The musical, historical, and visual aspects of the video were supposed to invoke empathy and pain.
Armenian cellist Sevak Avanesyan was filmed performing in the snow-white, rubble-covered Holy Savior Cathedral in the town of Shushi in Nagorno-Karabakh, a separatist region of Azerbaijan dominated by ethnic Armenians since the early 1990s. 1990.
The cathedral was bombed on October 8, according to Armenian officials, by two attacks by Azerbaijani forces that were part of their offensive to reconquer the region that began in late September.
The resumption of the decades-long conflict unleashed a full-blown information war that both parties claim reflects, distorts, lashes out, and exaggerates hostilities on the ground.
The cello piece, entitled “Stork”, was written by Armenia’s most famous and tragic composer, Komitas, who suffered a nervous breakdown after surviving the mass killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey and died in a mental institution in Paris.
Armenia and many Western nations call the deaths of up to 1.5 million Armenians “genocide,” while Turkey rejects such accusations.
Cellist Sevak Avanesyan performs “Krunk” composed by #Komitas, in the Holy Savior #Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in #Shushi.
the #Cathedral was attacked twice on October 8 by #Azerbaijani armed forces. pic.twitter.com/mmlOPW4fGr
– Armenia 🇦🇲 (@armenia) October 12, 2020
The music video was posted on October 12 on Armenia’s official Twitter account, and the message was clear: The bombing of the cathedral by Azerbaijan, a Turkish-speaking nation of 10 million whose closest ally is Ankara, was part of a centuries-long enmity. from the Turks to the Armenians.
The opinion is widely shared in Armenia, where many see the conflict as an apocalyptic struggle aimed at destroying their state, history and culture.
“I hope we defeat the [Azeri] hordes this time like we did in the 1990s, and my people will not be exterminated, ”Mari, a resident of the Armenian capital, Yerevan, told Al Jazeera.
But for Azerbaijan, such claims are a slap in the face.
Baku officials vehemently deny any link between the Ottoman-era conflict and their efforts to reclaim Nagorno-Karabakh and the adjacent sparsely populated areas that were once populated by hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis.
Baku simply rejects the very fact of the bombing.
“The information about the damage to the Shushi church has nothing to do with the military operations of the Azerbaijani army,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement. “The Azeri army does not target historical, cultural and especially religious buildings and monuments.”
Many in Azerbaijan remember their peaceful coexistence with ethnic Armenian neighbors in the Soviet era.
During the two-year compulsory military service, Azerbaijani and Armenian conscripts often came together to resist hazing and harassment from high-level military personnel.
Muslim Magomayev, an Azerbaijani singer nicknamed “the Soviet Tom Jones”, used to perform songs written by Armenian composers.
For Azerbaijani observers, the video of the cathedral is part of a broader campaign to tarnish Baku and its efforts to give back what is theirs in accordance with international law and the status quo that emerged after the 1991 Soviet collapse.
“We see an unprecedented information attack on Azerbaijan,” Emil Mustafayev, a political analyst based in the Azerbaijani capital, told Al Jazeera.
“The Armenian side deliberately launches forgeries, for example, about the participation of certain Syrian mercenaries on the Azeri side,” he said.
Numerous Armenian and international media reports claim that Ankara has recruited and dispatched hundreds of pro-Turkish Syrian fighters to the front lines.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has rejected the reports, saying that Turkey “fully” supports its Azerbaijani allies.
Unsurprisingly, the information war resonates in the corridors of power on both sides.
“I ask each of you to reveal the Armenian propaganda forgeries and to spread the truth about the Armenian aggression to the international community on all platforms! All those who consider Azerbaijan their homeland must speak out and refute the Armenian lies! “Mehriban Aliyeva, the first lady and vice president of Azerbaijan, wrote on Facebook on October 5.
Her husband agrees with her and has pointed to how the Russian media covers the conflict, especially after Moscow called for a truce and offered to host more rounds of peace talks.
A man walks past the ruins of a house that was destroyed by recent shelling during the military conflict in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the city of Martuni October 14, 2020 [Stringer/Reuters]
Russia maintains a military base in Armenia, which has few resources, and supplies it with oil and gas.
“In some Russian [television] social media, we see blatant anti-Azeri propaganda, counterfeiting, manipulation, ”Ilkham Aliyev told the RBC Daily online portal on October 11.
Since the early 1990s, the conflict has claimed more than 30,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands.
Many Azeri and Armenian refugees fled to Russia, mostly huddled in urban centers, leading to xenophobia and anti-migrant sentiment.
Despite the odds, many immigrants triumphed in Russia and defended their homelands in the social media war.
“I want you to understand that Azerbaijan stands for justice and is now giving back its occupied territories,” Gasan Guseinov, an ethnic Azerbaijani video blogger who has 14.3 million subscribers, wrote on Instagram.
The Armenian side reflects the claims.
“Sometimes there are examples of blatant propaganda in wartime, as is the case in all conflicts,” Richard Giragosian, a Yerevan-based political analyst, told Al Jazeera.
He says Aliyev, who inherited his presidency and authoritarian policies from his father Heydar, is doing himself no favors by keeping a tight grip on the national media and hiding information from the front lines.
Azerbaijan does not release its military death toll, for example, but Aliyev has said he will announce details when fighting subsides.
“Ironically, such a reserved approach [triggered an] erosion of trust and unreliability that tainted each and every official earnings announcement or victory claim, ”Giragosian said.
Although many Azerbaijanis and Armenians will deny any similarity between their cultures and mentalities, for some outside observers the information war has its roots in much older traditions.
Azerbaijan, Armenia and neighboring Georgia were part of the Iranian, Arab and Turkish empires before Russia absorbed the region in the 19th century.
“This is the classic Greater Middle East, when the warring sides exaggerate their successes on the battlefield,” Pavel Luzin, a Russia-based analyst at the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington think tank, told Al Jazeera.
“These are not even deliberate lies or misinformation, but part of a centuries-old culture,” he said.
Women stand at a basement entrance during the bombing in the city of Terter, Azerbaijan, on October 13, 2020, during the ongoing military conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh region. [Bulent Kilic/AFP]