The World Festival Association (WOFA) has offered two Artsakh cultural ensembles a new invitation to perform in Vienna after excluding them from an international festival following reported diplomatic pressure and accusations of “separatist activities.” The move does not undo the original cancellation, which denied Armenian performers a place on an international stage over allegations that remain publicly unsubstantiated.
WOFA agreed to invite the ensembles to a separate festival in March 2027 following an extraordinary meeting of its organizing committee, the Artsakh Cultural Preservation Center announced on October 26. The diplomatic missions behind the complaints remain unidentified, and WOFA has yet to fully explain its decision.
The move follows WOFA’s October 21 cancellation of the State Orchestra of Artsakh National Instruments and the “We Are Our Mountains” State Song and Dance Ensemble’s participation in a November festival, disregarding nearly three months of preparations.
According to the Center, WOFA President Zoran Strezovski initially revealed that an embassy had branded the Armenian performers a “dangerous group” and demanded their exclusion. He later indicated that several diplomatic missions had intervened, accusing the ensembles of alleged “separatist activities.”
The accusations cast Artsakh’s Armenian musicians and dancers as a political threat for representing their cultural heritage. Yet no evidence substantiating those claims has been publicly presented.
WOFA has since announced plans to seek guidance from the European Union on handling similar diplomatic interventions, but has not explained why organizers withdrew the invitations in response to allegations that remain unsubstantiated.
The Artsakh Cultural Preservation Center welcomed the renewed invitation but continues to demand the identification of those responsible, disclosure of evidence supporting their allegations, and guarantees against further discrimination.
The exclusion comes three years after Azerbaijan’s September 2023 military attack on Artsakh and the forced displacement of its Armenian population. Uprooted from their homeland, both ensembles continue working to preserve Artsakh’s Armenian cultural heritage in displacement.
The renewed invitation does not absolve WOFA of responsibility for the original cancellation. For Artsakh Armenians, already deprived of their homeland, the decision raises a deeper concern: whether diplomatic pressure will now be used to silence their cultural identity beyond Artsakh itself.
