Intellectual Property Agency responds to portrayal of Azerbaijani song as Armenian

Azerbaijan"s Intellectual Property Agency has issued a statement in response to the presentation of the folk song "Sarı Gəlin" as Armenian.

According to Report, the incident occurred when Iranian singer and composer Araz Torosyan (also known as Araz Dare) performed the Azerbaijani folk song "Sarı Gəlin" in Armenian and Persian on an Iranian television channel. Several Iranian online platforms subsequently presented the song as Armenian.

Mr Torosyan also uploaded the song to his YouTube channel, describing it as the Armenian folk song "Sarı Agcik" (https://youtu.be/32B9JfiAspQ?si=RMCahVTMoQjZGyx0).

In its official statement, the Intellectual Property Agency emphasized that "Sarı Gəlin" belongs to the Azerbaijani Turkic people. The agency cited musicologist Javanshir Guliyev, who noted that the song is composed in the Shur mode.

Shur is one of the seven primary modes in Azerbaijani mugham music and is widely used in the country"s national musical tradition. Thousands of Azerbaijani songs are built on this mode and have been performed at popular celebrations throughout history.

By genre, "Sarı Gəlin" is classified as uzun hava, a musical style characteristic of Turkic-speaking peoples.

The agency underlined that it regularly monitors and investigates cases of misappropriation of Azerbaijan's intangible cultural heritage:

"Each instance of Armenians claiming authorship of Azerbaijani songs, folklore, or other elements of intangible cultural heritage is systematically tracked and studied by the Intellectual Property Agency. Support is also provided to restore the rights of authors or their heirs whose works have been misappropriated. For every case, the agency prepares research-based reports for dissemination in the media, providing historical evidence that unequivocally confirms the Azerbaijani origin of these works," the statement read.