ZHIRAYR (Poyachyan Harutyun- Martiros) was born in 1856, in Hadchën, leader of the national liberation movement. Brother of Metsn Murad. He received his primary education at Vardanyan school and studied in Constantinople in 1872-74. Returning to Western Armenia, he became a teacher, applied new teaching methods, introduced military training. Zhirayr promoted the idea of friendship among the peoples, noting  that not only Armenians but also Turks, Kurds and other people are oppressed in the Ottoman Empire. He established contact with the Turkish and Kurdish figures, raised the Turks and the Armenians against the Turkish landowner in the village of Sintchan. 

He formed a group of fedayee for the protection of the interests of the people and for the organization of the revolutionary movement. In 1892, leaflets calling for the overthrow of the dictatorial regime of Abdul Hamid II were posted on the walls of 82 settlements of Asia Minor. They were edited by Zhirayr and Hovhannes Pahlavuni. This became the cause for persecution by the Turkish authorities, 850 Armenians were arrested, 56 of whom were sentenced (17 - to death, 12 - for life, 24 - to 10 years imprisonment). Zhirayr surrendered to the authorities in order to save the innocent people. He was hanged by order of which he was hanged in 1894, in Yozghat.

H. Poghosyan

 

Source-Encyclopedia "The Armenian Question", Yerevan, 1996. 

 

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