Girayr

Girayr, or Zhirair, born Harutiun-Mardiros Boyadjian (Armenian: Ժիրայր, Հարություն-Մարտիրոս Պոյաճյան; 1856 - 24 March 1894) was an Armenian fedayee leader, the senior brother of Medzn Mourad.[1]

Girayr
Birth nameHarutiun-Mardiros Boyadjian
Nickname(s)Medzn Zhirair (Zhirair the Great)
Born1856
Hajin, Adana Vilayet, Ottoman Empire
Died24 March 1894(1894-03-24) (aged 37–38)
Yozgat, Ankara Vilayet, Ottoman Empire
AllegianceHunchak
Years of service1880s—1894
Battles/warsArmenian National Liberation Movement

Biography

He studied at Vartanian school in Hajin and then, from 1872 to 1874, in Constantinople.[2] Then he returned to Western Armenia and worked as a teacher. In the 1880s he lived in Russia. Then he was the director of Hajin central college of St Toros church, but after the Turkish authorities decided to arrest him in 1889, Zhirair fled and moved to Constantinople, where he joined Social Democrat Hunchakian Party. He expressed the solidarity of the oppressed people of the Ottoman Empire, contacted with the Kurdish and Turkish revolutionary activists. Jirair founded a fedayee group for the revolutionary activities, in 1892 edited and distributed papers against the Abdul Hamid II's sultanism. He worked in the Caucasus (Russian Empire), then Adana, Hajin. Known with the Zhirair the Great (Medzn Zhirair) nickname, he mainly acted in the regions of Cilicia and Sebastia.[3] After Ottoman authorities arrested 850 innocent Armenians, Jirair agreed to capitulate and was hung.[4]

Vahram Papazian acted as Jirair in a play by Hemayag Aramiants.

References
  1. History of S. D. Hunchakian party, ed. by A. Gidour, Vol. A, Beirut, 1962, p. 103
  2. Biography
  3. Zhirair, by H. Poghosian//Herald of the Social Sciences, 1989
  4. Dr. Y. Jerejian, Martyrs on Bloody Path, p. 81.
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