Artak Movsisyan: “Everything Is Done To Equate Turks And Armenians”

Head of the Department of Armenian History at Yerevan State University, Candidate of Historical Sciences Artak Movsisyan noted that “these books” (new school history books) do everything possible to equate Armenians and Turks and criticize the patriotic component of Armenian historical books that are supposedly aimed at forming the image of an enemy in the person of the Turks.

In addition, he pointed out that the books question the fact that the Armenians are the indigenous inhabitants of the Armenian Highlands. The mentioned books also criticize the fact that “the Armenians in Armenian books are described as the natives of the Caucasus and Anatolia”. That is, the concept of “Armenian Highlands” is replaced by “Caucasus and Anatolia”, which is convenient for the Turks.

Movsisyan noted that these books were signed by seven Armenians, of whom only two are historians, and two are parliamentarians from the ruling My Step faction – Maria Karapetyan and Sos Avetisyan, linguists by education.

Moreover, the expert noted that the secretive behavior of the ministry and the reaction of the Minister of Education, Science, Culture, and Sports Arayik Harutyunyan indicate that he is not only aware of everything but also is a sponsor and endorser.

“So how does the militarism of the authors of [old] school textbooks manifest itself – in the fact that they devoted two pages to the events of the April War? Don’t our heroes deserve this?” said Professor Artak Movsisyan.