Armenian national movement
Influenced by the Age of Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the rise of other nationalist movements in the Ottoman Empire, the Armenian national awakening developed in the early 1860s.
In 1872, the journalist Grigor Ardzruni said “Yesterday we were an ecclesiastical community, today we are patriots, tomorrow we will be a nation of workers and thinkers.”[32] A parallel development occurred in Russian Armenia.
[42][clarification needed] In 1885, the "Armenian Democratic Liberal Party" was established in Van by Mëkërtich Portukalian, who later went into exile in Marseilles but kept in touch with local leaders, and published a journal of political and social enlightenment titled L'Armenie.
[citation needed] In 1887, the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party (Hunchak) was the first socialist party in the Ottoman Empire and Persia, founded by Avetis Nazarbekian, Mariam Vardanian, Gevorg Gharadjian, Ruben Khan-Azat, Christopher Ohanian, Gabriel Kafian and Manuel Manuelian, a group of college students who met in Geneva, Switzerland, with the goal to gain Armenia's independence from the Ottoman Empire.
[citation needed] Nerses II Varzhapetyan said "It is no longer possible for the Armenians and the Turks to live together..."[50] Beginning in the mid-19th century, the Great Powers took issue with the Empire's treatment of its Christian minorities and increasingly pressured extend equal rights to all its citizens.
[citation needed] In June 1878, Great Britain was troubled with Russia's powerful position in the Treaty and forced the parties for a new negotiations with the convening of the Congress of Berlin.
[citation needed] The emergence of the Armenian National Movement in the early 1880s and the armed struggle by the late 1880s coincides with Sultan Abdul Hamid II's reign (1876-1909).
In an effort to raise further awareness in Europe regarding the pogroms and massacres instigated by the Sultan Abdul Hamid II, 28 armed men and women led by Papken Siuni and Karekin Pastirmaciyan (Armen Karo) took over the bank which largely employed European personnel from Great Britain and France.
[citation needed] Between the years 1891 and 1895, activists from the Armenian Social Democrat Hunchakian Party visited Cilicia, and established a new branch in Zeitun.
[citation needed] In spring 1902, a representative of the ARF, Vahan Manvelyan, was sent to in Sason with the purpose of mediating peace, but ended up irritating the Muslims.
The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 was followed (1880–1881) by the attempt of Shaykh Ubaydullah of Nihri to found an "independent Kurd principality" around the Ottoman-Persian border (including the Van Vilayet) where the Armenian population was significant.
[68] The state had little access to these provinces and were forced to make informal agreements with tribal chiefs, for instance the Ottoman qadi and mufti did not have jurisdiction over religious law which bolstered Kurdish authority and autonomy.
[69] Sultan Abdul Hamid II wanted to reinforce the territorial integrity the Ottoman Empire, and asserted Pan-Islamism as a state ideology.
[70] Abdul Hamid II perceived the Ottoman Armenians to be an extension of foreign powers, a means by which Europe could "get at our most vital places and tear out our very guts.
[citation needed] The 1908 Ottoman general election resulted in a new parliament composed of 142 Turks, 60 Arabs, 25 Albanians, 23 Greeks, 12 Armenians (including four from ARF and two from Hunchaks), 5 Jews, 4 Bulgarians, 3 Serbs and 1 Vlach.
But in spite of all efforts he was unable to overcome the German opposition, although, as the outcome of the struggle in connection with that bill, two ministers of public works were forced to resign their posts.
[citation needed] Andranik participated in the Balkan Wars in the Bulgarian army, alongside general Garegin Nzhdeh, as a commander of Armenian auxiliary troops.
In August 1914, following Germany's declaration of war against Russia, Count Illarion Vorontsov-Dashkov, the Russian viceroy of the Caucasus, approached Armenian leaders in the Tiflis to broach the idea of a formation of a separate fighting corps.
[citation needed] On Red Sunday the leaders of the Armenian community were arrested and moved to two holding centers near Ankara upon the order of the Minister of the Interior Mehmed Talaat Bey of April 24, 1915.
All twenty men were Hunchak leaders, and after spending two years in Ottoman prisons, and undergoing lengthy show trials, were hanged in Bayazid Square.
Foreign Minister Aristide Briand used this opportunity to provide troops for the French commitment made in the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which was still secret at the time.
[citation needed] In the spring of 1917, Karekin Pastermadjian and Dr. Hakob Zavriev was sent from the Caucasus to Petrograd to negotiate with the Russian provisional government concerning Caucasian affairs.
[104] Andranik's military leadership was instrumental in allowing the Armenian population of Van to escape the Ottoman Army and flee to Eastern Armenia.
At the critical moment General Andranik arrived in Zangezur with an irregular division estimated with about 3 to 5 thousand men and 40,000 refugees and the occupied provinces of Russian Armenia.
[109] As the commander of Armenian forces in Nakhichivan Autonomous Republic,[clarification needed] Andranik declared that his army was determined to continue the war against the Ottoman Empire.
In January 1919 Armenian troops advanced, and the British general William M. Thomson gave Andranik assurances that a favorable treaty would be reached at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919.
[115] Azerbaijan claimed most of the territory Armenia was sitting on, demanding all or most parts of the former Russian provinces of Elizavetpol, Tiflis, Yerevan, Kars and Batum.
In 1937 during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge against the military and other suspected enemies, his secret police arrested Movses Silikyan, Christophor Araratov, Dmitry Mirimanov, Aghasi Varosyan, Stepan Ohanesyan, Hakob Mkrtchyan, and Harutyun Hakobyan imprisoned and finally executed in Nork gorge.
After losing the battle, Garegin Nzhdeh, his soldiers, and many prominent Armenian intellectuals, including leaders of the first Independent Republic of Armenia, crossed the border into the neighbouring Persian city of Tabriz.
[121][better source needed] Richard G. Hovannisian explains the conditions of the resistance: "In the summer of 1918, the Armenian national councils reluctantly transferred from Tiflis to Yerevan to take over the leadership of the republic from the popular dictator Aram Manukian and the renowned military commander Drastamat Kanayan.
