The Mausoleum of the Momine (Mu'mine) Khatun is located in Nakhichevan, the capital of the Nakhichevan region of Azerbaijan. It was commissioned by Ildegizid Atabek Jahan Pahlawan (1175-1186) in honor of his wife, Momine Khatun, and completed in 1186-1187, as indicated on the Kufic style inscriptive plaque above the entrance. Its architect, Adjemi ibn Abubekr (Ajemi Nakchivani) also built the nearby mausoleum of Yusuf ibn Kuseyir. The mausoleum was most recently restored in 1999-2003, as part of the Azerbaijan Cultural Heritage Support Project of the World Bank. (http://archnet.org/library/sites/one-site.jsp?site_id=9403)
Presentation on Nakhichevan history made at University of California at Berkeley, December 1, 2007(PowerPoint presentation, 10 MB)
Video's from the Armenian exhibit at the Davis Center, October 2007
Note: video's are in 3GP format and split into several files for easier online viewing and downloading
Video #1
Video #2
Video #3
Video #4
Video #5
Video #6
Video #7
Video #8
Video #9
Video #10
Video #11
Video #12
OPEN LETTER
November 5, 2007
Dear Staff members of the Davis Center at Harvard University
Harvard University Board and Administration,
Harvard University President:
All concerned Azerbaijani-Americans and their respective cultural organizations and associations, have been completely appalled and outraged over the fact that Harvard University and the Davis Center has not only lent its name, credibility and platform to the highly unscholarly and unscientific “Armenian Monuments of the Nakhichevan Region: A Photo Exhibit” (November 2-19, 2007), which was organized and paid for by Armenian interests, but essentially closed its eyes to a combination of:
1) Armenian territorial claims to Azerbaijan;
2) support for the cultural heritage misappropriation and destruction conducted by Republic of Armenia on its own, as well as currently occupied Azerbaijani territories (such as Karabakh region, and a small part of Naxcivan region, the Karki village);
3) clear abuse of official position and discrimination against ethnic Azerbaijani students and alumnae of Harvard Univesity by Prof. James Russell (a Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard)
To begin with, the maps, texts and claims made at the reception and photo exhibit are completely without a basis, false and absurd, and one wonders how can a premier research and educational university in the country allow for such an outrage to happen, even if under the guise of free speech. Albeit the latter, if used as a blanket excuse, does not apply, since it is not students that organize the event, and it is not Prof. Russell who does it on his own, but they clearly use and abuse the name of the Davis Center and Harvard University: “Sponsored by the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. For more information call the Davis Center: 617-495-4037”. I know and I hope that Harvard University and the Davis Center does not and cannot support and condone the claims made by Prof. Russell, as well as Dr. Anahit Ter-Stepanian, Steven Sim and Argam Ayvazian.
The groundless and false claims made by the exhibit and during the reception abound, for example, about the “pre-historic” presence of Armenians in the region, since 3 rd millennium B.C. – even though Encyclopedia Britannica (any edition) and other scholarly sources clearly show that proto-Armenians came to the Iranian Plateau region only around the end of the 7th century B.C. (over 2,000 years later than implied). Then, only after strong opposition from Azerbaijani students, have Prof. Russell and others removed the outrageous claim of the mausoleum of Momine Khatun – mother of a Great Seljuk Turkic sultan and wife of a Great Azerbaijani Turkic atabek – being supposedly Armenian. To my personal knowledge, nowhere in Armenia even most ardent ultra-nationalists claim this mausoleum as Armenian – so Prof. Russell has really outdone everyone with this claim.
However, what is no less disturbing is the barrage of abuse, hostility, violations and other excesses committed by Prof. Russell against ethnically Azerbaijani students and alumni, as well as guests, of Harvard University. Specifically, Prof. Russell, who at first emphasized that he is an ethnic Armenian himself, and later reversed his story, did the following:
1) Discrimination on ethnic, national, ancestry, and political grounds - asking to cease and desist from question asking and comments as soon as he learned that one of the students is Azerbaijani, despite previously giving the floor to the student;
2) Freedom of speech violation - participating in or deliberately abetting disruption, interference, or intimidation - despite the Azerbaijani question posers being orderly, seeking and receiving permission to raise a question and/or make a short comment;
3) Committing a hostile physical act - grabbing the student by the arm;
4) Abuse of official position - use of the position or powers of a faculty member to coerce the judgment or conscience of a student or to potentially cause harm to a student for arbitrary or personal reasons, such as by charging that since Dr. Russell is a university professor, and the Azerbaijani student is not, he should barely even contemplate an official complaint, and if he does indeed complain, his chances of winning it are virtually non-existent;
5) Discrimination and intimidation against, and factual misinformation, regarding the rights of the ethnically Azerbaijani students as non-U.S. citizens (i.e., discrimination based on citizenship) despite that student being a lawfully admitted non-immigrant temporary resident of the United States, and enjoying all the same rights and responsibilities as anyone on U.S. soil in the court of law
We petition to:
a) severely reprimand Prof. Russell,
b) demand that the Davis Center stops the exhibition, and
c) sponsors an “Azerbaijani Monuments of the Nakhichevan Region: A Photo Exhibit” and a reception for it in the near future.
VIDEO's FROM THE Armenian exhibition at Davis Center