Daniel-Bek Pirumyan was born in 1861 in Nakhichevanik village of the Elisabethpol Governorate of the Russian Empire (now in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh).

[1] He graduated from the public school in Shusha and began his service in the Imperial Russian Army in 1881 in Yerevan.

[1][3] During World War I, he fought on the Caucasus Front, commanding the 3rd Battalion of the 153rd Infantry Regiment in Western Armenia.

[4] He commanded Armenian forces at the Battle of Kars and was taken prisoner by Kâzım Karabekir's army after the fall of the city.

[3] In reality, Pirumyan, whose health had deteriorated in Turkish captivity, died suddenly in Yerevan in the autumn of 1922, as he was preparing to leave Armenia and join his wife in Moscow.