Mapriededer Zakarian was a passenger on the Titanic.
Background[]
Mapriededer Zakarian, often shortened to Mampré, was a man born in 1890 in Kiği, Turkey, the occupied part of Armenia, in the Vilayet of Erzurum. He grew up in a region stricken by the turmoil of its occupiers. The Zakarian family was on the run for the Turkish who began a crusade against those with other beliefs. The Zakarian family had embraced the christian faith and the Ottomans did not accept this.
They felt that the country had to be purged. In 1912, he made plans to leave. His parents also wanted that, as there was a possiblity that young men like him would end up at the front lines of the Turkish Army, where they were practically unarmed and cannon fodder.
Also from Kiği were Nishan Krikorian, Orsen Sirayanian, Davit Vartanian and Haroutioun, whose last name was also Zakarian. Whether he was family is up for speculation. Together, the six Armenians fled the crumbling Ottoman Empire. Like many young Armenian men of the time, Mapriededer's plan was to establish himself in the new world and send for his family years later. Brantford in Ontario, Canada was going to be his destination. The others were head for Ontario as well. There were Armenians in the provence already, who had formed a tight society in various places.
For the first part of their exhuasting journey, they had to walk for miles to the northern part of Turkey at the Trebizond domain, which took a week. It was near the Black Sea. They secured a ticket on the Titanic's Maiden Voyage to America. A vessel had brought them to Marseilles harbor.
They were probably at the inspection queue, something that migrants from the Mediterreanen area had to undergo regularly in the Western part of Europe. Mampré and his mates went forward to get to Northern France.
Titanic[]
On April 10, in the evening, Titanic was ready to take on more passengers at Cherbourg. She had dropped anchor in the bay, waiting for two tenders, one of which was for Third Class, to take over the new customers. As they were steerage passengers, Mapriededer and the others were on this tender. There was not much space in their part of the ship, but that was the way it was for these Third Class passengers.
Titanic, which was a ship with a reputation that preceeded her. Her builders were convinced that nothing could bring this ship down. This was a tad too optimistic. Everything went right for the mighty ship, until 11:40 P.M. on the night of April 14 when, the Titanic was steered to the left at the sight of a sudden iceberg, which she couldn’t clear in time as the lookouts had spotted it only a minute before. As a result, they had no time to bring her to a halt and she scraped her starboard side against the iceberg. The openings in her hull led to much seawater entering the ship's interior. Within minutes, tons of water were in the ship.
On April 15, midnight, Captain Smith was on the bridge with the ship's designer. According to Thomas Andrews, the ship could not stay afloat longer than 2 hours. The Captain thus called his men and ordered them to get to the boats and untie them. They needed to evacuate as many people as possible.
What Mampré Zakarian did during the fateful night is not known, but two of his compatriots survived. Nishan had managed to jump in lifeboat 10, while Davit was believed to have jumped off the ship to get to Collapsible A.
There were insufficent lifeboats on Titanic. Steerage passengers were kept back down below and women and children were given right of way. Like Orsen and Haroutioun, Mapré was lost when Titanic glided down the cold Atlantic ocean. The ship broke her back and sank very rapidly after that. She was gone at 2:20 A.M.
When the Mackay-Bennett came to the wreck site several days later, Mampré’s body was taken aboard. He was number #304. He was later laid to rest at Fairview Cemetery in Halifax, Canada, a place where many Titanic victims had their grave.