Defending memory: Academic responsibility in the face of political pressure

2026-03-25 - 16:11

When discussing the situation surrounding the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, academic and semi-academic circles have criticized Armenian authorities for their actions. In response, government representatives and pro-government groups have claimed that the issue should be addressed solely within the political sphere, not the academic one. They claim that neither the current nor any future political authorities in the Republic of Armenia will restrict scholars from pursuing any research topic or impose censorship on past or future academic work, especially on subjects related to Artsakh. At the same time, they emphasize that, due to its ceremonial responsibilities, the position of AGMI director is also political, requiring the officeholder to align with the state’s foreign policy agenda. In contrast, I argue that the campaign initiated by Armenian authorities against the AGMI constitutes a direct encroachment on academic freedom and scholarly practice. As such, it should primarily be examined within the realm of academia. Under the pretext that certain discussions are “provocations against peace,” the authorities have entered the academic domain, attempting to revise and reshape scholarly narratives to align with immediate political objectives. Simultaneously, they call on researchers to refrain from engaging in politics and to remain confined to academic work. It is well known that in the early days of the Artsakh movement, in late February 1988, the massacres of Armenians in Sumgait began, accompanied by attacks on the village of Yeraskhavan in Armenia’s Ararat region. These clashes marked the first armed confrontations between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, eventually escalating into a prolonged, large-scale war. Four individuals were killed in Yeraskhavan, including prominent figures of the Artsakh movement Movses Gorgisyan and Yervand Saghumyan, known as Yero. As ethnographer Harutyun Marutyan observes in his book Commemorating the Armenian Genocide (2025), the Sumgait massacres were widely perceived as a continuation of the Armenian Genocide decades later. Consequently, the fallen freedom fighters were buried within the Armenian Genocide memorial complex, symbolically linking their deaths to the earlier catastrophe. In subsequent years, three additional fighters — Eduard Markosyan (1946–1990), Mushegh Mkhoyan, known as Vozhd (1951–1991) and Samvel Gevorgyan (1950–1992) — were laid to rest alongside them. This symbolic continuity was further reinforced on April 24, 1988, when a khachkar commemorating the victims of Sumgait was erected within the memorial complex. Later, additional khachkars were installed in memory of victims of the Kirovabad, now Ganja, and Baku massacres. Beyond the historical explanation provided by Marutyan, there exists a deeper conceptual foundation rooted in Armenian tradition dating back to the fifth century. In Armenian understanding, a martyr is not only an innocent victim but also one who dies for faith, homeland or an idea — often the one who first advances into battle. This tradition was solidified after the Battle of Avarayr in 451, when the Armenian Church canonized the fallen as “Holy Martyrs of the Homeland.” This legacy influenced later commemorative practices. When establishing a day of remembrance for the Armenian Genocide, both civilian victims and soldiers who died in World War I were included. In 1921, Catholicos Gevorg V formally designated April 24 as a day of national remembrance for all Armenian martyrs. The same conceptual link is evident in Jerusalem’s Armenian memorials, where monuments commemorate both genocide victims and fallen soldiers. Thus, the connection between the martyrs of Avarayr, World War I soldiers, Artsakh fighters and genocide victims forms a continuous thread in Armenian collective memory. As Marutyan further notes, the 40th day of mourning for Sumgait victims coincided with April 24, symbolically merging their remembrance with that of the 1915 victims. His documentation of protest posters from the Artsakh movement shows that a significant portion explicitly linked these historical events. Therefore, the Armenian Genocide, the anti-Armenian massacres in Azerbaijan in 1988, the Artsakh wars, and the recent ethnic cleansing of Armenians from Artsakh should be understood as interconnected stages of a unified historical memory. This continuity is embodied physically and symbolically in the memorial complex itself. The genocide complex integrates multiple elements: the memorial wall (1967), the eternal flame, the “Revived Armenia” monument, khachkars dedicated to victims of anti-Armenian violence, the graves of fallen fighters, the museum-institute established in 1995, and the commemorative grove planted by visiting dignitaries. Within this framework, former AGMI Director Marutyan introduced the practice of guiding official visitors not only to the central memorial elements but also to the fighters’ graves and khachkars dedicated to later victims. This practice continued under Edita Gzoyan. During such visits, the interconnected narrative of genocide, massacres and war was presented as part of a scholarly interpretation grounded in research. Anthropology, as a discipline concerned with memory, encompasses the preservation, study and dissemination of collective memory. Similarly, genocide studies aim to establish a scientific basis for holding perpetrators accountable and preventing future atrocities. This is precisely where the core issue lies. The AGMI represents a rare space where multiple disciplines — history, anthropology, law and genocide studies — intersect. Its mission extends beyond preservation to the active communication of knowledge, including to international visitors, thereby contributing to the prevention of future crimes. For this reason, the director’s role has historically required scholarly expertise rather than diplomatic training. However, recent developments suggest a shift. A public statement by the prime minister implied that certain terminology related to Artsakh could provoke conflict. Furthermore, the newly appointed acting director indicated that he would operate in accordance with government directives and foreign policy priorities. Taken together, these signals raise concerns that references to the Sumgait massacres, the Artsakh struggle and recent events may be excluded from official narratives. Such omissions would distort collective memory and undermine the integrity of the memorial. From the perspective of anthropology and genocide studies, enforced forgetting or selective silence constitutes a continuation of violence against memory and increases the risk of future atrocities. What we are witnessing, therefore, is the intrusion of political power into the domain of academia — accompanied by attempts to discredit scholars as instigators of conflict. In doing so, science is deprived of one of its essential functions: its capacity to inform and shape ethical and political accountability. When a state selectively presents historical memory, especially while cultural heritage is being destroyed, it effectively reshapes or diminishes that memory to suit political interests. Such dynamics are often described as “mnemonic battles” (Yael Zerubavel), in which defenders of historical truth confront those seeking to instrumentalize or suppress it. In this context, it is particularly troubling that the AGMI director, who should stand among the defenders of memory, is being repositioned otherwise. Finally, researchers bear not only intellectual but also ethical responsibility. Their role extends beyond producing and disseminating knowledge to defending it when it is threatened. A society that silences academic thought and moral conscience risks a rapid descent into authoritarianism, and resisting such a trajectory is a fundamental duty of scholars.