Any dictatorship, first of all, wants to take away memory – Lusine Djanyan

Today they removed Ararat, tomorrow they will abandon other symbols, Stockholm-based artist Lusine Djanyan said in an interview with Alpha News.

“I believe this was entirely expected. Unfortunately, we are witnessing a policy of appeasement toward the enemy—and a rather aggressive one at that. These are Turkey and Azerbaijan. Neither country has abandoned its expansionist intentions. We all remember that just three years ago, in September, Azerbaijani armed forces invaded Armenia and still occupy 215 square kilometers of sovereign Armenian land. I think this is a kind of response to propaganda. Azerbaijani and Turkish propaganda denies the existence of Western Armenia, although Western Armenia is a historical fact. Armenians are the indigenous people of this land. But they are trying to replace this reality with the fictitious concept of ‘Western Azerbaijan’, which never existed. Unfortunately, the Armenian government is following this propaganda, taking steps backward. Today they are removing Mount Ararat; tomorrow, they will abandon other symbols. And the most terrifying part is submitting to aggressive propaganda that erases the true historical memory of the people. Mount Ararat is our historical memory. It is a symbol of our pain, a symbol of the Genocide. It is our identity. Giving it up is terrifying,” Lusine Djanyan said.

According to her, the current authorities are not just erasing red lines—they are destroying Armenian identity.

“Nobody talks about Gandzak being Armenian lands anymore. It is dangerous to talk about it: it is part of today’s Azerbaijan. But for me, as a refugee from Artsakh, who fled my homeland after the pogroms of 1988, it seemed like there was a red line—what happened to us. Ethnic cleansing, Genocide. All three leading genocide research institutes have recognized what happened as genocide. I thought that was the very line that could not be crossed. But suddenly we see everyone calling it an ‘era of peace,’ signing a ‘peace treaty,’ and then simply erasing these people. I’m deeply offended because we’ve been erased. Nobody is talking about our return to our homeland. Nobody is raising the issue of the return of the 150,000 indigenous people of Artsakh. And yet, I thought that was the red line,” Lusine Djanyan noted.