[13] Atturaya studied medicine at a Russian missionary school[5] in Harpoot, a prominent center of Armenian nationalism.

Atturaya was promoted to the head of a military hospital in Georgia during World War I and eventually attained the position of "Chief Medical Officer for the Northern and Southern Caucasian Railways".

Owing to ceaseless massacres, harassment and discrimination under the Ottoman Empire, the Assyrian elite in Urmia became convinced that there was nobody else protecting them and they had to organize themselves and fight for their freedom and autonomy on their own, seeking a "rebirth of the nation".

[14] The "mouthpiece" of this movement was the Kokhva magazine, published in Urmia from 1906 to 1918 as the only independent Assyrian publication, without any foreign Christian support.

"[c] in which he stressed the ancient descent of the modern Assyrians and proclaimed them to be the "children of Ashur or Ator, the second son of Shem".

[11] In 1916, he was one of two representatives, alongside a bishop, sent by the Assyrians of Khoy to be interviewed by the Russians concerning the organization of refugees of the Caucasian front of World War I.

[2][9] Later in 1917, the party established cells in various villages in Urmia and Salmas, as well as throughout the Transcaucasus (including Tbilisi and Yerevan) and reached more than two hundred full members.

[21] In April 1917, having heard of the ongoing Sayfo (Assyrian genocide) in the Ottoman Empire, Atturaya published the Marxist-inspired Urmia Manifesto of the United Free Assyria.

[4][5] The Urmia manifesto, written in Aramaic, set out various goals of the Assyrian people, most prominently gaining peace, freedom and autonomy in their ancestral homeland.

The manifesto called for the creation of an Assyrian state which included Urmia, Mosul, Nisibin, Tur Abdin, Jazira and Jularmeg and which was to be economically, militarily and industrially tied to Russia.

[4] The Urmia Manifesto was notably secular in its content, advocating for Assyria led by intellectual and political leaders rather than the clergy.

[21] Upon the victory of the Russian Revolution in late 1918, the Assyrian National Council met the news with holding a meeting attended by many thousands, at which (among others) both Atturaya and Arsanis held speeches.

The council initially viewed the creation of such units as a possible step towards the army of a future independent Assyrian state.

Owing to internal disagreements, the National Council of Transcaucasia collapsed during the spring of 1918 and by May, only three active members remained.

[24] Also in 1921, Atturaya visited Georgy Chicherin, the Soviet People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, to advocate for resettling Assyrian refugees in Urmia and elsewhere in Iran, but the meeting had little effect.

Over the course of the 1920s, the majority of the members of the Assyrian cultural and political elite within the Soviet Union were persecuted with varying consequences and degrees of intensity.

[11] Atturaya's case was transferred to the People's Commissariat of Justice of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic for a public hearing, which worked little in his favor.

[8] On 30 August, Atturaya sent a letter to the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union with the title "my spy case, devised by my personal enemies".

[5] One of his poems, "Oh Eagle of Tkhuma"[19] (Ya Nishra Di Tkhumi),[11] has become almost akin to a national anthem for many Assyrians.