Samvel Karapetyan

Who is Samvel Karapetyan?

Samvel Karapetian is an Armenian historian, researcher, author, and expert of medieval architecture, specializing in the study of the historical monuments of Armenia, Nagorno Karabakh and other regions of the Southern Caucasus. He has surveyed and catalogued thousands of artifacts of Armenian history and architecture during the course of more than two decades. Karapetyan is currently head of the Yerevan branch of the NGO Research on Armenian Architecture. Karapetyan is also known as an outspoken critic of the treatment of Armenian monuments in Turkey: he argues that Turkey has a policy of intentional neglect and planned destruction. He has also presented evidence that accuses Georgia and Azerbaijan of deliberately destroying Armenian historical monuments. He presented his findings to US Congress in 2007 and to the European Court of Human Rights in 2008.

In 2007 he won the Armenian Presidential Humanitarian Sciences Prize for his work in literature.