Kurken Yanikian

Kurken Yanikian

Kurken Mgrditch Yanikian ( Armenian Գուրգեն Եանիկեան , Turkish Gürgen Yanıkyan , born December 24, 1895 in Erzurum , died March 27, 1987 in California ) was an American - Soviet engineer and author. As a survivor of the Armenian genocide , he became known in California in 1973 after the murder of two consuls as an act of revenge.

The Yanikian family had to hide their belongings in a barn during the Hamid massacres in the 1890s and flee their home in Erzurum. On returning to the barn, Kurken Yanikian's older brother Hagop was murdered by two Turks, which traumatized Kurken Yanikian . During the Armenian genocide in 1915, his family's livelihoods were destroyed and 26 family members were killed. Yanikian studied engineering at Moscow State University . He went to Persia with his wife Suzanna in the 1930s and was an auditor for the Trans-Iranian Railroad , which the Allied powers were expanding , during World War II . In 1946 he emigrated to the USA and opened the Yanikian Theater in New York , but became impoverished in the 1960s.

On January 27, 1973, Yanikian declared that he had a painting from the time of Abdülhamid II and that he wanted to give it to the Turkish state. He invited the Consul General Mehmet Baydar and the Consul Bahadır Demir to the Biltmore Hotel in Santa Barbara to present it. At the meeting, however, he shot her - inspired by Soghomon Tehlirian . After the crime, Yanikian told the hotel manager and the staff: "26 of my family were murdered by the Turks and Russians, and I took revenge for them." This event started a chain of actions by the Asala organization, founded in 1975 . The organization therefore initially called itself "Prisoner Kurken Yanikian's Group". Yanikian was sentenced to life in prison on July 2, 1973, but released on January 31, 1984 because of his poor health. Yanikian died of a heart attack after spending a month in a convalescence hospital in Montebello .

Works

• The Triumph of Judas Iscariot. Los Angeles: Research Publ., 1950, 254 pp.
• Harem Cross: A Novel of the Near-East. New York: Exposition, 1953, 223 p.
• The Resurrected Christ: A Novel. New York: Exposition, 1955, 141 pp.
• The Voice of an American. Society for the Science of Living, 1960, 147 pp.
• Purpose and Truth (memoirs written from prison). Yerevan : Tigran Mets, 1999. (Armenian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bobelian, Michael. Children of Armenia: A Forgotten Genocide and the Century-long Struggle for Justice . New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009, pp. 3–4 ff.
2. ↑ Ayşe Hür: Bir zamanlar ASALA ve PKK. Taraf , October 17, 2010; archived from the original on October 18, 2010 ; Retrieved September 28, 2011 (Turkish).