An investigation by Niderlandakan Oragir based on primary sources, epigraphy, architecture and international scholarly literature
On September 11–12, as part of a visit organized by Azerbaijan, foreign diplomats and representatives of international organizations visited a number of historical and cultural sites in the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh currently under Azerbaijani control, including Gandzasar and Dadivank.
During the visit, Hikmet Hajiyev, Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan, presented Gandzasar as part of the Christian heritage of Caucasian Albania and described Hasan Jalal Dawla as a ruler of Caucasian Albania.
The current dispute over Gandzasar, therefore, is not simply about the ownership or identity of a historical monument. It is also about how historical heritage is presented to the international community.
When a state presents a monument to foreign diplomats through a particular historical interpretation, that interpretation becomes an instrument of public diplomacy. The issue should therefore be examined not through political statements alone, but through the primary sources associated with the period in which Gandzasar was built and developed.
1. “Gandzasar is a monument of Caucasian Albania”
The Azerbaijani argument needs to be divided into two separate questions.
It is true that the history of Gandzasar includes ecclesiastical terminology associated with the tradition of Caucasian Albania. However, modern scholarship cautions against interpreting the title “Catholicos of Caucasian Albania” through the lens of modern national or ethnic categories.
Patrick Donabédian presents Gandzasar as a classic example of medieval Armenian monastic architecture and examines it within the broader context of the Armenian architectural heritage of Artsakh.
The existence of historical ecclesiastical terminology associated with Caucasian Albania therefore cannot, by itself, establish a direct national or ethnic connection between the medieval monument and the modern Republic of Azerbaijan.
2. The word “Albanian” does not mean “Azerbaijani”
Caucasian Albania was an ancient and early medieval historical world, whereas the Republic of Azerbaijan is a modern state.
Consequently, establishing a direct equation between “Caucasian Albania” and “modern Azerbaijan” requires evidence of continuity at several levels: political, demographic, linguistic, cultural and related to collective identity.
The studies of Robert H. Hewsen demonstrate that the historical geography and political history of the Caucasus and Artsakh were considerably more complex than a simple linear narrative running from Caucasian Albania to the modern Azerbaijani state.
An important methodological observation concerning the politicization of history was also made by American anthropologist and social scientist Nora Dudwick.
In 1990—decades before the present phase of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict—Dudwick published her study “The Case of the Caucasian Albanians: Ethnohistory and Ethnic Politics” in the academic journal Cahiers du Monde Russe et Soviétique.
The significance of this source also lies in the fact that Dudwick was not a representative of Armenian historiography.
Her study points to an important methodological caution: identifying the history of a medieval people or political entity with a modern national identity is not, in itself, a historical fact. It requires a separate and demonstrable chain of evidence.
3. “Hasan Jalal Dawla was Azerbaijani”
This is one of the most vulnerable elements of the Azerbaijani narrative.
Describing Hasan Jalal Dawla, a 13th-century ruler, using a 21st-century national category such as “Azerbaijani” carries a clear risk of historical anachronism.
Patrick Donabédian describes Hasan Jalal Dawla as an Armenian prince under whose rule the Church of St. John the Baptist at Gandzasar was constructed.
Robert Hewsen likewise examines the Hasan-Jalalian princely house within the medieval political history of Khachen and Artsakh.
The question therefore cannot be settled simply by assigning a modern nationality to a medieval ruler.
4. What does a primary source from Hasan Jalal’s period tell us?
Here the most important evidence is not the opinion of a contemporary historian but Gandzasar’s own epigraphic record.
The building inscription at Gandzasar, included in the scholarly corpus of Armenian inscriptions of Artsakh, dates the construction of the church according to the Armenian calendar and associates it with the rule of Hasan Jalal.
Later scholarly studies cite this inscription through the relevant pages of Sedrak Barkhudaryan’s corpus of the inscriptions of Artsakh.
In other words, this is not merely a 21st-century political reinterpretation. It is a medieval primary source.
5. What does Gandzasar’s architecture tell us?
The Armenian character of Gandzasar is not established solely by its name or by later historiography.
Architectural scholarship has examined the monastery in comparison with other medieval Armenian monuments.
Donabédian places the composition of Gandzasar’s church and narthex within the Armenian architectural tradition, drawing comparisons with monuments such as Haghpat, Mshkavank, Harich and others.
For this reason, the statement that “Gandzasar is Albanian” cannot be based solely on historical terminology. It must also be supported by comparative architectural research.
6. “The Armenian inscriptions at Gandzasar were added later”
If such a claim is made, it also requires evidence.
Gandzasar’s inscriptions are included in Sedrak Barkhudaryan’s scholarly corpus of Armenian inscriptions of Artsakh. The corpus treats these inscriptions as historical primary sources.
Therefore, the statement that the inscriptions “were added later” cannot itself be considered evidence. It would have to be demonstrated through specific archaeological, material-science or epigraphic research identifying which inscription was allegedly fabricated, when it was fabricated and by what method.
Until such evidence is produced, the claim remains an unsubstantiated hypothesis.
7. “The Hasan-Jalalians were Albanian, therefore they were Azerbaijani”
This formula mechanically combines two separate historical questions.
Hewsen’s research demonstrates that the origins and political environment of Hasan Jalal’s princely house were connected with Artsakh, Khachen and the complex network of medieval political authorities in the region.
A medieval dynasty’s relationship with the political or ecclesiastical history of Caucasian Albania does not automatically establish its “modern Azerbaijani” national identity.
Such a question requires examination of genealogical sources, language, ecclesiastical affiliation, local political authority and the ways in which the people of the period represented themselves.
8. “The ecclesiastical heritage of Caucasian Albania is Azerbaijani”
This argument also requires a distinction between historical ecclesiastical institutions and modern national identities.
The historical designation “Catholicosate of Caucasian Albania” cannot simply be equated with a modern Azerbaijani national ecclesiastical heritage.
Donabédian’s study, using Gandzasar as a case in point, demonstrates that the title survived in later centuries as a regional ecclesiastical designation, while the monastery’s architectural and cultural environment is examined within the framework of medieval Armenian tradition.
9. “Armenians are newcomers to Karabakh”
This claim cannot be resolved by a single medieval source.
However, for the demographic history of the 20th century, there is a highly significant and verifiable body of evidence: Soviet census records.
According to the 1989 census, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast had approximately 145,450 Armenians, or 76.9% of the population, and approximately 40,688 Azerbaijanis, or 21.5%.
Thus, at the end of the 20th century, Armenians constituted an absolute majority of the population of the autonomous oblast.
This demographic evidence does not, by itself, resolve every historical question concerning the 13th century. It does, however, contradict the assertion that the Armenian majority in late Soviet-era Nagorno-Karabakh was merely a politically constructed narrative.
10. A historical monument does not change its identity because a political border changes
The fact that Gandzasar is today under Azerbaijani political control does not, historically speaking, change the cultural context in which the monument was created.
The historical identity of a monument is examined through the period of its construction, its architecture, inscriptions, ecclesiastical affiliation and historical environment.
Robert Hewsen’s Armenia: A Historical Atlas employs precisely this type of historical-geographical approach, distinguishing between different periods, political formations, populations and cultural territories.
A change in political control over territory is therefore not, by itself, evidence that the historical identity of a monument has changed.
11. What are foreign journalists and diplomats actually being shown?
At this point, the issue extends beyond historiography.
When state officials present a monument to foreign journalists and diplomats within a particular historical framework, a historical narrative is disseminated through public diplomacy.
In the case of Azerbaijan, the narrative appears to follow a simplified chain:
Caucasian Albania → Christian monuments → Karabakh → modern Azerbaijan
But every link in this chain requires independent evidence.
The historical existence of Caucasian Albania does not, by itself, establish a direct continuity of modern Azerbaijani national identity with 13th-century Gandzasar.
12. History cannot be constructed around a single word
The history of Gandzasar must be examined through the combined evidence of epigraphy, architecture, ecclesiastical history, princely genealogy, medieval written sources and demographic data.
The existence of the word “Albania” or “Albanian” in historical sources is important, but it cannot erase the other layers of evidence.
This is one of the basic requirements of historical methodology: rather than selecting the single term most convenient for a political narrative, researchers should examine and compare all available primary sources.
The Azerbaijani side may continue to argue that certain scholars have Armenian backgrounds.
But the same criterion could be applied to historians of any country, reducing scholarly debate to a competition between surnames and national affiliations.
That approach cannot establish historical truth.
In the case of Gandzasar, the discussion should focus on the inscriptions preserved in stone, their dating, language, architectural composition, historical sources and comparative scholarly research.
If another interpretation is proposed, it should be presented according to the same standards—with primary sources and professional scholarly justification.
13. What remains if Armenians are removed from the history of Gandzasar?
What remains are stones bearing inscriptions and marks associated with Armenian historical culture.
But the historical environment in which those stones were created, used, preserved and transmitted to the present disappears from the narrative.
This is precisely why the inscriptions at Gandzasar cannot simply be detached from their historical context.
The Armenian inscriptions of Gandzasar, its architectural forms, the history of the princely house of Khachen and the documented Armenian demographic majority of Artsakh in the modern period cannot simply be removed from the historical narrative by assigning the monument another name.
Scholarly debate can and should examine the relationship between Caucasian Albania and Artsakh. But such debate cannot be based on selectively erasing historical layers.
14. The conclusion of Niderlandakan Oragir
The struggle taking place around Gandzasar today is not merely a dispute over ownership.
It is also a struggle over who will have the authority to tell the history of the monastery to the international community.
For Azerbaijan, it is politically advantageous to place Gandzasar within a simplified chain in which “Caucasian Albania” is presented as equivalent to Azerbaijan.
The historical record, however, points to a more complex picture involving Caucasian Albania, Artsakh, Khachen, Armenian princely dynasties, Armenian ecclesiastical and architectural traditions, epigraphic heritage and the long-term demographic history of the region.
The central question, therefore, is not:
“Whose is Gandzasar according to today’s political statements?”
It is:
“What do the stones, inscriptions and primary sources from the period of Gandzasar’s construction actually tell us?”
If any state wishes to revise the established historical interpretation, the international scholarly community has every right to ask for the relevant original sources, archaeological evidence, epigraphic studies and independent expert assessments.
History is not determined by who is standing at the gates of Gandzasar today. History should be examined through the sources created at the time Gandzasar was being built. And those sources tell us who was there when it was built.
— Niderlandakan Oragir
Academic and Professional Sources
1. Jost Gippert & Jasmine Dum-Tragut (eds.), Caucasian Albania: An International Handbook. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2023. An international academic reference work addressing the history, language, church, architecture and ethnic questions surrounding Caucasian Albania.
2. Patrick Donabédian, “Gandzasar Monastery (13th century),” Association Internationale des Études Arméniennes, Aix-Marseille University. A study of Gandzasar’s history, inscriptions, architecture and the historical title “Catholicos of Caucasian Albania.”
3. Anatoly L. Yakobson, “Из истории армянского средневекового зодчества (Гандзасарский монастырь XIII в.)” / “From the History of Medieval Armenian Architecture: The Monastery of Gandzasar.” Herald of the Social Sciences, 1977, No. 12, pp. 59–76.
4. Robert H. Hewsen, “The Kingdom of Arc'ax.” In Thomas J. Samuelian & Michael E. Stone (eds.), Medieval Armenian Culture. University of Pennsylvania Armenian Texts and Studies 6. Chico, California: Scholars Press, 1984, pp. 42–68.
5. Robert H. Hewsen, “Ethno-History and the Armenian Influence upon the Caucasian Albanians.” In Thomas J. Samuelian (ed.), Classical Armenian Culture: Influences and Creativity. University of Pennsylvania Armenian Texts and Studies 4. Chico, California: Scholars Press, 1982, pp. 27–40.
6. Sedrak Barkhudaryan, Corpus of Armenian Inscriptions, Vol. V: Artsakh. Yerevan: Armenian SSR Academy of Sciences, 1982. A scholarly corpus of the epigraphic material of Artsakh, including inscriptions from Gandzasar. References to the Gandzasar inscription of Hasan Jalal appear approximately on pp. 38–41.
7. Claude Mutafian, “Hasan Jalal, a great Armenian prince under the Mongols,” Association Internationale des Études Arméniennes. The study examines Hasan Jalal’s titles, family and political environment in the 13th century through the Gandzasar inscription.
8. International Crisis Group, Nagorno-Karabakh: Viewing the Conflict from the Ground. Europe Report No. 166, 2005. The report cites the 1989 Soviet census figures showing Armenians at 76.9% and Azerbaijanis at approximately 21.5% of the population of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast.
9. Murad Hasratyan, The Artsakh School of Armenian Architecture. Yerevan: Academy of Sciences of Armenia, 1992, pp. 31–43 on Gandzasar. The book examines the development of medieval Armenian architecture in Artsakh and Gandzasar’s central role within it.
10. B. Ulubabyan & M. Hasratian, Gandzasar. Documenti di Architettura Armena, Vol. 17. Milan: OEMME, 1987. A specialized architectural study of Gandzasar, also cited by Patrick Donabédian’s international study.
11. Nora Dudwick, “The Case of the Caucasian Albanians: Ethnohistory and Ethnic Politics,” Cahiers du Monde Russe et Soviétique, Vol. 31, Nos. 2–3, 1990, pp. 377–383.
Ի՞նչ է փնտրում Ադրբեջանը Գանձասարում․ պատմական ժառանգությո՞ւն, թե՞ նոր պատմություն
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