Yeprem Baghboudarian
YEPREM (CHERKEZ) GEVORG KRBEKYAN (GRPYEGEAN) 1894-1969
Born and raised in a patriarchal and traditionalist family of around one hundred and fifty people, he lived a shepherd life from a young age. Later, he remembered jumping as a child, at Christmas in winter, together with his friends down the goat paths, rushing down the cliffs and plunging into the river’s frigid waters to find the cross thrown by the priest from the waterfall. That carefree life ended with the fatal 1915. He left his family house with thousands of his compatriots but did not join the displaced people cast out towards the Deir-ez-Zor desert. Still, he took refuge in a Circassian settlement near Hadjin, where he was accepted as one of the locals for his courage and physical agility. It was at that time that he was nicknamed “Cherkez.” In 1919, together with his eight thousand compatriots, Yeprem returned to Hadjin, which was at that time under the patronage of the French, set up a family, and then his first child, Gevorg, was born. However, fate had other plans for him. March 1920 marks the beginning of the most glorious page of the long-standing history of Hadjin – the heroic self-defense. Yeprem joined the ranks of the defenders, and his younger brother, Vardan, delivered food supplies to the combat positions. On 15 October 1920, Yeprem and Vardan, among the 387 self-defenders of Hadjin, broke through the deadly ring of the enemy’s siege with weapons in their hands and got out of the blockade. Alas, Yeprem’s wife and the first-born child fell to the sword, along with six thousand natives of Hadjin. In the same year, Yeprem Krbekyan moved to Damascus, Syria, where he started a new family with Sandukht Lachinyan, daughter of a priest from Sis, Avetis, and had a son and five daughters. In 1926, the Krbekyans moved to Beirut, where Yeprem worked as a tailor and could hardly meet the needs of his growing family.