On October 17, the Vladimir Kocharyan Theater Company of New York presented the play “You Rejoice My Heart” at Stanislavsky Theater in Yerevan. The play is based on Turkish writer Kemal Yalçın’s homonymous book and was presented with the support of the RA Ministry of Diaspora.

 The play is directed by director of the Vladimir Kocharyan Theater Company of New York and actress Karine Kocharyan and was first presented in New York in June 2015.

 It presents the stories of Armenians who escaped the Armenian Genocide, hid their identities and were forcefully converted. The author sought and found them and recorded their tragic memories. The book was first released in 3,000 copies, but they were all eliminated at the printing house in Turkey. Nevertheless, the book was reprinted in 2001 and translated into several languages, including Western Armenian and Eastern Armenian.

 The role of Kemal Yalçın was played by actor Artur Karapetyan from the Sundukyan Theater, and the leading actors were Satik Hakhnazaryan, Karine Kocharyan, as well as actors of the Vladimir Kocharyan Theater Company Hovhannes Voskerchyan, Narine Alexanyan, Elizabeth Khodabash and others.

 RA Deputy Minister of Diaspora Serzh Srapionyan transmitted the welcome speech of RA Minister of Diaspora Hranush Hakobyan. Attaching importance to Kemal Yalçın’s reflection on the Armenian Genocide, Srapionyan praised the Turkish writer’s humanitarianism and his ability to confront his history, apologize for the crimes committed by his ancestors, as well as perceive and reproduce the heavy psychological tragedy that forcefully Islamized Armenians experienced. “Dear Kemal Yalçın, though your main character conveys the message that the two nations should love each other, I have to be honest and say that we Armenians can only love some of the few Turks like you, Zarakolu and Cetin. We can’t love the Turks like Perincek, who deny the greatest crime against humanity,” Srapionyan particularly mentioned. Serzh Srapionyan donated the illustrated book “Monuments of Sorrow, Remembrance and Struggle”, which is compiled and published by the Ministry of Diaspora and includes the photos of statues, monuments and cross-stones dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide and placed in different countries around the world. Srapionyan also added that Armenians can forget about the Great Crime when the monuments portraying the destinies of mankind truly turn into witnesses of commemoration.

 The deputy minister expressed gratitude to the author of the initiative, director of the play Karine Kocharyan and all the actors for reflecting on such an intricate and delicate topic in the year marking the 100^th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

 The theater company’s merited actor Hovhannes Voskerchyan was granted the William Saroyan Medal of the RA Ministry of Diaspora and the Gold Medal of the Union of Theater Figures of Armenia on the occasion of the 75^thanniversary of his career in the Diaspora, as well as for his special contributions to the preservation and development of the Armenian identity.