Shushi Beyond Reach

Shushi / Shusha and memory

Memory, Loss and Belonging

Note on terminology. This project uses the Armenian name Shushi. In Azerbaijani, the city is

called Shusha. I use Shushi because this story focuses on Armenian collective memory, cultural

heritage, and my own relationship to the city; the terminology reflects that perspective.

The material environment of memory

This story is not an attempt to present the entire history of Shushi. It seeks to understand what

happens to collective memory formed around a place when physical connection with that place is

broken, while the material environment that carries that memory is destroyed or altered and its

historical identity is distorted.

Schools, education and cultural life

One of the material witnesses to that world is the Shushi Real School, which opened in

1881 and operated until 1920. It was one of the key institutions in the city’s educational life.

Many of its students later continued their education at higher educational institutions in

Russia and Europe and became active in science, culture, professional fields, public life,

The rupture of 1920

July 2016]

In March 1920, the massacre of Shushi’s Armenian population and the burning of the

Armenian part of the city destroyed not only residential neighbourhoods but also an

established urban and cultural environment. Historian Gayane Makhmourian’s study, based

Changing cultural landscapes

that victory became associated with return, reconstruction, and cultural rebirth.

The Shushi Museum of History and Local Lore opened on 28 May 1992. In later years,

museums, cultural institutions, exhibitions, educational programmes, and public events in

the city became part of its revived cultural life. The Shushi City History Museum collected

Reconstruction and cultural work

Mkhitaryan, 2016]

Together, the two images connect the memory of victory with the cultural and public life

Shushi thus became a symbol not only of victory, but also of return and rebirth after an

The events of 2020

During the 2020 war, Azerbaijani forces took control of Shushi, and following the 9

November ceasefire agreement, the city remained under Azerbaijani control.

In Armenian collective memory, the loss of Shushi carried significance beyond the

loss of a single city. It disrupted a narrative that had developed over nearly three decades,

Sites and surviving traces

Used with permission.]

The same organisation has also documented the complete destruction of the old Armenian

cemetery of Ghazanchetsots in Shushi. Monument Watch likewise documents processes

involving the destruction and alteration of the city’s Armenian cultural heritage and the

Photographs and distance

My photographs from Shushi are a simple example. They were taken at a time when I could

enter the city, walk through its streets, visit its museums, see its historic buildings, and

experience its cultural life.

At the time, they were simply photographs taken during a visit. Today, their status has

Memory beyond place

displacement, the natural transmission of cultural heritage within its spatial environment has

The story of Shushi shows that the loss of a place can simultaneously be a territorial,

material, and mnemonic rupture.

In 1920, an already established Armenian urban, cultural, and intellectual environment was