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Andranik Ozanian, commonly known as General Andranik or simply Andranik (25 February 186531 August 1927), was an Armenians military commander and statesman, the best known Armenian fedayi and a key figure of the Armenian national liberation movement.
He became active in an armed struggle against the Ottoman Empire government and Kurdish irregulars in the late 1880s. Andranik joined the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktustyun) party and, along with other Armenian fedayi (militias), sought to defend the Armenian peasantry living in their ancestral homeland, an area known as Western Armenia the time part of the Ottoman Empire. His revolutionary activities ceased and he left the Ottoman Empire after the unsuccessful uprising in Sasun in 1904. In 1907, Andranik left Dashnaktustyun because he disapproved of its cooperation with the Young Turks, the party which years later perpetrated the Armenian genocide. Between 1912 and 1913, together with Garegin Nzhdeh, Andranik led a few hundred Armenian volunteers within the Bulgarian army against the Ottomans during the First Balkan War.
From the early stages of World War I, Andranik commanded the first Armenian volunteer battalion within the Russian Imperial army against the Ottoman Empire, capturing and later governing much of the traditional Armenian homeland. After the Revolution of 1917, the Russian army retreated and left the Armenian irregulars outnumbered against the Turks. Andranik led the defense of Erzurum in early 1918, but was forced to retreat eastward due to a threat of encirclement and a lack of food. By May 1918, Turkish forces stood near future Armenian capitaland were halted at the Battle of Sardarabad. The Dashnak-dominated Armenian National Council declared the independence of Armenia and signed the Treaty of Batum with the Ottoman Empire, by which Armenia gave up its rights to Western Armenia. Andranik never accepted the existence of the First Republic of Armenia because it included only a small part of the area many Armenians hoped to make independent. Andranik, independently from the Republic of Armenia, fought in Zangezur against the Azerbaijani and Turkish armies, and helped to keep it within Armenia.
Andranik left Armenia in 1919 due to disagreements with the Armenian government and spent his last years of life in Europe and the United States seeking relief for Armenian refugees. He settled in Fresno, California in 1922 and died five years later in 1927. Andranik is greatly admired as a Folk hero by Armenians; numerous statues of him have been erected in several countries. Streets and squares were named after Andranik, and songs, poems and novels have been written about him, making him a legendary figure in Armenian culture.
The situation of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire had worsened under the reign of Abdul Hamid II, who sought to unify all Muslims under his rule. In 1882, Andranik was arrested for assaulting a Turkish gendarme for mistreating Armenians. With the help of his friends, he escaped from prison. He settled in the Ottoman capital Istanbul in 1884 and stayed there until 1886, working as a carpenter. He began his revolutionary activities in 1888 in the province of Sivas. Andranik joined the Hunchak party in 1891. He was arrested in 1892 for taking part in the assassination of Constantinople's police chief, Yusuf Mehmed Beyknown for his 9 February. Andranik once again escaped from prison. In 1892, he joined the newly created Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF or Dashnaktsutyun). During the Hamidian massacres, Andranik with other fedayi defended the Armenian villages of Mush and Sasun from attacks of the Turks and the Kurdish Hamidiye units. The massacres, which occurred between 1894 and 1896 and are named after Sultan Abdul Hamid II, killed between 80,000 and 300,000 people.
In 1897, Andranik went to largest city of the Caucasus and a major center of Armenian culture at the timewhere the ARF headquarters was located. Andranik returned to Turkish Armenia "entrusted with extensive powers, and with a large supply of arms" for the fedayi. Several dozen Russian Armenians joined him, with whom he went to the Mush-Sasun area where Aghbiur Serob was operating. Serob's forces had already established semi-independent Armenian areas by expelling the Ottoman government representatives.
Although small groups of Armenian fedayi conducted an armed struggle against the Ottoman state and the Kurdish tribes, the situation in Western Armenia deteriorated as the European powers stood indifferent to the Armenian Question. Article 61 of the 1878 Treaty of Berlin intended the Ottoman government to "carry out, without further delay, the improvements and reforms demanded by local requirements in the provinces inhabited by the Armenians, and to guarantee their security against the Circassians and Kurds" remained unimplemented. "Treaty between Great Britain, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Russia, and Turkey for the Settlement of Affairs in the East: Signed at Berlin, July 13, 1878", American Journal of International Law Volume II, 1908, p. 422 According to Christopher J. Walker, the attention of the European powers was on Macedonia, while Russia was "in no mood for reactivating the Armenian question."
After weeks of resistance and negotiationsin which Armenian clergy and the headman of Mush and foreign consuls took partAndranik and his companions left the monastery and fled in small groups. According to Leon Trotsky, Andranikdressed in the uniform of a Turkish officer"went the rounds of the entire guard, talking to them in excellent Turkish," and "at the same time showing the way out to his own men." After breaking through the siege of the monastery, Andranik gained legendary stature among provincial Armenians. He became so popular that the men he led came to refer to him always by his first name. Andranik intended to attract the attention of the foreign consuls at Mush to the plight of the Armenian peasants and to provide hope for the oppressed Armenians of the eastern provinces. According to Trotsky, Andranik's "political thinking took shape in a setting of activity and diplomatic intrigue."
The first clashes took place in January 1904 between the fedayi and Kurdish irregulars supported by the Ottoman government. The Turkish offensive started in early April with an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 soldiers and 7,000 Kurdish irregulars put against 100 to 200 Armenian fedayi and 700 to 1,000 local Armenian men. Hrayr was killed during the intense fighting; Andranik survived and resumed the fight. Between 7,000 and 10,000 Armenian civilians were killed during the two months of the uprising, while about 9,000 were left homeless. Around 4,000 Sasun villagers were forced into exile after the uprising.
After weeks of fighting and cannon bombardment of the Armenian villages, the Ottoman forces and Kurdish irregulars suppressed the uprising by May 1904; they outnumbered the Armenian forces several times. Minor clashes occurred thereafter. According to Christopher J. Walker, the fedayi came "near to organising an uprising and shaking Ottoman power in Armenia," but "even then it was unthinkable that the empire would lose any of her territory, since the idea of intervention was far from Russia." Trotsky wrote that international attention was on the Russo-Japanese War and the uprising went largely unnoticed by the European powers and Russia.
In July–August 1904, Andranik and his fedayi reached Lake Van and got to Aghtamar Island with sailing ships. They escaped to Qajar dynasty via Van in September 1904, "leaving little more than a heroic memory." Trotsky states that they were forced to leave Turkish Armenia to avoid further killings of Armenians and to lower the tensions, while Tsatur Aghayan wrote that Andranik left the Ottoman Empire because he sought to "gather new resources and find practical programs" for the Armenian struggle.
In February–March 1907, Andranik went to Vienna to participate in the fourth ARF Congress. The ARF, which had been collaborating with Turkish émigré political groups in Europe since 1902, discussed and approved the negotiations with the later perpetrated the Armenian genocideto overthrow Sultan Abdul Hamid II. Andranik strongly denounced this cooperation and left the party. In 1908, the ARF asked Andranik to move to Constantinople and nominate his candidacy in the Ottoman parliament election, but he declined the offer, saying "I don't want to sit there and do nothing." Andranik distanced himself from active political and military affairs for several years.
Through 1915, the Armenian genocide was underway in the Ottoman Empire. By the end of the war, virtually all Armenians living in their ancestral homeland were either dead or forced into exile by the Ottoman government. An estimated 1.5 million Armenians died in the process, ending the Armenian presence in Western Armenia. (2026). 9789042021297, Rodopi. ISBN 9789042021297 The only major resistance to the Turkish atrocities took place in Van. The Turkish army besieged the city but the local Armenians, under the leadership of Aram Manukian, kept them out until the Armenian volunteers reached Van, forcing the Turks to retreat. Andranik with his unit entered Van on 19 May 1915. Andranik subsequently helped the Russian army to take control of Shatakh, Moks and Tatvan on the southern shore of Lake Van. During the summer of 1915, the Armenian volunteer units disintegrated and Andranik went to Tiflis to recruit more volunteers and continued the combat from November 1915 until March 1916. With Andranik's support, the city of Mush was captured by Russians in February 1916. In recognition of lieutenant general Theodore G. Chernozubov, the successes of Russian army in numerous locations were significantly associated with the fighting of the first Armenian battalion, headed by Andranik. Chernozubov praised Andranik as a brave and experienced chief, who well understood the combat situation; Chernozubov described him as always at the head of militia, enjoying great prestige among the volunteers.
The situation drastically changed in 1916 when the Russian government ordered the Armenian volunteer units to be demobilized and prohibited any Armenian civic activity. Andranik resigned as the commander of the first Armenian battalion. Despite the earlier Russian promises, their plan for the region was to make Western Armenia an integral part of Russia and "possibly repopulate by Russian peasants and Cossacks." Richard Hovannisian wrote that because the "Russian armies were in firm control of most of the Armenian plateau by the summer of 1916, there was no longer any need to expend niceties upon the Armenians." According to Tsatur Aghayan, Russia used the Armenian volunteers for its own interests. Andranik and other Armenian volunteers, disappointed by the Russian policy, left the front in July 1916.
After the 1917 October Revolution, the chaotic retreat of Russian troops from Western Armenia escalated. Bolshevik Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed the Armistice of Erzincan on 5 December 1917, ending the hostilities. The Sovnarkom formally acknowledged the right of self-determination of the Ottoman Armenians in January 1918, but on 3 March 1918, Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers, ceding Western Armenia and large areas in Eastern Europe to concentrate its forces against the White movement in the Russian Civil War.
In December 1917, because the Russian divisions were deserting the region en masse, the Russian command authorized the formation of the Armenian Army Corps under the Transcaucasian Commissariat. Under the command of General Nazarbekian, the Corps was positioned in the front line from Van to city of around about 20,000 people. Two of the Corps' three divisions were made up of Russian Armenians, while Andranik commanded the Turkish (Western) Armenian division. The Georgian forces patrolled the area between Erzincan and the Black Sea. Hovannisian states that the only "several thousand men now defended a 300-mile front formerly secured by a half million Russian regulars." Since December 1917, Andranik commanded the Armenian forces in Erzurum. In January 1918, he was appointed commander of the Western Armenian division of the Armenian Army Corps and given the rank of major-general by the Caucasus Front command. Andranik was unable to defend Erzurum for long and the outnumbering Turks captured the city on 12 March 1918, forcing the Armenians to evacuate.
While the Transcaucasian delegation and the Turks were holding a conference in Trebizond, through March and April the Turkish forces, according to Walker, "overran the temporary establishment of Armenian rule in Turkish Armenia, extinguishing the hope so recently raised." Hovannisian wrote, "the battle for Turkish Armenia had been quickly decided; the struggle for Russian Armenia was now at hand." After the Turks captured Erzurum, the largest city in Turkish Armenia, Andranik retreated through Kars, passed through Alexandropol and Stepanavan, and arrived in Dsegh by 18 May. By early April 1918, the Turkish forces had reached the pre-war international borders. Andranik and his unit in Dsegh were not able to take part in the battles of Sardarabad, Abaran and Karakilisa.
Andranik's irregulars remained in Zangezur surrounded by Muslim villages that controlled the key routes connecting the different parts of Zangezur. According to Donald Bloxham, Andranik initiated the change of Zangezur into a solidly Armenian land by destroying Muslim villages and trying to ethnically homogenize key areas of the Armenian state. In late 1918, Azerbaijan accused Andranik of killing innocent Azerbaijani peasants in Zangezur and demanded that he withdraw Armenian units from the area. Antranig Chalabian wrote that, "Without the presence of General Andranik and his Special Striking Division, what is now the Zangezur district of Armenia would be part of Azerbaijan today. Without General Andranik and his men, only a miracle could have saved the sixty thousand Armenian inhabitants of the Zangezur district from complete annihilation by the Turko-Tatar forces in the fall of 1918"; he further stated that Andranik "did not massacre peaceful Tatars." Andranik's activities in Zangezur were protested by Ottoman general Halil Kut, who threatened the Dashnak government with retaliation for Andranik's actions against the Muslim civilians. Armenia's Prime Minister Hovhannes Katchaznouni said he had no control over Andranik and his forces.
By early December, Andranik was away from Shushi when he received a message from British General W. M. Thomson in Baku, suggesting that he retreat from Karabakh because the World War was over and any further Armenian military activity would adversely affect the solution of the Armenian question, which was soon to be considered by the 1919 peace conference in Paris. Trusting the British, Andranik returned to Zangezur.
The region was left under limited control of the Armenian Karabakh Council. The British mission under command of Thomson arrived in Karabakh in December 1918. Thomson insisted the council "act only in local, nonpolitical matters," which sparked discontent among the Armenians. An "ardent pan-Turkist" Khosrov bey Sultanov was soon appointed the governor of Karabakh and Zangezur by Thomson to "squash any unrest in the region." Christopher J. Walker wrote that "Karabakh with its large Armenian majority remained Azerbaijani throughout the pre-Soviet and Soviet period" because of "Andranik's trust of the word of a British officer."
At the end of February 1919, Andranik was ready to leave Zangezur. Gibbon suggested Andranik and his soldiers leave by Baku-Tiflis railway at Yevlakh station. Andranik rejected this plan and on 22 March 1919, he left Goris and traveled across Sisian through deep snowdrifts to Daralagyaz, then moved to the Ararat plain with his few thousand irregulars. After a three-week march, his men and horses reached the railway station of Davalu. He was met by Dro, the Assistant Minister of Military Affairs and Sargis Manasian, the Assistant Minister of Internal Affairs, who offered to take him to visit Yerevan, but he rejected their invitation as he believed the Dashnak government had betrayed the Armenians and was responsible for the loss of his homeland and the annihilation of his people. Zangezur became more vulnerable to Azerbaijani threats after Andranik left the district. Earlier, before Andranik's and his soldiers' dismissal, the local Armenian forces had requested support from Yerevan.
On 13 April 1919, Andranik reached Etchmiadzin, the seat of Catholicos of All Armenians and the religious center of the Armenians, who helped the troops prepare for disbanding. His 5,000-strong division had dwindled to 1,350 soldiers. As a result of Andranik's disagreements with the Dashnak government and the diplomatic machinations of the British in the Caucasus, Andranik disbanded his division and handed his belongings and weapons to the Catholicos George V. On 27 April 1919, he left Etchmiadzin accompanied by 15 officers, and went to Tiflis on a special train; according to Blackwood, "news of his journey traveled before him. At every station crowds were waiting to get a glimpse of their national hero." He left Armenia for the last time; in Tiflis he met with Georgia's Foreign Minister Evgeni Gegechkori and discussed the Georgian–Armenian War. The Tbilisi-based writer Hovhannes Tumanyan served as their interpreter.
When he returned to Europe, Andranik married Nevarte Kurkjian in Paris on 15 May 1922 with Boghos Nubar serving as their best man. Andranik and Nevarte moved to the United States and settled in Fresno, California in 1922. In his 1936 short story, Antranik of Armenia, Armenian-American writer William Saroyan described Andranik's arrival. He wrote, "It looked as if all Armenians of California were at the Southern Pacific depot at the day he arrived." He said Andranik "was a man of about fifty in a neat Armenians suit of clothes. He was a little under six feet tall, very solid and very strong. He had an old-style Armenian mustache that was white. The expression of his face was both ferocious and kind." Andranik lived with the family of Armen Alchian, who later became a prominent economist, in Fresno for several months. In his novel Call of the Plowmen («Ռանչպարների կանչը», 1979), where Andranik is called Shapinand, Khachik Dashtents describes his life in Fresno, where he spend his free time making small wooden chairs.
After his first funeral, it was planned to take Andranik's remains to Armenia for final burial; however, when they arrived in France, the Soviet authorities refused permission to allow his remains to enter Soviet Armenia. Instead they remained in France and, after a second funeral service held in the Armenian Church of Paris, were buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris on 29 January 1928. In early 2000, the Armenian and French governments arranged the transfer of Andranik's body from Paris to Yerevan. Asbarez wrote that the transfer was initiated by Armenia's Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan. Andranik's body was moved to Armenia on 17 February 2000. It was placed in the Sport & Concert Complex in Yerevan for two days and was then taken to Etchmiadzin Cathedral, where Karekin II officiated the funeral service. Andranik was re-interred at Yerablur military cemetery in Yerevan on 20 February 2000, next to Vazgen Sargsyan. In his speech during the reburial ceremony, Armenia's President Robert Kocharyan described Andranik as "one of the greatest sons of the Armenian nation." Prime Minister Aram Sargsyan, Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian, and one of Andranik's soldiers, 102-year-old Grigor Ghazarian, were also in attendance. A memorial was built on his grave with the phrase Zoravar Hayots"General of the Armenians"engraved on it.
Andranik is considered a national hero among Armenians worldwide. He is also seen as a legendary figure in Armenian culture. In a series of polls in Armenia from 2006 to 2008, Andranik consistently placed second after Vazgen Sargsyan in the list of Armenian national heroes and leaders.surveys:
During the Soviet period, his legacy and those of other Armenian national heroes were diminished and "any reference to them would be dangerous since they represented the strive for independence," especially prior to the Khrushchev Thaw. Paruyr Sevak, a prominent Soviet Armenian author, wrote an essay about Andranik in 1963 after reading one of his soldier's notes. Sevak wrote that his generation knew "little about Andranik, almost nothing." He continued, "knowing nothing about Andranik means to know nothing about modern Armenian history." In 1965, Andranik's 100th anniversary was celebrated in Soviet Armenia.
The first statue of Andranik in Armenia was erected in 1967 in the village of Ujan. Another early statue in Armenia was erected in Voskehask, near Gyumri, in 1969. More statues have been erected after Armenia's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991; three of which can be found in the Armenian capital of Yerevan—in Malatia-Sebastia district (2000); near the St. Gregory Cathedral (by Ara Shiraz, 2002); and outside the Fedayi Movement Museum (2006) in the Armenian capital Yerevan. Elsewhere in Armenia, Andranik's statues stand in Voskevan and Navur villages of Tavush, in Gyumri's Victory Park (1994), Arteni, and Angeghakot, among other places.
Numerous streets and squares both inside and outside Armenia, including in Córdoba, Argentina, Plovdiv and Varna in Bulgaria, Meudon, Paris and a section of Connecticut Route 314 state highway running entirely within Wethersfield, Connecticut are named after Andranik. General Andranik Station of the Yerevan Metro was opened in 1989 as Hoktemberyan Station and was renamed for Andranik in 1992. In 1995, General Andranik's Museum was founded in Komitas Park of Yerevan, but was soon closed because the building was privatized. It was reopened on 16 September 2006, by Ilyich Beglarian as the Museum of Armenian Fedayi Movement, named after Andranik.
According to Patrick Wilson, during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War Andranik "inspired a new generation of Armenians." A volunteer regiment from Masis named "General Andranik" operated in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh during the conflict.
Many organizations and groups in the Armenian diaspora are named after Andranik. On 11 September 2012, during the Bulgaria vs. Armenia football match in Sofia's Levski National Stadium, Armenian fans brought a giant poster with pictures of General Andranik and Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan, who was murdered in 2004 by Azerbaijani lieutenant Ramil Safarov. The text on the poster read, "Andranik's children are also heroes ... The work will be done." In the Armenian Youth Federation Eastern Region, the Granite City chapter is named "Antranig" in Andranik's honor.
The 65 page manuscripts of General Andranik, the only known memoir written by him, were returned to Armenia in May 2014 and sent to the History Museum of Armenia through Culture Minister Hasmik Poghosyan, almost a century after Andranik had parted with them.
Andranik's name has been memorialized in numerous songs. In 1913, Leon Trotsky described Andranik as "a hero of song and legend." Italian diplomat and historian Luigi Villari wrote in 1906 that he met a priest from Turkish Armenia in Yerevan who "sang the war-song of Antranik, the leader of Armenian revolutionary bands in Turkey." Andranik is one of the main figures featured in Armenian patriotic songs, performed by Nersik Ispiryan, Harout Pamboukjian and others. There are dozens of songs dedicated to him, including Like an Eagle by Gusans Sheram, 1904 and Andranik pasha by gusan Hayrik. (2026). 9781604440461, IndoEuropean publishing. ISBN 9781604440461 Andranik also features in the popular song The Bravehearts of the Caucasus (Կովկասի քաջեր) and other pieces of Armenian patriotic folklore.
Several documentaries about Andranik have been produced; these include Andranik (1929) by Armena-Film in France, directed by Asho Shakhatuni, who also played the main role; General Andranik (1990) directed by Levon Mkrtchyan, narrated by Khoren Abrahamyan; and Andranik Ozanian, a 53-minute-long documentary by the Public Television of Armenia.
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