Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun)
아르메니아 혁명연맹 (다슈나크추튠)
An Armenian nationalist and socialist party founded in Tbilisi in 1890 by Christapor Mikaelian, Stepan Zorian and Simon Zavarian. It is also called Dashnaktsutyun (“Federation”), and its members are called Dashnaks for short. It was the ruling party of the First Republic of Armenia in 1918–1920; banned after Sovietisation, it worked in the diaspora and returned to Armenia after 1991.
In depth
The federation arose from the merger of small Armenian groups in the Russian Empire, and its original aim was to win autonomy for the Armenian-populated areas of the Ottoman Empire through armed rebellion. When the tsarist government moved to confiscate Armenian Church property in 1903 it turned to struggle against the Russian authorities, and it engaged in armed activity during the Armenian–Tatar clashes of 1905–1906. The Caucasus viceroy Vorontsov-Dashkov reported that the federation bore a major share of responsibility for the massacres, while the federation argued that it had defended the population against Muslim attacks. It joined the Second International in 1907, and during the Armenian genocide of 1915, as its leaders were deported and killed, it led the Van resistance.
The Dashnaks held 27 seats in the Transcaucasian Seim, and when the Republic of Armenia was proclaimed on 28 May 1918 they became the ruling party, holding key posts including prime minister, defence minister and interior minister. The first prime minister, Hovhannes Kajaznuni, was a member, and Alexander Khatisian, who had joined in 1917, was prime minister from May 1919 to May 1920. In Baku the Dashnaks backed calling in the British in July 1918. In 1919 the party adopted an independent and united Armenia as part of its programme, but after defeat in the Turkish–Armenian War in autumn 1920 it signed the Treaty of Alexandropol on 2 December and ceded power to the Red Army invading from the north. The party was banned and its leaders exiled; during the February Uprising of 1921 Simon Vratsian headed the Committee for the Salvation of the Fatherland for 40 days. The federation still rejects the Treaty of Kars as a violation of international law.