2025

Armenian historical settlements of Vardashen․ Khoshkashen

The village of Khoshkashen is located 34 km south of the district center, Vardashen (renamed Oghuz in 1989). It was first mentioned in Armenian literature in 1434 under the name Khushpayshen. The ancestors of the village's inhabitants migrated from the Khachen and Jraberd provinces of Artsakh.

During the visit of the renowned topographer Bishop Makar Barkhutaryants in 1888, the village had 77 households with a population of 490 Armenians. By 1908, the population of Khoshkashen had increased to 612. In 1914, the village was entirely Armenian-populated, with 1,028 residents.

The population of Khoshkashen was massacred in the summer of 1918 by Turkish forces and Musavatists who invaded the region. In the 1950s, Lezgins started to live in the village.

In the eastern quarter of Khoshkashen stood the church of Surb Astvatsatsin (Holy Mother of God), built in 1887 with the financial support of the villagers. The construction inscription of the church states:

The Holy Church of Khoshkashen village
was built with the community's funds in 1887.

During monument researcher Samvel Karapetyan's visits between 1982 and 1986, two Armenian cemeteries in the village were still preserved. These cemeteries contained 21 inscribed tombstones dating back to the 19th and 20th centuries.

On the eastern side of the village, on a forested hillside, the Surb Yeghishe Apostle Monastic Complex was also preserved. On the lintel of the monastery church’s entrance, the following was inscribed:

I beseech you to remember Vlas Vardapet

to Jesus Christ, 1682

And in the church's adjacent narthex, the tombstone of Hovhannes Vardapet was found with the following inscription

[This is] the grave of Vardapet Hovhannes of Pashinjagh,
1706

The village is now called Qarabulagh (Azerbaijani: Qarabulaq) and is inhabited by Lezgins.

Bibliography

Barkhutaryants M., Land of Aghvank and its Neighbors: Artsakh, Yerevan, 1999.
Karapetyan S., The Armenian Lapidary Inscriptions of Aghvank Proper, Yerevan, 1997.

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