Pan-Turkism is a political movement which emerged during the 1880s among Turkic intellectuals of the Russian region of Shirvan (now central Azerbaijan) and the Ottoman Empire (modern day Turkey). The aim being the cultural and political unification of all Turkic peoples. Ziya Gökalp defined pan-Turkism as a cultural, academic, and philosophical and political concept advocating […]
Operation Ring, known in Azerbaijan as the Chaykend Operation, was the codename for the May 1991 military operation conducted by Soviet Internal Security Forces and OMON units in the Armenian populated regions of Western Azerbaijan in the Lesser Caucasus mountains, the Shusha, Martakert and Hadrut regions of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, and along the northwestern […]
Samsara is a 2011 American non-narrative documentary film of international imagery directed by Ron Fricke and produced by Mark Magidson, who also collaborated on Baraka (1992), a film of a similar vein, and Chronos (1985). Samsara explores the wonders of our world from the mundane to the miraculous, looking into the unfathomable reaches of humanity’s […]
A rosette is a round, stylized flower design, used extensively in sculptural objects from antiquity. Appearing in Mesopotamia and used to decorate the funeral stele in Ancient Greece. Adopted later in Romaneseque and Renaissance, and also common in the art of Central Asia, spreading as far as India where it is used as a decorative […]
Lydian International and its Armenian subsidiary are making national headlines in Armenia regarding the highly controversial Amulsar gold mine, which is expected to resume operations after the government indicated it is giving a green light for the project. However, hundreds if not thousands of environmentalists and others are protesting the move, arguing that it will […]
It is still unknown when the carpets were used first, but some archeologists proved that they appeared in 2-1 millennium BC. Traditionally, since ancient times, the carpets and tufted rugs were used in Armenia to cover floors, decorate interior walls, sofas, chairs, beds and tables. Up to present the carpets often serve as entrance veils, […]
The title of “history’s most famous traveler” usually goes to Marco Polo, the great Venetian wayfarer who visited China in the 13th century. For sheer distance covered, however, Polo trails far behind the Muslim scholar Ibn Battuta. Though little known outside the Islamic world, Battuta spent half his life tramping across vast swaths of the […]
As we enter 2020, Cultural Survival remembers 28 courageous Indigenous human rights and environmental defenders who were murdered in 2019 in the Latin American countries where we do our work. We invite you to take a moment to learn about and support the human rights and environmental defense work being carried out by these individuals […]
Armenia will perhaps move closer to the US – not so much because of the Armenian government but because of the Armenian population – like all the rest of the world population many are looking up to the US like insects towards the light … The Anglo-American culture has flood the world and English has […]
Milk churn A 5,000-year-old milk – churn was found in Amasia in Western Armenia. The churn made 5000 years ago in the Bronze Age has a length of 30 cm. Rings for suspension ropes are also preserved. In addition to this churn, there are churns dating from the same periods from wood, clay and leather. […]
In the Obersalzberg Speech, a speech given by Adolf Hitler to Wehrmacht commanders at his Obersalzberg home on 22 August 1939, a week before the German invasion of Poland, Hitler asked: «Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?» The Armenian Genocide is acknowledged to have been one of the first modern […]
According to the widely held Kurgan hypothesis, c.q. renewed Steppe hypothesis, the oldest branch were the Anatolian languages, which split from the earliest proto-Indo-European speech community (archaic PIE), which developed at the Volga basin. The second-oldest branch, the Tocharian languages, were spoken in the Tarim Basin (present-day western China), and split-off from early PIE, which […]
Meghri (Armenian: Մեղրի), is a town and the center of the urban community of Meghri, in Syunik Province at the south of Armenia, near the border with Iran. The area of present-day Meghri has been settled since the Bronze Age. Many archaeological sites are found in the vicinity of the town dating back to the […]
