Melik T. Vahanian - Hovhannes Yousoufian
Born in Yerevan to a family from Nor Bayazit, Yousoufian (Vahanian) graduated from the Nersisian College of Tiflis. While a teacher in Telav (Telavi), in eastern Georgia, he was actively involved in revolutionary groups.
Yousoufian became one of the most active and effective organizers during the first decade of the ARF. Under orders from the ARF Bureau, he traveled to Trebizond, Constantinople, Geneva, and the United States, where he established ARF units.
He was a teacher in Trebizond from 1890 to 1892. As the plenipotentiary representative of the ARF in Constantinople from 1893 to 1895, Yousoufian set up a powerful ARF clandestine organization in the capital of the Ottoman Empire.
He was then sent to the United States, where he established the foundation of the US ARF organization (1896–1898).
The ARF’s Second World Congress (1898) elected him a member of the Eastern Bureau, but his failing health prevented him from being as active as he once had been.
He was elected Mayor of Nor Bayazit in 1905. He remained in the Caucasus until 1910.
Fleeing Tsarist persecution, he settled in Switzerland, spending the rest of his days, ill and often penniless, in Lausanne,. He died there at the age of 70.