Matiossian to Speak on Previously Unknown Participant in Operation Nemesis

Dr. Vartan Matiossian will give a lecture entitled “Code Name Haiko: Discovering the Last Unknown Participant in Talaat Pasha’s Liquidation,” on Thursday, June 5, 2014, at 7:30 p.m., at the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) Center , 395 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA.

In 1921 the mastermind of the Armenian Genocide, Talaat Pasha, was killed in a Berlin street by a young avenger, Soghomon Tehlirian. This was the main act of Operation Nemesis, planned and partially carried out between 1919-1922 to fulfill the justice to the Armenian people that had been denied by tribunals. In his memoirs, published in Armenian (1953), Tehlirian unveiled many of the details of his action. For security reasons, he introduced his immediate on-the-ground collaborators with pseudonyms: Hazor, Vaza, and Haiko. Three decades later, the identity of the first two were revealed (Hakob Zorian) or inferred, but the third operative, Haiko, has remained hitherto unidentified.

While waiting for the day that archival material will yield more information about him, a lucky hunch and a painstaking collection of data from the Armenian press and secondary literature has allowed Dr. Vartan Matiossian to identify by name and to outline the life and activities of “Haiko.”

Dr. Vartan Matiossian was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, and lived in Buenos Aires until 2000, when he moved to the United States. He graduated from the University of Buenos Aires and has a Ph.D. in History from the Academy of Sciences of Armenia, with the Armenian community in Argentina from its beginnings until 1950 as his subject. He currently lives in New Jersey and is the executive director of the Armenian National Education Committee, at the Armenian Prelacy in New York.

Matiossian is the author of five books in Armenian, including a biography of writer Gostan Zarian (1998), a history of the Armenian communities in Latin America until 1950 (2005), a collection of travelogues about Armenia (2005), a biography of the Oriental dancer Armen Ohanian (coauthored with Artsvi Bakhchinyan, 2007), and a collection of studies, book reviews, and essays on Armenian literature (2009). He has translated and published 15 books from Armenian into Spanish and English.

Admission to the event is free (donations appreciated). The NAASR Bookstore will open at 7:00 p.m. The NAASR Center is located opposite the First Armenian Church and next to the U.S. Post Office. Ample parking is available around the building and in adjacent areas. The lecture will begin promptly at 7:30 p.m.

More information about the lecture is available by calling 617-489-1610, faxing 617-484-1759, e-mailing hq@naasr.org, or writing to NAASR, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA 02478.