- THREAD -
Kanach Zham, the oldest and smaller church of #Shushi, #Artsakh. It's history, propaganda and the recent destruction by #Azerbaijan.

It was built in 1818 to replace a former wooden church (Kharabaghtsots) that stood at the same place.
Photo: Postcard from 19th century

It survived the 1920 destruction of the #Armenia|n part of #Shushi almost untouched - which is the reason that it today is the oldest church in the city. Here is a picture taken after the 1920 razing of the Armenian parts of town.

As it was typical for the time and region, it was built with a dome and a tower. Here is a close-up picture of the church before it's last restauration.

The dome used to be painted green, hence the name "Kanach Zham", which means "Green church"

As @Artak_Beglaryan rightly pointed out, Kanach Zham also survived the 2020 Battle for #Shushi almost untouched. An #Azerbaijan|i soldier took this picture after the Azerbaijani forces took control of the city. It is also visible in several videos from these first days.

Already during the war, however, some #Azerbaijan social media accounts started propagating that the church used to be #Russia|n orthodox and that #Armenia|ns appropiated it incorrectly.
The first was @TGanjaliyev,"Elected representative of the Azerbaijani population of NK".

To sustain his claim, he cropped out the Armenian cross on top of the church (which is visible on pre-reconstruction pictures in this thread). In case you are not aware of orthodox symbols, this is the symbol of the Russian orthodox (RO) church, which is on top of every RO church

The claim that churches with domes cannot be Armenian is furthermore outrageous, as the oldest Armenian church in #Baku actually had the same style - a dome and a tower.

This "Church of the Holy Virgin" got entirely destroyed in 1992 by #Azerbaijan, though.

However, the propaganda claim that Kanach Zham is Russian orthodox and #Armenia|ns turned it into an Armenian church by destructing the dome caught speed on AZ social media.
Even @SOCARofficial's TV channel cbc reported:

SOCAR is a state owned company and so is cbc, indirectly. It aired the propaganda history re-writing story in Azerbaijani and Russian.

The "historian" interviewed, Ruslan Huseynov, is invisible online. So is the "Caucasus Historical Center" he apparently works for. Who is he?

Anyways. We all know what followed. A day after the TV program aired, pictures of Kanach Zham appeared again - this time destroyed.
Following the propaganda story, the second church tower was destroyed - as there should be a dome, according to AZ propaganda.

The lesson from this is: AZ soldiers don't randomly vandalize. It is a systematic propaganda that makes them do it.
1. History is re-written and sharepics are shared among social media.
2. State propaganda channels surface it to a wider audience.
3. Soldiers see it and act.

Watching the history rewriting efforts done today and seeing the fake story slowly build gives you a solid idea what will be hit next. Sadly, not much can be done to counter it, yet, especially as media in AZ is so controlled.

As always these days, my source for the old pictures is this absolutely brilliant photo book, which contains hundreds of close-up shots of almost cultural monuments (and items like carpets) in #Artsakh. I can't thank Bako Sahakyan enough for giving me this in 2014!

I've tried to research were the #Azerbaijan narrative that Kanach Zham is a Russian orthodox church comes from now. They lay their claim on the book "History of Shusha" of Hasan Ikhfa (or Ekhfa) Alizade (1893-1973), a Persian (or Azerbaijani) historian.

International researchers (e.g. from Ukraine) consider the book an interesting, yet biased, historical report about live in #Shushi at the time. However, they criticize that #Azerbaijan doesn't grant non-Azerbaijani researchers access to this original source until today.

Thus, all we have is a quote that the "Azerbaijan community of Nagorno Karabakh" initially quoted ~2005. According to that quote, the "Russian hung a bell in a church close to their army base in #Shushi and prayed there".

That is literally all the claim is based on.

Interestingly, the author doesn't claim that the Russians built the church, though, or that it is a Russian orthodox church. In contrast, he says that the Russians put a bell into an existing church to pray there.

Acc. to the inscriptions, the church is 50 years older than that historical report and Armenian. So there's no contradiction. It seems like:

- Kanach Zham was built as an Armenian church, replacing a wooden church that stood there before.
- The Russian army used it.

- The Soviets left in disrepair and forbid using the church at all.
- After the first Karabakh war, the Armenians rebuilt it and again used it as an Armenian church.

Also: It was never a Russian orthodox church, just used by Russian orthodox, as it happens across the Caucasus.

This is very usual. Here is Atsvatsatsin Church,e.g., an Armenian church in #Tskhinval, #SouthOssetia, which is the main church of the city and used by Armenians, Ossetians and Russians alike to pray in until today.

Oh - and please do correct me, if I made any mistakes here. I'm not a historian by any means, but just find it utterly interesting and thus tried to dig into it a bit. But I might have missed some sources, of course

Thanks, @cavidaga - here is a pdf which contains the primary source (as provided by CBS-PP publishing house, 2006):
https://twitter.com/cavidaga/status/1330496390582185985

A Russian church is mentioned on p.83:

If I translate it correctly (please correct me, @cavidaga or @RusifHuseynov2), it states that:
The Upper Mosque overlooked the main square and the bazaar, which stretched over 300m from the mosque. A Divanxan (a courthouse building) was built behind that market...

This Divanxan was used until the "unification of Karabakh with Russia". The Russians confiscated the courtyard building, built a tower and turned it into a miliary church.

There is no indication (at least that I see) that this Divanxan is the same building as Kanach Zham.

In fact, Kanach Zham is more than 800m from the Upper Mosque, according to google maps.

In that source, I see no mention of a bell the Russians brought in - which organisations like "Azerbaijani community in Karabakh" keep citing from the same source.