Lessons of anti-Armenian presentation in Moscow; Consequences of passion for xenophobic rhetoric
Yesterday, at the "AIF" press center in Moscow the presentation of the book "Truth about the "myths" of Karabakh conflict" written by historian Oleg Kuznetsov was held. Initially, the book was considered as a response to candidate of historical sciences Stanislav Tarasov’s work "Myths about Karabakh conflict."
However, as Vadim Gomoz editor of "Wikipedia" revealed during the presentation of the book, that the latter was replete with historical inaccuracies, disinformation, and outright falsification of facts about Armenian people’s history, from the very first pages.
As it can be seen in the video on YouTube, Vadim Gomoz, in the presence of the author, guests and journalists, voices the absurdities of the book page by page. For example, Kuznetsov argues that the "real" history of the Armenian nation is a "closed book." "This means that, it can be assumed that the Armenians have misled the entire population of the earth, and the world leading experts in Armenian Studies, and there are many of them, do not understand what they are writing about," says Vadim Gomoz and notes that such passages turn the book into a kind of conspiracy theory and not a scientific work, because these statements are made by a person who has no scientific publications on the Armenian Studies, and does not even know Armenian language.
Evidence that Kuznetsov doesn’t know Armenian language may serve at least the fact of incorrect translation of terms. For example, on page 8 the term "Hay Dat", which is quite widespread term in the scientific and political area, is translated as "Armenian trace" while "Hay Dat" means "Armenian Cause" and refers to the Armenian Genocide issue in Ottoman Turkey.
In the frameworks of scientific controversy, Vadim Gomoz also notes Kuznetsov’s untenable assertion which says as if there are no reliable sources on the Armenian history. In front of the historian-author, Gomoz lists a number of scientific, academic works, of both foreign and Russian authors. Gomoz also turns to sources of Armenian authors of Middle Ages, refutation existence of which is, principally, meaningless.
Referring to the author's claim, that majority of sources on Armenian history have narrative, oral nature, Gomoz notes, "I probably will reveal a big secret, but most of the ancient sources are narrative, that is, they have oral nature like legends and myths; for example, the oldest Russian-source "Tale of Bygone Years", or ancient source for the history of the Jews – "The Bible." These are all narrative sources and it is unclear why such a claim is put in front of the Armenians."
Vadim Gomoz also highlights the strictly unscientific statements of the author claiming that only local Muslims began to call the "Armenians" "hay", in order to distinguish them, not only from Muslims, but from the rest of the Christian population existing in the region. "The Armenians were first mentioned in Behistun Inscription (VI century BC) by Darius. I specially Googled down: "An Armenian named Dadarshish, my servant, I sent into Armenia, and I said unto him: "Go, smite that host which is in revolt, and doth not acknowledge, me," Vadim Gomoz quotes.
Speaking of Kuznetsov’s statement which reads that, "The Armenian Apostolic Church has served merely a screen for the Armenians throughout its history, and the Armenians are trying to hide from the Muslims their primordial national paganism", Gomoz notes: "The Armenian Apostolic Church has been emerged in the 50s AD. At the beginning of the 4th century, the Armenian Apostolic Church has become the official church of Armenia. The Arabs brought Islam into Caucasus in 645 AD. We must assume that for about six centuries, while there was neither Islam, nor Prophet Mohammed, the Armenian Apostolic Church was getting ready for the Muslims to come to that region, and was conducting a big conspiracy," Gomoz said.
He also touched upon the author who as evidence of his rightness quoted not the Armenian historians, but the candidate of Geological Sciences Suren Ayvazyan, who has no serious scientific publications so far, in the same time the author ignores the falsification of the official Azerbaijani historians. "Scientists from different countries say that it is the Azerbaijani scientists that falsify the documents.
Buniatov published a book, and edit from there out the word "Armenians". This is proven. Put the original book next to the one published in Azerbaijan in modern times," notes Gomoz and reminds that Suren Ayvazyan is not taken seriously even in Armenia. Yagub Mahmudov, the director of the Institute of History of ANAS, for example, had stated that the Russian and Kazakh historians are falsifiers because they had published a book called "Turan on ancient maps", where "there is no description of 5000-year-old ancient Azerbaijan."
In his book Kuznetsov also makes such ridiculous statement, like, for example, the statement saying that "before the end of the 19th century, the Armenians not only had no historical experience of their own national statehood, but also were in the early stages of tribal development. "Is this about the Armenians who created literature, built churches, and created their own alphabet?" Gomoz asks.
Most of Kuznetsov’s book is devoted to the hints and direct accusation towards Tarasov, claiming that the latter works for the Armenians. Of course, this is not an argument in the scientific controversy, but as far as Kuznetsov finds him relevant, he should explain to the readers that there is a scandalous trail of provocative cooperation with the Azerbaijani media being pulled after him as well. It should be noted that recently, a correspondence of Oleg Kuznetsov with Bahram Batiev, employee of the Azerbaijani news agency “Vesti.az”, appeared in the network. There, Kuznetsov clearly speaks of the payment for his "services" rendered to the Azerbaijani propaganda, and shows interest in public reaction on his anti-Armenian opuses.
It looks like, the idea of answering Stanislav Tarasov’s theses in the form of a book, abounding with disinformation and Azerbaijani propaganda, cannot inspire with confidence the reader who is able to think and analyze. As, if on the first 30 pages of the book you can find such big number of blunders, the rest of the content cannot invoke trust as well. This means that the resources and money spent by the Azerbaijani side played against her own state propaganda once again.