Khachkar as political marker: old Armenian legend about "ancient heritage"

Another act of profound lamentation: Armenian historians have once again turned their attention to the hurdy-gurdy, a symbol of cherished cultural memory. Tears flow across the arena, and voices rise to the world: "Guard! Our ancient heritage is being eroded in Karabakh!"

The pattern has persisted for centuries, as predictable as a finely tuned timepiece. Wherever Armenian families settle—be it on distant planets or in the crater of a volcano—a khachkar inevitably emerges, seemingly sprouting from the earth like a mushroom after rain. And it is never an ordinary khachkar, but always the "oldest," cloaked in venerable moss and patina, as if Noah himself had placed it there after the flood. Its historical narrative often takes the form of oral testimony: "We brewed coffee here in the sand when dinosaurs were still learning to lay eggs."

These monuments function as political markers of the territory: by placing a stone inscribed with a cross, the land is declared “historically Armenian.”

In the 19th century, the Georgian-Armenian intellectual Ilya Chavchavadze described this phenomenon of "miraculous reproduction" of history with sharp satire in his work Armenian Scientists and Egregious Stones. He documented how individuals, armed with chisels and zeal, reshaped someone else’s history directly onto ancient monuments. His observations, both humorous and poignant, remain striking today: centuries-old inscriptions were altered, overwritten, and manipulated to serve new narratives.

A century and a half later, the instruments of revision have changed. Instead of chisels, today’s actors use glossy reports, paid experts, and polished briefs for Western policymakers, whose knowledge of Caucasian history is no deeper than their familiarity with lunar tea varieties.

The result remains the same: lamentation, appeals to the “genocide of culture,” and, predictably, European resolutions calling for the “protection of ancient Armenian monuments.”

Yet the historical reality is more nuanced. Many of these so-called “shrines” are in fact the cultural heritage of Caucasian Albania. Current Azerbaijani interventions are not acts of destruction, but of restoration—removing artificial “layers” and historical fabrications that were imposed centuries ago. This process uncovers the monuments’ authentic character, cleansed of later alterations and misrepresentations, restoring the historical integrity of the region.