The description of the workshop made explicit reference to the important pioneering role Kazarian had played: “As is the case with the scholarship on all mass murders, the first experts on the Armenian genocide were the survivors. They were the first to gather documentation, compile memoirs and, later, publish these records in a systematic way. The material and publications of Aram Andonian, which he began compiling in 1916, may be considered as the foundation for studies in this area. Two authors who began a more systematic approach in the 1960s are Father Krikor Guerguerian, who wrote under the pen name ‘Kriger,’ and Haigazn Kazarian.”

Although there is no material in the NAASR archive showing that Fr. Guerguerian and Kazarian were in correspondence, such materials can be found in the archives of Hairenik. It appears from the letters that Guerguerian wrote to Kazarian for translations or clarification.

Kazarian, working within the limitations of his time and place, was one of the first writers to attempt to write the history of the Armenian Genocide using archival documents and official records, and his pioneering role deserves to be remembered. His work appeared in numerous issues of the Hairenik newspapers and the Armenian Review, in which he published more than a dozen articles, and in the book Tsʻeghaspan Tʻurkʻě = Ցեղասպան Թուրքը (Beyrut‘: Dbaran Hamazkayin, 1968). Kazarian worked for the Hairenik for more than three decades until his death in 1972. An editorial in his honor in the October 12, 1972, Armenian Weekly hailed him as “the Armenian Lemkin.”

Above: Obituary for Haigazn Kazarian, Armenian Weekly, Oct. 12, 1972

In an Armenian-language piece published in the Hairenik ten years after Kazarian’s death (“Antarmaneli Gorust Mě” = Անդարմանելի կորուստ մը [An irreparable loss], October 23, 1982), Vahakn Dadrian provided a respectful but frank assessment, from which we offer some samples:

“It is a pity that we could not appreciate the exceptional importance of his work. Alternatively, financial and technical assistance could have been provided to salvage at least some of the still very important hard work, including a handful of authentic documents from the Ittihad party archives. It was also possible to compile dozens of articles published here, and there is more than one volume as a logical continuation of the Tsʻeghaspan Tʻurkʻě volume.”

Simon Vratsian (1882-1969), the last Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia before its Sovietization, wrote a biographical sketch of Kazarian which was included in Tsʻeghaspan Tʻurkʻě and from which the following information is gleaned.

Haigazn Kazarian was born in Sebastia (Sivas) in 1892. In 1907 he joined the youth group of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Federation (Հայ Յեղափոխական Դաշնակցութիւն = Hay Heghapʿokhagan Tashnagts‘ut‘iwn). He was a 1914 graduate of the University of Constantinople and majored in law and languages. Kazarian had command of numerous languages, including Ottoman and modern Turkish, Armenian, French, German, and English, and late in his life he began to learn Russian.

At the outbreak of World War I, he was in the Reserve Officers Military School in Constantinople and was sent to fight at Adrianople with the 5^th Division of the 2^nd Army Corps. With many Armenian soldiers being liquidated as part of the campaign of genocide, Kazarian was saved by a Turkish friend and went into hiding. After the war, he reemerged and served in the Intelligence section of the British Army of the Black Sea. He traveled with British intelligence officers for several years, acting as an interpreter, then in 1920 was reassigned to the Naval Center, Turkish Ministry of Marine in Constantinople.

It was at this point that Kazarian began coming into contact with various documents pertaining to the extermination of the Armenians, some of which he translated for the occupying forces. The vast majority of Kazarian’s papers, including the bulk of the documentation he collected, resides at the Armenian National Institute (ANI) in Washington, D.C., to which it was donated in 1996. (See “Haigazn K. Kazarian Papers Donated to Armenian National Institute,” The Armenian Reporter, June 6, 1996.)

The donated books contain such interesting items as the 1914 Armenian-language edition of Lynch’s Armenia: Travel and Studies and Kazarian’s personal copies of Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story and Clarence Ussher’s An American Physician in Turkey. Many of the books have Kazarian’s markings and marginal notes.

Author: Clarence D. Ussher, M.D. with Grace H. Knapp, collaborating

Title: An American Physician in Turkey: A Narrative of Adventures in Peace and in War

Publication Information: Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917

Source: NAASR Mardigian Library, from the collection of Haigazn K. Kazarian

Author: Dr. G[aregin]. Pasdermadjian (Armen Garo)

Title: Why Armenia Should Be Free: Armenia's Role in the Present War

Publication Information: Boston: Hairenik Publishing Company, 1918

Source: NAASR Mardigian Library, from the collection of Haigazn K. Kazarian

Author: C. F. Lehmann-Haupt

Title: Armenien Einst und Jetzt: Reisen und Forchungen; Erster Band, Vom Kaukasus zum Tigris und nach Tigranokerta [Armenia Then and Now: Travel and Research; First Volume, From the Caucasus to the Tigris and to Tigranokerta]

Publication Information: Berlin: B. Behr's Verlag, 1910

Source: NAASR Mardigian Library, from the collection of Haigazn K. Kazarian

Of even greater potential interest, though, are the folders of notes and maps, mostly in Armenian and Turkish; an album of photographs of Kazarian’s home city of Sepastia and a vintage album of postcards of heroes of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation; a partial typescript of his intended English translation of Tsʻeghaspan Tʻurkʻě, evidently never completed; and a number of notebooks filled with Armenian handwriting which might be Kazarian’s own or possibly his father’s.

Author: Evans Lewin

Title: The German Road to the East: An Account of the "Drang Nach Osten" and of Teutonic Aims in the Near and Middle East

Publication Information: New York: George H. Doran, 1917

Source: NAASR Mardigian Library, from the collection of Vartan Gregorian (formerly belonged to Haigazn K. Kazarian)

Author: Samuel Sullivan Cox

Title: Diversions of a Diplomat in Turkey

Publication Information: New York: C.L. Webster & Co., 1893

Source: NAASR Mardigian Library, from the collection of Vartan Gregorian (formerly belonged to Haigazn K. Kazarian)

Author: Tasaworets' ew khmpakrets' Haygazn K. Ghazarean = Դասաւորեց եւ խմբագրեց Հայկազն Գ. Ղազարեան

Title: Badmakirkʿ Chʿmshgadzaki = Պատմագիրք Չմշկածագի [The History of Chemishgazak]

Publication Information: Bēyrut‘: Hamazkayin,1971

Source: NAASR Mardigian Library, from the collection of Fr. Dajad Davidian.

The following bibliography provides a complete listing of Kazarian’s contributions to The Armenian Review and a selection of articles published in the Hairenik Weekly newspaper. 

Kazarian also published articles in Armenian in the Hairenik Daily newspaper, and possibly elsewhere. It is to be hoped that a complete bibliography of his published works can be compiled.

Above: Kazarian in his office at the Hairenik

“Criminals of World War I Still at Helm of State,” Hairenik Weekly, July 19, 1945, pp. 1, 5.

“Why Didn’t We Have an Armenian Nuremberg for the Turk Nazis?” Hairenik Weekly, April 21, 1960, pp. 1, 4

“The Kurds,” Hairenik Weekly, September 27, 1962, p. 2; October 4, 1962, p. 2; October 11, 1962, p. 2; October 18, 1962, p. 2.

“More on the ‘Musa Dagh’ Incident; How Turks Maneuvered Ban on Filming,” Hairenik Weekly, February 14, 1963, p. 3

“Turkish Document Proves Conclusively Armenian Deportations Were Planned: A Hitherto Unpublished Document on Armenian Deportation,” Hairenik Weekly, August 20; August 26, 1964, p. 5.

“The Grim Record: The Responsibility for the Massacres,” Hairenik Weekly, June 17, 1965, p. 3

“On the early History of the Turk Tchetehs,” Hairenik Weekly, July 8,1965, p. 5

“Episode in Malta: How Turkish Criminals Escaped Punishment,” Hairenik Weekly, August 12, 1965, pp. 1, 5

“Hitherto Unpublished Document on Armenian Deportations,” Hairenik Weekly, August 26, 1965, p. 5

“Unpublished Documents on Armenian Deportations, Part II,” Hairenik Weekly September 2, 1965, p. 5

“On the Massacres at Trebizond,” Hairenik Weekly, December 23, 1965, pp. 4-5