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I write this column with nice sorrow and dismay.
Vahakn Dadrian, the preeminent professional on the Armenian Genocide, died in upstate New York on August 2, 2019, on the age of 93. Born in Istanbul, Turkey, he devoted his complete life to show the Turkish denials of the Armenian Genocide. Dadrian carried out his meticulous analysis in Turkish, English, French, German and Armenian, publishing dozens of scholarly books and articles in skilled journals.
One would suppose {that a} distinguished particular person resembling Dadrian can be revered, not solely throughout his lifetime, but in addition after his passing. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan took the fitting step by issuing a choice on August 19, 2019, to nominate a high-level State Fee to make the required preparations for Dadrian’s burial in Yerevan and allotted an applicable price range for the funeral bills.
The members of the State Fee have been: “A. Harutyunyan, Minister of Training, Science, Tradition and Sports activities; Z. Mnatsakanian, International Minister; A. Torosyan, Minister of Well being; A. Janjughazyan, Minister of Finance; H. Marutyan, Mayor of Yerevan; R. Martirosyan, President of Nationwide Academy of Sciences; V. Terteryan, Deputy Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure; V. Movsisyan, Deputy Police Chief of Armenia; Bishop Hovnan Hakobyan, Grand Sacristan of the Mom See of Holy Etchmiadzin; A. Iskankaryan, Director of the Particular Companies for the Inhabitants; H. Marutyan, Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum; and G. Sarkissian, President of the Zoryan Institute (Canada).” Dadrian was the Director of Genocide Analysis at Zoryan.
After the Embassy of Armenia in america transferred Prof. Dadrian’s ashes to Armenia, a Memorial Service was held on August 31, 2019, on the Nationwide Academy of Sciences, the place Dadrian was a member. The Service was attended by the State Fee members, in addition to Ararat Mirzoyan, then Speaker of the Parliament, Dadrian’s 90-year-old sister, and different dignitaries and academicians. Prof. Dadrian’s ashes have been interred on the Tokhmakh Cemetery in Yerevan.
Not too long ago, when Maggie Mangassarian Goschin, Director of the Ararat-Eskijian Museum in Mission Hills, California, wished to incorporate a photograph of Dadrian’s grave in her museum the place Dadrian’s archives are saved, nobody may find Dadrian’s grave. After a prolonged search, Baghdig Kouyoumdjian of Paris and Hrair Hawk Khatcherian of Canada lastly discovered Dadrian’s unmarked grave. It turned out that after three years of his burial, the State Fee didn’t have the courtesy of putting on Dadrian’s grave a tombstone or perhaps a plaque indicating his identify. The grave was shockingly lined with weeds and rubbish. The 2 gents positioned a brief plaque on Dadrian’s grave and cleared the weeds. That is the horrible therapy that this eminent scholar acquired in his homeland after his dying.
Prof. Taner Akcam, a widely known scholar of the Armenian Genocide and Director of UCLA’s Armenian Genocide Analysis Program, was the primary to sound the alarm on his Fb web page concerning the deplorable neglect of Dadrian’s grave. It’s ironic that a person of Turkish origin is extra involved concerning the despicable therapy of Dadrian’s grave than the Armenian authorities. Dadrian was Akcam’s mentor and collaborator on Genocide analysis. Akcam wrote on his Fb web page: “Dadrian doesn’t deserve this. It’s unacceptable and an immense disgrace that the grave of the founder of contemporary Armenian Genocide analysis is uncared for and forgotten.”
In response to Prof. Akcam’s justified outrage, Mari Hovhannisyan, Program Coordinator of the Zoryan Institute (Armenia), issued a press release titled, “Tempest in a teacup.” She gave the excuse that the delay was “as a consequence of COVID-19 and the 2020 Artsakh Conflict, Armenia was burying a number of thousand of its brightest little kids, tragically misplaced as a consequence of each of those crises, every requiring their very own applicable tombstones.” That is an unacceptable excuse. Dadrian was buried seven months earlier than COVID-19 affected Armenia and greater than a yr earlier than the Artsakh Conflict. That’s loads of time to put a tombstone or at the very least a plaque on Dadrian’s grave, to not point out that nearly two years have handed for the reason that 2020 struggle and COVID-19 is now not prevalent in Armenia. Moreover, since Dadrian’s dying, different people have been buried in close by graves and so they have a tombstone!
Extra troubling are the makes an attempt to cowl up this scandal. Zoryan’s Hovhannisyan wrote on her Fb web page: “We kindly request those that have raised this concern publicly to chorus from spreading unchecked data and making pointless feedback, which may solely result in tempest within the teacup.” Vahan Hunanyan, spokesperson of the Armenian International Ministry, and Harutyun Marutyan, Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum in Yerevan, issued related meaningless excuses. That is the standard conduct of those that need to cowl up their embarrassing errors. It could have been extra applicable to concern an apology and take speedy steps to put a tombstone on Dadrian’s grave.
If the State Fee members, appointed by Prime Minister Pashinyan, couldn’t organize to put a tombstone on the grave of a highly-respected Armenian scholar in three years, they need to have been reprimanded by Pashinyan for his or her negligence and incompetence. This can be a nationwide scandal. Additionally it is a regrettable indication that if Armenian officers can not place a tombstone on a grave, how can Armenians belief their authorities to run a rustic with so many critical issues?
Lastly, Prof. Dadrian’s grave mustn’t have been positioned within the Tokhmakh Cemetery. It could have been extra applicable to put the urn of Dadrian’s ashes on the Memorial Wall subsequent to the Genocide Monument or the Komitas Pantheon, alongside different distinguished people. That’s the least the Armenian authorities may do to rectify its grave error.
By Harut Sassounian
Writer, The California Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
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