Aharon Adibekyan about the Armenian lavash, which is in the UNESCO list
A year ago, in 2013, the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of Armenia, the Ministry of Culture of Armenia and Armenia’s UNESCO National Committee had prepared a bid and presented the Armenian lavash to be included in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Armenia’s bid, which passing through phases, was tested and as a response, a positive conclusion was given. Later, on November 26 of the current year, the 9th session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage held in Paris decided to include the Armenian lavash in UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.
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The Armenian lavash is the fourth cultural value added to the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Sociologist Aharon Adibekyan, in the conversation with “Aravot”, referring to the above political and historical arguments, said, that the word lavash perhaps is not Armenian, but its preparation technology is Armenian.
“Lavash is the Armenian trick, and the nomadic tribes did not have a conical clay oven, secondly, Armenians have always solved the bread issue. In fact, even the term flour is not Armenia, it has a Latin origin, Armenians were cracked-wheat eating nation, and probably the flour and making bread came from the Romans. At the crossroads of different cultures, a phenomenon was born, which is the Armenian,” said Aharon Adibekyan, noting that today, Azerbaijan and Turkey are trying to prove that, for instance, the Armenian highland culture of Mesopotamia is their lost base, they had left this place and come back and not Erdoğan’s statements have become a subject of ridicule with the historians around the world.
Aharon Adibekyan also said that Azerbaijan does everything to say that Armenians are newcomers, and Etchmiadzin is not Armenia, too, but Albanian, the Armenian had captured it and so on, and since they consider them the descendants of Albanians, hence, this also becomes an Azerbaijani.
According to the sociologist, the history can be written in different ways, with different things to steal, but the science is so deep that many things can be decided very easily. “This victory is another blow to the Turks and Azeris, to their ridicule aspirations to appear courteous and has given something to the world culture, unfortunately, the complex of inferiority in them is immediately apparent, they are trying to show that they are not Turks or if yes, then only by language, or if they are Turks, then they are a mixture,” added Aharon Adibekyan, saying whatever they try to write, it all the same, the genetics shows the nation’s genealogy.
Our interlocutor said, “What is ours, should be ours, we should preserve it at all costs, because it is the side of our essence. What comes to lavash, then I think that only a tightwad Armenian could bake such a thin bread, in other words, to invent lavash, no one else, it’s an expression of national character, it is not only an item of food, and I repeat, only a tightwad man could bake the world’s thinnest flatbread.”
Eva HAKOBYAN
