It’s unpleasant for me as a historian that history is being rewritten and falsified: Vladimir Kireev

Vladimir Kireev, political scientist and historian, commented to Alpha News on the rewriting of history and the falsification of Armenian cultural and historical heritage in Artsakh by the Azerbaijani authorities.

“Azerbaijan is acting entirely in the tradition of any state that, in order to justify its claims to some territory, some region, cultural sites or mineral deposits, some other asset, substantiates this in various ways, including through an appeal to history. As in, ‘our ancestors were always here, lived here, built all of this.’ If it wasn’t us who lived here, then we are the direct cultural heirs, and if not cultural heirs, then we are successors. Well, the kind of successors who were simply asked to take custody of these sites, this region, this people, these cultural monuments. In this case, we see nothing new. A historical discourse is being formed, that is, a historical justification that Azerbaijan has always owned this territory, that it is part of Azerbaijani heritage. It would take a great deal of nobility or political weight to say: ‘No, this isn’t ours, but we’re laying claim to it and won’t give it up to anyone,'” the political scientist believes.

According to the historian, the facts about the falsified history of various historical sites speak for themselves to representatives of academic scholarship.

“Unfortunately, academic scholarship is not invited to the table in these negotiations. It is an inconvenient neighbor, an inconvenient partner, and what’s mainly used instead are historical myths, falsifications of history across a very wide range from mild rewriting to outright lies and the invention of nonexistent historical events. As a historian by training, it’s unpleasant for me that history is being rewritten and falsified, that nonexistent events are being invented, that certain unpleasant facts are being covered up or good ones invented. We still need to rely on the real facts that we have. And in this case, the facts are not very friendly, not very favorable, to Azerbaijan,” Alpha News’s interlocutor concluded.