99 - all you should know about the Genocide April, 2014 | Page 18

Early sketches of the memorial complex

How and why was the decision made to build a

Party narrates in his memoirs how Zarobyan

memorial complex to the victims of the Genocide?

met Lebanese-Armenian social activist Andranik
Tzarukyan in 1962 and discussed the issue of

The name of the Dashnaks was used to convince Moscow

constructing a memorial complex. “The plans for

The need for a Genocide memorial complex had

building a memorial complex are not subject to

already become the subject of discussion in the

publication yet. The Central Committee is not

early 60s, when Yakov Zarobyan became the

against the idea in principle, but is cautious, and

First Secretary of the Central Committee of the

is trying to find methods that will not impact the

Armenian Communist Party. He was from Ardvin

foreign policy of the USSR.” (Karlen Dallakyan,

by birth and when the Turks occupied it in 1914,

Memoirs: People, Events, Thoughts, Yerevan,

he and his family migrated to Ukraine. Karlen

1998, page 62).

Dallakyan, Head of the International Relations

On July 16, 1964, a top secret letter was sent

Sub-section in the AgitProp Section of the

to the Presidium of the Armenian Communist

Central Committee of the Armenian Communist

Party about marking the 50 th anniversary of the