1. Gourgen Mkrtich Yanikian was an Armenian genocide survivor.
21 Facts About Gourgen Yanikian
1. 2.
Gourgen Yanikian was born in Erzurum in 1895, at the height of the anti-Armenian massacres that had taken hold of the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire.
3.
Gourgen Yanikian's family was able to flee to a safer location, but when they returned to Erzurum eight years later to retrieve personal possessions they had hidden in a barn, his elder brother Hagop was killed by two Turkish men.
4.
Gourgen Yanikian was studying to be an engineer at the University of Moscow when World War I broke out.
5.
Gourgen Yanikian was assigned to an engineering unit that was tasked with mapping out the geography of the terrain ahead of the regular troops.
6.
Gourgen Yanikian said that in the court of the genocide, he lost twenty-six members of his extended family.
7.
Gourgen Yanikian went on to complete his education in Russia and in 1930 moved to Iran together with his wife Suzanna.
8.
Gourgen Yanikian emigrated to the United States in 1946, via France.
9.
Gourgen Yanikian claims he was a radio host in Fresno.
10.
Gourgen Yanikian had been attempting to collect money owed him from Iran for projects he had done during World War II.
11.
Gourgen Yanikian had contacted the consul general three months before, and insisted that the consul general personally accept the painting, and since Baydar did not drive, Demir was asked to accompany him to provide transportation.
12.
Gourgen Yanikian handed them the bank note, for which he was given a receipt, and the three men began to converse over lunch.
13.
At this point, Gourgen Yanikian pulled a Luger pistol from a hollowed-out book and emptied nine rounds, hitting the Turkish diplomats in the shoulders and chest, though none of the wounds were lethal.
14.
Gourgen Yanikian pleaded not guilty to two charges of first degree murder.
15.
Gourgen Yanikian insisted that what he did was "destroy two evils," as the victims were "not human" for him.
16.
Gourgen Yanikian admitted that he conceived the assassination plan in April 1972, and meticulously implemented it over the intervening months between that time and the date of the actual homicides on January 27,1973.
17.
Only Gourgen Yanikian took the Armenian genocide witness stand, accompanied by his friend and interpreter, Santa Barbaran Aram Saroyan, the uncle of famous author William Saroyan.
18.
Gourgen Yanikian was sentenced to life in prison on July 2,1973.
19.
Gourgen Yanikian died of a heart attack one month later at the age of 88.
20.
In 2019 the remains of Gourgen Yanikian have been moved from the US to Armenia, and buried at Yerablur Pantheon in Yerevan on Sunday, May 5.
21.
Gourgen Yanikian is assigned a regulative biography, and understood through it.