The participation of two cultural ensembles affiliated with the Artsakh Cultural Preservation Center NGO—the State Orchestra of Artsakh National Instruments, and the “We Are Our Mountains” State Song and Dance Ensemble—in an international festival scheduled to take place in Vienna in November has been cancelled, the Artsakh Cultural Preservation Center NGO has announced in a statement.
The statement continues as follows: “Following the receipt of an official invitation, the ensembles spent nearly three months preparing intensively for the festival and developing a special performance programme.
On October 21, the organisers informed us that the ensembles’ participation had been cancelled. In subsequent correspondence, Zoran Strezovski, President of the World Festival Association (WOFA), stated that a letter received from an embassy had described our cultural groups as “dangerous” and called for their invitations to the festival to be withdrawn.
On October 23, he provided further clarification, stating that, according to the information he had received, several embassies had intervened, accusing our ensembles of engaging in “separatist activities” in our country and recommending that they not be invited to the festival. We categorically reject these accusations and the labels applied to our artists.
Since the forced displacement of the Armenian population of Artsakh [(Nagorno-Karabakh)] in 2023, one of our organisation’s missions has been to preserve Artsakh’s cultural ensembles and ensure the continuity of their professional activities. These ensembles are living bearers of Artsakh’s intangible cultural heritage. UNESCO’s 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage recognises the performing arts as one of the principal domains of intangible cultural heritage.
In 2025, our artists successfully participated in CIOFF international festival programmes in Italy, receiving high praise and certificates of recognition. CIOFF is an official partner of UNESCO and is accredited to provide advisory services in the field of safeguarding intangible cultural heritage.
Artists forcibly displaced from Artsakh have already been deprived of the opportunity to create and perform within their natural cultural environment. Restricting their participation in international cultural events on the basis of politically motivated accusations raises serious concerns about possible violations of their cultural rights.
Can the preservation of cultural heritage be regarded as separatist activity, and can the artists who represent that heritage be labelled dangerous? We have requested that the President of WOFA disclose the names of the embassies involved and provide the factual basis for the accusations made against our ensembles.
He undertook to provide the relevant details, but we have not yet received them. We have already contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia and international human rights organisations to seek clarification of the circumstances and support the protection of Artsakh artists’ cultural rights.
We will continue to pursue this matter, calling for full disclosure of the circumstances surrounding the reported intervention and a substantiated explanation of the accusations made. Attached to this statement are relevant excerpts from the written correspondence between Zoran Strezovski, President of the World Festival Association (WOFA), and Apres Margaryan, President of the Artsakh Cultural Preservation Center NGO.”