keep us dry. Their act was chivalrous yet humble and kind – they didn’t even think twice. Once we reached the other side, the boys quickly made a fire, and we sat around as the meat began to sizzle against the backdrop of the burbling river.

Among the youth that day were Mkhitar and his future wife.

A Skewed Framing

The current silence of Western experts on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict should be viewed in light of their past narratives. These experts often concentrate on the period from 1993 onwards, when Armenians began gaining a military advantage, as if this marks the start of the conflict. Their emphasis on the Armenian victory in 1994 and their control of surrounding territories—actions that led to the tragic ethnic cleansing of Azeris and Kurds from these areas—shapes a narrative that only depicts Armenians as aggressors and Azeris as victims.

A key event reinforcing this narrative is the 1992 Khojaly massacre. During a critical phase of the conflict, Armenian forces captured the strategically significant town of Khojaly and opened a humanitarian corridor for civilian evacuation. While many reached safety, a group of fleeing civilians were gunned down in open fields. The Armenian side denied culpability even though they had control over the area and no Armenian officials ever adequately addressed the event. 

While rightfully pointing out Azeris suffering, they overlook or downplay Azerbaijan’s 1991 Operation Ring which started the cycle of violence. Soviet Azerbaijan responded to Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians’ peaceful movement for self-determination with massacres of Armenians in Sumgait, Baku, and Maragha, from which Armenians tried to defend themselves. Azerbaijan then moved to suppress the growing resistance with the violent uprooting of Armenian civilians. This operation involved the deportation of Armenians from the Shahumyan region and the occupation of Martakert and other areas by Azerbaijani Interior Ministry Special Forces, with Soviet support—events that sparked the escalation to war. By August 1992, nearly half of the Nagorno-Karabakh Oblast was under Azerbaijani control, forcing tens of thousands of Armenian refugees into Stepanakert, which was besieged, blockaded, and under attack during a two-year-long siege.

The reason for these omissions is that they upset the carefully curated balance that the experts work to build in order to achieve a detached stance by balancing the actions of both sides in a conflict––bothsideism. This approach requires every offense committed by one side to be met with an equivalent from the other. The issue, however, is that these comparisons are often so strained that they obscure the actual dynamics of the conflict. Especially so when drawing parallels with the 2020-24 invasion of Artsakh. 

Laurence Broers, for instance, exemplifies this in 2021 when he equates the ongoing torture and imprisonment of Armenian POWs with Azerbaijani casualties from landmines, stating, “Post-war relations between the two states have remained utterly polarized around a slew of issues, from Azerbaijan’s ongoing detention and trials of Armenian prisoners to persistent Azerbaijani casualties due to landmines.” This comparison flattens the moral gravity of these issues and reduces deeply asymmetrical situations into a false parity. The topic is more deeply explored in this peer-reviewed article by Arsene Saparov.

On September 27, 2010— ten years to the day before Azerbaijan launched the 2020 war—Thomas de Waal, one of the most well known Western experts on the region recommended five top books on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in an interview.

One of de Waal’s recommendations is Dr. Seuss’s The Butter Battle Book—a children’s allegory for the absurdity of conflict—as a relevant reading on the Karabakh war. In the interview, he says the book might as well be about ethnic conflict, with the Yooks and the Zooks in the story being Armenians and Azerbaijanis in real life, and lamenting how "they adopt this bizarre identity and historical arguments to prove hatred for one another when in reasonable times they get along fine." 

Equating the horrors of war, displacement, and ethnic violence with a children’s tale about irrational animosity and misunderstandings demonstrates how lightly De Waal takes the conflict. It shows the ease with which he dismisses the political, historical, and cultural grievances that have fueled the conflict and trivializes the suffering, loss, and trauma experienced by those affected. In doing so, De Waal minimizes the complex historical and cultural significance that both Armenians and Azerbaijanis attach to the conflict, reducing it to a geopolitical scramble that supposedly contradicts the better instincts of the people involved. Fortunately, we have De Waal to show us the light. 

Saparov's study mentioned above reveals that in 22 articles surveyed between October 2020 and December 2022, the term "ethnic cleansing" appears only four times—each instance used to create a moral equivalence between the two sides. Of these, De Waal appears twice, saying, “both sides employed systematic ethnic cleansing” (2022), and “both sides would resort to ethnic cleansing” (2020). The former statement is particularly troubling, as it was made after Armenians had been forcibly displaced from the Hadrut and Shushi regions––but this was left uncommented on.

Until now, newer analysts and Western diplomats are influenced by this framing and reproduce it themselves: Armenians are still the “bad guys”. In reality, it was war – both sides committed human rights violations and war crimes. All of these, in particular, the massacre of Azeri civilians at Khojaly, require real scrutiny and addressing in good faith. But, they in no way provide a moral ground for the invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh. 

Karin Tak – It’s Just Thunder

Igor was a 30-year-old man from Nagorno-Karabakh’s capital Stepanakert, just twenty minutes away from Karin Tak, with curly brown hair and green eyes. When he wasn’t busy, he’d come down to Karin Tak. He’d attended one of our BBQ and alcohol-fueled gatherings, where I drank too much local mulberry vodka. The whole world was spinning as I slurred, feeling like I wanted to die. Seeing my distress, Igor brought me lukewarm water to help me throw up. It was a home remedy I had forgotten about, having grown up in the US where none of my peers did that. My grandmother would give me lukewarm water to induce vomiting after food poisoning – an emetic that also helps dilute stomach acid, making the awful process slightly more bearable; a strange reminder of home.

One afternoon, Igor was with us in the kitchen as we were talking and listening to music on an old boom box, when a thunderstorm rolled in. As a crack of thunder hit and echoed, rumbling off the cliffs above the village, Igor's smile suddenly faded, replaced by a look of intense seriousness. He shushed us, got up to turn off the music, and looked outside, holding his breath and listening to the air. It was just thunder, but he had to make sure. 

The Conflict 2020-2023

Since Azerbaijan won the Second Karabakh War in 2020, it regained control of all regions surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh previously occupied by Armenian forces, as well as parts of Nagorno-Karabakh itself, including the districts of Hadrut and Shushi, displacing the entire Armenian population of those areas. The civilians who stayed behind, either because they were elderly or infirm, were often mutilated and executed. 

Crucially, Azerbaijan blocked the Lachin Corridor, effectively cutting off the territory from Armenia and the outside world. A small and reluctant Russian peacekeeping contingent was stationed to supposedly to ensure safe passage, standing as the only barrier between the 100,000 remaining Armenian civilians and the Azerbaijani Armed Forces. This left the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh extremely isolated and vulnerable and the sense that it was only a matter of time until Azerbaijan completely took over the territory became widespread.

To make matters worse, Azerbaijan repeatedly violated the ceasefire agreement in Nagorno-Karabakh, failed to release Armenian POWs, and advanced military positions forward. Meanwhile, Armenia fulfilled practically all its obligations under the ceasefire agreement. Still, the international experts continued to parrot Azerbaijani talking points, presenting Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev as though he were negotiating in good faith, a normal leader seeking reasonable solutions to his grievances. 

In a series of military offensives in 2021 and 2022, Azerbaijan attacked Armenia, shelling major cities, making significant advancements into Armenian territory, and taking control of 240 square kilometers in Armenia’s east and south. During those operations, hundreds of Armenian service members were killed –– several dozen in apparent atrocity crimes, shown in graphic video footage that was widely shared on Azerbaijani social media pages –– demonstrating that these perpetrators feared no accountability from officials in Baku. These developments forced the government in Yerevan to make substantial political concessions to Azerbaijan. 

Azerbaijan then subjected Nagorno-Karabakh to a nine month long blockade, cutting off the territory from food and medicine, and after some time not even allowing Red Cross vehicles to enter. Finally, on September 19, 2023, Azerbaijan launched its final assault on Nagorno-Karabakh. Hungry, cut off, with limited arms, the fight was over in a day and the territory’s Armenian authorities agreed to dissolve the entity. Virtually all 100,000 of its Armenians were forcibly expelled as Azerbaijan took over.

Shushi – The Green Chapel 

One weekend during our stay in Karin Tak our group visited Shushi. We went to the Kanach Zham chapel to attend Sunday mass. It was hot. As mass was ending, Robert and I stepped outside to cool down in the shade of a tree to the right of the entrance. We sat on a low wall, and Robert held my hand. 

The church was completely destroyed by Azerbaijan between December 28, 2023 and April 4, 2024. The tree to the right of its entrance that gave us shade is still standing.

Victim Blaming 

Despite Azerbaijan's 2020 victory causing a major geopolitical shift and leaving Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians vulnerable to ethnic cleansing, analysts failed to highlight this danger. Instead, they reinforced a narrative that Armenia's stance had been maximalist and irrational for two decades. They falsely equated the "irredentism" of both sides. In reality, Armenians were defending their right to self-determination in Nagorno-Karabakh, while Azerbaijan claimed nearly all Armenian territory and sought to eliminate or severely limit its statehood. This narrative shift deflected responsibility from Azerbaijan's war initiation, ongoing aggression, and blockade, implying that the Armenians deserved their predicament. Analysts promoted this view in closed-door peace-building sessions and written analyses. At one such meeting, I have personally witnessed European representatives callously stating that Armenians "need to move on."

These experts echoed Azerbaijan’s framing that its military actions were a justified response to Armenia's intransigence, despite the factual inaccuracy of this claim. Since the end of the First Karabakh War in 1994, not a single Armenian leader has rejected the necessity of conflict resolution through compromise. Moreover, Armenia demonstrated readiness to sign peace agreements during two critical opportunities – Key West in 2001 and Kazan in 2011. Azerbaijan rejected both. In Kazan, Azerbaijan brought forward new demands at the eleventh hour, derailing the negotiations. 

These experts also promoted the misconception that Armenia sought to solidify the post-1994 status quo by populating the occupied territories outside the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast with Armenians. However, this claim is incorrect. A 2005 OSCE fact-finding mission to the conflict zone concluded that Armenia had not pursued a policy of state-organized resettlement in these territories, which were under Armenian control until 2020. In fact, a 2019 International Crisis Group (ICG) report found that authorities in Yerevan, in some cases, actively tried to obstruct people from settling in these areas.

These experts also glossed over the fact that Azerbaijan had been actively preparing for war, not a peaceful resolution, since at least 2010, and it had been buying weapons from Russia, Israel, and Turkey. Moreover, none of these experts condemned Azerbaijan for launching the Second Karabakh War, which killed almost 10,000 people on both sides.

As this dynamic unfolded, I wondered what these experts were thinking. I couldn’t understand how so many of them, ostensibly well meaning (though not all), could leave Azerbaijan’s assault and targeting of Armenian civilians under genocidal rhetoric and intent unremarked on. One exchange with a former colleague and friend enlightened me. I complained to this individual – a British journalist who at the time focused on democracy and human rights in the region – about his silence during the Azerbaijani assault on Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. When I confronted him, he seemed genuinely confused. “You know I can’t take sides,” he replied. It never crossed his mind that condemning the violence, attacks on civilians, and the ethnic cleansing isn’t “taking sides”. Rather, naming the aggressor is telling the truth. 

Taking 1994 as a starting point, these analysts have sought a balance, a tit-for-tat. Where they didn’t find it, they created it in their pursuit of “neutrality.” This required them to put on a peace-builder hat when addressing Armenians, telling them that it was Armenian nationalism that provoked Azeri (and Turkish) ire, implicitly suggesting that Armenians bear responsibility for all the retribution that may come. Then, when discussing Azerbaijan’s wrongdoings, they suddenly transformed into geopolitical analysts, merely describing the situation.

Back in Karin Tak

The last Sunday of our volunteer journey marked a significant day – the reconsecration of the Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi. Built in 1868, it has witnessed a lot of upheaval. In 1920, intercommunal conflicts with ethnic Azeris led to the massacre and expulsion of the majority of Armenians in Shushi, during which the cathedral was significantly damaged. By 1930, Soviet authorities closed it, and over time, its structure deteriorated. After extensive reconstruction, the cathedral was finally ready for reconsecration.

We arrived at the cathedral to find the city buzzing with excitement. Families, the elderly, children – everyone in Shushi and seemingly from Stepanakert – had come to attend. I watched as an elderly couple with walking sticks approached the entrance, stopping to buy candles from the children selling them. It was especially meaningful for me because Robert, already a deacon in the Church, was participating in the ceremony. His booming voice echoed as he swung the incense during service, and I looked around at all the faces in the crowd.  

During the Second Karabakh War in October 2020, Azerbaijan struck the cathedral in a double tap missile strike, gravely injuring journalists who gathered there after the first hit and causing significant damage to the structure. Now, rather than destroying it, Azerbaijan has begun distorting its architecture with as yet unclear intentions.

Now

In 2023, with Artakh’s poorly equipped, hungry army up against Azerbaijan’s overwhelming air, logistical and technological dominance –– and an eight-figure military budget –– the Armenians of Artsakh stood no chance. 

After the dissolution of Artsakh’s institutions and the ethnic cleansing of its population, we have become unwilling witnesses to Azerbaijan’s systematic destruction of Karabakh Armenian cultural heritage. The latest incident is the removal of the cross from the 7th century Armenian church of Vankasar, whose Armenian inscriptions and carvings were already destroyed or damaged by the Azerbaijani government in the 1980s. A Caucasus Heritage Watch researcher recently told me that over the next decade or so, we can expect a steady stream of news about Armenian cultural heritage being misappropriated as non-Armenian or simply erased.

Azerbaijan’s long-standing goal has been a state-directed policy not only to conquer territory but to systematically erase the historical presence of Armenians in these regions. This strategy is also essential to Aliyev’s legitimacy and regime’s longevity, as contemporary Azerbaijani identity has been hijacked by an extreme nationalist strain. It necessitates the erasure of Armenian history in the region. 

None of this is addressed by the analysts. The subtext of their silence is that Armenians should simply move on. While they undoubtedly see themselves as well-meaning and “neutral”, their analysis downgraded the rights of Karabakh Armenians to live freely in their homes in favor of promoting Azerbaijan’s state interests. 

This raises the question: Why? What compels these analysts to suppress narratives of the oppressed to center the narrative of a state with genocidal policies? What motivates them? The grievances of Azeri victims from the first war required redressal and Armenians should have begun this difficult, but ultimately worthwhile endeavor. At the same time, any narrative that centered Azerbaijani victimhood became dominated by Azerbaijani state propaganda, which aimed to subjugate Armenians wholesale. The experts didn’t seem to mind; they repeated much of what Azerbaijani officials and state-linked interlocutors told them. Somehow, it didn’t seem to occur to them that the Azerbaijani state might have been advocating for the rights of one marginalized group––the Azeris forced from their homes during the first war–– while committing atrocities against another group––the Armenians, elsewhere. 

And what about the plight of the more than 100,000 Armenian refugees ethnically cleansed from Nagorno-Karabakh? The analysts have been silent there too. The Armenian government has initiated programs to address some of their basic needs, but there remains a pressing need to confront their collective suffering and reckon with their expulsion and understanding challenges related to their right of return. This includes acknowledging how the analysts' rhetoric, analyses, and writings, which glossed over Armenian’s motivation for self-determination, helped contribute to the current outcome.These analysts can still advocate for the protection of Armenian cultural heritage, but they remain silent. Once these monuments and homes are destroyed and their rightful custodians are barred from returning, the legacy of an entire people will  be irreparably lost.

Epilogue

Robert and I sustained a long-distance relationship for a couple years. I later learned he left the church and moved to Austria. I don’t think he ever got married. As the horrific events in 2023 unfolded I thought of him and every other person in our group, touched by our short time in this lush, green valley below the cliffs. I thought of Donara, who has now been displaced twice in three years––first after Karin Tak was overtaken and she moved to Stepanakert, and then after the ethnic cleansing of 2023. Now, when at gatherings a somber toast is made to the fallen, it is not only her husband that she thinks of as she lowers her gaze, but also her son Mkhitar; both of whose graves were left behind in Artsakh, along with everything else.

The death of a nation was met with little global outrage. Despite U.S. government warnings to Azerbaijan that ethnic cleansing would not be tolerated, Azerbaijan proceeded anyway, banking on the assumption that no one would intervene, especially since Artsakh was internationally recognized as its territory. This was despite the indigenous Armenians’ right to self-determination –– a cause meant to prevent the very nightmare scenario that ultimately unfolded.

Had achieving statehood been successful, it would have inarguably provided a level of security to Artsakh that could have preserved the entity, its people, and its millenia-old cultural heritage. While not perfect, it would have been better than nothing. But even Armenia’s internationally recognized statehood seems at times insufficient to protect Armenian life. That statehood even seems to obscure enduring existential threats. Armenia and Azerbaijan become just two states with a border dispute, a framing which conceals problems of dominance and subjugation. 

It’s why Armenians have volunteer military organizations – to fill in the gaps in the country’s small and strained army. When in February, 2024, Azerbaijani units attacked Armenian positions in the village of Nerkin Hand, all four Armenian service members who were killed were between 40 and 67 years old. They were not members of the armed forces, they were local volunteers, defending their homes. At a recent meeting, a diplomat from the Netherlands asked me, "What's going to happen?" I was frank: the situation is bad. Armenia is continually threatened by aggression from Azerbaijan, even after its takeover of Artsakh. I explained to the Dutch official that this is happening because Azerbaijan has faced no repercussions for its ethnic cleansing in Artsakh. 

The diplomat responded dismissively, "Well, but was it ethnic cleansing? I'm not so sure about that. They seem to have left voluntarily." 

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History and Anthropology