Arafsa’s history reflects shifting populations in Armenia
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Researchers working on the “Sites of Memory of Western Azerbaijan” project documented the history of Arafsa, a village now named Arevis, in present-day Armenia.
The village, historically located in Zangazur, was founded by people originating from Nakhchivan and was inhabited exclusively by ancestors of present-day Azerbaijanis from the 19th century into the late 20th century. Records from the Russian Empire and Soviet era show the village consistently held Azerbaijani inhabitants, reaching 300 people by 1914.
Following the establishment of the First Republic of Armenia in 1918, the region experienced ethnic cleansing of Turkic populations, including in Arafsa, with attacks reported as early as September 1918. The Bolsheviks later ceded Zangazur to Armenia in 1920, dividing the former Zangazur Uyezd and incorporating the western, now predominantly Armenian, portion into the Armenian SSR. By the late 1980s, Azerbaijanis had been expelled from the Armenian SSR and the village resettled by Armenians.
Recent fieldwork between 2021 and 2024, part of the “Perished Civilization” book, discovered a World War II memorial in Arevis bearing the names of Azerbaijani victims, illustrating the long history of Azerbaijani presence in the area and the project’s aim to document nearly 600 such villages.
