YEREVAN, Armenia — Within the chilly, damp basement of a home in certainly one of Yerevan’s suburbs, Arnold Meliksetyan, a 76-year-old painter and sculptor, has discovered the one area he can afford to lease — a single, cramped room, small and naked, the place he should stay, sleep, and work. An outdated, rickety chair doubles as his mattress. His canvases and paints are scattered throughout the room, mixing into the sparse environment. This basement is his complete world now, a distinction to the life he as soon as had in Nagorno Karabakh or Artsakh, because the indigenous Armenians name their ancestral homeland.
Meliksetyan is among the many 120,000 Armenians forcibly displaced from Artsakh following Azerbaijan’s large-scale offensive in 2023, which claimed the whole territory after a virtually 10-month blockade of the Lachin Hall, the lifeline street linking Artsakh to Armenia. This plunged the inhabitants right into a extreme humanitarian disaster, subjecting them to a hunger siege.
A yr and a half later, those that took refuge in Armenia face quite a few obstacles, from housing and employment to healthcare, training, and authorized considerations associated to citizenship. However the distinctive challenges of Artsakh’s artists are sometimes overshadowed.
Artsakh’s millennia-old cultural heritage is being destroyed — latest documentation exhibits Azerbaijani authorities taking down church buildings, complete settlements, and historic constructions. Defending the area’s intangible heritage has develop into the mission of the newly established Heart for Preservation of Artsakh Tradition in Yerevan, whose founder, Apres Zohrabyan, instructed Hyperallergic that it’s essential to seek out sources to safeguard cultural collectives and self-employed artists. Zohrabyan additionally goals to unite forcibly displaced Armenians round cultural occasions to protect inter-community ties amongst residents from the occupied territories.
Whereas 150 displaced artists are employed throughout numerous cultural organizations, there’s a major hole in addressing the wants of practically 1,400 displaced people searching for work within the cultural sector. Based on Zohrabyan, solely the Artsakh State Dance Ensemble has acquired short-term funding, from the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund.
Artsiv Lalayan and Arnold Meliksetyan in Stepanakert utilizing a handcart to move Meliksetyan’s sculptures (photograph courtesy Ruzanna Mkrtchyan)
Throughout their chaotic compelled exodus from Artsakh, with the assistance of his self-employed artist buddy Artsiv Lalayan and native authorities officers who lent a automobile, Meliksetyan managed to save lots of a couple of of his sculptures and work. However many others had been left behind.
“It’s like abandoning your own child,” he instructed Hyperallergic, the ache evident in his voice. “You stand there, looking at your creations, and you’re forced to decide which to take and which to leave behind. I can’t forgive myself for that.”
Transporting the bigger sculptures was practically not possible.
This wasn’t the primary time Meliksetyan had been compelled to half along with his artwork. Earlier than the 2020 struggle, he had participated in an annual worldwide sculpture symposium in Shushi, abandoning lots of his sculptural creations on out of doors show on the native Museum of Tremendous Arts. Nonetheless, after Shushi (often known as “Shusha” in Azerbaijani) was occupied by Azerbaijani forces in early November 2020, the destiny of these sculptures grew to become unsure.
Months later, the analysis initiative Caucasian Heritage Watch (CHW) launched satellite tv for pc pictures of the out of doors artwork park taken on April 10 and June 5. Within the first, the quite a few sculptures stood tall; within the second, not solely had been the sculptures gone however the basis under them had additionally disappeared fully.
Arnold Meliksetyan stands alongside certainly one of his latest creations, “Mulberry Leaf Pickers” (2024) (photograph Siranush Sargsyan/Hyperallergic)
The systematic erasure of Armenian cultural heritage by the Azerbaijani regime seems to be geared toward obliterating any hint of Armenian id in Artsakh, according to President Ilham Aliyev’s October 2020 wartime deal with to his nation, during which the Azerbaijani autocrat vowed to go away “no trace’’ of Armenians. This has been characterized by CHW and others as a deliberate act by the Azerbaijani regime, aimed at obliterating any remnant of Armenian identity in Artsakh.
Despite the hardships, the moment Meliksetyan arrived in Armenia, he began piecing his life back together.
“Creating is my way of life; perhaps it’s a form of self-defense. Sculpting is healing, a form of struggle, and therapy all at once,” Meliksetyan defined.
As long as he attracts breath, Meliksetyan has by no means thought of abandoning his artwork. He started sculpting in the course of the Karabakh Motion in 1988, a pivotal second when Armenians demanded the reunification of Nagorno-Karabakh with Soviet Armenia, dedicating a lot of his vitality to this craft. Nonetheless, after the compelled displacement, he finds himself portray extra usually. In his small basement room, he lacks each the area and instruments vital for sculpting, even when he had the need to take action.
For Meliksetyan, artwork is not only a ardour — it’s a necessary a part of his existence.
“Sculpting and painting go deeper than love; they tap into emotions that are more profound. You may love someone else, but in this craft, you cannot deceive,” he stated.
Meliksetyan depends solely on his pension and a authorities assist of roughly 50,000 drams, round $130, barely sufficient to cowl lease and utility payments. Moreover, he struggles to promote his paintings, leaving him in a relentless battle to make ends meet. Though he stays in Armenia, dedicated to his craft, he laments that some artists have left for Russia attributable to monetary difficulties.
This actuality is especially painful for Meliksetyan, given Russia’s historic exploitation of Armenians.
“They have used us and discarded us for centuries,” he stated. “Before the Russians came to our region, the five melikdoms of Artsakh enjoyed significant autonomy, and Artsakh was flourishing. Everything changed with their arrival.”
Arnold Meliksetyan, “Soldier” (2010) (picture courtesy the artist)
This exploitation was evident not solely in the course of the lack of Artsakh, Meliksetyan stated, but additionally in the course of the Soviet Union years when Artsakh confronted pressures from each Soviet Russia and Soviet Azerbaijan. Throughout that point, creating artwork with Armenian themes and even studying the Armenian language and historical past was usually met with restrictions.
Regardless of the challenges, Meliksetyan expresses a willingness to return to Azerbaijani-occupied Artsakh if safety might be assured.
“Whether or not they are our neighbors, we must find a way to live together,” he mirrored. “I didn’t just lose my homeland, I lost my home, which I will never have here.”
Zohrabyan hyperlinks the shortage of funding for artists to immigration, explaining that these receiving help stay in Armenia, whereas others struggling to seek out work to migrate, primarily to Russia.
Self-employed artists specifically face vital hurdles. Meliksetyan has gotten assist from a former classmate from 50 years in the past who has tirelessly tried to help their displaced buddy by offering him with portray provides and different sources. Moreover, the Institute for Modern Artwork in Yerevan has supplied space for storing for his sculptures and different works rescued from Artsakh. Nonetheless, this help is much from enough to satisfy his wants.
Artsiv Lalayan in the course of the opening of the exhibition of his work in Yerevan (photograph Siranush Sargsyan/Hyperallergic)
Ayntap, a village in Armenia’s Ararat Province positioned south of Yerevan, is now residence to Artsiv Lalayan, who has been displaced a number of occasions. After the 2020 struggle, Lalayan and his household had been forcibly displaced from Hadrut to Stepanakert, the capital of Artsakh. Their second such occasion introduced them to Ayntap, the place he now lives along with his spouse, 5 kids, and fogeys. It’s ironic that he has settled in a city that was itself named for the Armenians fleeing the historic metropolis of Aintab, in present-day Turkey, in the course of the 1915–23 Armenian Genocide.
Lalayan’s elder brother Khachatur was killed in the course of the first Artsakh struggle, and his second brother Vahram, a historian and theologian, was killed in the course of the second struggle of their yard. In 2023, Lalayan misplaced his ancestral homeland, the place he started his inventive profession in 1993, portray whereas concurrently serving because the director of the Armenak Khanperyants Museum in his native village. Now he has no details about the destiny of that museum, or his work, however he believes Azerbaijani forces more than likely destroyed them.
For Lalayan additionally, the shortage of a studio is a significant problem, as he now shares a dwelling area along with his massive household of 10. Alongside along with his spouse, fellow painter Tatev Amirjanyan, they handle to maintain creating below one roof. Amirjanyan started portray in the course of the first Artsakh struggle, when she was nonetheless a toddler and lacked correct supplies and provides. She would create her artwork utilizing mud and charcoal on gates and fences. Once they had been compelled to go away Hadrut in the course of the 2020 struggle, they had been unable to salvage their work. One in every of her work, which had been displayed in a lodge within the capital, was salvaged, whereas all her different works needed to be left behind.
Tatev Amirjanyan’s solely saved portray, “A Gaze” (2016) (photograph by and courtesy the artist)
The artist couple are one another’s best critics and supporters. “I have received professional education and academically try to advise my husband, while he is stronger in compositions and helps me,” Amirjanyan instructed Hyperallergic.
As a mom of 5, she has hardly created something in recent times. “During the blockade, when you can’t find food to feed your children, it’s hard to think about painting,” she stated, noting that even right this moment, there are not any circumstances for portray. Regardless of this, final yr she picked up the comb once more.
Lalayan notes that dwelling exterior Artsakh means they have to mentally “find themselves again.” Like most artists, promoting their paintings poses one other problem.
“In Artsakh, everyone knew us, and we had places to showcase our work; here, those opportunities are gone,” he stated.
Selecting up his brush or chisel once more after the struggle was tough for Lalayan. He had not simply misplaced his studio, artwork, residence, and homeland, but additionally witnessed a number of the most grotesque scenes of struggle. Whereas his closest loss was the killing of his brother, Lalayan is much more traumatized by his expertise seeing the severed physique components of his aged neighbor, Vardan Altunyan.
Altunyan’s alleged beheading by Azerbaijani forces, in response to Nagorno-Karabakh Human Rights Ombudsman Gegam Stepanyan and specialists from organizations such because the Safety of Rights With out Borders NGO and the Heart for Fact and Justice, is without doubt one of the many unreported human rights abuses of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh struggle. His brutal dying was by no means recorded; as a substitute, he was reported to have died by gunshot.
It’s arduous to even think about what would have occurred if the our bodies of these with such a brutal destiny had been buried in the identical cemetery that the Azerbaijanis later destroyed within the village of Mets Tagher/Böyük Tağlar. The cemetery was based within the early nineteenth century and was in use when Armenians evacuated the village in 2020. Satellite tv for pc imagery exhibits its full destruction, with seen indicators of bulldozer scars — a truth confirmed by Caucasus Heritage Watch.
Set up view of Lalayan’s exhibition Yerevan, after his compelled displacement (photograph Siranush Sargsyan/Hyperallergic)
On January 10, an exhibition of work by Lalayan opened on the Narekatsi Artwork Union in Yerevan, marking the venue’s first showcase for the reason that compelled displacement. Arnold Meliksetyan, who additionally attended and supported his colleague and buddy, famous that though he has not stopped creating, he feels the time isn’t but ripe for him to carry an exhibition.
“My paintings are now new creations, inspired by my son Vem, born after the war,” stated Lalayan. “Sometimes I want to recreate the paintings I left behind, but it’s impossible to recreate what you’ve lost.”
