Arshavir Shiragian

Arshavir Shiragian was born in Constantinople and grew up around ARF members. As a teen, during the Armenian Genocide, Shiragian was entrusted with delivering messages and transporting weapons for the party.
Shiragian was recruited to take part in the ARF’s Operation Nemesis, which sought to punish Turkish officials guilty of organizing and carrying out the Armenian Genocide.
His first target was the traitor Vahe Ishan (Yesayan). According to Shiragian’s memoirs, Ishan was “a traitor who was despised by his countrymen, his relatives, and eventually by his own children” and “helped to draw up the list of prominent Armenians who were arrested and deported in 1915.” Shiragian assassinated Ihsan on March 27, 1920 in Constantinople.
Shiragian was assigned the task of assassinating Sait Halim Pasha (Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1917), who was in exile in Rome. On December 5, 1921, Shiragian assassinated him in a taxi. Along with Aram Yerganian, Shiragian was then given the task assassinating both Jemal Azmi, governor of Trebizond during the Genocide, and Behaeddin Shakir, a founding member of the Committee of Union and Progress (Ittihad), both of whom were in Berlin.
On April 17, 1922, Shiragian and Yerganian confronted Azmi and Shakir, who were out walking with their families. Shiragian killed Azmi and wounded Shakir. Yerganian then ran after Shakir and shot him dead.
Shiragian eventually married, and he and his wife, Gaiane, moved to New York in 1923, where they had a daughter, Sonia. He was active in public life and the Armenian community in the New York/New Jersey area.
In 1965, Shiragian published his memoirs, Կտակն էր նահատակներուն (It Was the Legacy of the Martyrs). The memoirs were published in English as The Legacy: Memoirs of an Armenian Patriot, in 1976, translated by Sonia Shiragian, and published by the Hairenik Press.
Shiragian died in 1973, in New Jersey. He was 73.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWLfWriK5b0
Shavarsh Misakian

Born in the village of Zonar, in Sepasdia (Sivas), Missakian studied at the Ketronakan Armenian School of Constantinople. He started working as a journalist at 16, first as editor of Sourhandak (messenger), and later, during the Hamidian regime, as a publisher and distributor of revolutionary literature.
In 1908, after the proclamation of the Ottoman Constitution, he published a literary paper, Azdak (Factor), in collaboration with noted literary figures Zabel Yesayan, Kegham Parseghian, and Vahram Tatoul.
In 1911, he moved to Garin (Erzurum), where he stayed for a year as editor of Harach in place of the assassinated Yeghishe Topjian, and toured the Moush and Sasoun regions with an armed squad headed by Rostom.
Upon returning to Constantinople, he joined the editorial staff of Azatamart. During the deportations and massacres of April 1915, Missakian managed to escape the mass arrests and lived in hiding in the precinct of Pera for one year. During that period he collected important documents on the Turkish deportations and smuggled them abroad. Unable to find Missakian, the government arrested his father and exiled him to Konya (he later escaped).
In 1916, Missakian tried to move to Bulgaria from Istanbul but was betrayed by a Bulgarian who served as a spy for Turkey. Arrested in March, Missakian was imprisoned, interrogated, and tortured for several months, after which he attempted to commit suicide. His death sentence was later commuted to five years’ imprisonment. He was eventually freed upon the Allied occupation of Constantinople in November 1918.
After the armistice, Missakian became editor-in-chief of Chakatamart (Battle) in Constantinople. In 1919, he took part in the Ninth ARF World Congress in Yerevan. He was elected to the Armenian Parliament. He went to Sofia in 1922, and then to Paris, where he founded the Haratch newspaper, first as a tri-weekly and eventually as a daily.
He was elected to the ARF Bureau at the Tenth World Congress in Paris, in 1925 and served on that body until 1933. During those eight years, he also published Droshak with Simon Vratsian and Arshak Jamalian.
During his tenure at Haratch, Missakian became respected for his wide-ranging knowledge and clarity of vision, perhaps becoming best known for his daily column “Mer Khoske” (Our Word). His output was vast and beneficial, in France especially, for the ARF and for the Armenian community in general.
He was also active in Armenian literary circles as a poet, critic, and translator. During the Nazi occupation of France, forced to discontinue the publication of his paper, he devoted his time to the publication of several literary anthologies under the titles Haygashen and Aradzani. Upon the restoration of normal conditions following World War II, he resumed the publication of Haratch as a daily newspaper.
Missakian died in Paris, in 1957.
Liparit Nazariants

Born in the Chatal Oghli village of Lori, Nazariants moved at an early age to Yerevan, where he attended Yerevan’s Russian School (Gymnasium). He received his higher education first at Moscow University, where he specialized in law, and later at Berlin University, where he specialized in philosophy, graduating in 1901.
Joining the ARF during his years in Europe. Nazariants became particularly active in galvanizing the Armenian student movement in Europe at the turn of the century.
In 1905, he returned to the Caucasus, spending some time in Baku, then Tiflis, where he became part of the editorial staff of the ARF publication Harach. Journalism was to remain an integral part of his activities for the rest of his life.
Following the establishment of the constitutional order in the Ottoman Empire, Nazariants moved to Constantinople, where he became part of the editorial staff of Azatamart. Before the outbreak of World War I, he moved to Germany to serve as a correspondent for several European newspapers. During the war, he was sent back to Constantinople on behalf of an Armeno-German association. Soon after, he left Turkey to become editor of Hayastan in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Nazariants was a prominent diplomatic figure during Armenia’s years of independence, serving for a time as a consular official in Berlin.
He, along with Dr. Hagop Zavrian (Zavriev) and Artashes Chilingirian (Rouben Darbinian), formed the official delegation that traveled to Moscow in 1920, seeking the diplomatic recognition of the Republic of Armenia from the Soviets. Upon arrival in Moscow, Zavrian and Nazariants were imprisoned, whereas Darbinian escaped. Nazariants and Zavrian were both released months later, with Zavrian dying shortly thereafter from the ill treatment he had received in prison.
Upon the fall of the Armenian Republic, Nazariants moved again to Europe. An active participant in Operation Nemesis (the movement to punish those responsible for the Armenian Genocide), he also served as one of the defense lawyers during the 1921 Berlin trial of Soghomon Tehlirian, who had assassinated Talaat Pasha. Tehlirian was eventually acquitted.
In 1928, Nazariants moved to Egypt. There, he would spend the rest of his days working primarily as an editorial associate for the ARF newspaper Houssaper (Bringer of Hope). He also had a substantial literary output that included plays and translations.
Soghomon Tehlirian

Tehlirian was born in the village of Nerkin Bagarich, in the Erzurum region, and grew up in nearby Erzincan (Yerznga). He began his education at an Evangelical school in Erzincan, then attended the Ketronakan School of Constantinople. He began his higher education in engineering at a German university but returned to Erzincan when the First World War broke out.
In June 1915, during the deportation of Erzincan Armenians, Tehlirian witnessed the murder of his mother and brother, along with the rape and murder of his three sisters. He was struck on the head and left for dead. He survived and escaped to Tiflis, where he joined the ARF.
He participated in volunteer units commanded by General Antranig and also took part in the Volunteer regiment commanded by Sebouh.
In 1921 he was assigned to the ARF’s Operation Nemesis, which sought to punish Turkish officials guilty of organizing and carrying out the Armenian Genocide.
Tehlirian’s main target was Talaat Pasha, one of the triumvirate of Young Turk leaders who had ruled in the last days of the Ottoman Empire; he was a former minister of the interior and a grand vizier (prime minister). Talaat was killed by Tehlirian with a single bullet on the morning of March 15, 1921, in Berlin, in broad daylight. Tehlirian did not flee the scene and was immediately arrested.
He was tried for murder but was exonerated by the German court. His trial became a highly sensational event, examining not only Tehlirian’s guilt but also that of Talaat Pasha for the Armenian deportations and mass killings.
The trial influenced Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, who was later to coin the term “genocide.” He reflected on the trial, “Why is a man punished when he kills another man? Why is the killing of a million a lesser crime than the killing of a single individual?”
After the assassination, Tehlirian moved to Serbia and married Anahit Tatikian, who was also from Erzincan. The couple moved to Belgium and lived there until 1945, when they moved to San Francisco.
Tehlirian died in 1960 and is buried at the Ararat Cemetery in Fresno, California.
Drastamat Kanayan - Dro

Born in Surmalu (present-day Igdir, Turkey), in the Yerevan governerate of the Russian Empire, Dro was one of the most daring avengers and military figures of Dashnaktsoutiun. He attended the local parish school, then a Russian high school in Yerevan.
He joined the ARF in 1903, during Russian attempts to confiscate Armenian Church properties—a move that the ARF actively opposed.
Dro was tasked by the ARF Central Committee of Baku to punish those responsible for inciting the Tatar (Azeri) mobs and touching off the Armeno-Tatar confrontations in 1905. Georgian noble Prince Nakashidze, who had been vice-governor of Yerevan and participated in the seizures of Armenian Church properties, was appointed governor of Baku in 1904 and encouraged Tatar atrocities against the Armenians of the city. In May 1905, Dro assassinated Nakashidze in Baku.
Later, in 1907 in Alexandropol, he and Martiros Charoukhchian assassinated General Alikhanov, who had been in Nakhijevan in 1905 during Tatar attacks against Armenians and later led a Cossack division in Armenia. In 1908, Dro settled in Bayazit, in the guise of a merchant, to supervise arms shipments.
In 1915 Dro commanded the Second Armenian Volunteer Regiment. Later, he played a vital role in the decisive battles of 1918, gaining the victory at Bash Abaran, which, along with the victories at Sardarabad and Gharakilise, paved the way for the founding of the Armenian Republic of 1918.
Dro was a general in the armed forces of the Armenian Republic and served as minister of war in the Vratsian cabinet. After the Sovietization of Armenia, he was exiled to Moscow, then made his way to Romania.
During the Second World War, his efforts to protect Armenians in areas under German occupation, as well as Armenian prisoners of war in Nazi camps, helped save thousands of Armenian lives.
Dro settled in Lebanon in 1947. He died in Boston, in 1956, at the age of 73.
His remains were taken to Armenia for final burial in Aparan (Bash Abaran), on May 28, 2000, as part of the commemoration of the 82nd anniversary of the First Republic of Armenia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK_j8GQ4-sg
Minas Ter Minasian - Rouben Ter Minasian

Born in Akhalkalak (present-day Georgia) to parents who had migrated from Erzurum, Rouben studied at the Gevorgian Seminary in Ejmiatzin and then at the Lazarian College in Moscow. He then served as an officer in the Russian army.
As a young ARF organizer, he was molded into a Dashnaktsakan in the intense revolutionary activity of the “Kars Furnace” in 1903–04. He was dispatched to Van in 1905 as a plenipotentiary representative of the ARF.
He joined Aram Manoukian in Van, then operated in the Lernabar region (south of Lake Van), but after tactical differences with Vana Ishkhan he left for Sasoun to back up Kevork Chavoush in 1906. He stayed there until the proclamation of the Ottoman Constitution, having taken sole charge of the Dashnaktsakan fedayi forces in Sasoun after the death of Kevork Chavoush in May 1907.
He attended the Fifth ARF World Congress, in Varna, Bulgaria, in 1909 and then left for Geneva to resume his studies. Summoned to Moush in 1913, he later went to Sasoun and with his veteran fedayis led the heroic defense of Sasoun against regular Turkish forces and Kurdish irregulars in 1915. With a handful of men he broke through enemy lines and crossed into the Caucasus.
In 1917–18, he was a member of the Armenian National Council, based in Tiflis, and was elected to the parliament of Independent Armenia. He was elected to the ARF Bureau at the Ninth World Congress in Yerevan and remained a member of it virtually without interruption until his death.
He served as minister of war in the Bureau-government of Ohanjanian, playing a leading role in suppression of Bolshevik riots and the elimination of Turko-Tatar insurrections in Armenia.
After the Sovietization of Armenia, he went to Zangezour, then crossed into Iran, and eventually traveled to France, Egypt, and Lebanon, and finally settled in Paris.
The seven volumes of Rouben’s memoirs, Memoirs of an Armenian Revolutionary, are exceptionally valuable both as testimonies about men and events and as a storehouse of revolutionary ideas and analyses.
He died in Paris on November 29, 1950, at the age of 69.
Garegin Pastermajian - Armen Garo

Born in Garin (Erzurum), Armen Garo graduated from the Sanasarian School there and attended the School of Agronomy in Nancy, France, in 1894.
Strongly attracted to the Armenian revolutionary movement, with a few friends he went to Geneva (Droshak) in 1895 to join the ARF. Soon thereafter he was sent to Egypt, Cyprus, then Constantinople, where he played a leading role in the seizure of the Ottoman Bank on August 14, 1896.
He and Hrach Tiryakian led negotiations with European ambassadors to end the Armenian massacres unleashed by the Sultan and to ensure the safe passage of the Armenian revolutionaries who had captured the Ottoman Bank.
He returned to Switzerland and resumed his studies, graduating in 1900 with a PhD in chemistry. In 1898, the Second World Congress of the ARF elected him a member of its Western Bureau.
In 1901 he settled in Tiflis. There, he led the defense of the mostly Armenian-populated city during the Armeno-Tatar (Azeri) confrontations of 1905–1906.
After the proclamation of the Ottoman Constitution in 1908, Armen Garo was elected a member of the Ottoman Parliament in 1909. He settled in Constantinople, then Garin.
In the autumn of 1914, he returned to the Caucasus. There, he played an important role in organizing the Armenian Volunteer Movement as General Dro’s associate and was appointed deputy commander of the Second Regiment.
After the independence of Armenia in 1918, he was appointed a member of the Armenian National Delegation at the Paris peace talks, and then ambassador of the Armenian Republic in Washington, DC, from 1919 to 1921.
He played a leading role in the planning and implementation of the ARF’s Operation Nemesis, the plan to assassinate Turkish leaders responsible for the Armenian Genocide. He died in Geneva in March, 1923. He was 51 years old.
Bedros Parian - Papken Siuni

Papken Siuni was born in the village of Pingian, in Agn. He graduated from the Ketronakan School in Constantinople. A year before his graduation, he was arrested and jailed briefly for his participation in Armenian protests. After his graduation, he attended the Istanbul Naval Academy and served in the Turkish navy for a year.
Siuni became an adherent of Dashnaktsakan ideology under the guidance of Hovhannes Yousoufian in 1892–1893. Prior to the ARF’s establishment in Constantinople, Siuni had organized a group, called “Siunik” (hence his nom de guerre), consisting of students and newcomers from the interior; that group joined the ARF en masse.
Siuni soon became the right hand of Yousoufian and Arshak Vramian. In the newly formed ARF Central Committee of Constantinople, Siuni became the ideological and organizational driving force.
Simultaneously confronting government persecution and the opposition of conservative Armenian circles, including betrayals, he played an integral role in the transfers of arms and ammunition, the preparation of explosives, the teaching and training of recruits, and the day-to-day affairs of the organization.
It was in such a revolutionary environment that Siuni conceived of the seizure of the Ottoman Bank as a response to the Hamidian Massacres of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the interior. His plan was approved by the Central Committee, and he was entrusted with the leadership and implementation of the operation.
On August 14, 1896, at noon, the time of the planned assault on the bank, only 24 out of the 73 revolutionaries who were to take part in the operation had presented themselves. Conferring with his lieutenants Armen Garo and Hrach Tiriakian, Siuni delayed the attack by an hour. Out of options, at 1 PM he signaled the assault.
The guards posted at the entrance of the bank resisted fiercely. Although they were killed and the assault group was able to enter the bank, Siuni, who was laden with bags filled with grenades and dynamite, was shot as he ascended the stairs to the bank entrance. As a result of the explosion of a grenade in his hand, he was seriously wounded. His comrades were able to bring him into the bank, where he died. He was 23 years old.
The revolutionaries occupied the bank and under the leadership of Armen Garo and Hrach fought off attacking troops until the early hours of August 15.
The operation ended with the safe passage from Constantinople of the remaining 17 revolutionaries, and promises by the European powers that they would pressure the Sultan to refrain from reprisals and end the massacres in the interior of the empire.
Yeprem Davtian - Yeprem Khan

Born in th e village of Barsoum, in Gandzak (present day Gyanje, in Azerbaijan), Karabagh, Yeprem took part in the Koukounian (Gougounian) Expedition in 1890 and was subsequently exiled by Russian authorities to Sakhalin Island. He eventually escaped, reaching Atrpatakan (Iranian Azerbaijan). There, he joined the ARF and became an active fieldworker. He also took part in the Khanasor Expedition of 1897.
In 1899 he assassinated the informer Zakeh, who had been responsible for the massacre of nine ARF fedayis in the village of Mahlam. He was a member of the ARF Central Committee of Atrpatakan for several terms of office.
Yeprem earned fame especially in the days of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, when with a small band of men he took the northern Iranian towns of Rasht, Enzeli, Kharzan, and Ghazvin.
Later, at the head of an ever-growing number of Armenian and Iranian revolutionaries, he entered Tehran in triumph against the anti-constitutional Iranian forces and was appointed chief of police there.
With a group of ARF fedayis under the command of Keri and Dashnaktsakan Khecho, Yeprem continued fighting against the anti-constitutional forces of Iran. He was later granted the rank of “Sardar” (military commander) and awarded a gem-studded sword and a pension.
He was killed on April 25, 1912, along with Nikol of Karabagh, during the battle of Sourjieh, near Hamadan (ancient Ecbatana), while attempting to recover the body of a fallen comrade during fighting against counter-revolutionary forces. He was buried in the yard of Tehran’s Haykazian School (at present, Davtian School). He was 44 years old.
Yeprem is considered a national hero of the Iranian liberation movement.
Sarkis Mehrabian - Vartan of Khanasor

Born in Karabagh, Khanasora Vardan (Vardan of Khanasor) gained military experience by serving in the Russian Army. He was the first revolutionary organizer of the Armenians in the Taurus region, south of Lake Van.
From 1890 onward he was in Iran (in Iranian Azerbaijan), in Tabriz, Salmast, and the Derik Monastery, participating in the battles at Derik.
At the head of small groups of fedayis, he often crossed the Iranian-Turkish border toward Vaspourakan (Van) to transport arms, often engaging in skirmishes with Turkish border guards and Kurdish tribes.
In the spring of 1896, he organized and led the defense of Shatakh, a mountainous region of Vaspourakan. Then, in September of the same year, he took part in the Bsdik Tebk (small battles) of Van.
In July 1897 he served as commander-in-chief of the Khanasor punitive expedition against the Mazrik Kurdish tribe, which had earlier massacred hundreds of unarmed Armenian fighters who were evacuating Van, after self-defense battles there, as part of an agreement with the authorities.
Later, he worked alongside Simon Zavarian to assess and organize the Cilician region, as well as Izmir.
During Armeno-Tatar (Azeri) fighting in the Caucasus in 1905–1906, Vardan was placed in charge of the self-defense of Karabagh.
In 1915, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Araratian Regiment of the Armenian Volunteers, and hastened to assist the Armenian self-defense of Van.