Armenian Genocide
A Book by John Akopov and Igor Bondarenko "Crime without repentance" was recently published. This book is dedicated to one of the most tragic pages in the history of the Armenian people - the extermination of children during the 1915 year. Any people know that, having lost the younger generation, they loses the future. Turkish government of the Young Turks dreamed of depriving the Armenian people of the future by eliminating their children. Fortunately, they did not succeed. But thousands innocent Armenian children died in that terrible time.
Back in 2015, the book of John Akopov and Igor Bondarenko “The Armenian Genocide” was published. This book made a great impression on readers then. It tells about the terrible trials that the Armenian people experienced during the 1915 Genocide in the Ottoman Empire. The tragic fate of the Armenian people can be traced on the example of the fate of the parents of John Akopov. Father of John Surenovich Akopov - Suren Sedrakovich Akopov (Rashmadzhyan) was born in Western Armenia, in the city of Kars (now it is the territory of Turkey). During the genocide, Turkish soldiers stabbed ten of his brothers and sisters with bayonets! He has miraculously escaped, having managed to fled to the station to the retreating Russian troops. The parents of little Suren did not know about the fate of their son. They picked up the wounded but miraculously surviving sister - Khosrov (Asya), and also fled to the station to seek salvation from the Russian soldiers. They accidentally met their son there. The hard life of wanderers began. Together with retreating Russian troops, Suren with his parents and sister reached Yerevan. Fear of the Turks was great. So the Akopov (Rashmadzhyan) family decided to flee to Russia and to seek for protection from their co-religionists - Christians. For some time they lived in the city of Vladikavkaz (Ossetia). A refugee camp was set up there at the Armenian church. In order to somehow feed themselves, the refugee-Armenians worked in the farms of the rich Ossetians, collected firewood in the forest, exchanged them for things, food. They picked berries and mushrooms. In short, they were looking for everything that could be eaten. In this camp, people were dying en mass from disease. The first to die were old people and children. The Akopov family decided to move to the Kuban, to the homeland of the Cossacks who lived and served in the Kara region. On the way to Kuban, Akopov family was robbed. Even the few valuable things that were hidden under the clothes were all taken away by robbers. Because of the difficult pronunciation of the surname Rashmadzhyan, all relatives of Suren and his parents were called Akopovs. Moreover, one of Suren's uncles was called Akop. Perhaps that is why Suren's parents and his relatives were given this name by Russian officials. In the city of Krasnodar, where the Akopov family came, temporary camps for refugees were organized. Suren began to work at the Krasnodar tannery, his father Sedrak - at the slaughterhouse. John Surenovich’s mother - Lusik, also escaped from the Armenian pogroms from the Ottoman Empire. Lusik’s family was massacred by Turkish soldiers in the village of Gadzhi-Nazar near the city of Alexandropol (now Gyumri, Armenia). At the age of 5, she fled with her three-year-old brother and other villagers from the Turks. She lost her brother on the way. She had been looking for him for all her life, but she never found him. Little Lusik got into an orphanage, which was created by American volunteers. Until the end of her days, she was grateful to the Americans for saving her. In honor of and in the memory of one American volunteer, she named her son as John. It’s very touching to read John Akopov’s memoirs about his parents. I believe that a film can be made about the fate of the Akopov family. No need to come up with plots. Reality is worse and more interesting. And John Surenovich Akopov is sincerely grateful to Russia. After all, it was the Russian people who saved the Armenians from complete destruction. J.S. Akopov and I.I. Bondarenko decided to write the book "Crime without Repentance" and dedicate it to the blessed memory of Akopova (Grigoryan) Lyusik Soghomonovna, who was saved in the American orphanage in Gyumri, as well as all the innocent children who died in 1915. As the authors quite rightly mentioned in the book, to kill only for belonging to a particular nation or faith is a grave crime against humanity. Killing teenagers and newborn babies who have never been given the chance to know life is a double crime. This is a barbaric crime that cannot be justified!
The book "Crime without Repentance" is the final part of the author’s trilogy. The books which were published earlier are: “The Genocide of the Armenian People” and “By Strength and the Cross”. They were dedicated to the history of Russian-Armenian relations. The current edition is based on historical documents. I would call this work not only journalistic, but also research. It is also important that the authors not only describe the suffering of innocent Armenian children, but also try to understand the roots of this terrible tragedy and its causes. And most importantly, the authors talk about how to make sure that such tragedies will never happen again. The book "Crime without Repentance" is very important today. I think that it should be carefully read by politicians, historians, publicists and all those who want to know the true history of the Armenian people. I am sure that such a tragedy should never happen again. No people on earth should experience the horrors of mass extermination.
Georgiy Bagdykov