Armenian fedayi commander who rejected the Republic of Armenia and held Zangezur with his own division
Born in Shabin-Karahisar in the Ottoman Empire in 1865, he led fedayi units of the Dashnaktsutyun and in the First World War commanded the first Armenian volunteer battalion of the Russian army. Refusing to recognize the Republic of Armenia or the Treaty of Batum, he took control of Zangezur with his Special Striking Division in 1918. The historian Donald Bloxham writes that he sought to make it homogeneously Armenian by destroying Muslim villages, while Antranig Chalabian argues that he saved Zangezur’s Armenians from annihilation. In December 1918 he halted his advance into Karabakh at British request, and in 1919 he disbanded his unit. He died in Fresno, California, in 1927.
Also known as: General Andranik
Activities and affiliations
- 1918–1919 Military command
- 1914–1916 Military command · Russian Empire
Career Timeline
- 1892Joined the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
- 1914–1916Commander of the first Armenian volunteer battalion, Imperial Russian Army
- 1918Major-general; commander of the Western Armenian division
- 1918–1919Commander of the Special Striking Division in Zangezur
- 1922Settled in Fresno