A look back at the symposium "Histoires gravées dans la pierre - Վիմագիր պատմություններ" co-organized by the Inalco Foundation, the Hishatakaran association, Inalco and CREE
Throughout the day, speakers addressed the threats to Armenian heritage in the current geopolitical context through the results of the documentation work carried out by the association Hishatakaran and its partners.
The Hishatakaran association and its mission to preserve and promote heritage
The Hishatakaran association, co-founded and scientifically directed by Anna Leyloyan-Yekmalyan, senior lecturer in Russian and Caucasus history at Inalco, and a specialist in Armenian art and architecture, is mobilizing to inventory, map and document the endangered heritage of Nagorno-Karabakh, through "passports" that trace the history and culture of Armenian sites and monuments. This information is then made available on the association's website, so that as many people as possible can learn about the history of Armenian heritage.
They have thus been working, since 2023, as part of the Program for the Documentation and Preservation of Armenian Heritage coordinated by the Inalco Foundation with financial support from ALIPH (International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Zones) and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE ARMENIAN HERITAGE DOCUMENTATION AND PRESERVATION PROGRAM
Crossroads between stone, history and Armenian monuments
The day's various complementary lectures addressed all the scientific and historical dimensions of Armenia's heritage issues:
- Report on the work carried out by the Hishatakaran team in 2025, Anna Leyloyan-Yekmalyan, Sasun Danielyan, Gayane Boudaghyan, Arminé Hayrapetyan, Ashken Petrosyan and Ruzanna Kharazyan;
- "Silenced stones: monuments, memory and the dynamics of erasing heritage and its environment", Anna Leyloyan-Yekmalyan ;
- "Memory inscribed in the historical landscape: Medieval strata and monuments at risk in southwest Stepanakert", Arminé Hayrapetyan, historian, Hishatakaran expert;
- "Folk architecture in Artsakh: memory, forms and transformations", Manvel Sargsyan, architect and architectural historian, Hishatakaran expert;
- "The historical value of Artsakh's epigraphs in the face of contemporary challenges", Arsen Harutyunyan, epigraphist, head of the epigraphy department at ANS RA's Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, senior researcher at Matenadaran.
Bilingual lectures honor Armenian history and culture
Each of the lectures was bilingual, with an interpreter, so that Armenian- and French-speaking experts could dialogue and pass on to the audience all their research and warnings.
The speakers expressed their dismay at the widespread destruction of the heritage under study. This is why the Hishatakaran association concluded the day by stressing the importance of international recognition of Armenian heritage, in order to provide it with cultural protection and security. At present, with a view to conciliation between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the question of Nagorno-Karabakh's heritage is increasingly being overlooked.
.
