Our interlocutor is the member of the Central Committee of the Social Democratic party, Sedrak Achemyan
– Mr. Achemyan, are the rumors true that the remains of 20 Hunchakian activists who were hanged in the Sultan Beyazit Square of Constantinople in 1915 will be moved to Yerevan?
– Yes, the process that was initiated by the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party (SDHP) is very close to the end. It was our decades-old dream that the 20 heroes who belong to the Armenian nation and not just to the SDHP are duly buried on their native land. These people were the first victims of the genocide who died on the way to fight. Paramaz and his 19 friends were deceased for the sake of today’s Independent Armenia. They were implementing the SDHP party’s decision – to destroy the three Armenophobic monsters: Talaat, Enver and Cemal. In 1913, the 7th congress of the SDHP in the city of Konstanz, Romania, decided to destroy the Ittihad (Young Turk) leadership, and the hero of the Armenian national liberation struggle, Paramaz (Matteos Sarkissian) assumed this responsibility, whose group as a result of crime reporting was arrested in 1914 and one year later, in June 15, 1915, after the fabricated trial, he was hung. The reburial of the remains of our 20 heroes was a dream that will become reality in the near future.
– Will the remains be brought from Turkey?
– Naturally, because our heroes are buried there. And as to how and under what conditions, I think that we would talk about it later, when we will have an accomplished fact.
– And where will the remains be reburied?
– The talks with Armenia’s relevant authorities are underway. We are confident that an honorable location will be given for such a national event. We must celebrate this event with great fanfare.
– Were the 20 Hunchaks fedayis?
– Both yes and no. The entire Armenian nation with all of its layers was embodied in these twenty heroes. There were ordinary working class people, intellectuals, students, and doctors. Their pillar, Paramaz, was the first preacher of socialism in the Ottoman Empire, and both the first intellectual and the soldier fighting for an autonomous Armenia. He was a man who had organized famous assassination attempt of the Caucasus Armenophobic viceroy Golitsyn, a man who has a great role and participation with his detachments in the clashes of Zangezour with Tatars in the beginning of the century, a man who was organizing a self-defense in Van, at the same time, preaching socialism and equality among the Kurds and the Turks. The name of Paramaz is now a legend for the people living in nowadays Turkey. The beasts of Dersim or the Alevis that have always been the headache of Ankara consider Paramaz to be their founder. In Kobanî, a Kurdish fighter fighting against the ISIS terrorists was killed whose revolutionary nickname was Paramaz, Paramaz Kzlbash. Turkish books are printed about Paramaz, the recent one of which was Kadir Akın’s book “Anatolia hero Paramaz”. I repeat, Paramaz was a giant. Now, his and his friends’ remains will be brought to Armenia. This is a great and responsible task, about which further more details will be published soon.
Interviewed by Nelly GRIGORYAN
“Aravot” daily
